What will come of iRON-ic Suicides, your 2009 novel? (It's pronounced Ironic Suicides for those of you stuttering with the name like my mother did; which, by the way, she became a character in it because she helped sponsor me through her charitable donation to the Office of Letters and Light.) It goes on the back burner for now. I've plotted and stayed fairly true to the plot, so it won't be so hard to pick back up and finish the first draft.

Did you finish the novel? No. A decent sized novel is roughly 250-300 pages (paperback). A trade paperback has an average of 300 words a page, therefore 75-90,000 words. I'm about 2/3rds done - with the first draft.

When will you finish iRON-ic Suicides? I'll go back to it after I take care of some other irons in the fire. Right now, I have another manuscript, MSD (sorry, that's all I'll reveal about the title right now for a number of reasons) which came from my first NaNo novel, then titled And Then There Was Sam . . .. Once I have that one done and sent out, I'll probably pick up last year's NaNo novel, The Haunting of Mira Beck, pound the putty out of it and ship that out.

MSD/First NaNo // Dani Summers (2007) // Haunting of Mira Beck (2008)

What about your other NaNo novels? In 2007 I wrote one that started out as a mainstream mystery but then came back, tweaked it and wrote it as a young adult novel. Yet will need a lot of work to get the voice right in it. Or possibly rework the main character and torque the plot a bit to turn it into a mainstream mystery. I'm not sure yet, but as it stands right now, that one doesn't seem to be working as I'd hoped. iRON-ic Suicides will probably be finished up long before the one about Dani Summers. Or was it Sommers? See? I don't even remember!

Did you give in and tell your husband you were participating in this year's NaNoWriMo? No. The good news is, this year I managed to fulfill my goal of NaNoing without telling my husband I was participating. Mom likes to think I'm keeping secrets. No. I'm surviving, Mother. It was merely a test. Had it been a real emergency, I would have thrown him a life preserver and told him to have it on stand-by, demanded he take off the entire month of November and sequestered myself in the back storage shed along with my handy espresso machine and bars of Trader Joe's dark chocolate. The kidlets knew and I had them promise me they wouldn't spill the beans. However, when my mother pointed out that if I got them to keep secrets from my husband, I couldn't complain in a vice versa situation. So the very next day I qualified that and said that they weren't to volunteer the news but if they were asked, they could certainly tell him.

Does your husband know, now? Yes. And that's all I'll say.

Why do you do the NaNoWriMo if it takes away from getting a manuscript out and published? I ask myself this all the time. Usually the time NaNo comes up, I'm already getting frustrated with the current manuscript and look forward to taking the month off to create an entirely different story. But this might change soon. I might participate in NaNoEditMo (February or March, I believe) and forego WriMo. I'm still undecided. February is a very busy month for me, odd as it seems.

Got a question about my participation in NaNoWriMo? Ask away!

But I haven't updated because I'm off and running.  Much to do.  Freelance, for instance.  I'm working on copy and getting the site up and running to attract some jobs.  Here's the low down if you haven't been by my "about the author" page lately: 

Copy writer and fiction novelist is available for your freelance writing needs.  Reasonable rates. Clips and references are available upon request (serious requests only, please).

Experience includes:

• [ a] 10+ years marketing research and analysis
• [ a] Fundraising company product brochure copywriter
• [ a] Public safety and city fire department Web site content
               and copywriter
• [ a] Care package Web site copywriter
• [ a] Columnist for specialized legislative advocacy newsletters
               and bulletins with statewide and regional distribution
• [ a] Guest columnist for state association
• [ a] Online e-zine columnist
• [ a] Charter school Web site copy writing including newsletters
               (print and online) articles, special event flyers and related
               writing activities
  [ a] Former small business owner, entrepreneur

For more information, please email:

It's hard for me to remember from one NaNoWriMo to the next, kind of like how childbirthing goes, the pain is just that great that you tend to push it away and relish the joy that came as a result of the pain.  I do, however, vaguely recall this lull in the writing and the absence from daily life that occurs between the third and fourth weeks. 

Now, I'm not going to advocate what Chris Baty, the fearless NaNoWriMo leader suggests to do at this stage, which is to recite favorite ads in the phone book or have a character sing the entire "America Pie" song.  To me, that's cheating, even borderline plagiarism and to a writer, that's a might scary word!  I will, however, dispense some sage advice that I have collected over the years that might make this a bit less daunting for my fellow writer-type folks.

Every writer experiences a moment of helplessness and shamefulness. We get to a point where we think we're all writing complete drivel that no one would be interested in reading.  It's called the turning point.  And the only way through it is to just. keep. writing.

This isn't NaNoPublishMo, you're not creating a final draft that you'll send out to your agent (if you're lucky enough to have one and if you happen to have one, please consider putting a good word in for me) or box up and ship out to a POD company.  This is your rough draft.  Write backstory, leave out whole "how I got from there to here" segments and come back to them during the spring NaNoEditMo or whenever you choose to edit your work.  Write lengthy descriptions of your characters, put them in a time and place where they might be having a conversation with you, their creator, or the antagonist.  Hell, even a nice little chat with one of the spear carriers! 

And once you do all that writing, do not delete it.  Do not cut it out of your manuscript!  That's word count, baby! 

Something that's motivated me this year is learning that a novel isn't anywhere near a mere 50K words.  It's more like double that if not more. In reality, when you near the end of NaNoWriMo you should be about at the halfway point, maybe even a third of the way, towards the end of your story.  Oh, it probably was said in one of the zillion motivational emails I get from the Letters of Light offices (the parent company of NaNoWriMo), but it didn't sink in until this year.  There I sat, almost halfway to my NaNo goal and I started to freak out.  "I'm nowhere near the end!" I screamed out much to the annoyance of my cat.  "I'm not going to make it!" I cried out in my nightmares.  And that's okay, because I don't have to be.  That was a huge relief, my friend!  So take solace, you don't have to be there. But also don't start freaking out if you feel you're almost to the end and you've just hit the 30K marker.  Spend some time fattening up your character, give some wealthy descriptions of the setting (after all, you don't want just a bunch of talking heads, do you?), are you getting in at least 3 of the 5 senses in your writing (seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling)?  Adding those details into your tale will surely fluff up your word count and certainly make it a story you'll feel more proud to tell. 

Hopefully I've made up for my five day absence with these words of advice.  In the meantime, I have a page left to go of the longhand script that's calling for me.  My current transcribed count is: 34,699 (what a very odd number!) 

No lurkers allowed!  Leave me some love!  I'll even settle for your own word counts or words of advice you've got just begging to be shared.  

My nature quest didn't stop there.  I went spelunking today.  Virtual spelunking, that is.  Apparently not all caves are alike, or so Mira Beck, the protagonist of my current NaNo novel, has learned.  And so she had to take me along to a few good sites where I could learn more about some caves.  The Oregon Caves to be specific.  It was definitely not something I could just make up, but it was well worth the trip and something I look forward to actually doing next summer when the caves open again. 

Which brings me to a point for novice NaNo'ers.  While it's helpful to know what you're talking about as you write your novel, be careful how much time you take doing such.  Get down the points that are pertinent to the story, know that you are writing fiction so you can always make up a place, thing or person and fudge a little bit.  You can flesh it out later (make it your mantra, there's always NaNoEditMo in the spring to work on editing your novel.)  It's easy to get caught up in the more finite parts of the novel so you have to be firm with yourself and set limits.  Say you have two hours to write and are getting stuck, spend 15 minutes max doing some surfing and then move on whether or not you have what you were looking for.  You simply have to keep plugging away and moving toward the goal of 50K words (you might even find that you're not finished with your novel by 50K and that's okay, too!). 

After tonight's write-in, I'm up to 28,326 transcribed words and estimate I have about 34,866 words written longhand.  Not too shabby, although I know there have been others that have already reached the goal (what a shock that was to learn!)

Write on!

Until tomorrow, NaNo, NaNo!    

Choose a place where the ambient noise isn't invasive.  A coffee shop set in a brick walled building with a raised ceiling isn't a good idea.  The noise reverberates to such an extreme your writers will get headaches and not much writing will get done.  Likewise, a brunch house playing trance music at deafening levels will be just as problematic. 

Tables and chairs are always a consideration to take when hunting down the right place.  The coffee house we wrote at last night had seats that were a bit too cushy and tables that were so high, I had wrist spasms for the better part of the night.  We've since relocated our upcoming write-ins because I simply can't handle another day of that.

Speaking of tables and chairs, it would be wise to check the locations first.  A cafe with nothing but small round tables that fit just a couple people (but in reality, maybe one person with a laptop and notepad) could be a bit of a put-off for your invited fellow writers. 

Foot traffic is another consideration.  Try to snag an area that's a bit out of the path of doors and general foot traffic (such as nearby the restrooms).  If you're first to arrive for a write-in and didn't organize it, mention it to the employees you're there for a writing group and indicate where you're sitting, then move to a location that's a bit out of the way. By telling someone that you're there, you won't be worried about whether your fellow writers will find you and can concentrate on your writing.

Don't be offended if you're not getting the responses you were hoping for when organizing a write-in.  Not everyone can write that way.  And, as a writer, don't feel put upon if you decide you'd prefer not to attend a write-in.  I repeat: not everyone feels comfortable in those settings.

I won't update my word counts, both transcribed and longhand.  I didn't get as much done and really would like to be working on writing so that I can meet the ultimate goal which is to get this done and move back over to the work-in-progress I set aside so that I could participate in NaNoWriMo this year. 

To all my fellow writers, write on! 

This was a miserable day for writing. My protagonist doesn't have to deal with bassackward garbage companies and customer service representatives claiming the customer cussed them out nor do I want her to have to deal with that.  She's got enough crap to deal with as it is with a ghost chasing her and everything!  I hate it when life interrupts with writing.  It made me come dangerously close to bringing out the damned Ninjas.  So I opted to put on my Ninja hood and write.  There.  Don't mess with the Ninja writer, foo'!

All my plans for pep talks and other newbie NaNo advice has gone poof.  You can thank the garbage company for that.  And yeah, I now have solid, indisputable evidence that (oh my husband is going to like this) I was right, they were wrong.  Imagine that.  So that'll just have to wait a day with the exception of this little snippet of advice: 1.) Why are you surfing the net, didn't you read the rules of engagement from the start of NaNo? 2.) Write! and 3.) If you aren't signed up for receiving the pep talks and other worldly advice coming from the esteemed Letters of Light (the foundation NaNo runs under), do.  There are some great author letters coming out and wonderful pep talks.  They've been doing this for 10 years now and they know what they're talking about.  Maybe even more than I do.  Eh, or not. 

I think I may have transcribed a mere 200 or less words in the mix of all the mayhem yesterday (Day 6) but I did manage to write out via longhand another 10 pages, so that's about 2830 more to add onto the already staggering count.  Of course, that's not official until it has been typed up.  I'm hoping with the four write-ins scheduled over the next four days I'll be all caught up with the transcribing and by this time next week, done.  And no, I'm not going to shoot for the double goal I did a few years ago.  I am aching to get back to the work in progress that I had been editing before NaNo started.  I mean, I dream about that one, so it has to get done!

Ciao!  And for all my writing homies, write on!  

Music, as you may recall from my first NaNo post, is for many a vital component in the writing process.  For Stephenie Meyer, author of the wildly popular Twilight Saga, it was an inspiration during the writing process, has become the soundtrack for the movie due out later this month and has just been released to the public with zillions of downloads off her site and across the Web.  Of course, Stephenie's not the only one to use music to help inspire, calm and whittle out a few more well chosen words.  However, I'm a bit brain dead so I won't go surfing about to look for some examples.  That's your homework! 

The choice of music being played at the shop was a bit, well, culturally centric and soon we were laughing as one piece moved to another.  It changed my mood a few times and the tenor of the transcribing I was doing (I almost rewrote an entire chapter just because of the music!) For one writer whose novel takes place in Louisiana at one part,  the music seemed to pop into her novel.  And then it jumped back out and slid over into mine as the tune was a Caribbean calypso bit that reminded me of the Day-o song from Beetlejuice.  Alas, I wasn't permitted to play the Twilight soundtrack I have loaded since one of the writers has yet to read the books and doesn't want anything giving it away.  The end all was when a song I instantly recognized as the one Lucille Ball's husband, Desi, sang and a bit later, a very old gentleman sitting nearby confirmed I had it right when I overheard him sharing with the employee who changed the track on the CD (she didn't like the song) that was the theme song to The Lucy Show (actually, that wasn't, it was just one of the songs Ricky's band played on one of the episodes.)  It was a bit embarrassing to be able to recognize it in just a few strains.  I suddenly felt very, very old especially given the man who spouted off about it across from me. 

Point being, music can help shape your writing, take it on a tangent you might not have expected as the author.  I, for one, will be snagging the headphones.  I really don't need to have my characters cavorting through a Parisian cafe or taking a trip to a dude ranch in the middle of the desert.  Attending a write-in?  Traipsing off to a coffee shop to get in a few hours of writing?  Grab yourself a CD and some headphones for backup, just in case.   

End of the day word count (transcribed):  15181.  Estimated total word count (longhand) is (let's do the math!) 1 page = approx. 237 words X 91 pages = 21567.  Not too shabby!  How are you doin'?  Look for tomorrow's installment with some thoughts and ideas on how to bump up your word count ('legally') if you're laggin'. 

Write on!

I'm exhausted and have a write-in tomorrow with a few other writers, so I'm not going to ramble too much.  Props to hubby who got me the Twilight movie soundtrack.  I'm now moved.  Play that or Enigma's latest and I'm able to rock and roll! 

I wrote another 1,500 words today, give or take (still haven't caught up with the transcribing, so it's just an estimate).  My total typed words is a grand total of 12,006.  That's a whole lot of writing today.  I don't expect it as high tomorrow but that's okay.  I'm still way ahead of the game here and that's okay, too, because I really want to get back to the other manuscript I've got going and set aside for NaNoWriMo as well as a few essays, short stories and to revisit a few poems that I'd love to see in print by the end of the year.  Or something like that. 

After all, I have to have some way to pay for that pure chocolate corset! 

There's nothing better to build a character than to sit at a coffee shop in the midst of a college town along with a gaggle of other writers and stare at the patrons.  Yeah, this button says it all: "If I stare at you, it's not because you look good.  It's because you just helped me figure out how to off my villain."  Or in my case, inspired me to write about the tweakers. 

Thankfully I've scrapped that bit in turn for having to calm Ry-guy who wasn't too excited about seeing first hand the effects of "recreational" drugs.  Of course being the responsible parent that I am, I did my part by explaining that's one of the reasons to steer clear of drugs.

I did more writing today than transcribing.  A lot more writing apparently.  I've transcribed 8,800 words as of this very moment (well, okay, my program shows 8.799 if you're wanting to split hairs) and that's just 23 pages of longhand.  I have 71 pages of longhand, total.  It appears I've written right around 16,800 words.  That's well beyond the target, which is 5,000 words today. 

Yeah, okay, I'm gloating.  Just for a little bit and then it's time to catch up on some sleep!  NaNoNeeners to you!