Today I’m guest blogging over at Nana Malone‘s site today about my journey towards publication. Nothing fancy, just a few tidbits about myself, how I got started, and things I’ve learned over the past 2 years.
Stop by and check it out. I’m honored that I’m Nana’s first spotlight in this series.
I’m a few days late with this, but it’s November which means it’s NaNoWriMo time!
Once again, I’ve signed up for the ride. The goal is to complete a 50,000 word novel within 30 days. Or in my case, add 50,000 words to my current wip. I’ve participated in NaNo the last 2 years but I’ve not successfully completed the challenge
However, I’m feeling this year is my year. I’ve been writing routinely the past month as part of my mentorship, so I just need to push my daily word goal a bit and I think I can do it.
I’ve added a NaNo word count widget to track my progress. As of today, I’m running a bit behind, so I’m off to do it to it. 
I’m fresh back from my trip to Charleston, SC. 2 of my crit partners, along with another member of RCRW, drove down to attend the Low Country Writers beach retreat. It was a small, weekend retreat that was quite productive for me. I took advantage of the scenery and the quiet time to get some writing done. I am proud to say that I knocked back a total of 4,337 words while I was there.
That’s quite the accomplishment considering all the distractions I encountered (like the beach, sightseeing, the beach, the excellent food, the beach, the wine, and let’s not forget the beach….).
All in all, a great trip for me. Being away from everything allowed me the opportunity to really focus on my wip. Here’s my writing desk I set up during the retreat portion of the trip:
The Beach Bound Retreat itself was a small, cozy affair. There were workshops going on, but if you wanted to just go sit and write you could. And I did, as evidenced by the pic of my writing desk-lol). I found the tranquility and white noise sitting on the back deck listening to the ocean + the tunes from my Pandora station to be the balm to my writer’s soul (ok, that was cheesy, but you get the point) and I couldn’t resist it.
However, I did attend a couple workshops and my favorite 2, by far, were “Welcome to the World, Baby Book” led by debut author Kieran Kramer and “20 Ways to Kill a Novel”, led by Joanna Wayne.
Kieran’s workshop was a fun, upbeat look at the journey of an author. She shared several motivational points and overall advice on how to keep your wits about you as you write, polish, and sell your novel. She shared her 9-1-1 rule (which is all about staying focused and pushing through the hump to complete a draft) and she gave us all a prescription to take ADVIL whenever we need it: Attitude, Depth, Validation, Involvement, Laugher.
Joanna couldn’t whittle her list down to 20 items, so she actually shared with us 25 ways that we would kill our books. The list is mostly of stuff I’d heard at some point in time before, but I really enjoyed her chat, along with the personal recounts she peppered throughout it. The list contains such standards as lack of motivation, too much back story, too much telling, not enough showing, etc. But one thing I’d never thought about was the fact that you may have your book set in the wrong location or time. Setting never consciously occurred to me as being an area that could kill a story. But when you think about it, it’s obvious. The group spent a bit of time talking about this as we came up with examples of how certain books would not work if you change the environment in which they are set. Joanna also recounted how she once used her story idea , along with the plot twists and her characters’ GMC to back her way into the setting for the story. This chat really made me look at setting in a different way. I really get the adage of using “setting as a character” now.
It was very pleasant the entire weekend and I got lot accomplished, not only with writing, but I was able to de-stress and unplug a little. And with the beautiful views how could I not. Also, I got to meet some new authoring comrades & I even won a prize, Kieran Kramer’s debut novel “When Harry Met Molly”.
I had a great time down in Charleston and will be blogging over at A Bit of Clarity about some of my non-writing adventures in the Low Country in the upcoming weeks.
I just got back from visiting the lovely authors of the Colorado Romance Writers chapter of RWA. I was invited to their fall retreat last week to speak on blogging and social networking for authors.
I had a blast and would like to thank Liz for inviting and all the members for being so welcoming and bearing with me and my nerves as I did my workshop AND for not booing me when I read my first chapter. 
I didn’t get a chance to stay long, but Colorado is a beautiful, peacful place. Very inspiring. Once I got over my nerves (and my workshop was done), I was able to really settle in and work on my new story a bit. I spent the weekend doing the character profile for my antagonist, which was a lot of work because in the past year I’ve been “knowing” this guy, I really didn’t know a thing about him.
Now, I know that sentence sounds odd, but I’m sure all the writers know what I’m talking about. The only thing I knew about this character was that he was a bad dude and wanted my heroine for his own nefarious reasons.
No, really, this is all I knew about him when I was writing the first draft. In fact, his name is Bad Dude (or some variation thereof) throughout the entire draft.
Never let it be said that I let something as trivial as the lack of a name or GMC stop me from writing a story, gosh darnit. 
But I had a good time in Colorado. I made some new friends and have possibly stumbled on a new path. There was a lot of interest in my workshop and I’ve been asked to expand it into a full 4 week course. So now I have 3 different 4 week course ideas playing around in my mind… (and you all know that being in my mind is not always the best place to be- hahahahaha!).
Here’s a shot of a bit of the artwork from my cabin. This was on the wall directly by the bed
I dubbed him the Guardian. Well, I sort of had too. If not, I would have freaked out waking up and seeing him first thing every morning-lol.
Oh, and I got up close and personal with some wild life. Look, it’s Bambi!
And his son (or daughter)
It’s been a whirlwind of activity in the world of writing so far for me in 2010. I’ve written a total of 79,612 words (between 2 wips), placed second overall in my category in Lori Wilde’s “Drive ‘Em Wilde” contest (WOOT WOOT), AND I’ve been accepted into a year long mentorship program with Ms. Wilde.
It’s been exciting (and frantic and hectic-lol) times for me indeed, but I know it is really just beginning. As I type this, I remain about 3 scenes away from my very first completed draft. I am shooting to be done with it by this Saturday, which leaves me a full 2.5 days to knock it all out. Trust me when I say this is a rough draft in the TRUEST sense of the word, but it will be my first completed manuscript.
If I stay on target, I’ll have about a week to fully flush out my main characters (very important), finish the basics of my worldbuilding, and get firm up my overall plot a bit better. Since I am using this story as my project during the mentorship, I really need to have these pieces in place before I spend the next year crafting this story into something I’m proud of that I can shop around.
And outside of the upcoming mentorship program, I have 3 upcoming retreats (one I’m co-chair of and the other I’m speaking at) and 3 workshops on my plate. YES, 6 events! I’m crazy, I know… But in my defense, they all sounded like great ideas at the time.
So I’ve got big, big plans for myself during the next 12 months. As long as I can get through the next 3, I should be aight.
