Twilight Hour

So...

Nanowrimo is over, another year has passed victoriously and no deadlines (non-academic ones that is, *cough, cough*) are breathing down my neck. All is well, yes?

Well, no actually. Because this year was very different for me in many ways. This is the first time in many years I've been back in education. College is really opening my mind up to new ideas, and I feel like I just don't look at the world the same anymore. By no means am I saying that I've suddenly decided to drop writing and scrap it. No, the opposite: I've seen a life inside of my Electrostatic novels that I hadn't before.

EF is a story about mermaid-like beings

In 2009 I did NaNoWriMo and decided I would 'experiment' by working on a novel that I had no attachments to. None of 'my babies' would be put into the firing line, because I was too afraid that if I tried writing one of them brutally, shoving my 'inner editor' away and just typing, I would not be able to. I would break down, crumbling to my knees screaming "No! Don't kill my precious novel!" And the one-liner idea I had for a novel of some kind was to become Electrostatic Fantasy: my first complete novel draft.

Editing Electrostatic Fantasy (EF) and defining the characters up, I realised a few of them had a deeper history than I had time or chance to explore. So, true to my character, I dropped all other plans I'd been hatching for a November novel this year, and decided I would write a prequel for NaNo 2012. Electrostatic Nightmare (EN) has successfully been born and I am still writing to get the first draft done.
I had always intended for EF to be a stand-alone, strictly-no-sequels/prequels deal, but during November I realised I would probably end up writing a third book in the end no matter what I thought.

That's when I realised: the Electrostatic books have taken on a life of their own. A life that has taken its own reigns up and I can't stop it. What began as a 'sacrifice' has become something close to my heart that is demanding to be born in the world fully and completely. And even still, I've been talking about EF for too long. Now is go-time.

EF isn't far off from being ready for beta readers. It's prequel isn't quite up to that yet, but hopefully come NaNoEdMo I will be ready to push EN to the same finish line.

But Christmas is coming once again. Winter and autumn always make me feel like something is ending. Like something familiar is becoming something new. And maybe that is a good thing, changes can be very positive. But at the same time it also makes me kind of nostalgic. And that is the most perfect of writing moods!

Now, I know I've been really bad with updating this blog. Every time I've thought of a schedule it's come down because of how busy things are with college, volunteering, work and writing. But I think I have the perfect solution: Wednesdays! This is my goal: begin updating on Wednesday evenings. I know I have been really bad so please bare with me.

Thanks to all my readers! And I hope your Christmas preparations are going well and take it easy. :)

Monkey, out.

Yikes, I Lied.

Okay, so the blogging everyday since the first of the month didn't exactly take off. Ha ha. And indeed I have not written a single word until today. But I spent nearly the whole darn day today at the library and the café and boy did I get some writing done! Just shy of 4,000 words, and it only took 7 hours! :)

And surprisingly enough, it was mostly on a story which I'm pantsying. I've always planned everything out to the point where I've more or less known exactly what would happen. But this story isn't going so badly, even though I'm just coming up with everything more or less as I go. This story is currently called The Sky Butterfly, but I don't know if I'll change that name too. Personally I think it sounds like a funny title which is both exciting and boring simultaneously. I'd really need one which is just exciting, but I haven't sat down and thought one up yet, so this'll have to do for now.

Anyways, from here on I promise to (hopefully) post something here of some length and form everyday, whether it be sane or not. Whether it makes any sense or not. Whether it's written in a human language or coded in binary. I will post something everyday!

Or at least I hope I will. ^__^ He he!

Progress

3,000 words of it so far. Okay, it's not super loads, but it sure is more than the 300/week I've been struggling with so far. ^_^;

Amazing what a cup of tea and a good radio station can do, eh?

Hmm...think I'll take a stab at writing that synopsis now.

Synopses...*shudder* my horrid foe.

It Begins Again

So my experimentation with these writing contests is advancing and I'm assuming at the moment that after a month long writing contest one requires about three weeks of off time. I've come to this conclusion from the fact that though I entered National Novel Finishing Month and said I'd finish off my Arkanos Book One, I've written a measly 1K during the whole of December. However I won't call it "epic fail" because it's 1,000 words of that final chapter of Electrostatic Fantasy that I never wrote! :)

But New Year's is fast approaching and so are two new contests. JanNoWriMo as well as Writing Year. And sadly yes, the "I didn't do any writing" does extend to plots as well, for my January novel is but the first few sentences planned. This cloud has a silver lining though.

After working on something as intricate and complicated as Arkanos, I yearned to write an epic fantasy which was a bit more...oh what's the term?...linear and straight forward. I mean for the love of pie Arkanos has enough plot twists to tie half my brain into a bow, I need some distance after enduring 50,000 words of it! Don't get me wrong, Arkanos is my baby and I intend to see her to the end, whether that be a fine or a bitter one. But I don't think I'll be writing a story as massive and complicated again any time soon.

This is where Through Glass comes in. That's the story I'd mentioned before: "Through the Looking Glass". I'll be writing that in January and updating the My Novels tab about it too. Although the plots are...nonexistent...the plot is far less tricky and meticulous that my previous project. I've already got a basic idea of how the whole time line will play out, I just need to work out a few fine points. I should be able to pull through okay even without exhaustive plotting...hopefully. ^_^

I have no idea how Writing Year (WriYe) will turn out. It's a big jump, I'll admit, to go from planning a word goal for a month (when you've written nothing before) to planning one for a whole year (when you've written 130K total). My initial target for 2011 is 510,000 words, but we'll see how that changes during the year. ^_^

Well I better get plotting Through Glass before I dose off. Wouldn't want to waste a perfectly good night of writing. Ha ha!

I'll post again before the new year to send you guys holiday wishes properly. ^_^