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Showing posts with the label #NaNoWriMo

Writer's Update: NaNoWriMo review

NaNoWriMo--National Novel Writing Month--is officially over, even for my extended goal, and I'm ready to reflect on the experience and the process. Goals: I set my goal to hit the 80,000-word norm for my novels by December 10.  The result: Edited Out turned out to be more like 74K, and even shorter in the quick-and-dirty draft that left out some things. I went back and added some missing scenes, then was left with the choice of "failing" or cheating. Reader, I cheated. I finished out the last few days with whatever other writing I had on hand to do, to make it up to 80K. Result: I have a very rough and rocky draft of the novel, some personal stuff that needed writing, and partial draft of a short story that may be the germ of the next Seffi Wardwell mystery. Win-win? Maybe. I also have a bit of burnout. Writing daily, and often writing a LOT each day, left me with a story I'm not sure how to continue and a desire not to look at any of it for a while. On the other han

IWSG and Cozy Mystery Review with Author Interview

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This is a big post, so fasten your seat belts!  First: This is IWSG day, so I have a short post to report out on NaNoWriMo.       Why? The IWSG is here to share and encourage, to offer a place for authors to admit their insecurities and offer help and support to each other. How? The official IWSG posting day is the first Wednesday of every month. Hop around the list and see who has worries, triumphs, and news to share.  Every month we have an optional question to spark discussion.  Our motto:  Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the December 6 posting of the IWSG are C. Lee McKenzie, JQ Rose, Jennifer Lane, and Jacqui Murray! Every month, we announce an optional question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. December 6 question: Book reviews are for the readers. When you leave a book review do yo

NaNo Update (Writer Wednesday comes a day late)

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Well, this has been a mixed bag, as evidenced in part by my post being a day late (look for Photo Friday on Saturday, too).  Of course, having pretty much a week with the house full of company added extra challenges. But every day I was able to write at least a few hundred words, and some days I clobbered the word counts, so at this point I am still well ahead of my target, if not keeping up quite the level of over-achieving I was at the beginning of the month. So my writing time has been up and down. What about the actual writing? You know, the way the story is going and all that? Ups. Way up there. Downs. Way down there.   That's been a bit up and down as well. I have a lot of big holes in the story that need to be filled. And that turns out to be a good thing, because at the moment I seem to have wrapped up the basic story line at about 65,000 words--well short of my usual 80K for a cozy mystery. We'll see how close I come; 70K is still in the ballpark. Of course, I went and

Writer's Wednesday: NaNo Update #2: The Dreaded Middle

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Why can I never, no matter how hard I try to plan, figure out what's going to keep the middle of my books going? Quick, prop up the middle of that thing! Seriously, I have oodles of notes of things that should or could happen in the middle of the book--and no idea where or how to bring them in, or in some cases, how they are even relevant. I'm beginning to think it's no use trying to prepare for this stage of the draft--by now I've wandered far enough from the outline that all preparation is futile! Let's just hope I can still sail into the ending I have in mind. This is why I don't write scenes out of order. If I did, half of them would go to waste because by the time I got to them they wouldn't belong anymore. Actually, I did write a couple of scenes out of order for A Coastal Corpse --and both ended up deleted. It's time to throw another obstacle in Seffi's path--I know that. But what the obstacle should be, I'm less certain. What do you do wh

NaNo Updates

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We're a week into NaNoWriMo, and if you are participating, I hope it's going well for you! I'm flying right now--I think this is the best outline I've ever had going in, and the payoff is huge. People aren't always doing or saying what I thought they would, or in the way I expected, but I know where I'm going and so far the writing has been pretty easy. I know that there will be some challenging times later in the month, schedule-wise, so I'm stockpiling words for the holiday period. There will also be more challenging sections of the story--the dreaded mid-book sag. But I have a lot of notes about what might go in there, so hope to be able to keep sailing through. For this week, then, I'm singing the praises of preparation, and of community--I got a great start the first day at a local write-in. I'd love to find more writers a little more in my age range, though. I felt like an old lady at the write-in! If you're a NaNer, or even if you aren'

IWSG Post: Pros and Cons of NaNoWriMo

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A writing frenzy, coming right up! But first, it's time to connect with the best on-line writer support system I know of.        Why? The IWSG is here to share and encourage, to offer a place for authors to admit their insecurities and offer help and support to each other. How? The official IWSG posting day is the first Wednesday of every month. Hop around the list and see who has worries, triumphs, and news to share.  Every month we have an optional question to spark discussion.  Our motto:  Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. T he awesome co-hosts for the November 1 posting   of the IWSG are  PJ Colando ,  Jean Davis , Lisa Buie Collard ,  and  Diedre Knight! Every month, we announce an optional question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. November 1 question: November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever partic

Writer's Wednesday: Research

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Before I start, a tip of my hat to this day 26 years ago, when I became a parent for the first time. What a long, strange trip it's been!   On to writing--or research.  In the run-up to NaNoWriMo I've been posting about the process of preparing to draft my next novel, #3 in the Seffi Wardwell series (I'll be editing #2 once this is drafted, and hope to publish it by June if all goes well). I've talked a lot, now and in the past, about outlines, plotting vs. pantsing (or plantsing, as I mostly do these days). Today, let's talk about research. What kind of research? I'm too lazy to write historical fiction (I'm very hard on writers of same so would really have to educate myself about a period in hopes of avoiding the kind of mistake I hate to see). I set my cozies in fictional contemporary places. And yet... research is still necessary. For the Seffi Wardwell mysteries I'm finding I need two kinds of research. First is the kind you can do in books and on t

Writer's Wednesday: It's NaNo prep time

I'm most of a day late with my Wednesday post for the simple reason that I lost track of the days again. This is a nice problem to have, especially as it's because I'm back on the road again, this time hanging in Maine with a friend, enjoying the fall colors (but that overnight flight cost me a day, somehow. Not sure how that worked...). In any case, it's time for my annual (more or less) post about preparing for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and plotting vs. pantsing. In so many aspects of my life, I like to fly by the seat of my pants. On my recent road trip, I seldom knew where I would stop until I got there. Even while backpacking in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, I didn't try to stick too closely to a plan, going instead where it seemed to make sense given the weather (on other sorts of trips, I do like to know exactly where I'm going and why, but that's a different story). We've been here before, though. Writing a mystery with no plan

IWSG: NaNo clean-up and the Holiday Season.

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  Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the October 5 posting of the IWSG are Joylene Nowell Butler, Chemist Ken, Natalie Aguirre, Nancy Gideon, and Cathrina Constantine! Be sure you drop in

NaNoWriMo: Five things I learned shooting for the stars

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This is my "Writer's Wednesday" post, coming a day late to give the final wrap-up on NaNoWriMo. If you've been a "Nanner" this month, please chime in and let me know how it went for you. I set my goal absurdly high at the beginning of the month, matching the reality of an 80K-word standard for novels in my genre. I talked about the project way back in the last IWSG post on Nov. 2.  Tonight I reached the end of my day's writing energy, and then some, at 72,032 words. That's the most I've even done in a month, and I have some thoughts about that, and about life and its relationship to writing. First, I figured out tonight how to adjust my personal goal, so I dropped it down to 70k for a "win." That doesn't actually change the fact that I'm going to spend the next two days in my artist's retreat trying to finish the book. So here are five things I learned this month: 1. Go ahead and set your goals high. Whatever "high&quo