How about that cover, huh? Wicked Me is probably the most “me” book I’ve ever written, though it’s in no way autobiographical. I think it just captures who I am as a human being. It’s also the longest book I’ve ever written at 94,000 words and is my first contemporary novel with zero paranormal elements. I’m pretty darn proud of it.
Check out the giveaway below!
So NaNoWriMo is over, and while I didn’t participate, I did try to write a little every day on A Boy and Her Scratch. I didn’t succeed, and I didn’t even come close to 50,000 words. But I’m okay with that.
The story and characters have solidified in the 10,338 words I’ve written on it, which is always a plus. I keep fighting the urge to go back and “fix” things because the first draft is supposed to look like word vomit, and it does, so yay! I’ve decided to keep writing this story until December 31st, and then at midnight, instead of turning into a pumpkin, I’ll start writing like a mad woman on What Gifts She Carried.
From January onward, I won’t be staying the night at work (something I did do in November), I won’t have as many loooong work days, and I won’t be going out of town. It gets too cold in Kansas to do anything but stay home in my pajamas and write anyway!
My point to all this rambling is that I’m trying this new thing where I don’t stress about writing. I let it happen, word by word. It’s slow going, but I’ll get there.
Does word count stress you out? Does getting the book finished twist your knickers?
No no NaNoWriMo. I won’t participate in you this year or next year or never but I will cheer for participants from the sidelines.
Why? I’m a slow writer, like 1000 words in three hours slow. I try not to stress about making things look pretty in a first draft, but I do anyway. Plus, I have to stop and picture what’s happening in my head. It’s like watching a movie in painfully slow motion.
But I’m using NaNoWriMo as inspiration to learn how to not worry so much and speed up the pictures. I’m also using it to get inspired to write after I get home from school. I used to think a sleepy brain tells sleepy stories, but a sleepy brain is the norm now, and sleepy brains still have stories to tell.
The story I should be telling is the sequel to The Grave Winner, but it’s still coming together in my head. So my muse has hammered another story into my brain (ow!) while I let the sequel percolate. That’s the story I’m working on now, and I feel like I should make nice with my muse in case it flips me the bird and abandons me.
This new story has ghosts in space, in case you’re wondering. It also has some sexy times in it because it’s not YA. The title is A Boy and Her Scratch.
The sequel to The Grave Winner is coming, I promise! Please don’t hate me, Fabulous Editor Melissa and my Must Have Critique Partners and my Totally Tubular beta reader and everyone else who has made it this far through my ramblings!
Anyone else have a muse? Anyone else pet it and feed it cookies so it won’t flip you the bird?
P.S. I voted today!
 |
| Credit |
Anyone who’s read some of my stories knows that I have a strange fascination with putting numbers in them. I’m not sure why exactly, but numbers have always been interesting to me. When I was younger, my parents would drive places, and I would add or multiply addresses on the houses we passed. So I wrote Willow Road about someone who did just that.
Anyway, while I was enjoying my Christmas vacation, I got in some good writing/editing time. Yay! But you know what I noticed? I wrote 863 words day after day. Not more, not less. 863 again and again. No, not 863 repeated all over the page! I’m not that crazy!
So, what does this mean? Why did I stop at exactly 863 words? Did I spot something shiny? Did my brain explode? Did I have to pee? All of the above? Maybe. Or maybe I just felt in my bones that 863 words was good enough for me.
863 words isn’t a lot for a daily word count. Some people can blast out 5,000 or more in a day. I’d love to get over 1,000, but… 863 is pretty close. It’s 863 more words than I had the day before. It’s 863 words closer to ‘The End’. I’m good with that.
What’s your daily word count goal? Is it really the end of the world if you don’t reach it?