NaNo reflection post

Here are my NaNo 2016 results, in a series of images.

I iz a winner!

My final word tally for 2016.
This 50k consisted of approximately 33,000 for my novella,
then bits & pieces of other novels to bump up the
word count to 50k.

My Author Bio on the NaNo site.
In attempting to reach 50k, I managed to finish two of my other
unfinished novels, THE PHOTOGRAPH and TURKEY BOURKE,
so all in all I am very happy with this year's NaNo effort.
I also wrote some more on two of my RAGEWATER novels,
which I have not done in quite a few years. Yay for that!

So that's that for another year. Now my list of "finished novels that are definitely not ready for publication" is even longer. :)

I should probably use every NaNo month from here on out to actually edit novels, not write new ones. It's good to get WIPs finished though. Less loose ends hanging around waving in the wind.

Write ... Edit ... Publish ~ GHOST STORY

First off, HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I hope you all a fun day. And I hope the world is kind to all the beautiful black kitties out there.

Secondly, it's time for the WEP, which I missed last month. WEP is hosted by my awesome fellow Aussie, Denise Covey. This month's theme is, fittingly for the time of year, "Ghost Story".

My story is actually from a novel I never ended up finishing, despite working on it across 2 years of NaNo (2004 and 2005, I believe). It's technically part of a greater epic fantasy work, but is currently a little bit disconnected from the "whole". Anyway, this is the scene as it stands after a few revisions done today. MS Word tells me it's 523 words long.

Somana stared at the ghost. She knew what it must see as it looked back at her—a face haggard and sagging, red-rimmed eyes with heavy shadows underneath. No doubt it also saw a withered, worn-out body, all planes, angles and shadows.

That was how Somana felt. Desiccated.

Soft orange-red light flickered all around, filtering through the ghost, playing tricks. The ghost stood silent, its power unspoken, undefinable…inescapable. It held Somana in its thrall, a trembling prisoner barely able to draw breath.

This had been one of the bad nights—the ones that always seemed to age Somana so dramatically. And it was far from over yet.

“Why are you here?” Somana’s voice shook. “You torment me!”

The ghost did not need her accusation. It knew.

It knew all her names: Zeille. Ereta. Joenne. Somana. It even knew the name she’d gone by as a child, a name all but forgotten now even by its owner. Best forgotten. Perish the thought of anyone speaking it aloud nowadays—such an act would surely seal Somana’s doom.

In her mind, she saw the ghost’s mouth open; saw the word, the name, slip out.

Her heart seized, stuttered. Her lungs constricted, and she was convinced they would explode at any moment.

Her life hung in the balance. Cradled in a ghost’s hands.

Empty bottles lay scattered about the room—at the foot of Somana’s chair, on every windowsill, and peeking out from beneath the thick, velvet curtains. Those glass receptacles glimmered in the firelight, mesmerising representations of the depths to which their owner had sunk. Usually a visitor wouldn’t see them, for no visitors came on bad nights like these. But the ghost saw them always, and drew them out.

Somana hated this ghost. She also loved and grieved, as she had done across all these bereaved years. The sickly feeling swelled in her breast, sweeping through her entire being, threatening to obliterate her the way endless bottles of elixir could never do. Why are you being so cruel? she wanted to ask, but her mouth no longer worked. And besides, she would never ask that question. Never could. The ghost was not being cruel on purpose. It was only fulfilling its purpose.

But she couldn’t help but wonder what sort of life this was. Could she really go on this way forever?

Her limbs had grown stiff to the point of cramping. She sweated, twitched, grimaced, whimpered, but did not move from her seat, huddled as she was against the great cushions. Sometimes she leaned forward, and always her eyes remained fixed on the spectre of her fascination. She wanted to run and hide, but she also wanted to spring forward and enfold the apparition in her embrace.

A motherly embrace...

The sun crept above the horizon but the light inside Somana’s room never changed. Only when the ghost departed would the shadows relinquish their hold on her. For now, the ghost held sway, and gained some measure of vindication. No comfort. Never that. No one could ever feel comfort here.

But when vindication was all there was to gain, it would have to do.

Query letters are hard to write because...

<< Hope Roberson recently wrote a "Best of the Best" post which focused on the art of writing pitches and loglines. In that post she talked about how whenever somebody asks her what her story's about, she gets all incoherent and "um, blah" (I paraphrased). Her point was that, surely since she wrote the story, she should be the one who knows it best, and should be able to easily summarise what it's about. But she has troubles with doing so.

I think many of us can relate to that! For me, reading her post reminded me that I've always struggled with writing queries. Maybe her post wasn't really about queries, but still, for me it's a similar deal. I wrote a successful logline once, and it garnered some serious agent interest. But queries are a different matter altogether. Sometimes it's like you've got too much space in which to ramble on, and so you end up doing just that - rambling.

But one thing I realised back when I was attempting to write queries was that...I don't actually understand my own story as well as I thought I did. The example was DAPHNE, which is the first novel I ever started other than my epic fantasy of doom that shall not be named (except it's called RAGEWATER). As I was attempting to write queries for DAPHNE, and getting seriously in-depth critique at Absolute Write, I realised I don't even know the core of what my story's about! I'd really thought I did, but the more I tried to summarise the story, the more obvious it became that I didn't.

Suffice it to say, I've stopped attempting to write queries for the time being. My novels need to actually become what they're meant to be before I can try to write a summary of what they are.

Have you mastered the art of the pitch/logline/query?

My NaNoWriMo past...and future

I thought I'd rehash my NaNo past, as well as briefly mention the future! A little research has shown me that I've done the following:

2002: ANJIE DAYS

2003: SOMANA

2007: SQUEAKY MCLEAN

2008: TURKEY BOURKE

2009: SUNDOWN

2010: NAUSICAA

In 2011, I'm writing two novels, so to the above list I will be adding:

2011: DANNA/VICTORIOUS

Because I am determined that I will win this year as well! Maybe I won't actually finish both novels. Maybe I'll finish one and not the other! Maybe both will be 'complete' (I'm doubtful of this). Either way, I will write 50k on each novel. At the very least, I will write 50k altogether. The major challenge will not be writing a total of 100k. Rather it will be attempting to finish both novels.

I've participated in NaNoWriMo during other years, but either unofficially, or unsuccessfully. So I'm not listing those here. One of the unsuccessful years was me attempting to continue with the previous year's story. I wrote a bit on it, but not 50k. One year I didn't participate at all, and another I participated unofficially.

So there you go. It's on record now, for all to see! But now it's your turn!

What's your NaNo history?

The Nature of Magic Blogfest

Yes, at last I am posting, and here is what this blogfest is all about:

"Write or share something you've already written that, to you, shows the nature of magic. It can be an excerpt from your WIP, something you've written especially, poetry, whatever strikes your fancy. It just needs to show the nature of magic as it exists for you or for those you write about." - Tessa Conte

Here's my entry, taken from my epic fantasy novel that may or may not someday be finished. For now it is an epic mess, but it holds sentimental value since I started writing it when I was about 14. Hehe. It's undergone some serious changes since it began, but anyway...here is something illustrating the nature of one particular type of magic present in my novel. Please note that it's barely edited.

"Callihroe, what happened?" she asked the stricken woman.

Callihroe's face lifted. "I betrayed my own people. I ignored the laws that have stood for centuries past. I ripped myself from my own race. I have no home."

It was a little unsettling how calmly she spoke. She almost sounded as if she did not care what she was saying.

"You also saved our lives, Callihroe. And no doubt a lot of other lives that would have been taken, too. But…tell me, how did you do it?" Thaixha asked curiously.

The snow woman shuddered. "I used the Bowfynntine." Briseis looked up sharply and walked over to stand before her as she murmured, "I am as good as dead now."

"You know the Bowfynntine?" Briseis demanded. "You know how to work it?" It was a foolish question, of course—she'd just witnessed Callihroe's knowledge with her own eyes. Still, the snow woman nodded.

"How?" Briseis asked urgently.

Callihroe shook her head tiredly. "I am as good as dead," she whispered.

Briseis sighed. "How?"

Thaixha pulled her away. "Briseis, stop it. She is upset," the Foranden said. Briseis looked away in frustration.

"What is the Bowfynntine?" Kilian spoke up from behind them. His sword was still gripped firmly in his right hand.

Callihroe turned slowly to face him. "A forbidden magic that was used in the old world. It is forbidden because of how it works. Because of the materials that are used to make it work."

"What materials would these be?" Krandak asked.

Callihroe hesitated, then stood up and waited for her head to stop spinning. She walked to one of the stone walls and placed her hands on the cool surface. Then she turned around again so that she was facing everyone.

"Souls. Souls that have been trapped within this stone for as long as my people have been dying. You see, when we die, there are a few ways we can go—and this is one of them. Those sent here are sentenced to an afterlife within these walls. I can feel the plight of the spirits here. And now, I feel their anger. They would kill if they could." She shook her head. "I can never outrun this. Someday, when my time comes, I will wind up here. And then they will have their way."

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)