As many of you know it’s NaNoNuMuKiWhAtEvErThIsAcRoNyMiS… National Novel Writing Month (the Internet tells me it translates to NaNoWriMo), in which writers everywhere try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month, and during which Sean Lindsay from 101 Reasons to Stop Writing nearly dies from cardiac arrest.
While not everyone will be participating in National Stream of Consc… um, Novel Writing Month, I know there are quite a few blog readers out there who are writing SOMETHING.
So you tell me — what are you writing at the moment? Feel free to write as much (“here’s the plot!”) or as little (“um, a novel..”) as you’d like, but it would be great to see what genres people are working on and what everyone is writing.
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I just sent a finished YA MS to my agent five minutes ago (yay!), and am now diving in to another literary-ish YA. Well, I might wait until after lunch and this episode of What Not To Wear ends.
Not NaNoing officially because I can’t stand the pressure.
I decided to fashion my own personal version of NaNoWriMo this year. Last year I took the opportunity to push myself to pump out half of a fantasy novel (50k words just isn’t enough for a full-blown novel, imo). I recently got around to finishing that first draft a week ago or so.
But it’s very very first-draft-ish. I mean, I wrote it during NaNoWriMo, so somtimes I was too tired to be making any sense, but I would push the words out anyway, just to get SOMEthing on the page.
So this year, instead of pumping out another 50k word half-first-draft, I’ve decided that my own personal “NaNo” is more like “NaNoReMo” — National Novel Re-write Month.
I figure, if I can go through that first draft and rewrite 93k words into some form of not-chicken-scratch 2nd draft, and do so in a month, than I have “won” my own personal version of NaNo. Cuz when all is said and done, I’d rather have a single story written twice as well than two stories written badly.
I’m flailing about in the early planning stage of a gothic fantasy and am desperately trying to stop tweaking my last novel, which was science fantasy.
Benny Sherman helps a wayward fairy win back his wings and, in the process, finds his own.
In the wake of his parents’ separation, Benny and his mother move from their comfortable suburban home to his Grandma’s overcrowded bungalow. To make matters worse, the sixth grader is forced to attend Catholic school where he’s sure to feel as out of place as he does stumbling through prayers at Christmas Mass. The last thing he needs is, “…to follow some imaginary creatures on a quest to find a fictitious amulet. Not even cool creatures, either. I get stupid fairies.”
Not nanoing, either, I’m still in revisions. Thanks for asking, Nathan – I know your reading tastes are eclectic, but what are you most interested in reading right now?
I’m writing a contemporary fantasy (is that a legitimate genre?) novel, not as part of NaNoWriMo but as part of IWIWTDWML*.
*It’s What I Want To Do With My Life.
Aloha,
I am currently working on book two of my yet to be published urban fantasy trilogy about one man making a difference in a world of greed and global warming.
Sorry Nathan, there are no monkeys involved (other than humans), but there is an 18 legged Princess named Beulah ve Flootnote (she with the lips to die for), and the dolphins, being the smartest species on the planet, hold the fate of mankind in their lovable blowholes.
I’m writing stuff about stuff. In the format of a grab bag of MG and YA novels.
I’m writing a Male Ennui Fantasy, about a tormented mercenary. I think.
No NaNo for me. Maybe next November.
I’ve just started really digging into a YA historical that I’ve been planning for two years while finishing up my YA fantasy and a MG (not the car, though that would be kinda cool).
This new one’s a whole new kind of challenge from me, writing from the POV of a female protag…
Think medieval German epic meets Shakespearean romantic comedy.
I’m Nanoing! Yes, it’s a verb now!
Mine’s a fantasy called Jack of All Trades, and the main character is named…Bill! No, Jack. And he has a pet dragon named Pepper, who resembles a bright red bulldog.
I’m having a blast with this one. NaNo is a great way to sort of reset one’s writing clock, although I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that it falls right about the time we “fall back.” Or is it a coincidence? You decide!
I’m with Ulysses, in the “What I want to do with my life” version of NaNoWriMo (NaNoWriLife?). In other words, I will probably crank out 30-50k on my own this month. Whenever I get antsy and want to e-mail my agent for a status report on the in-submission novel, I force myself to work on the current one instead. I get antsy a lot, so I write a lot.
It’s an SF novel.
Like k.r.stewart, I’m in NanoReMo mode. I wrote the first draft of a YA novel in September and cranked out 77,000 words. Since then, I’ve been working on submissions for another novel. This month, I’ll be revising the YA project. I can’t wait to get reacquainted with those characters! I miss them!
I’m in the last third of what I hope to be the last major revision of my YA novel. I’d love to be able to send it out at the beginning of the year, but my Real Job keeps demanding that I show up 5 days a week and at least pretend to work. Oh, to be independently wealthy…
I’m working on an MG with a male protag.
NoNaNo4Me2MaNyKiDs
Short stories:
a) A detective story / murder mystery
b) A SciFi story about sentient trees with mobile seeds
c) A love story about one of those siliconized bodies in museums
But November is a slow month. Too much to do before the Holiday season begins.
I’m not nanoing, I’m sweating with Sven (Sven’s Seventy Days of Sweat Challenge). It’s not quite as intimidating as NaNo.
I’m finishing up an urban fantasy about a thief who becomes a hero. The story involves shape-shifting gargoyles, the remains of a prophetic saint, a thousand year-old Turkish warrior from the Crusades, an elf who owns a coffee shop that caters to the people of faery, and the thief’s fallen angel father. I’m having a blast. 8^)
No NaNoWriMo here. I’m revising my first WIP and writing new bits for my second. They’re both time-travel inspirationals.
I’m revising my mystery (for the last time, I hope!) before sending out queries. I’m about three-fifths done.
NaNoWriMo (or as k.r. stewart said NaNoReMo) was just the kick I needed.
Now, if only we had a national query-writing month…
Punching out a few ‘trinket/stringer’ articles for the newspaper–then back to my WIP.
Tom
I’m riding a runaway novella all the way to a full length comic/horror YA.
NEVER thought I’d write a YA. Never. Sheesh.
Traditionally I write a novella in preparation for a novel. It helps me flush out the characters, even if major aspects (name, setting, time period) of the characters change for the novel.
It’s kind of like building a small-scale diorama of Disney animatronic robots.
Then, once the scene works, you pull the latex off their heads, give ’em new faces and wigs, and put them in an entirely different diorama and see what they’ll do. See if they can still suprise you.
But it was the best diorama I’ve ever made, so I couldn’t stop building until…
Sheesh. I can’t believe I’m writing YA.
Currently I have seven WIPs, but of course, I can’t actually be working on all of them at once ;-P , so I’m focusing on revising one fantasy novel while writing the first draft of another. I just haven’t been in a sci-fi mood lately.
I’m NaNo’ing … sort of … more for the moral support of a friend than for myself. I’ve “won” three years in a row, and I feel I’ve already gotten from it what I need.
k.r. stewart and I have something in common. K.R. if you don’t mind, I’m going to use NaNoReMo, too. ^_^.
~PJ~
I’m working on a YA ‘boy book’, which I’m hoping will appeal to girls too, loosely based on a kid I knew in high school who was injured in a freak accident involving a fishing pole. Might NaNu NaNu just for a refreshing brain dump.
LOVE the pressure.
I’m one of those housework-avoiding, shower-forgoing, cooking-ignoring NaNoWriMo crazies.
Coupled with that, I recently gave up coffee and diet coke. (WWIT??)
So feel free to follow my pixels and come over to offer gentle prodding or vigorous pokes to keep me goingggggggggggg. (Oops, fell asleep on my ‘g’ key there, little bit.)
My WIP is a YA psychological thriller set in a futuristic, alternate world where a teenaged girl discovers there may be a more sinister reason for her mom’s disappearance than the rumors of affair floating around her water dwelling pod society.
I’m working on a retelling of a 16th century Irish Arthurian Legend as a YA mystery.
No NaNo for me; I don’t write well when asked to word dump. Instead, I’m working on another mainstream commercial character story (yeah, yeah. Seems incongruous, but take a look before you pooh-pooh it) about Lyric, the masseuse/adult store owner in the fictional city of Riverview. She’s having growing pains, which is a horrible pun when talking about adult stores.
I’m NaNoing for the second year, and am working on a Young Adult chick-lit novel.
It’s great you guys up there started: “What I want to do with my life.” Very clever!
Every month is NaNoHooHaWhatever for me. Or it feels like it. I’m writing what I suspect will turn out to be something unsaleably between literary and mainstream. It’s about Jennifer, a special events planner, who makes a promise to a dying hit and run victim, who mistakes Jennifer for her sister. Add Jennifer’s acquaintance, Olivia, a church secretary who was born with three thumbs and what she fears is a hereditary propensity for lying.
For fun, throw in Olivia’s new boyfriend, a NOLA refugee who used Katrina as a perfect excuse to steal his dead cousin’s identity–right down to his job as a paramedic. I’m 30,000 words in and have no clue where it goes from here. It’s a glorious feeling.
I’m working on an urban fantasy set in St. Petersburg Russia about a team of supernatural diplomats. The timing worked out for me to start it this month, so I’m sort of NaNoing, but I’m aiming for good over speed, so I probably won’t hit 50,000.
I am banging my head against a wall on revisions to a science fiction novel, writing an urban fantasy (or is it a paranormal romance? one never knows…), and plotting a contemporary romance. A bit divergent for me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some fantastical element weaseled its way in… 😉
Like others, I’m doing NaNoWriLife. I signed up for Nano just for the pep-talk emails from the likes of Neil Gaiman and Naomi Novik (*fangirl squee*).
Working currently on a nonfiction book on southern women serial killers. It was a toss up between three WIPs, and I chose that one to finish first.
Short pitch/summation of my suspense thriller WIP A STUDY IN FEAR
A war crimes survivor turned criminal profiler risks revealing her true identity as a trained assassin when a sadistic serial killer targets her ex-lover, a famed forensic psychologist.
Long pitch/summation for same:
Everyone believes criminal profiler Caroline Armstrong is a European woman with the quintessential American name. She’s afraid that her ex-lover, forensic psychologist Rhys Garrison, will find out she’s really Nina Gorić, a Bosnian war crimes victim turned assassin who killed so her unborn child could survive. When the two profilers reunite to uncover a sadistic serial killer’s identity, old flames rekindle along with new fears when Rhys suspects Caroline’s violent past and secret identity.
I’m also working on a YA crime short story called KILLER WON’T BE HOME TONNIGHT Dwight, I’m with you, I never thought I was the YA type either.
No NaNo for this scribe.
MANIC KNIGHT. Historical/Time Travel. I don’t feel comfortable revealing the plot on-line. You’ll have to wait for the query.
😉
You’re probably wringing your hands and reaching for gin right now!
😉
Don’t worry. I’m getting more efficient. You’ll probably have it by Easter.
I think NaNo is wonderful, but I’ve never done it. Doesn’t work with the way I run my life.
I’m finishing up the rewrite of a 90K word sensual Regency Historical Romance.
A notorious rake is transformed by an astrologer’s conviction that his chart is that of a constant, loving man.
==
One month after these “write a book in a month” things, are agents deluged with queries from people who do not know the difference between a novel and 80,000 consecutive words?
Several things going on. Hoping my finished Novel is doing well in the Amazon Breakthough Novel Contest despite a typo in the first paragraph… (You can read something a million times and still miss it). Toying with a short story that insists on being told. Working on my next novel about a telepath and a terrorist. It’s not sci-fi, it’s more literary. Looking forward to the day when it’s done and I can start querying… it’s going to be a while. Trying to keep up with writing at work (copywriter at a dotcom). I don’t need Nanowrimo, I should be writing every month, not just November.
I’m working on two contemporary YA novels — one’s in revisions (third draft? fourth draft? Who knows anymore), and the other’s my NaNoWriMo project. This is my 7th year doing NaNoWriMo. I tried to tear myself away, but I just couldn’t! It’s as much a November tradition for me as getting drunk with my mom-in-law on Thanksgiving.
For at least several months of the year, I do tend to crank out fiction or narrative non-fiction at near-NaNo pace (1000-ish words a day, with the occasional Saturday night blitz). Taking part in the November craziness is not a big deal anymore, and I enjoy going to our regional meetings and cheering on new writers. I’m excited about my NaNo project because it’s turning out to be a very clean rough draft. My other WIP has been a nightmare, revisions-wise, and I like to think that this new 1st draft won’t require as many story-level changes as the older novel. I love editing at the line-level, making the language as precise as possible. It’s those story-level edits that make me crazy.
Cynjay, WTG! Did you know Iris Murdoch started her next book on the same day she finished the last one?
Anon 12:43, krw3b, and Scott (or Nathan), what genre is MG?
Dave f, is your #3 about Pamela Anderson Lee? 🙂
Sadly I think I might be writing crap.
Nuthin’ new there, then.
Hand me that Captain Morgan that Nathan left lying about, would you?
Sounds YA but it’s not. Three teens stumble upon a cave which contains a jar of superstitious Indian ‘killing stones’. Using them on the neighborhood bully seemed like a good idea…then the mc realizes they’ve made a grievous mistake. But does he have time to undue their sin?
I’m NaNoing, but having a rough time this year. Last year I was working full time, taking grad school classes and still managed to knock out 50,000 words pretty easily. This year I’m done with grad school but lucky to be hitting my daily word count.
It’s a YA novel. “When the electricity goes out and there are no signs of it ever coming back on, Southern California is thrown into turmoil. Twin sisters Eleanor and Isabelle are faced with a dangerous journey from San Diego to Montana in the hopes of locating their mother after their father is murdered.”
I’m also rewriting a couple of picture books and thinking about starting to submit them *insert cries of terror here*.
I’m in the vaccuum between completing a manuscript and starting a new one. So all I’m writing this week are query letters. Soon, I’ll start the next book. But for now, I’m enjoying a break after a year of writing my keester off.
Well I’m definitely not taking part, since every spare moment is suddenly claimed by moving boxes and all of the other intricasies of moving… but when my mind drifts off, it’s either to my romance of a medieval Highlander living in our time… or to my Robin McKinley style retelling of Sleeping Beauty (totally different than Spindle’s End, though.)
I’m not doing NaNo– I don’t expect to be done with my current WIP until sometime next spring.
It’s a steampunk YA about a fifteen-year-old girl who gets kidnapped by a transnational mafia and has to find a way to get herself–and the prime minister’s daughter– home alive. It’s wicked fun: airships, explosions, islands floating in midair, traitors, pretty dresses, telegraphy and super-spies. I’m trying to work in a homeboy phone, but so far, no dice.
From the fading glory days of romantic Hialeah racetrack to thrilling pre-Derby days at Keeneland racetrack in Kentucky; this gypsy life of adventure tempts a rebellious young woman. Love, drugs, thoroughbreds all rolled into one.
I’m doing NaNo. 🙂 I write gay romance and erotica, and the current WIP is a fantasy.
Angie
My NaNo is a romance that I’m now seriously thinking about trashing as my characters, who were so cute and funny during the first chapter, are descending into not cute, not funny people.
I’m very close to giving up on it.
Especially because my writer’s block has broken and I’m into my real WIP again. It’s an adult contemporary/mainstream (i.e. it doesn’t fit into any genre so far). It’s almost 1/3 done and someone’s gotta die soon…
I’ve been working on a collection of linked short stories, all Gothic, some satirical, some not, a soft sci-fi novel, and have just agreed to write the book for a musical comedy.
That should be interesting….
I’m working on an inspirational short story that will either hover at 6000 words or win me over and become a bigger project. I’m researching information for a new novel and fussing with the ending of a previous one.
I’m writing for NaNo. I’ve got 13,700 words right now.
Bad Spelling: All of Katya’s family are either witches or warlocks, depending on their sex, of course. Katya is sixteen and really ought to be able to turn a rabbit into a toad, but things just don’t work out for her. What she gets is a slimy green hopper. That’s the good part. Unfortunately, it also has long ears and fur. That’s bad spelling.
I am working on outlines for two new projects while my beta-readers have my urban fantasy. Coming soon to a query pile near you!
A modern day dark fantasy based on demon myth.
NaNoWriMo reminds me of Mork from Ork. LOL