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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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!

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.

I had an amazing visit to the local Maritime Museum today, under the guidance of the most excellent Liz. Raeli and Jem had a brilliant time exploring the museum itself, which combined display and video material with some fabulous tactile exhibits such as wheels to spin, enormous brass bells to ring, and the hull of a ship for small people to hide inside (possibly this was not actually there for that purpose).

After stocking up on loot from the shop (an activity book and pirate craft project for Raeli, a pirate slinky for Jem, a book about female crewed ships for me) we were taken upstairs to view the sekrit stuff, namely the archive and private library, plus the many staff. I have to say this is the first time I have used writer credentials to get behind the red velvet curtain of anywhere! The girls were well behaved for a good 10-15 minutes as Liz showed me some of their digitised images and shared some gems about the history of the Derwent river. I already have extra Nancy ideas bubbling away, and plan to go back for more visits when not encumbered with two children with a patience time limit (well, the toddler, anyway. Raeli was a jewel the whole time, and charmingly fascinated with the place).

I’m almost at the end of the draft of the first Nancy novel, and while I’m very pleased with the writing and most importantly the scene-by-scene structure, it’s not ready yet. Now that I know which time periods are going to be relevant to the story, I need to do a lot more research on what Hobart was like in those specific times, and figure out for myself what Nancy and Sylvie Napoleon were doing during those specific years.

But there’s the other thing I need to do as well, which sadly no amount of historical books and visits to museums are going to help me with (unless of course they do). I need to find my words.

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Some extra lovely news today – that I can finally reveal, in any case! I was selected as one of the winners of the “Never Too Late… To Learn To Read” competition which is kicking off Adult Learning Week, and launching 2012 as the National Year of Reading.

If you follow the link, you can see the whole list of winners (twelve previously published writers and eight previously unpublished), and download the winning stories. They will also be available as podcasts at a later date. There’s a write up about the three Tasmanians who won prizes here.

In a moment of rare Being A Writer In Public this evening, I ditched the kids at my honey’s office and zoomed down to the office of the Hobart Mercury, to meet the other Tassie winners, Philomena and Mark, and have some pics taken for (I think) tomorrow’s paper. It was faintly surreal, as I had to negotiate a mostly locked and security sealed building, only to be thrust physically against two complete strangers, and hold each other in a disturbingly intimate embrace for several minutes, before going our separate ways. We feel a little bonded now, like those people who get trapped together during earthquakes and have an emotional connection for the rest of our life.

By the end of it we were all giggling hysterically, as the photographer lined us up at stranger and stranger angles. The funniest part was his bemusement when he asked for the book and we told him there wasn’t one (knew I should have taken some books in!) because it was a short story competition. He racked his brain for about five seconds to consider whether there was some other possible visual representation of a short story competition, then handed us a book about football, which we had to contemplate with great attention.

Only to realise as we finally broke free of our mutual artificial and ever-so-slightly-diagonal embrace to discover that the cover of said book was upside down. Really hope that doesn’t come up in the pictures!

My story, in any case, is called “Taking Leaves,” and as Tehani pointed out on Twitter, it’s totally a speculative fiction story. Literature, schmiterature! You can download it here.

[and just in case you thought I was going to write a whole blog entry without mentioning Doctor Who, this is the story which I was so busy trying to finish before the 5pm contest deadline that I let my six-year-old watch the episode "Doomsday" unsupervised, only to discover with ten minutes left to go before the deadline that she was in ABSOLUTE FLOODS OF TEARS because of the separation between Rose and the Doctor. One of those moments in life where being a good writer entails being a bad mummy. When I discovered I had won the competition, I must admit I felt at least partly relieved that, you know, it was worth it. I probably won't mention to her yet that my current intentions for the money are to fund a solo trip to World Fantasy Convention next year...]

I got to see the last Harry Potter film last weekend and loved it to bits – it reminded me why I liked the books so much originally, and even redeemed some of the bits I didn’t like about the final book. They conveyed far more sweetness & believability to the Remus/Tonks relationship by cutting out most of what was in the book & sticking with a couple of symbolic shots, and the epilogue actually worked as a visual scene far better than in prose.

But really I did that thing I always do when I go to the cinema – I sat there, let the images wash over me, and thought about writing. The big screen always does that to me – we spend a fortune on tickets and then I spend half the time plotting & replotting my own stories. My brain is particularly directed towards technique at the moment because of the stage I’m at drafting Fury, and HP7.2 really helped me by reminding me of the one writing technique that Rowling does better than almost any other writer: worldbuilding as plot.

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I’ve come to the end of my Clarion write-a-thon challenge, and I’m very happy with my results. I didn’t make my revised goal of 40,000 words for the 6 weeks – but I got 37000 which is more than respectable, and 7000 more than my original goal. The entire book is up to 57K now, so hooray, more than halfway! I raised a little money for Clarion, but the really exciting thing for me was getting my writing momentum back after a bit of a slump at the beginning of the year.

It’s quite fitting that I got to spend the day doing writerly things – including going to a local book launch & hanging out afterwards with writing friends Tania Walker, Sarah Brabazon & Elizabeth Carroll. It was exactly what I wanted from going to a random book event like that – one of my current aims is to devote more time and energy to being part of the local writing community, rather than putting all my eggs in the online basket, and this afternoon was a great reminder of the payoff that comes from spending time with writer friends in person.

Ridiculously excited about Nanowrimo this year. Even though it’s a whole book away, it’s zooming towards us at a rate of knots.

5 weeks down, one to go! I’m well in advance of my goal for this six weekly period, averaging 6-7000 words a week, from writing 5 days a week. More importantly, I’ve got the momentum I need to finish my book, and it’s been going really well! I’ve found a weekly (and daily) routine that works for me, the right balance of getting words one, and giving myself thinking time between writing bouts, to sort out the plot and structure of the novel.

I’ve moved the goalposts a little, in the hopes of giving myself an extra kick this week. I might not quite make 40,000 in the six weeks, but I really want to try.

I’m also inspired enough that I am planning my Nano novel already! If I can do 1000 words a day this comfortably, surely I can do the 1700 necessary to produce a writing total of 50K in a month… right? Right?

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If you would like to encourage me over the next six weeks as I retrain myself as a writer and write 30K of my new novel, you can sponsor me at the Clarion Write-a-Thon. No amount too small, all funds raised go towards supporting the Clarion writer’s workshop. I also accept encouraging comments, attagirls and anecdotes about your own times of writerfail and writerwin. It’s the last week! Eeee.

I forgot to do my summary post last week, probably because I was so busy writing! I wrote over 7000 words, which was like a sun coming out from behind a cloud. I am so in love with my novel right now, and the trick is to write as fast as I possibly can while I’m in this mode – lay down the words while I’m feeling the love!

This week I made it over 6000 words. Even then, knowing how well I had done the last fortnight, when it came to forming the above word meter (removing the 20K I started with before the Write-a-thon began) I stared at the maths blankly, not quite able to accept that I was nearly a week ahead of my goal.

Because, hell yes, that’s the key to this kind of challenge. Define your terms, and make the goals achievable. I find that it’s important to give myself a minimum daily word count, and not to allow any extra words to count the next day. In other words, just because I’ve actually written 1250 words a day for the first 4 days, doesn’t mean I get the fifth day off. The only exception I have made for this is when I absolutely know my Sunday (the first day of my working week under this system) is going to be packed, in which case I have written a ‘fake Sunday’ worth of words the Saturday before. I have to do that this weekend, too.

The benefit of not allowing those extra little words to count towards future word count – by saying my goal is 1000 x 5 a week x 6 weeks as well as 30,000 words – is that those little scrappy extra bits add up, and before you know it, I’m ahead of the game. In 4 short weeks, I am 5/6 of the way to my goal for this Write-a-thon, but that doesn’t mean I’m taking a holiday once I hit 30K next week, as I am now certain I will.

So yes, I’m feeling rather pleased with myself right now. I’m liking this current schedule of 1000 words 5 days a week, Sun-Thurs, so much that I am planning to continue it even after the Write-a-thon is done. I’ve also given myself a deadline of finishing the first draft of the novel before Torchwood: Miracle Day ends, which is nine episodes (eight weeks) from now. Discipline, how I have missed you!

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If you would like to encourage me over the next six weeks as I retrain myself as a writer and write 30K of my new novel, you can sponsor me at the Clarion Write-a-Thon. No amount too small, all funds raised go towards supporting the Clarion writer’s workshop. I also accept encouraging comments, attagirls and anecdotes about your own times of writerfail and writerwin.

It’s embarrassing how easily the writing routine has settled comfortably into my brain, and my life. I could have been recovering my discipline months ago. Already my 20,000 manuscript has leapt ahead to be a 30,000 word manuscript and I am very confident that it will, by the end of this six week challenge, be a 50,000 word manuscript.

Not only has the writing been going really well, but the synapses have been firing, and I’m starting to gear up for the book I’m going to start writing in November, once Nancy is done and dusted. How awesome is that?

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If you would like to encourage me over the next six weeks as I retrain myself as a writer and write 30K of my new novel, you can sponsor me at the Clarion Write-a-Thon. No amount too small, all funds raised go towards supporting the Clarion writer’s workshop. I also accept encouraging comments, attagirls and anecdotes about your own times of writerfail and writerwin.