Shiny New Ideas

Two years ago, I was starting to get worried. It had been a while since I’d had a ‘shiny new idea’ and I knew that NaNoWriMo was coming up. I try and write something brand new for NaNoWriMo, and by the middle of the year, I usually had a basic idea for what I would work on.

I really didn’t need to worry. It’s amazing how stress can affect the creative muscle. By the end of July, I had a full-fledge idea, one that turned into four books, and sustained me for two years of NaNoWriMo.

You’d think that I’d learn from that experience, but here I am, two years later, again worried about NaNoWriMo. The rest of the year, I know I’m set. I’m editing and revising to my heart’s content, but the closer I get to November, the more my brain starts to panic, thinking that I won’t be ready.

Most of my panic is because I’m a planner. I need a thick and detailed bible ready before I can even start writing the first word. I want to know the direction the story’s headed, and the character backgrounds. I need to know the culture, their beliefs… I even tend to draw out the setting so I have a feel for the world.

I had a basic idea, but it wasn’t fleshed out, mostly because it was so generalized and so vague that I didn’t even know how to flesh it out.

Here’s the secret to shiny new ideas:

Always pay attention to everything. You never know what will start a spark.

Last time this happened, hubby and I went to the museum for our anniversary. Not because either of us were particularly interested in pirates, but because we wanted to get out of the house. The entire experience was a fodder for ideas, and pirates played a heavy role in my later book.

This year, all it took was an article on Pinterest, with a title that was much more interesting than the article itself. It was the spark that I needed to turn my vague idea into something that keeps me awake at night, planning and plotting for November.

How about the rest of you? Where do you get your ideas? Are you already planning for NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo Research

One of the reasons why I love writing is because I get to learn about so many different things. Research is a real thing, and I feel that the more I write, the more I get to learn. Last November, for NaNoWriMo, I had three separate books planned, which mean that in October, I was in full-blown research mode. Here’s just a few things that I got to research while I was preparing for NaNoWriMo:

Prosthetics (focusing on climbing prosthetics and materials)

How to play poker

Origin of Gargoyles

Native American Smoke Signals

Hunting techniques of foxes

How to escape quicksand

Types of screwdrivers

The Walking Dead TV show

Popular Bing Crosby songs

Pearl Diving

Sirens/Harpies

Prophecies

Climbing Competitions

It’s so much fun to research, and even more fun when you’re able to apply it into your writing. I’ve fallen down several black holes of research where I find such random and wonderful things to learn.

What are some of the things that you’ve had to research for writing recently?

Why I Plot

I spend most of my year excited for November. Dreaming about November. Anticipating November. Because of the time I spend thinking about it, I also plan for November. In fact, I consider myself an obsessive planner.

I’ll work on my characters, and my character bios. I know their fears, their dreams, their goals, and their background stories. I plan my setting, draw out maps, name all of the places they frequent, just in case it comes up. I outline, and then I outline, then I outline again. I usually have about three outlines, each one expanding on the previous.

Why is this important?

Last month, I was able to write three different books in thirty days. I was able to start and throw out scene after scene, and it was because of my extensive planning. This year, I decided to go a step further and do a scene by scene plan. I’ve always had a detailed outline, but sometimes a section would last three or four scenes, and sometimes just one. I didn’t know whose point of view it would be in, and sometimes, I would get stuck just because I didn’t know how to transition from one scene to the next.

So this year, I decided to take my outline and turn it into a scene by scene. I used a spreadsheet for this one, numbered each scene, and then wrote who the point of view character was and exactly what was supposed to happen.

After that, I went to Scrivener, put that many scenes into the novel, and then wrote the scene synopsis as the title, and the detailed outline points in the notes section.

By the time November came, all I had to do was open Scrivener, start at scene one, read the outline of what should happen and write it. When I finished, the next scene was already set up for me.

It’s a lot of work, but the payoff is worth it. I love being an obsessive planner, because it means that I’m able to achieve my goals. 

NaNoWriMo Report

As many of you know, I participated in NaNoWriMo this year. Last year was kind of a breakthrough for me, because I’d planned my novel. I’d obsessively planned my novel, and by the time that November hit, my writing bible was huge. I’d written three different outlines, expanding them each time, and I knew exactly what was going to happen.

I sat down, and I ended up writing two books, and 177,000 words.

This year, I figured I could do the same thing. In fact, I decided I could do better. I wanted to finish the Commissioned Series, and I had another idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for the past few months. So my goal for November was to write 200,000 words, and three different books. Simple right? On top of that, I’m the ML for the region, so I plan and prepare write ins, encourage them all to keep writing, listen to them when they’re discouraged, and I also created daily writing prompts to get their creative juices flowing.

The one thing I didn’t plan on was my work schedule. I’ve worked night shift almost consistently for the past five years, so when I got my schedule for November, I was a little nervous. I was working nights the first week of November, and then I’d switch to day shift, which would be a personal challenge for me.

But I’m one of those people who has to reach their goals, even if it kills me. My co-ML and I made a goal to reach the first 50,000 in the first five days, and that was simple. Then I had my schedule change, and everything kind of went flip-flop. I don’t know how to be awake during the day. I would get home so exhausted I couldn’t write anything. So I started waking up an hour earlier to try and at least get a thousand words written before going off to my 13-14 hour day.

It was a long month, and I know I pushed myself way too hard, but I’m proud to say I reached all of my goals. 205,000 words, which was a little over my original goal, and all three books are now written. That’s not to say that I don’t have a ton of editing to do, but that’s what the rest of the year is for.

I love November and I love NaNoWriMo because it lets me push myself harder than I do the rest of the year. It isn’t that I don’t write, it’s that I make sure that I write more.

Here’s my final graph for November! How'd the rest of you do?

It's Gonna Be Okay

As many of you know, this November is NaNoWriMo. I'm lucky enough to be the ML of my region, and part of that responsibility is sending out peptalks. They're messages of encouragement, and to keep my region excited to write. Since I'm a little busy this month, I decided to post my peptalks here as well, for anyone else who's doing NaNoWriMo.

As November comes to a close, there’s so much we may regret. All that wasted time, when we should have been writing our novel, but instead, we got busy. Or maybe we got distracted. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we don’t meet our goal.

And you know what? It’s okay.

Look at your word count. Go ahead. Even if you’re nowhere near 50,000.

See that number? That’s how many words you’ve written in November. And the month isn’t even over yet! You can totally add to the word count until midnight ushers in December.

Don’t get discouraged if you’re behind. You’re a writer! You’ve moved your story ahead, whether you wrote 5,000 words or 50,000. You are so awesome, and Mindie and I are so lucky to be your MLs.

Take a deep breath, open that document, and remember:

It’s gonna be okay.

Felix Felices

As many of you know, this November is NaNoWriMo. I'm lucky enough to be the ML of my region, and part of that responsibility is sending out peptalks. They're messages of encouragement, and to keep my region excited to write. Since I'm a little busy this month, I decided to post my peptalks here as well, for anyone else who's doing NaNoWriMo. For those of you wondering, yes, our regional theme is Harry Potter this year.

Do you remember in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when Harry wins the Felix Felices from Professor Slughorn? Felix Felices can also be known as liquid luck, and whoever drinks it will be successful in whatever they do, but only for a limited time.

Harry didn’t use it on himself, not at first. He tricked Hermoine into thinking he gave it to Ron before his first Quidditch game. When she told Ron, he drank it and went out and played a nearly perfect game. Here’s the brilliance of Harry’s plan: Ron didn't think he deserved to be the keeper and he was afraid to go out on the field and play. Once he realized his success had nothing to do with the potion, he believed in himself.

If we could, Mindie and I would slip you all a little liquid luck. We know the obstacles that are hurtling toward you, faster than a quaffle. There’s homework or work, kids, friends, parents, laundry, dishes, holiday planning, sickness, weather… it never really stops.

Even so, we know you don’t need luck. We believe in you, and you should believe in yourself. You can do it. Knock those bludgers out of the way and keep playing.

You were meant to win.

PlOctoWriMo

Last month, my NaNoWriMo group decided to try something new. We called it PlOctoWriMo. As in Plotting in October Writing Month. We used the article from The Write Life, by Janice Hardy on a 4 week success plan for NaNoWriMo. Read the article here.

We took her ideas and broke them down into different days. Some weeks, we had three different assignments, and some weeks, we only had two. It was so fun to have a mapped out plan on how to plan our novel. Over the years, while doing NaNoWriMo, I’ve found that the more I plan, and the more intricate my writing bible is, the better I write. Not only do I write faster, I’m also able to write more at a time, and I wanted to share that success with our region.

We had two different planning sessions through the month, added to our kickoff, and we had an awesome turnout. We also had a lot more activity online, with many of our participants asking for brainstorming help, and we always were able to help them through their roadblock. Which means they’ve already planned for it before they even got to it.

One of our planning sessions

I know there are pantsers out there, but when it comes to writing a novel in 30 days, I feel like planning is the best way to do it. During our Writers Conference, I actually sat down with J Scott Savage and asked him how long it takes him to write a novel. He said that he takes about 6 weeks to write his first draft. When I told him that last year, I wrote two books in my series during November, he already knew that I was a planner. He didn’t even have to ask.

How about the rest of you? Planners out there? Pantsers?

Act, Don’t Think

This past year has been a whirlwind for me. Last year, I made the decision to make writing a priority in my life. Since that decision, I’ve thrown myself into not just my writing, but also different writing groups in the area.

I’ve loved to get to know other writers in the area, and even those online. There’s a different kind of energy when you’re part of a community, rather than writing alone. But there is one thing that I’ve noticed. There seems to be two kinds of writers out there.

Those that write, and those that talk about writing.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the ideas. To think about the illusion of being a writer, and to create something out of nothing. Here’s the thing about creating. It’s hard work. Not just hard work, but grueling, exhausting, tedious work. It’s never ending. There’s the planning, and the actual writing, and then you’re stuck with months and months, and possibly even years of revision. It’s so easy to cut corners. To not revise as much as it really needs. One round of edits, right?

I’m one of those obsessive kind of planners who has to know exactly what’s going on. In the writing group that my Co-ML and I lead, we work really well together. We knew our theme for this year by the beginning of December last year. We started preparations as early as January and February. We bounce ideas off one another, but that’s not where it stops. We push one another to actually act on our ideas.

The best writing partner anyone could ever ask for!

We assign one another different responsibilities. I work on one part, and she works on another. We come together to always move forward, instead of dwelling on our dreams. We make them a reality. Whether it has to do with our own personal writing goals, our group goals, or even random, silly things like a music video, we don’t just dream.

We do.

NaNoWriMo Music Video

Have you ever seen something and thought ‘I can do that’?

Maybe it’s just me. I’m one of those people that sees something and wants to try it for myself. A year ago, I started listening to a lot of acapella music, and I started thinking about how much I would like to beatbox. I talked to my awesome brother about how to do it, and after he taught me the basics, I started practicing on my commute to work.

I mentioned how much I was practicing to my wonderful writing friend, and the two of us started thinking about how we should make a music video for NaNoWriMo.

How hard could it be, right?

Yeah.

I had some awesome friends who were willing to try this with us.

Here’s the thing. Music videos take a lot more work than you’d think. First, there comes the actual planning part. Fortunately, two girls in our NaNoWriMo group had rewritten the words to ‘Counting Stars,’ so we had the lyrics and the song, but we also wanted to add our theme for the year. So after lots of brainstorming, I finally came up with a way to incorporate the theme into the song. Then we had to find props and somewhere to shoot.

Then we actually had to record the song. Now that took a whole lot more time. We found out that having the right microphone is a key element to recording a song. I think we spent about nine hours recording a clip that’s less than six minutes long.

Music Recording

Recording takes a lot of quiet

And once we finished that, we had to film. It took two days, and probably seven or eight hours to film and get everything together.

We had to record one by one

Can anyone guess our theme?

After that, I had to have my cousin teach me about film editing so that we could mesh all of the clips together.

It was a much longer process than we expected, but the final product was more than we ever expected.

Here’s the final product! What do you think?

September Plans

Does anyone know where August went? I’m not even sure if we had the full 31 days. It’s been a whirlwind, and unfortunately, it feels like writing has taken a backseat while I try and get my life back on track.

But this month, I’m going to focus on my writing. Now that the vacations and fun time are over, it’s time to buckle down.

I’ve learned over the past year that the best way to get things done is to set goals, and let other people know those goals so they can keep track of me. My writing partners are fantastic at keeping me responsible, but also being forgiving when things get in the way. But I’m also going to post it here so I can remember my goals.

1.       Finish this revision of Hooked. I got about 2/3 of it done during July, and then I’ve only got a few scenes done in August. September is the month to start!

2.       Start outlining for book 3. This year’s NaNoWriMo, I’m planning on writing book 3 of this series. We’ll see if this is the end or not. I need to develop some characters, as well as finalize the sequence of events.

3.       Start preparing for new book. Last year, during NaNoWriMo, I was so excited to write that I blasted through book 1 in 14 days. Fortunately, I had a good idea of what would happen in book 2, so I ended up just writing that book in the remaining 16 days of November. I want to make sure that I have a backup, in case I get through book 3 faster than expected. Also, I’ve been wanting to write this story for a few months now, so this seems like the best time to do it!

Nothing too extreme, but definitely something to work toward! What are your goals for September?

Camp NaNoWriMo Failure

It’s been a good summer. And a busy summer. I wasn’t expecting any changes or surprises, but that’s always when something happens, right?

The hardest part is writing when life seems to be going at a crazy pace. Last month, my goal was to edit 80,000 words of Hooked, book 2 in the series I wrote during November. During that time, I thought that my schedule would be wide open.

Unfortunately, life threw a few curveballs at me. Right after setting my goal, I ended up switching jobs, which meant extra hours of work, trying to finish my previous job and start orientation for the new one. Then my husband had a surprise interview across the state, and my mom threw in a surprise trip for the family. So all of the sudden, my extra time didn’t exist anymore.

I didn’t reach my goal. But that’s okay. Sometimes, we have to let life happen. That’s not to say I didn’t try hard. The last two weeks of July, we ended up driving for almost 75 hours. That’s like a full time job right there, just in the car. I spent as much time as I could writing, though let me say, there’s a lot of bumpy roads out there!

Just a few of the places we visited

There were some days that I didn’t write at all, but I didn’t let that discourage me. Because that’s going to happen. Some days are busy, and other days I have nothing to do and writing takes a priority.

It’s hard to find time for everything, but sometimes, it’s nice to sit back and let life happen for a while. The past two weeks have been crazy, but at the same time, I saw so many things that I got even more ideas for future stories

So I guess, in a sense, I never really stopped writing.

Writing Retreat

Two weeks ago, one of my writing buddies and I decided that we needed to focus on our writing. We need some days of uninterrupted writing time. We were able to use an old farm home, one with no internet and no TV. For three days, all we did was write and talk. Yes, the talking was important, and we were able to connect better, and talk about our lives and frustrations, but the best part was the writing.

Over those three days, I got almost thirty hours of writing done. A lot can be accomplished in thirty hours.

For example:

I finished the cut draft of the last six chapters of Commissioned. And I typed it all up. (Ended up being a little over 28,000 words total edited. And I cut 10% of the entire novel, which is awesome!)

I finished fixing the major plot point errors for two thirds of Hooked. Basically I fixed everything so that now I can go back and do the fine point revision. Beautifying, not fixing. (60,000 words) That’s going to be my goal for July, to get that puppy sparkling so I can send it out to Betas in August.

I finally outlined the final book in the series, which means I now have an ending! It took a lot of struggling, mostly because I felt like after so many epic battles that I’ve already written, this one’s got to exceed all of them. I think I figured out a way to do that. Now for the second draft. Yes, that’s right, I do multiple drafts of outlines before writing. That’s how I can write a 90,000 word novel in 14 days. It’s planning down to an art.

I also started working on character bios for another book I hope to write in November. It’s a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk, and I’ve been excited to actually start planning it. It’s very different from anything I’ve written before, but that’s the point of NaNoWriMo. I always push myself to try something I’ve never done before.

I wrote four weeks’ worth of blog posts. That’s right, I’ve got a schedule, and I’m keeping to it! No need to worry about it until July. (Ironically, I wrote this post there)

Let’s see… I also wrote the first chapter for that collaborative work I told you about last week. Once that was ready, I sent it out to the group to see what they thought.

And in my free time, I read a book.

Sometimes I need to just let the creative side flow. And having a friend to do it with me doesn’t hurt either. The amazing thing, was that five or six hours could pass by without me even realizing it.  When our brains needed a break, we’d stop and talk, but then we’d get right back to it.

So yes, definitely a productive retreat. I can’t wait to do it again.

Camp NaNoWriMo 2016

April’s almost over! Can you believe it? 2016 is already 1/3 of the way through.

April’s a big month for me, just like July and November. April is Camp NaNoWriMo, which is kind of a spinoff of NaNoWriMo. Instead of separating into regions, you’re put into virtual cabins of up to 12 people, and you can make your own word count goal. I’ve done it before, and been grouped with strangers, and it was interesting, but I didn’t feel entirely comfortable talking to them online.

This year, our region decided to get a cabin together. It’s been so much fun, mostly because I know everyone in my cabin! We have multiple conversations a day, and we can encourage each other to keep writing. Plus, we can also meet in person, which makes it even better.

This month, I really wanted to do revisions on Commissioned. I’ve gone through one revision already, but I’d just gotten responses from my first round of betas, and there were a few things that needed to be changed. I also wanted to double check the voice of both of my characters. I printed off copies, separating them into Nara and Yaru piles, and then started revisions.

I started with Nara, and hers required the most revisions. My betas told me that her motivation didn’t make sense, and didn’t quite fit with her personality. It took me almost two weeks to finish her section, working as feverishly as I could on my days off. Then I got to Yaru’s point of view, and things started to click. Since I changed Nara’s motivation, his made so much more sense. Honestly, it only required a few tweaks, especially in the end and the beginning, but the middle was pretty solid. I finished his revision in one week.

I’m using this last week to go through, put the parts back together, and read it to myself out loud before sending it out to the next set of betas May 1.

So if anyone’s keeping track, that’s six months from November 1. In that time, I’ve written and revised 484,513 words. Almost half a million. I’m still kind of reeling. After deciding to make writing my second job, and devoting an actual amount of time to it, it’s kind of hard to stop.

How about the rest of you? How are your writing goals going? Any other goals for this year? 

Next Phase

Whew! It’s been a whirlwind over the past few months. Just to recap, last April, I started to get the inklings for this new book (which eventually turns into a series). Over the next few months, I let it sit in my mind. I let it simmer until it was ready for it to come to life. Last August, September and October, I took the necessary time to outline and plan this novel. Unlike most of the others I’ve written, I took my time.

Last November, I wrote the first book in the series in just 14 days. Then I used the rest of the month to write book 2. Having spent so many months letting the story simmer and preparing the background, this story jumped out onto the page.

After finishing the second book, I decided to use the next three months to do my second revision on book 1. My plan was to finish before going to LTUE in February. But I think I had the high from writing that much in one month, and I finished my revisions last week.

330 pages revised in 6 weeks

Now it’s out to 4 different betas, and now it’s time to figure out what to do in my time before LTUE.

So now, I’ve got my options wide open. Any ideas or advice?

Brain on Overdrive

A few months ago, I decided to make writing a priority. Well, even more than a priority than it already was. I’m trying to cut out even more time during my day to write, and I think I’ve been successful so far.

I go to the engineering lab with my husband as often as I can, because there’s nothing to do there but write. Our NaNoWriMo group has decided to meet once a month to write, and my co-ML and I meet twice a week. There’s plenty of opportunities.

Since making that decision, I wrote 177,000 words in November, which included 2 books, and a partial of a character sketch, and I’ve almost completed 2/3 of a revision for the first novel.

There’s only one downside, if you can call it that.

I’m having a hard time turning my brain off. There’s always something I have to mull over, something that I need to work on. Yesterday, I was stuck on a scene that I knew needed to be rewritten. I decided to try cleaning, and voila, the answer came to me. Good thing there was a write in for the SCBWI group! 

Last night, as I was sleeping, my brain came up with the bare bones of a query. Query letters are hard for me, because I don’t know how to get all of the ideas into so few words. But my brain figured it out… at 4am. I had to jump out of bed to write it down before I lost it.

I know it doesn’t sound like a bad thing, and maybe it’s not. My brain is solving problems, and I’m getting more writing done than I have in my life.

What do the rest of you do when this happens? How do you tell your brain to relax for a few hours?

2015 Year in Review

It’s the end of the year, which means it’s time to look back on my resolutions and goals for 2015. It’s always a little terrifying, to know that I’ve passed another year, and to see what I could have done better.

1.       Focus on publishing.

This was a little iffy. In January, I set up a query party, and we sent queries through participants, which was a lot of fun. I learned from each of them, and I learned about online critique groups along the way. I also sent out almost ten queries for the year, and received rejections from all of them. I know it may not seem like a success, but at the same time, it means that I actually sent out queries and tried, so for me, that is a significant step.

2.       Participate (and win!) both Camp NaNoWriMos and the regular NaNoWriMo.

April was an interesting month for me. I participated in the first NaNoWriMo by writing a daily character sketch to try and get ideas for NaNoWriMo. It was a frustrating experiment, but it did give me two characters that ended up being the sole inspiration for NaNoWriMo. During July, I did a full revision of The King’s Councilor. November was an incredibly productive month. I was able to write not one, but two different novels, the first two in the trilogy. I wrote 177,000 words in 30 days, so I would say I definitely met this goal!

3.       Read 52 books in the year 2015

I didn’t get to 52 books this year, but I did get close. I read 44 books this year. One of the most amazing things that I’ve ever learned was that reading teaches me almost as much about writing as writing itself. I’m starting to notice trends, things that I like, things that I don’t like, even what works and doesn’t. I’m finding writers that I enjoy reading, and even popular books that just don’t quite work for me. I hope to read just as many books next year as well.

Well that’s my year! How have your goals and aspirations been in 2015? 

Post NaNoWriMo

It’s December 7^th, which means that NaNoWriMo has been over for a full week now.

It’s been a long week. It doesn’t help that I did push myself way too hard the last week of November, between picking up extra shifts at work, hosting 3 write-ins and getting together with family the other spare moments I had.

Not that I would have changed any of it…

But last week, I did take a full 3 days off and relaxed. I cleaned, did laundry, FINALLY put up the Christmas tree. I’m the kind of person that pesters her husband into putting up Christmas decorations starting the beginning of November. This year, I was so busy that I didn’t even think about it until December 3^rd.

But I know that it’s not safe to spend too much time away from my writing. I’ve spent the past 30 days creating a habit. Habits are easier to break than make. Fortunately, I have awesome writing friends, and we’ve grown even closer this NaNoWriMo. My Co-ML and I have decided to get together twice a week to keep writing. Plus, I know how much better I work under pressure, so I’m creating my own goals and schedule for her to use to monitor me.

I’ll keep her going too.

So what’s my current goal? Since I finished Commissioned on November 15^th, I felt like enough time had passed for me to start a revision. I did a quick read through on Friday and Saturday so that I could get an idea of what needed to be fixed.

Honestly, it’s a few minor things here and there (add setting, flesh out characters), but nothing like previous novels. I’m not having to delete sections or add entire plot twists. Obsessive planning and plotting have their benefits! I’m hoping to finish this revision by LTUE, my first official writer’s conference! I’m going with a few friends from my NaNoWriMo group, and I’m super excited.

Those are my goals for now! How about the rest of you? How are you doing post NaNoWriMo craze?

Letting the Story Take the Lead

In October, I made my plans for November. I was going to write book one of this series, and so when I was outlining, I did a vague outline for all three books, a fill in the blank outline for the first two, and a detailed outline for book one.

Then November actually came and I finished book one in fourteen days. I didn’t want to stop the momentum, so I moved onto book two with only a slightly less-than-vague outline to go by. This means that as I’m writing, I have to figure out ways to jump from this plot point to the next. As can be expected, the results have been all over the place.

In the past week, I’ve learned more about the belief system of the world, especially concerning death. Apparently, their limbo is called the Yuchbish, and there’s a dragon in there. It kind of blindsided me, but I decided to see where it went. I still have yet to decide if it’s going to stay, but there’s some good scenes in there.

I think the biggest issue that I have is that I’m never quite sure where to proceed next. Obviously it’s not hindering my word count. I’m currently 50,000 words into book two, and hoping to finish it by the end of the month. But I felt like there was an issue with the end of the book. Obviously, it’s the middle book, so the biggest thing to watch for is that the whole book doesn’t become that sagging middle. Yesterday, while driving to work, I had an epiphany. I wasn’t treating it like its own book. I wasn’t focused on having the action move forward, or to having a climax at the end.

Obviously, if it’s a story worth telling, even if it’s in the middle of the series, it needs to have a clear purpose, as well as a clear climax. Something to give the readers some kind of resolution before moving into the next issue and forward in the overarching plot.

Now that I’ve figured out the climax of the book, as well as the conflict, I’m confident that the story and I are now on the same page. Here’s to seven more days! Hope everyone else is doing well!

NaNoWriMo Progress

We’re over halfway through November! I can’t believe it. It’s flown like a blur. A very exciting, fun, and energetic blur.

Last Saturday, I finished the first book in this series with 85,000 words. It was exciting, especially since I was at a write-in, with all of my writing friends. They were able to help me celebrate. Since November is still going full force, I started on book 2. Currently, I’m about 22,000 words into that, and I’m hoping to finish by the end of the month.

What I love most about NaNoWriMo is the momentum. There’s a wonderful group of writers, who support me, and who are willing to talk me through any plot hole or writer’s block I have. Last night, we had another write-in, and in the middle of all the writing, there were plenty of conversations about plots, voice, and just about everything else that people needed help with.

NaNoWriMo is a fantastic starting point. It teaches writers how their process is. Do they outline first? Do they just write by the seat of their pants? How do they get through the dreaded middle section? Add to that, if they participate in the group activities, the forums, the write-ins, they’re sure to make at least a few friends who really understand what they’re going through.

Writing is easier when you’re not alone, and I’m so grateful for my writing group. I know I’ll be keeping in touch with them all year, not just in November.

How about the rest of you? How’s November going? 

Reading Through a Writer’s Eyes and Thoughts on Marissa Meyer's Winter

An interesting phenomenon when you spend a great deal of time editing and revising is that you start noticing mistakes. In everything. Especially in books of bestselling writers, because, let’s face it, everyone has a different opinion on art, and what one person likes isn’t necessarily what another person likes. I’ve heard other writers and editors complain about it. The inability to turn it off long enough to enjoy the story.

It’s true, to an extent. This year, I’ve really pushed to improve myself as a writer. I’ve advanced in ways I wouldn’t have imagined in January. I’ve critiqued and revised, even started a new series. I also made a goal to read 52 books this year.

This week, I read Winter, the final book in the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. If you haven’t picked up the books, I highly recommend them. I found them last year and blasted through Cinder and Scarlet. Then I had to wait for Cress to come out. I thought that was torture, but then I had to wait for Winter.

I’m a huge fan of Marissa Meyer. I love her writing style, her characters, and her story. I also love the fact that she’s a NaNoWriMo author. Both Cinder and Scarlet were written during NaNoWriMo. If that’s not motivation, I don’t know what is.

While I’m working on my current novel, I’ve also been thinking about revision. I’m not a stranger to revision, out of the five novels I’ve written, I’ve probably done an average of 3-5 revisions on each. But as I work on the Orange WIP, I realize that maybe I’m not doing it as effectively as I could. As I researched revision, I found Marissa Meyer’s blog, and she gave an incredibly helpful and detailed summary of how she revises.

One of the things that popped out to me was that in her first revision, she asks what she can do to make things worse for the character. How she can make it less easy.

Knowing that, I read Winter with new eyes. There were moments when I could almost see her going through, thinking, nope, this is too easy. Time to make them suffer.

And suffer they did.

But because I still had my ‘writing goggles’ on while reading, I was able to pick up on those small details that I might not have noticed otherwise. I loved the book, and I was depressed when it was over. But I have a feeling that I’ll be going back to those books over and over again, probably with my kids as well. And when I start revisions, I will be taking Ms. Meyer’s process in mind, making things as physically and mentally difficult as I possibly can for my characters.