Writing Update

It’s Monday! Already? Lordy, where has the time gone?  Well, if it’s Monday then it means it’s time for me to check in and account for what I’ve been doing.  Accountability is a big motivator for me – that and the competition factor with my other #writersdatenight girls.  If I don’t have something to show for my week, I feel shame!  But no shame for me over this last week.  Oh my goodness, I have done a LOT!

Blogging.

I have topical posts scheduled through, are you ready for this? MARCH! YES! March! I’m not announcing what I’ll be blogging about next month, but I’m happy with the posts.  There will be fewer topical posts, but I’m okay with that.  February has been a lot of work to get going, and I feel like instead of having a nice, targeted shot with each post – I’ve been firing buckshot and just hoping to hit the target.  March will be better.  Besides that, I have a new blogging feature I’ll be talking about later this week, I believe… Unless I change my mind and push it out, which is a possibility.

Revising.

This needs to be handled, like, someone give me a timer and Make. Me. Do. It. I’ve started the terrible process of himhawing around and wondering if I should just shelve the project because ‘Maybe it’s not really that good’ or ‘Revising is such a hassle. I’d rather write!’ or any number of other very invalid excuses for Not Revising.  I finished the read through of the zero draft on Sunday, and I’m working on my big revision notes of the stuff that really needs to be fixed.  In a day or two I want to start tackling this.  I would like to get halfway through this draft by the end of the month, which roughly means 10 – 15 pages of edits a day.

Writing.

This was a huge success this week, like phenomenal.  It felt so good to just sit down and do tons of writing in one sitting.  I haven’t really done this since November/December and I’ve missed that feel that something is just pouring out of you and you have to struggle to catch it all because every bit only comes out once and there’s no second chances.

Project: Formerly Fat Club: prequel novella, yet unnamed
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: Novella
Progress: This is a novella that I’m writing for a currently seekrit project.  The project was so seekrit that I forgot about it and realized this last week that I needed something to contribute.  Because I’ve been working on my contemporary romance, I came up with the idea of exploring the main character of the first novel’s sister.  She’s not technically part of the Formerly Fat Club, but I do talk about how it effected her life growing up with her sister and her sister’s problems.  It’s a sweet romance, which means the culmination of the romance is a kiss, but the characters were a lot of fun to write and the story just jumped onto the page.  I finished the 20K novella in three days.  I loved it!  I also learned more about the main character of Casual Love by writing about her sister and their deceased grandparents.

Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: Novel
Progress: I am currently working through the material I had written before, changing the story from first person to third.  It’s time consuming and doesn’t put many words on the page, but when it’s all said and done I’ll be much farther along in the story than I was.  What’s really fun is that I’ve come up with ideas for the following books featuring each of the Formerly Fat Club ladies, and an idea for a spin-off novella.  I’m getting a lot of encouragement about this project from my friends so I really think I am going to see this project through to the end this time!  I sat down on Sunday and wrote out the plot for the rest of the book and I’m excited and nervous about it.  I’m writing up a synopsis to send to my other writer friends to read over and give me feedback on, so hopefully I’ll be writing lots on this in the near future.  I’m going to be writing up the other character profiles soon too!

Project: Reti Guild
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Type: Novel
Progress: I feel terrible because I’ve skipped writing on this all week to work on the novella, but I did a lot more research and started working on how the religions all mesh.  This weekend I’ve been focusing on getting to know my antagonist, I feel like I shouldn’t write much more until I figure him out.  Granted, he doesn’t really show up for most of the novel, but knowing him and his motivations will help out writing.

All in all, I’m very excited about the way this week has gone.  Now to tackle this next week!!!!

Writing Update

I blogged earlier today about writing accountability.  One of the ways I talked about keeping myself accountable was by blogging my process.  Mondays work out as a good day for me to check in because I’ve had the weekend to burrow and write, and Tuesday my fellow writer friends and I meet up at our favorite deli to write alongside each other.

So, without further preamble, here’s what I’ve been up to!

This last week was the great snowpocalypse here in Texas.  You would think that with all of this time spent iced and then snowed in I would have gotten tons of writing done, right?

WRONG!

Most of it was spent working on my work laptops (yes, multiple) and watching the weather or counting down the minutes until the electricity came back on.  But I did get stuff done, to some extent.

Blogging. I wrote most of my topical blog posts for February during this frozen week.  I think I have two or three left which are going up at the very end of the month, so I’m dragging my feet on those.  But all this blogging is good!  I’m talking to you my readers, I’m making myself think objectively about things, and blogging about things like my story binder makes me more likely to fill the whole darn thing out!

Which takes me to the second thing I did tons of this week!

Plotting. If you’ve read my example post on the Springboard, then you know I’m working on a new project.  If you know me at all, you probably know that I’m a planner.  I like a nice, detailed plan of where my plot is going.  Some people find this boring, I find that it helps me to focus on my goal.  I have a tangible destination and I write myself there!  Without that goal, I flounder and my writing lacks and I get frusterated and walk away from projects.  But after this week I have a wonderful, complex plot that I’m excited about.

Writing. I didn’t do as much of this as I would have liked to do this last week, but I did a lot of ground work for my Babylon idea.

Project: Reti Guild
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Type: Novel
Progress: I have the first day written.  This might not sound like a lot, but in this one day the major plot is kicked off, and four different subplots are introduced, as well as most of the major and minor characters.  I did a lot of work on this through the week, and it’s really cool to start writing the actual draft.  Very excited about this project!

Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: Novel
Progress: This is a resurrected story I started last year.  The idea is that there are five friends who have teamed up, won the Battle of the Bulge and are now looking for love.  The first friend I’m writing her story is Dee.  I was thinking about this a lot over the last week when I was weighing the decision to work on this again.  I needed more depth, more stuff going on.  So over the week I’ve made some notes and Sunday I sat down and wrote the new beginning.  There’s a big chunk of it already written, but I’m changing it from first person to third, and swapping up the love interests.  Overall, I’m excited about it, and I see some promise!

Revising. I’m going to not talk about this.  I haven’t done anything worth mentioning this week – and that’s bad.  I’m going to set a daily goal this next week to motivate myself, so hopefully next week I’ll be reporting next week on some better progress.

And that’s my writing update!  I’m going to work on an easier format for these updates, but probably later.  Not right now.

February Goals

Man, it feels like I haven’t done these in ages. Yes, I know I just did one a few weeks ago but other than that it seems like it’s been forevah!

This month was a new kind of deal for me. It wasn’t so much about my output as it was about putting in hours on a project. Revisions are a new ballgame for me, so I did a lot of learning the process, figuring out how I operate and then crafting the story. But now I’m going to be gearing up for an actual schedule that will have me doing both writing and revising each month. But that’s getting ahead of myself!

Lets review this last month. My goals for January were:

• Finish revisions on Blood Bound
• Submit Blood Bound
• Start read through on Gate Keepers
• Pick a new writing project

What I did:

• I kicked booty on Blood Bound revisions! At least I think so.
• I submitted Blood Bound last Tuesday. It was a big night for me and I celebrated with a blueberry scone.
• I’ve read through a third of Gate Keepers.
• I have two writing projects going on, but one is more prominent in my head than the other.

February Goals!

• Topical blogging
• Finish my read through on Gate Keepers
• Develop a plan of attack for the plot changes that need to happen in Gate Keepers and go for it
• Ideally I would like to have gone through the novel at least once in the next month, but I think that’s ambitious, but I’ll say it anyways
• I would like to write a third of the planned plot for my new urban fantasy with it’s alternate history

I’ve been going to this Warrior Writer Boot Camp, courtesy of an invite from my friend Suzan. Well the wonderful lady who is in charge of this does a lot of work on social media and promoting yourself. Well, with all of the work I’m going to be putting in on creating my world for my urban fantasy, I want to do topical blogs about world building. I’ll delve into what I’m doing and talk about generalities of how other people can create the same results.

Gate Keepers is a really fun project. At times I read through it and I think: OMG I WROTE THIS! and others I cringe and think: OMG I wrote this… I’m hopeful that this will be a project worth my time and effort – and that I’ll be able to share it with others – hopefully in a published format.

And that’s it. So, it’s time I get to working on some of this stuff, huh?

Whew!

Well alright, there’s been a lot – and then not a lot – going on. It’s been sort of a huge sweeping pendulum.

Last week I sent off my novella to Samhain, which was both a huge relief and a thrill. I like what I turned out and though I’m not sure that it fits what they were looking for, I know I took a chance and I’m okay with that. I’m toying with extending the plot in the case that it is not accepted and submitting it elsewhere.

I’ve also been doing a lot of reading. So far in January I’ve read like 30+ books. What. The. Heck. Where do I find the time?

My revisions are starting slowly as far as Gate Keepers is concerned. I really should have done more on it this week, but I didn’t and I’ll have to double time it this week.

And, as of this weekend, I have a new project to work on, well, two really. One is something I started last year but never followed through on, and the other is a new idea.

Brief update, yes, but I’ll be doing a monthly check in soon!

Quick Update

Okay, I’m writing an uber quick note with the promises of more to come.

This week is about three things:

1. Getting Blood Bound prettied up to send off for submission, which means formatting the document, getting the query and synopsis down perfect – all that stuff. There’s actually a lot to be done – it’s not just a matter of slapping an attachment in an email and going – here’s this story I’d like you to consider!
2. Reading. I’d meant to be reading my rough draft of Gate Keepers, but I got distracted with Cynthia Eden books and got several anthologies she’s included in and then her new book comes out, so I’m enjoying the build up – but later this week I have to shift into gear for Book Addicts stuff.
3. Brainstorming! Suzan made a flip comment about doing horror, or something – can’t really remember – but she brought up the idea. Thus the whisper of a thought I had some time ago fully lodged in my skull, took root in that suggestion, and has blossomed into an idea. I’m joining Suzan for her Warrior Writer Boot Camp that meets every Saturday. It’s like a massive think tank for plotting. I’m doing this brainstorming so I can bring stuff to the table and if/when the group has time we can hash it out. I think I’ll do a post on this later – but I approached the idea by asking myself: what scares me? I might actually have a very good chance at doing horror semi-well….

And that’s it! At least for the moment…

NaNoWriMo Wrap Up!

Average Daily Words Written: 6,847

Total Words Written: 205,402

Target Goal to Date: 200K

Words to Make Up: 0

Projects Worked On: 4; Gate Keepers, Derby Girls Are Dangerous, Space Particle, Hockey Hotel

Projects Completed: 2; Blood Bound & Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers

Write-in’s Attended: 7

Write-in’s Hosted: 6

Total Write-in’s Hosted: 26

——-

Well, NaNoWriMo is over. It’s done. And I met my 200K goal! My brain is a pile of mush, but that’s to be expected at this point I think. My daily word average really needed to be more stable on the day-to-day basis for me to come through the month not feeling so raw, so I really can’t blame anyone but myself for that mishap. Skipping days and slacking on others was a really bad choice since my target goal was 50K higher than last year – and last year I was pushing myself to make it at the end. Today was hell.

I had a lot of success this last week though, maybe because I really buckled down at times and got stuff done. Write in’s I attended were:

• Monday: impromptu Pajama Write-in & Mondayers
• Tuesday: Pajama Write-in & Addison B&N
• Wednesday: Pajama Write-in
• Saturday: Thanksgiving Write-in
• Sunday: Thanksgiving Write-in II

Out of curiosity I added up the number of write-in’s I’ve hosted – 26. That’s almost one a day. That’s crazy! Granted there were a lot of days that I had a Lunch n’ Write and something else or a Pajama Write and something else – but that’s a heck of a lot of social writing! I like having people around to write, but I’m slowly making the transition to a solitary writer. It used to not bother me, but I’m becoming more temperamental, maybe. I want to write in a certain set of factors, so to speak, for my environment to optimize writing. For instance, the last two days I’ve been writing from the hospital. It’s been a trying experience and I’m glad to have finished today at home and writing. (My dad had a scheduled surgery. Everything is just fine!)

Anyways, that’s a topic for a later date.

I’m not going to be writing any this week for two reasons: a) burn-out, I need to avoid it and b) it’s my Birthday Week. I’m going to be doing as I please people!

This last week I’ve been working on two projects: Space Particle and Derby Girls Are Dangerous.

I started out doing a lot of work on Space Particle. It’s jumpstarted from a short story I did back in Story a Day in May. There was about 10K of the hilight scenes that gave the story it’s main climaxes without any of the set up or the real story. It had such a great responce I started writing what I think of as “the real story”. The problem I ran into was a lack of plot and no real handle on the characters themselves. Last I really looked at this was probably sometime in June. I had to grasp at forgotten characters and create them. What I discovered were two characters that are deeply flawed, hurting people who think they’re fooling each other to achieve separate ends. I think that when I finally figure the whole story out it will be good, but there are a lot of rough edges on this one.

Space Particle as it is right now sits at around 33,000 words. I’m firmly into the meat of the story and have plenty that’s coming up that’s exciting. An assassination attempt, defying the established alpha government and a mysterious universal threat to uncover. There’s a lot going on and I want to write this. But I’ll finish it later, like, next year.

The last few days I’ve had a lot of luck working on my Derby Girls Are Dangerous story. I’ve had a lot of fun writing typical pissed off roller girls and lots of great character development. The characters for this one are really strong and I think that the personal journies are really awesome. It’s the plot that sucks, but I knew that going in. I had a character and situation rich environment; the plot was what I went into it blind. There are a few places that I’ve jotted down to write in later once I really hammer out the plot. I’m sort of at a point that I think I should come back, figure out the plot and do a quick pass over what’s written right now.

Derby Girls Are Dangerous is around 48,000 words. It’s probably 2/3′s done and I foresee it being a shorter book when it’s done. That’s not a bad thing! It’s just fine with me, because easier to revise at the very end. Again, this is something I’ll pick up later after I’ve had some time to rebound from this whole November thing.

Okay! So that’s what I’ve been working on this last week.

During November, I’ve worked on a lot of things. I’m really excited about my completed projects:

• Blood Bound; cyberpunk novella
• Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers; steampunk short story
• Gate Keepers; YA novel

It’s not the completed four projects I’d hoped for, but I have two very strong drafts I’m working on now, so I’m hopeful! I’m going to do a recap later on from an ML perspective, but I’m exhausted right now and actually have to work tomorrow so I’m cutting this short. Night people! It’s been real.

Goodbye NaNoWriMo 2010!

Gate Keepers: The End

I did it!

I finished Gate Keepers!

I know I’m several days behind where I wanted to be as far as word count and wrapping up this book, but I’m done and even better: I like the way everything ended. YES!

Right now I’m not thinking about the revisions, because I know this will need some fleshing out in the future, but I’m going to bask in the fact that I’m. Done.

Okay, basking is officially over – back to hammering out stuff so I can reach my 200K goal for NaNoWriMo this year. If I write between 7&10K a day I can do it. It’s a lot but I think I can do it.

NaNoWriMo Week Three Check In!

Average Daily Words Written: 6,073

Total Words Written: 127,516

Target Goal to Date: 150K

Words to Make Up: 22,484

Projects Worked On: 4; Gate Keepers, Derby Girls Are Dangerous, Space Particle, Hockey Hotel

Projects Completed: 2; Blood Bound & Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers

Projects Not Started: Protector

Write-in’s Attended: 9

Write-in’s Hosted: 7

——-

I’m on my way to my goal of 200K, and I’m pretty sure I can still make it, but I’m going to have to make the most of the rest of November, which I have also taken off work. Readers n’ Ritas last weekend really knocked me off my already rocky game. All I’ve wanted to do all week – is read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. But I couldn’t, because I had words to write and things to do!

The write in’s this last week were sparsely attended, but that’s okay because that often means more work gets done!

• Monday: Lunch n’ Write & Mondayers
• Tuesday: Lunch n’ Write & Addison B&N
• Wednesday: Lunch n’ Write
• Thursday: Lunch n’ Write & #writersdatenight
• Friday: Pajama Write
• Saturday: Evening of Scribbling Wrecklessly

It was the last week for the Lunch n’ Writes since I’m going to be at home. People slowly tapered off attending until it was just Linda and I, but again – that provides for some nice, focused writing time. I didn’t go anywhere Wednesday, mostly because I was exhausted from RnR and needed to hit the sack early at least once this last week to just get some sleep!

Thursday night was really fun because we went to see the midnight showing of Harry Potter – and wrote while waiting to get in. It was fun and different and oddly productive.

This last weekend was the monthly all night writing event. I’m not sure how helpful it really is, but it’s a lot of fun. There were two rooms, one loud and one quieter – at least until the early morning hours when a few of us broke off and found another quiet corner – with couches! A good couch is apparently key to my writing success. Go figure!

So, this next week is Thanksgiving, but also a big push week for me – with no work. I’ve told people that my apartment is open for writing time during the day/evening depending on when and it looks like it’ll be a nice, busy week. I’m going to have to take a break sometime tomorrow and do some serious cleaning, but my schedule looks like this:

• Monday: Pajama Write & Mondayers
• Tuesday: Pajama Write & Addison B&N
• Wednesday: Pajama Write
• Saturday: Thanksgiving Write

Nice, huh?

I’m still working on Gate Keepers, which kinda has me bummed because I would like to have finished it already. However, writing it is slow going. I like the story, I like where it’s going, and I’m so close to the end! But I have to sit and think about what I’m writing so much that it’s semi aggravating at times. I’ve been doing really well with writing about 2K on it and then moving on to something else. It’s not the best way to complete a project, but it’s working. I’ve been watching episodes of The Walking Dead and those really help to get the gears going – granted there’s nothing similar between the tv show and my story, but still. It’s zombies! The weirdest thing about Gate Keepers? The “theme” song/album. The characters are kind of, I don’t know, I wouldn’t call them bubble-gum types, but they’re all of the more ‘normal’ variety of kids than anything gritty. I’ve been listening to Haste the Day’s Pressure the Hinges album. There’s one song, Chorus of Angels, that has become THE Gate Keepers song. Don’t ask! I don’t know. There’s something about the combination of growling and singing that lends its self well to my mental eye; I have some great scenes set to the music that are really cool to write.

The other thing I’ve been working on this week mostly is my new romance, Derby Girls Are Dangerous. It’s a mash-up of paranormal shifters, and roller derby. I didn’t really know where this was going when I started. I had this great image of a chick in street derby gear taking on a werewolf armed with a paintball gun, and I sort of ran with it. I know where most of the story is going, but not the whole thing, so I’m semi-flying by the seat of my pants, or I might be, once I write what I have planned. It’s a fun story so far, nothing overly magical. I’m playing with very rigid character profiles; meaning my female character is a sort of typical angry derby girl and the male character is a work obsessed shifter. They clash and I’m hoping that they come out on paper as making each other better. I’m not totally sure I love how I’ve worked it, but it has been a lot of fun to write and put the derby characters to use.

Like I said earlier, I’ve been doing a bit more reading than I was at the beginning of the month and part of that includes reading this contemporary hockey romance series. Once upon a time I had a contemporary romance that was set around a hockey player – it fizzled out and I shelved it – but I had an idea for at least a beginning and I took the time to write up that beginning. Not sure if I’ll actually use it or not, but we’ll see!

I did work on Space Particle a little; mostly going through the old text and adding bits and pieces here and there. I’m hooppiinngg to finish Gate Keepers and then pay this project some special attention.

So my concrete goal is to finish Gate Keepers this week. It’s do-able. I think I need about 10K more to wrap it up and there’s not that much plot left and it’s mostly action writing. I can do it! I’ll just keep teling myself that. I’ll jot more on the Derby Girls story, and then shift fully into Space Particle. But we’ll see how that goes!

Well, that’s been my third week of NaNo!

NaNoWriMo Week Two Check In!

Average Daily Words Written: 5,822

Total Words Written: 81,584

Target Goal to Date: 100K

Words to Make Up: 18,416

Projects Worked On: 3; Gate Keepers, Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers, Roller derby & Paintball & Shifters

Projects Completed: 2; Blood Bound & Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers

Projects Not Started: Space Particle & Protector

Write-in’s Attended: 10

Write-in’s Hosted: 8

——-

I could be irritated about my word counts, but I’m not going to be. My overall goal is to have written over 200,000 words during November, and finish with one full novel and my novella finished, and then whatever else I write I’m okay with it not reaching The End in November.

In order to do that, I really need to write about 50K a week. I did that last week, with a little cushion. Part of it was that I was switching projects and the different demands were difficult to manage.

This last week was also an unfortunate example in how write-in’s can hinder more than help, and this is to no one’s fault but my own! Because I was writing dialogue being around people and hearing them talk interfered a lot. This last week’s schedule went like this:

• Monday: Lunch n’ Write & Mondayers
• Tuesday: Lunch n’ Write & Addison B&N
• Wednesday: Lunch n’ Write & Arlington CB write-in
• Thursday: Lunch n’ Write & people came over to write
• Friday: Pajama Write-In
• Sunday: Pajama Write-In

The Pajama Write-In’s are possibly my favorite. Those are the days when people come over to my apartment and we curl up and just write. There’s little talking and much writing going on, or at least a lot of staring at the screen pondering what next to write. This coming week I’m not going to be attending as much, in part because the week doesn’t allow it and in part because I need to finish Gate Keepers this week.

• Monday: Lunch n’ Write & Mondayers
• Tuesday: Addison B&N
• Thursday: Harry Potter Write-In
• Friday: Pajama Write-In
• Saturday-Sunday: Evening of Scribbling Wrecklessly

So there’s plenty going on this week even with me cutting back on write-in’s.

Last week I admitted in having difficulty writing Gate Keepers, so I jumped ship and wrote Blood Bound which flowed so much easier than writing Gate Keepers. When I finished Blood Bound on Friday and started Gate Keepers on Saturday, I will admit, I was hesitant. I knew it wasn’t going to come as easily as Blood Bound and I was getting worried that it wasn’t going to be written at all.

As of today I’m officially over halfway through the story, I’m at the part where everything the characters are doing is possibly dangerous and it’s becoming easier to write it. The thing that I think I’ve been having issues with in Gate Keepers is dialogue; I’ve never written something that is so driven by character interaction so much. I start out with three teenagers, and then there are five, and suddenly there are seven crammed in an SUV and the world is standing blind in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. It’s crazy and it’s great and I’m so exhausted from writing dialogue.

During last week I took a break one day because I was running into a wall with Gate Keepers and I needed to jump tracks and just do something else. Just so happened the new Abey Park came out and I was feeling like writing a set of characters that have been in my head for a while to write so I wrote a nice short story that I have no clue what I’ll do with it. It’s called Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers, which is a bit misleading because it’s not romance so the title will probably change in time. But! I really like the way the characters were done and I have a nice setup to write more about them and perhaps in time delve into a full length novel.

I think that I still need a small, fun side project to scribble on after meeting certain daily goals of working on Gate Keepers so I’m starting to “discovery write” another idea I had that’s all about roller derby and shape shifters. Yup. How exciting is that? I’m going to see what I can make happen, but the primary goal for now is to have fun. Heck, naming the roller derby characters alone provides great amusement!

So, goals for the next week!

First up is to finish Gate Keepers. I want about 30,000 more words to finish it off to a nice first draft, YA length. I’d like to establish the roller derby story but I’m less concerned about it at the moment since it can’t decide if it wants to be urban fantasy or paranormal romance. The jury is still out, but I’m sure I’ll know in time.

Well, that’s been my second week of NaNo!

NaNoWriMo Week One Check In!

Well, we’re officially one week into NaNoWriMo – and guess what!

I got 50K last night!

WOOHOO!!

So, to recap the first five days of NaNoWriMo…

Average Daily Words Written: 6,412

Total Words Written: 51,289

Projects Worked On: 3; Blood Bound, Gate Keepers, Protector

Projects Completed: 1; Blood Bound

Projects Not Started: Space Particle

Write-in’s Attended: 9

Write-in’s Hosted: 5

——-

Okay so I’m a little bitter about that daily word count. It’s better than last years average of 5K a day, but I was hoping for something closer to 7 or 8K a day, but a few of the days were just not productive or I had my dad’s birthday or I had to do responsible things so I’m not too bitter about it. I’m sure I’ll live!

The write-in’s numbers seem large, I know, but here’s last week’s schedule:

• Monday: Midnight Write-in, Mondayers Write-in
• Tuesday: Lunch n’ Write, Addison Write-in
• Thursday: Lunch n’ Write
• Friday: Cassy’s Write-in
• Saturday: Southlake Write-in, impromptu write-in at my place
• Sunday: impromptu write-in at my place

This weeks schedule is even more packed! It’s turning out that my apartment is a good writing place. I really do like to go to write-in’s, but I’m starting to find that I’m more productive at my apartment, curled up on my couch and writing, but that’s not going to stop me from hosting or going to write-in’s! NaNo is all about taking writing out of the closet and making it social.

So! Writing-wise. I’m still uber jazzed about finishing Blood Bound. I’ll probably play with a better cover; the text looked a lot better in the work area than it does in practice. I’m going to look for different pictures as well – not that it really matters, but it’s fun for me to do that.

Gate Keepers hit the road running on Saturday. I really was scared I might have to scrap the project but it’s started working out pretty well. It’s a little bit harder to write in some ways because I’m juggling five characters, three of whom have subplots in the story that need to be developed and hinted at and whatever. I’m really impressed with myself about how it’s going so far. I really didn’t think I did subplot well but it’s cropping up nicely in this story so I’m excited. I think I probably should have done some more plotting on this, because I’m figuring out some details as I go, but it’s working. It’s not flying off my fingers, but it’s getting written steadily.

Last night I cracked open my Fantasy Romance (tentatively called Protector), which is in the same series as Maliginus, which I finished about three weeks ago now. It’s not book two – it’s book three; book two needs a lot of research and book three doesn’t and they’re fairly stand alone so I can work on them out of order. I’m excited about writing this one, but I’m going to save it for my last NaNo project.

If all goes well I hope to finish Gate Keepers early next week, then work on the Space Particle novella. I’m kind of cheating with Space Particle since I wrote chunks of it during the Story a Day in May event. There are big holes in the story because I hit the high points only and skipped the romance of it, so I’m wanting to circle back and fill in those gaps, aiming for something around 30K on that alone. And then that would give me the last week of NaNo to crank out as much of the Fantasy as I want over Thanksgiving and my dad’s surgery.

Well, that’s been my first week of NaNo!