NaNoWriMo Day 25: When I Question My Sanity

Word Count Goal: 41,675

Achievement: 46,296

Soundtrack: Nightwish’s orchestral music.

Sometimes I wonder about my head.

I know I said in a previous post that even though I write graphic, gruesome violence I’m really quite mild-mannered. Well, I’ve been watching the Scream movies with my partner, and it has influenced me a lot. There’s more violence, more fighting, and although I’m trying to demonstrate what Tina can do, rather than just expecting people to accept it when I write that she’s a good demon hunter, now I’m starting to feel a little weird about it.

How much violence is too much? This is the third violence-against-Tina scene I’ve written, and it’s worse than the previous two combined. It’s longer, crueller, and more graphic. And how much violence is bad for YA literature? The most popular YA book series, Twilight, always managed to avoid the violent scenes (much to the disagreement of many fans, especially in Breaking Dawn). I wonder if I’ve just wasted two pages more suited to a horror film, if it will even stay in the novel. Don’t get me wrong: I want it to stay in. I love what I’ve written. And teens have been watching horror movies since forever. I watched Halloween when I was twelve years old.

I’m writing what I want to read, and I want to read a mixture of YA and adult fantasy literature. I want all the awesome sweetness and innocence of YA literature mixed with the adult content I see in my head. The Edge of Darkness is an adult book because of its social commentary, violence, and sex. Dadewalker, despite it containing offpage sex and onpage violence, is young adult. I’m getting the feeling that Tina Storm’s first book has a lot of Tina losing her innocence. I’m going in to more detail about her story and what’s happening. Tina’s growing up through the book and the book’s target audience, by association, is growing up as well. This might end up being an upper YA book, or even YA for adults. I don’t know. We’re going to see.

I feel weird because of the unplanned things my characters are doing. They’re taking me by surprise, although what’s happening is so awesome I don’t want to lose any of it. I guess that’s the beauty of writing a half-planned book. The characters are taking me places and dropping hints I’m yet to gather into the puzzle that will explain everything to me.

NaNoWriMo Day 24: More Blood: Magic And Danger

Word Count Goal: 40,008

Achievement: 44,422

Soundtrack: Nightwish

I didn’t write a post yesterday because by the time I finished my words I didn’t want to miss a documentary on the television and I can never concentrate on writing a post when there’s something I want to watch on! Considering I don’t watch much TV that’s okay.

Well, Tina had quite a fun time yesterday and today. I’ve been watching the Scream movies with my partner so I know for a fact that when someone I didn’t expect picked up a butcher’s knife and came at Tina trying to stab her that that’s exactly where the influence came from! Tina’s rescued Sarah from Chelsea and taken her revenge on the little bully by embracing her inner mean girl. Some scenes were a little shorter than I thought they would be, but then I was influenced to add in something extra because it’s a building block for something that needs to happen later that I’m looking forward to writing as well.

Whoever said keeping all this inside my head was easy lied!

I also can’t decide who should die – because basically I kill off important characters in books ALL THE TIME and at first I was all like, oh no, no one’s going to die in this book because it’s YOUNG ADULT and then I realised people die in young adult books all the time! *coughthehungergames*cough* –  and my brain is being all tricky and making me think some good guys are bad guys and some bad guys are in fact good guys! It’s okay for me not to know at this point in time while I’ve just started wondering, but I need my brain to sort everything out before I get to the climax! I’m writing with way too many exclamation points but I went to the library today and fell in love with it even if the Young Adult section was practically non-existent! So I’m a little high on books.

!!!

the end.

NaNoWriMo Day 22: Blood And Seduction

Word Count Goal:36,674

Achievement: 41,023

Soundtrack: Iron Saviour, Nightwish, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1980s romance music

Today was fun. I wrote the Lachlan seducing Tina but not really scene I’ve been aching to do and now Tina’s going to kick butt on the people who’ve been bullying Sarah (trying not to spoil too much what’s actually going on is really hard!!). I struggled for a bit putting the actions in order because I know there’s five specific things I want to happen, I just didn’t know how I could smoothly transition from one to the other. I think I’ve got it now. Of course it will need re-writing because first drafts are often clumsy and I know mine is! I was trying to get down everything I saw in my head, except that when I was listening to Iron Saviour (heavy speed metal) Tina wanted to go head to head with Lachlan and fight him, declare her non-virginity and not try to outwit him at all. I had to change to something softer because if she revealed that now, she’d have to reveal she was a demon hunter and I know that can’t happen because the witches still need to think she’s part of their coven! Oh, Tina, if only you weren’t so strong willed.

In non-NaNo related news, after living in the UK for eighteen months I finally signed up for a library card. My library is within walking distance, and I don’t really have an excuse as to why it took me so long. I guess I thought I was okay with all of my partner’s books and the books I brought with me, not to mention the books I’ve bought since I’ve lived here… but who am I kidding? Libraries are like opium dens to me (at least, I imagine so). I’m so excited to visit the library in a couple of days and pick up my card that you’d think I was going to visit a house filled with puppies!

NaNoWriMo Day 21: Conversations With Dead People

Don’t you just love my Joss Whedon references?

Word Count Goal: 35,007

Achievement: 39,016

Soundtrack: The Phantom of the Opera original West End recording and some mixed writing music from a previous playlist.

Today’s scene extended Tina’s conversation with the female vampire, who I’ve named with the place holder Jane. I didn’t know how it was going to turn out, but I clumsily managed to get them allied and even tentative friends. That will require some going over for the second draft. Jane wants something from Tina, and Tina wants something from Jane. Also, Chelsea showed up, which was interesting. I mean, she had to be at the party because she has an important role to play, but her reaction to Tina being there with Lachlan made the mean girl in me lash out. Oops. I also hinted that maybe Connor is bisexual, which is totally awesome, because we need more LGBT characters in young adult fiction.

Part of me wants to skip ahead because I miss Ten only like HEAPS and I want him to come back in, but I know I need to play out the rest of the scene before he can even get there so I need to stick to my guns and write what comes to me before he arrives. Oh Ten, why are you so awesome?

NaNoWriMo Day 20: Tina Faces Her Destiny

Word Count Goal: 33,340

Achievement: 37,254 (2,527)

Soundtrack: Playlist of Epica, Within Temptation and Nightwish with a sprinkling of Hayley Westenra.

I am learning to embrace descriptions. Descriptions of what people are wearing (however brief), of how they look, of the locations involved. Tina’s finally made it to the blood magic party and because it’s a brand new location I felt I had to delve into what the place looks like. Surprisingly, a loose end tied itself up with me. Apparently the party’s being hosted by the vampire that’s been looking for Tina for staking her vampire ex-boyfriend (Tina’s, not the vampire’s). The vampire only has a place holder name at the time until I find something more era-relevant. I think she’s about eighty years old. It makes sense to me to have a vampire hosting a blood magic party, but seeing as how she’s newer to town than even Tina is, I’m trying to figure out how she rose to such power so quickly and made friends with the coven of blood magick using witches.

I didn’t want to start writing today and considered taking some time off. I didn’t want to write because although I’ve been thinking of this sequence a lot, I was a little afraid to put it into practice. Luckily once I started writing it flowed relatively easily. I haven’t hit another wall like I did at 10K, I am simply procrastinating because I don’t think I can translate what happens in my head well enough to the page. Luckily, Tina’s already gotten in to trouble – just add conflict is my motto after all! As an added bonus, Connor (remember the guy from the #nerdpowerpost?) is at the party as well, so even though Sarah and her boyfriend Nick are kind of helpless if any bad shit goes down, Connor can back Tina up.

I know several things need to happen, but I’m willing to let them take their time: Chelsea has to show up and Tina’s given the opportunity to use blood magic on her, Sarah gets tortured for punching Chelsea (sorry, Sarah! But you’re just about the most important thing there to Tina) and Ten breaks in with a bunch of allies to rescue Tina from Lachlan. I don’t know how I’m going to settle this problem with the vampire, seeing as how she needs to survive to the climax, but it looks like I’ve got a lot of action and fun to be writing for the next few thousand words!