Monday, November 30, 2009

And So It Ends...

Well, then. I had planned to blog the entire way through NaNoWriMo, but it turned out I simply didn't have enough time to write and blog both. I finished this afternoon, though, after sitting down with Write or Die for an hour and pounding out 4031 words. Before heading off to work with three-year-olds. Needless to say, I'm bushed.

It's a relief to be finished with this project (even though the ending wrapped up a little more neatly than I had originally planned) because having a workable draft of something is always good. I'm really pleased with the potential that it has-- I would never submit this anywhere without extensive edits, but it's certainly a good start.

I'm also relieved to be finished because it means that I can start on my December project (or at least, I can when finals are over)-- editing and rewriting and hopefully coming up with a final, shoppable manuscript of Summer of Betrayal, the first in my Camlain series. And the sooner I can have a shoppable draft of that, the sooner I can see if people want it, and the sooner I can get started on Autumn of Discord, which I've been making notes on for quite some time now. My fingers are itching to get back to this universe. My characters are screaming at me to write about them, damn it.

I love that feeling.

More on Camlain later.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

NaNoWriMo: Day 3

As in, the beginning of day three. I have 3383 words currently, most of that done on day 1 but not much done on day 2, since I had a massive poetry project due. The plot has also completely changed, as is wont to happen with me. Instead of my insane Christmas plot (not thrown away, but put in storage) I have finally decided to do my reappropriation of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale.

Our heroine is not really the typical princess of Disney's fairy tales-- instead, she is a sullen teenager who attends public school (where no one knows she is a princess, as it is in a neighboring country) and has an antagonistic relationship with her betrothed prince (who doesn't know he is her betrothed). At this point, I'm not quite sure where this is going except that Rosie, our princess, is very rebellious-- only, the people in her country don't quite give her the reaction she wants, instead finding it adorable, or cute-- and so the climax will (read: should) come with the pricking of her finger on the spindle, thus fulfilling the curse, being purposeful and her ultimate act of rebellion.

This is the plan, anyway. We all know that with NaNoWriMo things don't usually turn out the way they are planned.

I'll leave you with this. Every time I work on a new project, I tend to make a playlist of songs reminiscent of things or people involved in that novel to help me along while I'm writing. This year's is coming slowly, but I can already tell you Rosie has a theme song-- "Hot Mess", by Cobra Starship. Oh yeah. Download it. Listen to it. Love it.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

NaNoWriMo 2009

So, first of all-- obligatory first post information. My name is Hannah Stuart and I'm a novelist. It sounds like I'm introducing myself for an AA meeting, and I suppose it's similar-- writing is an addiction of sorts. Anyhow, this blog's main purpose is for networking and keeping the four of you out there who are actually interested in what I'm writing updated on what's actually going on.

So, it's Halloween. Last day before NaNoWriMo. I've been doing this since 2003, when I was 15, and I thoroughly enjoy it, but this has been the first year I haven't spent most of October planning. I find NaNo very useful (the manuscript I'm doing rewrites on right now was my NaNo project from last year) but I was this close to scrapping it this year and just working on rewrites during November.

I still may do that, but FOR NOW I have an fantastic idea given to me by a good friend of mine when we were tossing ideas around. It is very basic-- a family tries to survive being snowed in together for Christmas-- but the ideas it is bringing up in my head are hilarious and I really hope that I can do it justice and produce something amusing.

So I'm going to be using this blog as motivation to keep going, even though my life is insanely busy these days, and finish and WIN NaNo this year (fourth year in a row, what what!)

We'll see if I can keep up that resolution. Without fail, November always seems to be the busiest month of my life WITHOUT NaNo taken into account. :|