Day: November 6, 2020

NaNoWriMo Day 6

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Words: 3531 words total for the day. Because of how I’ve been pushing to get words in last-minute recently, I made sure to do some writing this afternoon, getting about 800 words.

My 10-year-old daughter has been saying she wants to write when I write, but hadn’t up to today. She started a story about a birthday party last year, got about a page done, and stopped. Today, she insisted that she wanted to do some sprints with me. So after supper, we both joined in on a couple of sprints with the @NaNoWordSprints feed on Twitter. Then right before she went to bed, we did a few more sprints.

She loves doing them and wants to keep writing with me this month. She even said that she’s glad she realized how much she loves it now, when there’s still so much time left. And I read her story so far. It’s got some really funny moments in it!

The Story: I feel like I kind of rambled a bit as I tried to get the story back on track after the characters had some conversations that can’t be in the story yesterday. Then suddenly, I had an idea about how to insert some drama, which will make the person who’s basically been the MC so far seem a lot more interesting. Though I may have to make some tweaks to her personality earlier in the story to make this work. This wasn’t in my outline, which is fine, but I am a little worried it will derail things in a way I do not want. We’ll see where it goes, though.

Total word count: 14,961

If you want to join me in my journey through the first year of NaNoToons (with a storyline), check out the NaNoToon from November 6, 2010!
And in case you need some extra inspiration, check out the 2nd episode of the NaNoMusical!

Book Review: A New Leaf

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A New Leaf
Cape Light #4
by Thomas Kinkade & Katherine Spencer

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Christian drama

It’s near the end of winter in Cape Light and a time for new beginnings for many of its residents. This includes the newest resident, Dr. Matthew Harding, who has just moved to town with his teenage daughter, hoping to start a new life three years after his wife’s death. Molly Willoughby is toying with the idea of starting a new business, Sophie Potter has to figure out how to move on after her ailing husband is gone, and a controversy from many years past shakes things up for Tucker Tulley.

One of the best things about this book is that the story moved away from the Warwick family, after 3 books about them in some capacity. They were in the background, which was fine, but the main storyline in this book involved Dr. Harding and Molly Willoughby. Overall, it was a decent read. Parts of it were better than others, and some characters were better than others.

The romance thread in this story didn’t draw me in like it probably should have. I liked how both grew as individuals and how they had a hand in helping each other see what they needed to work on. But even by the end, I didn’t feel much chemistry between them. They seemed more like really good friends. And there was an obstacle in there that seemed completely pointless.

On another story front, I was appalled by Fran Tulley’s actions in the book, even if she did feel bad about it later. And Tucker began to wear on me after a while too, since most of his own thoughts were about how uncertain he was of his feelings and actions at pretty much every step of the way.

In the end, the book was decent, but I didn’t love it enough to continue this series that has been mostly just okay so far. It feels like a good stopping point anyway, though, because all of the books after this are Christmas-themed, and the final page of this book provided a nice wrap-up to the first 4 books. I don’t know if that was intentional or not–maybe the series wasn’t originally meant to continue? However, I do have a copy of book #9, and with Christmas coming up and feeling like I have a good enough introduction to the series and the town, I do still plan to read that book, most likely my final go at the Cape Light series.

Find out more about A New Leaf

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!