Writing Commentary

These are cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

I've decided to add these here for the curious, the bored, and most for my own amusement. But here's some of my commentary that I've written on the Den of Shadows message board. They are comments about my writing and life during NaNo.

From Day 3

It's been nearly ten years since I was in high school and I'm having a difficult time remembering exactly what it was like. It didn't seem so hard three years ago when I was first working on this story.

Also, my main character who I think of as non-violent (even though she's in martial arts) decided to pick a fight with her best friend. So we'll see what sort of repercussions that has for her.

I forgot to mention earlier, but yesterday my husband and I decided to set up a mini competition for us: to see who gets published first (which will also include finishing our novels, revising them, and sending out queries and all that fun stuff).

From Day 4

Well, what I plan to write today was originally going to be part of the chapter I wrote yesterday. Only, one of these magical constructs that the villain summoned is supposed to narrate the chapter. I'm not sure how a magical construct is supposed to think or feel or even narrate what's going on around it, which is probably why I haven't started the chapter yet. But I guess the only way to find out is to actually write it. And if it turns out that you really can't have a magical construct narrating, then I'll just have to change the chapter's point of view during revisions.

On to figuring out how constructs think.

And from Day 6

My plot's going remarkably well. Of course I haven't gotten to any of the stuff that wasn't really planned out prior to NaNo, so we'll have to wait and see what happens with the vague scene impressions I have for later on.

When I went to bed last night, I was just over 15,000 words in, and roughly one forth of the way into my plot (I'm aiming for 60,000). But, I have a few missing scenes (mostly fight scenes that I haven't felt like writing yet) and a missing chapter. Once I finish those, it'll put me well past the 15,000 word mark, but I don't mind. I'm sure I have a lot of empty filler words that will be removed during revision.

P.S. I never actually wrote the chapter from the magical construct's point of view. I think it would be a fun exercise in writing, but I think the prose and thought process of a magical construct would be a lot worse than that of a zombie. At least zombies can think/say, "Braaaiiinnnssss!!"

National Novel Writing Month

I signed up for my fourth NaNo.

I had plans to finish Kitsu's story by November 1, but those kind of fell through when I went a couple weeks without working on her story. Instead, I read. Then I started revising my vampire novel. And since I got through the first half of it in just over a week, I figured it would take just as long to revise the second half of it. Not so. So now I have two partially edited novels awaiting my return.

Originally, my idea for NaNo this year was going to be about the Mage's daughter from my and my husband's Standard Issue universe. I was really excited to work on it too. There was the mage's daughter who is just about as powerful as the mage himself is, and the only thing that stopped her from using magic to screw with people (just like dear old dad) was whether or not she felt like it. I mean, she was going to high school after all so she didn't have as much free time on her hands, what with homework and extracurricular activities and all.

And in response to some of the teen paranormal romances out there that included a vampire werewolf love triangle, my mage was going to get involved in one. Only she would end up with the werewolf instead.

Then on one of the message boards I frequent, people started talking about zombies and the zombie apocalypse. And I thought, Hey, wouldn't that be fun?

So here's the one sentence summary of the novel I'm not writing this month.

Moonlight, A Standard Issue Teen novel
The all powerful Mage's daughter gets tangled up in a vampire werewolf love triangle until she summons her dead boyfriend from his grave and has to stop the impending zombie apocalypse all while going to high school.

What am I working on instead?

No Leaf Clover
17-year-old Pai must defend the Ancient Korean shortsword, Byung, from a Korean mummy, her new swordfighting instructor, and her crush--all to prove she's the sword's true heir.

It's a young adult novel I started in 2006 during my last semester in college, and I've been wanting to work on it ever since. I didn't work on it in previous years for NaNo because silly me thought it wasn't suitable for NaNo. Apparently, the story is proving me wrong. At the end of day 5, I had just over 15,000 words. that even surpasses my 2000 words a day goal.

Procrastination

This is how my week went. These are cross-posted from the writing chatter section of the Den of Shadows message board.

Sunday.

So while I'm having some difficulties with Kitsune, I've been talking to my husband about working on a collaboration. Which of course for the one we really want to do (or more specifically the one I really want to work on), we need to know a lot more about Shinto than what we know, so that one's kind of on the back burner again.

But one that's a lot more feasible for us to work on features Rosaline DeLiney, Paranormal Investigator (she even has a badge), and Tommy Thompson, the guy in Witness Protection who makes the mistake of answering Rosaline's Help Wanted Ad that was written in the form of a Personal Ad. Now poor Tommy has to suffer through Rosaline's paranormal investigations that should only exist in really, really bad B-rate horror movies. (You know the ones that are so bad they shouldn't even exist so people like me who find watching said films quite enjoyable, even if they are just as painful, don't buy them.) Their first adventure is titled Tank Riding Zombies.

Hopefully the last of my rewrites will be done tomorrow so I can send the first three chapters of Kitsune to my friend to read. And then I should get to work on the synopsis.

Only my brain is shouting, "But . . . But . . . Tank riding zombies!!!!"

Monday.

That sounds like two of my characters. Where they hate each other (mainly because he tried to kill her and she retaliated), but they are drawn to each other on a level that neither of them understands or even *wants* to.

But I sort of got over writing sex scenes when I wrote a scene between these two characters detailing their issues of not knowing whether they're going to try killing each other or having sex. And when I turned it in for the class, everyone (except for me and my husband), even the teacher, thought they were having sex. One girl even said it was the hottest sex scene she had ever read.

And my only comment was, "But . . . they're not even having sex."

* * *

So I've gone from wanting to write something funny, which mostly means I'll probably participate in Script Frenzy this year so I can finally write the Standard Issue Vampire script.

To finally finishing the first scene between Kitsu and Kaitou in my novel. I'm really excited about how I redid the scene, since it makes the characters seem so much more alive, and it gets right to the heart of their issues.

Now all I have left to do is rewrite the fight scene between Sasori and Garnet, and I'll finally be ready to send it to my friend to read. (Even though I meant to send it to her Saturday or Sunday at the latest, but now she'll get it Tuesday or Wednesday. I just hope she doesn't take too long to read it.)

Thursday.

yttar wrote:
"To finally finishing the first scene between Kitsu and Kaitou in my novel. I'm really excited about how I redid the scene, since it makes the characters seem so much more alive, and it gets right to the heart of their issues.

"Now all I have left to do is rewrite the fight scene between Sasori and Garnet, and I'll finally be ready to send it to my friend to read. (Even though I meant to send it to her Saturday or Sunday at the latest, but now she'll get it Tuesday or Wednesday. I just hope she doesn't take too long to read it.)"

Yeah, it's like, what, five days later, and I still have to rewrite the fight scene between Sasori and Garnet.

But hey, at least everything else in chapters 1 - 3 looks good, and I've added in a few extra details to show more of the characters and the world in which they live. I just can't seem to get around to writing that fight scene. It doesn't help that I spend hours playing solitaire trying to win one stupid game.

Today's a holiday here in Japan (yes, they consider the Vernal/Spring Equinox a holiday), so I get to spend the day with my husband, which will hopefully allow me to finally write that fight scene.

* * *

I used to find ninth grade physical science class to be the perfect time to write. It helped that I had two friends who sat near me so they could keep me informed about what was actually going on in class. Though one time I wasn't so smart on the uptake, and ended up embarrassing myself. Once the problem was fixed, I just went back to writing and ignored everybody else.

Though I thought that if I were to ever get that book published (which is unlikely since parts of it are missing - as in lost for good), I always planned on writing an author's acknowledgement (or whatever it's called) that went along the lines of "I'd like to think my ninth grade physical science teacher for not getting to mad when I spent more time in his class writing than paying attention to science. I sort of regret it now, especially that I love writing science fiction and really wish I had a better understanding of physics." Only it would sound a lot better than that.

Friday.

I finally finished revising my first three chapters and sent them on to my friend. Now I'm impatiently waiting her feedback.