I Quit

Doesn't that sound awful? It feels a little bit awful. For the first time in a couple years, I'm not going to finish NaNo WriMo. You've all known that I've struggled with my novel this year, which honestly took me by surprise. I had an excellent outline. I was excited about the story. I have great characters, a fun plot line. But I finished at 15k. I was able to go back and develop some relationships more and add a few more scenes. I got about seven thousand more words than I imagined a week ago.

It's Time for NaNo Excerpt

Here I am, updating my blog posts when I should be trying to fit new words into my novel. I do happen to need over thirty thousand in the next couple weeks. Ahhh, well. :D

From this year's NaNo novel, I present: High School Revolution
The Counter-Revolutionary Football Scene. Posting it serves a double purpose. One, obviously to share part of my novel with you. Two, to find out if you understand the scene. I get football because I watch it with my dad and brothers, and my awesome bro DJ talked out this scene with me to make it awesome. The question is, does the average reader who may not understand foobtball get it?
So without further adieu:

In Celebration of NaNo: From my 2009 NaNo Novel

As I began editing and rewriting "Bloom" and its sequels -- The original version of "Bloom" was my first NaNo Novel, although I didn't complete it during November -- I knew I needed some background for my characters. Since I had so much story in my head, I thought, Why not kill two birds with one stone? I'd flesh out my back story and write my NaNo novel all in one, and maybe someday I'd release it as a prequel if "Bloom" ever gets published. Without further adieu, and excerpt from the still untitled 2009 NaNo Novel: (remember, it's still rough)

NaNo Excerpt Blog Hop

Who's brave enough to showcase excerpts of their NaNo Novels this month? I'm hosting a blog hop throughout the month. Sign up with the linky below and post excerpts throughout the month. I can't wait to see all your mad-month of work! (If you sign up, please post a link back to this post in your excerpt posts email me for the linky code.)

NaNo Eve

It sort of feels like Christmas, right? I probably won't be able to sleep tonight. I'm guessing characters will run through my dreams and wake me up every hour or so. And tomorrow morning everything will go crazy, and I won't actually end up writing until the afternoon.
Have you dropped by Mommy Authors lately? I've been blogging there about preparing for NaNo WriMo. I'll continue to blog about it throughout the month, so you may not see a lot of NaNo content on this end. Except for ... drum roll .... samples of my past NaNo Novels in honor of one of my favorite months. (Come on, when you add in Thanksgiving it is a truly awesome time of year.) So check out the blog throughout the month to get samples of past (and present if it's not to awful) NaNos.
If you're doing NaNo this year, come join our Facebook support group. It's sure to be a blast!
Under four hours and counting ... maybe I should stay up 'till midnight. ;)

Author Interview: Mandi Slack, of "The Alias"

One of the coolest things about ANWA is that it's put me in the way of lots of really cool ladies who've had their work published! And they're all so nice they let me practice my blog-interviewing skills on them. After reading and posting the review for Mandi Slack's "The Alias," I emailed her and asked if she'd be willing to answer a few questions for a blog interview. Of course she was more than happy. Thanks, Mandi!

Sweet Saturday Samples: from "Bloom"

In case nobody noticed, NaNo WriMo is RIGHT around the corner. Throughout the month of November, every Sweet Saturday Sample will be from my past and (if it's not too awful!) present NaNo Novels. To kick things off with a huge bang, the entire first chapter of "Bloom," my first NaNo Novel, and the first novel I ever totally completed! To read the story of how "Bloom" turned from a NaNo Novel to it's polished version now, check out this page. So, on with the show!

Born into one of the Big Three families of the Enchanter realm, 17-year-old Finna Claremont’s lineage—yeah, lineage—should mean she’ll make a great guardian…. Right. 

That's All I Have to Say...

...because I have no more words left. :D

(Wrote my 50,000th word at approx. 1:00pm November 30, 2010)

Monster Hunter

Hello, my name is Mae Nickson, Monster Hunter. I'm blogging for Ranee` today because she realized last Saturday that taking four days off in the middle of NanoWrimo and leaving herself only 3 days to write about 12,000 words was a bad idea. So she has no time for blogging right now as she is feverishly typing in an effort to finish a challenge she insisted earlier this month wasn't that hard. She assures me that she definitely intends to succeed and get 50,000 words before Tuesday night and that thanks to a colorful email conversation--and she means colorful quite literally, not that it contained cussing or inappropriate content--with Kristin P. she knows exactly where she's taking me to happily every after, at least I hope she does. I'd hate for her to kill me off right around 47k because she gave up hope! So rest assured that Ranee` will be back on December 1st and blogging as infrequently as usual. She just didn't want you to worry!
Love, Mae

Nano Wrimo 2010!!

So...*blushes*...I thought I had set my comments to notify me when people left them on my blog. And to be frank, I was feeling a bit sad that nobody felt moved enough by my blog to comment. Well, apparently I didn't check that box because as I was deleting the post about my son's birthday (if any of you were confused, I accidentally put it on the wrong blog. ;) I noticed several comments I had never seen before!

Deb asked me about NanoWrimo:

Can you guys believe I'm abandoning my editing responsibilities to just write during the entire month of November? I feel very irresponsible about it, but can't seem to help it. I need to write and not think about my major WIP for right now. And NanoWrimo seems daunting, but it's not! Okay, well, it is. But still fun. And as I told my sister, I promise the Nano Police will not come knocking at your door if you don't get 50,000 words. I managed to get 50k for two years now, although some of it has been truly horrendous writing. :) In fact, I have Nano to thank for what I consider my best novel so far. Let's have a flashback together--

I first discovered NanoWrimo in 2006 and decided pretty quickly it was about the coolest thing I'd ever discovered. You mean there are actually other writers out there who aren't published yet...weird. :D Well, unfortunately at the time my husband and I were both still in school and had a barely-year-old little boy! Although I started Nano, I barely got 20k and felt pretty discouraged because of the small amount of time I'd been able to spend on it. However, I actually finished the story I began that month. during the year to come.

In 2007 I didn't even attempt Nano. Only a month from graduating, I had far too many papers due to even pretend like I could write even 20 words a day on a novel, let alone the 1500 pace it takes to complete a novel in a month (and had I known about ANWA Write and BIAM then, I wouldn't have felt so sad about it!) Finally in 2008 I made time, despite having a six month old and a three year old. Because I still had ideas swimming in my head about the 1st Nano novel I had began, I decided to write a sort of sequel. Not only did I finish the 50k, but during the following year also wrote another sequel. I now had four novels (two finished, two partly written) for the series, but something felt wrong, so I went back and changed the entire perspective. Now two years later I'm in the final edit (gosh, hopefully!) of the totally revamped first book.

So, it goes without saying that I totally believe in Nano. Before I discovered ANWA, Nano taught me my first important lesson about writing and that is, keep writing no matter what. Even when you feel like the plot sucks, even when you read through what you have and think that there's never going to be a chance for it. Just. Finish. It. You'd be surprised what can happen. ;)

Chris Baty, expect a big check from me when I'm rich and famous.

P.S. Originally I titled this post "comments," but I changed it because I rambled about Nano. Kristin and Tracy--I love, love, LOVED your critique comments about your favorite books. I'm so glad I'm not the only one!

And now I'm off to change the settings so I get these comments in my email. ;)