Playing with my Novel

Working on Blues has been an interesting experience...

For one thing, I'm coming to the interesting conclusion that real life really doesn't have a plot, exactly. It's just a series of events that happens, and sometimes that leads to good things and sometimes not. But most of the time, in real life, that guy you snubbed back in 5th grade doesn't come back as an evil super-villain, bent on destroying you and everything you stand for.

Which is where I ended up after working on Saturday; my "bad guy" for this book isn't really bad. He's not evil, or even really all that awful. He is, honestly, pretty sympathetic.

Unlike Chris, the bad guy from Roll, who is simply a collection of some homophobic traits wrapped up with a string and named after a guy I threw out of a gaming group for having his character attempt date rape and not understanding why both the other characters in the group AND the players all got mad at him. If you've done any role playing before, you recognize that character motivation and player motivation are not always the same thing.... but in this particular case, there were five real people and five pretend characters who were actively appalled at his behavior. We became more appalled as he not only defended that character's behavior, but that sort of behavior in general.

So, Charles (and yes, I just noticed that both antagonists have names that start with Ch.... yay, subconscious...) isn't a bad guy; he's just not the Right Guy. He was raised by strict evangelical parents, who, when discovering they had a gay son, tried to put him through a sexual orientation change program. This pretty much ends with him throwing out every one of his parents' cherished beliefs, including opinions on things like monogamy. As far as he's concerned, that's all Bible crap and useless for his life the way he intends to lead it. (There might be a bit of me in there, too, as I've thrown out a lot of my parents' beliefs, and I still almost never do anything major without considering if it would piss off my dad and rubbing my hands together gleefully if I think it will. As far as I know, I've never deliberately done something JUST to piss him off that I wouldn't have done otherwise, but that might not be 100% true.)

It's amusing in some ways, because I put traits in him that I've picked up from one of my friends who finds it hilarious that I insert jealousy and monogamy into my m/m stories. Charles's attitudes about monogamy come directly from conversations I've had with this friend. He and his partner frequently had/have m/m/m encounters or m/m/m/m encounters, or swinging couples. "I can't think of a gay partnership that we haven't both had sex with. Not all at the same time. Except, you know, when it was all at the same time."

And don't get me wrong, I love my friend. And I don't disapprove of what he does. I agree with him and to some degree, even envy him that particular lifestyle, so long as that works for him, his husband, and the various partners that they hook up with. I'm pretty sure, however, it wouldn't work for me. Whether it's imposed on me by the patriarchy or my own insecure and somewhat possessive nature really doesn't matter, as far as I'm concerned. What concerns me with issues of jealousy and monogamy is that you do what you and your partner agree to. If you agree to an open relationship, great! If you set limits and rules on it and you're both okay with that, great! If you're like a particular friend of a friend I know whose view on rules is that they exist specifically for him to violate? NOT okay!

Charles is mostly an impediment, rather than a true antagonist. He's the rock that Beau and Vin need to move out of the way in order to proceed down the road. He's not bad (he's not even drawn that way!) he's just not the right guy For Beau.

So, after building him up as funny, sympathetic, and good to hang out with, I had to spend some time tearing him back down, and pointing out some of his flaws; particularly the ones that clash with Beau's values.

And the biggest one is going to be about loyalty. You don't screw over your friends. And you don't hang out with people who do screw over your friends.

Which is one of the areas where I teeter from time to time. I hate "picking sides" when people get divorced (unless, like in some cases, I hated the spouse to begin with, in which case I'm just as happy to put them in the crazy ex pile). Case in point, a little more than a year ago, some of my friends got divorced; I'd known both of them separately of their relationship with each other. I like both of them. And while I consider one of them to be "more wrong" than the other, I can see where both sides weren't happy with what their marriage had become, and while the "wrong event" probably provided the spark to the divorce, it so obviously wasn't about just that one thing.

But it does sometimes make me feel all weird and wobbly inside when I feel like I may have unfairly picked "a side."

(Especially since, in college, whenever there was a break up, I was frequently the one blamed, the crazy ex, and the one losing friends. Without the people on the outside knowing what stuff looked like on the inside. And sometimes, I didn't act as best I could have, in the situation, but I don't think anything I did was so awful as to deserve some of the condemnation I got. So, you know, reverse golden rule, don't treat people the way you didn't like to be treated.)

So, I'm putting Beau right in the middle of that situation, where his current boyfriend does something particularly rotten to his ex-boyfriend. But Charles and Vin never got along, so it's not like Charles is betraying Vin, because he's not. In fact, with the current viewpoint of people usually not liking their ex's, Charles may have considered what he did as something Beau would approve of...

It's been interesting to play with....

And in Other News

Sometimes my days are a little too full.

This isn't exactly a complaint, just sometimes I feel like things are happening so fast that I don't really get time to enjoy them before I'm on to the next thing.

Also, I'm slightly worried about the "hedonistic treadmill" which is one of my favorite themes from The Happiness Project. (tl;dr human beings always want moremoremore to be happy. we suck.) The idea's not unique to Rubin, but that's where I first came across the idea that while I might suck, I suck about the same as everyone else, which is something, I guess...

My concern comes up that eventually I'll take for granted my publishing and the people I work with and the squee of new cover art...

That eventually I'll believe that I deserve all this.

Which is going to turn me into a giant asshole. And believe me, I don't want to be that way. (I've met a particularly famous person, who I won't name here, who is a giant asshat... because he's used to being treated a certain way... )

So, today (well, yesterday, now that you're reading this...) I got my new cover art.

Pistols & Guns is a short story, a western erotic romance... I got to have fun giving my heroine a truly horrible name (that might be a theme with me. Having a horrible name myself, I have a tendency to distribute them. It's a weird compulsion, like "this milk is going bad, here, SMELL THIS!")

Anyway, I recently sold Pistols & Guns to Hot Ink... and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you.

(Of course, now I also need to write a 'blurb for it... oh yay!)

And I got another acceptance in my email box. It's a pre-official acceptance (the publishing house could still nix me at the last minute, which has happened to me before...) so I can't say more about it than that... or, I could, the publishing house could nix me, and then I'd feel like an idiot. But ya know, that happens...

Today I did a little over 2,300 words on my NaNoWriMo project... so after taking two days off to cough my lungs out, I'm getting back to work...

Cough, Hack

First off, there's This:

Release day for my best friend, Elizabeth L. Brooks, and her first full-length novel, Foxfur.

She's going to be guest posting with me here in a few days (Friday, I think. I've already set up the post and pre-dated it... )

The book should be up at Amazon in a few days... I'll let you know as soon as I know...

This story has hella history, which I'll let you catch up with on Friday, since Liz talked about it.

And in the meanwhile, I'll let you know that this story takes place in the same world as her older novella, Safe Harbor which remains to date one of my favorite stories. (Not my favorite Elizabeth L. Brooks' story, but it is, but one of my favorite ALL TIME stories ever.)

###

So, I took two days off to be completely, horribly ill. (Because OF COURSE I get sick during NaNoWriMo!!) On the plus side, I've been doing the front loading stuff and I'm way ahead of the technical NaNo goal... (Just over 29,000 words at present, and it's only the 13th)

Of course, now I'm "behind" in the reverse NaNo by about 4,000 words... my "plan" is to go ahead and write like I didn't miss those two days. I'm not going to push the hell out of myself and try to "make up" the words and I'm not going to skip ahead in my word goals... today should be 1,953 words, but I'm going to do Monday's word goal instead, 2,183... If I don't go over at all for the next few weeks, it'll mean that my last few days of NaNo are 364 and 231 instead of 116 and 1... Since I'm almost positive that once I start getting into the low 1,000s, I'll probably go waaay over... this shouldn't be a problem.

The only other problem I see coming up is Thanksgiving, that we're spending with my dad and stepmom and my stepmom's extended family, including my stepmom's cousin who works for one of the Big Six publishing houses as a submissions editor. I've never met this cousin, but my stepmom's been trying to introduce us for a while. I'm a little nervous; one because I've read so many articles from the Big Six sneering down at small and indie publishers. And two, because it's quite possible that she's one of those "ew, erotica" people. I dunno, haven't met her. But I am not about to let someone sneer at my publishing houses or the kind of work that I do, since I love my job and the people I work with...

On the other hand, my stepmom says that she is specifically looking for Steampunk writers, and I do have the outline for Wormwood Trade hanging about, so... yeah, like what I need to do is have a third novel to write in 2014.... sure. Good plan.

Also, I'm working with the lovely and talented Author Rue Volley for my cover-art for Pistols & Guns, which will be coming out at the end of the month, so lots of excitement there...

Once Upon a NaNo

Still plodding along, making progress. I've been posting little bits of my story to my Facebook page, so if you want, you can go over there and see what I'm up to...

(Rough draft is rough.)

Today's writing was pretty emotional for me. I love my characters. Beau and Vin have been busy and active parts of my day-to-day life for eight months now. By the time I'm finished writing Blues (probably mid-December or thereabouts) I will have lived with them for nine months. If that's not all symbolic and shit, I don't know what is.

Anyway, obviously, since Roll hasn't been published yet (It will be in our hands at the end of February, 2014) most of you don't know what's happened thus far, so a shocker of a revelation that happens in the first third of Blues won't mean anything to you.

I'm trying to be a bit realistic with this novel - which is unusual for me. I'm usually a zombie/steampunk/urban supernatural sort of girl (and if that's your thing, the first in my urban supernatural series, Blood Sight, will be released in March) But you know, this one's a coming-of-age sort of thing. New Adult. A genre that some people have decried, but I'm really happy to see coming into its own. So to speak.

College and young adulthood is a crazy time that's not really covered, especially in the romance genre. Admittedly, that's because we all act like complete assholes, break ups, hook ups, screw ups, throw ups. We drunk-text old boyfriends, we sleep with our roommate's high school sweetheart. We fall into swimming pools and wake up all Goldilocks (who's been sleeping in my bed.) If we're really, really lucky, we come out at the end with a degree and a small mountain of debt.

I came out of college with divorce papers.

A few days back (really, it's not even been a WEEK yet since NaNo started) I wrote about one of the couples I established in Roll breaking up. (My editor was a bit distressed about this - but I liked <character>! she complains.) I like her, too. She's not a bad person, just not ready to cope with the realities of grad school and balancing a long-distance relationship with someone who's still an undergrad. Long distance relationships suck. Today, one of my real life friends told me she and her SO had broken up. Because of a long distance relationship. Yeah, so... that happens.

I stumble over myself a bit, in this story. Beau's a misfit from a redneck town. Someone who's smart, smart enough to know that he has to pretend to be normal in high school. I wasn't that smart, but I wish I had been. Still, he feels alienated and alone, and even now, in college where people accept him for who he is, he's still uncertain. He keeps waiting to wake up and have it all taken away.

Vin's a little more like I am now, outgoing, obnoxious, says what he thinks and sometimes thinks not at all before opening his mouth. He doesn't try to fit in so much as he adapts his environment around him; he surrounds himself with like-minded individuals and delights in being the center of attention. And just recently, he's come face to face with the possibility of rejection. He's never really dealt with it before, and his anger and pain are very familiar to me.

Today, it took a while to get my words out. I was just finishing up when my daughter got home from school.

I've been sitting here all day, staring at my pages.

Because I love these two boys, these shadows of the me I used to be. And I know that I have to hurt them, in order to have story.

But I really don't want to.

Row row row Wri Mo

Busy, busy weekend.

I did not manage to get my word goal on Saturday, but I made up for it by writing over 4,000 words on Sunday.

I am exhausted.

I feel like I'm not doing anything else, just writing and sleeping. Which isn't quite true; on Saturday I spent some time with friends watching movies and we had dinner.

On the plus side, the number goals are sliding down every single day. Tomorrow's word goal is only 2,872.

(Only, she says!)

Which is good because I have a ton on my docket for tomorrow.

I have to go vote, I need to make a grocery list, get the shopping done, stop at the Post Office (for those of you waiting for your rafflecoptor prizes, I'm sorry. We only have the one car and I usually only have the car for one day a week, and on that day, some idiot decided to try to rob our local post office. And when he didn't succeed, he claimed the box he brought in contained a bomb. So our post office was closed all day, and most of the surrounding roads were blocked off as the police chased the guy down and then brought in the bomb squad.) That totally happened, even if it sounds like the worst's most ridiculous excuse. We have a social engagement with the husband's friend for lunch. And of course, with the local elections being housed at our high school, the daughter has the day off. And she's got a project to assemble that's due on Thursday.

So... if I get anything done at all tomorrow, I'll be happy.

(No, no I won't.)

Anyway, I'm more than 12,000 words into the novel already, so it's moving along well, and I'm pretty happy with it, so far.

So So WriMo

First of all, I'm going to try this method of NaNoWriMo'ing this year.

If you don't want to go read it, it's basically a front-loading way of going about the project, to take all the energy and motivation you have at the beginning and turn it into process.

It also allows you to write a little less each day, until the final two weeks where you're writing substantially less than most "competitors." Which gives me some wiggle room in case I bork up, have real life, or whatnot.

Honestly, I'm jazzed about this novel. Not about NaNoWriMo. I already know I can write a novel. You already know I can write a novel. That being said, I did put aside 2013 as the Year of the Longer Pieces. And while I already wrote, edited, submitted, and got accepted a Novel this year, what's the harm in doing another one, right?

I'm not a very competitive sort - or, more, I am, but I'd rather not be. I don't like the person I become when I start comparing myself to other people. I don't like feeling bad about myself if I'm behind (as if anyone in the world can actually be the best at anything...) or how I feel about myself when I'm doing "better" than someone else (as if I'm actually improved as a person by beating someone else...) Bleh bleh bleh. Just... personality issues, no! I don't want to go there. I try really, really hard not to. Obviously, sometimes I fail. I see my friends who write 18 pages in a day, or over 2,000 words every day of their regular lives (not even for NaNo, just NORMAL...) and I feel like a fake. Like a poseur. I wonder if I'll ever feel like a "real" writer.

I wonder if people with real jobs ever feel like that. I mean, do librarians feel like "fake librarians"? Do accountants worry if they've got enough street cred with other accountants? What kind of fucked up brain do I have to be able to look at my bookshelf of pretty pretty paperbacks and wonder if I'm just not good enough? Seriously!

Anyway, sorry. I'm awesome! Really!

I do get a little overwhelmed sometimes; not with the realities of my life, but with thinking about those realities. I know I can write a novel. I've written three - two accepted and one still floating about in the ether looking for a home - that I consider worthy of publication and a couple of others that I wouldn't use to paper the litter box. On the other hand, knowing I have to write two novels for 2014 to be published in 2015 (or sooner!) is a little crazy-making. I mean, I know I can do it. The question is, can I do it?

No, don't try to boggle that out. You'll only get as crazy as I already am.

I like NaNoWriMo because it's pushy and crazy and eliminates all the dithering time when I spend thirty minutes looking at and rewriting the same sentence.

I hate it because the editing process afterward is So Much Worse than when I'm able to write/edit/write/edit.

I love it because I am a crazy extrovert in a field of people who are all crazy hermits. I like writing with others. As a social activity. Comparing notes. Wailing at each other when we have no ideas. It's like tag team jello wrestling. Crazy, silly, messy, frustrating, and somehow intensely sexy.

I hate it because I watch a bunch of my friends feel like they're losing at life, somehow. See this article for more thoughts on that. He's already said what I think, so I'll just let him say it, okay? Okay.

Real writers write. I'm still not positive they write every day, under every circumstance. (Hell, I don't write every day, and I've still got two novels coming out next year! So... yeah...)

I'm not sure NaNoWriMo makes any more real writers than there were. Sometimes people need a push to get going, and some people hit the bottom of the cliff and swear no more, never.

The trick always comes down to, what works for you!

I follow the 7th Sea 2nd Edition GameMaster rule in all things.

You don't need any rules. Cheat anyway.

(That being said, I wrote 3,512 words today.... so, I can't even follow my own rules...)

Before I Leave

So... I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year.

I was having this conversation quite a while ago with one of my editors, in which I was laying out my to-write list.

This year I've written Roll, revised it, and sent it in. Got it accepted, it's the first of three (maybe five... both Hector and Ann-Marie, who are side characters, are clamoring for their own stories...) novels expected out of the series, with the second being Blues, and the third being Classic.

I've also revised and finished Blood Sight, my NaNo project from 2011... and it's also been accepted. Aaaand it's the first in a series of four novels; Howling Bitch, Demon Halo, and Ghost Magic rounding out THAT series...

(Both of these novels have been accepted and will be available in early 2014, end of February for Roll and sometime mid-march for Blood Sight...)

To which my editor said to me, in all seriousness, "You realize you've committed yourself to writing two novels a year for the next two to three years, right?"

Um.... well.

Yes.

Except while I knew that math, I didn't really add it all up. Just what I'd soft-committed to. (There's some sort of unwritten rule that, as a novelist with a series title, you have to put out one book in the series every year... it's not written in stone, but it may as well be, loud as some people scream - me included! - when they don't get their annual Harry Dresden fix; or Game of Thrones, or WHATEVER... )

On the other hand, I wrote a novel, a longish short story (Synchronous Rotations), edited two novels (Marked Man is still out there floating around... ), 25 short stories for the Promptly collection, and a handful of other short stories (My Girlfriend's Gun, Tanked, Blood Cries Up, Pistols & Guns, aaand I'm sure I'm forgetting something....) this year.

(Wow, that was parenthetical...)

So. I can do this. I really can.

But I do know it's going to be challenging.

It took me from April until mid-July to write the 60,000 words that became Roll. (and while I was doing that, I wrote at least one short story every week) And it took me November 2012, and most of September to write the 60,000 words that became Blood Sight.

We'll see if I complete the NaNoWriMo challenge again this year. But even if I don't, it'll give me a headstart on those two novels I need to write....

I probably won't be here on my blog much in the meanwhile. But I do post regularly to Facebook so if you want to see what I have to say, pop over there and take a peek. Also, I'll probably be posting daily word counts to Twitter for November.

Presented without any other commentary needed.

Kiss the Cats Goodbye

I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year.

Personally, I'm convinced I'm deranged. (yeah, I know, I was deranged before... shut up.)

I'm also in the middle of buying a house, moving out of the apartment I've lived in for 8 years, celebrating my best friend's 40th birthday, prepping for a vacation in Orlando in the beginning of December, dunno what my plans are for Thanksgiving yet, and dealing with another friend's failing marriage.

Not that real life ever stops happening.

And I probably won't get time to write on the weekends, so I'm looking at 2,300 words per weekday.

Yeah.

Deranged. You heard it here first.

I've decided to go ahead with Blood Sight, after another dear friend helped me with my outline. I know, I know, NaNo is about vomiting onto the page with no plan, but fuck it, I'd like a better shot at finishing. I want to write this novel, it's been percolating for a few years now and if nothing else, I want Marcus out of my head. My head is a really crowded place.

(Completely aside, I seem to have finally mastered only putting one space at the end of a sentence. Yay learning curve.)

I may not write much here, while I'm working, so if you don't see me, I haven't died yet.

Meanwhile: Steamlust is available for your Kindle or Nook. And Shifting Steam is now available on Kindle and also as a trade paperback. Lustfully Ever After is available for pre-order on Amazon, too, although there's not yet a pretty cover, and will be out in May.

See you on the flipside!

Blah blah fabulous new shoes blah

Just so you know where the title comes from... this is one of my daughter's favorite books. And one of our favorite books to read to her.

There's a bunch of suggestions as to what the child is grumpy about... did you get up on the wrong side of the bed? Did you stub your toe?

And our favorite; did you have to go over to some adults' house where everything was weird and fragile and you couldn't touch anything and the adults all sat around talking about BORING stuff?

In the background picture, you see a bunch of adult torsos and legs (for some reason, kids in stories never seem to look UP) and conversation bubbles which say things like "blah blah furnace filter blah" "blah kidney stones blah blah" "blah blah fabulous new shoes BLAH."

My husband and I have used that phrase "blah blah fabulous new shoes BLAH!" for several years now, usually meaning "we talked about something that was dull" to describe parties, office problems, neighbor problems... For example: "Well, the UBC had a meeting to discuss the CAR and the ISP issue, blah blah fabulous new shoes blah." (No, as a note, I don't understand any of that, either. Something I think the husband doesn't actually understand any of it either, and neither does anyone else, they're just all involved in a massive game of blind man's bluff.)

Which is basically my long-winded way of saying there's not really a theme to today's entry, I'm just babbling. Blah blah furnace filter blah!

I finally got paid for Golden Moment. I know, I know, it's terrible gauche to talk about money, but still... getting a check for the work. BIG DEAL! That's a thing off my list. I am now officially a paid writer. (I've had a few other things published in small literary magazines that I was "paid" in contributor's copies... some of which I never actually GOT, mind you...) So that was exciting. Now, admittedly, selling short stories is the writer's equivalent of working an internship. You're not really getting paid. Not really.

Given the amount of work I put into Golden Moment; probably 8-10 hours of actually writing, an hour or so reading edits and crits, another 3 hours making those changes... I'm making ish about minimum wage. Which wouldn't be terrible if I was doing 10-12 hours a WEEK, but those hours were spread out over a few months. Not to mention the several months of stalking my inbox, but technically speaking, that was my off-time.

Which is not a bad thing, mind. I'm just saying, no one is going to get rich writing short stories unless they are incredibly prolific and in high demand.

What publishing shorts is for is getting your name out there. Getting experience writing in your chosen genre. Hopefully getting some fans. Making sure the publishers know that you've done your time in the trenches. And that someone else has taken a risk on your work, so maybe they can, too.

Like I said, I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year. And I'm trying to decide what I want to work on. Right now, the two samples I posted (here and here) are the two things screaming loudest in my head to work on. Wormwood Trade a little louder than Blood Sight. I have almost a full head-worked outline for Wormwood Trade (if I can figure out how to show you my notes, I will, because some of it is pretty interesting from a technical perspective, but I don't have a scanner anymore, so... ) altho my characters are still a little hesitant to develop. I have characters for Blood Sight and a couple of key scenes that I want to hit, but no actual story-map.

Yes, I actually make story maps. I think that Hollywood does these too, where they sort of sketch up stick figures and write little dialogue bits next to them, or descriptions, and they move through the story LONG before the script is finalized, the parts are cast, or any of the special effects are developed. I thought it was a good idea, and I do the same thing. Altho I frequently write my scenes on post-it notes and move them around on the "map" as I work through the idea.

Which is to say right now Wormwood trade looks like this: girl and boy follow these GPS turn by turn instructions, which lead them from Point A to Point G and they go to B C D E and F in between. I just have no real idea who Girl and Boy are, as people. They may very well not go anywhere I want them to.

And Blood Sight looks more like this: Marcus and Rachel start here... somewhere they end up in Bad Guy's dungeon... and they have a friend, Raphael, who is an angel. There's a conspiracy and I think the head warlock is leading it? ...and I have no idea where they're going? Do we know where the fuck the hotel is? Why can't we get back on the interstate from Witchduck Road? We don't know where we're gooooooing... (this bad road trip memory brought to you by SciCon '92, VaBeach.)

I was also debating a bit, and writing a bit, about the werewolf urban supernatural romance (which would sequel Blood Sight) and while I did some research today about eliminating heat signatures and sniper rifles (I wonder if I'm on the FBI watch list yet...) I just couldn't seem to get the story flowing, thus you are not seeing it here...

So... my choices right now are:

Blood Sight: An urban supernatural romance. A very old vampire, Marcus, and a woman with the Sight, Rachel. There's a conspiracy to murder her because her abilities. She's not even aware of the extent of Power the Sight grants her. Not only does she get glimpses of the future, but she is also immune to most warlock and vampire abilities; since she Sees things As They Are, she's not vulnerable to the glamour that vampires and some other creatures use to hide themselves from mortals, beguile them, or otherwise harm them. Rachel has a twin brother, Noah, who's a warlock and may or may NOT be involved in the conspiracy to murder his own sister. (Don't ask me, I don't know!)

Or

Wormwood Trade: Steampunk time-travel romance: The Wormwood Trade is a pirate operation; using forbidden technology they travel between parallel universes, each one similar to, but not exactly like, their own. They can move items and people from one dimension to another. For a price. When a noble loses his only child to war, he pays the exorbitant costs to have an almost mirror image of her taken from a universe where she did NOT die... but when the mirror is discovered by her fiancee, who knows she died six years ago, what will happen? Is she an acceptable substitute, or have the years they've been apart (for him) changed him too much? Can she love the man he is now, or will she continue to pine for the man he was before suffering so much grief and loss?

Any opinions?

Blood Sight

I'm trying to decide what project I want to work on for NaNoWriMo. Here's the opening idea I have for Blood Sight.

NaPlUrNoMo

Ok, I think everyone in the writing world knows about NaNoWriMo. I love saying that. Hate typing it, but I love saying it. NaNoWriMo. Just sort of falls off the tongue after being rolled around in your mouth like an everlasting gobstopper. With a trail of multicolored saliva following it. Ok, unattractive mental image. Sorry.

If you don't, go look it up.

I have done NaNoWriMo successfully (well, finished a project, wrote the 50,000 words, etc) once; that Draft Zero crock of steaming crap was so bad I didn't even show it to anyone. And then my hard drive crashed in January and I lost it anyway. Talking about the Bad Novel later with a friend, I got an insight into my hero - I could never quite figure out why he liked the heroine, although he insisted that he did. With my friend's comments, I was able to get a handle on him, figure her - the character, not my friend - out, and I rewrote the whole thing. Since I didn't have the draft to work from, this was a complete revision. And that was a much better story. Took me about five months to write. Marked Man, as I ended up titling it, is now in secondary revisions that I hope to complete by the end of the year.

I've tried a few times since then to do NaNoWriMo and sometimes I go for a week or so, and sometimes I don't even get started!

Well, I'm going to try AGAIN this year. I have several novel-ish projects percolating on back burners. (How is it that my kitchen has 2 back burners and 2 FRONT burners and my brain has 1 front burner and 5,000,000 back burners?) I have a series of urban supernatural romances; Blood Sight, Moon Shadow, Bad Intentions, and Death Magic. I have a steampunk romance, The Wormwood Trade. I have a zombie novel; Zom and the art of Undead Maintenance. I'll pick one and run with it.

Which brings me to the title of this blog entry.

NaPlUrNoMo

NAtional PLan yoUR NOvel MOnth.

I know, NaNoWriMo isn't supposed to be about planning. It's supposed to be about bashing your head in and hoping something useful leaks out.

Well, you know, NaNo is a like an RPG. And the first rule of an RPG is "If you don't like the rules, change 'em."

So, for the rest of October, in between looking for houses, promoting Steamlust, celebrating the fact that I've managed to not kill my child by neglect or accident for 8 whole years, and other crazy shit on my schedule, I'm going to outline and think about what I'm going to write for NaNo.

And I know this is probably a stupid question, but I would LIKE some opinions anyway; what would YOU like to see?