The month of April was a crazy month for me–I began a new job that required from me an intensive training schedule, and I opened a website that’s been keeping me very busy. Even so, I carried my laptop around in order to do some writing on my lunches. I didn’t hit my goal of 20,000 words, but I did just crack 10,000. Not bad, I say, and those 10,000 got me through a difficult chapter in Circle.

I’m going for 20k word again now in May. Circle of Many Faces is now finally in its “second stage;” the true “beginning” of the book is finished. It’s exciting and nerve-wracking, because this is where I deviate from the original version (written in 2004 during Nanowrimo and not for human consumption, ever).

I’m happy my training’s over, though. My critique group is meeting is person again and I have missed them. The Tucson Writers group is amazing. I’m kind of an airhead, I make stupid continuity mistakes in my writing, and I look to them to find them for me. Also, I admit I get really excited to hear what people think of the story. What can I say? I love feedback and critique.

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Time to check in.

Well, my (personally) bad news is that I didn’t hit 20k words for February. I’m using my “I blame the injury” card. Not that that wins me a free pass, but I’m using the excuse now. Which means no using it for March.

My good news is that I am now the owner of a shiny new pink laptop, with which I can write while NOT sitting at my desk, which I am tired of sitting at due to the whole pretty much having to sit there for two months (to the day!) and counting. I’ve already been very productive.

I realized the other day when I put the finishing touches on a chapter of Circle of Many Faces that I think I’m officially done with the “beginning” of the book. When I think about it, that’s the place where I struggle the most–having to set up all the characters, events, and making sure foreshadowing is in place. That, and I want the reader (and me, the writer) to spend a little bit of time with all the characters before all the secrets come out, because what fun is a secret if you don’t let it stew a little?

Even though page count is relative, I’m also really happy because I think I’m going to hit page 100 today or tomorrow.

Latest “opinion poll” below the fold. (more…)

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I was supposed to keep this blog up much better than I have. I kept telling myself I would update this site early into February, and now February’s almost over. Though, I don’t think I have too many readers not on the LiveJournal feed anyhow.

Partially, I blame my Sprained Ankle of Death. I sprained my ankle very badly on January 6, and that combined with my stolen car in December (which has yet to be replaced), I’m stuck at home all the time, and it’s been depressing. It’s getting harder and harder to motivate myself. As the sidebar on the rest of my site will show, I’m 44% to my goal of 20,000 words this month. I think I can do it anyway, but we’ll see.

I’m enjoying my progress on Circle of Many Faces, which I feel is finally going somewhere. It amazes me, when I look back at the NaNo version, how poorly put-together it was. When I hit 30,000 words back then, I was steering the book towards the final showdown. Of course, I was also writing without either a care nor an outline, but in my current version, I’ve still yet to reach the first climactic moment. I’m only a few chapters away, however.

Someone needs to tell my respective younger twins to behave themselves, though. Their characters are taking on traits I never expected them to. Reeve has a mouth that proves whose brother he is, and Aislinn’s table manners are horrifying. As in “Sam, did a cat take a piss in the soup or what?” horrifying. In front of company. Of course, she was just teasing. In the end, she just wants her brother to be happy.

From now on, I’ll try to make myself record some serious writing progress in this blog at least once a week.

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I’m feeling pretty productive lately, though when I look, I see I’m really only a little bit ahead of par for the goal of 20,000 words, so I need to step things up a little bit. I accidentally forgot to save my draft of Circle of Many Faces back onto the floppy disk that I use to transfer files to and from my temporary laptop, the “brick.” Thus, I can only work on it on that machine… and so, I think I’ll take a break and work on Rainbow Covey or the project that still needs a title.

One might think that my sprained ankle would be a motivator to sit down and write, but now that it’s there, I just want to get up and run around.

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I’ve been slaving away at the site for the past week to redo the layout (I am never quite satisfied with a layout, but I think this one is pretty clean; hopefully I’ll stick with it for awhile).

I’m behind on new writing goals, but this happens every year–after Nanowrimo, I say I’ll do better, and then the holiday season gets in the way. I’m going to do my best to do that this January, and hope I don’t end up severely ill this January as well.

I’ve been working a little on Circle of Many Faces, and I have another new work in progress, as well–an idea that won’t stop tugging at my brain; I had to start writing it down. I still have to think of a title, or at least a working title.

Crossing my fingers for a good 2008… here’s to the new year!

Filed under: WIPs, Miscellaneous by Eliza | 1 Comment »

Nanowrimo was an interesting ride this year. I actually finished at about 11:20 pm on November 7–my 23rd birthday. By “finished,” of course, I mean I hit 50,000 words. There was still work to be done.

However, my ideas are like wine; they get better with age. It is with that in mind that I put this Nano’s work back on the shelf and continue working on my big projects: Rainbow Covey and Circle of Many Faces. During Nano I wrote an entire chapter of Circle and I managed to squeak out the end of Rainbow Covey chapter 8 this morning.

This Nano has taught me how to produce writing at a good pace again. I remember, before I got sick, I used to be able to do this, and now I finally have it back and it feels so nice.

December will probably be crazy with its unavoidable holiday-ness, but even so, once the new year comes… it’ll be interesting to see where the writing goes.

And at some point, I’ll put more up on this website.

Filed under: Nano07, The Circle of Many Faces, Rainbow Covey, WIPs, Nanowrimo by Eliza | No Comments »

I wanted to have the eighth chapter of Rainbow Covey finished before Nanowrimo begins at midnight on the 31st/1st and I abandon all of my projects for a month, but that looks unlikely, unfortunately. I’m going to work on it today; I’m hoping that blogging about it being unfinished will then cause a reverse in the situation and I will finish it today or tomorrow. Yay!

In other words, I now know definitely how my Nano-novel will begin, and that is a good thing–a sprint will set it off at midnight, and that one is the most important sprint of Nano, as it sets the stage for the entire Nano. If I mess it up, my entire plot could come crashing down before week three, which is about the time the plot would come crashing down anyway.

In other news, this blog seems to have a lone spammer, and I wish I knew how to make it go away.

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My mind has been quiet on the Nano front; I’ve hardly thought about my impending novel.

I know it’s called Souls in the City as a working title (not bad, but it might be better relegated to a chapter title later on) and it’s about five high school students who become superheros. I’ve got an evil corporation and some minions for them to fight; I just need to come up with an archnemesis or other evil superbeing to be the final battle and I think I’ll be good on my way to winging it through November.

My WIPs have been distracting me this month, which I think is a good thing. I’m still having difficulties with the Rainbow Covey rut, but that will end, hopefully. I’m doing edits to the newest chapter 7 and hopefully won’t have to look back at it for a very long time.

I also managed to finish a draft of the first chapter of Circle. I’m happier with this version of the opening events than I have ever been. Unfortunately, the second chapter received a weak opening, but I’m less than 1000 words into it and can always rewrite.

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I did some freewriting for Circle the other day, mostly to play around with some of the characters that I can’t play around with while stuck on the important first chapter.

Now I can’t wait to write some of their chapters… I’ve had a thought, now, and I would like to write two very sensual, but contrasted chapters right next to each other. Lia and Sam are pretty crazy about each other, all things considered, but their perspectives are still radically different. I don’t want to switch POV scenes around too often; I usually stick to chapters, but I think it could be really interesting to see how she feels before, how he feels after, then how she feels afterwards, after the reader has been disconnected from her emotions for awhile, plus I think she would have… not less inner turmoil, but a calmer one.

Gotta keep writing. I really need to commit myself to a daily wordcount goal again, or at least a weekly chapter goal.

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I’ve finished chapter seven of Rainbow Covey, first-draft quality, but at least I finished a draft of it. I’m debating whether or not to start eight tonight, because it’s easier to start when you’re riding that wave of success and it’s good Nano practice, but I’m beat. I probably will try to start, but first I have to take the dog out. Funny thing is, much as I hated writing this chapter, it ended up being (at the moment) the longest of all of them. I’ll cut it down a bit in editing, but still.

Even though my word count bars are manual HTML, it does feel nice to add pixels.

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