R.L. Naquin's Blog, page 8

Recap at the Cafe

Oh, hello. Welcome to another episode of I’m Not Here, I’m Over There.

It’s Wednesday, so of course I’m over at the Cafe. This week, we’re doing a recap of the whole NaNoWriMo mess that was November. If you’re so inclined, you can see it here: Looks Like We Made It.

Fairies in My Fireplace is coming along nicely. I’m 2/3 of the way through on the initial read through/round of tweaks. Taking lots of notes on what holes need to be filled in, as well as notes on the name and species of side characters so I keep the continuity going.

I feel pretty confident that it’ll be ready to go by the end of the month.

The short story I promised also needs some additional editing, and early next month I’ll have it available for free…somewhere. Here. Amazon. Something. I haven’t decided yet how to get it to you. Maybe we’ll do a contest or a newsletter signup or something.

Soon. Let me get Fairies off my plate, then I’ll have a present for you. Mid-January at the latest.

In fact, lots of cool stuff is coming soon. New things in the new year. New book in March. New sekrit project. And some other things I’m saving for later.

Stay tuned. Things are picking up.

See you real soon!

Cover Reveal for Pooka in My Pantry!

Pooka in My Pantry, book two in the Monster Haven stories comes out in March!

Ta da! What do you think? This is the final cover for Pooka in My Pantry, which comes out in March. I don’t have the exact release date yet. That should come sometime in the next month, along with the official back cover copy.

Same model. Same background. Same font. Same color scheme. They managed to get one of Maurice’s eyes in there again, and that dress–Zoey would totally wear it. I’m a happy girl.  I don’t know who the cover artist is, but s/he did a fabulous job.

I’ve only been sitting on it since Friday. With it being the last day of NaNoWriMo, I had to concentrate on getting to the end of that before I could talk to you again. But I’m back now, and I’ll try not to leave you again.

So. I made it through November. It wasn’t the full-scale Broadway musical I’d hoped for, but I made it. Successfully. Because the first draft of Fairies in My Fireplace is done, and now I’m on the editing stage.

I know the progress bar on the right says I’ve still got words to write to make the initial goal of 80k, and that’s true. I tend to under-write in the beginning. I’ll add more words over this month of Editpalooza, fear not. The basic structure of the manuscript is sound. It’s riddled with holes, though, and I’ll start filling them in today.

They aren’t plot holes so much as character holes. People and relationships didn’t always get their full colors on the first round. Also, there’s one character who got too much in the beginning, and I decided later she didn’t need to be a prominent character. In fact, I’m taking away her ability to talk. By the end of the book, she had unfinished business, which I never figured out. Honestly, she was one problem too many for Zoey. I’m not getting rid of her. She’s just getting scaled back.

By the end of the week, I expect to have my Swiss cheese manuscript looking more like cheddar. Then I send it off to my first crit partner, who’s promised a quick turnaround on it, and I can start smoothing it out. Then I’ll polish it up nice and shiny and send it off to my fabulous editor in the hope that she won’t think I’ve totally screwed up.

And while I wait for her first round of edits, I’ll be working on a sekrit project. And some short stuff that needs to go out. And outlining the next Zoey book, which will have to be turned in by August.

NaNo’s over, but I’ve still got piles of work ahead of me.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Guest Author J.L. Hilton

Remember on Wednesday how I mentioned I’d have a special guest today?  

Today is the day! Yay! J.L. Hilton, my fellow Carina Press and Here Be Magic author, is here to talk to you instead. Guys, she writes sci-fi. That makes her awesome. She loves monsters and makes steampunk jewelry. It doesn’t get any cooler than that.

Read her post. Give her some comment love. Go buy her brand new book, Stellarnet Prince. But don’t stop there! You’ll also want to buy the first book in the series, Stellarnet Rebel. You don’t want to read them out of order, do you? Of course not. That would be ridiculous.

Please make her feel welcome, and show her we’re not complete heathens over here. Feet off the table, hold your bodily noises until she’s done, and quit hitting your sister. She’ll think we’re animals. — Rachel

 

I’m trying to remember the first time I fell in love with an alien. Does Luke Skywalker count? I know he looks human, but he is from another planet. I had such a crush on him from Star Wars through Return of the Jedi, I was really ticked when Leia turned out to be his sister. Ick.

My tween self was also besotted by Tron. I preferred the digital “program” version to the real-world programmer, Alan. But I don’t think Tron counts as an alien, either. Even if he did glow and live inside of a computer.

I think my first foray into truly non-human alien-with-face-makeup romance must have been with Klingons circa 1989. We can thank Michael Dorn for that. If we’d all had the Internet then, I would have been one of those people who wrote fan fiction about Klingon snuggle fests. I know Klingons are all bumpy and bitey, but that’s part of the fun, right?

Oh, but a few years later I met the Cardassians of Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Those bad boys in black leather are wicked hot, sipping kanar while they tried to take over the Gamma Quadrant. Is it wrong to want to be a Bajoran love slave?

About the same time as ST:DS9 came Babylon 5. I didn’t remember much about B5 until I re-watched all five seasons in 2009, but the one thing I didn’t forget was the length of a Centauri’s “appendage.” In the second round of viewing though, I fell madly in love with the Narn named G’kar (and I don’t know anything about his appendage, but that’s OK, we can work it out). He remains the subject of my laptop wallpaper even now, three and a half years later.

Ooh! But what about monsters, too? Clancy Brown’s touching performance as Frankenstein’s monster Viktor in The Bride. Nightcrawler in X-men 2. Red-skinned Hellboy and his blue friend Abe Sapien.

What is it about monsters and aliens that I find so attractive? After all, lizard skin and red eyes are not hot, they’re scary, right? Fangs? Scars? Horns? What’s wrong with me?

I think it goes back to my favorite fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast. Long before Disney created Belle the bookworm, I liked the idea that it’s the inside, not the outside, that counts. When you look like a beast, you must earn love with your personality and actions – kindness, generosity, self-sacrifice, bravery, wit – and not just your appearance.

When someone has a monstrous or alien visage, I am forced to see a character’s true self without the distraction of human attractiveness. When they are bold, suave, noble, eloquent, shy or lonely, it makes their personalities and emotions even more vivid in stark contrast to their inhuman appearance.

When my heroine Genevieve O’Riordan meets Duin in the first book of my Stellarnet Series, she is meeting an alien for the first time in her life. It’s not love at first sight. He has no hair and no ears, big weird eyes and webbed hands. His face is pale but the back of his skull is patterned in shades of green and gray, earning his race, the Glin, the epithet “frogs.” But, over time, she falls in love with him – his intelligence, tenacity, humor, compassion and courage.

For me, this is the essence of true love – looking deep, seeing someone’s true self, and loving them for who they choose to be, not just what they look like on the outside. I wish more humans would do that.

J.L. Hilton is the author of the Stellarnet Series published by Carina Press, including Stellarnet Rebel(January 2012) and Stellarnet Prince (November 2012). Her artwork is featured in the books Steampunk Style Jewelry and 1000 Steampunk Creations. Visit her at JLHilton.com or follow her on Facebook, Twitter,Goodreads and deviantART.

Author website: www.JLHilton.com

Stellarnet website: www.StellarnetSeries.com

Publisher website: www.CarinaPress.com

Buy link: http://www.StellarnetSeries.com/shop/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/J.L.Hilton.author

Twitter: https://twitter.com/authorJLHilton

deviantART: http://jlhilton.deviantart.com/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5344538.J_L_Hilton

Official cover blurb for Stellarnet Prince (November 2012) by J.L. Hilton, published by Carina Press:

An otherworldly love. Human blogger Genny O’Riordan shares two alien lovers: Duin, a leader of the Uprising, and Belloc, the only surviving member of the reviled Glin royal family. Their relationship has inspired millions of followers–and incited vicious anti-alien attacks.

A planet at risk. A Stellarnet obsessed with all things alien brings kidnappers, sex traffickers and environmental exploitation to Glin. Without weapons or communications technology, the planet cannot be defended. Glin will be ravaged and raided until nothing remains.

A struggle for truth. On Earth, Duin discovers a secret that could spur another rebellion, while on Glin, Belloc’s true identity could endanger their family and everything they’ve fought for. Have the Glin found true allies in humanity, or an even more deadly foe?

94,000 words

Word Counts, Jane Lynch, and Monsters

Spoiler: Sweetums is my favorite monster EVER.

NaNoWriMo is in full swing, and my blog has started to collect cobwebs. I warned you this might happen.

But I’m here today to try to make up for my neglect. Last Wednesday was so crazy, I completely forgot to tell you to go to the Confabulator Cafe, like I do every Wednesday.

So, let’s start with that. For the entire month of November and the first week of December, the theme is the same at the Cafe: NaNoWriMo. Rather than ask a specific question, we agreed to post something the night before it goes live, no editing, no word-length minimums or maximums–just write whatever crazy, sleep-deprived thing you feel like writing as an update.

Last week’s post came out as a confession of my true NaNo goals this year, disguised as Jane Lynch screaming at me. You can find it here: Drop and Give Me Fifty.

This week, another confession, mostly that Jane Lynch isn’t screaming loud enough to help me keep up the insane pace I set out for myself. Mostly because Week Two Sucks. That Is All.

You can, of course, keep an eye on my progress by watching the NaNo progress bar on the right, as well as the total word count for the book in the bar below that. It’s not where I wanted it to be, but it’s still looking pretty damn good to me.

And one last thing. I’m also over at Here Be Magic today. Yes, really. Attempting a double NaNo with a half twist was not enough pressure. I need to be on two other blogs, plus my own. See why there have been crickets chirping over here?

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, I wrote this: Thankful for…Monsters. Because, really, I am thankful for monsters. Please feel free to add your favorite monsters in the comments.

And that’s it. I have to get back to Zoey. Things are looking rough for her and her friends/family. I’ll try to get back here soon.

Oh, and Monday we have a special guest blogger. You’ll like her. J.L. Hilton is a fellow Carina Press author and has a new release. She writes sci-fi, guys. That makes her exceptionally cool. Also? She’s funny. So, yeah. She’s going to come over here and help me out while I’m busy Writing All of the Words.

See you real soon!

Words Counts, Jane Lynch, and Monsters

Spoiler: Sweetums is my favorite monster EVER.

NaNoWriMo is in full swing, and my blog has started to collect cobwebs. I warned you this might happen.

But I’m here today to try to make up for my neglect. Last Wednesday was so crazy, I completely forgot to tell you to go to the Confabulator Cafe, like I do every Wednesday.

So, let’s start with that. For the entire month of November and the first week of December, the theme is the same at the Cafe: NaNoWriMo. Rather than ask a specific question, we agreed to post something the night before it goes live, no editing, no word-length minimums or maximums–just write whatever crazy, sleep-deprived thing you feel like writing as an update.

Last week’s post came out as a confession of my true NaNo goals this year, disguised as Jane Lynch screaming at me. You can find it here: Drop and Give Me Fifty.

This week, another confession, mostly that Jane Lynch isn’t screaming loud enough to help me keep up the insane pace I set out for myself. Mostly because Week Two Sucks. That Is All.

You can, of course, keep an eye on my progress by watching the NaNo progress bar on the right, as well as the total word count for the book in the bar below that. It’s not where I wanted it to be, but it’s still looking pretty damn good to me.

And one last thing. I’m also over at Here Be Magic today. Yes, really. Attempting a double NaNo with a half twist was not enough pressure. I need to be on two other blogs, plus my own. See why there have been crickets chirping over here?

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, I wrote this: Thankful for…Monsters. Because, really, I am thankful for monsters. Please feel free to add your favorite monsters in the comments.

And that’s it. I have to get back to Zoey. Things are looking rough for her and her friends/family. I’ll try to get back here soon.

Oh, and Monday we have a special guest blogger. You’ll like her. J.L. Hilton is a fellow Carina Press author and has a new release. She writes sci-fi, guys. That makes her exceptionally cool. Also? She’s funny. So, yeah. She’s going to come over here and help me out while I’m busy Writing All of the Words.

See you real soon!

Happy NaNoween!

I did a search for “scary typewriters,” and this is what came up. Cool, yes? Go see this guy’s website. Jeremy Mayer creates robot sculptures using nothing but typewriter parts. He’s got some amazing stuff. http://jeremymayer.com/GalleryMain.as...

Happy Halloween! And to you brave, writerly types, happy NaNo’s Eve! Today is filled with ghosts and ghoulies, goblins and jack o’ lanterns, bowls of candy and scary movies.

It’s also filled with antsy writers waiting for midnight to kick off the big event. Myself, I’m thinking I might have to take a nap today, because I’m old. We’re meeting at 11 tonight at a Perkins so the group can start writing together right at the stroke of midnight.

I’m excited because I’m planning on midnight pancakes. Pancakes in the middle of the night? Why, that’s absurd!

I will probably manage about a half hour of writing before the carbs kick in, and I have to go home to bed. But…pancakes!

It’s also, Wednesday, of course, so it’s Confabulator Cafe day. This week we were asked what we were doing for NaNoWriMo. What? You’re sick of reading about it already? Hold on to your butt. The event is about to start. I won’t have much of anything else to talk about for the next thirty days.

Still, there is something a little new over at the Cafe. I’ve got a short synopsis of Fairies in My Fireplace to share with you. It’s a tiny bit spoilery for book two, but not much. You can find it here: Rebel with a Cause.

I don’t know how often I’ll be checking in with you over the next few weeks. Keep an eye on the NaNo counter on the right if you want to see how I’m doing. Once a week at the Cafe I’ll be doing a sort of NaNo diary thing where you might find snippets of what I’ve written, cries of desperation, bouts of Pixie-Sticks-induced mania, or a delusional series of non sequiturs strung together like seed pearls. If I’m alert enough, I’ll probably post whatever I do over there here, too.

Also, about halfway through the month, I’ll have a post for you over at Here Be Magic. And–bonus!–I have a special guest blogger coming in. So, no matter how whacked out or silent I get, there will still be some things here for you.

Or, you know, it could all go business as usual.  It’s not that many words, right? Maybe I’ll double the goal. Who knows?

Anything could happen!

See you real soon?

Contest: Be a Monster in My Next Book

Okay, I was totally going to slack off and not write a post today. But then I remembered I’m up this week in the big Here Be Magic contest.

One lucky winner will have their name immortalized as a non-human creature in Fairies in My Fireplace. You can choose your name or one of your loved ones, if you win. I’ll even make sure you’re mentioned in the acknowledgements so everyone knows about it.

Go! Enter many times! You can do it here: Here Be Magic.

If you haven’t entered for the grand prize yet, for love of the one-eyed god of wombats, why haven’t you done that yet? It’s a Kindle Fire, people. Loaded with books!

And this is the last week to do it. In fact, it ends tomorrow night. Hurry!

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Enter the contest to get your name on a monster. Enter the other contest to win a really nice e-reader.

Also, I like cupcakes. That is all.

What’s Nanu Reemoo? (Part 3)

If you missed the previous installments of this mini-series, you can catch them here: What’s Nanu Reemoo (Part 1) and (Part 2).

If you’ve stuck with me this far, maybe I’ve convinced you to give National Novel Writing Month a try. Now what?

There are tons of blogs and articles out there talking about all the things you can or should do to “prep” for NaNoWriMo. My first year of NaNo, I’d never even heard of it until about a week before it happened. There was a pre-NaNo kickoff meeting in my region, and I missed it. If you’ve gotten this far without signing up, you’ve probably missed yours, too.

But that’s okay. It’s not November yet, right? Sure, you can prep if  you want to, but it’s not necessary. All you need is the germ of an idea and an official account on the website so you can take advantage of all the tools available to help you succeed.

So, are you ready? Go to the NaNoWriMo website and click on “sign up” on the top right corner of the page. Choose a username, fill in your email address, and add a password. Scroll down to your timezone, then click “sign up.”

There you go. It’s official! Now you have a dashboard. From there, you can go to “My NaNoWriMo” and enter as much or as little information about you and your book as you like. It’s fun to play with, and I found with my very first NaNo that putting a title, genre, and a few sentences about the book I was about to write really made it real. This is also where you’ll put your word count in every day. Seeing that graph line go up through the weeks gives an enormous sense of accomplishment.

The next section is the Forums. Go ahead. Check them out. Read about the different stories people are writing, get ideas for  your novel, make some friends, learn about how it all works, or just lurk (like I do) and be nosy.

The third tab is Fun Stuff. All kinds of stuff is in there for you to discover. Go look. Explore. Play. I’m not going over everything and ruining the surprises for you. In fact, check out all the tabs, which also include More from NaNo, Store, and Donate. They all kind of go hand in hand. There are a bunch of awesome programs these people do, all for free. They’ve got some great stuff in their store, which helps them pay for their overhead, and donating to the cause is also a great way to say “Thank you” for all the stuff they do. I won’t harp on it, but if you do NaNo and get something out of it, please consider tossing a little monetary thanks back at them, okay?

I skipped over what I consider the most important tab. In my opinion, it’s the key to success in this crazy endeavor. If you do nothing else to prepare, do this one thing. Click on the NaNo Near You tab. Use the filter to look for your town or state and find the closet region. Add yourself to that group and go immediately to the forum for your new region and introduce yourself.

This is your new family for the duration of the month. Stick with them. Go to the write-ins if they have them. Add them as friends on your account. Ask questions, be supportive, cry out for help if you get stuck.

And if your group sucks? My region does not. We welcome people who don’t have regions of their own. We’ve had members move away to far off places and still stick with our region on the forum. So, if you need a family for support, you can claim “USA :: Kansas :: Lawrence“ as your home. Introduce yourself. Tell us I sent you. We’ll be there for you.

Oh, and one more thing. Feel free to add me (rlwohler) as a friend on your account. We’ll keep each other honest.

Together, we will Write All of the Words.

See you real soon!

Confabulator Halloween Flash, Coyote Con, and HBM Contest

For a Wednesday post, this one is a little longer than usual because I have three things for you instead of just one:

Confabulator Cafe:

It’s flash fiction week at the Confabulator Cafe. And not just any flash fiction– Halloween stories! Our mission was to write a story for you about a travelling carnival, like Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.

All the stories I’ve read are great. I highly recommend that you read through them all, if nothing else, to get you in the Halloween mood. My story actually takes place in the world of the Hidden, like Monster in My Closet. There’s no Zoey, no Maurice, or any of the other characters you might be familiar with, but any one of them could have been there. You can read the story here: “Carnival of Riddles.”

Coyote Con:

This weekend I’m on two panels for the online writer’s conference, Coyote Con. It’s free, there are lots of different panels you can attend, and it runs from Friday to Sunday evening.

I’ve noticed traffic has increased here since I started talking about NaNoWriMo, so you might be interested to know one of the live panels I’m on is on that very subject.  I’ll probably talk about a lot of what I’ve been saying here, but there are three other people on the panel with me, plus the Q & A with the audience. If you’re still undecided or have questions about NaNo, come on into the chatroom on Sunday with us so we can help.

On Saturday, I’m on a panel called Monsters & Things That Go Bump in the Night. You know how I love monsters. You can view the schedule for the whole weekend here: Coyote Con Schedule. There are three tabs, so you can view all three days.

Here Be Magic Giveaway:

Last, but very important — have you entered the Here Be Magic contests yet? There’s only one week left! This week’s entry could get you a promo package if you’ve got a book to promote. And don’t forget the big giveaway that’s going to be awarded next week. You’ve still got a chance at that Kindle Fire or Nook HD loaded with a bunch of Carina Press books (including mine) and a gift basket full of swag.

I don’t want to brag, but that basket includes a fully blinged-out toilet brush from me, in case you run into any monsters and need to defend yourself. Next week, I might post a picture of it.

So, there you go. Three important pieces of news telling you to go elsewhere. Why are you still here? There’s lots to do!

See you real soon!

What’s Nanu Reemoo? (Part 2)

 

Last week we talked a little about what National Novel Writing Month is. If you missed it, you can find Part 1 here: What’s Nanu Reemoo?

Today I want to explain the rules and why I don’t follow them.

The rules are actually pretty simple:

Sign up on the NaNoWriMo website and declare yourself to the world.
Write 50k words of a new work during the month of November.
Paste the whole thing into their word count checker (feel free to scramble the words if you’re afraid someone will steal it, but honest, nobody sees it) to get verified.
Display your winner swag with pride.

Pretty simple, yes? Except for the second rule. I have a problem with that one. “New work” is understood to mean that you start a brand new book on November 1st, and stick with it all through the month.

I can’t do this. Okay, maybe I could if I tried, but I’d rather not. This is my third year doing this, and it will be my third year starting November 1st with a significant word count on a book already in progress.

To make it fair, I do open a brand new Word document in which only November words will go. I don’t count the already existing chapters in my NaNo word count. I’m still doing 50k. I’m just not starting from scratch on page one like the majority of people.

While all my friends are running around doing prep work right now for the novel they can’t wait to begin at midnight on Halloween, I’m getting caught up on housework and blog posts while the 26k or so words I’ve already written sit tight and wait for me to get back to them.

Before I explain why I do this, I want to assure you that I am not cheating. There are others like me working on something already in progress. There are also people who write 50k worth of short stories. Some people spend the time rewriting a stinky novel that needs at least 50k worth of re-do.

The folks at the website have us covered. We’re officially called “rebels,” and it’s perfectly okay. We’ve still embraced the challenge, and we’re still doing 50k of new words during November. So, if that’s something holding you back, don’t let it. This is a challenge that can be shaped to fit your needs. It’s okay to work outside the official parameters.

The reason I do it that way is simple. I write full-length novels. The first one came in at 73k for the first draft. (It got longer in rewrites.) The second one came in around 85k. My initial goal for this one is 80k, though it’ll probably be closer to 85 or 90.

So, what good is 50k going to do me? That’s barely over halfway. The halfway mark is when it starts to get really difficult and the cheering and bullying of my fellow writers is most needed. By already having a good 30k written before it starts, I’m assured that I will get to the end by November 30th. Not just the end of NaNoWriMo — the end of the novel.

It also means that I can let the whole thing rest during the holidays before I start the editing process.

Everyone does it in a different way. My way seems to work for me, but you can do it anyway you like. When people tell me they’d like to do it, but they can’t possibly do 50k, I always tell them to make a different goal.

There’s no NaNo police. You want to do 20k in a month? Do that. You want to write 30 poems in 30 days? Do that. Whatever your goals, I say they’re valid. Go for it. Get out of your own way and join us in this adventure.

For those of you who might be convinced, come back Friday. In part 3, we’ll go over how to sign up and how to get started.

See you real soon!