There's no need to call the cops; handcuffs aren't involved. Although some people like that. ;)

There I was, hitting some significant word-count action on NaNo, when suddenly another WIP, which has been sitting around waiting for me to get it it for some revisions, body-slammed me. Next thing I knew, I had worked my way through three chapters without even realizing it.

So I kept at it, without a second thought to the NaNo WIP.

Do you feel sorry for the abandoned work in progress? It has no feelings...

Actually, I'm delighted with the 15,000 words I created in just over two weeks. That's pretty freaking awesome, coming from a woman who seems to take forever to work her way through a novel.

Is it wrong of me to walk away and admit NaNo defeat before the deadline? I don't think so. What it did for me was to put some scenes down on paper that had been banging around in my head for the past few months. Now that I have the setting and characters down, I need to dig deep.

Yeah, the icky stuff that terrifies me.

And here I thought being held captive by a manuscript was scary enough. ;)

Gotta keep this short, the novel is cracking the whip again.

Labels: blahs, ideas, NaNoWriMo, writing

Okay, this post is not about spray cheese, but I couldn't help but notice that in my current WIP I make three references to spray cheese:

"She felt about as attractive as a can of spray cheese."

"He spotted her right away; her beach towel was the color of spray cheese."

And, my personal favorite:

" 'And you invented spray cheese too, right?' Tess said as she glared at the dark-haired girl."

So it looks like NaNo brings out the spray cheese in me. Ugh. Now there's a quote for you. LOL

And no, I haven't yet caught up to where I "should" be with the novel's word count, but I'm still okay with it. There's oodles of November left. Gulp.

Speaking of November, winter has officially arrived at Casa Staring. There is snow on the ground -- the serious stuff that looks all nice and puffy until you try to walk or drive on it. Somehow I always forget that winter happens here, every year.

DH and I snuck off for a romantic matinee screening of The Quantum of Solace yesterday. There are no spoilers in this post, so relax.

Bonnie's review for The Quantum of Solace: James Bond had way too much clothing on.

I mean, the guy is in the middle of the desert and he leaves his suit jacket and shirt on? What gives? And what's with him wearing white or beige pants everywhere? Sure, he can pull it off, but it's not like he's on a cruise ship getting ready for the shuffleboard circuit. Sheesh.

That's all I'm gonna say about it.

Labels: fun, NaNoWriMo, writing

This is the point of NaNo when most writers should have passed the 25K mark. I have not. Not even close.

And, somehow, I'm okay with this.

It's not that I've given up; I'm just catching myself doing those things that I do when I lose track of where a story is going. When that happens, I add characters, have them stop and eat or simply throw in a dance sequence with celebrity judges. Le sigh.

Hitting 50K by November 30 is still possible. I just want to make sure that what I have created can be useful once NaNo is over and done. I look back at my last NaNo success (which was a few years back), and it's a big heap of words with no real sense of purpose, direction or, for that matter, punctuation.

And no, I'm not going back and reading over everything. That's asking for trouble. My first draft is rough and nasty, filled with repetitive words, oodles of dialogue and passages of description that come out of nowhere. Oh, and there's this owl that keeps on hooting for no apparent reason. Gotta love the Canadian wilderness. ;)

So yeah, my current word count may suck, but I have 12,500 more words than I did on November 1. And that's not too shabby.

Labels: NaNoWriMo, writing

Somehow I've been able to get 7,000 words down on the page for my new WIP. Yahoo!

My secret? Not looking back at the traffic accident of words that I wrote the day before. I made that mistake last weekend and it threw me off my game. Of course, by now my word count should be around 15K, but at least I can say that I only have 172 steps (of 250 words) left.

So it's still completely doable.

And now that I'm working on the new idea, the recently completed (but in need of a good revision) manuscript has been sending me drinks and winking at me. It's sorely tempting, but I can't go there -- not without sabotaging progress on the WIP and risking a NaNo failure.

:::sends drink back after taking the paper umbrella:::

The week ahead is full of too many things already that will take me away from the keyboard, so I'll have to find a way to make good use of the time I do have available. Will I have to pull the plug on the Internet again?

I hope not, as that was a wonewee time in BonnieLand. ;)

Saturday I attended a fantabulous workshop on world building by Maria V. Snyder. Not only was the timing of it ideal for me and my manuscripts, it also opened my eyes to what I've been leaving out in my novels. Well, beside the plot, character development and dance sequences. What I learned in those few hours will definitely help me for years to come... or at least until November 30.

Okay, must dash and see if I can get another 250-word hunk in before I hit the hay.

Labels: ideas, NaNoWriMo, writing

This one I actually caught myself thinking several times throughout the week (thanks to NaNo):

"I'll make up for it on the weekend."
Of course I will! According to the list of things I feel that I will be able to accomplish during the weekend, mine last about, I dunno, three months or so. ;) It's all part of the thrill of working from home.

Only I haven't been lately. I've been doing some onsite work for some clients. Onsite as in "not at home in pyjamas, able to work on whatever I want, when I want." Onsite as in "they expect me to focus on the tasks at hand while I'm here between 9 and 5."

Sometimes I forget, since I'm used to taking breaks at the home office. Sometimes they last for a day or two...

And that's frowned upon in those corporate-type offices. You know, the ones with supervisors in them.

So I've been struggling with getting words on the page for my current WIP so that I can hit 50,000 words by the end of the month, struggling with reworking another manuscript's synopsis so it kind of resembles the revised novel and struggling to simply get stuff done, like laundry and meal preparation.

DH is a saint and can do the laundry, but his kitchen skills are limited to soup or breakfast foods. A woman cannot live on waffles and noodles forever, no matter how tempting.

To combat this "save it for the weekend" mentality, I'll break a task down into smaller steps, and then promise myself to tackle at least one step before I can postpone the rest of it until I have another spare moment.

This tactic normally works for me, since, to make it easy on myself, I'll break something down into so many steps, each one only takes about five minutes. Then I'll end up doing two or three steps, and soon enough, I'll just plow through the whole darn thing, just to get it off my list.

Of course, when facing 50,000 words, I've broken it down into 250-word allotments. I only have to do that 200 times (actually, it's only 184 now) before the end of the month. It's totally doable, just like the commercial-break squats I try to remember to do while watching TV instead of going to the gym.

Ugh, I'll have to make up for that on the weekend. ;)

Labels: excuse of the week, NaNoWriMo

Okay, I've actually spent more time waiting for the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) website to load than actually writing, so that makes me a wee bit cranky.

All because I'm actually at 3,005 words, which is right where I'm supposed to be.

Will I reach 50,000 words by the end of the month? Why not? I've been able to do it before. And my last two manuscripts were waaay longer than 50K.

Of course, both of those took me a little longer than 30 days to write. ;)

But NaNoWriMo is all about the coyote-ugly first draft. It's when you basically throw the words onto the page and hope that it'll all make sense when you read it later. My goal is to turn off my internal editor, which has only gotten louder thanks to feedback on a whole bunch of novel-writing contests I entered over the past few months.

:::pours herself another Diet Coke and fires up the chocolate fountain:::

You know you're in trouble when the Penguins of Panic start cutting up rough about the names you've given your characters. This time around, I went with names that are brand-spanking new to me, free of any connection to people in my past or celebrities or anything written by Stephanie Meyer.

And the Penguins just couldn't get over my hero's name. They even made a little annoying song about it to try and convince me why it sucks. To the tune of "Happy Birthday." I'm not even gonna put it in this blog post because I'm happy with his name, it's NaNo and he's dreamy. As intriguing as a 17-year-old can possibly be.

Ah, the good old days. From, like, five years ago. ;)

It's been such a long time since I've started a fresh new novel that I've forgotten how overwhelming/exciting/mind-blowing it all is. For this moment, whether it lasts another 24 hours or until the middle of the month, I'm in the driver's seat. Ah, the power!

But eventually my brilliantly named characters are going to start doing their own things and making their own decisions. Le sigh. It's so hard when they grow up.

And, to make things even more interesting, I'm trying this novel out in third person with two points of view. This is huge for me, since I'm so comfortable writing in first person. It could be that I'm an only child.

Me, me, me, me...

Okay, Day 3 is almost upon us and I still have 1,495 words to go. Eek!

Labels: goals, NaNoWriMo, writing