Throwing in the Towel

Well, I'm throwing in the towel regarding NaNoWriMo. I started out with high hopes on November 1st that I'd finished, but that's also the day I started my new temp assignment.

Which requires me to not only go in earlier but to drive farther.

It's been a struggle to write in the mornings because I'd have to get up at 3:30 a.m. to get in a good writing bout and have enough time to get ready for work and get there in time. Sure, I get off ealier, but evenings are always touch and go for me, depending upon how crappy or stresseful the day has been.

That's why I liked writing in the mornings.

And, I should not have tried to do NaNo knowing I had a 30,000 word novella to revise in November for a submission deadline of 11/15.

So, I'm pulling out of NaNo. I've "won" it twice before so I know I can do 50,000 words in a month. And I did 0ver 50,000 words in October and, as a result of starting and participating in the 1,000 Words a Day Group, so far, since September 1st, I've written 117,252 words.

So I know I can do it. It's just that November has been something of a bust. And months, weeks or days where things just don't go as you planned do and will happen.

The important thing is not to let that become an excuse just to give up altogether.

Here's a link to a page that talks about setting and achieving goals. The idea is that when planes fly to their destination they are, apparently, some degrees off of course.

One Degree Difference

I've been more than one degree difference off course of my goals this month. That's for sure! But that's okay. I'm still going to keep flying.

And I'm mixing metaphors right and left in this blog post, aren't I? *grin*

Ciao!

Celebrate!

Anybody out there remember the song "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang? It's a great party song and very upbeat.

Well, I'm celebrating.

One of the published authors in my local RWA chapter said that writers should celebrate every time they send out a manuscript, not just when they get accepted.

However, trust me, gettting that same manuscript rejected a few months down the line does take the luster off the original celebration.

But, I'm not going to think about that. I finished revising my novella last night and submitted it just under the wire.

Yes, I most certainly wished I'd had more time to work on it and I fear, due to its many faults, it will most certainly get rejected.

But, so far, it's the longest story I've submitted. It came in at just under 24, 000 words. I've been steadily increasing the word counts for my manuscripts as I work my way towards finally writing, finishing and submitting a novel.

So I feel good about that, at least. I should have started working on it earlier, however, and have learned my lesson from that.

But, yeah, for now, I'm celebrating.

TGIF and have a good one!

Looming Deadline

There's just never enough time, is there?

I've got a deadline looming for a novella I want to submit. The deadline is this upcoming Thursday, the 15th. This is the last weekend before the deadline, the last weekend before I have to return to work on Monday and spend 8 hours---not including commute time---not working on my writing.

So I've got to get as much revising done this weekend on my novella as I can. The draft is pretty much complete but there are still holes I need to patch up and smooth out and paint over.

And, of course, there are all those things you have to do on the weekend that you can't get done during the work week that will take time away from the writing.

Sigh.

But, I've done this before. Somehow managed to squeeze my writing in despite the time constraints, got the story finished and submitted, and I even managed to sell a few of those I've written that way.

Actually, in that I have to work full-time to keep those bills paid, pretty much everything I write is written like that.

Under time constraints that sometimes make my head want to explode.

But I manage somehow.

Ciao!

Writing a Mystery

I'm writing a mystery for NaNoWriMo. Which means I probably won't win this time around. Getting my 50,000 words done by 11/30, that is.

That's okay. I've "won" twice before and both of those manuscripts are still sitting on my computer.

This time around I want a workable first draft.

And, since I've never written a mystery before, the learning curve is steep.

I've read mysteries, of course, but writing one is a whole 'nother matter.

But guess what? It's proving quite fun. I'm doing reserach on crime scenes, detective work, evidence collection, how to write red herrings, that sort of thing, and it's really fascinating stuff. And I'm having a lot of fun putting together my cast of sleuth, love interest, murderer, victim, supsects, etc.

Hmm, actually, my novel is not really a hard-core mystery. It's more a romantic mystery as the emphasis is on the heroine-sleuth and her love interest, but there are dead bodies, and innocent suspects and guilty suspects and sex and religion and politics and more sex and, well, I'm having a ball writing it!

CourtTV will start a new season of Murder by the Book on Monday. It's a show where top-selling mystery writers give their takes on true-life crimes.

I should say that I still love paranormals, fantasy and sci-fi and the ideas for my next two novels are along those lines. But I wanted to give a go at writing a mystery and, so far, it's been fun.

Ciao!

Write On!

It's November 1s. I got up at 5:00 this morning. Why? Because I want to get in a good session of writing before I go to work, and it's also the start of NaNoWriMo and it's my goal to have a 50,000 word, hopefully workable, bare-bones draft of a novel by the end of the month.

I'm also revising a novella and doing world-building for a 30,000 word novella I'm writing in December.

Can I do this?

Possibly.

I started writing every day on September 1st. In September I finished and submitted three stories. I wrote 38, 192 words, averaging 1,273 words a day.

In October, I wrote a total 54,343 words, with an average of 1,753 words a day. I finished a draft for a novella and prepped for my NaNo novel.

I was given a boost when two stories I had submitted earlier this year and last year were accepted for publication in two erotica anthologies published by Simon & Schuster that are coming out in 2008.

So, yeah, I'm gonna do this. One way or the other.

As for the pic of Shakespeare, he's just happens to be my chosen Muse of the Month.

Ciao!