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’m late as usual, but I just wanted to say that I am working for Nano on my original manuscript which I wrote as a screenplay first. It is set in Ancient Korea before Japan was invaded and when Korean was in its Three Kingdoms state. It’ll be a bloody, vengeful, shaman magic filled historical novel.
Here’s the summary of my most recently completed fantasy, now in revision stage:
On the Flipside
Don Halfinger is a carnival pickpocket who’s just trying to “raise funds” to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend. Then he snatches the wrong ring from the wrong guy, and before he can blink, his world is literally turned inside out, his girlfriend is burned alive before his eyes, and he’s captured by a band of otherworldly freaks who are on their own peculiar mission–and they think he’s a spy for the bad guys.
Hooray for the tortoises!
Note to NaNoers: The race is not always won by the swiftest…. but if it inspires you to write, well, God speed.
Stephanie Z., I always wondered why schedule NaNo in a month with a big holiday?: the gals lose a day from all that cooking, and guys lose a day from all that football watching. Thought August would have been the better choice.
CC, thanks for explaining MG to me. In my day we called it Junior High School. 🙂
Writing the sequel (sort of halfway jotting down the plot really 😀 ) to a science fiction novel I’m querying out about why some prophecies shouldn’t come true.
K
Living with elephants in Botswana – literary nonfiction.
NaNo?
No, no.
No external discipline required.
WIP is an urban fantasy involving Lillie St. Clair, a full-spectrum mega-Talent employed as the city’s official Freak to remove unwanted apparatitions.
She doesn’t do zombies, however. Her specialty is ghosts.
But some believe that Lillie’s exorcisms of the disembodied is genocide; and someone – or something – re-animated her dead husband for revenge.
She isn’t sure she can trust the chatty bean-sidhe from the laundromat, or the big, ugly psi-crime detective assigned to her case.
As the paranormal paradigm expands as more and more creatures from folk lore and legend appear, she isn’t even sure she can trust herself.
One of Lillie’s later adventures, “Stone Child” has already been published in e-format and will soon be released in print.
Sorry, but you did ask.
Great question, Nathan! Agent has proposals out for two separate non-fiction projects.
Now a question for you: I was told that, while waiting for editor feedback regarding the proposals, I should not begin work on the actual books because an editor may have a specific way he/she wants to approach the subject.
Do you agree with this? What should I be working on? Anyone else out there get frustrated with this part of the process?
Due to Nathan’s inspiring blog, I’ve started one of my own to kill time…something I’ve thought about for a while. Thanks, NB.
No nano nano for me, Mindy. Bludgeoning a set number of words out of my brain is what I do for a living anyway, and I’ve learned that with fiction, the faster I write the more torturous the revising.
Yesterday, for instance, I wrote 2,500 words of non-fiction, sourced and documented stuff to make a WFH deadline. Over the next week I have to answer editor queries on that project and also on another “finished” NF book, the edited ms of which just landed in my e-box.
At the same time, I’m making small-scale revisions on a YA fantasy novel (is the whole WORLD writing YA?) and deciding whether to go with a small publisher’s offer, making large-scale revisions on an adult semi-fantasy that had been suggested by an agent several years ago, working on another contracted NF book due end of March, and in the note-taking stage of a rather bizarre cancer memoir. It’s a little much but I can’t help it.
For some reason, I seem to have a much easier time getting publishers (not all small ones) than agents. In fact, the last three have solicited me rather than vice versa. Maybe some people just aren’t meant to have agents — forgive the anathema, Nathan — but I love hanging out here anyway.
I’m continuing edits to a novel I’ve been writing for just over a year. The first draft took about 50 days. The idea of NaNoWriMo is fun, but I barely have time to put in on my real projects. Good luck to those churning away at it.
And what are you doing surfing the net, reading random comments? GET BACK TO WORK!
Nathan,
Thank you for asking. I’m writing a fantasy novel. It is a spinoff from my Kumari Vale trilogy. My first attempt at first-person narrative after third-person ambiguous in my first four novels. Since I drafted 90,000 words to my fourth novel last month, I don’t anticipate having a problem with 50K this month.
I’m posting the text on my blog: https://bitterhermit.wordpress.com for anyone interested in a taste of my penmanship. It is, of course, uncrafted. But it far exceeds most of the slush I slog through here and there.
–David, aka BitterHermit
I’m doing NaNo. Mine is a horror novel set in Las Vegas involving a guy who can hear on a different frequency: the frequency of the damned. It’s just a little freaky for him until the day he discovers that They know he’s listening.
Hilarity ensues.
I’m NaNoing – a YA about a 15 year old girl in a small town dealing with the aftermath of her father’s suicide, a best friend that isn’t her best friend anymore and having to find a new place to fit in. Toss in a crazy new girl, a few beers and some hormone-riddled high school boys, and watch what happens 🙂
not doing NaNo-I got the stream of consciousness thing out of my system last month, unfortunately blowing a very marketable (imo) historical fantasy premise in the process. Topped out at 45K-46K words. Hate the result.
Currently am writing urban fantasy with an Indy Jones/Relic Hunter angle, but am not trying to meet the Nano deadline.
Those demotivator posters are hilarious! Thanks for the link, I needed a good laugh today.
I’ve finished my MG novel and I’m struggling with crafting the perfect query for it. Arg. Your site has been very helpful in this regard, so thanks!
I’m working on the third draft of Little Fish. It’s not on a set time-table, but I’m hoping to have it submission ready by Spring. Here’s to hoping. =)
I’m working on a book where the footnotes make up 50 percent of the book and the footnotes footnotes make up another 25. No, not really. I wish.
I’m doing a YA novel. coming of age. Aren’t they all? Tears, kissing, death, gossip, anti-depressants, and dance parties. yay!
I’m one of the crazies doing NaNoWriMo. It’s a fantasy using some of the Lord of the Hunt/Forest Lord legends in Celtic mythology. Fun so far, and I finally caught up in word count last night. Can’t wait to see where it takes me next.
It’s an post-apocalyptic urban fantasy called Demonhead. Berkeley and San Francisco are now separate empires, and my MC has a little creature in her head who gives her advice and can manipulate the pleasure center of her brain, and other stuff like that. You’re gonna love it. 🙂
American Dad meets Shaun of the Dead in Australia.
Have a lovely day! 🙂
OK, to add to all the other YA and/or Fantasy people – I’m NOT NaNo participating – I AM editing/polishing my kind of a Helen of Troy flouts fate story.
I’m a NaNo virgin this year, but I’m not word dumping. I’ve been participating in several lists with the goal of 1K a day. NaNo simply requires me to up my daily goal a little higher. 🙂 My novel is an urban fantasy/fantasy romance (haven’t decided how strong the romance will be) based on Maya mythology and the “end of the world” in 2012.
November is a bad writing month for me. Lots of other things going on and possible my busiest time of year. So I’m not pushing myself to write at the moment. But I am querying a new project (dark urban fantasy/crime), I’m editing short stories that have been sitting around getting ignored (a mix of SF, F and horror, sometimes all in the same story) and polishing a contemporary romantica novellette. When I get back to more active writing (hopefully in December) I’ll be working to finish a zombie themed dark romance novella I started in September called “Rot”.
Hmmmm. What am I writing?
Well, I’m no longer writing race stories since I just received my annual lay off notice. After seventeen years, you would think I was accustomed to it, but it’s still a bittersweet feeling.
I should be working on my fantasy novel more, but all I’ve done in the past week is work on a pitch and tweak a chapter with melodramatic enchanted jars. I should also be studying poetry, since one of the jars has decided to reply to everything in verse, but I’ve decided a salt jar might be excused for bad rhyme.
Some writer friends have encouraged me to do something more with my journal than blog my adventures of middle-aged divorce, which is different from divorce in the middle ages–but not much. To that end, I wrote a brief description.
Over the hill, overweight and overdrawn. One woman’s flight to freedom on a forklift.
Years ago I fantasized about being a paladin, stabbing my spurred foot into a stirrup as I prepared to ride off to battle. My toes wiggled inside scuffed, steel-toed workboots. I wasn’t quite the knight in shining armor I imagined in my youth, but this was damned sure turning into an adventure.
Unfortunately, I still haven’t decided exactly what it is.
I also wrote a tribute to my father for Veteran’s Day. That might be the most important thing I’ve done in a long while.
I’d just like to say I do appreciate your time and effort on this blog. It’s interesting to peek in and see what’s going on in agent world.
I’m NaNoing to finish the first draft of a contemporary YA that was stalled in the dreaded middle. Actually it was stalled just barely past the beginning. Now I’m truly in the middle, but there’s no time to wallow here — 22 days to go!
My current work is my first work. It’s called Jersey Justice. The main character, Jimmy Vincent, was tormented by his peers as a child. One day that all turned around and now he deals in street justice, fighting for the little guy and doing things the cops want to do but can’t.
In this particular time frame his dumb witted but gorgeous sister comes to town without telling her brother that she’s running from her drug lord husband and the fun ensues.
I’m a hugely sarcastic person and that definitely caries through. I enjoy reading the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich, this work is definitely inspired by her.
I’ve just finished the second draft of a novel. It’s about a 30ish slacker who (at dead father’s last request) has to visit a reclusive war veteran and jumpstart his mediocre life to earn the inheritance of which his father cut him out. Along the way he starts a conversation with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway who, while dragging him to key west and giving him cryptic clues, manages to help him reunite the war veteran with a lost love, forgive his father, and save his depressed drunk June Cleaver-ish mother.
Holy…
I can make up whatever I want since I’m the 132nd comment and no one in their right mind will read it. But just in case . . . I’m writing a historical novel based on a man who lived in 145 BC. Unfortunately he has to die a horrible death at the end, but it’s been quite the journey developing his character and researching Mesoamerica–his homeland. I hit 80,000 words today, so I feel like I might have an enjoyable holiday season after all . . . as long as I don’t eat too much chocolate as I stress about my publisher accepting the project.
Just for NaNo…a space opera surrounding the rescue of a handful of castaways who survived the incidental encounter with a latent mine left over from a distant conflict.
Throw in that one of the survivors is an Imperial general who was restoring the prestige and power of the central Imperial government in a strife laden but neglected backwater province and the story has marginal political overtones.
It is a human drama about the conflicts of the high status individuals stranded without any real belief in rescue in contrast to the conflicts of the workaday crew of the makeshift recovery operation launched by the provincial headquarters without any real desire for the recovery of the lost.
The rescuers have little emotional investment to find the lost. The castaways have little illusion that their recovery is possible or even desirable.
When the low-investment recovery crew finally finds the low-hope but politically significant castaways, the interest is in seeing how the revelation of rescue will affect both.
Getting my ass kicked and handed to me by a fantasy novel.
I’m using Nano to get a dent (not necessarily 50K though) into my NiP Eagle of the Sea
M. Horatius Veranius Aquila wants to make a career in the Roman army. But when he is dispatched to Britannia where the governor Julius Agricola fights against the Caledonians, he has dejà-vus of tribal life he can’t explain. During a skirmish, Aquila is taken captive and discovered to be born to the tribes from his mother’s side and heir to the leadership of the Cerones.
Torn between conflicting blood ties and allegiances, Aquila tries to adapt to the tribal culture and mediate between the Caledonian Confederation and the Romans. But some of the tribal warriors – led by Aquila’s cousin Tarain – don’t want peace, the influential patrician Cornelius Lentulus learns about the role Aquila’s father played in Britain and accuses the family of treason, and the Batavian auxiliaries in Aquila’s charge are on the verge of mutiny.
When his attempts to negotiate peace between the Romans and Caledonians fail, Aquila has to decide for one side of his double heritage and become a traitor to the other.
___
Aquila is fun to write. He’s a honest guy, but that’s exactly what gets him into trouble because he doesn’t share some or the Roman prejudices against the Germanic tribes. Right now he’s helping a friend from the Batavians to rescue the man’s son who in the eyes of the Romans is a deserter. No wonder the legate wants to get rid of the troubleshooter and sends Aquila to Britain. 🙂
Current WIP is a letter to my (grown) children, explaining what was going on with Mom when they were young (depression/anorexia). Despite how it sounds, it’s going to focus on the spiritual journey and resolution, and hopefully be something they’d want to read. 🙂
Current WIP is a letter to my (grown) children, explaining what was going on with Mom when they were young (depression/anorexia). Despite how it sounds, it’s going to focus on the spiritual journey and resolution, and hopefully be something they’d want to read. 🙂
Yes, I have got NaNO.
One is a mystery, the other a fantasy.
I find NaNO is a great way to get the draft knocked out and then spend time working on it.
Why people get the impression it is meant to be knocking out a real send to an agent type challenge is beyond me.
I am half way to finishing the challenge but probably will need to add another 10-20k to both, to finish the stories.
Its great fun and the donations go to a great cause, NaNO isnt just about writing it has a real purpose too 🙂 Infecting other countries with books.
Since I’ve just started a new job (as one of those damn fine editor-type people you speak so highly of) I’ve had to give NaNo a pass this year.
Which doesn’t mean I’m not working!
In the hopper, I’ve got:
– A manga proposal to retool for TokyoPop
– A spec fic short-short to tighten up
– A half-finished novel to come back to, now that my move to the West is over. (*Which* half-finished novel – the murder mystery or the hard-to-classify contemporary fantasy – is still up for debate.)
Long, loooooooooooooooooooooooong slump. Not sure if its writer’s block or what… eager to get back in the swing, just not sure where to start–or how.
I finished what I was writing, so I got to this late. I sent it to a few relatives and close friends. I’ll wait to hear what they think, and then I will fix the problems they find–and perhaps create new ones in the process. Until they get back to me, I decided to go to the library and pick up a few books to read. My friends and family don’t read as quickly as I, so it’ll be a month or two before I hear back from them (to this date, three weeks later, only one has finished my book).
Enough with that, I wrote a novel about the medical system, specifically about four patients with the same condition, and their journeys through the system. I am a Crohn’s patient, so I essentially wrote–shoot me now–a fictionalized version of what I saw in the hospital wards. There are very deep issues of class and access that aren’t well known. There are also issues of hamstrung doctors that are forced into glorified social work by the very flawed system. All of this irritated me, so I decided to write a book.
A novel with a political point is probably one of the more difficult things to write. It was one of those things “I needed to write.” I’m glad I did. Though I think I’ll probably self-publish it. I’ll wait until my friends and family get back to me before I decide what to do with it.
Wow Nathan, thanks for asking. LOL Even though I’m a little late on this one, I’m writing an urban fantasy. It has the potential to turn into a series.
NaNo gave me an excuse to really put my foot down and start being serious and so far I’ve written 17k. Still have a long way to go but my plot is fully developed and I think it will be easy to get it out. 🙂
Kimi
https://www.talechasing.com
Greetings Nathan
I’m sitting on a four year project that due to its size became three (thick)novels…
The first book is complete now and has been edited (by someone qualified)for consistency and spelling.
There have been many discussions on the subject, but yes — oh yes its a thriller.
The story revolves around an author of short fiction stories who existing beyond his means, searches for new stories of which to complete his first book. The venture swiftly leads into romance, and peril beyond the human condition. I have incorporated centuries of folklore, demonology, occult philosophy and damsels in distress.
Although I have prepared a proper query letter, I haven’t really done anything yet as I’m afraid the only one who will appreciate the letter (or book(s) is me 🙂
Till then’
Alex