Don't think, just write!

If you are so inclined, head on over to Dreaming in Red, where I have contributed a guest blog on something important I've learned about process through doing NaNoWriMo :)

(Over 26,000 words at last count, by the way. Proper update after the post-Thanksgiving food coma wears off.)

NaNo NaNo

Yes, I'm doing the NaNoWriMo thing again. As I type this, I am over 7,300 words into NaNo '09 -- a follow-up to NaNo '08, in which one of that book's sidekicks takes center stage in her own adventure. This one has a very heavy musical influence... it's named after the song that inspired the protagonist's hairstyle*, the characters are in a band, and I'm having the most fun devising ways of working lyrical references and jokes into the story. This on top of the fact that it's about a band, so of course they're going to get into an argument over who they'd rather be, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.**

So far, I'm still in the building-up-to-the-big-adventure part, and taking my time to write my way into the story. I did this with NaNo '08 as well, rather than jumping straight into the action/sending in the pirates and ninjas; while probably half of those scenes were cut in my first revision, spending that time figuring out who the characters are and how they interact with each other was invaluable. This time around, I have a lot more characters with significant "screen time", so there are all sorts of animosities and alliances and past histories to figure out. These are turning out to be really fun characters to spend time with, so I'm excited to do more with them... and hope that that will help me push past the inevitable roadblocks that come along with writing a story that hasn't been heavily outlined. NaNo '08 had been a long time coming, but this one is maybe six months old... I'm sure it has a bumpy road to travel before it grows up into a nice shiny finished book, but I'm looking forward to the journey.

* "your purple hair looks good, I wanna comb out all the knots" - The Deathray Davies "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower"

** Metric, "Gimme Sympathy"