SUNDOWN III revision update

To give a brief update on my revision progress, I'm ready to do one last sweep through to correct any little niggly mistakes, and then I'm going to let the revised novel sit for a while...maybe even until the end of the year since I will be busy during the second half of the year with studies.

I'm pretty happy with the progress I've made, having corrected a lot of annoying problems that have been known to me for years through many re-reads of the novel. But I definitely think I need to have fresh eyes before I go through the novel again, so I'll give it a break once this last sweep is done.

When reading through parts of the second novel in the series, I recognise so much that needs changing. It's another novel that has a lot of bloating, so it needs to be whittled. I'm not sure where it should start, but I'll have to stew on that and see what I come up with. There are also obvious changes that need to be made that are the result of me changing various plot points / settings in the first book. I'll get to that someday, but I have plenty of novels that need editing, so I might work on a novel from a different 'world' next.

In other unrelated news, I finally finished reading Jessica Bell's autobiography Dear Reflection: I Never Meant to be a Rebel. It was a fantastic read and if you didn't know it was non-fiction, you'd think you were reading some compelling novel. I'll do up a proper review to put on GoodReads / Amazon, but for now that's my quick thought on it.

Permission to fail

In 2011, I set myself some rather hefty goals. I achieved every single one of them. It was a hard push towards the end of the year to get everything done, but I did it! And it felt good. This year, I decided that if I could do all that stuff in 2011, I could sure do a similar amount in 2012. But this year I've found that, all too often, life has got in the way.

I'm still achieving some things, I suppose, but I'm behind in most of my goals, and it's going to take quite some effort to catch up. I know I can do it, but I've also realised this year that if I fail at some things, it's not the end of the world. I suppose I've given myself permission to fail, here and there. I have failed, here and there - like with NaNoEdMo, dismail failure there. I don't really want to take that too far, though...'cause who wants to feel okay with becoming a slacker?

Perhaps instead of working on my goals,
I'll just stare at this photo for a while...
Ahhh, Australian winter!

So far in 2012, I've accomplished the following:

• Preliminary read through/edit of FIRE
• Write 50k for BuNoWriMo 2012
• Finish off NaNo 2011 novel #1 (DANNA)

But I still have to do the following:

• Finish off NaNo 2011 novel #2 (VICTORIOUS)
• Win NaNo 2012
• Rewrite DAPHNE from scratch (I am thinking I'll probably use November to do this one)
• Revise all Chrysalis stories (I'm only up to #11...yikes!)

Amongst other miscellaneous things (photo sorting, blog posting, song writing, etc.).

But what am I doing instead? Working on my rewrite of SUNDOWN. It's fun, it's exhilarating, I love it. I guess I should give myself permission to do what I love, instead of what I said at the end of 2011 I would do. Right? But I'm one of those weirdos who really wants to do what she said she'd do, even if it's a little bit akin to watching grass grow.

How's this year shaping up for you so far?

Ivy and Jasmine and BuNo '12

At present, Ivy and Jasmine are my main characters. But I will probably have to rethink the name "Jasmine", because that is a little too Disney if you get what I'm saying. haha.

Ivy Night
is 16% complete

8433 / 50000 words written

I've wound up writing at a slow and steady pace, doing the minimum amount of words each day. Usually I'd be spewing out 5k a day or more, but I've opted for the slower run. I'm really enjoying the story. A few days back, I was not only writing my day's word count but also going back through the story and injecting more "magic" and more "Disney" into it. Enter the cute, furry animals. None of them talk, except psychically. Not yet. I'm not sure they should. But if it's going to be real Disney-like, then they should talk out loud. Still, I don't have to make it that Disney.

Anyway, my slow writing pace for BuNo means that I can also keep working on other projects during June. That's how I got my revisions of FIRE done a few days ago. I made the occasional report of how my word count was getting whittled down, but the final results are in. I went from 146k (though way back when, I stated that my word count had originally been 148k!) to the current figure of 106,923. The ultimate goal is to get it to 95k, but for now I'm putting it aside and moving onto something else.

What, I don't know. I have a lot of catching up to do on my Chrysalis story revisions, so I could focus on that. However, another goal I set myself is to revise DAPHNE this year. Yikes! That is quite a big one. But I did set the goal, so I have to take a stab at it. It's just that it's not so much revision as a total rewrite. I'm not used to those yet. ;) I also have yet to finish off VICTORIOUS, my second novel from last year's NaNoWriMo. I've been working haphazardly on that, but it'd be good to get it done and dusted pretty quickly. Maybe even within the next week. Probably wishful thinking, but it can't hurt to make it a tentative goal.

Anyway, I hope you are all doing well with your current projects, and enjoying your Junes!

BuNoWriMo [Days 1-3], and a haunting tune

BuNoWriMo has begun!! For anyone who doesn't know yet, it's basically another national novel writing month, but one run by the folks at the Burrow. I've added a word counter widget to my "Goals" page, so you can see how I'm doing on word count. But for the record, I'm at about 5,200 words as of the end of Day 3, and that's basically me being right on schedule. I've also got within less than one chapter of finishing my edits on FIRE!! I'm so excited at the prospect of getting that done at last. I'm going to do it before bed tonight, just 'cause I want it done. I will do a proper report on how I went with that later.

For now, I need to post this while it's still Day 3, and still Sunday (i.e. Sunday Session below). I have 2 minutes. ;)

Hope you are all doing well!! I'll be better with return comments tomorrow, I promise.

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In other news, it's Sunday, and time for another Session! Below is the song I've listened to most in the last week. Porcupine Tree's "Blackest Eyes", which I've always found kind of haunting, and after I looked up the song's meaning I found out why! But basically I think this song rocks at being inspirational when it comes to writing dark, dark stories. It's not exactly a depressing tune, in fact it kind of strikes me as blackly magical. But yeah, it's haunting.

BuNoWriMo is almost on! Oh, and I've been revising

Hart Johnson is one of those people who hosts the annual BuNoWriMo writing thingo. It's a bit like NaNo, but with less "a"s and an extra "b" and "u". And there is even a logo (actually, there are a few...see the rest of this post for more!):

Oh, fancy!

Anyway, to learn more about BuNo, check out that "Hart Johnson" link above. She tells you all you need to know. :)

I'm pretty excited about the project I've settled on for this year's BuNo challenge. I don't really want to say too much, but let's just say that I'm already imagining it as a slightly noir Disney movie with a serious twist. I'm not sure I can pull off serious twists. You've got to be a certain type of clever for that! But I'll give it my best and see what happens. All that matters, I suppose, is that I have fun with it.

Meanwhile, I've been chipping away at this year's goals that I set for myself. I've got the word count down from its original 146k to 114,668, but of course I have a fair way to go. My ultimate goal is to get to 95k and then put this novel away on the shelf until further notice. I've got other projects that I want to work on, but at the same time I'm excited about getting this one done and dusted. I doubt it'll happen before BuNo begins, but you never can tell I suppose!

Speaking of BuNo, I've been wondering if I can get away with using my BuNo project to kill two 2012 Goal birds with one stone. One goal is to, well, win BuNo. The other is to write at least 1k of new prose each week. Should I write my BuNo novel and try to write 1k a week on some other project? Gosh knows I have a lot of projects I could be working on!

Anyway, I haven't quite decided what to do with that yet, but I guess I'm not all that fussed. I'm more excited than anything! Bring on June!!

Weekly goals update, and some music

Some dot points, to start:

• With my goals this week, I've focused largely on revision, in order to try and catch up with NaNoEdMo. As a result, I've pulled really far ahead with my WIP revision, as you can see on my "task chart".
• My current WIP word count is 130,132, down from a ludicrous starting figure of about 146k. I'm finding it easy to cut out words (and by "words" I tend to mean "fluff I don't need in the least"), which this novel desperately needs. So I'm content with that.
• Many people would see this particular WIP revision as a bit of a time waster, since I'm not even sure I will ever try getting this thing published. But I'm not really doing it for that purpose; rather I'm doing it to tick an item off my very long creative to-do list.
• In just under a week's time, I leave for Paris and the U.K. and I'll be gone about a month. I will be updating during that time, mostly for the A-Z Challenge which is being pre-written and scheduled. But I'm not sure how much impromptu blog posting I'll get done.
• I haven't kept up very well with commenting on your blogs lately, but I fully intend to get better at that...starting tomorrow! Thank you for all your comments lately.
• I'm going to go and watch a bit of a movie after posting this. I will also enjoy an icy cold bottle of water (we're in the midst of a heat wave here at present, and I've never been a fan of those).

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In other news, since it's Sunday (Session #9) I'm going to share with you the music I've listened to most in the past week. The songs on the list this week are:

• Foo Fighters, "Headwires"- one of my all-time favourite Foo songs and definitely a favourite from the There Is Nothing Left To Lose album.
• Boston, "More Than A Feeling" - timeless classic, what more need a girl say?
• Goo Goo Dolls, "Lazy Eye" - I'm not familiar with many Goo Goo Dolls songs, but I really love this one! I believe it's from a Batman soundtrack or something. I could find out more but I'm too lazy right now.
• The Cult, "Fire Woman" - yet more Cult, but I'm not sure one can ever have enough! This is a song that grew slowly on me. I now love it to bits.
• Roxy Music, "All I Want Is You" - this isn't a particular favourite out of all the songs I could've chosen by these guys, but oh well, it turned up!
• Zwan, "Glorious (Live)" - love this song, despite the fact that there's only a live version released so far!

First goal victory of the year!

I finished one of the year's tasks last night (or was it the night before?), that being a rough draft of last year's NaNoWriMo novel, DANNA. That tentative title comes from the name of the main female character, Danna Karlsson. That often seems to be the way I title my novels-in-progress.

Now that DANNA is done and dusted, it's time to move onto completing my second NaNo 2012 novel, VICTORIOUS. Nope, there are no actual people in that one called Victorious. Rather it's the name of the space ship in the story. Do you think space ships count as "people"?

I've also started a casual-ish rewrite of SUNDOWN, cleverly referred to as SUNDOWN II. I'm really enjoying the writing so far, and while I couldn't help myself and had to jot down some notes for a plan (this from me, a notorious pantser from way back!), I don't feel 'hemmed in' yet. Maybe it's because I've already written the damn novel once, and feel quite at home in the world.

Elsewhere, somebody (argh, I can't remember who it was...I know I left a comment on their blog post though!)  (it was Ruthie!!) mentioned that NaNoEdMo has begun, and...I'm meant to be doing it! Today I see that the NaNoEdMo site has been attacked, and is down. Boo to that! I can still report on my revision status for the year, though - I'm working on FIRE, and so far I have got the word count down from 146k to 138k. It needs to be 95k.

Now, to conclude...how are you? How are your goals coming along? Feeling inspired? Needing chocolate? I can tell you I'm having at least a glass of full strength champers this weekend.

Revision hemming and hawing

As part of my 2012 goals, I'm revising my novel FIRE, and as I mentioned in a recent post here, it's quite possibly going to end up going the way of its fellow SUNDOWN. With the latter, I cut approximately 7k off the start during a particularly gory revision session (which was, incidentally, prompted by some very harsh critique that gave me insomnia). In that session, I got rid of a whole bunch of backstory (7k worth, matter of fact). I can totally do that with FIRE, too. The action doesn't really start until...well, probably 20k in. hahaha. Oh, I killeth me.

Seriously, I like the whole novel as it stands...but no agent or editor or publisher would. After all, it is a similar word count to what SUNDOWN used to be in the olden days (basically, I started out with about 148k to work with). So it needs serious slash 'n burn work. Still, I had decided to just get on with this edit, and leave the slash 'n burn till next round.

Now I'm thinking, What's the point in that? Why not just get straight to it now?

2012 goals so far

I've got a huge playing card collection...this is one of my packs!

(I collect them while travelling, you see)

This year, I've got my usual Goals page, but I also did up this chart (inspired by Ruthie at Live, Love, Laugh, Write! and her spreadsheet) that helps me keep track of my weekly goals. They're not all writing goals, but here's a rundown on them anyway:

• WIP chapter review - I'm working on FIRE, and I've edited two chapters which have merged into one. I've cut out a few words, but I'm already thinking of the next round of revisions where I may chop off many thousands of words from the start (as happened with SUNDOWN revisions). FIRE sure as heck needs some slash 'n burn. This round though, I'm taking it easy, to refamiliarise myself with the story.
• Chrysalis story review - I've revised two so far. One of them I'm shelving, but I'll keep working on the other in the hopes of someday submitting it somewhere. The latter started out at about 3.7k, and is now over 5k.
• Read Catrina story - Catrina is a character of Michael's creation (Michael was a participant in Chrysalis last year). He wrote many instalments of the Catrina (formerly Caitlin) saga, and somewhere along the way, I fell behind and stopped reading them. So far this year I've read two!
• Yoga classes - I skipped the first one solely due to not having any cash at all and being totally broke. Too much sharing? *Blush* But I went to yoga this week and got stretched to within an inch of my life. haha. Pigeon Pose was quite an eye-opener...
• Beach walks - I do these on the weekends. They're 4km walks followed by a glorious swim in the beautiful ocean. Got to love my home town for its beaches!
• Write song - So far I've written one, but haven't got to this week's yet. However, I have the entire weekend to work on it so I'm not worried. My goal this time is to write a rockin' song instead of yet another melancholy one (I've written a lot of melancholy stuff in the last few years).
• WIP 1000 words - Generally I've written about 1.5k per week. I'm working on DANNA, one of last year's NaNo novels). I'm mostly happy with my progress so far, but I also know that part of the story is weak, so I'll have to look at improving that later.
• Sort 100 photos - I'm well on top of this, having sorted way more than 100 photos. But the hard part of this really hasn't begun yet, scared to say!
• Monthly goals (Travel post, Book review) - I have not done either of these yet. Better get cracking!

In other news, I got some awards - THANKS people! - and will address those at some point soon. But also, check out my Blogfests, Etc. page for some cool upcoming activities!

How's 2012 going for you guys so far?

My FIRE proof (no pun intended) arrived

It arrived!! And before anyone gets the wrong idea (again) (like last time), I'm not being published. This was a free proof copy that I got as a result of participating in ABNA this year. I highly recommend that everyone participate in ABNA every year, so you can get your free proof copy too! I don't know that they do this every year, of course, but it's worth the shot! It's also worth participating in NaNoWriMo, as they usually give you a free proof copy too. For more information, you can check out this post I did a while back answering people's questions.




FYI, this was the last proof copy I got. You may notice that I stuck with the same cover design template. Both pieces of art are mine, but the template was a free one available from CreateSpace. I was pretty excited when I realised you could change the colour scheme. I figure I'll get all of the SUNDOWN novels proofed up, and all with the same template...just in different colours. And then they shall all sit on my shelf and they shall all look pretty together!

In other news...I've been kind of slack with the blogging, and that is probably because I've been kind of very slack with everything else writing-related. I'm supposed to be posting my Chrysalis story this week over at the Chrysalis blog, but I haven't quite finished it yet. I only started it last night. One excuse is that the prompt went up late. The main excuse though is no excuse at all - just a slacker's pathetic reason for why she didn't get her act together sooner. However, I have to say I'm quite enjoying my life right now, so I guess I'm okay with slacking just a little.

Still, there are two major goals I have yet to meet this year: Preparing SUNDOWN for beta readers (including actually sending it out to them), and completing a preliminary read-through/edit of NAUSICAA. I know I've got 5 months to get those two things done in, and that's plenty of time. But I do feel the days ticking away, slowly but surely. ;)

I just finished reading L.K. Madigan's FLASH BURNOUT, and absolutely adored it. You can read my review at GoodReads.

And in other news, I have a rooster in my back yard. I'm not sure if I mentioned him before, but my cat likes to chase him. Even at risk to himself (roosters have sharp beaks!).

ABNA proof...goals update

"Thank you for ordering a proof of Fire, Title #3645196. Your order has shipped."

My ABNA code has been used, and I am excited! Yes, FIRE needs serious editing, but I figure by reading the book in paperback form I can make notes as I go on what needs editing. Hehe. It's going to be a pretty large book, but then so was my proof copy of SUNDOWN (I've since shaved off about 40k from that one...hehe).

Can't wait to see it!!

In other news, I still haven't finished reading my 25th book of the year, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. I blame a weekend in which I got no reading done. But for only good reasons. ;) As for other goals, I've decided that in getting back to my revisions of SUNDOWN I may print out the whole manuscript...despite not being done with my previous goal of getting through the revision I abandoned at the end of May before doing a print-out. I just think I need to read stuff on paper instead of on the computer.

In Chrysalis news, we've reached the halfway mark!! I've written 26 short stories in 26 weeks. I reported on my stats here, but suffice it to say that because of Chrysalis, I've written 69,007 words this year. Not counting all the other stuff I wrote during BuNo, etc.

Ooh, I forgot, I get to cross BuNoWriMo off my goals list! Yay!

It's been difficult to keep up on blog reading lately, but I've done my best to get bits and pieces of reading/commenting in. I really appreciate all the visits I get at this blog though, and I do try my best to reciprocate!

Hope you're all going well!

Jenni Merritt, BuNo, ABNA...and Helmet

Gotta love the acronyms! But "Jenni Merritt" is not an acronym of course. ;) It's a person! Or rather, she is a person. Okay, now that we've sorted that out, I want to mention Jenni Merrit's Race to 100 Followers. She's sooo close, and just needs a few more followers before the fun begins. Not that it's not fun already! Hehe. Anyway, just so you know, prizes are involved. And Jenni is worth following!

BuNoWriMo - I wrote a bit more last night. Today is the last day, and while I've already won in terms of getting past 50k, I have more work I can do on JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE. Yeah, it's a working title, and I'm okay with that. Hehe. I'm really loving the story. You can see some excerpts on my Lovin' the Language Blogfest entry, and also you can read the whole first bit (which may or may not have since been edited/expanded upon) over at the Chrysalis Experiment blog.

ABNA - I've decided (I think) to work a little bit on getting FIRE ready, and using that to order my free proof copy from CreateSpace. I did think about doing some kind of compilation thing so I could include some of my BuNo stories, Chrysalis stories, etc. But then I thought nahhh, I'd rather do a full novel. I contemplated doing DAPHNE, but I have a plan for how to completely revise that, so there's no point in ordering a proof copy of it yet. And speaking of DAPHNE, I'm really excited about my plan for that one!! So anyway...that's the plan!

And finally, I went to a gig on Tuesday night - yes, in my city even the big artists/bands tend to play on "school nights". It makes me maaaad! Anyway, I saw Helmet, who I've been wanting to see since I was 14 or 15 years old (I'm almost 31 now). You can read my rather lengthy review of that show here, if you are bored with nothing else to do. Hehe. But suffice it to say, it was one of the most amazing gigs I've ever been to! I met Page Hamilton, had a chat with him, and got his autograph. Very, very stoked over here.

And that's all I have to say for now! Gonna go check out some blogs, which I've been kind of slack at lately due to being overwhelmed by life's demands on my time.

How are you?? What have you been up to?

A-Z blogging challenge "J" - Blog Chain (my character interviews me)

Okay, so this is another "two birds, one stone" moment, where I participate in this month's AbsoluteWrite blog chain, and post my A-Z entry for the letter J. At first we were going to interview our characters, but then orion_mk3 came up with an even cooler idea - have our characters interview us!).

I have decided to give the reins to the ghost of one of my characters, JD. FYI, "JD" is just what I'm calling him (his name does start with J, but in the novel(s) he's called by his full name, not JD). So, let's see how I fared under JD's interrogation:

JD appears to me in my dreams, crossing his arms and frowning at me. “So, what’s with all these ‘J’ names? I mean, you’ve got Jared, you’ve got Jules, and then there’s me! What is it, a J fixation or something?”

I tilt my head in thought. “Honestly? It just happened that way. Don’t accuse me of having some master J-name plan or something, because I didn’t.”

He shrugs. “Okay, take it easy! But look, I really want to know—why’d you have to kill me off? What’d I ever do to you?”

“I’m sorry about that—I really am. But I had to kill off the absolute nicest character I could find—and you qualified. At least you went down happy, right?”

“Well, that’s true,” he says thoughtfully. “I was doing what I love best. Still, I brought such shame on my bandmates—did you ever think how my death would impact them?”

“I’m really sorry, but it had to happen.”

He lifts his brows. “Okay, don’t even say it was for character development! I’ve heard that one too many times.”

“But you’ve got to admit Jared and Louise were just way too pukeishly happy—I had to mess it up for them somehow, didn’t I?”

“Still!” he protests, “They’re such good people! And they’d already gone through so much.”

“Listen, I was hurting too, man! I was hurting for them. But as Louise herself once said, ‘Life needs the ups and downs...doesn’t it?’ So in a way, she kind of asked for it.”

JD’s eyes flash with anger, an emotion he very rarely felt while he was living. “That’s crap! You need to seriously rethink what you do for kicks—killing people off, throwing spanners in works, tearing lovers apart.”

“Gee, JD, I’ve gotta say, you’re a lot more feisty as a ghost.”

He frowns. “I’ve had a lot of time to stew in my own angry juices, I guess.”

“But at least you got teamed up with Orestes in the afterlife, right?”

“True,” he says with reluctance. “That dude is hilarious.”

“He is. And I’m glad you guys get along.”

JD mutters to himself. “Still, it’s no excuse!”

“Look, is there anything else you wanted to ask? I’ve got to get going...I’ve just finished draft #3 of book 1 and I need to get onto the next version.”

He rolls his eyes. “All right—one last question. Those two are gonna be happy in the end, right?”

“Oh yeah, don’t worry. Credits will roll and the audience will be left with one seriously huge Happily Ever After.” After a moment I add, “Any future misery will be off camera.”

“Errr...that doesn’t really reassure me much...”

“Seriously,” I say, reaching out to squeeze JD’s hand. “It’s going to be okay. Now you really should go off and rest in peace.”

With that, he begins to fade.

And here's a list of other participants:

orion_mk3 - http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com
LadyMage - http://katherinegilraine.com
COchick - http://joannchaney.blogspot.com
Steam&Ink - http://steamandink.blogspot.com
xcomplex - http://www.arielemerald.blogspot.com
pezie - http://www.erinbrambilla.com
aimeelaine - http://www.aimeelaine.com/blog
auburnassassin - http://clairegillian.com
Della Odell - http://dellaodell.wordpress.com
Juniper - http://www.katjuniper.com
Proach - http://desstories.blogspot.com
dolores haze - http://dianedooley.wordpress.com/

Back in business!

Yesterday I finally made it home after a looong series of flights that took me in this direction:

Spokane - Las Vegas - Los Angeles - San Francisco - Sydney - Melbourne - Perth.

And that was all so I could save $1,100 on flight costs. I guess it was worth it in the end, but it sure felt like a trial as I staggered through various airports of the world (including two in Sydney, international and domestic). Then I had a taxi driver who insisted on driving 10kph below the speed limit! That irritated me just a little.

But anyway, here is a picture of me as a bridesmaid!

Anyway, I've finished this week's Chrysalis story, and while I think it won't go very far, and I may never edit it again, it was fun to write. I wrote about a pair of ghosts who get stuck in purgatory, or what they call "the After".

I did indeed submit to the ABNA competition, and thankfully my query was in relatively good shape (compared to former shapes it's known) so I felt pretty good about submitting that.

In other news, I'm still slowly working on editing SUNDOWN, and am nearing the end of the first draft of STORM. But I'm looking most forward to NaNoEdMo when I can sink my claws into FIRE and get it shredded to bits. Yay!!

Sorry I have been out of touch with everyone! You have not been out of mind, only out of sight, for the last two weeks. :) I will work on getting caught up on everyone's blogs, and more importantly their adventures in writing. Hope everyone has been safe and happy!

ABNA...why not?

Has anyone else entered this yet? I know the deadline's not till Feb. 6, but I've already put mine in. I've gone with SUNDOWN. Every now and then I go back and edit what's there, i.e. the pitch.

It's exciting!

In the critiquing circle I'm participating in via AW, I'm the next up for having my chapters ripped apart. Should be fun, and hopefully helpful too!

Meanwhile, I have written a bit more of STORM in the last few days, and I am currently halfway through the 2nd-last chapter. I'm pretty sure there'll only be one more after this one, to tie things up. But who knows what'll happen during revisions.

I've really been looking forward to NaNoEdMo, when I can really get stuck into editing FIRE. I can't wait to see the words slough away under my iron editing thumb. Er, yes, my thumb is iron. Or it will be.

And that's about it for updates. Except I wrote a story this week for Chrysalis which involves my idea of the most pathetic girl on the planet. I feel sorry for her, because her entire life is her jerk-faced boyfriend. And guess what happens? He dumps her.

As my critiquing buddy Jenn put it after reading... "Ouch."

Speaking of both Jenn AND Chrysalis, Jenn's story is up for this week. And I must say that after reading it, I was in a state of shock and awe. It's pretty AWESOME.

Wait, wait, waiting for Prompt #3

Not long now until Jenn's prompt appears on The Chrysalis Experiment blog. Weeks 1 and 2 were really fun and interesting for me. Can't wait to see what Week 3 brings. So far I've written sci-fi and horror/mystery, so what will I write next? I love not having a clue!

I've written about half of the third-last chapter of STORM. I could even imagine getting the thing (i.e. the entire novel) done before I hope on that plane on Thursday morning. But we'll see. I'm not pushing myself, particularly. I do have the entire year to get it done after all.

As for other goals, I'm looking forward to NaNoEdMo so I can get stuck into editing something new for a change (watch out FIRE, you're gonna get shred-DED!).

Meanwhile, I've got a plane or 3 to catch this week, a wedding to attend (in the Canadian Rockies, and as a bridesmaid, woo!), and...well, I guess that's it really! It'll do for the time being.

Last night I had a weird dream about attending a Smashing Pumpkins concert and seeing a friend get back stage with Billy, while I was left behind. The friend wasn't even a fan. LOL. It was a weird dream. Do any of you ever get inspired by dreams? I've written a few stories based on dreams before, and intend to write more in future. I've had some wacky dreams for sure.

Talk about 'taking a break'

I was saving DAPHNE editing for NaNoEdMo. But guess what happened? I gave into the compulsion to start editing NOW NOW NOW. I'm finding that the parts I haven't really edited seriously for 11 years (yes, I started this novel at the age of 19, which happens to be my protagonist's age too, and only finished it at the beginning of 2009, when I was 28.5 years old. Now can we got on with the blog post?! Cheers.) are kind of easy to edit. Of course, I cut out a whole chunk of Chapter 1, put the polished remains on AW, and got feedback very quickly that made me see how I needed to pretty much rewrite the chapter. Which I since did, and I'm a lot happier with the result. Got to wait on some feedback on that now. But I'm feeling positive.

Still, my whole point was...you know how people say it's good to take a break once you've finished your novel, to catch your breath/gain some perspective/recover? Well, I guess I took a two-year break after completing the novel. But from the vast majority of it, I took a ten-year break! That oughta give me perspective, don't you think?

When I started this story, I didn't know where it was going. That's how I've written most of my stories. No clue how they were going to end. There have been a few exceptions, namely last year's NaNo efforts (SUNDOWN and friends), but for the most part, I've made it up as I went along. So I fully expect Daphne to be a complete mess (not just the character, I already know she's a mess; with that family, who wouldn't be?). But it feels good to already have some idea of what I am going to need to look out for during my edits/rewrites. I think it's really helped me, working on formulating a query letter for Daphne. I've been forced to think about what the real heart of the story is about (guess that's the glory of query letter writing, isn't it?), and I'm going to carry that into the editing process.

Anyway...what's NaNoEdMo gonna do without Daphne?

I'm thinking I'll either go back to Plan A, which was editing FIRE from last year's NaNo series. And that novel sure as heck needs editing (I won't even repeat the word count here, it's so obscene). OR I could look at this year's NaNo story, NAUSICAA. But...I don't know if I'll be ready to face that for a while to come yet.

Oh, and I should mention I did work a bit on writing out more of my travel memoir. But it's hurting my brain. I think my plan there should be to finish transcribing what I can of my actual journals (it's hard to read my handwriting sometimes...not good!), then print it all out, THEN get around to the actual writing out of the memoirs.

I think that's all I feel the urge to say about where my writing/revision is at for now.

I hope everyone's going well with their own revisions/story writing. And happy holidays to anyone who's going AWOL for Christmas/New Year's!

P.S. I also tried to get back to writing STORM, book 5 in last year's NaNo series. But there was no flow. I think my plan there is to re-read from the start, to get back into the feel, before adding any new material. And actually, THAT is a novel that could use a blog post all of its own, so I can discuss the peculiar 'disjointed' feeling I got while writing what I have of it so far. But yeah...some other time maybe I will get around to talking about individual works of mine, when I'm not in the midst of a "AHHH must edit EEEEVERYTHING in sight!" frenzy.

Writing G O A L S + 2011

2009 Achievements:
1. Finished off DAPHNE, after 10 years of writing it (I was 19 when I began, and 29 when I finished). Still needs editing!
2. Wrote little bits and pieces of stories, and edited bits and pieces of others, during the year, until November, when...
3. During NaNoWriMo I finished a 116,000 word story (the first in the Midnight SUNDOWN series) and quickly started in on its prequel, for which I wrote about 20k before the end of November

2010 Achievements:
1. Completed 3 novels in the Midnight SUNDOWN series, then realised that the 2nd novel actually needed to be divided in 2. The second half of it made a complete novel, but the first half needed some better ending. I still haven't given it that.
2. Started book 4 (which since the division of book 2 became book 5) in the Midnight SUNDOWN series, and still have not finished it.
3. Completed first revision of SUNDOWN, taking word count from 116,000 to 147,000. Yikes.
4. Cut about 19k from SUNDOWN during 2nd revision (have not finished this revision, but hoping to get there in the next week or so).
5. Participated in NaNoWriMo 2010, and won with a 94k novel.

And now onto the point of this blog entry: things I want to achieve in 2011.

Things I know I can do in 2011
1. Finish current edit of Sundown and order a proof copy of it via CreateSpace (this is free!!)
2. Participate in NaNoEdMo 2011, working either on book 4 of the Midnight SUNDOWN series, or my DAPHNE novel - at the moment I'm leaning further towards concentrating on Daphne
3. Participate/run the short story year-long workshop project with my critiquing buddies, possibly will be showcase this on Blogger - the Chrysalis Experiment
4. Keep my writing blog at Blogspot going & hopefully prospering a bit
5. Win NaNo 2011
6. Finish off first draft of STORM from the Midnight SUNDOWN series
7. Maybe look at doing a preliminary read-through/edit of Nausicaa (NaNo '10 novel)

Things I'd like to look at but probably will not get done in 2011
1. Preliminary edits of FIRE and EXCISION from the Midnight SUNDOWN novels
2. Figure out how to finish off CARNIVAL from the Midnight SUNDOWN novels series
3. Finish off 2008's NaNo novel (TURKEY BOURKE)
4. Get through 1st proper edit of SQUEAKY

Things I KNOW I will not get done in 2011
1. Finish off RAGEWATER book 1
2. Finish off SOMANA from the RAGEWATER series (probably has 40k to go)