Sometimes the Magic Works
It's funny how October 31st is still one of my favorite days of the year, but not for entirely the same reasons. The costume and candy anticipation has turned to character and plot anticipation. Don't get me wrong, costumes and candy are still the highlights of Halloween, but on the stroke of midnight, like a reverse Cinderella's carriage, All Hallows Eve becomes Day One of National Novel Writing Month.
Magic hour.
I looked back over my past Nanowrimo books and realized this will be my tenth November Nanowrimo project (don't ask me how that math works out; nine years but ten books). It makes my plans all the more fitting.
Way back in 2004 when I discovered the madness that is Nano, I had two weeks to decide and plan my project. At that time my friends and I were very active role players and any given free time that found a handful of us together resulted in random "moshes," in which each of us picked a character and someone picked a setting. With nothing more than that we built amazing stories together.
One stormy evening found a few of us with nothing to do, so we decided that we were in the common room of an inn on a stormy night. Instead of picking from my regular stable of characters, I decided to pull out a concept that had been fluttering in the back of my mind since high school. She was a traveling piper named Nakkita, and she had a secret: she was a runaway kidnapped princess. I just didn't know what to do with her.
I couldn't have known that her story wouldn't be complete without Kharduval August, the loyal knight, or Latasha Gildersleeve, the werewolf Moonsinger. I stole them (with permission from Nee-chan and Tree) and the seeds of Peasant Queen were planted.
I wrote the manuscript in a flurry of handwritten and typed pages, sliding under the wire on November 30th to score my first win. Needless to say it was thoroughly addicting even though my next two Nano novels barely made it off the ground.
To this day I consider Peasant Queen and Masquerade to be my best Nanowrimo novels. Peasant Queen was also the only time that I've written an actual ending during Nanowrimo. However, the manuscript had one fatal flaw. It had no middle. Right around the end of week three I skipped over half the guts and glory of the whole ordeal and went straight to the lead-up of the climax.
So this year for my tenth Nanowrimo project I'm dusting off Peasant Queen and rewriting it from stem to stern, guts and all. And I'm posting it all on Smashwords as I go.
It's going to be mayhem. Hopefully the good kind.
My Facebook author page is up and as mentioned before I'll be posting there when manuscript updates are live. I'll also be putting up my working map, portraits of characters, some settings and whatever other goodies I come up with as things go. You can find the page here: https://www.facebook.com/amandalfrede...
I hope you join me!
(Writing for Nanowrimo? Write with me! Add me as a writing buddy here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/sar...)
Magic hour.
I looked back over my past Nanowrimo books and realized this will be my tenth November Nanowrimo project (don't ask me how that math works out; nine years but ten books). It makes my plans all the more fitting.
Way back in 2004 when I discovered the madness that is Nano, I had two weeks to decide and plan my project. At that time my friends and I were very active role players and any given free time that found a handful of us together resulted in random "moshes," in which each of us picked a character and someone picked a setting. With nothing more than that we built amazing stories together.
One stormy evening found a few of us with nothing to do, so we decided that we were in the common room of an inn on a stormy night. Instead of picking from my regular stable of characters, I decided to pull out a concept that had been fluttering in the back of my mind since high school. She was a traveling piper named Nakkita, and she had a secret: she was a runaway kidnapped princess. I just didn't know what to do with her.
I couldn't have known that her story wouldn't be complete without Kharduval August, the loyal knight, or Latasha Gildersleeve, the werewolf Moonsinger. I stole them (with permission from Nee-chan and Tree) and the seeds of Peasant Queen were planted.
I wrote the manuscript in a flurry of handwritten and typed pages, sliding under the wire on November 30th to score my first win. Needless to say it was thoroughly addicting even though my next two Nano novels barely made it off the ground.
To this day I consider Peasant Queen and Masquerade to be my best Nanowrimo novels. Peasant Queen was also the only time that I've written an actual ending during Nanowrimo. However, the manuscript had one fatal flaw. It had no middle. Right around the end of week three I skipped over half the guts and glory of the whole ordeal and went straight to the lead-up of the climax.
So this year for my tenth Nanowrimo project I'm dusting off Peasant Queen and rewriting it from stem to stern, guts and all. And I'm posting it all on Smashwords as I go.
It's going to be mayhem. Hopefully the good kind.
My Facebook author page is up and as mentioned before I'll be posting there when manuscript updates are live. I'll also be putting up my working map, portraits of characters, some settings and whatever other goodies I come up with as things go. You can find the page here: https://www.facebook.com/amandalfrede...
I hope you join me!
(Writing for Nanowrimo? Write with me! Add me as a writing buddy here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/sar...)
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