So close, I can taste it!

Welcome to the last full week of NaNoWriMo!  It's been a tough month, but November always is. I'll admit, I've struggled for the past few days to reach my word goal.  I was at another lull.  My characters were preparing for the final boss showdown.  While forcing myself to write about battle strategies and new settings, all I wanted to do was skip to the action.  I'm on the cusp of the final scene now.  I have a feeling tomorrow will be an epic word day.

I've topped 45k already.  The end goal is so close now. Less than 5k to go, and I still have an entire week to go.  I may power through to 50k tomorrow so I can give myself a worry-free Thanksgiving weekend.

I'm still certain my story won't be finished at the 50k mark.  I realized today, there is a very real possibility that it will need to extend to a second book.  I don't think it's trilogy material, but who knows where book two will take them.

For those of you struggling to reach 50k, keep going! There's still time to win this thing. Regardless of your final word count, you have more written than you did when November began. It might not be a novel, but it's still a good start.

So, here's to the last week of this grueling challenge and resuming normal life!

For those of you wondering, here's a link to my novel info for this year.  You can also see my past Nano projects and how many times I've failed at this!

http://nanowrimo.org/participants/gabbyg/novels

Book Review: Broken Dolls by Tyrolin Puxty

* The publisher gave me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review*

Ella has never known a life outside of the professor's attic.  She loves trees, painting, and, most of all, to dance.  Ella is also a doll who, the professor says, was once human.  The professor dresses her in a new tutu everyday, and her life, while limited, is happy.  Then the professor introduces her to another doll named Lisa.  Lisa is not happy. Lisa is quite possibly crazy ad tries to kill Ella.  Lisa runs away from the attic and discovers secrets about the professor, secrets that make Ella question everything about her existence.  She also begins to wonder if the professor is really a gentle man that wants to help those that are broken, or if he is a mad man that turns girls into dolls for fun.

The concept of this novel is very unique.  While wild cures for terminal diseases have definitely been written before, a transference of consciousness while the body heals was something new for me.  The professor has to wipe the dolls' memories clean so the stress of their memories doesn't hinder their human body's ability to heal.  This complicates things.  Some dolls, like Lisa, remember just enough of their old lives to resent their dollness.  Others are maddened by the transformation and have to be deactivated.  The author gave each doll a unique activation experience and backstory.  The reader cares about all of them, even Lisa.

I think the most interesting twist came when I realized I didn't like the protagonist. At all.  When she is a doll, Ella is lovely, but as a human she's selfish and hateful.  It isn't often that a book makes me dislike the narrator this much. Kudos to Puxty for making the transition so gradual that I didn't even realize how my feelings had changed until I had nearly reached the end of the book.

With a cast of very interesting characters, some real, some less human, and a very unique concept, Broken Dolls is a captivating read. Four out of five stars.

Spotlight: Grudging by Michelle Hauck

Title: GRUDGING

Author: Michelle Hauck

Pub. Date: November 17, 2015

Publisher: Harper Voyager Impulse

Format: eBook

Find it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Goodreads

A world of chivalry and witchcraft…and the invaders who would destroy everything.

The North has invaded, bringing a cruel religion and no mercy. The ciudades-estados who have stood in their way have been razed to nothing, and now the horde is before the gates of Colina Hermosa…demanding blood.

On a mission of desperation, a small group escapes the besieged city in search of the one thing that might stem the tide of Northerners: the witches of the southern swamps.

The Women of the Song.

But when tragedy strikes their negotiations, all that is left is a single untried knight and a witch who has never given voice to her power.  And time is running out.

A lyrical tale of honor and magic, Grudging is the opening salvo in the Book of Saints trilogy.

Excerpt:

Shortly after the combat, Ramiro made his excuses to the men at the wall and left, returning to the citadel and taking the stairs to the roof. Some alcalde’s wife from the past had turned this spot into an outdoor garden and dining room, making it a favorite retreat for many. A peaceful place when he felt anything but.

Other people’s blood spotted his white shirt. Had things gone differently, it could easily have been his own. He needed a bath and a rest, but his mind hummed from the conflict, leaving him unable to stop pacing. Cold chills claimed his limbs. His stomach was sourer than when alcohol had filled it. With no clear single-combat victory, he hadn’t earned his beard. The night reeked of disappointment.

How long? How long could they keep the Northerners out?

Stars spotted the night sky here, where the citadel met the top of the world. Or so it had always seemed to him as a child. Life was no longer so certain now that he was older.

He drew in the cool scent of creeping jasmine, carefully tended and watered by hand in pots across the rooftop. Colina Hermosa spread before him, a humbling sight. The city stretched away from the citadel on all sides, a jewel shining with lights. It spread down the hill, becoming wider and grander as it sprawled, with imposing avenues and white-clad stucco buildings whose thick walls and small windows kept out the noonday heat. There was squalor and dirt as well, fits of temper, rudeness, and often impatience. But the darkness hid all that, washing the city of its faults and giving it a fresh life until it tumbled like the sea against the immovable stone walls that now held out the Northerners.

His heart swelled with love. Something worth defending. Home.

Outside the high, white walls, well beyond arrow shot, was a sight not so welcoming. There, jammed between the city and a deep, old quarry used to build the city walls, campfires burned. A red swarm of rage and death, brimstone and smoke, offering a grim contrast with the peaceful firmament. Not by the hundreds did they burn, but by the thousands, mirroring the stars in the sky. How many peasants’ houses did they demolish to feed so much hungry fire? They must be down to burning cacti. How they kept it up night after night, he couldn’t begin to comprehend. Salvador had talked on about supply trains and quartermasters, but Ramiro had let his imagination dwell on his first ride instead. An indulgence he regretted now.

If only each fire meant a single enemy, but that was wishful thinking. Each fire contained tens of men. Tens and thousands. And behind them, the siege machines waited their turn. A lethal combination for Colina Hermosa.

He touched the spot above his spleen, and whispered, “Santiago, don’t let me give in to despair.”

About Michelle: 

Michelle Hauck lives in the bustling metropolis of northern Indiana with her hubby and two teenagers. Two papillons help balance out the teenage drama. Besides working with special needs children by day, she writes all sorts of fantasy, giving her imagination free range. A book worm, she passes up the darker vices in favor of chocolate and looks for any excuse to reward herself. Bio finished? Time for a sweet snack.

She is a co-host of the yearly contests Query Kombat and Nightmare on Query Street, and Sun versus Snow.

Her epic fantasy, Kindar's Cure, is published by Divertir Publishing. Her short story, Frost and Fog, is published by The Elephant's Bookshelf Press in their anthology, Summer's Double Edge. She's repped by Sarah Negovetich of Corvisiero Literary.

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Nanowrimo: Coming into week 3

The wretchedly awkward week two has finally passed.  The lull of details and backstory has been conquered.  Action has replaced the slow build up, and the words are flowing much more freely.  I hit 32k words today.  That means I'm almost 6k words ahead of the daily goal.  It's quite possibly the biggest lead I've had at this stage in the game.

November is always a whirlwind month, but this one has been a doozy.  Somehow, even in the midst of hosting a benefit art auction, I've managed to stay on top of the daily word count.  I'm choosing to take it as a sign that this novel wants to be written.  It's all coming so naturally.

Of course, there's also the part of me that whispers that the words can't flow this freely forever. I dread that one morning, they just won't come at all. It appears that week three brings the fraud police to my door.  So while the words are still coming, the confidence that they'll form a decent story by the end is waning.

I've made it this far, so I'm determined to see it all the way to 50k, fraud police be damned.  Even if the story sucks, it's still my story.

Nanowrimo Week 2!

Week two is one of the hardest weeks for me.  The crazed excitement from week one has worn off. All of the ideas I've had bouncing around in my head have already made it to paper.  I've hit a lull in the action.  Quest preparations are underway, but gearing up is boring.  My writing is in a slump.  I gave myself a bit of a break today and sketched this lovely map:

So, now that it is painfully obvious that cartography is not one of my strengths, let's discuss how helpful this hideous map is.

My characters need to find something.  I need the route they take to that something to make sense.  I also need for it to remain constant.  Should they pass through the same area twice, the area needs to remain unchanged from the last time they came through.  A map becomes a necessity when your characters travel.

This map was a bit more fun than most because it's a fantasy world, so I could put whatever obstacles in their way that I wanted.  Need a harrowing rescue scene? Add some quicksand and poisonous snakes.  Do your characters need a push to help them snuggle up? How about some spooky scenery to force them into each other's arms? 

I've still got a general outline of where I want things to go, I just have to trudge through some mundane detail until I can get to the fun stuff.  It's the hardest thing for me to write.  I don't care about the setting as much as I care about the action.  I don't care about dialog tags as much as I care about what the characters actually say.  I always have to go back and add those details in later.  My characters just talk to each other without the meaningful glances, furrowed brows, and cracking voices that will tag the dialog later.

The best thing about Nanowrimo is the it's meant to be a rough draft.  No one's expecting your 50k to be polished and ready to publish on December 1st. 

So, here's to another week of writing! My my quest preparations be completed quickly so that the story becomes fun to write again.

Nanowrimo!!

It's that time of year again. One month, 50,000 words. It's my favorite writing challenge. National Novel Writing Month began today!

I took a new approach this year, and actually planned out my novel. I don't have all of the details worked out yet, but some of my characters have back stories, and I have a general plot outline. I've never gone into November with this much planning done. I usually just wing it. I have found both failure and success with the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants method, but I wanted to give organization a try this year. I'm also using a new writing software. It's called Scrivener, and it helps you plot the novel out. It also provide clean chapter and scene breaks, which makes it much easier to find specific scenes when you go back to edit.

I have a good feeling about this year. It feels like a winner. It helps that I've already met my word count goal for today. Wrote an extra 300 words actually. If I can maintain that momentum, victory is eminent. Easy to say when it's only day one.

While I don't expect to post here daily during Nanowrimo. I do hope to give weekly progress reports. It gives me more incentive to stay on the daily writing goal wagon.

November is going to be a busier month than normal for me, but I still plan to power through and make the 50,000 word goal. I want to write this novel. I will write this novel. Whether it will be finished by the end of November remains to be seen.