Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Beginning of the End…

Happy 5-week-a-versary to Seer!!

It's the beginning of the end, and this novel is getting INTENSE. Yikes. You don't even know. I always enjoy writing something that's new and different from anything I've ever written before, and Seer certainly fits the bill. My brain, I tell you, is a scary place to be. I hope I can make it through to the end relatively unscathed…

Also, did I mention that this book exploded in my subconscious and became a TRILOGY? 'Cause it did. I'll definitely be taking a break before tackling the next two books, but still. I can't believe this all snowballed from a short story idea.

Do you SEE why I can't write short stories?

Yeah.

Time for some stats:

Word Count: 52,072 words (I FINALLY MADE IT TO 50K!!!!! :-) :-) :-))
Chapters Completed: 18.75/26
Intensity Level: 96%
Number of Times Author has Gotten Disturbed: 4
Evilness of Villains: Ridiculously Evil
Number of Shocking Revelations: 2/4
Number of Times Author has had Trouble with Pacing: 7
Number of Times Author has Dreaded Revisions: 12
Number of Times Author has Wished Sci-Fantasy was a Viable Genre: 100,000,000

Friday, February 19, 2010

Friday, the someday-I'll-make-it-to-50K edition

Yep, so a week later my novel is only 6,500 words further along. I've been meaning to make it to 50k for the last, oh, four days or so. Yesterday I wrote a grand total of 382 words, the day before I definitely didn't break a thousand. But I guess you'll have that, right? At any rate, I'm in the final third of the novel, and the stakes are about to get very, VERY high.

In other news, I've now seen both series of BBC's Merlin (and highly recommend them. Wow.) and am eagerly awaiting the third; I'm still reading The Ropemaker and will hopefully finish soon; I ran a half mile today (a huge accomplishment if you're me); and I'm having an Emma tea party tomorrow and am way excited about it. :-)

That's pretty much it, but I thought I'd share a tiny bit about my novel, which is titled Seer:
They meet for the first time when they’re six years old: blind Braise, who is destined to be a Seer and wield the powers of the Ethereal Plane, and Iria, the orphaned daughter of a Councilor, who is chosen as his Reader. Growing up together in the Seer’s Tower, Braise and Iria's friendship gradually turns to love. But the year they turn sixteen Iria discovers the sinister truth, and everything changes…
Yes, I'm being purposefully vague. Don't want to give everything away, now do I? :-)

Happy weekend, everyone!

Friday, February 12, 2010

40k Friday!

Woot! I had a pretty great writing week, so you all get another stats post. Lucky you! :-)

Word Count: 40,040 (I just figured out how to add two more words to produce that lovely round number :-))
Chapters Completed: 13/26 (For those keeping track, I decided to add a new chapter to the outline, different from the one previously nixed.)
Novel Weirdness Level: 94%
Number of Times Author has Listened to Laura Veir's July Flame Album Whilst Writing: 40+
Chapters Left Until First Kissage: 1.5 (YAY!!!! :-))
Number of Random Surnames Invented: 2
Number of Times Characters have been Stopped by Other Characters in Hallways to Have Important Conversations: unfortunately way more times than I can count
Number of Scenes that Feel Suspiciously Regency: 1
Number of Airship Rides Thus Far: 1
Number of Merlin episodes watched since last Thursday: 15
Number of Pulled Muscles During Embarrassingly Non-Vigorous Jogging: 1 (OW!)

Here's to a great weekend and 50k by my book's four week-aversary on Tuesday!!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

30k!!

Not a very creative post title, but you'll have that. I was secretly hoping to be at 40k today, but 10k a week seems to be all I can muster lately... which makes my hopes of finishing this thing by the end of the month kinda slim. But we shall see. Still, 30k is nothing to sneeze at, right?

In other news, whilst getting slightly *cough* VERY *cough cough* addicted to the adorable BBC show Merlin this week, I got to thinking about my two main characters from On Journeys Bound / The Blind King with much fondness, and decided to re-read the beginning of The Blind King which, if you'll recall, was the second of two unfinished novels attempted during NaNoWriMo last November. I read it—sat there for two hours reading it—and you know what?

I really, really liked it. I mean it had all the usual rough draft kinds of flaws, but overall I was heartily impressed with myself. I only wish it had a middle and an end in addition to a beginning. Guess that's something I'll have to fix, right? Anyways, I was encouraged to discover that November wasn't quite the complete and total failure I thought it was. YAY!

And now, the moment you all have been waiting for—this week's stats!

Word Count: 30,030 (yes I stopped in the middle of a sentence so I could have that lovely number)
Chapters Completed: 10/25
Age of Characters: 16! Finally!! Now they can properly fall in love! :-)
Number of Ominous Conversations Overheard: 1
Number of Times Author had to Bribe Herself to Keep Writing: 7
Number of Times Author was Sitting in Barnes & Noble and Saw a Strange Person in a Bright Yellow Skin-Tight Over-the-Face Cat Suit: 1 (Yes. Really.)

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

20K and on till morning...

Happy end-of-Tuesday, everyone! Today marks my WIP's two week anniversary, so of course it's time for some stats:

Word count: 20,426
Chapters completed: 6 of 25 (I nixed one of the chapters from my outline because it wasn't adding anything to the plot, in case you'd noticed the discrepancy with last week's stats.)
Status of characters: Sleepy. (They had a big day. :-))
Number of times the author has gotten disturbed: 2
Number of strange things Googled* since last week: 3
Next up: a huge argument, followed by a deathly illness
Guesstimated total word count at this juncture: 80,000

Writing is going pretty well—I had a few slow days last week, but have been making up for it so far this week. The Plan is to finish the rough draft by the end of February, which means I have 26 days to write approximately 60,000 words—doable, if I can keep the momentum. We'll see.

Have I mentioned that this novel is strange? 'Cause it is. It's kinda freaking me out. As I'm writing, I'm learning more and more about the world and everybody's motivations and exactly what it is that my evil government is up to and it's a little disturbing. My main characters are thus far unaware that they are being manipulated, and it's kinda sad. :-( Writing is so weird. It gives you these connections to people and places that, really, you invented yourself, and yet they don't really feel invented at all. It's like they're real human beings who actually exist somewhere, and they pop up every now and again to tell you stories about themselves. Very strange. But then I'm rather crazy.

Anyway.

In other news, I've gotten a hefty pile of rejection letters for The Whale and the Tree, and am contemplating letting the whole query process rest for a while. Sad, but true. Hope springs eternal, however, so I'll probably send at least a few more out. We shall see.

And that is pretty much that.

______________________

* One of these happened to be "drilling holes in the head," which led me to read about trepanning, which was a key factor in disturbing myself.