Novel Number 11

Okay I survived my 11th Nanowrimo and have another novel to sit on my desktop. 

Will I ever edit it? 

It was a fanfic, something I said I'd never write but it was fun too so there's that.  Unfortunately I still had a few struggles with it. 

Next year (will there be a next Nano novel for me... ugh) I have to remember to make sure my writing program counts the words the same as the Nanowrimo program.  My free words program, the great WPS writer, actually was on the setting to count quotation marks as words so I had over 7K "extra" words to write, not that I realized that until I tried to verify my novel. 

Yes, I was upset and yes, it took another 3 days to get there but luckily I always try to get to 50K, the contest goal, before the 30th of the month thus saving myself from heartache.  I just hate to lose, you know? 

Hopefully many of you won as well no matter how or what you choose to write. 

Nanowrimo Yet Again? It's 2016.

Fine, I almost talked myself out of competing this year but then (insert eye roll here).

This is my 11th year of competing in Nanowrimo and it had better be my 11th win too or I'll be ticked.  But there does come a point of wondering why do I bother?  I know I can write 50,000 words in a month, folks, but do the words make a coherent or even an enjoyable story that a reader can follow? 

As I've written before it's not so much churning out the words that is a problem, my problem is editing something out of the monstrosities I've written.   Maybe it just boils down to the fact that I'm a bit lazy and all.  Sigh.

This year was a bit different too as I decided to try my hand at writing fanfic.  The dreaded fanfic that I originally had told myself to never even read and now I seem to read too much of it.  But who hasn't watched a show or movie and thought to themselves I'd have taken that story in a different direction or that character could have been so much better or, better yet, I know where the next chapter of that story will go.

My goal now, as I just gone over 30K words for the month, is to figure how to get to the ending of my story.  For once I've got a very clear ending in my mind and I'm trying to write towards it.  Also I tried Dan's 7 point story structure again that morphed into Katytastic's 27 point structure  that degraded into pantsing my tooshie off.

Here's to the future or my actually finishing and editing a story for once and then releasing it back into the wild.  To all good luck with Nano 2016. 

Tis For The Best

Deleted 2 of my blogs this morning and also 2 of my Pinterest sites. 

And Nanowrimo is only 2 weeks away so... the big decision yet again. 

Ugh. 

Out of Nowhere by Roan Parrish
My rating:  4.5 reflective stars.

I love the names of these books by Roan Parrish, really great titles.

I really felt something in regards to Colin's struggle and felt that I'd been in a similar place my whole life, trying so hard in many ways to live the path others want me to follow. In the end, of course, we all have to choose our paths. Still wondering when I'll get my butt in gear and live in lieu of mere existence.

Anyway this was a very enjoyable book. It did kind of bug me the way the next book appears to have been set up in the story but that's just me I suppose, yet again.

It did give me some thoughts about my 2017 Nanowrimo novel so there is that.  Have you found any inspiration lately? 




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Read this damn it!!

Damned If You Do by Marie Sexton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Damned if You Do by Marie Sexton

This was a cute story, very funny in parts.

Both characters, Abaddon, who was pathetic at being bad and Seth, the blind musician, with mysterious healing powers, were people (the devil, Abaddon, was a real person in this to me) I liked and I don’t like a lot of devils let me just say that right now.

Maybe finding my own religious history a bit of a turn off, at the moment, was why I enjoyed this story. It made me think about my own beliefs and the religion I’ve left behind, even made me question my values just a bit when it comes to believing in the power of love to heal all (in some stories that would make me gag but this story moistened my eyes). And even though I was taught all about good and bad there really is a lot of gray areas in life to consider. And maybe I have judged others too much and maybe....

That’s what I found in this story a statement about love between two people (fine, one of them was a devil, get over it) who wanted more that what they had and were willing to reach out to someone else and help the other person even though they put their own souls at risk by doing so.

An enjoyable 4.5 stars and though I'm not fond of snakes I was still able to read this book.

*Copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley for an honest review.*

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Rag and Bone by K. J. Charles

Rag and Bone by K.J. Charles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Right, I loved this, another great read from KJ Charles. There it is, my review. Oh, all right.

This was a solid 4.5 star read for me until it came to the ending which gave me smiley tears and thus magically became 5 stars. Nice.

Crispin began his practice (magical training) the wrong way and was almost condemned as a wizard which is an evil magician in this world. He’d gotten a second chance but no one seemed to be able to train him in a different form of magic than his own.

Ned, Crispin’s good friend and lover, sees so much good in Crispin but Ned hates Crispin’s practice. Then again, Ned can hear magic. Hmm.

Ned and Crispin. Different races, different classes, one hunky and tough, perhaps the other not quite so much. And yet, together they defeat an evil wizard (or two). Also the fabulous Stephen Day shows up in this tale as well.

Great conflicts that kept the story tension going right until a lovely ending. I look forward to reading about these two men again.

*Copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley for an honest review.*

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I did it for the fans... Learn to Write With Fan Fiction

Ever heard of Sterek? 

How about Steter? 

I know you've heard of Trekkies. 

Some of us belong to fandoms, grouping of folks that grove (that word is telling of my age, no?) on certain shows like Star Trek (Trekkies) or Teen Wolf (Sterek: a pairing of 2 characters from the show). 

Recently I've read a lot of Teen Wolf Stereks mainly but also several Steters, as well as a few others all available on many fan sites but I really like AO3 (Archive of Our Own).  

Why do we read, and some of us write, such things? 

I used to always look down on those that wrote fan fiction.  Couldn't authors come up with their own ideas, certainly their own characters?  Get over yourself. 

That is I decided to get over myself (no need to get too graphic on here) and check out a few of these stories.  What I found is that there is some pretty good fiction out there available for free ('natch you can't sell fan fiction unless you change names, etc like some certain books out there and you can Google to find out the many in existence). 

Not sure I'm allowed to give out names but many authors started out as Fan Fiction writers.  Maybe that is the path I too must follow.

Give it a go and let me know.
And have fun with it.