NaNo winner!

I did, finally, finish NaNoWriMo today with 50,600 words. Now what?

Now comes time to edit. I plan on running this book through my best editing efforts, after which I will send it to a developmental editor to make it the best romance I can send out.

The name of it, if I haven’t mentioned, is Kringle in the Night, and it’s a sequel to The Kringle Conspiracy, which is out right now on Kindle.

Right now it’s really rough. It needs a little more Santa magic, and a little more of the noir feel I wanted it to have for the sake of the title. It needs some better word choices, and the little details need to be checked for consistency, and it needs to be checked for passive verbs and redundancies and overused words and maybe even words that are too big.

It needs a lot, but that’s okay. NaNoWriMo is not about writing a polished product, it’s about writing a first draft that will need more work to get to the final product. That’s what December and beyond is about, and I will live with this book daily during the Christmas season editing one chapter a day.

Deep breath. It’s done! For now.

NaNo Winner — almost.

I’m almost done with NaNo. 48,300 words as of this morning. 1700 words to go.

I can’t believe I made it. I haven’t written a novel in a year or two, choosing instead to edit the ones I already have. I’m writing a romance novel, and despite the fact that I’ve got a romance novel published (A shameless plug for The Kringle Conspiracy), I still feel like I don’t get romance novels.

And then there’s the pandemic and the election, and our current president acting like the supreme leader of a banana republic (which I suspect is unfair to banana republics everywhere), I felt stressed enough to quit a couple times. But I didn’t.

But it’s nearly done, and then I will edit and edit and mercilessly edit. There are things I want to add, and probably a couple places I want to condence. I think promising myself ten pages a day should help the process.

Ahh. I never thought I was going to finish this one!

emerging

I don’t know how many of you are out there, nor do I know most of your names, but know I appreciate you. I think I’m crawling out of my prickly stress coccoon, which I picture as being something like a datura shell I curl inside of, hoping for peace.

The truth is probably not as dire as I paint it, and eventually Trump will leave office. The country will start to recover despite a deadlock in the government because thank Goodness there are things like executive orders and Trump set the precedent of using them right and left. The vaccine for Corona may be ready by mid 2021, and we will be able to hug again.

I’m writing. I’m still writing, breaking a NaNo streak of failing every even year since the 2016 election. That’s only two NaNos worth of failure, but I was pretty steady before then. I think I remember what I like about writing, and I think I’ll be able to continue it.

I also remember that I may have to put the big books, the fantasy books, out there again to traditional publishers. If I get my self-promotion game going, I may be able to put them out using that route.

I feel like I’m coming back to myself, someone who does better at doing than being. Thank you for listening.

I can’t believe I haven’t written in a couple days. It’s been terribly busy:

My virtual book signing party went off very well on Sunday, despite my jitters. About seven people showed up, but that was a fine number to interact with and about the number I expected to show up if I went live.
I started NaNoWriMo, and I’m struggling because I haven’t written a book for a while, trying instead to edit what I already have. It’s time to write, and this book is going slow.
It’s been a bit of a challenge to find time to write because of the fact that it’s a crucial project time for my students.

In addition, I have a sense of existential dread over the (US) elections. I’m not by any means alone.

So I’ll do my writing to the best of my ability over the next several days, meditate, take deep breaths, teach my classes, and pray for the best and most compassionate outcome.

Where did the time go?

“Your book goes live Sunday! Aren’t you excited?”

Gah. I haven’t had time to be excited. It’s been one of my busier weeks, with interns meeting with me, exams to grade, a class website to experiment with …

I have so much to do!

I need to put together the party this afternoon or tomorrow! It shouldn’t be too hard; it’s an online party, I don’t have to supply food, just things to do.

I have an online wedding and a Halloween outing to the Board Game Cafe in costume tomorrow. (No, I’m not going to do the costume at the wedding!)

I need to write my first 2000 words on Sunday. Before the book-signing party? After? Both? I need coffee! At least I’ll have another hour to do so with Daylight Savings Time ending.

I need to just take a deep breath and do things one at a time. I have the time I need.

Sunday’s a momentous day

On Sunday, my novel goes live (at least the Kindle version). And NaNoWriMo starts! So I am having a book launching party on Facebook and writing my first 2000 words in the same day.

The Facebook party will need a bit of planning, which of course I have not done yet. I wanted a real-life party, but ironically, I have more people attending this one than I would have a real-life party.

Fittingly, I’m writing the sequel to The Kringle Conspiracy, called Kringle in the Night, for NaNo. So I have a Christmas romance for next year.

I’m afraid for this year’s NaNo. The only time I failed to make my goal was four years ago, because Trump won the presidency in the US (and it turned out he was worse than I imagined). Now I’m afraid he’s going to win again, and I think I will be making plans to move to Canada if he wins again. At any rate, I will be too depressed to write.

Here’s to a favorable result in the election, and here’s to a month of creativity!

NaNoPrepWeekend

I’ve already made the cover. I have to write it.

Doing a lot more thinking about my NaNo project this weekend.

NaNoWriMo starts in little over a week, and I know what my project is going to be, the second story in the Kringle Chronicles (of which The Kringle Conspiracy is the first).

I write as a plantser, which means I don’t plan everything, but I have a rough outline of what needs to happen each chapter. But I find myself wanting to plan more this weekend — smoothing out the plot, putting in settings.

I think it’s because I have more at stake with this novel. Yes, it’s a holiday romance, yes it’s fluffy, but I know I will release this one next November, and I wasn’t counting on releasing the first one, which I pantsed (i.e. written by the seat of my pants).

So I’m going to spend my day playing with the story so I feel more comfortable writing book two — on the same day I release book 1.

Writers’ Balk

I woke up this morning not wanting to write.

Actually, it’s an editing day — Whose Hearts are Mountains won’t edit itself. But I am not, as they say, feeling the love.

It might be that the 50k/10 days binge edit of Gaia’s Hands has taken a lot out of me. It could be because it’s a week and a half till Thanksgiving Break and I’m on break already. It could be because I’m discouraged from the latest rejections. It could be because I’m not sure why I want to get published at the moment.

At any rate, I’m staring at the draft thinking, “How do I fix this?” This meaning one of the big flaws of the first half of the book (having fixed the other two) which is pacing.

I was told there was not enough of import happening in the first half, despite the fact that she gets shot at, rammed into, kidnapped, and exposed to a virus. And has flashbacks from being captured by a paramilitary group. You can see why I’m bewildered.

I HAVE to work on it tonight, because I’m having a NaNo Come Write Me space at the Board Game Cafe. So maybe I wait till then.

50K!

I just made my 50k words for NaNoWriMo (actually 50 hours, as I was rebelling this year by editing) in 10 days. That’s 5 hours a day, which means I wasn’t doing much of anything else but writing in my spare time.

It was insane. On the other hand, I think I have Gaia’s Hands to the point where, after a friend reads it, I could publish it. I think I learned a lot about editing. And focus. And feeling braindead at the end of a day.

I will finish a read-through on it, and then, I will probably start on Whose Hearts are Mountains. Only 2 hours a day, though. And it’s going to take a lot more work, because it has structural problems in the first third.

Time to pass out now.

Third Day NaNo

Yesterday I was at 20 hours, equivalent to 20k words. I also got schooled on how I really should proofread better, because a submission of mine had a wrong name at least once in the 1000 words.

I’m still getting more rejections and wondering if it’s me or the stories. And if it’s remediable. I’m getting inspired by editing since I’m seeing possibilities opening up with Gaia’s Hands.

😒 Wait. I have emojis! I just discovered this!