Action scene

I've written an action scene! And it was fun!

I can't do action scenes so I'm always amazed when I do. This is why I like Nano. It stretches my limits.

1297 words to go and counting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate it!

For us it's just another day but I will think of all of you with your families and turkeys and too much pie, or whatever you are doing to celebrate, and I will eat chocolate in your honour. (I'll eat chocolate anyway so it might as well be in your honour.)

I wonder what it feels like to have two major feasts within just one month of each other. I have enough trouble sorting out Christmas.

The last ten thousand

I thought the last ten thousand words were meant to be the easy downhill slope to the ending? Not a bit of it. I am quarrying words one at a time. I've got plot holes and character holes and motivation holes and I kind of know where I want to be at the end but I don't see how to get there.

So, normal Nano then.

Too cute!

It's a LOLcat. It has kittens. How could I resist?

Keep slogging on

Some days the words flow, other days writing is as easy as quarrying rocks. It's tempting to give up on the bad days and assume that what I'm writing is rubbish but Tim Hallinan says

When I read the work six weeks later, I can’t tell the good days from the bad ones. In other words, I usually have no idea whether I’m writing well or badly.

from Timothy Hallinan's Writer's Resources.

I love Tim's website. It's the best writing encouragement you can get.

Watch a professional writer in action

Holly Lisle is giving away a new book one scene at a time as she writes it. If you would like to follow the process of a first draft as it emerges from the keyboard of a published writer, then you need to go here and sign up. The scenes will be sent to your email address as they are written.

TalysMana: The Gate Between Reality and Story is a collaboration between Holly and her daughter Rebecca Galardo who is producing the jewellery for the story. I've signed up.

Almost free

GUD magazine is offering its first 5 issues (nought to four) almost free. You can pay what you want, anything from one cent upwards. Buy all five for five cents if you like - that's less than 5p for those of us in England.

Is this the way forward for online publishing- letting the market decide the going rate? I don't know but I do know that this is a bargain. If you like sci fi or fantasy, you might like to head over there now.

A day off

Yesterday I took the day off and went to the London Nano meet. My Beloved came too because it was too wet to play tennis.

On the way home I sorted out some ideas for part three of the story. I've got ninja pirates kidnapping someone. It's not as daft as it sounds. OK, maybe it is then.

Just 18,000 words to go and then I can do some serious editing!

(Dan has some much better photos here.)

Lily admires the size of Dan's lens.

Tyrone takes out his anger on the chips

fairyhedgehog and Holly6000 listen attentively

Jim and our Canadian nanoer who is living here because she doesn't like cold winters

A picture is worth a thousand words

This is my novel at 28,000 words.

It's a pretty picture, anyway.

Wanting to edit

I desperately want to go back and edit my Nano story. There are inconsistencies and gaps and I want to polish it and make it pretty. But it hasn't ended yet and unless I get the story all written down I'll have nothing to edit. I tried editing as I go before in a non-Nano story and it didn't work.

So, here goes with more suckishness today. I tell myself that if I can just get to thirty thousand I'll be over the hump.