Nanowrimo

It is again NaNoWriMo time!

National Novel Writing Month has me all tied up. All my spare time has gone into typing, typing, typing.

I'm home for Thanksgiving break, and my goal is to finish the last 20,000 words. I can do this!  I'm at 35,000 and I can keep going.

I'm working on Enmityville Chronicles. Enmityville is a town where those with special magical abilites and non-humans live side by side in mutual and decided ignorance and acceptance of the fact that non-humans exist. The tales are told from the points of view of a new family brought into the town completely oblivious to it's inner secrets and workings. They soon learn, along with the reader, how things are. They also learn why they were chosen to be there.

My husband and I are writing this series of novellas. There are supposed to be ten books in all. I've been writing my half of the stories for Nano. I started on book two because book one is mostly finished, though it needs some major overhauls in parts now that we know how the series is going to go. When we wrote book one we were still unsure of all the races, problems, and even plots.

In order to write a series, you need several over-arching plots. Each book has a problem to solve, but also each book introduces a character and situation that will come into play later.

I am now writing book four. I finished books two and three according to the plans we discussed this month. The best part about this is that I can talk to my husband, bounce ideas off of him, tell him about the new characters I have created, and he is invested. He wants to know about the story and he can give me good feedback. I also love when one of my character interactions fits in perfectly with his vision for their interactions. I can say 'yes! he or she did exactly that!'. He motivates me to keep going and helps me get through writing slumps.

No, pausing to write this blog post does not mean I am in a writing slump.

It means I needed to take a break and gather my thoughts for the next big scene. :)

Excerpt:

Book 2: On Dwarves and Elves

Laura Jones, now living in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska in a small town called Enmityville, opened yet another door in the vast hospital she had taken to touring all by herself. The single doctor on staff, Fields, was entombed in the cavernous staff lounge with ESPN. The head nurse, Haythorne, was always mysteriously missing, but would turn up at odd moments to criticize something Laura was doing. Only the receptionist, Ashley, remained faithfully at her desk buried in cat videos.

This room, once lit by the flick of switch, proved to be an empty apothecary. Bottles sat in a few designated spots, but the dust on their white caps gave evidence that no one had needed medicines like these in a long while. Laura checked the expiration date on a random bottle. It had expired 3 years ago.

She sighed. Marking the door with her trusty red dry erase marker, she set off in search of a cart and boxes to empty out the room.

It bothered her that someone with her training, years of heard-earned education, hours of clinicals, and her record of saved lives would spend her days cleaning and straightening an empty but otherwise functional hospital.

She found a cart near one of the triage rooms near the main emergency entrance. As she pushed it past the entrance and behind the receptionist desk, she heard Ashley talking to someone. Intrigued that they might actually have a patient, she stopped to eavesdrop.

“Nurse Haythorne isn’t answering,” Ashley was telling the air outside of the phone held to one ear. “She is very busy.”

Laura knew that was a lie. No one was busy here. Nurse Haythorne was simply hard to track down. Rather than use the paging system, Ashley had opted for a direct call to her desk. That meant this wasn’t an emergency. It seemed odd that Ashley would screen visitors. Had she been sending people away?

Laura stepped closer. She couldn’t see the speaker beyond Ashley and the desk. But she suddenly heard them.

“She specifically ordered these!”

The voice was coming from below the desk, a little shrill with exasperation.

“I was told to deliver them to her personally and I’m not leaving until I hand this basket over to Nurse Haythorne!”

Laura was involved now. She stepped around the desk to take in a very small person. She had never seen a real dwarf in her life, not even in a single hospital she’d interned in. Dwarfism was fascinating and it was hard to look away when you first saw one. The polite thing was to speak up instead of act like you weren’t staring.

“Hello, my name is Laura. I’m a nurse here. I could take those, if you like.” The little woman was holding a basket, covered, handle over one arm.

“No! These must only go to Nurse Haythorne!”

“What are they?”

A squeak of warning escaped from Ashley. Laura looked at her wide eyes and slightly shaking head. Had she said something wrong?

“Just go and find her! She knows I’m here.”

“Alright, who may I tell her is delivering a package?”

The little woman squinted and sized Laura up. She clearly had some measure in her mind as to Laura’s trustworthiness. She must have chosen to give Laura a chance, because she replied, “Tell her her shipment has arrived. That’s all.”

It was a test. Perhaps if she accomplished what Ashley could not, she would win the woman’s name. Laura was bored and accepted the challenge.

“Alright. I guess you can wait here and I’ll try to find her. I’ll call the front desk when I do.”

The woman gave a single curt nod and turned to find a seat. Laura then looked at Ashley questioningly. The receptionist gave her an eyebrows raised look that said, ‘it’s your funeral’.

What This Writer Has Been Up To

As a teacher, I am encouraged and required to do professional development. I have some leeway in what I choose to learn more about, but if something is school or district-wide, I have to join in. Sometimes there are mandatory meetings in my field as well.

As a writer, I'm pretty much self-employed, whether I get paid or not. I have to learn and grow on my own. I have 100% control of what I take in. I can read good books, join webinars, take Udemy classes, and join whatever email lists that I feel will help me in my pursuit.

1. So this week, I've been listening and taking notes on Tim Grahl's Hacking Amazon. Tim does a lot for authors in building their platform and book marketing. Working with Amazon's Author Central is only part of that. He offers great advice. I had to sign up to receive links to his videos in my email. I've taken notes on his lessons. No one said you can't and free info is free info. I figure I can get enough free pieces of the puzzle to make some headway and at least get myself started.

2. I also listened to Jeff Goins talk about how to find your purpose, which tied in to other speakers I've taken notes on whose goal is to help people reach their dreams.

3. I've been thinking about my niche and what my passion is and what I can write to help people. One place you can go to get ideas for finding out what people are interested in and what they need is to go to Quora. You create an account and select your interests. From there you can see questions people have asked in your areas of interest. This is what the people want to know. Can you (or I) answer them?

4. Hey, did you know that in marketing your book or product or service, you can advertise and pre-sell a product that is NOT finished??  After hearing this, I felt that was dishonest, but I also remembered thinking about how you need money to get things started sometimes.

5. This week I learned a new way to record myself and transcribe it into a book. We can speak faster than we can type. I'm kind of excited to try it.

Then I added some things I learned about my niche to my notes, worked on an old piece I think might become my next ebook, and remembered to take time out for myself!

Ahhh!