I Need to be Reprogrammed ~ #NaNoWriMo 2016

It's as if everything I have learned about writing has been deleted from my brain.  I forgot all of the lessons I have learned about writing stories and blog posts and sometimes even text messages.  The freaking day job and the kid have me all screwed up. My attempt to having a dating life sucks too but that's a story for another day.

I have this great master outline example from Better Novel Project. It would be awesome if I could make myself sit down and come up with plot points from my story to basically fill in the blanks so I can keep the story going. But it's so hard.

Being a pantser is hard but plotting every little scene ahead of time isn't something I can do either. That's why I've been kind of plotting as I go along, sort of hybrid between pantser and plotter.

I really don't know how I would ever be a full time author with my attention span issues. I guess I would have to go to the library or rent office space somewhere to get things done.  I even thought about renting a room for an hour in a seedy hotel every week or two so I can write. Seedy doesn't bother me much since most of the stuff I write about is pretty naughty.

I would be totally winning all the way around if I had the discipline to write all year round and not just during NaNoWriMo.  Being one of those people that would never get anything done without a goal is my problem.  Of course I could always do the Camp NaNoWriMo too so I would be working on a story three times a year instead of just once. Or I could just be a really smart person and set my my own goals but eh...

Good luck to all of the other NaNo-ers out there.

NaNoWriMo 2014 is almost over ~ Now what?

Today is the last day of NaNoWriMo and as I mentioned before, I have not reached the goal of 50,000.  I am not sad about it because it will be a great novella once I finish it so it's all good.  Now what?

Reading...

December is going to be my resting phase, well for writing but I plan to do a lot of reading by the end of the year.  Novels are my favorite of course but I have number of non fiction books on my list. Plus I'm going to be taking a writing class or two.  I will get into more detail about the classes at a later date.

Writing...

In January, I will be back to writing or at least editing my works in progress.  It's my plan to have the first book in my Sassy Johnson series ready for publication by April 2015. It's going to take a couple of rewrites and professional edits to get to that point but I think it will be down by then.

Blogging…

I do plan to keep blogging. As a matter of fact I may challenge myself to write at least 100 posts in 2015.  I think the best way for me to do that would be to write a few posts at a time and schedule them to upload once or twice a week.

I thought about starting a new blog as well. Blogger has been good to me but I want to have my own domain.  When I decide on a theme or niche I'll work on creating the new site but in the mean time, I will be here.

What about you?

Congrats to those that met or exceeded the goal and good luck to those who fell short because you can always continue the story at a later time.  I hope you all had a great time during NaNo regardless of your status. 

Happy Writing. I'll holler.

NaNoWriMo 2014 ~ Day 13

I haven't had this hard of a time writing since 2009.  The story premise is great but I just can't seem to flesh it out.  My muse has been telling me to finish editing the stories that I have already done.

Fine time to tell me but I was probably ignoring him anyway.  I was doing my own thing. Now I need him, but he won't help me.

When I ask for some ideas or inspiration, he pretends that he doesn't hear me at first. Then he's like, "You talking to me?  I thought you knew what you were doing."  God, I hate that guy sometimes.

I'm thinking he may be right though.

Some people may say that this is nothing but self doubt creeping in but honey boom (not boo boo), if you saw all the works in progress that I have you would slap me.

It just occurred to me that maybe this story is supposed to be a short story but I'm trying to make it be something it's not meant to be.  That may sound crazy but hey it's just a thought.

Now I don't want to be labeled as a quitter so...

• I will continue to work on this year's NaNo as much as possible.  
• I will not continue to beat myself up over missing word count goals.  
• I will start rewriting one of my other novels so I will feel productive.

Hey, you don't have to be like me.  Keep doing your thing and good luck.

Happy NaNo-ing!
I'll holler.

NaNoWriMo 2014 ~ Day 8

I am more than 2000 words behind on my word count and feeling kind of sad about it.  It's not like my ideas aren't continuously flowing it's just that I am having a hard time getting an hour to myself to really flesh out my ides.  I mean, I'm writing a paragraph here and a sentence there but not enough to meet my daily word count and it's driving me insane.  Family, friends and life in general keep begging for my attention and even though I try to tell them that I need a little time to myself, they pretty much ignore me.

During times like this I sit around and try to image how my life will be as a full time writer and I keep coming back to the fact that I will--

a) Always have to wait until everyone leaves the house or goes to sleep to write. 

b) Have to leave the house myself and post up at the library or in a freaking parking lot to get some privacy and a piece of mind.

I hope the rest of you are doing well with your word counts. If not just keep going like I plan to. Even if we don't reach 50,000 by November 30, it will be more than we had November 1.

Happy NaNo-ing...
I'll holler

NaNoWriMo 2014 ~ Day 4

I love NaNoWriMo with all my heart, to the moon and back as they say. But, it's driving me crazy all ready.  It's my fault though, cause I wasn't as prepared as I should have been.

Note to self and other writers--

If you are writing a series, be sure to re-read the previous book or books in the series so you won't make stupid mistakes.

Man, I was bringing folks back from the dead, calling folks by the wrong name and not remembering if  the character had 6 siblings or 9. 

Another good idea to do is have what I'm going to call a post outline. I have an outline that gives me a route that I could go in while I'm writing but I need an outline that documents where I really did take the story.  Basically a chapter summary. 

This may seem like common sense and I would have said that myself before I saw all of the ooops moments I had.  

Whew! End rant...

My total word count is 6050.  I was hoping to be at 8000 but crap happens.  If (or when) I'm too lazy to let you guys know my status, there is a little box to the left that will show you my total word count. Now sometimes the NaNoWriMo site "be in his feelings" but as soon as I'm able, I do update the total.

I hope that you are doing well with your novel. Happy NaNo-ing! 

I'll holler...

NaNoWriMo 2014 ~ Day 1

I thought about it but I couldn't make myself start writing at Midnight.  My outline wasn't done (it's still not done) so I wanted to milk as much time as possible.

My personal goal was between 2000 and 3000 although the official goal is 1667. Guess what I hit 2050 words.  It took me all freaking day to do it but it got done by 8:00 pm CST.  It feels good because if I stay at this pace, I will finish NaNoWriMo by November 25, which would feel really good.

I believe I did a no no today.  I started my novel with the character waking up. Now she was dreaming about sexy men and woke up in the arms of her even sexier boyfriend. That's a good thing, right?

How was your first day? Let me know.  And also, is there a such thing as too much tea? Really? I didn't think so.

Let's Do This NaNoWriMo Again

   

     It's really a shame that I haven't blogged since last year during NaNoWriMo. And what's even sadder is that I didn't even let you guys know if I won or not.  Well...

     I wrote over 51,000 words of the second novel in the Sassy Johnson series.  This year I'll be doing number three.  My plan is to write 75,000 words this year, which means I have to do around 2,666 words a day.  Now if I do that for the entire 30 days, I will have a whopping 79,980 by the end of the month. 

     This goal is pretty ambitious but I think I can do it, or get pretty damn close.

     I've drafted a working outline, that I'm pretty happy with but I'm sure will get tweaked here and there as the story unfolds.

Well that's enough messing around, let's get to work planning these magnificent novels we are going to write next month.

Until later, I'll holler.

Behind the Scene: Her Leftovers

The novel I'm currently working on, Her Leftovers, has been in and out of storage bins in my office since 2001. I've changed the genre of the story twice. The sequence of the events has changed a number of times as well. And finally, after about six titles, I've finally settled on the one that I can live with. The timeline that I created is going to need a major overhaul based on some of the feedback that I've gotten from a couple of my volunteer readers. My best friend even wrote out a whole new storyline, many of the parts I plan to incorporate but others I'll save for the next book. I'm currently at the point where I'm trying to decide if I should tell the story from the viewpoint of Quintina and her husband, Cortez, only or if I should include a few scenes here and there from Tamesha's point of view as well.

Her Leftovers is the story of a young woman, Quintina Mitchell-Robinson, who overcame a rather tough childhood when she lived with her mother as well as easy but strict teenage years under her father's roof. Quintina is kind of a nerd but the people in her life, from her family, to her best friends, to her boyfriend/husband, all have contributed to making her life a lot more entertaining than her comfort zone can handle. The older Quintina gets the more fed up she becomes with the foolishness that goes on around her. Eventually, she stops standing in the background and becomes the leading lady in her own life.

Quintina's struggle to find the perfect man is not an easy path. Every time she thinks she's found the person that she feels she belongs with, she finds out things about them that she is not happy about and knows that she won't be able to deal with.

Cortez Robinson is the type of guy that just doesn't give a ... you know what. He's always in pursuit of temporary pleasures. Drinking, drugs, and chasing women, whatever he feels like doing he does it. He's never been a one woman man and probably never will be. Guys that fall for that okey-doke, in Cortez's opinion, are hen-pecked and he never wants to wear that label.

Tamesha Tate is the woman that always seems to be standing in the way of Quintina's happiness. She believes in doing whatever she feels and really doesn't think about how her actions affect other people. This basically means she's the female version of Cortez. Tamesha is a take charge kind of woman and goes after what she wants even if she decides later on that she didn't really want it in the first place. Sometimes she secretly feels sorry for Quintina but wouldn't dare let on.

I'm going to give myself until October 1st to have a full draft of this story. I'll put it on the back burner during this year's NaNoWriMo and then start editing in December. Then I'll be ready for that long awaited next phase--publishing.

Wish me luck.

Related posts--"Money Funny" & "The Unexpected"

I Can't Focus!!! But I have read some good books.

I'm pretty much at a standstill on my book but I gave in to a few friends to read. Hopefully by the end of the week they will have read it and given me some much need advice on how to proceed from this point. I have some ideas in mind but I just want to see if I'm headed in the right direction.

Even though I haven't been able to write much I have been reading. I just finished Janet Evanovich's lastest, Fearless Fourteen, number 14 of her Stephanie Plum series. I'm working on a book review that I plan to post here on blogger as well as on my website (www.susiemccray.com). I just started reading Pleasure by Eric Jerome Dickey. My boy is so nasty! After that I'll begin Whiskey Sour the first in a series of books by J A Konrath. Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels is the main character. I've read articles and blogs written by J A but I know I'm in for a treat when I get around to reading his fiction.