NaNoWriMo: FTW!

This one was interesting. It started with a glimmer of an idea and although I planned out a few scenes I pretty much wrote straight through. This, of course, is a crazy way to write!

At any given point, you my run out of steam or (gasp!) words… It didn’t happen. I managed to reach those 50,000 words, with days to spare. There is still story left to finish the book, probably two or three more chapters.

What I did on this book was to write each chapter pretty much as a scene. Some are more self-contained than others, but these scenes that extend beyond a moment are linked by it.

I’m not done yet, but as I write this I wonder if it was at all what I intended to begin with and realize that it was always a work in flux. I don’t recommend doing it this way on a deadline but it was still quite a rush!

The ending that I envisioned when the idea took hold of me is probably only going to be hinted at – a literary big tease? The part I thought would be the most interesting, once I began to write it, became the most boring and ended being nothing more than a few sentences to segue into action scenes.

What of the gravitas of politics, religion, and a cultural revolution? Some of it is in there. I am sure that it is not as originally intended. Will it be glaringly offensive, shocking, or even daring? I don’t know. Some of it was awfully uncomfortable to write and some scenes suggested themselves that made me cringe. Will it be easier to read that it was to write? We shall see.

Some characters emerged that I had not planned but it was they who dictated their fate. I just wrote what the voices told me…

Despite certain trepidation about some of the content in this project, I never fell behind this year. There were a few times when I was not sure where I was going because I had not planned that far ahead. This did not affect output as much as I feared it might.

And the research was fascinating. Not all of it made it in the book, but there’s some fun Hawai’ian trivia floating in my head, some sustainability data, and lots of very colorful reef creatures!

For those who asked: Yes, I will finish it. I will edit. I will publish.

I hope that May You Grow Old and Fat has its own voice (not necessarily mine), and that there are at least a dozen moments that are strong and colorful and emotionally cathartic enough to ingrain themselves in the readers’ souls. But that part is not up to me.

Finally, there were some lovely people whose support was very palpable and I thank them for it. Y’all know who you are: feel the virtual hugs and occasional kisses (some with tongue!).  

NaNoWriMo Blues

NaNoWriMo has been interesting this year. I seem to be fighting either a bout of tendonitis or carpal tunnel. The city and state seem to be under a barrage of natural disasters, though none seem to be touching me much (it’s as if we are being cocooned in a protective bubble).

So far, I’ve stuck to the original idea and just finished 23,399 words and 12 chapters – or the entire first act.

I am almost halfway done. Now I’ve reached the point of the story I do not really know. So I am really making it up as I move forward…

Next: hippies take over Lanai (may Larry Ellison forgive me!).

Available on iBookstore

There is something very exciting about the e-book markets going international in just the blink of an eye. The iBookstore in iTunes now carries all my titles, including The Scent of Honeysuckle. More importantly, this is true in the US, the UK, Italy, France, Panama, what-have-you. I suspect that the iBookstore will overtake my Nook sales within the next couple of weeks.

I’d sell more if I weren’t slacking on marketing, but there is so much I can manage at once. I have to work on it.

In the meantime, I am plugging away at the NaNoWriMo novel (12,151 words and 8 chapters so far).  I’m hoping that I can thread the narrative later, because although I am writing it in chronological order, I am not entirely sure how much of what I’ve written stays in…

This time around I have less of an outline and more of a general idea of where it is going and I will run out of stuff in about three chapters.

The challenge will be not so much getting May You Grow Old and Fat to market for the holidays, but the other two novels I’ve put aside for the moment (Volume One of Chronicles of Ash and Poetic Justice). If not, then I need to step up the marketing.