Word Count Goal: 30,006

Achievement: 33,026

Soundtrack: Assassin’s Creed Revelations Soundtrack.

I’ve done it again. A little bit of violence, and hoping that Tina doesn’t come off as a victim. It’s one of the things I’m most desperate to avoid in all of my writing: my women are never victims, even when violence is perpetrated against them. And because I tend to write warrior-type women: ninja cyborgs, elemental sorceresses, and now a demon hunter, they often get at least one and often two violent episodes per novel. Sometimes they get knocked about: I don’t like making them perfect, so they do get hit about and they never come up perfectly clean with every hair in place. They do come up, though, because they’re tough.  And even though my women are good warriors, sometimes there’s nothing you can do against a particular assailant if they get you in just the right place. I’ve learned this from wrestling with my hubby, who is by far the strongest man I know. Even he’s helpless sometimes against me *wink wink*.

Every time I think I’m about to start writing the party scene I realise I need to do something just before it. So I’m still not at it just yet. Which is fine by me. I know I’m developing things, weaving things together, giving Tina and Lachlan more character. And I know why there’s a party going on, too. Someone very important to the plot and to Tina is in charge of it, and Tina’s going to learn a few things before the night is through. I can’t wait to write more about Tina and Sarah’s friendship, and the part when Ten comes crashing through a window to save her? I’ve been aching to get to it. Even a tough girl needs a friend or two to rely on every so often.

Word Count Goal: 28,339

Achievement: 31,049 (2710)

Soundtrack: Nothing.

Today was another one of those wrap-up-the-scene days. So there’s not much to talk about except that I’m weaving more stuff about Lachlan messing with Tina’s mind while she’s on the coolest date I could think of. Tina’s beginning to question it: in fact, she directly confronted him when he yelled at her to stop asking so many questions. I took Daniel from Fallen as my inspiration there. I’m so pleased with myself. Except that Lachlan has this ability to cloud Tina’s mind and make her think he’s just the bee’s knees. She broke out of it just before I finished what I was writing. I don’t know what’s going to happen because I want her to totally confront him and break out of the spell completely, but I need her under his spell and on good terms with him for the blood magic party. I get the feeling she’s going to get pissed and then realise she needs to go with him so turn on her girly charms to convince him to take her along. The blood magic party is the scene I’ve been most looking forward to writing – it’s going to be equally sexy as it is disturbing.

I’ve decided that I’m not going to finish when I hit 50K (which I am due to on the 27th as of today). I want this to be at least 70K, and I know I have to go back and write in some more Tina and Ten moments early on so they’re oh so very close to being a couple before Lachlan gets his paws on Tina. Tina needs to resist more, which gives Ten a chance to shine as he uses all his manly seduction to bring her a-quiver. It will be a really cool way to show the dichotomy between Ten and Lachlan. But I also need to re-shuffle a few things because I had them kiss quite early on and I don’t want them doing it quite that early: I want a little of the whole ‘will they/won’t they’ vibe going on between them, which should be really easy to get into now that I’ve thought about it on account of Ten being a demon and Tina being the one who hunts demons. So it should be easier to get some teenage angst in. #amiright?

 

I also discovered THE COOLEST WRITING HELPER EVER. Positive reinforcement totally wins.

Word Count Goal: 26,672

Achievement: 29,034 (2362)

Soundtrack: Doctor Who Season 1.

I had a lot of fun writing today’s scene. You can tell by my word count. The NaNo site is glitching so it doesn’t tell me how much I’ve written so I’m back to relying on my Word stats. The words flew easily today because I could tell exactly what was happening and how. I only paused to do some research about something I’ve never done myself, but I read a bit and watched some YouTube videos so I think I’ll manage to pull it off. I don’t want to reveal what it is but suffice to say it’s a totally awesome dream date!

I think I’m really starting to portray Lachlan as this horrible kind of guy. Not intentionally, you know, but the way Edward Cullen is represented on the page is basically in two different ways: First there’s the guy who’s in love with Bella and would do anything to protect her, and then there’s the stalky paedophile who watches her sleep. Well, Lachlan’s starting to reveal that he’s a bit of a control freak as well, which is totally appropriate because that’s exactly what I’m aiming for. I want Lachlan to represent everything that Edward, Patch and Daniel stand for in their novels (Twilight, Hush Hush and Fallen respectively). Most girls can’t see past their abs, hands and eyes to the controlling, manipulating assholes that lurk beneath. Part of me thinks there’s a real irony in that: the whole ‘beauty is only skin deep’ really applies to those YA ‘boys’ (who are really hundreds or thousands of years old but still fall in love with teenage girls like it’s all the rage). At the same time, Lachlan is totally hot but totally an asshole – only Tina doesn’t realise it yet. She’s starting to suspect, but every time she confronts him, he confuses her again with his magic. I can’t wait til she breaks free and kicks his ass demon-hunter style.

I always knew it was an awesome idea to have a male witch in this book.

I’m under your spell
Nothing I can do
You just took my soul with you
You worked your charm so well

Joss Whedon reference FTW!

Word Count Goal: 25,005

Achievement: 27201

Storytime listen count: I think I’m done. It’s too familiar to me now and I can’t write to it anymore.

I’ve got to say: writing Tina’s date with Lachlan is so much fun. You can tell Lachlan’s doing something to keep Tina enthralled and under his control, and sometimes Tina fights back to gain a second of lucidity before falling under his spell again. She also stopped him from making an advance on her in his car, and in Tina’s spellbound state she’s decided he’s too perfect to cheat on Chelsea so he broke up with her before asking Tina on a date. I don’t know if this is the truth or not, because basically Tina’s lost it and is in the worst case of insta-love ever! I’ll have to see how she interacts with Chelsea at the party scheduled in the next couple of days. My subconscious brain is planting seeds that I don’t know the answers to. It’s been a long time since I’ve written like that, and I love it.

It’s absolutely fascinating holding together all these characters and plot points in my head. I can’t wait to see how it turns out. I asked for some help on Goodreads, Twitter and Facebook to see if anyone could suggest a totally awesome date and from the responses I picked… well, you’re going to have to wait until I’ve written it to find out!

I only feel really sorry for Ten, because he hasn’t done anything wrong even though Tina half-thinks he has! It sounds complicated, but suffice to say it’s all Lachlan’s fault! And Lachlan’s not even the ‘bad guy’ of this novel!

Word Count Goal: 23,338

Achievement: 25,506

Storytime Listen Count: 126

I barely even know where my word count went today. I finished off the confrontation with Chelsea, Connor revealed some important plot things to Tina, and then Tina got ready for her date with Lachlan while going a little crazy. It doesn’t sound very interesting but I haven’t told you everything because if I did, you wouldn’t want to read the book. Basically I ended one scene and set things up for the second peak, which I’ve only been looking forward to writing since I started plotting the book and is basically the whole reason the book even exists! So the word count was really flying today and I could keep going except that I’ve made the bare minimum, left it at a part that I can’t wait to start writing tomorrow, and my fiancée is patiently waiting for cuddles because he finished his words earlier than me.

All I will add is that I’ve reached the halfway point, and I’m pretty sure this novel is going to write itself above 50K words. Which is good for me! I want it to be at least 60K. Also, I’ve considered changing the opening scene from a fully-fledged family demon vanquish to an earlier time when Tina received her capacitor cuff that forbids her from using her lightning vanquish because of the events that happened in Weather The Storm. I’m toying with the idea, but I’m just not sure if a) it’s an interesting enough opening scene compared to an awesome demon hunt and b) people can put 2 and 2 together and not complain that I didn’t add something that I myself found boring enough not to want to write it in the first place!

I also need to add that reaching 25K was a lot easier than getting through that 10K barrier that stopped four novels this year before this one! Once NaNo’s over I am tackling those books again so I have more material to put out next year and 2013.