November Goals

I might have been on haitus from blogging, but I’ve been very busy writing. Part of my problem with blogging right now is that I’m writing things for my pen name, which is so completely different than anything I’ve written here. I wonder now what I should blog about, or even if I should keep blogging because I don’t feel comfortable talking about that stuff here. It’s weird and kinda stinks. Still, I’m going to figure it out. So, let’s talk November and goals.

• Write 65,000 words
• Get my novella to submission ready
• Figure out what to do about blogging

Last year I wrote over 200,000 during NaNoWriMo. That was an accomplishment, but not a good one. Yes, I wrote some great stuff, but it was kind of all over the place. This year I want to slow it down and really enjoy NaNo.  I want to go have fun and not feel guilty if I don’t write between 7,000 and 10,000 words a day. If I only write the minimum, that’s okay!

The novella is almost at submission ready quality, so that’s not a huge goal, but I don’t want to lose sight of that goal.

Like I said above, figuring out what to blog about and where to go from here needs to be decided. I used to blog in detail about my projects but I don’t want to do that anymore. I’ll need to figure out another focal point. I think I’ve learned a lot while I’ve been away from blogging, and I could very well blog about that. However, I don’t think I’ll be blogging every day again. That takes something out of a girl.

So that’s me for the month of November.

How about you?

Hello NaNoWriMo!

So today is November 1st, which means my blog is out of hiatus and NaNoWriMo has begun. I’m nervous about both. For one, things are hectic as I get ready to move this weekend, and my project is something I’m writing for my pen name. So how do I talk about it without talking about it? I don’t know!

Sunday we had our regional kick off party at a great little used book store. There was a huge turn out and we had a lot of fun touching on all the major points of NaNo.

Unlike last year, I’m not trying to rack up a huge wordcount. I’m going for fun and easy this year. Yes, I’ll more than likely write more than 50K, but I’m okay with that. The point is that I’m not stressing myself to churn out more words than is smart.

And that’s me right now.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo? How prepared are you?

October Goals

This has been a random month. Writing the end to Decoy was both exciting, and like pulling teeth. I’ve been kind of bouncing around, not really steady, so in a large part this month has been frustrating. I wanted to get more done than I did, but I did what I set out to do. I knew heading into September that I needed a breather. I needed to focus on fewer projects and get other, non-writing things taken care of, like finding a new place to live! And work!

Overall, September was a great month that went by far too quickly. I’ve been looking forward to it for a while because of FenCon, and it didn’t disappoint in being an eventful month!

September Goals!

• FenCon critiques.  There are 18 of them to do. Very time consuming.
• Finish the additions to Decoy and set aside for at least a week.

What I did…

• FenCon critiques – all of them.
• Decoy’s ending is done, but now I want to write a new beginning!
• Finished writing a novella I haven’t mentioned.

Yes, I randomly wrote a new novella/short novel! The workshop was an interesting experience. It was good, but I think I need to focus my feedback on my audience instead of settling for feedback, period.

Okay, October! October is an unfortunate month. It’s right before NaNo, which is always a drain, so I like to take October easy, at least as far as writing goes. I hope to get revisions on at least one project done and loads of reading. I’ve seriously been slacking on my Book Addicts duties and I need to step it up.

I don’t quite know what I want to write for NaNoWriMo, but I hope to get the project ironed out over the next month so I can work on it during November.

October Goals!

• Write new beginning for Decoy.
• Revise on Decoy.
• Plan for NaNoWriMo.
• Read. Lots.

Well, that’s what I have going on. How about you?

Weekly Check-In

This was a good week, even if I didn’t write tons and tons.  There were a lot of life things I had to take care of, like, where the heck am I going to live?  I need to move and since the house drama fell through I need to look for a new place and I really don’t want to!  I looked at a bazillion houses and I don’t want to look at anything else!  But, I’ve found a great place that will give me room for an office area and a big living area, so it’s all good!

Blogging.

I’m being a terrible blogger.  I had a series idea that I was going to do, and never wrote it.  I’m thinking about including another blog mem with my weeks blogging.  Any suggestions or thoughts?

Okay, updating this.  I’m going to start blogging on Sundays, doing the Sunday Salon where I discuss or talk about a book I’m reading.

Critiquing.

I’m almost done with my FenCon critiques!  I’m super excited about this.  The workshop submissions have been all over the place.  It’s a good experience critiquing a wide variety of manuscripts.  I’d suggest doing a workshop that involves a lot of critiquing at least once.  It might not be your thing, but it’s a good learning experience.

Revising.

This week I’m starting another revising project.  It’s been written, I’ve gone over it a little but I haven’t really dug into it.  That starts this week.  Thankfully it’s a short project so it won’t take too long, maybe a week or two depending on how long I have to focus on it, and then I’m off to critique partners and stuff.

Writing.

This last week I finished my zombie story!  Decoy is officially done, and a full length novel.  I’m super jazzed about this and I hope everyone else loves it as much as I do.  It’s a heck of a long way from being done-done, but having the rough draft completed is a big step.  I know some things need to be changed and I want to weave in a few things I tossed in at the end.  I’m super hopeful!

What I read.

• Dark Sins by Stephanie Draven
• Cindra’s Bounty Hunter by Paige Tyler

Weekly Check-In

So I don’t have a whole lot to say.  I mean, I do, but not about writing.  This post is more about me getting back into the groove of working on stuff every week.  So, give me a little slack.  I have some stuff in the works, so let me share it with you!

Blogging.

I’m going to get back into the blogging groove this week.  I’m going to have a few blogs about my Paris trip.  For instance tomorrow I’m going to talk about how it was like to be in Paris at the PBP stuff as family.  Thursday I’m hoping to talk about all the sight seeing I did.  There’s so much to tell that I don’t really know where and how much to tell!  So, if you have any questions feel free to ask me. 

Critiques.

I’ve really got to get cracking on crits for the FenCon workshop at the end of September.  There are 21 critiques I have to do, well, really 18 since there’s no reason to do my own and I won’t be doing huge critiques on my two friends who are also in the workshop.  My plan is to start cracking on them today, and at my best do two a day.

Writing.

I did a little writing while in Paris, but it was all on pen name stuff.  I’m dealing with a few deadlines so I need to do some serious writing time this week. I think I’m going to miss one of my deadlines, which sucks, but that’s life and you just have to keep going.

What I read.

• Turn it Up by Inez Kelley
• Too Hot To Touch by Louisa Edwards

Manuscript Lengths

Sometimes the story you want to write doesn’t have enough steam to be a full length novel.  So what is it?  Is it a “short novel” or a novella?  How do you know?  I don’t have all the answers, but here’s what I’m finding.

As a rule of thumb, things from 5,000 to 20,000 can be considered a ‘short story’.  The 20,000 kind of baffles me, because that’s not all that short.  I would think that the ceiling would be around 10,000 or even 15,000.  The rule though seems to fluctuate depending on the publisher.  Some don’t accept stories under a certain length.

Novellas are the middle beast.  They can be from 20,000 to 40,000.  I’ve seen a few publishers that will call something up to 50,000 words a novella.  For me this is where a lot of the confusion sits.  In traditional publishing it seems that they want a more mid-range number, along 35,000 words.  However, epub markets will accept a wide variety of these mid-lengths so long as the story is good.

The animal most people are familiar with are novels.  Those numbers don’t scare me.  Depending on the market, novels can be 50,000 all the way up to around 100,000.  I think that for majority of genre novels, Coleen Lindsey is a great resource for identifying wordcounts.  She actually just updated her suggested lengths.  Some of them are lower, down to 25,000 or 40,000 but they’re specific markets.

So right now I must work on my story, and then edit it and figure out where it fits.

Writing on Location

This isn’t my first marathon hospital stay.  It’s also not the first time that I’ve written while hoping to hear good news.  The first time this happened I think was during National Novel Writing Month.  I recall having to write five thousand words a day, curling up in my NaNoWriMo hoodie on the floor of the ICU waiting room in the early morning hours so I would be there in case anything happened.

I don’t know how or why I can write at a hospital, I just can.  It’s something I’ve been doing since I started seriously writing every time a family member has been in the hospital.  My dad and his stroke.  My mom and her heat stroke.  My dad and his foot.  Now, my grandmother and her stroke.

This time around hasn’t been different.  I learned however that I do have some limits.  I can’t edit under these circumstances.  Maybe it’s the having to think things through that takes too much out of me, but editing hasn’t happened this week, which is disappointing.  I had wanted to finish this pass and be ready for an editing class I’m taking next week, but life happens.

What I have done is start a new idea that I’m hoping will be a novella.  It’s one I’ve been wanting to write but haven’t made time for.  It’s a small thing to be glad for, but right now with all the life things going on, you appreciate what good things do happen.

Atrophied Muscles

I started back into writing after college recreationally.  I did a lot of play-by-post RPG games.  And I did a lot of what we called threads, or what more traditional gamers will call campaigns.  The beauty of the play-by-post RPG games was that often times the people I wrote with did things to be silly, to put characters in a situation that was comical or explosive.  It was a lot of fun and for about a year I was one of the more active people participating and running threads.

For me, running a thread was intensive.  Most people threw out some general description of what was around you and composed a few paragraphs.

Not me.  My writer friends are probably laughing at these poor people.

I had a steadily updated post where I kept up to date information about my threads, and there was more information I didn’t share with the people in my threads until they needed to know. Yes, I planned my RPG threads.  I also spent a lot of time trying to come up with ways to communicate the details to the people I was playing with.  Play-by-post RPG games gave me a grasp on how to describe setting and important details.  It was one of the things I did best.  I conveyed the set up of rooms, the placement of bad guys and the tragectory of hurled objects – and people understood clearly what I was saying.

This weekend I’ve been going over a manuscript.  I love the story.  I think I have some great characters!  But I realized that somewhere along the line I stopped communicating the setting of my writing.  I don’t know if this arose from my desire to be a little more brief in my writing or if I’ve simply lost the knack but my skill for describing my setting has atrophied.  As a writer, this isn’t good.

So what am I going to do differently?

Well, I’m going to do a setting pass on this manuscript.  I’m going to encourage myself to jot down setting notes in my outline and weave those into my story.  I know I can do this because I’ve done it before.

Have you found yourself struggling in an area of your writing you used to excel in?  What did you do to counteract this?

Fourth of July Weekend Plans

I have none.  Well, I do, but they don’t involve going out and doing anything.  Some stuff is keeping me home-bound for the weekend and really – that’s okay!  I’m realizing that the France trip is coming up far too soon, if you follow me on Twitter you know I’m about to  buy a house and then there are all of the normal ins and outs of life as well.

So for this weekend I’ll be revising and working on a super secret new project.  And probably watching a lot of documentaries, because they’re my new TV of choice. Oh, I might read something or even get caught up on Dr Who!  That’s fairly exciting.

What are your plans?

Weekly Check-In

This week is back to ‘normal’ in my world.  Normal being subjective of course.  Last week was a gauntlet of exhaustion and I appreciate everyone around me for their patience and understanding.

I did write last week, but not as much as I would have liked.  I feel like I’m becoming a broken record with that phrase.

This week is kind of a big week as far as writing goes.  Suzan and I made an agreement that we would both submit our stories on the same day (Thursday).  So I’m avoiding counting down the days, hours and minutes until we hit send.  So that means that we have a lot to do to get ready over the next few days. There are synopses and queries to polish, not to mention the manuscripts themselves.  Excuse me while I freak out a little.

Blogging.

I gave myself a pass on blogging last week.  With all the family stuff going on I didn’t have the energy.  This week I’m going to bounce back with the blogging.  Suzan and I are planning to continue our series and I want to start blogging about the documentaries I’m watching and how I think we can use real life events and research to beef up stories and writing and cool stuff like that.

Revising.

Not much has been happening on the revising front, which is a disappointment to me.  That said, July will be all about revising as I have a Revise in Company class coming up.  Also, there’s a workshop deadline of July 15th for a writer’s workshop selection I need to be able to hand in with reasonable confidence as to where the story is going.  I’m slightly worried that the story I use for the workshop will be done and out on submission by the time the workshop comes around, but what can you do?

Plotting.

The Warrior Writer Boot Camp crowd is going to hate me.  I have a killer idea for an Urban Fantasy I want to write.  I’ve slowly been fleshing out the world and things in my head while not allowing myself to really think through the plot.  It was my way of telling myself to not work on it, but it’s not working.  I really want to write it.  So the Urban Fantasy might be what I write next, pushing Little Spirits to the project I write for NaNoWriMo, which would be fine since it will be a shorter book anyways.

Writing.

I’ve been averaging between 1-2,000 words a day.  It’s not as much as I would like, but it is progress.  I think I’ve been spread too thin over the last few months.  July will be less crazy in that regard at least.

Project: I Spy You (formerly known as Booty-Call Bust)
Genre: paranormal romance
Type: short novel
Progress: I’m crossing my fingers that I can write The End on the draft tonight.  It needs work.  It started out as a novella and is now a novel.  The beginning needs a better lead in for it to be a novel.  There needs to be some more subplot, not a lot since the book is almost entirely the two characters and only one POV.  Overall I’m happy with this project.  It’s fun, it’s made me laugh and I got to write spies.

What I read.

I don’t really remember what I read.  That’s bad, isn’t it?

• Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews