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’.

Snow Day = Impromptu Writing Retreat?

Today school was cancelled.

I read a little, cleaned up my emails, wrote over 600 new words in my first draft, wrote a micro fic, chatted to my husband at work (poor guy), kept up on my facebook feed, watched shows on hulu, and researched new music in addition to my household chores.

Yet, here I sit, thinking about how I want to have a writing retreat where I basically do...this??

I need to plan a writer's retreat where the focus is more writing and less video watching and facebook stalking.

I learned that given free time that I can use to focus and write, I will inevitably choose to waste it on the internet.

So, as my previous post was about rekindling that fire to write, this one is about using the time I am given wisely.

When I plan for work, I schedule. I use a planner and I write each lesson in by its time.

When I plan for my free time, I write what I would LIKE to do at that time, but what I END up doing is usually not what I write down in my planner. I end up not 'feeling' it. It's better for me to make a list I can check off for the day and however it happens, it happens. Mostly. Okay, sometimes I save some check marks for the next day.

Now that I am contemplating a writing retreat, I need to create a plan that includes an outline of my writing; the story itself or my goals for the day.

I'm also going to start small. I can't just drop myself off in some secluded spot for days without a plan. I will find myself not writing.

I think I will try my library first. Drive over there, sit at a table with my laptop, no wifi on, and just type until the battery dies, or if I can plug in, until I get hungry or have to pee. That should be good enough; an outline and uninterrupted time.

The next time I might add a small stop at a scenic place to let my thoughts run wild. I'll take a notebook and pen. Then I can type up what I come up with.

What would you do?


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.