Every Day I'm Novelin'

 So ready to begin NaNo. Sure, I won't get a proper start on it until probably day #4 due to travels....but I've managed it while traveling before! I'm totally a "planner" this year, so I have a decent outline and dialogue ideas started. Worse case, if I don't get 50 K words of my Why are YOU Still Single?! re-write, I'll start work on finishing one of the Breaking Waves books. Figure if I can write 10 words for every word in my outline (so far), I'll be OK. I also get to do NaNoWriMo, grad school, and my ML duties! Oy vey! At least ML duties mean I am writing at set times each week. 

The beginning of November promises to be a cluster you-know-what... November 1 I'll be going from class in Phoenix, AZ to my hotel just outside of San Diego, CA. November 2 I'll be at the San Diego Zoo and following it up with seeing a friend's band because... how awesome is it that my friend will be in CA same day as I am?! November 3rd, zoo again followed by a drive back to Phoenix for my flight to Ohio on the 4th.

Fun never stops, does it?

I won! 50089 words!!! The last 500 were tough... giving myself a break tomorrow and will start on Camp NaNoWriMo for July!!!

I may need to set a lower word count for NaNoWriMo since classes and LIFE will be getting in my way in July and to what extent... I don't know. I still plan to do Camp NaNoWriMo in July... so we'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, I want to work on book #2 in the Breaking Waves series, figure out what to do for book #3, weave in a character that was suggested to me, and basically get the series written out and then work on editing and revising as time goes on. 

OK... back to the writing process!!!

 So... here's how my Camp NaNoWriMo experience went for April....



Basically, you can see the first week started off slow. Its quite evident when I left for the weekend as the stats for the 6-7 remain more or less the same.... was behind on the 7th, rallied on the 8th and worked steadily until I was gone the 19-21. ...

But, notice that dip on the 23? That was the Day of Suck. That was when, backing up my files, somehow, files on the computer and the flash drive decided to have a little deathmatch. Both lost. The drafts on BOTH devices were toast. Gone. All 54001 words vaporized. It was too horrible to be true. In ALL my years of using a computer, I've never seen anything like it.

LUCKILY at about 42500 words, I had emailed the draft to myself. I lost 11500 words in the process but 42500 words was better than 0 words and starting over again. I typed like my life depended on it that 24 hours and ended the day with a deficit of 3662 words. By the 24, I was ahead of the game again. So this NaNo session, I broke 50 K *twice*. I also emailed it to myself every 1000 words so this...never happened again. I spent the 25-26 taking a break from bouncing back from that word loss, playing with cover images, justifying it as past my goal and I had the freedom to play, and then got back to work .... soldiered on.

I've been changing titles. Book #1 is now The Calm Before the Storm (CBTS) and book #2 is The Winds of Change (WOC).  I have been getting CBTS ready for self-publishing on Create Space and have to wait longer to get my proof copy because... someone was too cocky making the text for the back cover and didn't check it well enough. So... once I can go in and make changes, I will have to wait a bit before I can order the proof copy. It's all well and good since I didn't want to put it out there until June 1 anyhow. Just frustrates me that I did something so carelessly. 

TCBS's summary wasn't easy to write, and my idea of "Shit's about to hit the fan, but I'm just preparing the slingshot" wasn't ideal. So instead, I went with the following:

Life isn't always a beach in Waves, North Carolina...

Summer was the busiest time of year on Hatteras Island and the entire stretch of the Outer Banks. Tourists would come flocking in from everywhere, sometimes mingling with the residents. Everyone seemed to have the same goal: Get away from the mainland, clear their minds, and enjoy everything that Waves and Hatteras Island had to offer.

Fourteen year-old Waves resident Jeromie Greene and his friends Cara, Gayle, and Jody hardly have a care in the world.  It's the summer before their freshman year in high school. The days stretch before them with the promise of days full of swimming, surfing, and maybe even a few romances with the constantly changing cast of tourists who visit their island.  

Summer resident Doug Henshaw quickly befriends Jeromie and his group and soon, everything starts changing. Confessions, betrayals, and the desire to be accepted begin to dominate the thoughts of Jeromie and his friends. Can their friendships survive as they face the challenges that lie ahead?

I don't take it easy on these kids, either... but life only gets more complicated, and messed up, in the next book.

I'm going to write to a certain point in WOC before I put it away for July's Camp NaNoWriMo. I have enough "seed" material to get through several NaNoWriMo challenges. Expect to see more updates of shiny stuff relating to CBTS before I continue WOC.

As far as book #3 goes in my grown-up, chick-lit series... I'm holding it hostage for now LOL! I ended book #2 (Why are YOU Still Single?!) to a point where it doesn't need to continue, and depending on how into the Breaking Waves series I get, I may/may not continue it. I told my RL inspiration for grown-up series that I NEED more RL inspiration to continue (hence the "holding hostage") but it's tough when schedules conflict so much.

 I made 50 K! I'm at a shade over 50 K now but I actually did it... I finally won a Camp NaNoWriMo... and I have plenty more story to go! I think I will get through this chapter, and maybe save the rest for July... or just write until the end of the month and go from there. Who knows? LOL! Story has moved in its own direction and I find the original drafts are making very little contribution to the story since I am changing so much of it. I think the story has grown, changed, and the characters are taking advantage of their new freedoms and whatnot.

There's one direction in the previous drafts where I decided not to go... wasn't realistic. Wasn't right anymore, so I decided just to scare the hell out of him and hope he learned his lesson!

There's still so much left to write, and the you-know-what hasn't even hit the fan yet!

Just because the kids in Breaking Waves live on the beach does NOT mean their life IS one....!

 Whoa... it's 10 days into Camp NaNoWriMo and I haven't updated.,... for shame! I'm also up way past my bedtime, so screw it... may as well post my progress!

I'm currently at 20570 and writing an average of 2057 words a day... not bad :-)

This is DEFINITELY a mix of using the old texts (planning) and completely departing from them (pantsing). In fact, very little of the actual drafts really even remain. I decided my two main male characters (Jeromie and Jody) not have their falling out and one of the female characters is unsure of her sexual orientation (Gayle). They're dealing with real stuff here, not happy fluffy stuff. Feelings get hurt, mistakes get made, and topics that teens talk about are brought up. I figure my main male character's dad's influence in all of it is helpful. The dad (Jonathan) is a pragmatic kind of guy who gives his sons (Jeromie and Brandon) enough room to make mistakes and isn't afraid to BE the parent, but he's also his sons' #1 person to go to when they have problems. 

I definitely have enough material to cover several NaNo challenges, so I am looking forward to it!

As far as catching up to modern days,....

They LOVE text messaging!

Jeromie really likes Instagram.

There's a lot of potential for Facebook drama when Cara and Beth have their big blow-up (that is still about 3 years off in the story).

Still getting the stage set. They've already had a couple dramatic episodes, and more promise to be on their way, especially the next year when Beth makes her way to Rodanthe. That may get covered in this NaNo, it may wait until July. Who knows :-) Either way, I'm really loving the whole re-writing, planning/pantsing hybrid I have going on and while it will require some extensive edits (Not sure how I want to do chapters yet, probably just use numbers), I'm really enjoying this!

50 K is EASILY within my reach with this, and that was the important part. I may not stop at 50 K, depends where I hit it at and how much is left to write. I am just trying to get the kids from the summer before their freshman year in high school until the summer they leave for college.... there's a lot there. My original drafts didn't cover the school year. These WILL. So yea... massive word count craziness ahead!!

 Part of me wants to start compiling a "Survivial Guide" for when (being optimistic here!) I am an ML for NaNoWriMo. Just a write-up of what I've learned through doing these challenges and a way to make sure that anyone who participates makes it fun and not stressful. I want to make the local stuff I host into a social "scene" of sorts that gets us away from the meat-market this area has and into an intelligent environment that's also fun and hopefully goes beyond November.

Getting some ideas also for fun games and "party favors" to hand out that won't be too expensive. I still have stuff from when I was an unofficial ML, but I am hoping with my own region and forum, I can get more people to show up because events won't be held in places that are a 45+ minute drive away.

OK, enough ponderings... I guess I'll stare at my homework a bit longer. *Gag*