Category: Nanowrimo

My Actual Writing Goals for November 2016

So I have already discussed that my goal during Nanowrimo is to post actual content rather than just writing it. And I won’t be counting my Wattpad chapters as contributing to this total. (It’s rather interesting that posting to Wattpad is not at all difficult for me. I get at least two chapters published there at a minimum each week.)

But I am, of course, also working on various projects this month. And, as usual, I have one main one and several that I want to complete. (Some of these titles contain links to where the stories are posted.)

Where Gryphons Mourn — this is another dream story that I have been meaning to get out there for quite some time. So I am finally getting it done. In fact, my darling and wonderful friend, Stef, created a cover for me, so it looks like I will be writing it and posting it on Wattpad. Isn’t she massively talented? (Seriously, this woman is amazing! Check her out on her website, at Deviant Art, and Wattpad.)

Through the Paintings Dimly — this one is actually almost entirely done so I won’t be increasing my word count much through this, but there is probably about another 3 – 5k that needs to be added in addition to the overall editing. But it will be done and off by the end of the week.

The Insurgent Queen — another book in the Tue-Rah Chronicles, and so, of course, it will get a substantial portion of the word count. I write about 5 – 10k on the main series once a week. In a sense, this is my easiest and most difficult project, but it is the one I adore the most. My soul is always in this series no matter what else I am working on. I really hope that Amelia gets her voice back before the end of this month’s writing. It’s been a good long time, and the poor girl needs to start talking again. (Note: if you haven’t started this series and would like to, you should probably start with Identity Revealed.)

In Darkness, Cower — now, once again, this story is mostly completed. In fact, it appeared in the Tenebris Somnia anthology on Wattpad. I plan to enter it into the TNT competition, but I want to expand it a little more to reach the 10k word limit. I had to trim it a bit to make it meet the anthology’s criteria. So that will be about 4k. It’s due by the end of the month.

The Celebrity — this story is mostly completed, but I want to enter it into a competition on November 15 (can’t remember the name of the competition right now). It’s just about 8 k too short though and then it will be up to the required standards.

Untitled Story — I have been tossing around some titles for this story, but I haven’t settled on one. Cruel Frost, Frost Wolf, and Frost Strain are possibilities, but none of them really hit the horror genre nail on the head. The proper title will come eventually. This story is going to be approximately 8k. Another dream/nightmare story that I just want to have done. I may submit it to the TNT competition as well. It may also expand beyond the anticipated 8k.

Just a Kiss — a sweet romance for an anthology. It’s probably going to be about 5k, and it is due by the end of the month. I just have the ideas down for this one, and, in fairness, if another sweet romance story presents itself that fits in with the Christmas season, I will likely go with that. I’ll consider this goal satisfied so long as I have a sweet romance story down.

The Nameless One’s Plea — This is another story for an anthology, and it’s great because this is part of the Ragnarok Undone novel or perhaps Ragnarok Untold, depending on where the end of the novel comes. It’ll be about 8 k. It’s going to contain some spoilers for the story but nothing too major, and hopefully it will help to draw additional readers to the Ragnarok series.

The Nightwalker Before Christmas — a dark holiday/horror story that will hopefully stay short and sweet. (I’m really hoping that with this short story focus this month I will be able to do a much better job of keeping stories short and tight.) Hopefully about 3k. The title is a little off for me, but I’ll find a better one later.

Serpent’s Kiss — a fantasy adventure for another anthology that will be approximately 5k. It has to be done before the end of the month, but I have a fairly solid idea of where I want to take it. And if that idea doesn’t work, I’ve got another one that can work for the same title, which is good because I like having a good title.

Aquanos Feratu — a tight short story in the horror genre utilizing the breath vampire concept among other aquatic horrors. Probably about 10 k. If I have to prioritize and run out of time to finish projects, then this is going to be set aside until next month. (If I’m not careful with this one, it’s going to get a lot bigger a lot faster.)

Escaping Nowhere — I started this novel last year for Nanowrimo, got to the required word count, and it was all quite great. But I didn’t finish it. I’d like to wrap it up, which will probably take about another 20 k. On the high end. It’s fairly easy to write though, and I have good notes to pull me the rest of the way along.

Parnimo’s Prize — oh yes, please, please, let me finally find the right ending for this novella. I have written the ending so many times, but it never quite seems right. I think I’m going to be done with this one within about five chapters at the most.

Now if I get to have my druthers this month, I would also add these. I’d love to also complete 5k each on The Red Dragon, Cursed, and Ragnarok Undone. 10k on Of Cruelty, Elves, and Sorcery would be fantastic along with completion of Of Course Not, Silas, I Know Best.

I’m also planning to send off my application for the SFWA, query letters for Lunar Realms, and send off a couple other short stories to some other professional markets.

These aren’t all my goals for the month, and I doubt that I’ll make them all. I make my goals difficult to reach and usually almost impossible, so don’t worry. We’ll just see how far I get on this.

In terms of my actual Nanowrimo writing, I’m doing all right. It has been a bit slow because I’ve had to do more editing and legal work than usual, so as of yesterday, I only wrote about 14k. I’m getting ready to settle in for a batch of fiction writing here after dinner. Hopefully that goes way.

My One Little Habit That Banishes Writer’s Block

Published by Jessica on November 2, 2016

Recently I attended a teleseminar put on by Jeff Goins, “Four Critical Keys to Making a Living as a Writer.” As per usual, there was lots of good advice woven throughout as well as some points I am still mulling over and determining how to apply. One point that has stuck with me most consistently though is the question, “what is obvious to me that may not be so obvious to others?”

Obviously the basic concept behind this question is that we are all knowledgeable in something that we can share with the world. Bill Nye said “everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” Sometimes the biggest challenge is to see what that is.

In light of this month’s challenge, I decided to look at the questions I am most often sent. Short of actual story questions, the one I hear most often is “how do you avoid writer’s block?” and “how can you write so fast?”

Now I haven’t had writer’s block as most people would define it (i.e. inability to write for days at a time, no desire to write, no ideas to write about, and so on) . I’ve had periods where the words didn’t come as easily or they weren’t good or when they felt soulless and wooden or when particular stories wouldn’t work. But ultimately there have always been words.

And maybe this is part of how I am wired. Or maybe it’s because of one of my rituals.

The tyranny of the blank page stops many writers from moving forward for a number of reasons. And while I am often able to push past it, I push past it because of one thing that I do. As soon as the words flee my mind, I write or type this:

I have a story to tell, and I am the only one who can tell it just like me. This is the story I must tell…

Then I move into writing the actual story. Just the sight of those words on the page encourages me. It does two things for me:

It reminds me why I am doing what I am doing and the act of writing that drives that point deeper into my subconscious
It keeps the page from being utterly blank, and you can transition into any story from that point.

You can make up whatever phrase you would like to write out or you can use mine. The point is that you just start getting the words out there. You can revise it later. For many writers, it seems easier to revise than it is to write that initial draft.

Hopefully that helps. How is Nanowrimo going for you if you’re participating, and, if not, how is life? (Those in Nanowrimo generally don’t get to have much of a life outside of writing. 😉 )

My Nanowrimo Declaration and Challenge Goals

Published by Jessica on November 1, 2016

This is the first day of Nanowrimo November 2016. I’ve been participating in Nanowrimo officially for about ten years (maybe one or two years unofficially in between). It’s one of my favorite times of year, and I love the energy that comes from so many writers striking out to reach their new writing goals.

And this year, I will be participating again. I am so excited.

Hitting 50,000 words in a month isn’t as much of a challenge for me as it used to be. So I have decided to focus on an aspect of writing that is quite difficult for me in addition to writing the 50,000 words. I’m going to have to post to my blog or on Youtube 30 times over the next month. It might not be every day because I am going to be doing some traveling around Thanksgiving, but 30 times should be a good challenge.

With that in mind, I may not just be posting new content. I have a bad habit of writing blog posts and then never posting them. So, while I will be writing lots of new content and stories this month, I will not necessarily be posting all of it here.

For the writing portion of this, I have a number of short stories that need to get done. Quite a few anthologies with submissions due either at the end of the month or the start of December, and if this December is like any of the others, I will need to make sure that those stories are done as fast as possible.

And, of course, I’ll be continuing to work on Tue-Rah. That just goes without saying until it’s done. I sometimes wonder what I’ll do when this series is fully done. Probably write more novellas. I suspect that it is a world I will never fully leave.

Anyway, what about you? Are you writing for Nanowrimo? Remember that it doesn’t have to be fiction. You can write poems, plays, scripts, stories, blog posts, even greeting cards. Your goal is just to reach 50,000 words to officially win, but you can set the goal for yourself to whatever you need it to be.

If you are participating in Nanowrimo, feel free to share the title of your book. And if you are sharing it on Wattpad or some place similar, feel free to share a link.

Nanowrimo 2015 Day 01

Published by Jessica on November 2, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRS9-TYwvzQ

Today is the first day of Nanowrimo as well as the first of a new month. New beginnings always excite me. They hold so much potential. November 1 is a particular favorite because of Nanowrimo.

I’ve been doing Nanowrimo since I was 11 though my parents didn’t give me permission to sign up on the official site till I was a fair bit older. It was a great experience with lots of fun along the way, and it stretched me. That first book was less than ideal, of course. It had so many holes and tons of problems. (I think one character’s name even changed halfway through, and many other details spontaneously changed or became contradictory, lol.) But I was glad that I did it.

I’d encourage all writers to give it a shot. While it is a great challenge to complete 50,000 words during one of the busiest months of the year, that isn’t the only reason to do it. There’s a spirit of camaraderie throughout this month as thousands of writers support one another in this endeavor. It’s about shutting off that inner critic, dig into the stories that you have inside you, and start exploring them. You can’t fail in this. You won’t do it perfectly. In fact, you’re going to miss some days. You’re going to fall behind. But that’s okay. The point is to get as far as you can and get as much of the story down as you can. Every year I have found material that I can use.

Now some of my tutees, students, and friends have asked me to consider doing an additional challenge this year: write my Nanowrimo novel live. I’ve received a lot of questions about my process as well as what it looks like when I write. And since I’m not comfortable with people sitting next to me and watching what I write, recording it through a screen capture along with commentary on what I’m doing and how I’m doing it seems like a better choice.

I finished conducting some tests, and it looks like I can do this. I’m a little concerned about the upload speeds because the Internet is often slow. It can take an hour to upload 15 minutes. So there may be some delays. My other concern is how long a video with an actual writing session is going to run. After all, writing a novel takes a lot of time. (Not really sure how long, but I guess we’ll find out.)

What I’ll do to offset this is doing a brief recap that details what I did, how it’s going, and what tools I used. That way if you don’t want to slog through the whole video, you can get the highlights.

To help facilitate this, I’ve come up with some rules for myself.

All the writing will take place in front of the camera. This is going to be the hardest thing for me. But when I’m not writing on the screen capture, I won’t be working on the story.
I’m starting entirely from scratch, and I will document the whole process.
If I use a notebook while on camera, I’ll be sure to show you what I’m writing if I can.
I will be doing minimal editing before uploading to Wattpad. I’ll include that as well.

Since I’m trying to document the whole process, I’m starting with a fresh story. I’ve had this title and cover rattling around for awhile, potentially going to one or four stories. But I’m not going to use a story that I have already started. The story will be based in part off a dream I had, but that’s more for the general premise. I don’t even have character names yet or the Scrivener files prepped.

Frankly, I’m rather nervous, but I’m also excited. This is going to be a great month. I hope that I don’t fall flat on my face. I imagine there will be a fair bit of dead space and staring at the screen because that camera is going to add loads of pressure, lol.

So what about you? Are you doing Nanowrimo this year? Feel free to let me know what your project is and leave a link if you like either here or on the Youtube video. Have a wonderful night!