Life Changing Events: Why I’ve Been Absent For A Week

And no, I haven’t done any writing.

I finished NaNo last Sunday, officially won it at midnight on Wednesday, and I was prepared to do some more words on The Oncoming Storm late last week, but something amazing happened that changed my life.

On Thursday my partner was granted his spouse visa to Australia. It’s subsequently thrown me a little off schedule.

We’ve been waiting to hear back for several months, and we didn’t expect to hear for a few months more. We’re planning on moving to Australia early next year, when the inevitable English snow has melted (hopefully).

Two days later it was my partner’s birthday and we’ve kind of been having this massive celebration for his birthday and his visa approval and trying to see all our friends and contact all our family and preparing for Christmas (they get you early in the UK!)… it’s been a tiring but extraordinarily happy time.

So I’ve not been online very much at all, let alone had time for writing.

Who else had a life-changing event in the last week?

NaNoWriMo Day 27: And We Have A Winner!

Word Count: 50,263

That’s right, kittens, I’ve validated my novel! That means I’ve ‘won’ NaNoWriMo for 2011!

*throws confetti and glitter, offers everyone fairy cakes and those really yummy pastry triangles filled with spinach and cheese – look out, they’re hot!*

While the novel’s not yet finished, I’ve validated it today anyway so that I can take a breather. I’m still looking to add maybe 20K-30K, depending on how it flows. I’m not looking to word pad, but events keep jumping up at me demanding to be recorded. Now that the big party scene is over the next big thing is the climax, which is the witch’s All Hallow’s Eve gathering. I have to do some more work between now and then, including building Tina and Ten’s relationship, Lachlan’s downfall, the thing that happened to Chelsea, a realisation about Connor, and some family stuff for the Storms.

It’s going to be fun, but right now I need a break.

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!