Nano update 1

I am up to 2252 words in two days of writing. Yippee. :) I'm working on a "C" plot on the alpaca romance novel I started last year.

I'm still sick, but not as sick as before. Husband is now sick. Hoping kids don't get sick. Everything happens during Nano, doesn't it?

m

Derailed already

Nothing much stops me. The stomach flu stops me.

What a way to start a month of writing everyday! I spent the evening of November 1 on the bathroom floor and the whole of November 2 trying to recover. I canceled classes today, and I will finally write today, though I still feel gross.

Any words on a page count, though. I'll get "any" today, for sure.

Of course, that's what I said on Nov. 1, just hours before I was unable to write. *sigh*

m

NaNoWriMo--"adaptive"

I am, indeed, "doing" NaNoWriMo this year...only, I'm doing a wussy version.

I vow that this November (2011), I shall write every day.

That's all. I'm not going to put a word goal, or a time goal, or a story completion goal or anything. I just want to use Nanowrimo as a way to get back on the horse.

One of my friends is joining me in this write-every-day quest. Yay! Solidarity!

So, now I'm going to stop blogging and start writing before the baby wakes up (oops. too late).

m

Camp Nanowrimo

http://campnanowrimo.org/

Hey!

Because life isn't crazy enough, I am going to do Camp NaNoWriMo this August! Actually, I need the kick in the pants to get back to writing regularly, and Nano has always done that for me.

Also, I'm cheating this summer: I am going to use Camp Nano to finish my BIAM novel from last August. 50K words are a few more than the novel technically needs to be "finished," but it is easier to cut than to add (some say).

I'm inviting my writing friends to join the challenge! If you sign up for Camp Nano, friend me! I'm "Marenster."

ta

m

Novel "finished!"

I did it! I wrote "The End" on the novel I started November 2009 for NaNoWriMo! This is great news because I have an appointment in 2 1/2 weeks to pitch it to an editor from Tor at the Willamette Writers' Conference. That gives me time to clean up the manuscript and write a pitch and a one-sheet for it.

Oh, and this whole "pitching" process scares the pee-diddle out of me. It took me 36 years to get over the pain of rejection via snail mail and email, but now I've signed up for a crash-course in face-to-face rejection. This may sound overly pessimistic, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I'm considering these pitch sessions as practice, and as another writer friend put it, a chance to write "I met you at the 2010 WWC. Here's some new writing of mine" in a future query letter.

I am going to pitch my 2009 novel Liz A. Stratton Closes the Store at this conference, too. It's much more "done" than Something, but the pitching is going to be no less scary for me.

But none of this takes away from the good news that I have now finished two entire novels! Something weighs in at 95K, which makes it my longest work yet, and I think it's a fun read. It's a complete departure from LSCTS. Something is a story about a dragon that shows up in rural Oregon (in fact, the county I live in). I think I'm going to pitch it as a cross between the movie Outbreak and the Pern books by Anne McCaffrey. The story includes a medical mystery, a veterinary mystery, a May/December romance and, of course, a dragon.

Now I get to edit the book, which I find fun. Not as fun as crafting the story, but fun in a different way. It's a different hat, which I like well enough, especially when I'm not wearing it to correct student papers.

That's it for now. ta
m

2009 reflection, 2010 planning

Such a transformative year! One year ago last Friday, I began this blog to keep myself honest. It was a second step in me becoming a more serious writer (I count NaNoWriMo 2008 as the first step). I am hopeful that the next twelve months will be even more so.

Here's a recap of my writing year, 2009:

2009 new words

18 K LSCTS
+50 K Something
_____
=68 K new novel words
+15K Short stories
+150+ pages of scripts (at 100 wds/page or less)
----------------------------
about 100K = total new words in 2009

To qualify this paltry number, I do want to point out that the fire wasn't really lit under my ass until September, thanks to Kris and Dean. Still, I don't remember the last time I had a 100,000 word year...probably not since graduate school, and almost none of those words were fiction.

In the mail:
4 short story queries (with 4-5 needing to be re-submitted)
6 Novel queries for LSCTS.

Here are my 2010 goals:

1. 20 novel pages or one short story a week (about 5K)
2. Stories and finished novels in the mail same week finished.
3. Script Frenzy in April (with class?)
   
4. NaNoWriMo in November (with class!)
5. 48-hour Film Project in August
6. One blog post a week. I need to at least post my wordcount, but I am considering posting excerpts, etc., too. Of course, once something sells, it will be all over this baby. :)
   

That's all for now! Wish me luck. I wish all of you, happy readers, a fully creative new year!
maren

Need I say more?

Well, I won't because I'm exhausted. I'll just say that I finished early and watched Monday Night Football, a whole game, without any work in front of me or anything, as a reward.

la

m

Nano has swallowed my time

No posting = lots of novel being written.

As you can see by the widget to the left, I've had some trouble keeping up with my wordcount this month. There has been far more drama this month than I anticipated, but who can anticipate drama?

I am now 300 words ahead of the curve, thanks to the fact that no one comes to my Tuesday office hours. That means lots of time for me to "grade" and "prep for class." *wink wink*

In preparation for next week's nanoclassmo, here is a link to Scott William Carter's blog. He's coming next week to answer the question: "I've written a novel! Now what?" His book comes out in 2010.

Okay, must go get ready for class. *wink*
m

Nano Update

16,708 words in ten days! Whoo-wee. When you say it like that, it sounds like a lot. The fact that I haven't written a word on this blog in ten days tells you a little about how intense it is to do #Nano, too.

The book has taken over by putting my MC into the hospital, where she cannot be the center of the action anymore. Her husband and veterinarian have taken that over (her vet for her mule).

I've caught the bug du jour...probably not the swine flu, since I am up and talking, but it's bad enough it really hurt my wordcount for a couple days.

Otherwise, I've recieved two story rejections in the mail. I've got to find time to put the stories back into the mail, and find one or two more publishers to send last year's nano book to.

The NanoClassMo was tonight, too, and we've had a couple people drop out because life got in the way, and a couple peole re-appear from the depths of life getting in the way. I'm so glad those people returned, and so sad about the people who've left. I think everyone is having a good experience with the writing, though, no matter what their wordcounts.

All right. I need to drag my sick carcass back to bed.
G'night.
m

NaNoWriMo is just hours away!

I'm less prepared than I was last year for NaNo. Last year, I had practically the entire book outlined and characters firmly sketched. However, last year I based the book on Lysistrata, so I had a full set of fully-formed characters and a pre-existing plot to follow.

This year, I don't have a firm handle on my main character, and I only have an elevator-pitch for my plot:

Outbreak meets Jurassic Park meets Anne McCaffery.

I think this will be a wild ride, though. I have several short stories on this basic idea that date back to when I was in high school (egad!). One of the stories in the mail right now sparked the idea of the book.

Well, I'm going to do a modicum of research on what a state wildlife officer does so there will be some verisimilitude in my book.
ta
m

Weekly update

This week, I got a novel rejection from Simon and Schuster, but whichever little intern read it, carefully folded the packet and stuffed it into my #10 SASE! Bonus. I had a glimmer of misguided hope when I held the weighty envelop in my hand, though.

I also received an email confirmation from Tin House that they had entered my (snail-mailed) story into their online submission form. It should be easier to track, I suppose.

I am mailing a fantasy story tomorrow to a fantasy magazine, though I have since realized that the story is actually the first vignette of the novel I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo. Dragons meet Outbreak meets Jurassic Park. Should be fun to write. :)

Writing-wise, I started a story about a girl and some alpacas, which wants to become My Friend Flicka with alpacas. I'm pretty sure I can sell a story to an alpaca magazine I subscribe to, but as a novel idea, it'll have to wait until after Nano.

The NaNo class begins on Tuesday! Yikes! That means I only have two weeks to commit to a novel idea (Dragons Amok is only the leading contender), and I have to finalize what I'm going to teach. I've got the first couple weeks under control, but it's the four in November that I really need to plan out before they happen. I'll be too busy to plan once NaNo start.

By the way, anyone who wants to follow me on the NaNo website, my handle is "marenster," just like it is on Twitter.

That's all for now!
m

NaNo Class is supported by OLL!

The Office of Letters and Light (the people who run NaNo) got back to me and said that the NaNo class is not only kosher, but they are really excited that people are teaching it in colleges and community centers. They've asked that I help out with some project connected with teachers and NaNo. Naturally, I will help in any way possible.

This is a great load off my mind. The last thing I wanted to do was somehow harm NaNo. Such a relief!

So, come take my class! I will help you through NaNo! yahoo!

m

NaNo Class in Salem Monthly

Therese O'Neil wrote a great article about my NaNo class in the Salem Monthly.

Please tell your friends about the class. At the moment, the cost is probably going to be under $100 for the seven-week class.

m

NaNoWriMo Class a Go!

I don't have all the details, but the NaNoWriMo class is a go! Once a week for seven weeks, I'll meet with students who want to write 50K words in 30 days for NaNo.

• The first two weeks are going to be focused on getting ready for NaNo: finding a story, getting into the writing habit, making sure the friends and family know what people are up to so they aren't offended when they are put off by the writers.
• The month of November will be devoted to writing in class and supporting each other including helping people write themselves out of tight spots, etc.
• The last night will be a post-mortem of NaNo and Scott Carter is going to give a talk on what to do once you've written a book.

This class is NOT going to be a traditional writing workshop where we critique each other's work. The idea is to get a first draft of a book out there. And it's allowed to SUCK. In fact, if it doesn't suck, you probably weren't doing NaNo right.

The whole idea is to use the impetus to get a first draft out because you can't have a second draft if you don't have a first draft. To that end, writers are not allowed to go back and revise anything. If it sucks, you'll go fix it later. It's all about moving forward until you get to the end of the book.

So, once I get specific information, I'll post it here and broadcast it to the world. It ought to be a wild ride.

Oh, yeah. We decided the class is going to be called "Write Your First Novel in Thirty Days." Catchy, huh?

m