NaNoWriMo Winner!

I did it! 

I sat down today and launched myself over the 50,000 word mark and I didn’t even have to plague my characters with the rare, tropical disease called ‘blah, blah, blah’.

In case you missed the news:

So, yes, needless to say, I got around that wall and have set my main character on her steady course towards the story’s black moment where everything will go wrong and everyone will wonder with awe, (hooked and unable to breathe until it is over) how on earth she will pull it out of the fire.

I love it when stuff pulls together. It is so exciting and is the best part of being a writer. I always feel so brilliant when I inadvertently do things like this: I just realized that one of my ‘make the character’s life hell’ moments I have planned will work totally in my favour in more ways than one. You know how characters are supposed to change and form over the story’s course? Well, I have the groundwork for that. Sure, it is full of muddle puddles, quagmires and the odd tree planted right in the way of the groundwork, but it is there. Anyway, I just realized that when she loses her apartment and goes to live with this sweetheart of a woman, that she will have her eyes opened in a way that will help her change who she is so she can settle down and relax.

Not so exciting to you as for me? Sorry, how about THIS:

Oh, not that either. Okay, well maybe I’ll sign off then. Even though I’m over the 50k mark, I still have at least another 30k to go. Wish me luck.

Sincerely yours,

Black Moment Time?

I was coming up to the ‘finish line’ in the NaNoWriMo contest (write 50k in one month) and I hit a wall. (Not literally, as I was sitting in a comfy chair in the public library.) As I sat there, gazing out the window in my favourite writing seat, I thought ‘now what?’ I had everything in mind for what was going to happen to my character when things got ‘really bad’ leading up to the climax as well as how she was going to solve all her problems and her happily ever after.

But how was I going to get there from here? There didn’t seem to be anything left to be done.

Well, after I packed up my laptop, bought a pile of used books off that damn shelf near the library exit, and headed outside, I realized that it was black moment time in my story.

Then I thought, ‘already’? I was only nearing 50,000 words. In fact, I was sitting at 49,000. What to do, what to do? It felt too soon to hit the ‘black moment’ button, but the story was there, ready, all geared up. But what about me? Not so ready.

As I walked, I realized that everything was all geared up for things to hit the shitter in my story and that what I had planned was going to take some doing. Like at least 20,000 words, plus another 10,000 for resolving loose ends. Plus, on the next draft, I would undoubtedly flesh out some things, such as setting, adding another 10,000 words or so. If I didn’t follow the story and blast the black moment right now, I was going to have my usual problem of a lagging story and a word count hovering over 120,000. Yikes.

It wasn’t a wall after all, it was black moment time.

Flaming Fingers

My fingers are burning up my keyboard so amazingly fast that there are flames shooting out all over the place.

Okay, maybe not. But I did write 4,228 words in about 3 hours this afternoon. That’s pretty fast. My word count for NaNoWriMo is now 13,052. Wahoo! And the story is officially over the starting hump and all the fun action gets to happen now. Either the story is going to roll out before me like some grand red carpet, or the earth in front of me is going to crumble and fall away like some video game. One or the other. I’m kind of hoping for the red carpet, but seeing as I don’t know what the next big key in the story is going to be–you know, the one the story sits on–it really could go either way.

Oh, and it seems to be taking more of an urban fantasy feel than a chick lit feel. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not seeing as urban fantasy is pretty much the next genre bubble that is about to pop. If it hasn’t already. At least there are no vampires. (Nothing against the undead or those who write about them.)

So there you have it, a NaNoWriMo update.

Down to NaNo Business

Today, I officially began writing my story for NaNoWriMo. I must say, I am a writing machine. In the span of two hours, I went from 0 words to 2888. And they even make sense. Plus, I think I even have progression working in my favour this time. However, I’m not sure if I introduce a story hook in a compelling way and soon enough in the first scene. I did spend some time tinkering with that. But this is, of course, a rough draft and as Chris Baty, Program Director over at NaNoWriMo said in his pep talk email of November 1st:

“The books we write in November won’t start out like the novels we buy in bookstores. Because the novels we buy in bookstores didn’t start out like bookstore-novels either. Nope. They started out as way-less beautiful, way-more exciting things called first drafts. These are the dinged-up cousins to final drafts, and they’re packed with crazy energy and laughable tangents and embarrassing instances where a main character’s name shifts six times over the course of a single chapter.”

I agree wholeheartedly. And that is why, I am not so worried about whether my story starts off with the biggest bang that it could. Part of the reason why is that I don’t know the whole story yet which means that I don’t know what’s going to be the best way for it to begin. In fact, I’m pretty certain that I’ll be changing the beginning in at least one or two or eight ways before the story is considered ‘ready’.

If I can keep things going, I will be done my 50,000 words in a span of 34 hours (nonconsecetive). Does that sound right? Seems a bit…fast. Then again, I have tossed down over 80,000 words in a month, so 50,000 shouldn’t surprise me.

I pinched this timely photo from Inner Geek.

Now if that NaNoWriMo website wasn’t so amazingly slow that I could actually check in on my NaNo buddies and upload my word count…

NaNo-Uh oh?

I’ve promised myself to write a new story for NaNoWriMo this month. I even have a story idea that has been flouncing around in the back of my head for at least 6-8 months. No worries, right?

Well maybe if the genre I write in wasn’t dead. Seriously. I had a published author tell me the story of how her chick lit novel didn’t sell, despite editor interest, last year. I’ve heard agents proclaim that the genre is dead. Can’t sell a thing. Not so good for the unpublished writer of chick lit, is it?

But I have faith. I really enjoy writing chick lit and it is the genre for which I get the majority of my ideas. There has got to be a way. In the meantime, what is a gal to do when she’s promised herself to write a NaNoWriMo story but the story idea is <eeek> chick lit.

I suppose it means suck it up and write it! Write what you love–that’s always the advice they give out, isn’t it?