Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Well, I had steak, actually...but...

I won NaNo!

At just barely over 50k, the first (very) rough draft is complete and the next step begins. This is the first complete work that I've ever intended to edit and eventually publish. So, yes, this is very, very exciting for me. I also have plans for a sequel...but I want to edit and get the ball rolling on book 1 first.

Horsing Around

*cheers*

The novel has a title. Or, I should say that the series has a title, and the novel itself has a very, very random working title that will probably not end up being final. The series is called Horsing Around, and the working title for the novel is Point Chasing, which I probably won't keep because most non-riders don't understand the reference.

In other news, I found this awesome open source template! No more boring default stuff.

Novel Needs a Title.

I've made some changes to my novel plan as I plotted out. Instead of having 5 girls who attend a riding-type school, I am now setting it in a barn. The more research I did about those kinds of schools, the more I realized that they can rarely support the level of competition that some of my characters plan on doing. For example, many of them limit each student to one horse and one of my characters has five.

I also need a title...two titles, actually. This story seems to want to be a series, and so there will have to be a series title and then a title for the actual book.

NaNoWriMo, Again

I'm now ML (Municipal Liaison) for South Orange County. Planning the events has been a lot of fun, and the North County MLs are awesome people. It will be interesting trying to make things work for everyone, and I'm starting to realize that it *won't* work for everyone's schedule all the time. I'm having 3 write-ins a week, plus whatever North County is doing, and then there are joint events and random fun and stuff like that. I do want to have a random fun event at the south end of the county, though, because so far everything is Irvine and north.

NaNo Planning 1.0

NaNoWriMo approaches. I must prepare weopons for the fight. :-P

First off, I now have a computer without a broken hinge to take to write-ins! Yay! Everybody cheer!

I also created a notebook using OneNote to try and prevent some of the issues that made my novel awful last year and that have stalled Dead Ringer. While I'm not one for formal outlining, I do need a cheat sheet of sorts and a place to put my research and jot down concept ideas so I don't forget where in the heck I was going with this. With five major characters and a fictional school, that's going to help a lot.

So much for posting often...

Yeah, that didn't happen like I planned. Oh, and neither has working on Dead Ringer.

NaNoWriMo is coming up, and I'm planning on developing a plot idea I had a while back for a YA series about girls at a school with a riding program. It will be interesting to write, as I myself didn't ride as a junior (I started again 2 weeks before I turned 18) and there are very few schools like this in California. However, I will be developing a fictional school rather than trying to exactly reproduce a real one that I have not attended.

So, the next month will be a lot of character development, etc, and hopefully some work on Dead Ringer, though that is secondary as I have stalled a bit.

I really want to work on something publishable, and I feel so annoyed that I never get to write every great plot that comes to me...

25k

Just hit the 25,000 word mark with Dead Ringer. Yay! Confetti and joy!

Okay, fine, there's more to it than that. I really have to get a lot of things clarified, include more clues, red herrings, suspects, etc. I have finally figured out my main character's motivations and the reasons behind some of her actions. I still have more to figure out, but I'm finally feeling like I'm on the right track again with this project.

In other news, tomorrow completes my move. :)

Breaking Dawn Review (Spoilers)

{Sorry this has taken so long, especially for a book I finished less than 24 hours after release. Life got in the way.}

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Myer
**** 4 stars

This book was amazing. This volume, more than the other three, is truly Bella's coming of age story. Here, she becomes a wife and mother. She is no longer a teenage girl with a boyfriend and homework. I think this is part of the reason that many younger readers say that they don't identify with Bella this time around. Bella has changed, because things like marriage, motherhood, and becoming a vampire put things in a prospective that many of Myer's readers don't have.

Bella also has the chance to finally fight. Her gift is developed, she is a vampire, and she can stand up to the Volturi.

Edward struggles with Bella's willingness to risk her life for their child, encouraging her to change her mind. In the end, he allows her to have the child, and comes to love his daughter.

Jacob also comes to a point where he has his own life figure out. He comes to terms with Bella's choice to be with Edward, and imprints on their child. Then, he has the maturity to take care of her like a big brother or godfather, and to leave different feelings for later.

Charlie comes to understand a partial version of the truth, which allows him to be close to his daughter and grand-daughter.

I think the conclusion was definitely one where all of the characters find themselves and their place.

Run On

Thing have been pretty crazy since my last post. Packing up everything, loading cars, driving for seven hours, moving in, shopping like crazy, a day at Disneyland, dealing with a very late cable guy that delayed our leaving, driving seven hours again, a fairly busy weekend, packing, packing and more packing.

The run on is intentional, because my life has been a run on.

My mattress still has not been delivered, and I had to sleep on an air mattress. Think like 2 hours sleep a night for three nights.

I haven't been able to do much writing, either. Between moving, trying to see friends before I leave, and the fact that my dad has been using my computer while his is broken, there just hasn't been much chance. Then, when there was the chance, I was just too exausted to deal with it.

Tomorrow, I will be heading down again, this time to stay. It will be good to be able to end this moving nightmare.

Moving

I was accepted to the Art Institute of California, Orange County on Monday. Yesterday, my dad and I drove down to OC, and checked into our hotel.

Today was a long one. We checked out the school, and I fell in love. It's this perfect mix of practical and creative. Great fit for me. I will be working on a BS in Advertising. Many of my credits transferred over, so that will be good.

The next step was the housing search from hell. From NorCal, I made a list of ads that I found online that could work. Well, looking at them, they were...bad. The area wasn't safe, was run down, just not good. At 2 pm, I just didn't know what was going to happen. Here I have this perfect school, and nowhere to live to make it work.

I suggested that we just drive around, try to find something. We found one place we liked. It was way over budget, but we decided to sign because it was the only thing we found. I wasn't totally sold though, and felt the Irvine Company could offer better.

We pulled into one of their properties, and it was even more out of range, but the guy was great. He referred us to his friend who runs another Irvine Company property closer to my school. We dashed up there. It was cheaper than the place we were about to sign on before, and the amenities are much nicer.

Pluses:
-nicer area
-gated
-washer/dryer in unit
-newer building
-no screaming children
-closer to school
-closer to my friends who still attend my old university
-close to places where I can apply for jobs
-closer to my barn

There are no drawbacks. It's...perfect!

Now, I'm off to catch up on my writing a bit.

I want Breaking Dawn Now

One week, and one hour until it's in my hand and I'm sitting here on this couch with the final book of the Twilight Saga.

I have my outfit for the release party, I've paid for my book, I even have a mask for the masquerade ball at my local bookstore. What I don't have is the book.

It's like Harry Potter all over again, except that this time, I found out about all of this after the hype. I discovered Harry when I was in elementary school, before the craze hit. I watched it get insane, watched it gather this giant following. I talked my mom into ordering the third book from amazon.co.uk because it was published in England first. I watched midnight releases come into being.

What I loved about the Potter craze was the speculation. I loved going online and being a part of the theory swapping and everything else that sprung from the uncertainty of it all. In a way Deathly Hallows ended something amazing.

The books stand on their own, however, and they will always be a part of my childhood. I owe JK Rowling a lot. She inspired me, made me know that writing was something I wanted to do with my life. Her books were the first fantasy books I really liked (and I still don't care for high fantasy) and they opened entire worlds for me both in terms of writing and reading.

I wish I'd had more time to speculate with Twilight. I only discovered the series this summer when I saw a movie poster that intrigued me. On my next trip to the bookstore, I read the prologue and part of the first chapter. I was hooked, and I NEEDED more. I bought the first book in hardcover, because I knew it was going to be great. A day and a half later, I was back, buying New Moon and Eclipse (Special Edition).

The series captivated me, and quickly became some of my favorite books ever. I had to ask myself why. The answer is simple: the characters. I love Edward, and care about Bella. I want Jacob to be happy, even though I want Edward to get the girl. The entire Cullen family quickly became like old friends.

Harry Potter, on the other hand, hooked me with the magical world Rowling invented for her stories. Her characters are amazing too, of course, but that first hook was all about the setting and the creativity involved in it all.

I want to develop both aspects of my own creativity, though I doubt I will ever have the command of the craft that Myer or Rowling have. But, all I can do is try.

The Plot Thickens

Just hit 22,000 words on Dead Ringer. About a third of the way there, I think.

I'm liking where it's going so far, but I also feel like I need more clues through out that are physical (so far, most of it has to do with the relationships of the people involved, rather than any kind of objects, etc that might be clues) especially early on in the investigation.

I also feel the need to make it all more vivid...to show rather than tell. I want to make it more memorable, and also more real for the reader.

The editing process is going to be fun. Right now, though, I need to continue to concentrate on getting the first draft complete so that I can polish and fill in holes.

Current Project and Career Mussings

Today was pretty busy, and I haven't had much of a chance to work on my current novel project. Only 250 words so far, and my daily goal is currently to write at least 1000. Not NaNoWriMo speed, but sustainable.

Said current project is Dead Ringer. It is a murder mystery about grand prix showjumping in Southern California. Current word count is 20,333 and I will hopefully pass 21k tonight. Maybe more, though, because I'm writing a scene with big revelations and it's going quickly.

My own taste in fiction is eclectic, ranging from mystery to fantasy to adventure. I have ideas for stories in many genres, too. I often worry about being pigeonholed, and also about not being classifiable. If I become published as a mystery writer, will I ever be able to sell a fantasy?

I know it's something that I should think about after I actually, you know, get published. And that requires getting this book done, start another, wash rinse, repeat ad nauseum.

On that note, I'm out of here to work on Dead Ringer.

First Posts and All That Jazz

I hate first posts. They never really say much of anything, and no one reads them. I'm here, I'm writing a blog...big woop.

So...here's the first post, just to get it out of the way and get on with life...