Camp-o-wrimo, Day 21

T-shirt arrived in time for the last big weekend push! Woot.

Daydreaming

Some Tycho to kick off an imaginative week.

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Distracto-Nano, Day 18

Crikey, it's coming toward the end, and I'm not even close, or that's the way it seems. I'm in a stuck place and all day I wanted to go for a long walk in the woods to clear my head, but I couldn't because I might get it blown off. Effing deer season. Yesterday when it was nearly dark (at 4:30 p.m., mind you) there were still several trucks tilted along the grassy shoulder of our road. Of course the vast majority of hunters know what they're doing, but we also know people whose houses have been shot. So there you have it.

The good news is I'm in a place where I need to start creating a few new scenes, so it will feel like genuine Nano writing for the next week or so. If I can get myself out of editing mode. Which is what Nano is designed for...

And I've realized I've been thinking about the whole social media thing the wrong way (Sssiiiiiiigh.....! You mean I have to do ANOTHER thing besides actually writing???) Today I looked up the hashtag #amprocrastinating on Twitter and found a bunch of other writers who were also procrastinating and it made me feel so much better! It was like a 30-second support group. I followed them all. A bunch of them followed me back. It was awesome! Go, procrastinating writers!

Opening the box

Yeah, those are the moments we like. Congrats Colleen and Wade on their short story collection, Black Coffee Fiction, stories from their blog.

Pick-pick-o-Nano, Day 15

Picking at the manuscript, word by word. Not much time spent these past few days but progress nonetheless. Word count: 81,185. I thought maybe this book would reach 95,000; I'm thinking now it'll stay about where it is, maybe 85,000. One of the factors is I've decided it's going to end sooner -- I had planned two books but now it will likely be a trilogy. Who knows? Maybe more.

Fang-o-Nano, Day 13

Slow going yesterday and almost nothing this morning (80,980). Part of the problem is during the work week I need to start at the crack of don't-even-think-about-waking-me-up to get anything done. I've worked on the East Coast and the West Coast, and as much as I love my native Midwest, gotta say, WHAT'S with the early meetings. For someone who prefers vampire hours, I'm turning into a zombie. Coooofffffffeeeeee. Coooofffffffffeeeeeeeee!!! Uuuhhhhhnnnnnnnhh!!! Crap, it's 6:25 a.m., I gotta go.

Edit-o-wrimo, Day 11

It's like I thought -- word count is declining. Today the manuscript is at 80,837, which is good, because it means I'm getting rid of the fluff and duplication. I'm about halfway through the manuscript as it stands, with a few early scenes that still need a superficial edit & a few later ones to add in. It's so much better to work on editing every day because it's far easier to notice things that have already been said, or to see the words that get repeated and overused. More tomorrow.

Super incredible holiday blog tour dates announced!

See caption below*

Purple Houses has been invited to participate in the Holiday Blog Tour 2012, a virtual Round Robin made up of writers and other artist-types, organized by the fantabulous Icess Fernandez (see Dec. 24). I've added all of these creative souls to the blogroll at the right; be sure to check them out. The tour happens to consist of all female bloggers this year. I know some of these great women and am looking forward to getting to know the rest. Here's the schedule:

December 7: Jasmine Clemente
December 8: Gwendolyn Jerris
December 9: Nathasha Alvarez
December 10: Regina Tingle
December 11: Caridad Pineiro
December 12: Teresa Carbajal Ravet
December 13: Natasha Oliver
December 14: Stephanie Dorman
December 15: Karen La Beau
December 16: Annette Santos
December 17: Zoraida Cordova
December 18: Kristy Harding
December 19: Nikki Kallio (Purple Houses, woot!)
December 20: Sujeiry Gonzalez
December 21: Samantha Kolber
December 22: Thelma T. Reyna
December 23: Julia Amante
December 24: Icess Fernandez


 *Our family's traditional Christmas cookie, the snowman. My grandfather fashioned the cookie cutter out of sheet metal; there is only one like it in the world. Much like the cyclops variation, which has been long since devoured.

NanoFake-o, Day 10

I'm on track, possibly closer than I think. A lot of rearranging and chopping and adding. Today's word count (so far) is 82,480. Will probably drop by the end of the day once I edit. Now, need to spend a little time building my social media platform, or whatever it is we're supposed to do...

Fake-o-nano, Day 8

I'm at 80,708 today on edits/revisions to my new novel. Slow going this morning; running myself down. Down time is at a minimum overall -- I need to take a breather, a cabin-in-the-woods getaway (not the Joss Whedon sort). Overloaded, drained, distracted...

Pseudowrimo, Day 6

I think they should declare Nanowrimo a national holiday because the worst part is having to stop writing to go to work. Today's word count is 80,047. More edits and new scenes, some rearranging and working on continuity throughout.

Nano, Day 5

 Been working on edits/additions to my manuscript every day of Nanowrimo and had a good friend read the first 30 pages or so. It's largely shaping up with a few minor tweaks. Love restoring the focus of working on it every day. My word count for this morning is 78,547.

Beginnings, Nano Day 2

Yesterday morning and evening I spent editing the opening of my novel -- one that I had worked on quite a bit and was kind of married to, then decided it really didn't reflect my character's voice throughout the rest of the story. I worried about letting go of certain aspects that I really liked, only to find that it worked much better without them, and it works to incorporate the information into the story later on. The beginning is the most difficult (for me, at least) because it must strike that delicate balance of giving the reader enough information to be interested and not bombarding the reader with too many facts. It's the most important part in terms of engaging a reader. Doesn't matter if the rest of the book is stellar; no one's going to know it if they can't get into the book.

Couldn't sleep this morning -- yay! More writing time! Massaged the first chapter some more.

Since I'm doing a pseudo-nano (editing a near-complete novel instead of starting a new novel from scratch) I anticipate my word count will decline or remain about the same throughout the month. Today my word count is 76,361.

Good morning, sunshine

It's time to start writing. Happy Nanowrimo.