Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

I finished my NaNo novel today. Just over 60k words. I hit 50k on Monday, which means I technically won on Monday. It will need a lot of editing work and no doubt will be padded out significantly, since I write pretty bare-bones during NaNo. But still, I did the 50k in 8 days. I am not sure how this happened. I still like my story, and think it has good potential once I revamp, rewrite, and edit the hell out of it in December. I could start that now. But I don’t want to.

So instead, I am starting another novel. I figured, hey, it’s only the 12th, and I’d already written 60k. Even if I don’t finish the second one (enter competitiveness again – I MUST FINISH IT), I have already written a novel in a week and a half. I still have over half the month left. And as is always said during NaNo, even if you don’t finish, anything you write is something you didn’t have written before. And that’s nothing to sneeze at.

And so, novel #2 begins. Untitled as yet, and a sequel to something I already wrote (not this year’s NaNo novel #1), but I’m now at 65k total for the month. It was agreed during a write-in I attended tonight that I ought to just continue counting words from where I was rather than starting a second account on the website or whatever. So my word count now includes both novels.

I was feeling kind of deflated, having finished so early, but now I’m kind of jazzed. New challenge! Two novels! Vastly different styles! Hahahaha! So now I can do all new dares, and use the Traveling Shovel of Death, and push myself to another 50k! Boo-rah!

<insert evil scientist laugh>

I think NaNoWriMo is stealing my sanity instead of my soul. Possibly both. But it’s so much fun. And I already have an idea for next year’s plot. Woohoo!

A friend posted this poem to her facebook. I think I’ve read it before, but it really struck me today. I just love it.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
- William Ernest Henley

Project Alpha has written another book, this time a sequel to his “Bat and Ghost” book, “Bat and Cat”. He’s already plotting book three in the series, which will be titled “Bat and Rat”. Clearly he has already discovered the benefits of formulaic sequels, even at age 6.

I have, through a series of tweets that were entirely not my fault (I blame Linda. Peer pressure), signed up for NaNoWriMo this year. It isn’t my first NaNo. I did 2008 (and won) and 2009 (and won, though as a NaNo Rebel – writing in two stories instead of one). It isn’t my first novel, either. I’ve completed five original and three fanfic novels. So I shouldn’t really be biting my nails at the thought of writing another – but it’s not so much the completed novel as it is the time frame. Which is the whole point of NaNoWriMo, in case you didn’t know – 50,000 words in 30 days.

That’s not a lot of time. It equals out to 1667 words a day though, and honestly, that’s not much. It’s not even a chapter. It’s barely a scene. So in bite-size chunks, it’s doable. You just have to buckle down, is the key. And beat your muse into shape. I did it before, so I’m not too worried. This year, I’m not in school, I don’t have any dance performances scheduled for November but do have to prepare for a workshop I’m teaching on Dec 4th, my kids are 6 and thus in school from 8am-2pm, and That Man will only be home part of the month. Basically, if I can get my ass in gear and write every weekday for at least 2000 words while the monkeys are in school, I think I can make it. This is me being confident.

Seriously though, I don’t do well with failure. I like to win things. I NEED to be the top, the best. So while there is not really any actual pressure to complete NaNoWriMo (nothing happens if you lose except that… you lose), I put huge pressure on myself. I must finish it. It’s a sickness, I realize this.

So I now have between November 1st and November 30th to write a new novel. I know what I’m going to write. Vaguely. Now I need to do some planning. In 2008 I had a very definite outline, chapter-by-chapter, and I’m not sure how much it helped. I think I might try doing a more winging-it style this year and just have events I want to happen and string them together as necessary. I don’t know. I have 9 days (well, 8 really, since it’s already 9:30 at night) to decide if I want to make an outline. And pick character names. And some sort of plot points. I had this idea a few months ago for a Regency romance novel – as is well documented by my reading habits, I love them – and I will be writing that. But I never fleshed out the idea fully.

I suppose that’s what the rest of October is for. And inventing dukes, marquesses, earls, and viscounts. Whee!

Hey, don’t call me next month. I’ll be busy.

So last month I went to Orlando with some friends, to go to Infinitus and the Harry Potter theme park at Universal Orlando. They really should stop calling it the “Harry Potter theme park” and go ahead and admit that it’s “the small corner of Islands of Adventure that we set aside to be Harry Potter, consisting of three stores, a restaurant, and three rides”. If you’ve been to Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Islands of Adventure is roughly the same size, with the HP area about the size of France or Ireland. But I digress.

I took a lot of pictures. Here are the ones that don’t involve other people’s face who may not want to be posted on my tiny unknown blog. Some are of Infinitus, some of the park and other Universal environs, some of our hotel (the Portofino Bay, which was totally ricockulously awesome).