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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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.

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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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Current word count: 2,936
Today’s word count: 1,600

There is a character in Circle of Many Faces who I feel needs to be there, but whom I’ve always had trouble writing. The problem is that she’s the point of view character in the opening chapter (with some of the others making appearances), so obviously she’s important.

This morning I realized that Charlotte is essentially a PTSD sufferer, in a time and universe that wouldn’t recognize the disease. Of course, once she leaves her comfortable colonial existence for the darker waters of Ciarta Island, there may be “healers” more willing to help her cope with her demons. A little internet research to make sure I’m not misrepresenting any symptoms (I wasn’t in particular, but it’s good to know now so I can reign the description in) and I’m good to go. Of course, I wonder if I’ll be breaking any rules by solving the problem through fantastic means, since regular counselors and psychologists don’t exist in her world.

She needs desperately to have a character arc worked out for her; the reason she never did was I wrote the original story during Nanowrimo, and didn’t have time to think about it while boosting my wordcount.

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