2 DAYS!!!

We've only TWO DAYS left until the beginning of National Novel Writing month and I have no idea what I'm writing. Now, some folks enjoy the feeling of writing by the seat of their pants. Sadly, I'm not one of them. I need a rough road map of where I want to go and key points I want to visit along the way. I haven't got that yet and it's starting to bug me a bit.

I like to use the month of November to push my boundaries. Test myself and see what I'm made of. My first year, it was simply to write 50,000 words of fiction that didn't completely stink. To take a plot idea and run with it. The next year I settled on a middle/young adult work that my kids could read. Two years ago it was erotica/romance. Just how far could I get myself to go with a sex scene? (And yes, I really did suprise myself with that one!) Last year I tried to tackle a sequel to the young adult story, but didn't get very far. Actually, few of us got very far that year. I'm not sure what happened to the others, but I know what happened in my case. Or at least I think I do. I hadn't finished editing the first book and it seemed silly to go on to the next. That and I got sick half-way through.

All of which brings us to this year. What the heck am I going to write? I thought I'd tackle a non-fiction mythology book. It's something I've been thinking about for a good while now. But then I got this sliver of an idea for a true vampire tale, which is something I've also been thinking would be fun to write. And by true vampire, I mean the revenant vampires of folklore. Something truly horrific as opposed to what Hollywood and lit. have been tossing our way. (THAT was my first novel.) However I didn't have much to go on, until last week that is. One the way back from taking a friend home from our meet n'greet, it started to plot itself in my head. Great, right? Except it stopped and I haven't had the chance to think more on it...So, WHAT am I going to begin writing in a few days? I still have no idea, but something tells me it'll be neither of the above, because that seems to be how it's going this year.

*sigh*

Catching Up

I really should have an exciting new post here...but I don't. National Novel Writing Month kicked off this past Tuesday and I'm woefully behind. Between getting ready for the kick-off (goodie bags!), getting ready for book fair, and covering for our school secretary, who was off with some health issues, all I did this past weekend was sleep. *grin* I did get the story started at our youth group's lock-in on Friday.

Tonight I'm heading in town to the Union Street Cafe for some serious working time. I think some of the other WriMos will be joining me there. Hopefully some serious words can be churned out and I can really get into the meat of the story, where the really fun stuff happens.

Oh, and I have a working title - Visions of Treasure Past. It's met with Drama Queen's approval, which is more than the other title's I've tossed out have done.

Okay, off to get some stuff done so I can get out of here!

A Quickie

One more quick little post. Guess what I finished last night? Yep, my full-length, complete edit of Glimmer of Sight, written two years ago during NaNo. It was very exciting. Now I just need to do a wee bit more polishing, add more info in a couple of spots, check one possible continuity problem, swallow hard, put on my big girl pants, and send it off to some potential agent. Why do I think the hard part is just starting?

Boris kept me company while I finished.

He was very excited to have his story told.

Background on Miranda

(This drawing doesn't have a danged thing to do with the rest of the post. I just like showing off the girls' artwork. Monkey Girl did this piece of our family. That's her on the left, with her dog, Baby in front of her. Next is me, then Mr. Incredible with is arm around me. To the left of him is The Kate. That's her dog Jake in front. And on the far right is Drama Queen with her dog Rosie. She's holding a fish bowl with Goldie in it. Goldie has since gone to the big aquarium in the sky. She was an old fish. )

I don't have much time as sleep is calling to me, but I'm off to my grandmother's for a few days and wanted to explain a bit about the Miranda Snapshots before I go. "While Walking Home At Midnight" was originally written for a local ghost story contest. I knew it wouldn't win, as it's far from a traditional ghost, or spooky, story, but it got me to write.

I was pretty happy with the little story, written to the contest's very short word count guidelines. My friends seemed to be happy as well, until they got to the ending. My lovely ambiguous ending. I liked it that way. They wanted to know more. Pain and death were mentioned in connection with my name if I didn't tell what happened next. Being as allergic to pain as the next person, this worried me a bit, although I really didn't see a certain website providing friend driving all the way from New Jersey to make good on the threat. Still, ya never know with guys. So I had to figure out what happened next. And how I was going to write it.

Thus the "snapshot" was born. It was just a little slice of what was happening, kept to the same word count as the original story. This is why they are so danged short and rather lacking in those colorful details a certain pediatric surgeon mentioned in his comment. (Thank you, Chris, by the way. I really appreciated the feedback.) It would probably have a bit more depth with some of those details, but I was struggling to get what I was feeling onto paper. These little bits are good exercise for that. (I also just realized that I had about 50 more words to play around with, dang it!)

I'm the least happy with this snapshot and yet I think it's got some of the most emotion in it. I really like the fourth snapshot, which I'll share next Friday. It's the last one I wrote, just a couple of years ago. Will there be more? I honestly can't say. It's difficult to write a character that you don't know that well and, honestly, I've not gotten to know Miranda that well through the years. Maybe, now that these are getting posted, she'll climb into my brain and take it over for a little while, letting me know what makes her tick. If that happens, there will be more. Maybe this is what I'll do for NaNo this year - write more about Miranda. Hmmm, that's a thought. If this other idea doesn't pan out by November....

Thanks for reading.