Weekly Progress Report - Nano and crazy goals and picture books

I'm sure most of you know that November is National Novel Writing Month and that www.Nanowrimo.org is a website that links together the crazy writers that try to write a 50K novel in the 30 days of November. I'm one of those crazy writers. If you want to link up as writing buddies, I'm there as Scarlett9284

This is my seventh Nano attempt. I won all of the previous six times I tried. I skipped one year, the November after I gave birth to son #1. I wasn't about to try with a one month old.

Anyhow, despite the craziness with the end of October weather and the power being out, I wasn't going to let anything hold me back. I was doing Nano this year.

This started out well, on pace for 50K for the month. Then day 4 happened and I had a really good writing day.

And I decided that my goal is to not write 50K of a novel in November. I want to write the entire first draft of Crystal's Magic this month. It's a paranormal YA so my aim is to write 80K. The story might end up being a little short (hopefully not longer than that though).

Right now, my word count is 20,730, just about right on pace for reaching 80K on the 30th.

Some teasers from Crystal's Magic:

     Lightning flashed, casting eerie shadows across her path. Thunder roared like an angry lioness. Sleet slashed across her cheeks, mixing with the tears that streamed down her face.

     A woman with long chocolate brown hair and soft brown eyes stared at her, a wide smile on her face. The tall man beside her wore the same smile, his dark hair streaked with a little white on the side.
     Her mom didn’t know Crystal had this picture--a picture of her real mom and dad.


     "But you, you I want to live for today. Promise me that you’ll always live for today, no matter what tomorrow may bring."

     Yes, biologically, Regina was her aunt, but Regina had raised her nearly her whole life. Surely that made her her mom.

     The front door opened.
     Crystal headed toward it. “Hi,” she said, but no one stood in the doorway.


     Years ago, cemeteries had terrified her. Now all she felt was peace, a completeness, as if the cycle of life to death was the natural order, and that whether or not there was life after death didn’t matter.
     Although, of course, she did believe in Heaven.

     The visions of her future—her hair had been longer. Could a simple haircut be a way to ensure the future was changed?

     Why not try it and find out? She certainly didn’t want to die any time soon.

---

In addition to doing Nano, I'm also taking part in PiBoIdMo - picture book idea month where you try to come with with 30 ideas for picture books in the month of November.

I've already come up with 30 ideas. My next step is to outline them and maybe start some, while trying to come up with more ideas.

Are you doing Nano? How's your progress? What have you been up to this past week?

Check out some other great progress report this week:

http://www.writersally.blogspot.com/
http://jc-martin.com/fighterwriter/
http://waibelworld.blogspot.com
http://susanfieldswriter.blogspot.com
http://skmayhew.blogspot.com/p/tuesday-wip-status.html
http://margoberendsen.blogspot.com
http://www.sherryauger.blogspot.com
http://www.susanoloier.blogspot.com--in/
http://carrieannebrownian.wordpress.com/
http://lynneawest.blogspot.com

Nano Wrap Up and December Goals

I was originally going to update you all on my Nano story yesterday, considering it was December 1st, but Talli overtook the blog world in a huge way, and my blog was part of the splash.

But today is all me again.

I wrote just over 50k of Champion of Valor in November, making me a winner! Although I still have a lot of words to add - roughly 40-50k - before the story is completely finished. Then it'll need to be edited and sent to beta readers and edited again. I already wrote the ending but I'm sure some of the details will need to be adjusted/fixed. A lot of scenes were glossed over *insert battle between X and Y* *insert battle between Z and A* lol This book is full of action scenes, which is to be expected, after all, it's about a war.

I really like how CoV is shaping up. I don't want to go into too many details but here's the basic gist:

The final war between Speica and Arnhem draws to an end as allies are gained, lines are crossed, people die, and a mage and selkie struggle to make their love work as Lucifer attempts to bring about the Apocalypse before its time.


I've mentioned this before but book I in the series, Woman of Honor has a mostly historical feel to it, with some fantasy thrown in. Knight of Glory focuses more on the fantasy. Champion of Valor has both fantasy and religious undertones. High fantasy - meaning a medieval type world. In the Middle Ages, religion was a huge part of their everyday lives so I had to include religion.

I've created a lot of problems and dilemmas for my characters. It'll be interesting to see how they fix everything and restore order, and who's let standing to see things through til the very end.

Hubby was a big help, watching the boys in order to let me get some writing in when our sons refused to nap at the same time. Wouldn't have won without him!

I also was a PiBoIdMo winner. I came up with 32 ideas for picture books. Some are better than others but it was a lot of fun to sit and think up picture book ideas. Can't wait until I have some free time that I can devote to picture books.

I guest blogged at Loraine's about previous Nano experiences. Feel free to check it out and leave a comment!

So for the rest of December, I'm going to finish Champion of Valor. If I have time there are a couple of short stories I would like to write. Prime books is publishing an anthology of urban fantasy werewolf stories. Pill Hill Press has a romantic suspense anthology. And Fangtales, the next in the Tales anthologies from Wyvern Publications, scary YA stories about vampires. So December is going to be busy, busy, busy. If I don't get to the short stories, I don't get to them, but I'm going to try. Might as well set the bar high and strive to do all I can.

How productive was your November? Did you do Nano? What was your story about? Did you win? Have you read any good books lately? What are your reading/writing goals for December?

Picture Book Idea Month

So I'm crazy.

But I'm sure most of you already realized this. Glad you still come back though!

Anyhow, a couple of days ago, I mentioned how I  want to start writing picture books, as if I don't already have enough on my plate.

Well, while doing some research on PB, I found this wonderful blog that mentions November being Picture Book Idea Month. You're supposed to come up with 30 PB story ideas in the 30 days of November.

Now, November is also National Novel Writing Month, and I already signed up to do that.

But how hard is it to come up with 30 PB ideas? It can't be that hard.

So I'm going to do both.

I told you I'm crazy.