Not Quite NaNo, Plus RT and SFWA!

It’s the day of acronyms!

So I'm totally behind as far as NaNoWriMo goes, and I've decided that's ok. While I can do 1667 words a day, it's a lot of stress and pressure one me, and with us only having had The Bulldog for about a month, there's lots of training to be done that's more important to me than chasing a word count goal.

My experience so far has been that when I sit down to write, I think of that number 1667, and it's so big that I get discouraged. Whereas when I sit down to write 500 words, that feels like a good reasonable goal. It's doable, so I'm more likely to do it. Therefore, I'm back to the daily 500-words-a-day word goal. I'm really happy I made the attempt though, as it got me started into my new novel; a feat which, as some of you have seen if you've been reading this for awhile, I've been trying to get going for over a year.

I also wrote a 2300-word short story this month and submitted it, so I feel good about that too. I want to keep doing the short fiction while I work on the novel.

Speaking of short fiction, check out my first-ever review in RT Book Reviews! Six of the twenty-one stories in the anthology were mentioned in the review, and mine was one of them! Sweet! The anthology as a whole got four stars.

Graeme's Fantasy Book Review gave a very in-depth look at the anthology, and had very nice things to say about "White Knight, Black Horse." Thanks Graeme! As a whole we got eight and a half out of ten.

And last but far from least, I'm now an associate member in SFWA! Yeay! One sale down, two to go. I've wanted to be a full active member pretty much since I found out about Science Fiction Writers of America. Why? Because it's hard. A girl's gotta have goals, you know?

Top Image: Paul / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

NaNoWriMo 2010: Day 12

I got a little writing done yesterday, but not much. I figured today I could do some catching up since I was taking the day off. Of course, I didn't start writing today until 2:30pm...

I've fled the house and am hanging out at my local library. While they do have the distraction that is WiFi, it's very nice being here as opposed to home. Here I cannot distract myself with laundry or dishes or walking the dog. I have to sit at this little table and look at my computer, and I told myself I can't leave until The Husband gets home around 5:30pm. So far it's been pretty good. I did a little research, then jumped back into the novel.

I still occasionally find myself stopping to think about descriptions, but I just keep reminding myself that I can add it in during revision. It's a hard habit to break. It's also hard to not go back and re-read from the beginning, but I'm not letting myself do that either. Rar! Keep writing, recruit!

Speaking of which...

NaNoWriMo 2010: Day 10

Didn't get any work on the novel done, but did power through a 2300-word short story. Whew! I feel better now. Back to the YA tomorrow.

NaNoWriMo 2010: Day 9

Well, I at least got some writing done tonight. Word wars are fun! 950 words in half an hour, and I came in third out of four people. Up to 7900 words and still chugging. Plus, I finally finished up a small side project that's been nagging at me, so at least that won't distract me anymore. Plus did some world-building over lunch. All in all, a productive day.

Oh yeah, and I got another short story rejection. Form rejection this time, sad.

NaNoWriMo 2010: Day 8

I am soooo far behind.

As you might guess from the lack of posts, I didn't get any writing done this weekend. In fact, I'll I've got today so far are a few sentences I managed to get down after work before my carpool showed up.

Today was The Bulldog's first obedience class. It's at 7:30pm, which means I have just enough time to walk him and eat dinner after getting home from work before getting on the road to doggie class. The Husband has had gout for the last couple weeks, so that means I get to do all the walks. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those people who can plot while walking the dog. (At least, not until he learns some better leash manners. It's a process.)

But I'm not giving up! Tomorrow I'm head out to a 3 hour write-in and we'll see how far I get. I've still got this big unplotted section in the middle. It's not a plot hole, exactly, more like plot fog of war. Or maybe Phase 2.

NaNoWriMo 2010: Day 5

Ok! Just finished my word count for today. Man, I forgot how much of novel writing is like pulling teeth, but so far, so good! I've got more action, and more plot points are starting to fall into place. Wootness! Now just to figure out what the big external conflict is...

NaNoWriMo 2010: Day 4

Of course, the day where I think I'll have time to catch up ends up being the day where I'm struggling just to stay one day behind. At least I did finally get some laundry and dishes done, and I'm up to 5000 words.

NaNoWriMo 2010: Day 3

Woohoo, I'm on a roll! Of course, I haven't gotten to the hard part yet - ie, the parts where I have no idea what happens. But so far I'm having a lot of fun just writing out all the bad conversations and the extra descriptions and even a silly song. Edit later!!!

In other news, I got a short story rejection today, but it was a really good one. The editor called my story "terrific," thanked me for submitting it, and asked me to submit to her again. Personalized rejections are worth 2 points, you know! ;)

Now I just need to catch up on my word count from the first day of NaNo so I can treat myself to reading Batman: The Killing Joke.

NaNoWriMo 2010: Day 2

Woohoo, now I'm rocking! Got my 1667 words for today done, and feeling pretty good about it. It's not on any of the projects that I had on my radar, which I think is part of why it's working so well. The other reason is that I'm working with a setting that I already know really well, and any world-building decisions I still need to make are mostly the kind that will get figured out as I write anyway.

The project is a young adult (or possibly middle-grade) novel set using the same rules as my stories "A Wild Hunt" and "Cry Wolf." (Well, actually all of my paranormal stories are written using that world system, but those two actually deal with Faerie.) This is the perfect kind of story for me to use to get back to pantsing a novel, because there is very little research or setting decision-making to distract me; I've already done it all. And since I don't know what's going to be happening in my other stories any more than what's going going to happen in this one, well, why not?

And best of all, now I'm actually excited about it again. Sweet! Now I just need to catch up from all the false starts yesterday...

NaNoWriMo 2010: Day 1

Well, so far today I've started Project Geargirl twice, and written about a thousand words of utter crap. I mean, I know first drafts are allowed to suck, but this is more suck than I can take.

The problem is that I have no idea how to get into the story. And I've changed the setting so much that I really can't fit the original story idea into it anymore.

So then I tried to start in on the Encore expansion, but got completely derailed by The Bulldog. By the time I'd taken him out to pee and got him settled down again, I'd totally lost the mojo I'd started rebuilding.

It's all incredibly frustrating. I've probably written close to my word count for today, but I'm not keeping any of it. I think my experiment with quantity over quality is a dismal failure, at least so far.

And Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Programming…

Hey folks, thanks for bearing with me the last week or two. It's been a stressful time, but The Dog is back at the shelter, and we've welcomed our newest addition to the house…The Bulldog! (I thought about actually using his name, but heck, if The Husband doesn't get a name, The Bulldog shouldn't either, I suppose…)

Oh, my gods, I'd forgotten how much work a new dog is. Leash manners, table manners, housebreaking, and we still have to introduce him to the cats…but after The Dog, pfft, that's all nothin'. She trained me so well for my future dogs.

(The Husband just told me "Your number of 'My Wife Is Awesome' points just went up. LOL!)

Anyway, it's nearing the end of October! I love Halloween, although this year it's really snuck up on me. Last year I was participating in the Paranormal Authors Fight Club, which resulted in the free story "A Wild Hunt." This year I'm not doing any contests, but I like the idea of celebrating my second favorite holiday with free words, so on Friday, October 29th, I'll be posting a link here to a new free short story over at my website. And since I'm not playing by someone else's rules, this story is a Mercy Loomis no-holds-barred explicit paranormal erotica original. Oh yeah.

(Which is also why I'm not posting it here…)

And it's almost November! That means it's nearly time for NaNoWriMo! (Eep!) Despite my best attempts to outline, I'll be pantsing this novel for the most part, which is a little nerve-wracking. I figure if I get stuck I can always start on the Encore expansion, which is my next project after my NaNoWriMo novel, codename: Project Geargirl. One novel or two novels, it still counts as long as it's 50,000 words of novel writing, right? Right?

Projects

I'm taking a break from my own stories to do a little side work on a role-playing game. It's fun to play in someone else's universe. It's even more fun to get to shape someone else's universe, muahahaha. But seriously, it's a neat project, though the part I'm doing is rather small so far, but I'm hoping to weasel my way into working on more of the project once this bit is done.

I'm also trying to frame the Encore and NaNoWriMo projects, and this is proving harder than I'd hoped. I have plenty of ideas for Derrick and Nate, but I'm having a hard time figuring out the frame—the beginning and the end points of their larger narrative. The beginning is especially messing with me, because if I can get started I can usually find my way to the ending pretty well. I'm not used to having troubles with beginnings. Usually my problems are in the middle. I think I'll probably have to start where the short story leaves off, write from there, and then figure out what (if anything) I need to add in the beginning once I've gotten to the end. This will mean (groan!) extra editing.

The NaNoWriMo project is particularly difficult in that I still don't know what happens. Silly, no? But this is much more typical of my plotting issues. I have this great beginning, and some vague ideas of where I want things to end up (more like several options, Clue-style), but no real idea of what goes on in the middle. Sigh. I should just give up on the outlining thing and pants it, but I'm afraid to try pantsing during NaNoWriMo. That sounds like a great way to derail myself fast. My first time out I'd like to have a little more of a plan than what I have currently.

Well, I still have another month to figure that out. Hopefully my research will give me some extra ideas for the middle. In the meantime I'm having fun inventing alien cultures and playing with space opera horror.

100 Words About: NaNoWriMo

I first heard about National Novel Writing Month last year, when Victoria Wilson asked me if I would be participating. After hearing that one needed to paste one's work into the NaNoWriMo website to be counted I vehemently declined. None of my work goes on the internet anywhere until I'm ready to give it away for free. Besides, I had just started my new job, and that was enough to deal with.

This year I think I'll attempt it. After all, why not? I have a story I really want to write but which I don't think will be commercially viable in traditional markets, but what's one month? Ok, if I actually manage to get 50,000 words down on it I'll be working on it longer than a month…but I don't see a downside there either. Maybe I'll make a podiobook out of it.

I'm still not pasting it in anyone else's website though, even if it does supposedly get erased immediately with no one seeing it. I'll copy however-many-words I get done out of some Wiki articles and put my count up that way.