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Posts Tagged ‘nation novel writing month’

Nano Crazy 2012

So, I finished Avarice: Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division Book 1 and it is currently going through edits.  It’ll be up sometime in early November I think.

The good news is that I’m writing again.  I still feel weird and a little rusty after the accidental break I took, but so far my first readers are saying Avarice is really good, so at least my feelings aren’t reflecting on the writing quality too much.

So I’m getting ready for NaNoWriMo.  I have a couple of novellas to finish up this week so I can get the first Gryphonpike Chronicles omnibus out, but then I’m going to switch to writing a few short novels (pulp length- 35k-45k) for NaNoWriMo and beyond.

And because I love covers and they help me focus on what I’m doing, here’s a preview of what I’ll be working on:

The Dying of the Light: military fantasy about a non-combatant who carries the banner of the king (art by Katerina Romanova).

A Prince Called Courage: fairytale fantasy/romance about a cursed prince, a quest, and making the right decisions (art by Claudia McKinney).

Mayhem: fantasy about a girl living on an archipelago who accidentally releases an evil power into the world and must stop it (art by Tiziano_Baracchi).

So that’s what I’ll be working on during November (along with maybe a couple more, but I don’t have covers for those yet and I might not get to them until December anyway).  It works out to about 4,000 words a day or about 3-4 hours of work daily to finish these.  As usual for my Nano Crazy, I don’t expect I’ll get everything done, but the nice thing about aiming for lots is that even getting half or more done means getting a lot finished.  Anything I get finished will be edited and available to read by the end of the year, so if any of these look cool, make a note. 🙂

On National Novel Writing Month

I’m taking a 1credit course that involves just doing NaNo.  Yes, I’m getting a graduate credit towards my MA degree for this.  Ah, motivation.

There are many conflicting opinions about Nanowrimo.  Some feel it is the only way they will ever get a novel done.  Some think that it encourages bad writing and misleads people into thinking they’ve got something publishable at the end of the 30 days.  Some feel even more strongly negative than that.  Most, however, that I’ve run into feel it is a fun challenge.  A way to turn off the inner editor and get to work.

I’m not sure what camp I’m in exactly.  Would I do NaNo if it wasn’t on a dare (how I ended up doing it the first time) or for course credit?  Maybe, but probably not.  From my last experience, you get the first part of a very very rough draft, at best, out of the whole thing.  This NaNo I’m trying to make it at least a full first draft by doubling the word requirements from 50k to 100k.  50k is just a really long novella to me.

I’ve got the first chapter.  About 2200 words and counting now.  I want 5k by the end of the weekend and then hopefully I can make Mon/Wed/Fri 8-10k word days because T/Th I have class.

Will I have a novel at the end? Sort of.  I hope to have something I can work with as a rough draft.  Will it be a pleasant read? Likely not, though I don’t engage in any of the random filler dares that people play with during NaNo a great deal it seems.  I hope to have a few interesting characters and a somewhat coherent plot.

Anyway, I’ll update here as progress happens.  And good luck to anyone else engaging in the insanity.  Remember, it is supposed to be silly and fun.