NaNoWrimo: The Finish Line!

The finish line is just up ahead, and I haven't reached it yet, but I'm about 3,000 words and a good glass of wine away to finishing NaNo - but that doesn't mean the novel is finished.

I might have to stop writing consistently for awhile and start editing every other day, writing every other day once NaNo is over.  Terrance still remains to be finished - and The Unanswerable is no closer to getting done.  At least I will then start making progress on new, and old, books.  Because editing all the time is too hard, and writing all the time makes me want to edit!

However - I do have some awesome, unrelated NaNo news.

To celebrate the whole "Holidays are coming!" thing, I'm going to be doing a big giveaway.  I have quite a few books that have been lying on my shelves - and I feel like they need new homes.  While I love my bookshelf, and I think it's great that I have a nice little library, it makes me sad when books get dusty and never get revisited.

I know it doesn't earn the author any money to give away books myself - but at least I'm spreading the word and the love of the book around.  I wish I could do both, but at least there's love - and giving!


Check back - because the giveaway is coming!

NaNoWriMo: Productive Procrastination

While I am actually standing strong at 29,464 words on day 15, I am still finding small ways to put off writing.  Today's productive procrastination was creating a cover for Where We Collide, which was formerly known as Soul Therapy, my 2011 NaNo project.

Where We Collide is not edited.  It is sitting as a rough draft quietly awaiting the day when I'll come back to edit it.  For some reason, it always motivates me once a book has a cover.  Doesn't really make sense, considering this is a mock cover.  This cover might never exist outside of my computer.  Even so, seeing a mock cover makes me want it.

Even though today was full of procrastination, I just rushed through four chapters worth of outlining for my current NaNo project, Good Criminal Heart.  I even have enough motivation to work on "My Summer Vacation by Terrance Wade" tonight.  Why?  I think the finished novel starts to feel tangible.  That makes me feel like it is closer to being finished, even if it's not.

Other than "wanting to finish" your piece, what motivates you?  Have you tried  making mock covers for your pieces? 

How is your NaNo going?  Are you procrastinating?  Are you getting stuff done?  Are you doing a bit of both?

Cheers to motivation, I hope everyone finds some today!  Especially you WriMos out there, we only have half a month left!

NaNoWriMo

I really have no excuse for why I've been so quiet other than NaNoWriMo.  I don't even think that's a good excuse, but I'm still using it anyway.

We are nine days into NaNo, and I am almost breaking 20k on Good Criminal Heart.  Finally going to see this project come to completion after seven years of sitting on it.

At this point, I am standing on a finished novelette ("My Summer Vacation by Terrance Wade"), a finished novella (The Unanswerable), and three finished novels (RUHE, Where We Collide, and Rioss).   Which means I need some realistic goals for myself in order to get these all published/shopped.

I'm still aiming for "My Summer Vacation..." to be self-published prior to the holiday season. 

The next few months will be busy.  After NaNo, I will get RUHE queried again and work on getting Where We Collide ready for querying.

How is everyone's November going?  Are you participating in NaNo?

Also, side note, if you want to keep up with my NaNo progress, I'm posting Main Character Facts along with word counts on my Google+ Page.

What happened to October?

There's this month.  It's called October.  I don't know if any of you have seen it, but I certainly missed it.  What happened to all the goals I was going to accomplish?  The days flew by, and I'm wondering what the heck happened to October.

Just to clarify it to myself, here's the story of October:

Last weekend I joined the army of the undead.  That's right.  My husband and I did the Run for Your Lives race.  No, not as runners.  Never as runners - are you kidding me?  I couldn't run to save my life.  But I can stumble around and scare the living daylights out of people.  We signed up to be zombies during the race, and as you can see, our makeup was... delicious.  Highly recommended for any zombie fans.  It's a lot of fun being dressed up in goop with good people by your side.

This weekend, we got lost in a corn maze.  By lost, I mean I kept peeking at the map so we wouldn't get lost because I hate getting lost.  My accomplishment was peeking less this year than last year.  Next year's goal is to stick the map in my purse and forget it exists.

We carved our pumpkins for the holiday.  I almost thought it wasn't going to happen this year, because like I said, the month of October disappeared.  Mine's the one with the moon and the cat.  Last year it was an owl, this year it was a cat.  I'm going to attempt to carve Jack Skellington at work tomorrow - we'll see how that goes.

Other than that... I did some critique partnering.  I've been reading a lot of 2nd and 3rd books in a series for the "Let's Finish What We Started" Challenge by the MA-YA group on goodreads.  On the fifth book now, Promised by Caragh O'Brien, and I still love the series even though that amazon review ruined the ending for me.  (Thanks person who wrote a huge spoiler in the title of your review.  You rock.)

My beta readers got me back Terrance so now I have to sit down and actually edit his story.  It shouldn't be that hard, sitting at only 15k to edit, but editing is always taxing.  I have one more person to send it to, but I want it to be polished to receive some final, last-minute insight - just in case I missed something huge.

NaNoWriMo is creeping up around the corner.  I'm not ready for you yet, November!  Stay over there!

Though, I must say, I've been outlining Anthony's story this week, and I love his character again.  Everything that felt trite the first time around is getting knocked out.  The biggest conflict is better than ever (his own self-consciousness) and the people in the story now accentuate it, instead of derailing it into another plot line entirely.  Oh, and my husband likes the new developments.  These all bode well, and I'm excited to get my hands moving across the keys again...  But I still hope I can finish Terrance by the weekend, else I might not be able to finish him in time for Thanksgiving my absolute deadline.

How about you guys?  NaNoing?  Ready for it?  Was October just as busy for you, or did you manage to find a weekend to breathe?

Work in Progress Challenge

I was tagged by the lovely Brooke Johnson and thought that maybe I should talk about the work I am going to do for NaNoWriMo.  I have written this before - but it is undergoing a complete rewrite.  Half of it was in diary format (blech) and half was rewritten, but not as well as I would like.

Complete overhaul for NaNo, and here we go with the questions!

1. What is the title of your Work in Progress? 
Good Criminal Heart - though this is pending.

2. Where did the idea for the WiP come from?
Honestly, most of it was inspired through my love of the show Queer as Folk.  And I realized when I was younger that there wasn't much YA GLBT literature available.  I read Blue Coyote and loved it, even though it was heart wrenching.  And I invented this character that I blogged through, which people really responded to.  He left the blog and started to come to life on paper.

3. What genre would your WiP fall under?
YA Contemporary.  There is a twist of romance, but it is more of a coming of age story.

4. Which actors would you choose to play characters in a movie rendition?
My first instinct is to say Ian Somerhalder for Anthony, because he does dark really well.  But, no offense to Ian, but I don't think he can pull off "16 year old boy" anymore.

This is really hard for me.  First, Anthony is shorter.  Second, he has darker features, but light eyes.  And third, he's supposed to be attractive, but hard on himself for his looks because he doesn't think he's attractive...  So, as far as looks now goes, I would say Brendan Meyer, especially since this obviously won't be filmed for a few years, and he's still young.  Also in some of the modeling photos of him, he has that serious look that I think would be great for Anthony's character - but I've never seen him act, so... I really have no idea how he would work in the role.

5. What is a one-sentence synopsis of your WiP?
Abusive father, abrasive mother, sister that's a little too close for comfort, partying band members; check - what causes Anthony to go over the edge is the one thing he never expected to find:  love.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I hope to find an agent for all my works.  I have three other finished YA novels that are being re-worked/edited.  I have one novelette that will be self published soon, which is more geared towards adults.

7. How long did it take you to write?
The concept of Anthony I've been working on for eight years.  I've put him down numerous times only to come back and fall in love with him all over again.  Hopefully this NaNo will see him get finished - or at least closer than he's even been to finished.
  
8. What other WiPs in your genre would you compare it to?
This is kind of like Rioss, my story about a rather angry werewolf who is trapped in a mental institution.  Jeremy and Anthony are creatures of emotion - they hate to say it, but they both wear their hearts on their sleeve.  Mostly because the rest of them is too cold to hold a heart anymore.  As far as other books go?  Possibly The Outsiders, but Anthony is more like Dallas than Ponyboy.

9. Which authors inspired you to write this WiP? 
I adored S.E. Hinton when I was growing up.  The darkness that she portrayed in people, the sad, terrifying situations her characters get into, only to grow at the end.  Those kinds of work made me really want to write.  I would like to think that Anthony's story does S.E.'s inspiration some justice.

10. Tell us anything else that might pique our interest about this WiP.
This is my only YA book that actually has sex in it - though it might be open to interpretation by some.  It also deals with some heavy hitting topics:  homophobia, abuse, drugs, alcohol, depression, and religion.

I tagged Anthony Deaver and Sarah Rios.

If 1000th.monkey (K) sees this and wants to partake, I would love her to :)