I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year, which feels very strange indeed. I’ve delved into the passionate obsessive NaNo mindset with such glee in previous years, even when deadlines and other commitments have made it tricky for me.

There will be writing, have no fear of that. But as I discovered back when I was working on this particular novel-in-progress for the Clarion Write-a-thon, this particular project (yes, still the steampunk YA) is not one that benefits from being written fast. I could do something completely new for NaNo, of course, but that would mean giving up on the hope that I could finish my novel this year.

There are a bunch of other excuses of course, such as GENRECON! and one of my twice yearly “fortnights of gainful employment” at the university, but those things wouldn’t actually matter if I was in a writing-my-fingers-off frame of mind. And I’m not. This has been a year of stopping and starting, of career decisions, and of taking every weird and wonderful opportunity tossed my way, regardless of what my plans were before. Some of this will come to naught, and some may change my life. Eventually.

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So I finished Nanowrimo and ‘won’ in that I completed 50,000 words of novel this month (though I think it doesn’t technically count as a win because I wrote them on two different novels, too bad, I’m counting it). I didn’t do much ELSE this month, of course, but I also was glad to feel that I didn’t completely neglect my house, children, reading obligations, etc. It’s almost like I’m getting the hang of this novel thing. Only the first week was teeth-grindingly hard.

Which of course has made me raise the bar of expectations as to how many words I can put on the plate when I am officially writing a novel – the old 1000 words 5 times a week is starting to look somewhat shabby. Still… no use thinking about that now, I have months and months before I can be actively writing new words every day again. Though the collaborative novel I am writing with the magnificent Kate will continue on and off over the next month or two I guess… at least I get whole days when I am not actively supposed to be working on it!

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We discussed this excellent post by Tobias Buckell: Self Publishing Doesn’t Mean you have to be a Raging Fuck Wad on the recent episode of Galactic Suburbia. I also wanted to link to this great post about political correctness, which responds to some of the same people and issues.

The thing I forgot to add to our running sheet for Galactic Suburbia was the surprise sale of Angus and Robertson in Australia – bookshops, coming back!

The important discussion of how trolling online (which can be far more vicious, threatening and fearmaking than many people believe) affects female bloggers has not only gone viral, it’s gone mainstream, with open discussion on the topic happening in newspaper columns as well as independently. About damn time.

The Nanowrimo thing continues apace, and some of my favourite recent supportive posts on the topic have been by Jim C Hines (see how defly he ducks and weaves to avoid being one of those professional writers who starts out trying to explain politely why Nano isn’t for them and ends up sounding all judgy and patronising about it) and Auntie MJ who is joyful and bouncy as ever.

This take on the recent Steampunky Goodness Three Musketeers movie by Karen Healey is my favourite movie review since Sarah Rees Brennan wrote about Troy. It spoils everything to bits but is so worth it.

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16316 / 50000 words. 33% done!

So I think I can blog about my current WIP again because I’ve started liking it, which after a week of near-torture is something of a relief!

My main problem at the moment is that I am writing a story set in the Verona of Romeo & Juliet (well, not entirely THAT Verona what with the tropical islands and the necromancy) and the only way to add magic and logic and possibly the occasional steam-powered robot (oops) to Shakespeare is to make sure that the canon itself works hard in the story. And there are only three canon facts about my heroine Rosaline, apart from the whole thing about Romeo being in love with her before Juliet: 1) her complexion was pale 2) she was determinedly chaste and 3) her sister’s name is Livia.

All of these things have given me a massive headache, at one time or another. But if I chuck them out, why bother calling my heroine Rosaline at all? So I’ve had to address them in my story, and in the building of the character. The only problem is that now her sister wants to be a point of view character and she’s a stitch away from becoming joint protagonist, and I can’t, I simply can’t have a protagonist called Livia. Quite apart from the fact that I’ve written three different fictional Livillas in the last two years (OK two of them were historical figures but still) I still live in hope that some day I will write the Great Livia Drusilla novel of all time, and how can I possibly do that if I already have another fictional Livia inside my head?

So I have to screw with canon. Which bugs the hell out of me. Because, you know. I want to be true to the play. Apart from all the liberties I already planned to take.

So she’s going to have to be Olivia, or Livian, or Liliane. Or something.

Damn you, canon!

3750 / 50000 words. 8% done!

I was just looking back over old posts, and wow I did a LOT of blogging last time I did Nanowrimo, in the grand old days of 2009. Not sure I’ll be keeping that up this year. I’m already juggling two different books!

Writing something new is scaryfun, though.

Some Nano links:

Scott Westerfeld linked to a series of posts he and Justince Larbalestier did a few years back, one for each day of Nanowrimo. Some wonderful, clever tips there, with such enticing titles as “Emergency Unstucking Techniques,” “Stealing from Chandler” and “Square Brackets”.

Ah, square brackets, what would we do without you?

Natalie Zutter at Tor.com looks at some of the Nano books that have actually got published – I commented there, but it got eaten. I had to stop and check what my previous Nano novels were, to see if I’d had any published – and I haven’t yet, I will in February! Yes, the first 50,000 words of Reign of Beasts was written in the 2010 Nano! I had completely forgotten that.

Meanwhile, Maureen Johnson is embracing the title of Nanowrimo Agony Aunt. Her blog is always fun to read but gets particularly manic at this time of year. If you have any questions about Nanowrimo, or life and the universe in general, I recommend you head over there and see what Aunty MJ has to say.

The new episode is up! Head over here to check it out.

EPISODE 45

In which Alex and Tansy wax lyrical about Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing (despite knowing next to nothing about it), welcome the new Apex overlord Lynne Thomas, celebrate the twin dawns of All Hallows Read and Nanowrimo, and embark upon an epic marathon of Culture Consumed.

News

Joss Whedon makes Much Ado About Nothing in secret
at first we knew next to nothing
then we knew something
and every new bit of something brings squeeage!

Harry Potter DVDs to disappear from the shelves after Christmas (and Tansy’s still not over the whole Disney revelation)

Lynne Thomas’ first issue of Apex comes out next week featuring an article by Tansy on The Australian Dark Weird.
As the new editor, Lynne talks about what she wants from authors at Outer Alliance

The lack of (paid) women reviewers (in the lit scene) continues to dismay and fascinate us in equal measure.

All Hallows Read is upon us
And if you’re going to gift a scary book to someone, why not make it Australian?

Nanowrimo is imminent!

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Tansy: Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
Alex: Life on Mars S2
Tansy: Bumped by Megan McCafferty
Alex: Obernewtyn, The Farseekers, and Ashling, by Isobelle Carmody
Tansy: Debris by Jo Anderton
Alex: God’s War, Kameron Hurley
Tansy: Marvel’s Ultimate Universe: Ultimate Spiderman, Ultimate X-Men, The Ultimates
Alex: Shadow Unit
Tansy: Big Finish and Mary Shelley: Mary’s Story (for 99p) & The Silver Turk.

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

So we have… eight days to go! I’m getting so excited about this year’s Nano. I have a new book to start FROM SCRATCH (newbooknewbooknewbook) – Fury was a new book, but it came out of Siren Beat, and came with the baggage and negatives of writing a sequel without the benefits.

But this one is newwwwwww and even though I first got the spark about it a year or more ago (possibly two? I think Iz was badgering me to write it for Nano last year) I have not let myself write any of it down.

What I love about new new new new new book is that it’s a challenge in so many interesting ways – it contains stuff I’ve never done before, and a few aspects of it terrify me. But in many ways I think it will make a better follow up to Creature Court than Nancy Napoleon – it’s not the same kind of book in any real sense, but it has a few tonal aspects in common. It can certainly be described as dark fantasy rather than urban fantasy, and I can see it being marketed in the same sort of way.

BUT OMG SO DIFFERENT, HOORAY!

The other nice thing, once I have wrapped my head around the idea that I’m starting a new novel in just over a week, is that I feel like I can start blogging about writing again. There’s something about the middle and second half of a novel where it’s hard to think of anything to talk about – without massively spoilering everyone for a book that isn’t even contracted yet. I mean, do you want to know that Nancy is decapitated in the second last chapter?* No, you do not.

*This doesn’t happen. Unless workshopping it takes the book in a radically different direction…

So I imagine I’ll be talking a lot about writing. This happens when I nano.

Plus, did I mention?

NEW BOOK NEW BOOK NEW BOOK.

If you are Nanoing this year, you can find my profile at tansyrr.

This one is small but elegant – which is unsurprising as it’s my second links post this week!

N.K. Jemisin wrote a very cool post about women’s roles in fantasy and the problematic nature of judging the strength and value of female characters by masculine standards – the conversation in the comments is interesting, as so many people jump in to talk about domestic skills and values in fantasy, and why giving a woman a sword isn’t the only way to make her a “strong” character.

Also, I’m on the fence about Google+ and expect to continue so until too many friends of mine are in there for me to ignore it any longer (was I not right about Google Buzz? Thankyew and goodnight) but this post by Mary Robinette Kowal about constructing writing dates & writer gatherings in Google+ makes me think I’m going to have to get my arse in there before this year’s Nanowrimo.

Meanwhile, over at Twelfth Planet Press, Alisa has revealed the gorgeous cover of the new Twelve Planets collection by Lucy Sussex, and info to tantalise you about this book from one of Australia’s veteran science fiction & fantasy writers. Alisa also revealed the titles this week of the next season of TPs, by Deborah Biancotti, Narrelle Harris and Kaaron Warren… and what titles they are!

But you know, when it comes down to it, the most awesome thing about this week was Noni Hazlehurst reading modern classic picture book, Go The Fuck to Sleep. Text Publishing hit on a genius method of publicising the fact that they are the Australian publishers of this instant classic for exhausted parents everywhere. Noni is a goddess as well as a national icon, and her performance of the book, including traditional Play School commentary & asides to the viewer, and a deeply authentic ‘going downhill rapidly’ emotional journey, is note-perfect.

The glee on Twitter as Noni’s reading was announced (you can keep your Samuel L Jackson, Americans!), the outrage as YouTube canned the video for offensive conduct (you know where you can go, YouTube…) and the joy as the video was re-released on other platforms… honestly, this is the most patriotic joy I think most Aussies have felt in years.

Go the Fuck to Sleep – read by Noni Hazlehurst from sswam on Vimeo.

As usual in November, the interwebs have been alight with Nanowrimo themed posts – from bitchery, eyerolling and sideswipes to unadulterated glee, professional encouragement and cheersquaddery, plus, you know, a LOT of wordcount widgets.

It does make me sad how many people are willing to criticise Nanowrimo without actually having taken part – when it comes down to it, apart from the poor agents who quite UNDERSTANDABLY get twitchy at the thought of all those half baked 50K mss being emailed to them on December 1st, no one is getting hurt here. It’s a fun group event – some people turn it into professional development, others are in it with a hobbyist mentality, and some are just plain typing with no other purpose in sight.

When I teach creative writing, like the Write Your Fantasy Novel course I taught last Saturday, I always try to emphasise the importance of figuring out what writing advice/work methods work for you. Figuring out how you can most effectively write the best book you can is the most useful thing you can do as a writer – and sometimes the easiest way to do it is just Try Everything and see what sticks to the ceiling. Nanowrimo is a great way to test out all kind of writing advice and techniques – and to figure out if you’re the kind of writer who can work under that kind of frantic deadline, or not.

Believe me, if you want to write professionally, you need to know how well you handle deadlines.

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It’s now less than a week until the end of the month, which is a little scary for me as that’s when my book is due in. But that also means it’s less than a week until NaNoWriMo starts! As good a time as any to link to the post I wrote last year about The Myths of NaNoWriMo that are regularly perpetuated by writers who haven’t actually tried it…

I adore Nano. I love everything about it. I love the frantic pace of writing, the PRESSURE, the word wars, the playlists, the self-imposed deadline to end all self-imposed deadlines, the creativity, the pressure. I love making writing dates with my friends, those who write all year round (and I never get a chance to see otherwise) and those who only clock in with the writing thing at this time of year. I love carting my big fluffy monster laptop bag around to cafe after cafe and living room after living room and playing Lily Allen through my headphones on an endless loop because damn it that woman makes me write faster.

Last year, I wrote with a three month old baby on my lap. It was challenging, to say the least, but it was also an amazing step in proving to myself that I could juggle new motherhood and writing.

This year, the buzz is starting, and we’ve managed to lure new flies into the web (HEY MILLIE) which is super exciting. But… I won’t be old schooling it this year. It was a big admission for me to make to myself, that the full NaNoWriMo was not on the cards for me this time around. I’m looking at finishing the most intense book project I’ve ever worked on this Sunday, and even I am not crazy enough to launch into a 50K marathon the day after. A mad riot of new bookery is tempting, but it could burn me out for months. I’ve been swamped in deadlines all year, and this is finally a chance for me to breathe and catch up on other things. Including, um, some rather major copy edits for Book Two, which my editor was nice enough to postpone a few weeks to let me get the much-interrupted Book Three finally done.

On the other hand, it’s FREAKING NANO and there’s no way I want to be left out. Plus, I don’t want to miss the chance to harness the magical November vibe and get some serious work done before summer holidays hit me and I’m back to full time mummying. So…

I’m making a list and checking it twice. Instead of one big 50K project, I’m going to put several smaller projects together, covering different areas in my life that have been crying out for some serious attention. Call it the Month of Manic Multitaking Mama – MoMaMuMa! Heh okay, maybe we won’t give it a special name. But here’s my November plan:

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