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25 hours to go. I am so stoked for NaNoWriMo 2013. I just spent the last hour shoring up a few world building details that needed knowing before the furious tap-fest tomorrow at midnight (yes, I’m staying up – to write the dedication).
can’t believe I’m about to get this novel down on the page. DAMN! YEAH! GO TEAM NANO! //aggressive flailing
it’s a little over 5000 words, but…it’s pretty complete.
I left myself some room to play, but shaved as many plot bunnies as I could before they bolted into plot holes.
November, I am SO ready for you.
I look forward to November every year. It’s not my favorite month – I mean, December has my birthday, plus Christmas, plus ultimate cuddle weather. But November is NaNoWriMo month. If you’ve managed to have a Tumblr and don’t know what this is, congratulations, you are probably not scarred by much on the interwebz. But I digress.
I am just under 500 words away from the halfway mark for NaNo – 25,000 words. Add to that the 8000 words I had prior to the start of November, and A God Grown Old is sitting at a pretty 33k. In other words, I’m too far now to turn back. Even better: I don’t want to turn back! Ever since introducing Cleo, who is turning out to be one of my favorite characters, the story has bantered and cantered along nicely.
I can already see where my weak points are: character growth, consistency of style, and too much emo. And dialogue, always. The great thing about those being the big weaknesses is that they’re fully editable. In round two, character arcs and style will become clear and I can hack away what doesn’t work and round out what does. Emo can be chopped. Dialogue can be spoken aloud until it sounds right.
Right now, it’s about putting my head down and writing, despite the myriad distractions coming my way right now: a bigger workload at my office job (meaning less time to write on the clock), purchasing a new car, holidays, all that good end-of-the-year stuff. That’s what NaNo has always been good for, and will continue to be as long as I’m writing.
Day 7 – Where’s your favorite place to hunker down and write?
I’m writing most of this novel over my lunch breaks and on my bus rides, and it’s actually working out very well. Reason being that I need some sort of time pressure to sit down and churn out 2000+ words, and having that deadline of “welp, lunch is over in an hour!” really helps.
I also like beds. Comfy comfy Tempurpedic’d beds. XD
Day 6 – What is your one biggest stressor related to forcing yourself to write at least 50,000 words in a span of 30 days?
Honestly, it’s probably the fact that I have a lot of other commitments on my plate right now, and I’m afraid I’ll neglect something. Luckily, the boyfriend has been very good at making sure I get in my writing time, and we’ve put our other projects on a temporary hold(ish; if we hit up some investors this month, I wouldn’t hesitate to set First Run aside). Since I’ve been writing it on lunch breaks and bus rides, I’m kind of worried I’ll get sick of doing that in my only me-time, but since it’s only for 24 more days, I’ll probably be okay.
Day 5 – Name two songs from your playlist that you feel are connected with your novel in some way, and explain how they are.
“The Voices” by Josh Woodward. I’m friends with this artist, and his songs have served as theme songs for my characters from the last two projects that I actually finished, so I asked him if he had any “space-y songs." This song that he recommended actually fits Gus’s inner turmoil pretty well, so it’s her theme song now.
"Angels” by Owl City. I know, it’s a little weird to connect an Adam Young song to a smut project, but this is so much more a character’s sexual journey than smut for smut’s sake, so it encompasses the wonder about the universe that characterizes Gus.
Day 4 – What genre is your novel? Why did you pick it?
My genre is sci-fi romance, a.k.a. smut in space. I chose it for a few reasons:
Day 1 – Have you participated in NaNoWriMo before? If so, which years and what end result? If not (or even if so, for that matter), what’s your connection to writing? Why do you want to participate this year?
Yep, many times before! I participated in ‘04, ’05, ’06, ’08, ’09, and ’10. The only year I’ve finished was last year, when I wrote out my previous year in an urban fantasy novel. Before that, I think the furthest I got was about 10,000 words. I don’t recall what my ’04 or ’06 novels were about, but I do remember my ’05 novel was a shapeshifter romance set in the destruction of Hurricane Katrina (a real sensitive one, I am. Actually I handled it pretty well, I think, for being 17), my ’08 novel was an attempt to write my epic multi-mythology story, and my ’09 novel was about a wrongly-convicted stuntman.
Day 2 – What’s the title of your story? Why did you choose the name you did?
My novel is called “First Run.” This title works for a few reasons: one, it sums up the idea of this being the main character’s first exposure to her sexuality, and two, because the little crafts they fly are called first-runs. I thought it was appropriate for the first of a planned trilogy.
Day 3 – Pick one of your female characters. Introduce your readers to her, from her point of view and her words only.
“Hey, I’m Gus, Gus Gillis. Don’t tell him, but I’m only on the Guardian because this is where my boyfriend Koby got deployed. Seriously, he doesn’t know that. And he doesn’t know I’d do anything else for him, too. Well, except all of that…eesh, dirty touching stuff. In sessions, of course, I’m sure he does lots of things to me, but since it’s only in my mind it doesn’t matter. Anyway, I’m just trying to be the best first-run pilot I can be. I love space, but I’m glad I share it with Koby and my dog Storm.”
what’s that you say?
…oh, no, no, none of that. we’ll be NaNoing. and chatting. about cincodenada. WOOT.