No NaNoWriMo For Me

Yes, it is November, but no, I am not doing NaNoWriMo this year. I considered it briefly, but decided not to. I already know that I can pound out a 50,000 word novel. Can I write a 90,000 word novel? I have started working on a trilogy that requires a lot of research. I want to make sure all my facts are straight and details are worked out before I take the plunge. I am terrible at revision. I can type up 50,000 words that make no coherent sense with the promise of editing later, but I won't.

So, no NaNoWriMo for me this year.

Wow

A whole year has went by and I haven't posted once! Terrible. To be fair, 2012 was a terrible year. Let's not talk about it.

I have been busy. I have been editing my novel religiously, although I did miss my deadline of 1/31/13 to have it finished. I was stuck on Chapter 13, an unlucky number, true. I just could not get over the direction one of the male characters took. But, after talking to my husband about male behavior, I left it in. So, I am now on Chapter 15 out of 23 chapters. I am going to market it as a transformative tale wherein a young woman learns to trust herself.

I have also made several resolutions for the new year:

-Sell Tomorrow's June, the novel mentioned above.
-Write and sell two short stories. I already have one that needs tweaking but I have a great idea for another one.
-Make writing and editing a habit.
-Get my other romance novel ready for sale. This is more of a traditional romance set in modern times. It needs tweaking.
-Develop new projects. My husband and I have several ideas for books and screenplays we want to develop.
-Finish Buy Here, Pay Here, my screenplay about the car lot.

Last year was not a total loss. I started reading novels voraciously, particularly romance novels because I have to know what the market is like. I found a few great ones: the Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning rocked; I loved Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark; and last, but not least, The Fallen Angels from J.R. Ward, which brings me to my next topic. I was so taken by the male lead in the Fallen Angels series, Jim Heron, that I devoted NaNoWriMo 12 to writing a fanfic novel about how the series ends. Ward is positioning Heron to have a happily ever after (HEA) with a 19-year-old virgin named Sissy. This won't do. I didn't want my poor mom to continue to listen to my outrage over this blasphemy, so I wrote an alternate series-ending novel where he ends up with someone more suited to him. Like me. The exercise accomplished three things: first to show that I can pound out a novel in a month, like old times, and have it be good with just a bit of mild tweaking needed; second, to get me back into a writing habit; and third, to show that I could write fanfiction. I won't offer it for sale because the characters are Ward's and it would be nearly impossible to change the particulars, but at least I know I can do it.

I also transferred my domain name to a new web host and I bought www.carolinefuller.com. Caroline Fuller is the name I am going use to write. Caroline Fritz is too tied up with work. Although I am working on a romance novel writing name like Anastasia Caldwell. I don't know. The new website is not up and running yet. I am going to work on it in between everything else. I will keep you posted as to when it is up and running, again.

I  envision 2013 being a productive, successful year. I also was just promoted to editor of my own magazine, so I will be busy, but it is a good busy.

Terrible! Terrible!

I am a terrible blogger. I have not updated since March and I am the worst slacker who ever slacked. Now that we have that out of the way, here is what I have been doing. I am taking a couple of writing classes at UT and have been working on that. Mostly a lot of reading. I had no literature in high school so now I am making up for it.

I am not doing Nanowrimo this year because I am so busy with everything else. But that's okay. It is one thing to write a bunch of novels it is another thing to actually do something about it. I am working on a book proposal for my Nanowrimo from '08 right now. It needs a lot of work but at least the hard part of putting it on paper is over, right?

I will keep you posted.

Fall check in!

I always vow that I will keep up my blog, but life gets in the way. 'Tis no matter because I haven't done any writing and I stopped writing for the content entry sites in June because it was too much work for an uncertain outcome. I am still working on my fear of submitting my work to a real live publisher. I am reading The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes. Hopefully it will help. NANOWRIMO is coming in November and I am doing it again this year. My other news is that I am going to take a screenwriting class at U.T. next semester. I always wanted to take it when I was still in college, but the class was always held in the afternoon and I had to work. The class is now held at night, so I will be able to take it. So yay! The best part is that I have no choice but to write and do my homework. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. Plus, I will get feedback on my writing. I see an adviser on the 18th to get registered.

Another successful NaNoWriMo!

Well, I won NaNoWriMo this year. I wrote 11,000 words on the last day. What a nightmare the whole month was. Just horrible. I have been writing freelance articles and I thought I would be able to bide my time between the novel and freelance work but I couldn't. I ended up getting burned out very quickly. The freelance is still pretty rough. I have a goal every week of 20 articles I would like to get done but I have yet to meet it. Take today, for example. It is Saturday. You would think I would have all of the time in the world to write. But no. I wrote one article today and started another one. One. That is all. I wrote seven on Thursday and four yesterday. Let's hope tomorrow goes better.

I think that NaNoWriMo was hard this year because I already had the novel written in my head. It didn't exactly turn out the way I wanted, probably because I ended up writing the ending 15,000 words ahead of time. I had to go back and fix it. It was really hard. Here is the medallion I won:

NaNoWriMo starts today!

In what will surely be a testament to my organizational skills, I am once again participating in NaNoWriMo as well as working toward my goal of writing 50 extra freelance articles a week and working a full time job. I must write faster! Faster!

NaNoWriMo begins

Today marks the start of National Novel Writing Month wherein the participants write a 50,000 word novel by Nov. 30. I have signed up and will do it. I'm pretty excited. I have had a story bumping around in my head for a couple of years. It will be nice to let it out on paper.

Also, I have looked back at this past year and all of the blown-off deadlines and I think that I have finally found something to get me motivated to send my book out and realize my author potential. My husband, Tim, is going to collaborate on a book, that will most surely be published, with a co-worker. Talk about motivation! So while I am immersing myself in word counts while being in the writing zone, I am going to finish my sample chapter and send my book out. It would be terrible if my non-writing husband had a book published before me, a writer. To be fair, I have had several articles published, but I have always wanted to be a novel writer. What better time than now?