Drawing characters

Ever since I completed Camp Nanowrimo I have had a lot of inspiration for my writing. New characters just keep popping up in my head and al those characters have family and friends who on their turn have a family. It seems like my character basis is growing exponentially.
A character that resently entered my story is Wende, of whom the quick drawing above is. Although she is not my main character she is probably one of my favorite characters to write. She is a bold girl who loves making costumes and dressing up. She does what she wants, whenever she wants it.
For me drawing a character helps me to get to know them. I then start to think about what they look like, what kind of clothes they wear and how they act. Usually I have some drawings laying on my desk when I write. I helps me to not lose sight of who the character really is and to stay true to it.

Music Monday #24

Sad Brad Smith - Help Yourself

Book love

Bibliophile
(n) a lover of books; one who loves to read, admire and collect books

I don't consider myself a materialist, but when it comes to books I am. Yesterday I went to the thrift store in our town. Finally it was open when I was there. My mum and I brought some stuff there and I also took my time browsing the books. I love books, I can seldom go anywhere they sell books without buying at least one. I always have piles of unread books, because I buy more books than I can read.
These three books I bought at the thrift store. It's an atlas (I love atlases and maps), a book about the life in ancient Egypt and an beautifully illustrated version of Nobody's boy by Hector Malot (a book that I read as a kid). As you can see I'm quite into all sorts of books.
In the coming weeks I will probably start with writing some reviews for books that I have read. It's not going to be a regular feature though, because I never know when a book will be finished.

For some more book love you can check out my pinterest board.

Music Monday #23

The Lighthouse and The Whaler - White Days

Music Monday #22

Today I'm going on a one week trip to France and I don't have any other posts planned for this week, so this will be the only one. Music Monday will be here once again next week, like always.

Of Monsters and Men - Little talks

The Ardennes

My friends Chantalle, Sophie and I went to the Ardennes in Belgium. We had amazing week; we explored the village of La Roche, visited La Roche's castle, did some archery(?), ate out went kayaking, and ate crêpes.

 

The train from Maastricht to Liège

 

 

 Being stuck in Melreux for several hours we decided to get a drink.

 La roche

 Visiting the castle in La Roche

 

The caves of Hotton

 

 

Cooling down in the river

 

 The view from our tent

 Our tent only a meter away from the river

 Kayaking at the Ourthe

I didn't expect Belgium to be so different from the Netherlands. From where we live it would have been a three hour drive by car to La Roche, but the environment is already so different. I will defenitely be going back to the Ardennes sometime.

Music Monday #21

When I was younger my father used to listen to Beirut a lot and their music always made me feel like I was discovering new parts of the world. I stumbled upon a song of them on youtube and I couldn't resist digging up my fathers cd's and listen to them endlessly.

Beirut - Guaymas Sonora



Beirut - Elephant gun

Take a seat & make a friend

I always love the conversations you can have with strangers. I'm not really someone who starts a conversation with someone I don't know, but I love it when a stranger starts talking to me. Usualy these sort of things happen to me on the train, but it can happen really anywhere. It so much fun when you realize you have something in common. Today I found this video on youtube and I loved the whole idea of two strangers talking to eachother. The questions they ask are fun, but my favorite is 'Find something you have in common'.

I also love people's life stories. I find it really interesting to learn about how other people live and what has happened in their lives so far. I think it would be so much fun if there would be an event where only strangers would gather. 'Stranger day' it could be called and people would get to do stuff with people they don't know and talk to people they don't know and just get to know more people and find some commonground!

Achieving a goal

Past month I participated in Campnanowrimo, a challenge where people try to write a certain amount of words in Juli (and there's an April session too). It is sort of a spin-off of Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), which is in november and people try to write 50.000 words in that month. I've participated two times in Nanowrimo and one time in Campnanowrimo (last april) before, but I didn't reach my goal.

I love writing and this goal of writing 50.000 words in one month has been a major goal the past few years. Now I am so happy to say that I finally acieved my goal! I wrote exactly 50.085 words and I'm pretty proud of myself. I have had a lot of moments were I thought 'I'm never going to reach my goal anymore, so why bother' and wanted to quit, but I'm so happy that I didn't!

On the website of Campnanowrimo you update your wordcount each day and then this graph appears. It looks so much like I was doing a project for school, haha. In the beginning I started pretty motivated and stayed on track, but soon I got behind and it was only in the last few days that I really put a lot of work into it. At the beginning the average 1.613 words you're supposed to write each day to reach a goal of 50.000 words seemed immense. On day 28, 30 and 31 I wrote about 5.000 words each day, so by then 1.613 words didn't seem as much anymore.