Independent Component 2

Independent Component started out as a series of short stories that I would write in different places to try and draw connections between settings and how much they affected what type of story a person writes. Looking back on that original idea, I find it sort of silly. I was pretty much setting myself up for failure. If I went out to write with that Idea in mind, there wouldn’t be a doubt that I would only make the most obvious connections. During the actual writing process I would convince myself to write about where I was and assume I was right about my theories.

So instead of going through with my original plan I’ve decided to take a different path. Instead I’m going to be focusing on a question that has proven essential to one of my answers.

“Why do you write?”

link to full IC 2

Independent Component 2 Approval

Plan A:
My first idea is to travel to different settings like LA or the beach, a college setting or a park and write. I will create a new story for each setting with new characters and new plots. They will be short stories, maybe a thousand or so words. At each place I can wander and write notes and generally build stories. Then I can analyze all of the stories I've written to find what continues to come out of my writing and what changes between the different settings. 

The reason behind this is to explore my answers. I can analyze the different characters and what kind of world they live in.My personal experience is one of the best resources for my topic so I think this would be pretty rad.

To keep track of hours I can do a similar blog post to those during Nanowrimo. I will also take pictures at each location for proof. I will even share the titles to the short stories I write.

Independent Component 1

I, Andrea Yzaguirre, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents approximately 56 hours and 25 minutes of work. I got the most help from the book No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty which was a step by step guide to surviving Nanowrimo. I also received help from my fellow nano writers via email. They sent me lots of support and encouragement! 

In the month of November I took part in National Novel Writing Month. Along side thousands of other ordinary people around the world, I decided to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. This seems sort of crazy, and it sort of was. 30 days to write a novel? With my schedule? With no previous experience? How was that going to work? Well the first thing I did was prepare myself. I read Chris Baty's accompanying novel and it guided me step by step. I planned my daily writing sessions, started an 'inspiration notebook' and created a playlist for writing specifically. Every day of November I was supposed to write about 1,666 words so that by the end of the month I could reach 50,000. Of course that was just a hope and in the end I often fell short of my goal. luckily a few days out of the month I would find a strange sort of inspiration and I would manage to cover large chunks of my story. It was a very stressful month as I tried to juggle senior project as well as classwork and the writing.  I went to a few meets with other writers at coffee shops or libraries where we worked side by side without discussion. Other times I would write in the back of Mr. Rivas's room on a recliner as students passed by. More often than not I would use my car rides as mandatory writing sessions. That's where I wrote most of the novel. And indeed I succeeded. On the last day of the month I managed to keep my eyes open long enough to cover the last 7,000 or so words.  I ended at 10:50 pm with 50,103 words and I had officially won. It was absolutely amazing! I had received my certificate from the official Nanowrimo website and then proceeded to have a dance party by myself as everyone else in the house slept.  If you would like the day-to-day breakdown then just look at my posts tagged Nanowrimo. At the end of every day I posted an update on the writing  as well as my new word count.

This was a perfect assignment for me. It not only introduced me to other authors and new resources, it also gave me first hand experience as an author. When I reflect on my research I can now examine it in a whole new way. I don't have to speculate on how an author might react to something because I can use my own reaction. Not to mention it was really eye opening on a whole new spectrum. I know a lot more about the formatting and procedures involved in writing. Authors don't usually like to talk about those sorts of things very much so this was perfect. 

The following photos are in chronological order. 

Here we have the first meeting with my fellow Nano writers, prior to November. 

Snap chat is a great way to log anything so of course I used it to count the days. 

This was from Day 1. 

I think this speaks for itself. Things were difficult in the beginning.

The seniors went on a hike and I took advantage of that by taking 

photos and stealing rocks for reference.

This was taken the day of my first write in! Local Nano writers and I met at a cafe in Rancho to write in silent companionship.  

Ah yes, I built a writing fort along the way to help me concentrate.  

An important thing about writing was to keep snacking. Other wise you would get sleepy, so I ate lots of oranges and chocolate covered blueberries.  

This was taken towards the end of the month near Thanksgiving. I was excused from helping in the kitchen as long as I was writing! 

I recieved this the last day of the month. I had to copy and paste my story into a word counter on the NaNoWrMo website. It didn't post the story or anything, just counted it up and announced I had won! It was a great moment and I plan to print this out and put it on my wall.

Day 30

I won, and here's proof.

I have worked all day to get to this point. I woke up exhausted, got into my carpools car and started writing as soon as we started moving. I got to school and found refuge in Mrs. Ortega's room and kept going. During SSR I opted out of reading to keep adding to my word count. By lunch I was at 45,000 words at least. I was so tired I could feel my eyes burning and my head buzzing. It was hard to focus on anything else, which is why for a good portion of my college class this afternoon, I was typing away on the ipad instead of taking notes. (Sorry professor, I promise I'll read the chapter later) As soon as I got in the car to get home I opened back up the ipad. It has been a long day. I haven't done any other homework and I am definitely going to pay the price for it later but I can handle that. What's really important is that I finally finished, with 50,103 words at 10:50pm. It's done, I won. I did it.


Day: 30   Word Count: 50,103

Day 29

I was on a roll with my writing today. I wrote on the drives and I wrote when I got home. I was really raking up my word count... until I received an email saying my UCI application was due tomorrow night. Then I was forced to drop everything in order to fill it out. Oh dear lord I hate applications. Wish me luck, I'm going to have to write every free moment tomorrow if I want to win this thing.

Ps. I'm going to need lots of coffee tomorrow.

Day: 29   Word Count: 43,893

Day 28

I didn't write??
I did homework and that was all, tomorrow I'm going to try and make up for the loss of time.

Day: 28   Word Count: 40,358

Day 27

Today is definitely going to be trickier than yesterday to get my word count in. With the days dwindling I definitely need to focus when I write. Today is my family's make-up Thanksgiving. I am supposedly going to be prepping the cheesecake, making stuffing and of course warming the pies. It's usually really fun to be in the kitchen full of stressed out aunts and avoiding the distant relatives who just like to ask "so how's school". But today I really need to write, my story doesn't look like its coming to its close yet. I don't know, my characters just kind of picked up their bags and started moving again and I wasn't expecting it. So yeah, todays mission is to find a couch in the corner of a crowded room and pretend to not exist for a few hours, here goes.

Happy not- Thanksgiving!

Ah yes, here I am on that recliner I was talking about. Credit to my mum for taking stalker photos!

Day: 27   Word Count: 40,358

Day 26

They sort of jumped on me in the middle of my writing. 

Today is thanksgiving and you'd think I would be too busy to write, but you would be wrong! I had my writing session while my family prepped for our thanksgiving brunch. Of course, I got caught watching a youtube video during a break and got pulled into it. But before that I got a really good word count going. We drove around alot as well so I tried to write during those hours as well. All in all I got in about three hours of writing. It sounds like more than it really is honestly.

Today I am thankful for my family letting me be a recluse on a holiday.
Happy Thanksgiving!!


Day:26     Word Count: 39,306

Day 25

Six thousand words!! In one day!

I am so guilty. I was supposed to be focusing on homework today, but instead I had another movie marathon with a visiting cousin. But honestly! It wasn't my fault that she hasn't seen the Prince of Egypt!! I mean seriously, how can you have not watched that movie?? It is amazing!
So anyways, we ended watching a few movies and then it was time for homework. I sat myself down and I was like "I seriously need to write". And I did! It was miraculous but I did it for a good hour. Then I was interrupted and I had to go pick up my sister from Irvine for Thanksgiving so I kept writing in the car. It was an hour there, a half hour waiting in the car and another Hour on the way home. The whole time I just kept going until I felt nauseous from being in the car. And despite my procrastination this morning, I actually did well. I believe I bumped my word count by a good five or six thousand today. Go me.

Day: 25   Word Count: 37,648

Day 24

This was my "writing fort" 

I spent today lounging in bed, I'm not gonna lie. I had planned to get up early to be productive but then I realized that I was incredibly comfy and I didn't want to be productive anymore. But I did write, I promise. Today just also happens to be my grandma's birthday, so when I got picked up to go and visit, I decided to write. It was probably a total of an hour writing through the drive there and back. When I got back I made a fort in my room, for writing purposes of course. I strung up some lights, put up blankets and filled it with pillows and stuffed animals. Then I had chicken nuggets and fries while I wrote and it was quite lovely.


Day: 24   Word Count: 30,891

Day 23

One of my cousins accidentally let it slip that they had never seen captain america and that's pretty much all you need to know. We spent the next four hours getting her caught up and then watching crack videos and explaining memes. It was awesome but I didn't get much (or any) writing in as a result. Thankfully my sister had a African dance performance today in Irvine and I was pulled away before we could watch Thor. I wrote during the car again, an hour there and an hour and a half returning. All is well and I even got hot chocolate!

Day: 23   Word Count: 28,248

Day 22

This is pretty accurate to my story.

It's Sunday, which means catechism (muffled screaming in the back ground) and taking my sister, Lilliana, back to school in Irvine. I wrote through every car drive, which is a lot on Sundays like these. I don't think my word count got very high however. I was sort of stuck on what my characters were going to do next. They were just sort of staring at me, waiting for their next cue and I didn't know what it was yet. It wasn't until I remembered 'nanosprints' that I got started again. Its a twitter account that gives you prompts for when your stuck writing. So in the end, something exploded and my characters were shoved forward.

Day 22   Word Count: 25, 871

Day 21

Today was my turkey day part 1 so I did more preparing to stuff my face than I did writing. but I did write! For about 2 hours this morning I sat down and I wrote. For the rest of the day I ate arroz con leche and apple pie. That is all.

Day: 21  Word Count: 23,511

Day 20

I forgot my earphones, this is hell.

In other news I have discovered something about my story. Ok so, when you write you usually listen to a playlist that matches with your story. What I have discovered is that my characters have theme songs and I have been writing about them whenever I hear those songs. I hadn't realized this before but the writing patterns make more sense now. Character A's theme song is lemons by Woodlock or Shake it off by Taylor Swift and Character B's is The Bathtub from Beast of the Southern Wild. And when they are together, they're theme changes to Simple Song by The Shins. I am like, freaking out over this it is literally so cool

Day: 20   Word Count: 22,906

Day 19

I wrote on the way to school today and I think I might just keel over right now. Why did I even decide to do this, I am so tired. I am so stressed. I swear I am a time bomb for a mental breakdown. Oddly enough though, I know I wont be giving up on nanowrimo. I'm already planning to find writeins that I can attend during thanksgiving break. It has just built up so much now, I can't even think about giving up. I may be swarmed with projects and homework and college applications, but despite that my mind still wanders to my characters and what they would be doing, who they are and what they be thinking right now. It's very strange.

On a different note, I have found myself snacking on chocolate covered blueberries or sour gummyworms at all times. They seem to be my writing food, which is awesome except for the fact that I am now eating more candy than i am vegetables. My mum is concerned to say the least, but what works works, you know?

Day 19   Word Count: 21,510

(I know there is a gap in the logs but it seems those days have been lost in time)

Day 14

I am thoroughly exhausted. Today I wrote while I drove to the senior hike (45) and then again on my way to a second workout (45) and a third time during the workout (2 hours) and then on my way home again (40 min) and now I'm writing again. I really want to reach 18K. Today I was especially keen to write about Character A's back story, which was filled with some very interesting things. I don't want to say much, and I never do, but I will give a hint. Today I wrote a lot about dragons, tomatoes and the color black.

Shout out to my 10 year old self for getting me some tunes. The IPad was dying as was my phone so I had to turn off the music to reserve the batteries. Luckily there were a couple of CD's in the glove compartment of my car and I was able to find a few songs that were suitable for writing. Of course they were really out dated but I didn't mind in the least as long as the beat was right.

P.S. I just wanted to share that the CDs are named "10 Songed" and "andrea #4 XD"

Day: 14    Word Count: 17,017

Day 13

Today was jam packed busy so I was only able to write on my morning drive. (45) I wasn't back home until 2 am so I didn't write anymore besides that. I am so tired.

Day: 13   Word Count: 14,793

Day 12

I have such mixed feelings about writing while in the car. On one side, I get a lot done during car rides since it's just extra time. On the other hand, I think I might be getting car sick. Whenever I take a break from the IPad and look up I feel all icky and I just can't wait to get out of the car. It's horrible and once again my body is letting me down. Seriously, body, just let me have a win.

Day 11

I didn't get to write much today which is super lame. I had to take our day off as a catch up for homework and not so much for my story. I really wanted to write, I did, but then I would see the list of homework and extra credit and studying I needed to do. So instead of writing about caves I learned physics and instead of listening to walls I listened to videos on magnetism. I think that maybe I will be able to use some of what I learned as ideas to prompt the story. Maybe. Oh well, perhaps I can get back on track tomorrow on the drive to school.

Day: 11   Word Count: 13, 504

Day 10

I reached what I thought was a rather high number, 12,368, but then I later realized that it wasn't that much of an improvement. Unfortunately that was all I got to write today. I am definitely going to need to reread some more of No Plot! No Problem! to get some tips for week 2.

Day: 10   Word Count: 12,368