NaNo update

I’ve been slacking on the blogging because of NaNoWriMo. Fifty thousand words in thirty days breaks down to 1,667 words a day. I’ve been meeting the goal so I’m on track, but I probably need to get a little ahead if I want to actually finish. I’ve written every day so far and I hope to keep that up. That old saying about how it takes thirty days to make a habit is one reason why I wanted to do NaNo this year. If I can write every day, and stick pretty close to word count goals, that will be a major step for me. Discipline is so not my strong suit, so I need the help. If I want writing to ever be more than a hobby, if I want to really be good at it, I need discipline. Even though my brain is already starting to feel a little fried (though there are other factors contributing to that, but not in a bad way) I keep going. Today it started to feel like the story is coming together. The next scene I write will be a challenging one for me, but I’m actually looking forward to that challenge. So I better get to it.

Mary Sue Must Die

Do you know what a Mary Sue character is? Yeah, I didn't used to, either. Here's a definition, and here's a really good test to tell if you're character is in fact a Mary Sue. Or Gary Stu, as the case may be.

I can't remember where I first came across these links. I've had them bookmarked for ages and they're dead useful.

Late on a Friday night

I don't think I'll be blogging a whole lot during NaNo, but I want to post at least a little bit. Probably lots of links and music, then.

Here's an excellent post from one of my favorite urban fantasy authors, Lilith Saintcrow - Writing Can Save Your Life. In fact, her blog is pretty much excellent all around. She's written some terrific inspiring posts about writing. I'm pretty sure her fourth book in the Jill Kismet series comes out this month, and I know the second in the Strange Angels series does, so I'm looking forward to both of those.

I have to go work on my NaNo story. If I make my wordcount goal for the night, I will reward myself with some Supernatural fanfic. And quite possibly chocolate.

NaNo update

I've given my NaNo story a name - Penny From Heaven. Yes, I cribbed that from a song title, as I frequently do. Specifically the Louis Prima version. I don't think it's possible for me to write without a soundtrack. This started out with just a basic idea. I had the first few scenes in my head but I didn't really know where to go with it, but last night it all kind of fell into my head. I think with the plot I have now I can make it to fifty thousand words, I'm just not sure if I can do it in a month.

So far I have two main characters - a third will be introduced later. There's the angel, Penny, and there's a paranormal scholar named Chet. I had a vague idea of him, then he wound up with the name Chet and everything fell into place. To tell the truth, it's what led to me figuring out the rest of the plot, too. My Chet is named after Chet Baker, one of the greats of West Coast cool jazz. The life story of the real Chet is one of soaring talent and heartbreaking drug abuse, just as melancholy as much of the music he left behind. My fictional Chet will not be tragic, but he will have a deep vein of melancholy running through him. Jazz is his music, so of course that's something he understands intimately. He understands joy, too, which is why he names the angel after a Louis Prima song. (There's a reason why the angel doesn't reveal her true name and it has to do with a big part of the plot.)

Free Fallin'

So far the word count on my National Novel Writing Month project is at 5,133. Fifty thousand words in thirty days breaks down to 1,667 words a day, so I'm actually a day ahead. Don't know if I'll be able to maintain that pace, though. Hopefully I can. I'd like to actually finish this year, though it is more important for me to finish the story than get to a specific word count. If the story doesn't need fifty thousands words, I don't want to pad it with filler. At this point, I have no idea whether it will be that long or not. I have a vague outline in my head but I'm mostly flying by the seat of my pants here. The story is about a fallen angel, a concept I've recently become interested in.

My brain's not working real well right now. Tired. Blah. I thought about trying to write some more tonight but I think I'll give it a rest.

I don't think Free Fallin' has ever been used on Supernatural, but I think it's a good addition to my Mettalicar playlist. Good stuff.

Bad Moon Rising

I love cover songs. You can discover some real unexpected gems by searching for cover songs. This is one of my favorites, a dark, spooky, cello-tastic version of the old Creedence hit Bad Moon Rising by Rasputina. It's the perfect song for a Halloween night with a silver moon waxing fast towards full.

Holiday Delivery

Another micro-flash inspired by a piece I found at Deviant Art, with a Halloween theme, of course.

The waiting is the hardest part

This afternoon I sent out another submission, but not a short story this time. I sent an urban fantasy novella to an epublisher. Lately I have been fascinated with the whole idea of epublishers, and not just because the ones I've found don't require you to have an agent in order to submit. I think it's terrific that they'll publish works of various lengths, including novellas. It seems like they're more willing to take chances on stuff that a traditional dead tree publisher might shy away from. And they seem pretty cutting edge, too, publishing ebooks. I have no idea what the traditional publishing industry thinks of the new start-ups. Probably keeping an eye out on how much revenue they bring in, since ebooks certainly seem to be the future of publishing. I don't think that ebooks will be the entirety of the future of publishing, but I do think they will comprise a big chunk eventually. I have no idea if getting published by one of these companies would help or hurt me when I finally take the plunge and start looking for an agent. I would think having some sales and a bit of an audience would help, but I haven't really come across any discussion of it on any of the author / agent blogs I follow.

This particular novella that I submitted is not a romance, but most of the epublishers I've looked at so far specialize in the romance genre. I submitted this to a company that also takes what it calls "mainstream" stuff. I've never written a romance but I think I'm going to use NaNo as an excuse to give it a try. I've got an idea that I think will be fun, which is good since that 50k words in a month is a lot higher wordcount in a lot shorter time than I'm used to, and I want to really make an effort to do better than I did last year. Actually, this novella I just submitted was started during last year's NaNo.

I got an automatic response back confirming they'd received my submission, and that I should hear from them in two to four weeks. Wow. Makes me wish I could start NaNo now, so I have something to distract me. But I have to wait until Sunday. Maybe I'll go find some more Supernatural fanfic to read - that's pretty distracting.

Nuthin'

So I go to the library and first I check out the used book store run by the Friends of the Library association. Picked up a few urban fantasy/paranormal romance. Then on to the lending part of the library, where I checked out both Coraline and the Graveyard Book (very excited about finally reading those). Browsed the general fiction for awhile, came across an urban fantasy title that I've never read but heard good things about. Took it off the shelf to read the synopsis and couldn't make it past the author photo. No, I'm not going to say who it was, but the picture was absurd. This may seem like a shallow thing, and it probably is, but if your author photo makes you look like a massive dork, I have to wonder if I really want to put my head in the world you've created. Wacky clothes and a dippy pose make me as a reader think, hey, this person's trying way too hard. If they've got to try that hard I bet it would be easy to steal their lunch money. I don't want to read a book by someone who could easily be relieved of their lunch money.

That's pretty much all I got for today. Which means, I got nuthin'.

Carry On My Wayward Son

I've discovered the most wonderfullest thing - a Supernatural wiki. OMG I could spend hours there. The best thing, other than the pictures of course, is the page devoted to music featured in the show. I've already begun work on a massive playlist titled Mettalicar.

This is one of about a million fan-made videos set to Carry On My Wayward Son by Kansas.




Don't forget Dean's rule: House rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cake hole.

NaNoWriMo

Once again I am going to attempt National Novel Writing Month. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words, from November 1st through the 30th. Which is not really a full novel but is both a great start on a first draft, and better than the word novella, a word I use even think I think it sounds silly. The first time I signed up for this was last year and I didn't get anywhere near 50k. Maybe I'll get a little closer this year. I'm not real sure yet what I'll try to write about. A while back I had an idea for something but didn't do anything with it beyond a few notes, so I may look at that and see if I can come up with an outline. It's entirely possible I'll wind up doing a few thousand words and crashing and burning, like I did last year, but there's no harm in making the attempt.

Thursday!

I just took the short stories off the blog. I found some more places to try submitting them to, and I figured they probably shouldn't be on the blog if I want someone to give me fifteen or twenty bucks for them. :-)  I left the Witchfinder General flash fiction, so that any readers who might stumble across it can get a taste of my writing.

That's all I got for tonight. Oh, and this song has been in my head for two days, for no particular reason.

Untitled on a Wednesday night

That new short story I wrote is called Goofer Dust Blues. Here's the basic plot: a lawyer for an unnamed client hires a paranormal investigator to procure a certain curio item. So off she goes to Mississippi, procuring. Her best friend goes with her, and that's all I have to say about him at this time. The story is music-related, specifically blues. It's paranormal, of course, but I don't think it goes far enough to be called horror. There's plenty of humor in it, too. So it may not be dark enough to suit most publications, but honestly I'm not too worried about it. For me, this story had a bigger point than that. These two characters are in the big WIP, Darkshines. Writing this story helped me to get to know these characters better. I'm going to have to make some changes in what I've got so far, but I know it'll be for the best going forward.

So there's what's on my mind tonight. Boring, I know, but there it is.

Random Tuesday

Well, I found a place to submit my newest short story to after all, and am now once again cheerfully awaiting rejection. Yay me!

To continue with the peppy mood, here's a great fanvid celebrating the Wincester brothers (and yes, I spelled their name wrong on purpose, because I just can't help it.)





Terrific editing, inspired musical choice, Sam in a towel ... this may be the best fanvid ever.

Market Blues

I finished a new short story so I looked around online to see about submitting it somewhere. Found a few publications that might take urban fantasy, but I'd have to cut nearly three thousand words from it. The story is about 7,800 words and the publications I found were looking for stuff with a maximum of five thousand. Plus, I honestly couldn't tell if any of them even take urban fantasy. Words like fantasy, speculative, even horror would be in the submission guidelines, but I couldn't find any place that said they were looking for urban fantasy. You would think it would be a popular genre right now in short fiction, just as much as it is in paperback novels.

This is a problem I have with my short stories - I don't know what to do with them. They don't seem to fit a market, at least not one I can find. What I write isn't really dark enough to be called horror. I guess it would fit under the speculative fiction heading, but a lot of what I've found at online fiction sites that could be called speculative fiction is, um, not to my taste. I can't quite put my finger on why, though.

These are not complaints, so much as observations. There's plenty of great stuff at these publications I've found, even if a lot of it is not my cup of chai. But I would not feel remotely confident in sending this new short story, or any of my older stuff, to any of them. I just don't think my stuff would be accepted. That's why I've posted fiction here, and I may wind up posting the new story here. For one thing, I don't know how I'd cut three thousand words from it and still have the same story. For another, I had the idea of posting it here and having links in the story. Not like one of the choose your own adventure hypertext fiction kinds of thing, exactly; more like just linking to images or music. I don't know. I do think I will look around some more before I post it here. There's got to be a publication out there somewhere that accepts urban fantasy short stories.