all caught up

     I am kicking NaNoWriMo butt, people! I'm proud enough of myself that I had to brag for just a second so here it is. I hit 45,000 words last night! Woohoo! Yes, that obviously means I'm writing a little more than the averge 1667 words you need daily to complete the 50,000 by November 30th. I'm averaging 2500 a day or so, and that just means I'll finish early.

     The problem is this: the story I had originally envisioned, with all the plot twists and turns, is basically already written. It took less words than I thought, and while I'll need to go back and add some details in later, to connect it all, its not going to take me to 50,000 so here's where it gets interesting. Kind of like a 'Choose your own Adventure'. If you never read one of those, you should find one and give it a go. BIG THANKS to Gramma and Poppi for providing me with one when I was a kid. It was the coolest concept I'd never thought of before it fell into my hands. Anyway, now I've gotta decide, do I draw out the "wrapping it up" that I'm doing now to hit the 50k or do I spin a whole new twisted tale, right off the first one, making it all a part of the complete story? If I do the second, it'll no doubt have a cliff hanger, and need a second book.(Which I'd been trying to avoid, since I already had two other stories I was in the middle of before NaNoWriMo started.) 

     This is the dilemma and most likely, the answer will come the minute my fingertips touch the keyboard again. So here's a general idea of what I'm working on...
    
     High school junior, Tara Young, wakes up a murderer with no memory of the killing and a strange guy in her room. His name is Wes and he's a werewolf. So was Tara's victim. Tara learns she is a 'Hunter' - a werewolf killer - and struggles with the decision to embrace her destiny as such, or turn her back and live a normal life. In the midst of this monumental decision, a werewolf with a grudge makes it hard to do anything but simply stay alive.

     Let me know what you think!




http://www.nanowrimo.org/ if you want to check it out!

on pins and needles...

     I realized, after staring at the title of my blog for the last hour or so, that if I'm going to do this right, I've got to be honest. No holding back, or not 'putting myself out there', as they say. If I've submitted something, I'm going to post that I've submitted it, even if it means drying my tears with a computer keyboard when I have to post that a story got rejected. Mainly though, I'm just cocky enough to believe (as most writer's have to be) that I WILL be published, someday. Its just a matter of time. So that's what we're really recording here: how LONG this is actually going to take.

     So, this is where we're at. Back in August, I wrote a short story called DreamKiller, which no one but my family, and a certain red-head laid eyes on. I wrote it in a day and edited it the next, knowing I needed to push it out the door and submit it ASAP. (i.e. before I changed my mind.) So I sat down with the laptop and a glass of wine and, after booting up the first and chugging the second, I sent it off into cyber space with high hopes. Over the next four to six weeks, the rejection letters trickled in. The thing you need to understand, though, is how truly excited I was over each and every one of those rejections. You'd think they'd accepted it, from the look on my face. Because all I cared about, was that a real live honest-to-goodness editor, somewhere in the world- had read my work. That was exciting enough for me. I saved every single one of those emails!

     Now, it's time to get serious. I went back to it, and cleaned it up some more. (I have a nasty habit of repeating the same word multiple times throughout a paragraph) and I feel much more "ready" with it now. So, again I've done my research, and - wine free - sent it out to magazines for submission.

     I received my first rejection today, though it was and it wasn't. They told me that, unfortunately, my story would not be accepted for their winter 2010 issue, but they would be considering it for their spring 2011 issue. So its a rejection and a maybe, all in one? Just enough to get your hopes up, I guess. Just reading the email felt like a roller coaster, I get so nerve-wracked over seeing them in my inbox.

     Whew. That felt good. Now you know. And it's true, most people don't tell you about a dream, because they think it won't come true. So I'm telling you mine as my way of giving that pessimistic attitude the finger! And when I get my acceptance letter, you'll be the first to know. =)

NaNoWriMo

     November is National Novel Writing Month. I've heard of it, read up on it, but this is the first time around that I've considered myself a writer in the month of November. So after much debate, and whining to myself and my husband, about all the reasons why I can't or shouldn't do it, I'm going to.

     The decision made, I tried visiting the website yesterday but it was chaos. Well, that's what I assumed anyway, since the webpage took like 20 minutes to download. Lots of traffic there. So I need to go back on and officially sign up (maybe tomorrow) but I'm committed, I think. =) And I've got 2300 words or something like that, so far. And I'm making it up as I go, since I hadnt actually been thinking of a new project to do. I've been working on The Raven for the past couple of months, in between editing DreamKiller (which is finally DONE) and Across the Galaxy- which isn't done but I was determined to start something new while I edited this one. Then, there's Kaitlyn, from which I posted an excerpt on this blog. But none of those will work for NaNoWriMo, because in order to NOT feel like a cheater, I needed to start from scratch. Hence, we now have The Hunter. I'm about a chapter or so into it. And like I said, making it up as I go, but this is what I know so far, its werewolves this time, and a wolf slayer. I'll figure out the ending when I get there, but its already alot of fun so far. So, wish me luck, and 'Godspeed!'