jana_denardo | Entries tagged with nano

My biggest news this week is I have finished Corpse Powder my Weird West story! I'm pretty happy with it if you ignore the fact it's 5K too long! Luckily I was given about 2K of wiggle room (thank you!) It's in the hands of two wonderful friends who are going to help me cut it down. I'm keeping the longer version too just in case it doesn't make the cut. (Yes, I was invited into the anthology but I'm sure if the story is felt to be weak it won't be included). I hope everyone will get to meet Isaac and Tsela soon. There was so much research done on this thing. I hope I did it justice.

Here's hoping we can find 3K to go that won't ruin the flow of the story. I really need to learn the art of writing short.

I've picked back up with Behind Blue Eyes and realized it's already over 63K (well it was my last nano so I knew it was at 50K at least) but I don't even feel like I'm part way there. There is only really one scene I can say could be considered expendable at this point. Sigh. My stories, they tend to be long. I admit it. I'm disturbed by the growing trend of wanting shorter and shorter stories. I've seen people whining if something is over 70K. It wasn't that long ago 70K wouldn't even be a novel. I'm not sure if it's just the romance genre that this is an issue. I want to say yes because points to fantasy with Martin, Sanderson, Butcher and so many more with their 600+ pages (yes looking at you too, Mr. King).

I don't consider BBE to be a romance. Yes there is a romantic subplot but like many of my stories, it is just that subplot. There's much more going on in this. If nothing else, the members taking part in the Rainbow Snippets group seem to like it and I'm relieved.

I noodled around a bit with the dialogue for Luc in Blood Red Roulette. I fear I'll miss yet another deadline (self imposed) for this. However, I HAVE to get Corpse Powder whittled down by the first so that takes precedence.

I forgot to mention last week that I got the rights back to my short story Nothing But Himself that I wrote for the Project Fierce anthology. I can't believe that much time has passed. I do regret one thing about that story, using this pen name. I did it because I was already known but it and at that point I was still trying to decide on the non-erotica pen name. This story is YA and I would have loved to revisit this universe. On the other hand, I don't really want to write YA under this pen name nor would I want it connected to my YA pen name. Hmmm I'm not sure what to do with that. Oh well. I'm not sure how many people ever saw the story but I was very proud to do it. I hope they liked it.

I am halfway to my Camp Nano goal of 10K (it's modest because April is insanely busy for me). I might up it to 15K

And now I'm getting ill just in time to present my research at two different symposiums this week (well my student is presenting. I'm just there being mother hen).

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Essence of Evil- Nox Arcana

My biggest news is this:

photo NaNo-2015-Winner-Banner_zps8ck0p7a9.jpg

Of course Behind Blue Eyes isn't done. I'm in the boggy middle ground that's always hard to flounder around in. I really need to figure out some things for Kaleo and Aneurin to be doing (hint, hint, people who have been reading along). I'm not much of an insta-love fan but it does have its place. That is NOT here. This needs to be a slow burn and that means I have some figuring scenes out to do. Hmmm

I've started my Deadwood shifter story. I'm struck by how little I can find online about the town. It's been twenty years since I hung out there. Things have changed. Google Earth is glitched but at least I've figured out which way to drag along to get to the places I'm programming in (versus what it's showing me at those addresses). Now this will be more of an insta-love (or at least insta-lust) because it's a short story. I'm on such a tight deadline for this one I'm not sure I'll make it but I'll try.

I need to start perking ideas for the Weird West story. I have vague ideas but nothing like a plot. Sigh. Maybe I should have been more active on the nano forums.

I also need to, over the holidays to start editing Blood Red Roulette. I missed my self imposed deadline for cleaning it up and submitting it. The new one is Spring Break so that's nearly four months. It will probably take that long.

Speaking of the holidays, books make great gifts. Just saying.

CYBER MONDAY SALE!!!!

SALE ENDS 01 DECEMBER, 2015

35% OFF EVERYTHING - INCLUDING COMING SOON TITLES

Prices shown are list prices

Discount will be taken off at Checkout

No limit on the number of purchases

http://www.waywardinkpublishing.com/cyber-monday-sale/

And Dreamspinnner's sale is still ongoing.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Holocene - Bon Iver

Sadly the cover of Soldiers of the Sun didn't make it into the final rounds of the Rainbow awards cover contest. Doesn't matter. I still love it and the competition is insanely stiff. So many beautiful covers.

On the flip side my nanoing is going SO well. I'm over 30K in under two weeks. This has been so good for me this month. I feel like I'm writing like I should without ignoring the other things I need to do too much.

We went to the Tea Caddy in town for our write in and it was such a nice experience. It was nice to have a peaceful moment after the turmoil world wide this week.

I have news about Blood Red Roulette in that I finished it but I've been meaning to do a post about that since I finished on Wednesday but time keeps escaping me. I will do it because it deserves its own post.

And in understandable but slightly frustrating news, Dreamspinner moved up the deadline for the shifter daily dose stories. I definitely understand the need to give the editors more time but I have nothing for it now. I will try though because I had a story in mind so I'm working on it in tandem with my nano, Behind Blue Eyes (which so desperately needs a better title). I want to revisit a place and people that meant so much to me twenty years ago (holy crap HOW did that happen?).

I might do a holiday short story freebie but working on that shifter story will have to take precedence.

I need more hours in a day.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Naked as We Came- Iron & Wine

I missed last week since it was the beginning of nano and I was in a groove. The nano groove is going great. I'm just over 18K for 7 days so there's that. Hopefully at this rate I'll have two novels to shop around in the next year.

Because I do know now that my vampires in Vegas will have to wait. It's almost finished but with nano and the holidays, it won't get edited through by the end of this year so I have failed in that goal. I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I almost made it and I WILL make the goal of finishing it and that's the important thing since I have a bad habit of not finishing. It'll go out early next year.

Unfortunately my usual first reader is having computer issues and sadly I gave away my older computer this summer or I'd tell her to meet me in Louisville and she could have it.

My Halloween stories did well enough which is cool. I might write a Yule freebie. We'll see.

Other than that I have no publishing news other than I am thinking on my Weird Western short story. I'm reading an ARC for Silver on the Road which is a Weird Western and excellent. Completely different than anything I would ever have considered but it's putting me in the mood to write mine.

Nano Snippet - Kaleo couldn’t breathe. Toy training. The bogeyman every slum parent told their unfortunate offspring. Be good or the Confederation doctors will make you into a Toy. Everyone knew what happened to the Toys. None of the kids believed it was real. When the first man pinned him down, Kaleo realized his bladder had let go.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Doctor Who

The biggest news of course was the cover reveal for the short story Snowbound (2nd edition) If you missed it, you can find it here This short story was originally in Necking (now OOP) and is #2 in the Soldiers of the Sun series, bridging from the novella The Darkest Midnight in December to the upcoming novel, Soldiers of the Sun. While all the books are stand alones in spite of being in a series, this important step in their relationship will be only a mere .99 cents You can pre-order it here. It'll be out on August 14th. If nothing else, go look at Paul's incredible cover.

I also have the rough draft of Soldiers of the Sun's novel cover. I'm eagerly awaiting Paul Richmond's final draft. It's going to be so cool! I'm sure you'll love it.

I need to get the final draft of the novel soon. I want to enter it into the Rainbow awards.

I have 'won' camp nano though I need to make it official. I'm pleased with myself as I've now gotten Blood Red Roulette up to the time jump. I should put a deadline here for myself but when I do that real life crops up with crap (and it's been a very crappy year) so I will say just this. It will be done before 2015 is out. That should be good enough without being too stressful.

I've noodled around a bit with my idea for Simmer but I haven't started it. I've tentatively named the characters. I got a couple of grandma's recipes. I'd like to get one more.

In Theory I'm going to Athens tomorrow to start work on my website.

So all in all, a good week.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Them - Nils Frahm

But before I get into the nano here is round 5 of the rainbow awards cover contest. Check them out and vote if you'd like. You can find it here.

I'd love to say my nano is going well. It's going okay. I'm behind by 5K really (since we do still have 2 weeks). I'm figuring things out as I go but since I'm not telling this linearly I'm finding myself with little chunks and scenes that are just going to be a bear to piece together when this is all over and done with. Still, at the end, I'll be a lot closer to done on a story I've been trying to tell for 20 years. Arrigo and Luc deserve to have me finish this story.

So I'll get back to it.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Revolution - The Beatles

5233 / 50000
(10.47%)

I don't expect to keep that pace through the whole thing but nice to know I knocked down 10% in a day. It's my 10th Nano but my work schedule is a nightmare. I'm worried about not finishing. Still, anything I get done will be good. I'm working with my vampires in Vegas, Arrigo and Luc (who isn't a vampire...yet) and Siobhan too. I need to figure out a few things but it's going well.

and before I forget again. You can find round four of the Rainbow Awards cover contest voting here I no longer have a horse in this race as far as covers go but there are a lot of beautiful ones (you have to vote on a min. of 3). Go check them out. I find it curious that the ones I'm drawn most to have no people in them. I'm the same way with pictures. Hmmmm

I won't be by daily with a nano up date. Probably with my What's Up Wednesday posts and on the weekend.

Current Mood: rushed
Current Music: I hear You calling - Blade and Chalice

Too bad I'm not saying that about that powerball jackpot but hey, at least I earned this win.

54702 / 50000 words. 109% done!

The good - for the most part I like my novel

the bad - that's nearly 55k with almost NO description anywhere! It's all in a vacuum because I rock that way.

the scary - this isn't quite half way or maybe it is because how long can this get? TOO long, yeah.

But YAY

Current Mood: crappy
Current Music: Criminal Minds

I'm finding it unexpectedly hard to write a. I hadn't realized how USED to having beta readers look at each chapter as I write them. Usually that takes time and no one is overwhelmed. Nano is different. I'm firing this out at reckless speeds. This dependence has come upon me gradually.

A fifteen years ago I barely had the internet and most of my writing was done in a vacuum. No one would see it until it was done. Then I started posting online at FFN and other online sites. It paid to have another beta. Well, I would have them for my original fiction back in the day and less so for fanfic because you had to pay to photocopy and mail it to friend and wait for them to get it back to you.

No doubt the instance online feedback is a drug and I've grown more than a little dependant on it. Is my nano any good? Am I going the right direction? I don't want to spends months revision crap that shouldn't have been written in the first place but I will because that's the nature of the beast. I started handing a chapter or scene at a time to my first readers a decade ago. Now I feel almost utterly too dependant on them.

They're busy with other things, not the least of which (as far as my selfish concerns go) is my novel Kept Tears which could be ready to send out by January if I'm lucky. I'm waiting to hear back where I messed up this time (because I'm sure I have), is the PTSD organic or inconsistent, do we care about the protagonists etc. Even that novel really didn't have instant feedback but I was less of a baby about it.

Current Mood: busy

Not that I'm really concerned about the novel. So far it's going pretty good and I'm on track. However, I do wonder about it's marketability down the road. Yes, yes I know that's not supposed to be a concern right now and I'm certainly not letting it stop me.

However, I can't help but wonder. There are multiple (well delineated) points of view in it, several of which are not the lovers. The villains, The knight's templar and Jo, Temple's female partner all have the say. I think it moves along the plot of the story but given the reviews I've seen all over seem to want a much more concentrated focus on the lovers.

Reviewers do not shape my plot. They do shape my irrational fears.In trying to move the plot and action along, I do think I've moved away from the romance a bit. Romance isn't really the focus of the story (not that it needs to be, thinking of Andrea Speed's Infected Prey) Mourning the loss of a party and trying to move on is.

Part of the problem is when I first started this I never thought it would be a series and if I had planned better, I might have done a few things differently in Snowbound. Temple enters the menage e trois to help ease his pain from losing Li but he seems rather casual about it. It was a short story and I didn't have room to fully explore that. I think my starting point for this should be to deal with Temple's pain and how his two lovers deal with him but it's being hard to do without Temple becoming morose and without slowing down the pace of the plot.

I had more written on this then verizon did it's usual suckfest and clipped the connection off and I lost it. So, I'll worry on this later, now to get back to the writing.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Unusual Suspects

I'm on target and I can't complain much. I am getting side tracked by research. ALL the time. I'm trying to keep a tight rein on that one. It could derail me.

Right now I need to look up symbols. I want the victims to have some kind of mark on them something that would symbolize Mammon but I'm not finding what I need. I know it's out there but I haven't found any thing that makes me go 'wow, that's it!'

How is everyone else doing ?

Current Mood: pleased

All I know for sure is I'm doing it. I had planned all year to do a novel for Caleb, Temple and Agni (points to icon). I've been wanting to do a novel for them since they first popped into my head. I've sold three stories with them. I know they're marketable. So let me run down the options.

1. 1930's Demon hunters - why am I even hesitating on this? One, I don't have a great plot in my head. I have a lot of scattered scenes and some vague notion of the villain. The villain(s) really need to be strong for this and it's just not there yet. That doesn't bother me all that much. once I get going, I think that part would gel. Two, and here's the real problem, I'm busy like I haven't been busy since I had my own medical practice. I'm up to my eyeballs in research and paper and all sorts of other crap. I have NOT had time to properly research this. I've done some half-assed research. I don't know the 1930's as well as other time periods and honestly, it has proven far more difficult to research Pittsburgh at that time period than anticipated. I know myself. I can spend hours looking up the tiniest detail. I've already done it. I spent the better part of the afternoon looking up music and radio shows to find ones Temple would look at and the type of movies Caleb would see. This would be a bad habit in Nano.

Alternatives to Caleb, Temple & Agni

2. I did the first half of Blood Red Roulette for Camp Nano featuring my Las Vegas Vampires Arrigo and Luc (see DSP short story Crisis in Faith) but that's it, the first half. I could easily do the second half (not counting the first half naturally in the word count). However, I do rather have some ideas where this is going and if I put it aside for later, I think it will be all right. Also I'll be going back to Vegas in May and could make this a summer project.

3. Modern Day Urban Fantasy - This is also set in Pittsburgh and deals with demon hunters but a totally different universe from Caleb, Temple and Agni. It would deal with college seniors at an academy that trains demon hunters. One of the characters is half demon. I think it would be very easy to do. One of the characters is from Wales (where I spent my summer research). On the down side, Angels and Demons are getting done a lot (yeah as if vampires are original).

4. High Fantasy - Reko is a mage set to protect the princess and Nine is an ex-slave street whore who manages to come to their aid in an attack changing the course of his life forever. This one could be interesting to do, a bit plot heavy with the Machiavellian political intrigue (political intrigue is the least favorite thing for me but it would be necessary for this). I know who the villain is but when/where/how he is exposed is up in the air for me and it would really change the story.

5. write another non-erotic story like last year (I do like to alternate so I'd prefer to do erotica this year)

Ugh, Geminis and choices are a bad mix. I should probably just pull a story out of the hat...literally.

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Buddha Nature - Deuter