Happy Holidays

Looking back at Nano

This is the first Saturday in December which means NaNoWriMo has ended and for the first time in three years I achieved my goal. I finished. But this is just the beginning because 58,000 words doesn't tell my story and I need to go back and rework it. With Christmas on the way and three kids to shop for, this season also means jackets and coats to replace for my son who seems to have a growth spurt every three months. My family is debating whether or not to buy a new tree or pull out the fake one from storage. There is so much to do this month. With one daughter taking ballet, I will be sitting through two performances of The Nutcracker (one local, the other at BAM) and her performance awards show. I really do love the advent season and winter. There's something magical about that first snowfall. Now that I've gotten the main ideas for my latest YA fantasy onto pages, I'm going to take the time to learn how to use Scrivener and keep an eye out for any Unicorn Conference announcements. Enjoy the month and Happy Holidays to you and yours!

I Love Dark YA Blogfest

I saw the photo for this week's I Love Dark YA Blogfest theme and knew I had to write something, but I didn't want to post it on my review blog, Reader Girls. This blog is my writer's blog and the piece belonged here. The photo was very inspiring so while Caity was at ballet class, I sat in the car and typed. This is my attempt at flash fiction. I know the total was 500 words but the scene begged for more. Who knows? I may expand this in time.

(I've taken my story down for now. I'm working on it.)

What's Going On

I wrote a post yesterday on my favorite 'dark' YA novels for the beginning of the I Love Dark YA Blogfest. There are so many good choices I had to think about as I compiled my list. And I had to mention the importance of Judy Blume who has been such a pioneer in children's literature. Here's my post over at my other blog, Reader Girls.

Also, today is the third day of NaNoWriMo and I have begun writing my YA fantasy. This story has been in the forefront of my mind for the past two months and I've been keeping it in check until this month. I've already written the beginning twice and now I have the opportunity to devote the necessary time and thought it needs.

Oh, and one more thing. I wrote a post last week about channeling characters. The character I was actually speaking about is named Zach and his short story, "Creep," has been finished (for now). I entered it in the Writer's Digest Short Story contest in the YA genre. I am happy just to have written it and finished it within a week. I believe he has a strong voice and his short story, just under 3,000 words, is begging for a longer length. We'll see. Contest results will be announced by the end of the year.

National month of crazy

It is officially November 1 and that means it is National Novel Writing month, or as I refer to it, national month of crazy. I have participated in Nanowrimo before, but have never finished. This year I am determined to finish. As I addressed in my previous post, I am channeling another character and she has been persistent. For weeks now she has taken precious time out of my early morning sleep--you know that window of time after you get up to use the bathroom or get a glass of water, or in my case, feed a trouble-making cat who loves to knock down the TBR pile off my night stand--giving me ideas, lines of dialogue, even sharing pictures of where certain scenes take place. Lately, another character has joined in, a male 'friend' I'll call him.

So later this morning, I'll begin writing and channeling. Wish me luck!

Writers are like....

At my writer's group meeting last week, I told my fellow writers that writers were like mediums. We channel our characters. Don't you think so? The day before the meeting I had finished reading a book and one line stuck in my head. The more I thought about it, one word in particular got under my skin and before I knew it, something sparked and then my pen was running across a piece of paper. It turned out I was jotting down notes  about a new story. It was as if the main character suddenly took over and had to tell me his story. I typed his story in about four hours and brought the short story to group the next day.

The funny thing is I wasn't looking for another story. I have enough to contend with at the moment. But when this happens--whether or not it's my muse or something else--I have learned to take heed and listen. So when I sat down at the meeting and made my declaration, I received a bunch of smiles of understanding. Oh, and while I'm on this subject, Happy Halloween.

Why do I write?

Since it's the National Day on Writing, this deserved a post. Why do I write? Why do we breathe? Why do we need to speak? Eat? For me, writing is a basic necessary need. Where else can we create using a plethora of words as our canvas? Make believe can be real. The question of supernatural things can have so many answers. We can thrill, make uncomfortable, question, voice opinions, whatever we want to we can.

I write because I love to.