Well, not tomorrow. The next day. But NaNoWriMo is about to start up again, so I thought I’d fill people on what it is.
NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, every November. You sign up and you make the effort to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month. I’ve done it, and won it, five times and three of those novels have gotten contracts for publication (On the Air was my 2006 novel, World on Fire was my 2005 novel under the title “Incendiary,” and my 2008 novel, Confused by Shadows, will be out in 2011 or so!).
It’s a great way to get motivated to finally write that novel. There’s something about knowing there are thousands of other people just as crazy as you, venturing out into the untamed world of their own creation. Characters, plots, situations, funny lines, tragic deaths, random clowns, all finally coming out and being put down on paper. It’s just the sort of thing to keep you inspired to keep on writing.
So check out the website – www.nanowrimo.org – and see what all the fuss is about. It might not be easy – heck, it’s definitely not easy – but it’s a whole load of fun. Hope to see you there (my name is Geonn over there, feel free to drop me a line!)
Hey, all. I’ve really been neglecting this blog. Tsk. I’ve been focused on trying to get the muse back under control. It’s always slow this time of year. I blame NaNoWriMo. Which is about to get started again, BTW, a week from today! Everyone got your plots ready? I wouldn’t have written my first novel without NaNo, so I’m very thrilled to be back with them again this year. I have a plot all lined up and everything. It’s almost like I’m prepared.
Went for a walk today. 2.8 miles, all told, and I got a nice box of Chinese food out of the deal. It was an adventure involving train tracks, wandering the woods (about four square feet of woods, but still), hounds chasing me down the street (although most of them were behind fences, the chihuahua was loose and nipped at my heels until he decided he’d scared me off).
I like this walking stuff. I like the thrill I get when I realize I’ve walked myself someplace impressive. I’m keeping track of distances, and with today’s total I’m at 110 miles. I “walked” to the local airport, “flew” to Seattle, and I am now walking to Anacortes and the ferry lanes. I have about five miles until I get to Anacortes, another four before I hit the ferry lanes, and then I’m off to the real-live Squire’s Isle. <g>
So again, I apologize for the unforgiveable gap in these posts. I’ll try to make them more frequently. And you can follow me on Twitter! I’m GeonnCannon, and I post there a lot more frequently. Too frequently, one could say. ;-D
Fellow P.D. author Kim Pritekel is in need of a helping hand, folks. She’s having some severe eye problems and, without surgery, she faces complete and irreversible blindness. One of my top ten fears right there. So I decided to step up and help her out, but I need everyone else’s help to make my gesture more than just an empty show of support. Kim is holding an auction, and I’ve donated signed copies of my books. All proceeds go toward getting Kim the surgery she needs.
So if you want an autographed copy of any of my books, the auction ends on October 3rd.
http://scripts.cgispy.com/auctions/auction.pl?action=all&user=maryd
Please help out if you can! If the books are too rich for your blood, check out some of the other items up for bid. Or you can even contact Kim and offer to help her out with a little cash. It’s not quite Christmas, but that chill in the air makes you want to give. I know it does. Come on. Give a little. <g>
I am now on Twitter as GeonnCannon, if any of you folks would like to run over there and follow me. I’m pretty sure it’ll be updated a lot more than this thing. <g> The problem with this blog is that I always feel like the updates should be important or lengthy. That’s not necessarily necessary. I could post just to shoot the breeze and keep people informed about what I’m writing. I’ll try to do that in the future, promise.
Meantime, if you want some seriously unimportant updates, I’ll see you on Twitter!
Just a head’s up for all the faithful readers of my blog (you guys are out there, right…? <g>). It’s going to be going away for a little while so my website can be redesigned and made better…stronger…faster. All that jazz. But it has to be taken offline for the changes to be made. Don’t fret, there will be a mirror site (thanks to my lovely best friend!) for the actual content, but the blog can’t be mirrored because [insert technobabble here]. Just because.
The downtime will be near the end of this month, around the 28th or so. It’ll be back up sometime in the first week of September. So, you know, not a huge downtime, but long enough that people might panic without the warning. So here it is! The blog will be incommunicado for a week. Don’t panic! I’ve gone weeks and weeks without posting before (as I’m sure you’ve noticed. 
). It’s just best to do this now before Halloween and Thanksgiving and NaNo and all those crazy holidays that inspire writing.
Ahh, the royalty check. It’s always a little like Christmas morning. You know it’s coming, you’re never quite sure how much to expect, but you know what it means: free money. Of course, I need to get out of the habit of spending my free money before it arrives, but hey, I’m human. <g> So I got my January royalty check today (for the fourth quarter, which covers books sold in June, July and August). I also got paid from Khimairal Ink, which is nice.
It’s always nice to get money for writing. Especially on days when you feel like you just can’t write another word. It inspires you to put the nose to the grindstone and get to it. I have two stories to write for various obligations, then I can get to revising The Following Sea and send that in to see what Barb and Linda think of it. Wish me luck there! Hopefully I’ll have all my stuff done by February so I can start my first novel of 2009. I’m thinking perhaps Claire Lance #4 or the Dash Warren novel. We’ll see what the muse says!
Well, it’s not quite New Years, but I’ll go ahead and wish everyone a happy New Year anyway. I hope everyone’s Christmas was great! And I would like to say hello to a brand-new reader of this blog: my mommy! Hi, mommy. ~waves~ Yep, she knows the truth at long last! So that’s a relief and a half, being able to talk to her about all this ~gestures at website at novels~ even if it was a little awkward telling her what, exactly, I wrote about. <g>
My new years resolution is to recycle more soda cans. I throw a lot away, I figure recycling them could make a good dent. We’ll see. I have a big sack of crushed cans next to the desk and, hopefully, I’ll figure out where to hand them off to get them recycled. I’m getting into the habit of crushing my cans when I finish drinking rather than just tossing them at the trash can, which is good.
My other new years resolution… well, I have three novels waiting in the wings with P.D. Publishing and I should hopefully, maybe, fingers-crossed, get an answer on one or two of them very soon. Watch this blog for info. So I hope to have three books signed and three books (Gemini, World on Fire and Tilting at Windmills) available for purchase before this time next year.
I’ll see you all in January!
Happy birthday to Johnny Bench, Tom Waits, Larry Bird, C. Thomas Howell, and to me. <g> Yep, my birthday is today. I was born on a big anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor, so I feel a certain kind of kinship to that utterly awful day in American history. I plan to spend today being extremely lazy (kind of like I do most days) and listening to Josh Ritter CDs (kind of like I do most days). It’s not overtly special, but it’s nice and enjoyable. That’s more than enough for me.
I hope everyone out there reading this has a very happy December 7th and spends it doing something they love. Cheers!
Also, apologies for anyone who thought this would be a new advent calendar post. The next one will be up tomorrow (one of the main reasons I decided to post on odd-numbered days is so that I could post this on my birthday. Always thinking. ~taps temple~ <g>)
1. Do you write in the evening? Morning? Mid day? When do you usually write? – I usually write from about noon until… I hit my word count goal. <g> Usually by nine or ten I’m done for the day.
2. What do you usually write with and/or on? – Computer. It’s easier to organize my thoughts. I tend to scribble if I write longhand. Computer files better fit the way my mind works, with revising and rewriting and sticking in entirely new scenes… yeah.
3. What is your writing pattern? Do you plot with an outline? Do you use milestones and set up chapter titles? Do you do it organically? Do you go by story? – I tend to get the idea for the story and then just let it flow. I used to outline, but I found myself flailing and helpless when something unexpected happened. Now I know what the basic plot is, I know where everything needs to end up (like the big important scenes that hold up the rest of the plot) but the rest needs to happen organically.
4. What’s your favorite part of writing? Characters, plot, world building (don’t lie… all genres need some world building… even if it’s already there), research? editing? - I love everything about it. Getting to know the characters, watching the story evolve and take on a life of it’s own… I even enjoy the revising, when you get to go in to a finished plot and fiddle with things until they’re perfect. <g>
5. Do you tend to set up character first, or by plot? Or by both? – It depends on the novel. Sometimes I’ll take a character and try to think of a place to put them, other times I’ll come up with a plot and create a character to live in that world.
6. Do you write laying down, at a desk, at your computer? A mix? – At the computer. I don’t think I can function lying down. At all. Or, well, I mean… well, let’s not get into that. <g>
7. Do you write as a hobby or because it’s a profession? - Both. I have writing I’m paid for (or hope to get paid for ;-D) and writing I do just because it’s fun. Mainly because I HAVE to write. If I didn’t write, I would just be babbling to myself in other people’s voices. And that’s only fun for, like, fifteen minutes. Twenty tops.
8. Besides the mechanics of story-telling what’s your favorite thing about writing? – Creating a world and seeing it come to life. Watching characters I created become real. And seeing people who really enjoy the places/people I create.
9. Why do you write? - Like I said above, I have to. All the stories I have, all the characters that live in my mind, I don’t know what I would do with them if I didn’t write.
10. For or against fan fiction on your stories? Only certain stories? If so which ones? – Considering I started out in fan fiction and cut my teeth there, I would be kind of hypocritical if I said no. I think fan fiction is flattering, a sign that people love your world enough to play there. So yes, if you’re so inspired, send your characters to Squire’s Isle for a bit! They have a booming tourism trade, I hear… <wink>
I finished my NaNo novel yesterday, and my final word count was 92,018 words. Not a bad first draft, if I do say so myself! <g> Good luck to all of you out there still chipping away at your word counts. I salute you and will be cheering you on from the finish line.
Oddly enough, I spent the past 11 days writing like a madman, take a day off today, and all day I felt like I should be writing. Odd how that happens. <g>
Currently reading: “Dreams of My Father,” by Barack Obama
Currently listening to: For Him and the Girls, Hawksley Workman
Posts
1