Nano Musings

“How did Nanowrimo go?” You ask with a smile, smile which could be seen as friendly but seems somehow mocking.

“Not good,” I reply, “not good at all.”

Yes, this year’s nanowrimo can be considered a fail, and a big one. I made it to just over half way to my word goal of 50,000 words. I do not consider it an epic fail, I did learn a few things and I have the beginning of what I think will be my best novel to date.

Things I learned

1. I cannot write with the stomach flu

2. I can write with the regular flu, but I am very slow

3. I have lost a bit of my motivation that I had when I started writing

The first two point are pretty self explanatory. I did spend most of November(2 weeks) sick. I also had some fairly busy weekends and a lot to do at work.

But that brings me to my third point. I am just not as motivated as I was when I started writing. The other stuff wouldn’t have mattered last year or the year before. I would have just gotten Nano done. Don’t get me wrong there were some flashes of it. I had three different writing sessions where I wrote 5000+ words in a couple of hours. Of course that means that the other 27 days I got about 10,000 words written, about 400 words a day or so.

So as I sit and reflect on what has changed a few things come to mind. For one instead of organically letting the story come, I am planning out a plot and this novel is much better for it. There are no instances of characters appearing for a chapter and then disappearing. The plot is fairly consistent and I didn’t decided to add a couple of dragons on page 70 to spice it up. In short I am writing a better quality story.

The other problem is a little harder to express. I really want to write a great novel, one that will have wide spread appeal. While writing my first few novels I was positive they were good enough to be published the whole time I was writing them, and only saw the flaws when I went back through to edit. This time I see all the flaws in my novel right after I am done writing. But I know if I go back and fix them now that I will never finish.

This novel  is better than any of my other novels, I am sure of that, but right now I don’t think that is good enough to be published and that is making it hard to motivate myself to write it.

Of course I did get 25,000 words done in a month which really is a step up from the pace I was going at, so maybe I can keep it up and put out a couple of novels a year.

NaNoWriMo and Dark Things

Thought I would give an update since I won't be posting much in November. I have decided to once more give NaNoWriMo a shot. I finished two years ago and last year I lost my flash drive at 30,000 words and wrote 20,000 words in short stories.

I wasn't going to participate this year. To be honest the novels I write when I am taking my time are much, much cleaner and easier to edit. Plus my lupus is advancing and while it is still a mild case (the disease is not attacking my organs), I am beginning to feel the joy of arthritis at the ripe old age of 32. A cold front moving in, not uncommon in Nebraska in November, or a lupus flare up could start my knuckles throbbing and take away days of writing time and the last two NaNoWriMos I came right down to the wire.

But I am hosting a few Write Ins at the library, which got me real interested this year and so far I have made it a point to not let my lupus stop me from doing anything. I just do it a little slower or with gobs and gobs of sunscreen.

So NaNo here I come. Don't expect any more blog posts in November except one saying I am done. In Pill Hill Press news my wife is starting a new horror magazine Dark Things Quarterly. I have taken it upon myself to become the Dark Things Quarterly movie reviewer. I am thinking about taking on a persona, maybe calling myself The Dark Professor and then grading the movies or something like that. Dark Things Quarterly is still in the planning stages but it should be a lot of fun. I am thinking about starting a separate website for my movie review persona. I should know more by the next time I post, towards the end of the month.

Sorry for any typos in this blog, don't have time to reread, must nano.

I quit...

It isn't by choice but I think I might have to quit nanowrimo. I was keeping my nano novel on a flash drive which has disappeared. I looked everywhere, by my wallet, by my computer, in the washer, in my wife's office, I even looked under the couch battling the couch bunnies to no avail.

The novel really wasn't going that well anyway. I was going to hit 50,000 words but it was going to need a lot of editing.

Tonight, during my writing time, I felt a little lost and started on one of my ideas that I got while doing nano. I made it to 2,000 words on that, but there is no way I will get to 50,000 in a week.

 Another lesson learned as a writer, always save everything to the computer and the flash drive.

Below is an illustration of one possible, and most likely, solution to the case of the missing flash drive. In panel one I am carrying my flash drive, feeling the intense sense of accomplishment that nano brings.

In panel two I leave the flash drive on the table. I do this so that I can make a snack (a bowl of popcorn, and a slice of cheese) and pet my dog(not pictured). I like my dog, I share my cheese.

In panel three an Anti-Nano ninja (notice the throwing star)sneaks in a steals my flash drive. The Anti-Nano ninja's are a clandestine organization with the goal of foiling all attempts at nanowrimo, an event which they hate for both political and bovine related reasons.

In panel four (not pictured) I search furiously for my flash drive. I weep. Then I make a snack (beef jerky and nachos) and pet my dog. I like my dog. I share my beef jerky.

What's Happening

I have continued my nano quest, and I am at 23,000 words, which puts me a little behind. But I did have company over the last week (mother-in-law was in town) and I should have plenty of time to finish up at the end of the month.

In other news:

One of my stories, Shaman Born, published in Aurora Wolf ezine will be in their print anthology. I am considering revisiting the world and doing a serialization of it.

I should be hearing back from a couple of publishers about my novels soon, I am over their estimated response times so it could be any day.

I have couple of new ideas brewing in the back of my head for other novels. Why is it that I always get so many ideas while I am immersed in writing something else?

Nanowrimo

I couldn’t help myself, I had to start my superhero/alien invasion novel. It just sounded like too much fun to pass up. Fun has been something lacking from my writing lately, which might be why Godswar is such a pain to write. So Godswar is officially shelved until at least the end of November more than likely longer, but I’ll get to that later.

I am just over 2000 words into my Nanowrimo novel, I am using one of my short story titles as the working title, A Time For Heroes, maybe when its done I’ll send it to some YA markets or something. Which brings me to another subject.

Last year I wrote three novels by just telling a story and having fun with my writing. This year I have about ¾ of one novel. The difference? Well for most of last year I was only working part time, so two of the novels were written when I had an extra 20 hours a week of writing time, but one of them was written after I got my promotion.

The other difference? Last year I was just telling stories, and having fun as I wrote. Then came a slew of rejections, all saying pretty much the same thing “We enjoyed your writing style but we do not feel that your novel is marketable…blah, blah, blah, etc.” Then I started Godswar, and spent the better part of a year worrying about how to make it marketable as I wrote it.

It didn’t work. Not at all.

The numbers can tell the story, last year 260,000 words written, this year 43,000. Valuable lesson learned and it only took me nine months. I need to stop worrying about marketability and start writing for me again. So it is time to write A Time For Heroes, after that one of the half dozen ideas that came to me while I was trying to plow through Godswar.

November

So Halloween is over, we had more trick or treaters this year than ever before. I think it was due to the weather. The 50 degree temperatures made for a balmy night for Nebraska in October. We didn’t do much, besides hand out candy. We watched the Vikings lose to the Patriots, and saw our play-off hopes dwindling, and we ate a bunch of Halloween candy.

The end of October also marks the beginning of Nanowrimo, National Novel Writing Month for those who do not know the acronym. I didn’t want to shelve Godswar for a month, but last night I had an idea that I can’t seem to shake.

I have two short stories both set in a world of super heroes after an alien invasion. Most of the super powered folk were killed in the first days, but there are still a few heroes (and villains) fighting off the invaders. Last night I started toying with the idea of making it a full length novel.

If I can find any time to get write this week then I might try to write this novel for nanowrimo.

Nanowrimo

I made it!!! I have 50,0021 words. The good news for you? You don't have read about it anymore! The novel isn't done but I did get the 50,000 words. I think there are still 10-15 chapters left to write to finish the story, and since my smallest chapter is 2000 words that would mean at the very least 20,000 more words to finish it.

I checked the Roar of the Crowd deadline it has been pushed back so I might end up writing for it after all. I have a bunch of anthologies I am going to try to write for, and I want to finish this novel. So I have a lot of writing ahead of me.

Nanowrimo

I made it past 45,000 words. Whoo hooo. I may end up taking Roar of the Crowd off of my current projects, the deadline is the end of November and I don't know that I'll have time. It's too bad I had an idea about Naumachia, the roman naval battles that took place in the coliseum.

I added a bunch of anthologies that had interesting topics to the current projects section, there are more there than I am going to be able to write, but I thought I would list them out.

Happy Thanksgiving

The Cursed Story

I think I may have a short story that is cursed. I wrote it back in May, and it is the first short story I wrote when I decided to start writing short fiction. It has been out in submissions ever since, and has never had a rejection. However all three of the places I sent it went out of business while it was submited to them. I have just sent it in to Semaphore an online magazine of specualtive fiction. If they go out of business I may have to retire the story for the sake of the the small presses everywhere.

In other news, I broke 40,000 words on nanowrimo. 50,000 by the end of the month doesn't seem so crazy now. I don't think the novel will be done at 50,000 words but I plan on writing like its nanowrimo until its done. I think it is going to come in around 70,000 words, of course it is a zombie novel so if I get really tired of writing some of the characters I can end thier arcs by having them get killed.

Horror Through the Ages

Horror Through the Ages is available on Amazon. My short story Roman Blood is in this first release from Lame Goat Press. Roman soldiers and vampires, enough said.

Buy It Here

My Nano story is coming along, I just broke 30,000 words, I going to try to get another thousand before I go to bed.

Nanowrimo & Stuff

I made it past 25,000 words to day. So I am offically half way done with my nano story. I was hoping to get a little ahead, next week we have Storytime at work on four different days instead of just two. That means that I will be dealing with close to 90 kids instead of the usual 50 for Storytime. I'm not sure I will be in the mood to write when I get home, but we'll just have to see.

I have also joined the Great Zombie Collaboration at Pill Hill Press. There are fourteen of us and all of us are writing two chapters of a novel. I have my first one done and I won't have to write another for quite a while. I had Chapter 2 and 27.

I haven't been doing much other writing, just writing some notes when I get other ideas. With Nano its kind of hard for me to do much other writing. When I am not acutally typeing I am decideing what is going to happen next.

The new book of the Wheel of Time is still calling out my name. I started and realized I had no idea what was going on. I started skimming through the books to see what I remembered and decided I had to reread the last three. Everything before those is crystal clear but I don't remember these ones at all. Its weird.

National Novel Writing Month Upadate

So I made it over 15,000 words, which puts me a about a day behind where I should be, but since I didn't start writing until the 3rd that means I am actually catching up. I need to get done early so I can write a Roar of the Crowd sub, due at the end of the month, so I'm hoping to get a little ahead on the weekend.

It is kind of nice that nanowrimo is in November. Since I got my promotion in August I get paid holidays, that means between Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving I should have three days off that I would not usually get.

I know the blog and my short stories are suffering a little bit from my focus on nanowrimo, and it doesn't help that I have the Gathering Storm, the newest book in the Wheel of Time series sitting on the shelf begging me to read it.

Nanowrimo

So I made it past 5000 words on my National Novel Writing month story. The story has already morphed into something a little different than I planned. It is still a fantasy story with zombies but I was going to try to get something with the feel of Lord of the Rings but not the plot. The story I'm writing doesn't have that mythology/fable feel that lord of the rings has. Maybe I'll write another fantasy novel about zombies and work on world building a little more before I start.

As I'm writing, I also got an idea for a short story and another novel. I am super happy about it because I was having a dry spell for ideas. It was a good thing I had Summer's Blood to finish or I would have not had anything to write.

It seems like I either have so many ideas that I can't write them all or that I don't have any. Weird.

Summer's Blood is done!!!!

The first draft of Summer's Blood is finally done. It came in at just over 78,000 words. Time to set it aside for awhile and work on something else and come back and edit it. I think I'm going to have to add a couple of big chunks of story, I'm guessing that I am going to end up at well over 80,000 words, proably right around 90,000.

Time to start on Nanowrimo, I already had a story idea ready, but I wanted to finish up Summer's Blood first. What's my idea for Nanowrimo? Think Dawn of the Dead meets Lord of the Rings and you'll get a pretty good idea.