04/27/13

A Rebel in Camp NaNoWriMo

I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo twice. And I played by the original rules—a new story, told from the beginning, typos and gaping plot holes be damned as, for the first time, I wrote directly into the computer, eschewing my preferred method of fountain pen and paper. I vowed never to lose, and wrote reams of rambling to help me develop the story. Characters interviewed each other to discover their motivations. Sparks of ideas turned into random scenes, parsed out into their own section in Scrivener, to be moved into their proper place in a future draft. I soared past the 50,000-word mark each time.

So when I signed up for April’s Camp NaNoWriMo, I figured this would be a piece of cake (pardon the cliché, a deadly writers’ faux pas, I know), especially since word counts were customizable. I set a nice, low bar of 15,000. And here I am, it’s April 27, and I have just 10,646 words. I don’t think I’ll manage much more by the April 30 deadline.

It’s more than the intense schedule bearing down on me this week. If there was ever a time to embrace my inner Viking warrior, it is now. But there are several factors at play here, and I’m content with walking away, not having met my goal.

I decided to join the rebels. Rebels don’t start an original story from the beginning. They work on revisions and a variety of other projects. Rebels have their own threads on the NaNoWriMo forums, ad are welcomed by the people who run the program.

It felt good to be a rebel this time. I pulled the manuscript from November, started over, and am slowly working on the draft. When working on the first draft, speeding through the writing process felt liberating. I wasn’t toiling over sentences and I focused on building the scaffolding of the novel. Some great scenes came up in moments of inspiration that may not have come up if I had been laboring and toiling and agonizing over just the right way to phrase a sentence.

The second draft is a more thoughtful process. The second draft strings together the rescued bits from the first. From the scaffolding, I’m building something much more detailed and complete. It won’t be ready to go to an editor at the end of the second draft, but I’m sharing it with other writers on Scribophile and revising as I go. The story requires a lot of worldbuilding. As one of my writing instructors has often said, you learn the whole writing process over again with each novel.

As Camp NaNo says on their site, “an idyllic writers retreat, smack dab in the middle of your crazy life.” This month was far from idyllic, but crazy is a spot-on description. As I turn to the editing the story which will be published later this year, I walk away from this experience happy that I made at least a little time for Camp NaNoWriMo. A rebel in two senses: working on a revision, and feeling satisfied enough not having met my super low word count? Maybe so. I’ll be joining them again in July, to be sure, and once again, I’ll be in the rebel camp, continuing the second draft. Maybe I’ll see you there.

03/24/13

Announcements

Well, I didn’t expect a month to go by between blog posts. The two jobs have been moving along at a hectic pace. My writing life has been preoccupied with some big news: And now finally, the big reveal.

I recently signed with Grit City Publications, the makers of Emotobooks. They specialize in short and serial fiction and the stories are illustrated with expressionistic art. The name of the story is Captured Possessions, and grew out of research I did while working on Dark Lady of Doona. During the war between Spain and England in 1588, one of the armada’s ships was captured by Sir Francis Drake. The prisoners worked on an English estate until their release was negotiated. Among the prisoners, it is said, was a woman who disguised herself as a man so that she could travel with her lover into war. It is believed she haunts the place where she was held, now called Torre Abbey. This is her story. We’re in the very early stages of production, but the story is expected to be released later this year. They’ve posted an announcement here. Do check them out. They have a great range of stories, and as a fan, I’m thrilled to be welcomed into the Grit City community as one of their authors.

On April 12, I’m participating in a panel discussion called “Paths to Publishing,” hosted by the Harvard Extension Alumni Association. Plans for this have been in the works for quite a while, and I’m happy to see it come to fruition. The event will be webcast live, and I will provide a link as soon as it’s available. In the meantime, though, for Boston-area folks, the registration page can be found here. Joining me as moderator will be Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Harding, who was my workshop instructor while I worked on my master’s at the Extension School. The other authors are journalist and historian Linda Kush, ALB ’05 (The Rice Paddy Navy: U.S. Sailors Undercover in China), historical fiction writer James Redfearn, ALM ’02 (The Rising at Roxbury Crossing), and journalist Paul Reid, ALB ’90 (The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965).

Both of these opportunities have been a fantastic way to kick off the post-Mayan Apocalypse that never happened. I knew 2013 was going to be special, and with an upcoming wedding and hopes to move into a larger space better suited to me and my husband, it just keeps getting better.

In the meantime, we’re in the lead-up to Camp NaNoWriMo, April edition. Thankfully, the organizers now allow adjustable word counts, so I don’t have to commit to 50,000 words while in the midst of preparing Captured Possessions, organizing and participating in the panel, and working on a new novel (just reached chapter three!). I’m actually joining the rebel contingent for Camp NaNoWriMo and will be focusing on the novel already in progress, which also happens to be the one I worked on in November. Only I pretty much scrapped the November version and am starting from scratch again. Oh, and working those two jobs I have. It might be my busiest year, but so far, it’s also one of the best ever. A big thank you to everyone who helped me get here.

12/9/12

Siduri’s Pinot Noir

“Beside the sea she lives,
the woman of the vine, the maker of wine;
Siduri sits in the garden at the edge of the sea,
with the golden bowl and the golden vats that the gods gave her.
She is covered with a veil;
And where she sits she sees Gilgamesh coming towards her,
wearing skins,
the flesh of the gods in his body,
but despair in his heart,
and his face like the face of one who has made a long journey.”
—Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet X

I’ve been fascinated with Sumerian history for as long as I can remember. As a lonely kid in a central Massachusetts town, I spent countless hours in the old brick library—a beautiful Victorian-era building that, at the time, felt like a castle to me. Not one to sit at the open tables, I’d often huddle in perfect little alcoves, taking pages and pages of notes about whatever era of history I was interested in at the time. Same as now, it was with the intention of writing stories. No matter how many places or periods of history I’ve studied, I keep coming back to Mesopotamia.

In 1994, I began a novel I then called “Her Raven Domain,” now the name of my imprint/production company. Sumerian imagery and mythology was prevalent, but I shied away from really delving into the true theme of the novel. The immediate purpose of the story was to keep the memory of my brother alive. He had died in an accident, and writing was the only way I could manage my grief. The draft languished after about four hundred pages of directionless exposition. Discouraged, I put it away, determined that when I was ready, I would return to it.

At the time, I lived with one of my closest friends in an apartment—it was our first place away from home. I worked at a homebrew shop; she worked at a record label (later we switched jobs, and she went to the brewer and I went to the record label–the ironic and itinerant youth we were!). Our style was eclectic, to say the least. It was a blend of Goth, punk, and random artfulness. Poetry, paintings, music, and various forms of spontaneous creativity by us and our friends littered the place. Almost every night, we gathered in the living room and indulged our inner Muses as we listened to music or watched movies. As I worked on “Her Raven Domain,” a bottle of pinot noir sat on the table in the center of all the activity. The wine was thoroughly integrated into the novel. To read the story, you’d think pinot noir was the only drink available to the characters.

Fast forward to 2012. The novel, resurrected like a phoenix, became the focus of NaNoWriMo. This time, I delved into the worldbuilding necessary to create the Sumerian atmosphere I wanted. This time, there was no pinot noir. I abandoned the anachronism. However, the Universe smiled wryly and provided me with a treat. While shopping for dinner, I came across a bottle of wine from Siduri Wines. Well, I’m writing a novel about Sumer, so it’s only fitting I pay tribute with this bottle, right? I had to laugh as I saw the kind of wine: pinot noir. How ironic, Universe, very clever. So I bought the wine, saved it for the end of NaNoWriMo, and shared it with a writer-friend who also survived the month of intense writing.

Worthy of Gilgamesh himself!

It was one of the best wines I’ve ever had. A fitting tribute to the origin of the story as it transforms into a real novel.

“Gilgamesh, the son of Ninsun, lies in the tomb.
At the place of offerings he weighed the bread-offering,
at the place of libation he poured out the wine.
In those days the lord Gilgamesh departed,
the son of Ninsun,
the king,
peerless, without an equal among men,
who did not neglect Enlil his master.
O Gilgamesh, lord of Kullab,
Great is thy praise.”

12/2/12

Worldbuilding in Scrivener

On November 25, I uploaded my NaNoWriMo project to their website. The final word count was 57, 068. Of course, the word count widget doesn’t calculate for upload date, so according to the progress chart, I did “monumentally badly” (their words) on November 26-30. That’s because I was celebrating my victory.

My NaNoWriMo report card

I’ve been thinking about this story since 1994. It feels great to finally have it down in writing. This was also my first chance to write something other than historical fiction. Liberated from historical figures and real places, I finally delved into the full range of features offered by Scrivener because I needed to create a new sense of structure. For my second novel (scheduled for release in January!), I imported my research, but wasn’t really using the other features that make Scrivener an amazing game-changer for writers. I created one folder for each chapter, and one text file for each folder. I didn’t make annotations until I got into the revisions process with my editor. I didn’t use the index cards, document notes, or labels. While working on this novel in Scrivener wasn’t nearly as unwieldy as using Word for my first novel, I didn’t do myself any favors.

Then came NaNoWriMo 2012. I was no longer relying on a structured chapter outline with tons of notes. There was no master timeline to guide me. I had some research, but all of my notes were from an era of history I simply love to study. How they would fit into this draft was yet to be seen. This was my first attempt at “pantsing,” and in order to be able to make the most of the experience, I needed to learn more about Scrivener.

First, I finally woke up to the fact that having several text documents within each folder is essential, one for each individual scene. Freewriting meant I had no idea where a scene would actually end up—and I changed my mind—a lot. Ctrl+arrow key became crucial as I moved individual scenes up and down within each chapter, and to other chapters, depending on how the story unfolded. Then I began summarizing each scene using the index card feature. Random notes filled in document notes, so now, the right-hand column (the inspector, as they call it), was full of information I was sure to forget otherwise.

And yes, I was one of those kids who had handfuls of colored pencils and highlighters, each with a specific purpose. It obviously paved the way for my editing career, and now I can use the same concept in Scrivener. Colors represented chapters, individual scenes that were mostly worked out, and ideas which were not fully formed, but turned out to be long, expository scribblings about what will later develop into a scene.

The highly organized world of Scrivener

I especially love how the software integrates research. Within a text document, I linked to specific documents within the research folder. Having read dozens of books about this particular era of history, it was easy to forget where something came from. I also used the split-pane feature a lot, and had my research notes side by side with the novel as I wrote it. Inline annotations, much like the commenting feature in Word, helped me make a complete and cohesive work. This is especially important because I know there is a lot of dross in this draft that will be eliminated once I begin the revision. Now I don’t have to worry about losing ideas and notes.

All of these great features will obviously be important in the future novels I write using Scrivener. But for worldbuilding in speculative fiction, sci-fi, or fantasy, the software serves as a central portal where everything is right there. Kind of makes me wonder if Tolkien would have used it if he had the opportunity. So yet again, NaNoWriMo and Scrivener have changed my approach to writing, two years in a row. For a girl who has always preferred to write with a fountain pen, that’s pretty amazing.

11/23/12

Best-Laid Schemes of Writers and Muses

But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often awry.
— “To a Mouse” Robert Burns (1785)

Okay, so I overreached. I had a carefully thought out plan that would work anywhere except in this universe. One blog post each week throughout November to post about publishing-related events I recently attended, as well as posts about my progress in NaNoWriMo. Prepare second novel for publishing while participating in said NaNoWriMo, and put some work in a couple of other writing projects. Did I mention I have a full-time job fraught with big deadlines?

However—it’s all good. My NaNoWriMo project is blazing along, achieving more than 45,000 words by November 20. So I feel okay in taking a couple of days off to enjoy Thanksgiving at home and playing a bit (i.e., a lot) of Skyrim. Playing on my food in historical fiction series on this blog, I was going to do a medieval-style dinner for my first Thanksgiving holiday at home. It turned into a “medieval Spanish explorers come to the Americas” theme, with everything flavored with chipotles and bright citrus flavors. I’m about to delve into NaNoWriMo again for the next few days, and see how much I can write above the requisite 50,000 words. I think one of the reasons why this story’s been flowing so well is that it’s been in my head for the past twenty years. It’s a relief to finally be able to get it down.

So here’s the plan: After NaNoWriMo, I’m putting that story aside for at least a year. Work on a couple of smaller projects that have deadlines. Finalize Dark Lady of Doona and publish it by early January. Start a major revision of my third novel, which happened to be my first NaNo project in 2011. Go through edits and whatnot, and publish it by end of 2013.

This has been an exciting time—and there are some great things on the horizon. At a time when we are asked to give thanks, there are a lot of people on that list: all of the readers who bought my first novel, the wonderful community of authors, writers, beta readers, and editors I’ve met online, and the friends and family who have been so supportive as I pursue my dream. Thank you for helping me along the path.

10/7/12

NaNoWriMo: Plot It or Pants It?

A view from my writing space

It’s my favorite time of year. The maple leaves turn brilliant colors and the air is cool. It’s another beautiful fall in New England, and there is an essence to the season that feels mystical to me. The Muse always seems to be present. And it’s a good thing, too, because fall happens to be when National Novel Writing Month occurs.

I was reluctant to participate in the past because I felt there was no way to make time for it. Last year, I was convinced to make a go of it after some encouragement on various social media channels. Despite working two jobs full of deadlines, I succeeded and became hooked on the NaNoWriMo experience. I spent months trying to decide which story to focus on for 2012. It all boiled down to one burning question: plan or pants?

It’s a common discussion among the myriad writers’ groups I’m affiliated with. “Pantsing,” though the term may conjure images of humiliating junior high pranks to some, actually refers to “flying by the seat of your pants” in writing. Maybe just a few notes or an outline, but more likely, you just sit down and write. I’ve always been the opposite. I plan for months, even years, for some stories. I read dozens of history books and take meticulous notes. I then create a master timeline to compile all the important events and characters together. For my past two novels, I’ve carried a literal ream of paper with me. All notes and research. In both cases, the page count of the research outnumbered the page count of the actual, finalized novel. The idea of going without was unthinkable. Until NaNoWriMo changed everything.

Firstly, NaNoWriMo forever altered my writing life because in the past, I wrote with fountain pen and paper, then keyed everything into Word. I tried Scrivener last year, and now while I still love to write with my fountain pen, I rely on Scrivener far more. Saves time and I’m much more productive. I pulled all my research into Scrivener, so everything was in one place. Very convenient. However, I felt completely hemmed in by my research. Stifled, even. I was so committed to adhering to my outlines that I spent too much time staring at a blank space, hoping to force it all into my carefully constructed world. In order to succeed, that method wasn’t going to work. I let go and just wrote. The scenes I liked best in the end were the ones where I wrote without being concerned about the research.

This year, I have a two-page summary of ideas. That’s it. I’ve read a lot of books about the era in history that the story will focus on, but that happens to be a field of study I really love, and I read about it all the time anyway. No ream of paper. No master timeline. I’ve never written this way—unencumbered—and I’m really looking forward to it. We’ll see how NaNoWriMo changes my life this year.

And to my delight, I discovered Camp NaNoWriMo, lovingly billed as “An idyllic writer’s retreat, smack dab in the middle of your crazy life.” I thought it was a program just for kids. Turns out, it’s just more NaNoWriMo, only in summer. Now I get to participate twice a year! I wonder if the Muse will help out with the housework, too…

08/11/12

Planning for NaNoWriMo 2012

Click to visit the official NaNoWriMo site!

For the past few weeks, one question has occupied my mind as I walked to work. Which story will I focus on for NaNoWriMo 2012? Three novels on my list haunt me.

At the end of NaNoWriMo 2011, I blogged that my fourth novel would be the project I’d work on. Makes sense, right? My third novel, through the wonders of the NaNoWriMo experience, is well on its way to being published by the end of 2013. It stands to reason that the one I planned as the fourth novel would follow. Except…

Distractions come in the form of other stories on my works in progress list. One of my short stories, Ivy League Crypt, yearns to become a novel of its own. It’s a bit of a departure from my usual historical fiction. The plot formed over a series of dinner conversations with another writer-friend, and it subsequently earned its own folder in my Scrivener works file. I have a long list of novels and short stories to write that stands by my computer. Only the ones I’m committing to earn a place in the Scrivener works file. So far, there are six. Expanding this in NaNoWriMo would help me establish the new format, which is going to be unusual for the kinds of stories I write. I found myself inspired by the Cubist style used by John Dos Passos, and this novel would be a good fit for it.

Then there is another novel similar in form to The Veiled Mirror and my soon-to-be-released Dark Lady of Doona. It’s about another real woman marginalized by history who will tell her story, this time set in 1880s North Africa. The research is complete. I’ve already written variations of the first few chapters, and the protagonist has found her voice. However, I don’t quite feel ready to write this one yet. Making it a NaNoWriMo project may help me get there.

Then there’s the story I’ve designated as being my fourth novel. It too is a departure from my usual historical fiction. It’s speculative fiction, sort of dystopian, and ancient history plays a significant role in establishing the basis of it. It’s based on a novel I began in 1994. After the sudden death of my brother, I used every bit of creative energy to cope with the loss. The novel grew to a 400-page, 10-point font, single-spaced quagmire before I had to abandon it. In the eighteen years since then, the novel has transformed completely into a new concept, though some of the original ideas remain.

Each day as I walked to work, I weighed the pros and cons of focusing on each of these three works. The novel-length version of Ivy League Crypt would be easy, because stream-of-consciousness writing is an important aspect of it as I envision it. However, the one set in 1880s North Africa is all set to go—research done, voice and plot established. Yet, I’ve done a massive amount of research for what will be my fourth novel. What needs to be done is building the world out of the research. Using NaNoWriMo to make the fourth novel into a world-building exercise is intriguing. Granted, it will be an unwieldy mess. The novel is going to be very long. I have no idea who the characters are anymore. Scenes will emerge, and the story will follow.

Which one won the struggle? The fourth novel. Now just to wait for November to begin…maybe I’ll see you there on the NaNoWriMo forums.

07/15/12

…et finis, for now

I just typed in the last sentence of the new novel. The first draft is 80,893 words. I’m just about to do an intensive reading and copyedit before sending it off to the editor in the first week of August. I feel like I can breathe again.

This was the first time I continually made revisions to the chapter outline as I wrote the novel, deleting one chapter after another. It went from 27 chapters to 22 as I realized I was falling victim to a case of getting too caught up in verisimilitude—paying too much attention to the protagonist’s actual historical timeline. It’s a common hazard in writing historical fiction. Over time, it became evident that not everything was needed as part of the story. What was relevant to the story I had actually developed? So omitting a lot of detail was key in finishing the novel. But I agonized a lot about what to omit.

So I’m still on track and meeting my deadlines. Dark Lady of Doona will be released later this year, but the exact date depends on how the editing process goes and how long it takes to get the cover art together, do all the formatting, etc. I am thrilled to be at this stage. The third novel beckons. The first draft of it is already complete, as it was my NaNoWriMo project for November 2011. I’m trying to decide what to do for NaNoWriMo 2012, and have actually decided to take a temporary break from the part-time teaching assistant job so I can focus on my life as an author this fall. There’s a bit of a tug of war on what should be the fourth novel, but I suppose I should worry about the third one for now. :)

Carraigahowley, Granía O’Malley’s castle

And for anyone looking for something to put on their summer reading list—The Veiled Mirror: The Story of Prince Vlad Dracula’s Lost Love, is available for free on the Smashwords website for the month of July. Use coupon code SSWIN at checkout.

06/10/12

Following Through…

A bookseller's stand along the Seine of Paris, where Hemingway used to walk

“Side by side with the human race there runs another race of beings, the inhuman ones, the race of artists who, goaded by unknown impulses, take the lifeless mass of humanity and by the fever and ferment with which they imbue it turn this soggy dough into bread and the bread into wine and the wine into song…I see this other race of individuals ransacking the universe, turning everything upside down, their feet always moving in blood and tears, their hands always empty, always clutching and grasping for the god out of reach: slaying everything within reach in order to quiet the monster that gnaws at their vitals.” —Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (1934)

I’m at the point of the writing process where I nearly go mad with frustration. I forgot what it was like to be here, within four chapters of finishing the first draft of a novel. It haunts me day and night. I get crabby with people for no reason other than I have all these words in my head, and all I want to do is write. With fountain pen in hand late at night with a scotch on the rocks, or typing into Scrivener like a mad pianist during the day, blaring the soundtrack to Battlestar Galactica. (That cover of “All Along the Watchtower” just does something to me…my Muse is usually fairly mellow, but that soundtrack…)

I’m taking a brief sabbatical from my teaching assistant gig so I can focus on getting this novel completed. Finish first draft by end of June at the very latest. Review, revise, read again. Send to an editor. Revise again. And so on….by New Year’s Day, I want this novel to be out there so I can get to the next work, the novel I wrote for National Novel Writing Month. By the end of 2013, three historical novels will be out in the world, and I can turn my attention to the long epics that I have been researching for years. I’m not entirely done with historical fiction, but I need a change of genre for a while. A marvelous opportunity in the world of indie publishing. The freedom to explore. (As always, J.A. Konrath covers this well on his blog, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. See this article for not only for excellent advice on promotion, but also the approach to take as a writer)

In my part-time teaching assistant job, I spent the last term focusing on Modernist literature of Paris in the 1920s. I had always stuck to the classics of Victorian literature, epic fantasy, and dense, complex pieces like Gormenghast. This pared-down, often Cubist style of writing was a revelation. I fell in love with the works of Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, and Djuna Barnes. Hemingway and Henry Miller affirmed for me the connection between art and writing and inspiration.

1920s Paris was all about experimentation in the arts. While it’s certainly true that it still exists, it seems as though the mainstream doesn’t look to innovation in the arts. A formula becomes successful. Similar works follow the formula, until its popularity dwindles. Then the revised formula comes along. Shiny, loving vampires; zombies; the lone traveler seeking meaning in some kind of spirituality… I’ve never been a mainstream kind of girl. While others listened to Duran Duran in high school, I listened to Einstürzende Neubauten. The best thing about today’s indie publishing movement is that like Paris of the 1920s, there is freedom to experiment, and there are no gatekeepers to bar the way to being seen. James Joyce self-published Ulysses. What dearth of literature as we know it would exist if innovators didn’t self-publish as they saw fit? Not that I’m James Joyce, but people read my work and write nice reviews, and for that I am incredibly grateful. I do appreciate the ability to change genres, writing style and voice, and develop my writing skills in ways that I may not have been able to if I had gone a more traditional path.

And so here I sit…venting on my blog…listening to the Battlestar Galatica soundtrack. Behind this document I am typing, Scrivener is open, and the last four chapters of Dark Lady of Doona are glaring blank pages, demanding an end to the story. I guess I had better go write.

01/21/12

Order of the Muses

Sarah Bernhardt, self-portrait/inkwell, 1880

Each day, I face a long list of novels I intend to write. I’m on track to publish my second novel later this year. I am constantly trying to decide which will be the focus of my third novel. Every day I walk more than five miles and every step is followed by the Muses. I rarely focus on the novel I am currently writing, and I feel guilty for it. Shouldn’t I concentrate on how the novel I am writing is unfolding? The Muses don’t seem to agree.

On my walk to work, I think of the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo in November 2011. It’s set in Tombstone, Arizona, in the late 1880s. I have the characters and basic plot all figured out, but the important question lingers: What is this novel really about? What is the point of it? Is there a deeper meaning, some simple yet enlightening conversation that takes place around the campfire, as would happen in a novel by Cormac McCarthy?

At the office, during a brief lunch break, I finally get around to thinking about the current novel. It’s a pivotal scene, and how do I twist it to add an element of surprise? In this case, I often surprise myself. Last week, one of my favorite characters was killed. I never intended for him to die, but after several intense chapters full of battles, it seemed inevitable once I got to a certain point. I stopped writing for a week to mourn his passing.

During my walk home, I ponder the novel set in 1890s Algeria. The overall meaning and purpose of this novel is clear, as are the characters. But the plot is huge and runs the risk of being overly complicated. How do I define a clear story arc?

After dinner, I relax by the television, but my thoughts are not on the show I am watching. It’s the dystopian future novel, a work of speculative fiction. I’m utterly absorbed in the task of world-building, and constructing a society heavily influenced by an ancient culture. Earth’s history was entirely different here, but I hardly know the characters at all. Their world hasn’t developed enough yet. But I see the world in which they reside.

As I go to sleep, another Muse turns my attention to the fantasy trilogy that has been brewing in my imagination since my long-lost days of playing Dungeons and Dragons back in the early 1980s. Is it too trite? An amalgam of fan fiction based on all the fantasy stories I’ve come to adore over the years? But wait…if I take this approach, it will be a very unique story….

And then…what about the one set in medieval Baghdad, inspired by One Thousand and One Nights? And I hope to turn my short story Ivy League Crypt into a novel sometime….And what about the one set in Moorish Spain?

Which one will be the focus of NaNoWriMo in November 2012? I write every day, no matter what. Does it matter which one I work on? It’s all progress, right? Or is it a diffusion of inspiration and creativity, trying to please too many Muses at once? The current novel is still on track. When I finished The Veiled Mirror, I struggled for two years on deciding which novel would be the second work. I feel better prepared now for when the second novel comes to an end. Or do I? Once thing is certain, though. I am grateful for an abundance of Muses.

Her Raven Domain

Author Christine Frost's Blog

Category Archives: NaNoWriMo