And I really love these characters. Which is a good thing, since I'll be spending some more time with them. I'll be countinuing to write Madison and Hunter's story for the next month or so.
I just validated novel and I have officially hit 50k. I'm estatic and tired. Unlike some previous years, I feel even more pride about hitting this goal. It took a lot more work and focus then it used to. Balancing writing responsiblities, a more demanding evil day job, and family time.
And I really love these characters. Which is a good thing, since I'll be spending some more time with them. I'll be countinuing to write Madison and Hunter's story for the next month or so.
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Word Count 45,379
I’ve been in hiding, writing like a mad woman for the last week. In the last five days, I’ve written almost 13,000 words. I’ve finally caught up on my word count, and intent to keep up the same pace until I reach 50,000. The more I write this story, the more I realize I have so much more to write. I have at least two scenes that are barely written that need to be fleshed out, some falling in love to write and the whole sub story of Brianna is basically unwritten. I know a few moments in it, but need a lot more time between Hunter and Brianna (most of it where he’s awkward, which is what is holding me up. He keeps acting natural with her, but he has to be awkward in begin). When I first started writing this story, I knew with all the threads I had running through this work, that it was going to be a novel, and more than 50,000, now I’m thinking it will come in between 80,000 and 90,000 before I’m through. Definitely more than NaNoWriMo, so this work will keep going past November. What I never anticipated was wanting to write any more of these characters. From the very beginning I had the sense that I needed side characters to make the story work. Many of them are exactly the opposite of Hunter and Madison, or the important people in their lives. There’s Tom and Sharron, who are the inverse of Madison’s parents. They’re forgiving, loving and want their daughter and granddaughter to live with them forever. Oppose to Madison’s parents that kicked her out once they learned of her pregnancy. They show her human’s are just as good as any wolf, maybe better. Julie (their daughter) is really the inverse of Madison, she’s dependent on her parents, and desperate to find her daughter another father, oppose to Madison that’s as independent as they come. Even Hunter’s brother Sam and his mate Lindsay are the exact opposite of Madison and Hunter. They’re lovey dovey, romantic and moving very fast in their relationship. But the more I write, the more life these characters take on, and the more I feel the urge to write them a happy ending. Another one that surprised me is Gary, the guy that Madison uses to make Hunter jealous. Somehow he’s turned into an all around good guy that I really want to find a nice girl for him, who may or may not be a wolf. I’ve never understood writers that don’t write series. For me it’s never really been a choice. This always happens to me. I always end up falling in love with some of the characters and want to find them a happy ending. Maybe I never will, maybe I’ll never get around to writing a story for Julie, or coming up with a story for Gary, but I always want to. I guess in my very heart I’m a series writer. Now and forever. Word count 35,152
Today is thanksgiving, and I’m thankful for my low word count. Not exactly my low word count, because I would love to have twice as many words by now (not really possible, but hey if it was an option, I’d take it). But I’m thankful for the reasons why my word count is low. I’m thankful for being with my family for this holiday, and spending yesterday making pies with my mom and playing cards with my father and brother until we were all silly with laughter. I’m thankful for the three works I’ve had released this year and the one scheduled for next year, which I’ve been promoting and setting blog dates for over the past few weeks. I’m thankful for muse, which is never in short supply of ideas. Though I may bemoan it sometimes, when I really want to finish something instead of being tempted by something new, but I am thankful for my muse every day. I’m even thankful for my EDJ, though crazy this time of year, it’s allows me to take care of myself, pay my bills and still have time to write and follow my dreams until my writing alone can support me. Happy thanksgiving everyone! Hope you have many things to be thankful for, and a great family to spend the holiday with. Total – 12098
It’s been a long time since I wrote a whole 50k words on one work. For the past year I’ve been much more focused on smaller works. From the very beginning of the series I knew I wanted all the Naughty Holiday List stories to be shorter works (though each one is a little bigger than the one before it). It’s been so long I’ve forgotten all the prework that goes into a novel. A novella I can keep in my head, but a novel, with all the side characters and multiple story lines, emotional growth and falling love, it’s too much for my little noggen. So I’ve spent a majority of my writing time for the last few days putting together an outline and blurb to focus my writing. Here’s the preliminary blurb for my nano project (still untitled)-- After being kicked out of the pack and from the home she’d known her entire life, for becoming pregnant with a half breed, Madison has learned to support herself. The only priorities in her life are taking care of her daughter, Brianna, and the wonderful human, or two-leg, family that helped her when she had no one else. She doesn’t need a mate, and she doesn’t want one. Hunter never thought he’d find a mate. Banished from Wolf Lake for crimes against the hierocracy, Hunter believed he’d be destined to wander forever without a pack or mate of his own. But fate turns in his favor, when his bike is crashed, and ends up in the repair shop complete with not only the sexiest she-wolf he’s ever seen, but one who’s scent tells him she is undeniably his mate. Madison may not want a mate, or believes she needs one, but Hunter doesn’t plan on giving her a choice. And come hell, high water, ex-boyfriends or meddling two-legger foster parents, Hunter is determined to prove that Madison she not only wants him, but she needs him, forever. Because Hunter always keeps what he catches. What do you think? I’ve been kind of quiet this first week of Nano. It’s been crazy in my neck of the woods. Lots of people without power, electrical lines down all over the place. Halloween was even canceled in some areas. The horror!!!
I lost power for a few hours, which disrupted my Nanowrimo prep, but other than that I was fine. However I was without internet or good cell service for most of the week that made it harder to communicate and check in than I’m used to. But now everything’s back on line, most of the area has power again, and I’m moving forward on the nano front. I didn’t get all my prep done that I wanted, but I got a good percentage of it. I got the cats to the vet (they received a clean bill of healthy, and the doctor said their weight was perfect, not typical for cats, especially my spoiled ones). I did a lot of cleaning and finished revising wandering. I plan to send it off after another quick look over, which I’ll do in the next day or so. Nano has been going well so far. I narrowed the projects I wanted to do down to my untitled shifter story, about Madison and Hunter, and my fantasy novel. But so far my attentions have been completely focused on Madison and Hunter. I don’t know if it’s all the pent up non-writing time, the fact that I ignored them for a month (Hunter hates to be ignored, the second I turn my back on him he starts screaming at me, but Mady and Hunter aren’t letting me even think about anyone else. They want all my time. And for nano, I’m happy to give it to them. I may end up finishing this work during Nano, which I hadn’t anticipated. We’ll have to see how long they keep my focus, and how long there story ends up being. As of this morning, I have 9,304 words towards Madison and Hunter’s story. 8,056 of those nano words. A little under count, but I have a few days off the EDJ coming up and I plan to push through and skyrocket that word count. I’ll see if I can find a snippet for you guys in the next few days. It’s hard with nano works, since they tend to be fast and rough, but I’ll see if I can find a paragraph or two. Nanowrimo starts in almost exactly two weeks and I’m already excited. My muse is just as thrilled, and she’s been torturing me all month long. New ideas are coming fast and crazy. But before the nanowrimo craziness starts I need to do a bunch of nanowrimo prep.
For most people Nanowrimo prep includes character charts, outlines, research and plotting, I have even more prep I need to do before this crazy event kicks off and takes over the next month. Eliminate projects. Right now I have about six projects screaming in my head wanting some attention. But to get the most out of Nano and to get a few completed works I need to limit the number of projects. Since I write mainly shorter works, I don’t expect to only work on one project for 50k words, but I do want to work on completing works, not just hacking away at ideas. So I want to limit my choices to three or less projects to consider part of the Nano craziness. Finish world building and write character profiles. Since more than likely my new fantasy idea and my expanded femdom short are two of the projects I want to work on, I need to finish my character profiles and world building for those two works. Finish revising Wandering. I'm almost half way done revising Wandering, and I'd love to finish it by the end of the month and have it sent off to a publisher. It will certainly make the wait easier during Nano wrim Get blogs ready and posted. I have a few blogging a promo obligations in November, but to not split my focus during Nano, I’m going to try and get those put together and scheduled in October so I wouldn’t have to worry about it, come next month. Finish cleaning up my office. For the last year plus my office has been a mess because I’ve been using that room to house everything not kitten approved. But now that the kittens are older, and it’s just damn time, I want to clean out my office so I can use it to focus during nano. I dropped off two large bags at good will last week, did some organizing and threw out a bunch of stuff. It’s not completely done, but it’s come a long way. Clean up my inbox (as much as possible). My email inbox is kind of a monster, stealing time like a thief in the night. While I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to get my inbox down to nothing, I’m going to try and clean it up as much as possible, so I can ignore it and not think about it in November, besides essential business emails. Amazingly, every year, it seems like the amount emails I get decreases during November. Wonder why that is :D Do a deep clean of my home. I’m not going to want to clean the house during nano (though I never really want to clean the house, hence how long the office above as been a problem). While little areas of cleaning will have to be done (like laundry and dishes) a good thorough cleaning now will mean less work during November. Go shopping. Since I’ll want to spend time writing instead of shopping, I want to make sure and refresh all the essentials now, such as cat food, pastas, frozen foods and canned soups. Unlike other Nanos I’m in the heart of the Romance Biggest Winner weight loss competition this year, so I’ll still have to go to the store regularly for produce, but if I stock up on the other stuff now it should make those trips faster. Clean up the most I can at the EDJ. Last year nano was really spoiled by all my commitments at my evil day job (combined with edits for my December release for Naughty List). Last year I’d just gotten the job in October, and didn’t have the chance to clean up all the problems lurking for the end of the year. But this year that’s not true. While my job does have a lot of commitments towards the end of the year, there’s nothing to say that I can’t star t cleaning up some of that now. I have meetings scheduled for the last week of October to clear up a few things, and I’m making progress. Will I fix every issue, of course not, but everyone I do will make it that much easier for me to leave on time and write during my lunch breaks uninterrupted. Get the cats a vet appointment. Something that needs to be done before the end of November for the rabies shots to be good, might as well do it in October to have more Nanowrimo time. Spackle my walls. I want to get someone in to paint my hallway (I’m hoping during November when I’m taking time off to write) so I want to make sure everything is spackled and ready to go for them, so as soon as they are ready to come in I can have them show up. I definitely don’t want to spackle during Nano. I’ll be too busy writing. Get some sleep. After nano comes, sleep will be at a premium, especially if something big happens at the EDJ or my edits come in for Heart’s Ultimatum. Now’s the time to get caught up on sleep, because who knows how much I’ll be getting in November. So that’s my list of things I have to do before Nano. What’s on your Nanowrimo prep list? |
Willa EdwardsSpicy Erotic Romance Author and Life-Long Book Lover Get my blog posts sent to your emailArchives
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