Tag Archives: nanowrimo

The Jasmine-Giada Substitution

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I finally hit the point of collapse, at least as far as my story goes. When I last visited you, I shared an excerpt from the book I’m rewriting, which I’m calling Jasmine, but formerly called Unseen Obsession. I hate that title!

I’ve been doing some minor revisions in grammar, language, and spelling. I’ve cleaned up a few scenes, adding and subtracting as needed to ensure a coherent story line, but I’m not at a point where minor revisions become wholesale rewrites. As written, Jasmine is sent an envelope with white powder in it, which can only be assumed to be anthrax. So far so good. But then? Nothing. It turns out to be bogus and it disappears. There’s no point in having it in the story if there’s no real drama attached to it!

Either I have to ramp up the pressure to find out who’s behind the letter, or I need to make a substitution. My thought was to have a box rigged to look like a bomb. It’s kind of the same thing, but I avoid the whole bio-hazard angle. Trying to work that in is causing me headaches. I’ll still have to force the issue and have an investigator try to find who’s behind it, suspecting the whole time that it’s either Jasmine’s new love interest, a suspect in an unsolved crime, or a jealous ex that’s acting territorial.

I doubt I’ll figure this out by Friday and the beginning of NaNoWriMo. I’m not worried about it, but it would be nice to have that figured out before I jump into a new project. I briefly considered skipping NaNo this year, but I’ve enjoyed the challenge since 2011. I can’t just skip it. I think it’s fun, and good for me, too!

So I’ll work on Jasmine until the last minute before shelving it for Giada. Now that I’ve written that, it looks like I’m in some sort of love triangle. What the hell! Why not? If writing is my love, at least I have two women vying for my attention. I have other stories that also need some attention, but if I keep up this metaphor, I don’t think bringing up a priest or some teenage girls is the right thing to do. Honestly, it’s a little creepy. Not that I’m against creepy, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere, and I think I just crossed it.

Let the countdown begin

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There’s less than two weeks until NaNoWriMo 2014 kicks off. Am I ready? Um, sure. I guess. Sorry, I know I should be more pumped up, but there appears to be a slight wrinkle in my plan this year. Last week, my manager called me at home to ask if I would be willing to go overnight, beginning November 3rd, as part of the Inventory Prep Team. I agreed, not thinking how it would interfere with my writing. D’oh!

My writing is best in the evening, after I get off work and before I go to bed. The problem here is that my schedule is so erratic, I can never set aside a dedicated time to just sit down and pound on the keyboard. Makes writing so much more difficult. The silver-lining is that I will have a set schedule for six weeks, so if I can settle in, I will be able to dedicate an hour or two just to write everyday.

I haven’t given my story much thought, other than to decide what I’m going to write about. A story about a prostitute should be fun. It’s a family story, really, when you think about it. It’s the heartwarming story of a hooker with a heart of gold, just trying to make it in the city, with nothing but her hopes, her dreams, and her lady parts. It’ll make a wonderful Holiday film. I think Disney can bring it to life. Coming in December 2017, Giada and Her Wonderful, Magical Lady Parts. Kaching!

 All joking aside, I do have some ideas for her. She’s a minor character in my first NaNo novel, a bit of revenge on an ex-girlfriend of mine that I absolutely loathe. There’s a reason I wrote her into my book as a prostitute, and I reason for everything that happens to her. The irony is that I fell in love with Giada. She has a youthful joy for life that I find irresistible. She’s the one character I love the most, so naturally she has to have her own story told, from her point of view.

I’ll try to plot the major story points before November 1st, just to have an idea of the big picture, but for the rest I will discover as I write. It’s going to be a long and trying month, but I’m ready for it.

NaNoWriMo 2014: Yeah, I’m doing it again

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I must be a glutton for punishment. Come to think of it, wouldn’t that make me a masochist? Digression aside, I’ve signed up for my fourth NaNoWriMo. Please, please. I’ll continue once the applause has subsided.

Okay? Good. Yes, once again I’m throwing my hat into the writing arena, and I’m excited to be doing this again. I don’t know why I bother. In spite of my goals, I haven’t once published any of my novels, NaNo or otherwise. This year’s novel is a prequel to my first novel, The Son of the Father, written primarily from Giada’s point of view instead of Fr. Mendoza. I hope it works out.

I’ve won every year, and I plan on winning again this year. I’ve wanted to write this book for a while now, and I think this is as good a time as any to do it. Once I’m done, I want to rewrite that first novel, incorporating some suggestions a friend had given me in order to make it a stronger book.

Right now, I’m rewriting another NaNo novel, my 2012 book, which I’m now tentatively calling Jasmine, after my main character. I still haven’t found a suitable name. This rewrite has been easy going so far, but it will become fairly intensive soon enough. There are some major changes I want to make to the plot, which I hope will help improve what I have written.

I had wanted to publish this last year, but another friend took a look at it to proofread it. I’m still waiting for her to finish. It doesn’t matter now. I’m rewriting the damned thing now.  Again, I don’t know why I’m doing this. I haven’t proven to myself that I will go through with my ultimate goal and put it out to be read by actual readers, but then again, if I don’t rewrite it, I know I never will.

So much writing to do. I think I need to get busy. I don’t know if I’ll have time to do much writing this week, but I’ll do what I can.

No, I’m not dead

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In case you’re wondering, I’m still alive. Now that the mystery has been solved, you may get back to living your lives. For some reason, I sense indifference from the audience, not that I’m surprised. If you’re anything like me, you have so many different people vying for attention that you don’t miss the peripheral things. I’m not peripheral, am I?

To answer the unasked question, I’ve finally been offered a full-time position at my job, with hints that they are interested in helping me towards a leadership position of some type. The transition has been a little difficult for me. It’s mostly getting used to working more hours and having an extended work week, which I’m grateful for. I just need to accustomed to having a real job again.

But with the increase in hours comes a decrease in available hours to write. That wouldn’t be so bad, but I lose ten hours a week just on my commute, on top of which I do not have a set schedule. Some days I work a mid-shift, the next I work until midnight, and another day I might have to be there at six in the morning. It’s stressful and leads to getting no sleep and an increased level of stress. I’ve dealt with it before, I’ll learn to cope with it again and find my mojo.

The real reason for my absence, other than exhaustion, is that I haven’t had anything to say for the past few weeks. No, that’s not it. I do have things to say but I’ve decided this isn’t the forum to express myself. When I started out, this was a place for me to vent my frustrations and to be frank, a place to bitch. I don’t really need it, but trying to convert it to simply a writer’s blog isn’t working for me at all. I’m not so focused.

I’m considering making a move and starting fresh on a new blog, a place where I can post essays about silly observations, current events, and my favorite topic, the happenings of my life. That’s what I want to do. I don’t want to limit myself to just writing about writing, or reading. I want to go back to what I loved doing, which was writing about anything and everything.

I’m not planning on discontinuing this page. I still need to talk about what I’m working on, a place to review the occasional book, and to dream about actually publishing something. Maybe I will get around to it. I hope I will.

As such, I pulled out an old manuscript and I started polishing it up, rewriting what needs rewriting, editing what passes, and maybe making it presentable. We’ll see. I have an idea for NaNoWriMo 2014, something I’m excited about. I can’t wait to get started.

I also have a new book review coming out on Monday, October 6th for Dark the Night Descending by Jennifer Bresnick. I can’t wait to share it with you. Follow the link to see what it’s about, and maybe pre-order it as well. My thoughts will have to wait a few more days.

That’s it for now. I’ll stop neglecting my responsibilities and post more frequently. I’ll see you all on Monday, if I don’t post anything sooner. Have a great weekend and stay safe!

NaNo 2013 revisited and possibly finished

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I’ve taken my 2013 NaNo novel out of mothballs recently, deciding the time was pipe to revisit the unfinished work. After reaching the 50K word goal, I had nowhere to go with the story, no idea as to the next logical progression. I was in a rut, so I set it aside, convinced it would never see the light of day. Now I’m not so sure.

I had to delete nearly 10K words, and I see a ton of discrepancies from where I started writing and where the story ended up. I have a lot of work in store for me to make this a cohesive narrative, but here it is, in all it’s 62K word glory! Okay, you can’t see it yet, but believe me, it’s there.

What took me by surprise is the direction and change of tone it took, particularly in the past couple of days. What started off as a novel about a forty-two year old woman facing a divorce, morphed into a story about neglect, love and sex, abuse, including sexual abuse and rape, and even death. It isn’t simply about coping and moving on from a cheating spouse anymore. It evolved and became messier.

However, that’s what I like most about writing, the adventure. I have a general idea of what I want, but sometimes the way between two points can’t be a straight line. Sure it’s the quickest, but when in life do we take the quick way. Human nature is way too complicated for so simple a route. I may be the writer, but sometimes I feel as though I’m only along for the ride, just like everyone else.

It took me nine months for a solution to present itself. It took many nights for me to figure out my main character’s motivation for doing certain things, actions that ultimately imperils my main character and possibly her daughter. I tried my best to tie up all loose ends, but the husband isn’t one of those characters. He didn’t deserve that kind of send off, though he’s never the antagonist, just the catalyst that launches the story forward.

I plan to read and make as many corrections to the story before shelving it for a month or so. I’ll have to print it out and begin making wholesale revisions next, trying to get everything in line, but I need a little time and prospective first. I may pull out another unfinished word and play around with it next. I don’t know. I’ll play it by ear.