The Best Laid Plans

I prepped for National Novel Writing Month. I knew my characters, plot points, twists and turns (though more revealed themselves as I wrote), the beginning/middle/end. In short, NaNoWriMo—bring it on! 50K words in 30 Days? Pshaw! I’m “winning” again this year.

Except.

I didn’t anticipate my own life’s plot points and twists and turns. The major plot point that is going to reenergize my professional writing.

I’ve talked about needing to sever my contracts with a former publisher. Then the search for a new home. Well, it happened. On November 2^nd I contacted a publisher, and on November 3^rd I was offered a contract. I signed the contract on the 7^th and was off to the races.

My NaNo word count suffered. I blew through my banked words and instead racked up deficits because my focus was re-directed. I needed to spend my NaNo hours working on editing/revising a manuscript that can go through the production process.

Hard as it was to admit, I couldn’t accomplish the NaNo goal AND work on edits on a short time line. But, after talking to others and myself, I realized my priority has to be my career.

Getting the first book in my culinary series out is definitely more important than getting 50K done on book five this month. If the other books in the series are queued up, it will be a loooong time before the publisher is ready to see Tequila Mockingbird in the queue. I have time to finish that book. In fact, that might be next November’s project, to finish what I started this year.

So, it’s not New Year’s, but here is my resolution:

Turn in the best possible version I can of Pastabilities by the end of the month, and spend my NaNo-dedicated time to this project.

If I finish sooner than I think I will, I’ll get back to NaNoWriMo and Tequila Mockingbird gladly. But, if the past is prologue, ain’t gonna happen.

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Facebook: What happens to a big goal project like NaNoWriMo when “life happens”? Sharon Arthur Moore shares what is going on with TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD and PASTABLILITIES. http://bit.ly/2AVbfl4

Twitter: What happens to a big goal project like NaNoWriMo when “life happens”? @Good2Tweat shares her new resolution for PASTABILITIES and TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD. http://bit.ly/2AVbfl4

Goals, Deficits, Plans

If you read my post yesterday on “Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time” about getting a new publisher for my culinary mystery book, you know how excited I am about signing with the small press, Red Adept Publishing and owner/publisher Lynn McNamee. The woman is a dynamo, filled with marketing and promotion ideas for her quality booklist. The attention given to each novel signals how important her authors and their work is to her company. So I’ve been caught up in the fervor of what I need to do to be successful in this company, too.

I have been so distracted with gearing up for my new publisher that I have been neglectful of National Novel Writing Month for the last week and a half. The result is that I am currently 3900 words below the target words for this date. The target is predicated on finishing the 50K word goal on November 30^th. Right now, the stats tracker on the NaNoWriMo site say that at 1667 words a day, that won’t happen. I’ll be into the first week of December to hit 50K words.

What does that really mean? What are my options?

I could toss the event this year, call it a month, and get to what is bright and shiny right now: prepping to be successful with my new publisher. After all, I have books 2-4 ready to work on putting into the pipeline. There’s no immediacy for book four. I could even finish writing it next NaNoWriMo cycle and still be ahead of the game.

I could settle into the 1667 daily goal and finish in early December. Just do the minimum (a bit more than 6½ pages a day) so I can spend time on other writing aspects. With this option, I would have this book banked and ready to work on when it comes up in the queue.

Or, I could grit my teeth, put aside future pieces related to getting ready for the launch of my culinary mystery book (about 9 months from now), and focus on getting Tequila Mockingbird off my plate. To finish by November 30^th, that means writing 1911 words each remaining day, almost 8 pages a day, every day. Or, if I wrote 8-10 pages daily (about 2000-2500 words), I would be ahead of the game with a cushion for low volume days while I travel this month.

Which would you choose and why? I know what my plan is. Can you guess?

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Facebook: NaNoWriMo word count deficits are common, especially in an event in which, historically, only ~13% of the participants meet the goal by the end of the month. I have three options. Which will I choose? http://bit.ly/2zGaIoQ

Twitter: @NaNoWriMo word count deficits are common, especially in an event in which, historically, only ~13% of the participants make goal by 11/30. She has three options. Which will @Good2Tweat choose? http://bit.ly/2zGaIoQ

2015 NaNoWriMo the Easy/Easier Way

I have been away for a long time. Emotionally. And virtually. But things are shaping up now, so I am back to blogging again. This is a post about an old topic, but maybe not. National Novel Writing Month in November is only the beginning for us writers. Here’s what happened then and what is happening now.

I tried something very different for NaNoWriMo in 2015. I had decided to write book four in my culinary mystery series (books two and three coming out in 2016). So that doesn’t sound so different, eh? In November 2014, I wrote most of book three, Potluck. So what was so different?

2015’s NaNo experience continues the production of books in the “Dinner is Served” series. Ancient Grease follows the adventures of Alli and her personal chef business partner, Gina, in their work as demonstration chefs on a luxury cruise liner traveling back and forth in the Aegean Sea between Istanbul and Athens over one summer. Ancient Grease. Get it?

It seemed like a good idea, to use NaNo to get a jumpstart of 50K words of the 65K+ words novel. Except this one was different.

In the previous three books, I had 65K words (give or take) to create a murder mystery and solve it. Lots of plotting, clue dropping, and misdirection opportunities required, right? You’ve read before about my extensive plotting and planning. I am always ready for NaNo and crank out a bunch of words on November 1^st.

I love Bells’ craft books. Write Your Novel from the Middle was a game-changer for me. The saggy, soggy, sinking middle always gave me fits. Once I read this book, I got it! I understood what I needed to do and it has worked.

Yeah, well what happens when you decide you can’t have a single mystery for the entire cruise time because you want to drop into different locales and involve more characters?

What happens when you aren’t doing one set of extensive, forty-scene plot cards but creating five?

What happens when you have to create new characters for each new story but keep up with the old ones hoping people read the book in order and don’t jump around in the titles which are oh-so-clever?

Yeah, well, that was me in mid-October anticipating a very different NaNoWriMo. But how to keep 12,000 to 15,000 words engaging? Not long enough for a novella and not short enough for a short story, these were five novelettes I was planning.

Did I panic? Uh, yeah!

Wouldn’t you?

Then, the miracle happened. I found my savior—in the form again of James Scott Bell. His book Super Structure: The Key to Unleashing the Power of Story delineates 14 signposts that comprise the super structure of a successful novel. But, he says, if that is overpowering for you, structure your story around just five of them and you will be successful.

I did and it worked.

The magic five? Disturbance, Doorway of No Return #1, Mirror Moment, Doorway of No Return #2, and Final Battle.

I’ll give examples of how I did it and when I used the Q Factor (another of his signposts) when it was appropriate. I’ll also reveal the five titles of the novelettes so you can anticipate its publication!

Come back and see me. Be sure to subscribe so you will be notified when new posts appear.

Playlist for It's a Dog's Life

Remember, I only need to write between 6-7 pages a day. That’s not so much! Stephen King writes 10 pages a day, every day, not just in November. Impressive, yes? I ain’t ascared of no word count in November. No sir!

Then again, how does one get in the mood, day by day, for 30 days to crank out a novel of 50K words? One way is selecting the right music, music that will enhance the creation of sad scenes, funny scenes, poignant ones. Hopefully, the right music will elevate the dull, pedestrian scenes to higher levels. C’mon. We all have them. That’s why God invented edits and revisions. (Or was that the Devil? Hmmm.)

I’ve been writing since last Friday, and I can say I am still really psyched about the tale of a walk-in soul taking over a dog’s body. Writing in first person, however, is tough. I am still not quite in the swing of it. First person means, of course, that Kitty, my protag, has to be in every scene. I am used to getting other POV’s represented, so this is stretching me.

Back to music, I identified selection criteria and then picked the albums that resonated with me.

*Music has to have energy, but not too much; also some mellow for

sad scenes

*No words = no distraction, but if I don’t know the words it could work

*Nothing overtly classical since it isn’t who my characters are

Here are the albums I considered, and I bolded the ones that made the final cut. (Cut? Get it?) What music would you choose to write a comedic paranormal about a walk-in soul who tries to take over her dog’s body?

Hachi: A Dog’s Tale

The Truth about Cats and Dogs

Michael

Ghost

The Shaggy Dog

Far from Home

Marley and Me

Theme? Doggy stories, mostly, of course. Some sappy, some sad, some funny, many poignant. What do you listen to as you write?

Is NaNoWriMo One of Those Cute Boutique Animals for Grandparents to Buy?

Disclaimer: You may already have read this post at www.angelicafrench.blogspot.com or www.sharonarthurmoore.blogspot.com

Someone in one of my FB groups asked that (cute, huh?), so I thought I would rip it off, err, borrow it for the title of this blog. No. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s a non-profit organization, so any donations made are fully tax deductible.

NaNoWriMo is my new Pillsbury Bake-Off. For years I said that I was going to enter some of my delectable dishes in that contest. One year I finally said to myself, “Put up or shut up.” So, that year I entered 4 recipes. None were ever even acknowledged, let alone placing in the competition. I call them my Pillsbury Bake-Off Losers”--and I still make them.

Same thing with NaNoWriMo. I want to enter. I want to be a winner. But, I just never got around to it. So this year, “Put up or shut-up.”

The rules are pretty simple: you write 50K words during the month of November and upload at the end for a word count to verify. 50K? You’re a “winner”. Has to be done from scratch, but it’s on the honor system. You can plan in advance, write character sketches, and do research--just no composition of scenes or chapters. 

That sounds pretty clear.

What shall I do? I have tickler files with dozens of story ideas. I kind of wanted to work on my Slippin’ into the Future book (daughter/father relationship complicated by dementia) or book two of my culinary mystery series (Prime Rib and Punishment) or even book two of my erotic romance “Sex Sells” series, but you can’t have written any of it--honor system--in advance, and I have.
So digging deeper into the tickler files I find three plots that really, really interest me. (Who am I kidding? There wouldn’t be a tickler file if it didn’t really, really interest me!) So help me pick one of these three! Vote below or with your comments. As a side note, I have never written a novel in any of these genres, so I am stretching myself that way, too.

1)    My paranormal rom-com I call my Quick and the Dedd series. Isabella Quick owns a security agency: I.Q. Security, “Your intelligence is safe with us”. Isabella is hard-boiled divorcee, carries a gun, votes Republican, and is a founding member of the N.F.A. (National Firearms Association). Riley Dedd, a widowed hunk, was one of her investigators. He was a liberal on social issues, but tough on crime. That is, before he was killed by an unknown assailant. She had a thing for him, sexual tension between them, but it was never pursued. He’s been dead now for several years, but recently he has been appearing to her in her dreams. At least, she assumes she’s dreaming brought on by stress. When he finally convinces her he’s real, but a ghost, they set about getting his murderer caught and convicted. Working title: The Quick and the Dedd

2)  Another paranormal takes a different tack. My tagline for this maybe-series/maybe-single title is, “Djinni are the new vampires.” 28 year-old Gwyneth Catrin (Welsh meaning for the two names: luck, happiness and pure) Warlow, who recently broke up with long-time boyfriend, receives a letter from a Welsh solicitor regarding an inheritance. She is the closest living relative to her great-uncle, Emrys (Welsh meaning: immortal). She arrives in Wales to claim the estate left to her. It is all hers to dispose of as she wishes with the exception that she is not to touch anything in the attic. Emrys was a world-traveler and collected many things. All in the attic is to be gathered up by a mover and burnt without an examination by Gwyneth . She of course does and uncovers an artifact that is home to a djinn, Abdul Wahid (Arabic meaning: Servant of the Unique One). Complicating things is Uncle Emrys who has tricked the djinn into giving him partial immortality, and trouble ensues when he shows up. Working title: I Dream of Djinni.

3)    Number three is Sci-Fi medical thriller. I clipped news items from three disparate events that I combined into a story idea.  There is a document that always makes the list of undecodable text--the Voynich Document contains unreadable text and illustrations of strange objects and flora. The second news item detailed a mystery sunken craft in the Baltic Sea. And the third was a description of a strange new illness (named Morgellons) which causes open sores, sprouts of strange fibers on the skin, and a feeling like bugs crawling on the skin. All three cool, huh? The story premise is that Dr. Nia Parker, a marine research microbiologist is recruited under the pretense of discovering a cure for Morgellens but in actuality it is a secret government group out to discover more about the alien roots of the disease. A cryptologist, Dr. Rhys Fenner, was similarly recruited under false pretenses. He is given pieces of the document, presumed to be an ancient accounting of the disease, to decipher. The two form an immediate disdain for the other since each their needs are at cross-purposes and each is told to share info in isolation. He thinks Nia is in over her head, and she thinks Rhys is a prima donna. When they discover the government agency may be a rogue group set to control the alien resources for their own purposes, the two form an unwilling bond to fight the group. Unnamed as yet.

Vote--tell me which one you’d like me to write and update you on.

Recap: 30 days; 11, 669 words per week; 50,000 total words. Now if I subtract the time I’m at my brother’s wedding in Iowa and add those days’ word goals to other days, I can still do this. On average, 1667 words per day or less than 7 pages. Pshaw! Nothing to it!  Find out more, and sign-up yourself, at www.nanowrimo.org