NaNoWriMo Day 6: A Busy Little Bumble Bee (And I’m Being Interviewed! 2)

I’m being interviewed at Olsen Jay Nelson’s blog talking about The Edge of Darkness and NaNoWriMo! Go check it out.

Word count goal: 10,002

Achievement: 10,075.

I didn’t write a post yesterday because I didn’t make the word count. I missed it by about 200 words. My fiancée and I went out in the afternoon to socialise (for Guy Fawkes Night, which is a big deal in the UK) and didn’t get back until late, and by then I was too tired to write any more.

And tonight I’ve struggled a little with getting Tina to fall in insta-love with the hot Polynesian witch, but I think I’ve sorted it out now. I don’t want to say too much because I’ll spoil it, but I had already hinted at something when the same thing was suggested to me.

Tomorrow should be easier. I’m almost at the first peak of the three-act model, so I have to write quite a bit of conflict tomorrow.

At least I’m still on track. I’m not letting people charging ahead with their word count get to me because although they think it’s about quantity over quality, I refuse to stoop and write below my ability. I’m aiming for quality as well.

NaNoWriMo Day 4: The First Hurdle

Word count goal: 6668

Achievement: 7464.

I realised something as I struggled to write a scene. It was a scene where two people who know each other but don’t know each other very well attempt to get to know each other better with a hint of romance but oh-no-we-can’t-do-this-because-you’re-a-demon-and-I’m-a-demon-hunter. And every first attempt to write something, my heroine would say something snarky. I didn’t want her to, so I had to force her to be civil, if a little defensive and wary.

I didn’t want to do my words today. This is generally the time when I tend to put aside works in progress. It’s a struggle to get to double figures and then it’s a struggle to get past 10K.

Out of the four works in progress I have aside from NaNoNovel2011, I have 11K, 10K, 7K and 3K. And from what I remember last year, it was hard to drag my ass past that 10K barrier.

So my resolve for tomorrow is add conflict conflict conflict! I write good conflict. Luckily for me, that’s exactly what comes next according to my plan. Today was a slower scene and my god, was it hard to write.

NaNoWriMo Day 3: The Issue Of Race

My first novel, The Edge of Darkness, had a heroine of Filipino descent. She was the daughter of immigrants to Australia. I’m hyper aware of the issue of race. In my writing, the race issue if often softened because above being Filipino, Max was Australian. Australia is a very diverse country. At least 20% of the population are second generation immigrants and at least 25% of Australian residents are born overseas.

In NaNoNovel 2011 (still untitled as yet) my heroine is white. I can’t do anything to change that, and quite frankly I don’t want to. I’m happy with her being white. I’m not trying to change the world by having a white girl write every book with a lead from a different race. But I’m not happy with my entire book being filled with white characters, expecially in a culture as diverse as Australia.

So I made one of the hot love interest guys Polynesian (because oh my gosh have you seen Polynesian hotties? I love my Englishman but still). I wanted the guy that ended up winning Tina to be a skinny ginger nerd (because a skinny ginger nerd dating a Goth girl who could kill him with her pinky? Totally awesome). But I couldn’t reconcile the fact that the Polynesian guy (Lachlan) was going to come off second best to a white guy (Connor) while trying to win the affection of a white girl.

Sure, I’m more than capable of writing Lachlan as a decent guy but quite frankly, he’s not. He’s modelled on the Edward/Patch/Daniels of the world. I didn’t want the hot guy to win against the nerd. I wanted the nerd to win because quite frankly, nerds are hot. And nerds deserve more of a voice in young adult literature.

I couldn’t bring a reconcilliation into the whole white-girl-chooses-white-guy-over-racial-minority no matter how humanely I portray Lachlan. Even if I don’t focus on his race (they’re all Australian) there’s always going to be at least one person screaming RACIST at me.

So Connor the ginger nerd has been demoted and Tina’s love interest is now someone else. Someone of another racial minority. Someone whom her parents would kill if they found out she was dating.

Why?

Because he’s a demon.

NaNoWriMo Day 2: Strange Subconcious

After achieving my word count yesterday hubs and I had cuddles while watching Heroes and Firefly. I wanted to do some more writing but as hubs is fond of saying, there’s a fine line between cuddling someone and holding them down so they can’t escape. So I gave up on writing anything more yesterday (I’d already done the bare minimum) and enjoyed my cuddles.

Then last night I dreamed about my NaNoNovel.

It wasn’t completely accurate – there were skeletons trying to break into the house I used to live in before I moved to England. All my ‘safe at home’ dreams take place there, despite the fact that I haven’t lived there in well over two years now, but it was the house I grew up in. The skeletons were like the stone weeping angels from Doctor Who: they only moved when you weren’t looking at them. Luckily for me, they also moved very slowly, on account of only being bones. And there was some guy playing the role of the big bad, even though I’ve planned all my antagonists to be female in this novel. In the dream, I was playing the role of Tina (even though she’s nothing like me) and I wasn’t particularly frightened of the skeletons.

It makes me wonder if I should add scary weeping angel-like skeletons to my novel.

I can’t even add a gif because the Doctor Who stone angels legitimately scare me.

ANYWAY. It’s Day Two today and I managed to not only give an awesome example of what happens in Tina’s day-to-day life (including getting punched in the face, which, IMO, is a very strong opening), but also set up the beginning of the inciting incident.

NaNoWriMo Begins! The Soundtrack Edition

nanowrimoHey kittens.

Today marks the beginning of NaNoWriMo 2011 and as such, I’m sharing my playlist for the month.

Normally when I write, I can only listen to instrumental music, and it has to be something relatively new so I don’t recognise melodies and get distracted by the familiarity and start singing along. Which has been known to happen. Songs I know just distract me. So while I do have more music that just this, this is the playlist that is most unfamiliar to me.

  • Escala (self-titled string quartet)
  • Wild: Time (string, piano band)
  • The Planets: Classical Graffiti (classical instrumental band)
  • Secret Garden: Dawn of a New Century
  • Secret Garden: Dreamcatcher
  • Secret Garden: Earthsongs
  • Secret Garden: Once in a Red Moon
  • Secret Garden: Songs from a Secret Garden
  • Secret Garden: White Stones
  • Murray Gold: Doctor Who Season 1
  • The BBC National Orchestra of Wales: Doctor Who Season 3
  • Murray Gold & The BBC National Orchestra of Wales: Doctor Who Season 5
  • Danny Elfman: Wanted film score
  • David Hirschfelder: Legend of the Guardians film score
  • The Red Dead Redemption Original Soundtrack (video game)
  • Klaus Badelt: The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
  • Hans Zimmer: The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
  • Hans Zimmer: The Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
  • Alexandre Desplat: Twilight: New Moon (The Score, not the soundtrack)
  • Mozart’s Requiem
  • The Best Classical Album In The World… Ever! (that is the actual name)
  • Two classical compilations I’ve had since I was a teenager: Swooning and Rapture.

Also included are some random instrumental versions of songs by classical crossover artists, for distracting me when I need a break.

It’s 473 songs, 1 day’s worth according to my Ipod, and 2.88 GB of music.

I think I’m prepared.