NaNo Brainstorming Rocks!

Awesome evening spent at Kami's brainstorming and outlining our NaNo stories. Good food shared with good conversation in front of a warm, crackling fire (with good pet accompanyment) made for a great time! We made strong headway I think. If we don't watch out, we all just might have novels circulating out there sometime next year.

Thanks again Kami! Your downstairs library/study room is incredible and the vibe fantastic for writing.

Openers

I've spent a huge number of hours reading openings, and critiquing some of them, at the now infamous Nathan Bransford's Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge.  (The contest is closed to submissions and they're sorting through the entries now.)  I've read various rules and suggestions for how to open a novel, but I have to say at this point that reading about it and/or thinking about it is no substitute for reading about a gizillion openings and picking apart as many as you can stand to critique.  

Go forth and read the entries.  Find the flaws in the best ones.  May your eyes be opened.  And then read Shock and Awe.   Although we always hear that a novel should open with a hook, in the middle of it all, preferably with action, that doesn't mean that the action has to be physical.  Suddenly I'm okay with how Masks opens again.  Yay!

Yippee!

I hit my 70 pages today. That feels good. I'm going to keep going, though, since I revised the short story I started last week to be the prequel to Inkwell Cult rather than the sequel. It's working better, too, and I hope Inkwell will work better because of it. And I just adore Travis, so any excuse to bring him into a story faster works for me.

I have another car 'character' to add to the story as well. I figured out that Travis drives a 1929 Ford Model A truck. I'm sure Carole will correct me if I'm not defining it right. Travis strikes me a truck kinda guy. I've not given a car before now because I didn't see him as flush enough to afford one (and with public transportation not a problem in 1930s Chicago, I didn't worry about it). But now he's had to get himself into the mountains of West Virginia, so it seemed wiser to give him a car.

He got it cheap at an estate auction after the owner's suicide after the Crash. It was close to new then, but he's driven it all over and so it isn't running so great now. And Travis, for all his manliness, isn't much for mechanics. I'm thinking that Maud, with one of the help's assistance, does tinker on cars, having had her dad's old Model T to play with. So she might offer to have a look at the truck, which would be a nice introduction for the two.

Which means I need to research some basics about engines in Model T's and Model A's. Um, Carole . . . ?

Masks Edit

Well, I've gone through the bastard again.

122,000 words

615 pages in standard format (I write in Times but convert to Courier)

31 Chapters

I'm down a few thousand words even with a few additional scene and setting details.  This puppy is ready to roll.  Which means this is my last excuse.  I now have to do more research on Preditors and Editors and find the next agent I want to query.

Once again I'm very excited about working on the second novel in this universe, Signet.  But I'll be good and do that research first.

Leaps, Not Strides

I'm trying to figure out how this can happen with this particular story and not on any other stories I've ever written.

I started a new story today. I debated about it, since I already have five going, but my enthusiasm for the story idea, plus my lack of enthusiasm for my other stuff at the moment, won out, so after making some notes yesterday and doing a bit of research, I was set. This morning, around 7:30, I started.

I haven't stopped writing yet. That is to say, I've taken breaks for things like shower and food and keeping up with Kate, but I'm never gone from the computer longer than a half hour till I'm back, working on a chapter. It's been nine hours now and I've gotten three chapters written. Over 6000 words. It's my best writing day EVER! And I'm not ready to slow down.

So what is it about this story and not one of the other five? I mean, I like my other stories, really. I've hit some plot snags here and there, but none of them are close to being cast aside as failures. They are all good, solid ideas with interesting characters and plots and lively settings. So why has this one particular story just grabbed the bit and ran off with me? And how, oh how can I keep from losing this momentum? Because if I keep this up, I might end up with a completed novel before the month is out.

I don't want to analyze it too much, for fear of scaring off the whatever it is that's working, but it is definitely something to explore. I'm even more baffled since this is a genre I've never actually written in before. But more on that later.

Because I really want to get writing on the next chapter.

"Hook" contest

LiveJournal's 'Fur, Fang, and Fey' community is holding a "hook" contest for all Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Mystery/Thriller, Urban Fantasy, and Paranormal Romance authors. First 180 submissions of a 300-word max hook describing your novel (finished or not) received between 12:01 a.m. Friday, April 13th and 11:59 p.m. Sunday, April 15th 2007 will receive a direct-to-author critique and feedback from famed professional agent Rachel Vater (raleva31) at Lowenstein-Yost.

All info and FAQ at the following web blogs: (Please copy URLs and paste)

http://raleva31.livejournal.com/44934.html

http://community.livejournal.com/fangs_fur_fey/69174.html