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.

Filed under: Rainbow Covey, WIPs, Nanowrimo by Eliza | 1 Comment »

Testing the livejournal cross-poster. I hope this works!

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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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“Her muscles were taught…”

Because they went to muscle school, of course. Hooray for proofreading!

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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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There are only so many ways to talk about magic in a fantasy realm. You can write “magic,” or “magick,” but they feel so overused to me. I think in Rainbow Covey I may start using “magery” or something like that. Perhaps Asher will still refer to it as “magic,” as he comes from the undeveloped society that still uses words like that, which are thought to be fanciful, the stuff of fairy stories in the outside world.

I keep saying I will finish chapter seven, I will finish, and then not finishing. Well, today’s the day. It has to be, otherwise I’ll go crazy. That and I’m very excited for the next chapter.

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It’s interesting talking to people about dreams and how they dream; some people dream insane dreams, others have dreams with coherent storylines…

I dream in imagery, for the most part. There’s usually some vaguely coherent thought process bringing the images together for a dream, but mainly I see things–scenery mostly, perhaps people or events rarely.

And now, in Rainbow Covey, I suddenly know how it happened and what it looks like thanks to my dream last night. (No, I don’t want to post spoilers from my WIP, and no, I won’t identify it.) I’ve also figured out how to delve into the POV of a character other than Asher (who firmly retains POV throughout the novel) for awhile, one that I really want to explore.

Now I need to come up with a nifty word for those sentinel thingies.

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The air outside grows crisper and more cool with every passing day, and suddenly the sun is down before 7:00 each night. The leaves on the trees are turning orange and gold, or they would be if this wasn’t Tucson; I can pretend otherwise. Sometimes I catch that wood-burning scent on the air, and it smells perfect. The moon is barely there, now, but will soon wax into a full, bright harvest moon, and I’ll buy some pumpkins and get my costume ready for Halloween, for beginning at 12:00 midnight on All Hallow’s Eve, the magic truly begins.

Yes, it’s almost time for Nanowrimo; National Novel writing month, that special hell that we all endure because it’s a beautiful hell; we write quickly, we catch writer’s block but somehow are immune to its effects and keep on writing, quality be damned; we write beautiful sentences and we write sentences we’ll pretend aren’t really related to us. We’ll sprint, we’ll laugh, we’ll cry, we’ll consume more caffeine than should be consumed; it’s my favorite time of year.

I’ll be there. Will you?

Filed under: Nanowrimo by Eliza | 1 Comment »