Browsing all articles from October, 2010

Gearing up for Nanowrimo. Maybe.

Posted by Merry in Merry's Blog

Oct
28

My first book, Sword of the Guardian, was written mostly during Nanowrimo… in 2004, believe it or not. I’d started it a little before November, and had to continue writing through most of December to finish it, but the first draft was completed in approximately six or seven weeks. It then took a full year to edit before it could be released, of course, seeing as how it was my first book and I had a LOT of growth to do as a writer, and a lot of polishing to do to the manuscript to make it fit for public consumption. :P

I have realized, with very deep shame, that it has been SIX YEARS since. And though I have managed to write another book and a couple of short stories since then, the world of Ithyria has been sadly neglected. I have lots of excuses… oh so very many, from buying a house and getting married to all the home-improvement projects and career changes that have been going on in the past six years. Nonetheless, the fact remains that poor Ithyria has been sitting on my back burner for far too long.

In the past couple months I’ve been steadily chipping away at it again, and making quite a bit of progress, too — though most of that progress is intangible, just a sorting out of ideas. Vital, absolutely, but still not anything of actual substance or production. So, I’m going to see what I can do about trying to make this year’s Nanowrimo the kick in the pants that I need to get the book done. (Of course, I don’t really get to say I’m doing Nanowrimo, since I’m not following any of Nano’s rules… but I figure it’s still not a bad idea to get some help in setting goals for myself.)

As of a couple days ago, I have three chapters of the next book finished. What I don’t have finished yet is a satisfying outline of the full novel, though it’s slowly, slooooooooowly coming along. I usually like to keep track of my progress in chapters, which is difficult when I’m still not yet entirely clear on how many chapters there are going to be. (At this point I’m estimating somewhere around 18?) What I do know, however, is that I definitely have a word-count limit. The original manuscript for SotG was nearly 180,0000 words, shaved down to somewhere around 130,000 in the finished product if I remember correctly. Branded Ann was much tighter at around 106,000. I don’t think I’ll be able to get away with another 130K word manuscript with this second book, but I also know that the plot is complex enough that it will likely require more than 100K to do it justice.

So I’m setting my goal, for now, at somewhere around 115,000 words. With nearly 22K finished right now, that gives me 93000 to finish (how sad is it that right now that sounds like nowhere near enough?!!) Nano asks writers to come up with 50K words in 30 days — approximately 1600 words per day. It won’t finish the book off entirely, but it would take me more than halfway there if I could pull it off. With my work schedule I still don’t know for sure if I’ll be able to fit in enough time for writing, but I’m going to give it my darnedest, anyway.

So bring it on, November!

Branded Ann in 3D

Posted by Merry in Books, Featured, Merry's Blog Comments

Inspiration from the Classics

Posted by Merry in Merry's Blog Comments

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Oct
7

During another frustrating wrestling match with insomnia last night, a few more pieces of the Ithyria puzzle clicked together in my head. Right now it feels like I’m trying to write the remaining four books all at once – and in a way I am, because I have to at least have most of the major plot points, characters and locations worked out in my head so I can build them into the framework of preceding events.

Anyway, the elusive fourth book in the series has had me hung up for a while now. I had only the vaguest of ideas for one of the main characters and the location, and a hint of how it might be tied into the overall story arc, but beyond that I was at a loss as to how to develop the characters, the central romance OR the secondary adventure story in a way that might fit into the rest of the series. *sigh*

But, as I was laying there trying desperately to stop thinking about Ithyria so I could sleep, my rebellious imagination began coming up with familiar movies or literary works that might parallel the main romance of each planned book. Almost immediately, the fourth book’s correlation with my favorite novel in high school, The Scarlet Pimpernel, suddenly became glaringly obvious. And thinking of the story in those terms suddenly brought a bunch of things into focus. An entire section of the story arc that had previously been just a gaping gray question mark came abruptly into view, with color and voice and location and character, and I was sooooo excited by all the new possibilities it brought with it that sleep was truly an impossibility at that point. HAH!

But, knowing I had to get up for work today, I eventually got myself to sleep by taking a few sleeping pills and promising my brain that I would blog today about the list of Hollywood & literary works that could be (admittedly very loosely) compared to the planned plot development of the Ithyria books. *gringrin* Besides, I thought some readers might get a kick out of a little sneak peek at what’s to come. So without giving too much away (I hope), here’s the list:

Book One (Sword of the Guardian) = The Bodyguard

You know, the Whitney Houston / Kevin Costner movie that was all the rage when I was in… erm… middle school. ^^; Rich, pampered superstar falls in love with her stoic, unimpressed personal bodyguard. Lots of danger, intrigue, romance and sexual tension, yes?

Book Two (Prayer of the Handmaiden) = The Thorn Birds

Epic ‘70s novel turned 80’s miniseries about an Australian priest in love with a married woman. He’s constantly trying to reconcile his feelings for her with his religious aspirations. More yummy sexual tension and emotional angst, and that old favorite theme, forbidden love.

Book Three (Title To Be Announced) = The King and I

A modern teacher arrives in a strange foreign land to teach the king’s children about her more “civilized” way of life. In the process she learns to set aside her own prejudices, and realizes that in order to teach others she will also have to learn some important lessons about herself.

Book Four (Title To Be Announced) = The Scarlet Pimpernel

No one suspects that this foppish, flamboyant British dandy is actually the elusive, clever daredevil who’s been secretly smuggling families out of France, right under the noses of the Revolution’s most powerful leaders. But his beautiful wife doesn’t know of his secret identity… in fact, she might even be a spy for his greatest enemy.

Book Five (Title To Be Announced) = Romeo and Juliet

Born on opposite sides of an ancient feud and destined to be mortal enemies, two headstrong teenagers nonetheless fall passionately in love. Ultimately they’re willing to defy their families in order to be together, even if it means death to them both.

Of course I’m not going to copy-and-paste a bunch of heterosexual plotlines into a lesbian Ithyria. It’s just that I’m seeing some correlation between these familiar classics and the romantic tension I want to create in each Ithyria book. Drawing upon these as inspirations has really, REALLY helped me flesh out parts of the series that I was beginning to get very frustrated with!

Now if only I had more time to actually, you know, write…

Anybody else finding inspiration for your work in older Hollywood favorites? ;)

Scrambling to beat the cold weather…

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Oct
5

Well, we are now firmly into October. *sigh* Most of my Colorado friends just love the onset of fall… my coworkers can’t stop talking about how excited they are to pull out their sweaters and boots and several of them had their offices decorated with scarecrows, autumn leaves and pumpkins by the first of September. All this talk about who’s going to wear what at Halloween (and the three or four Halloween parties we’ve already been invited to) just drive home the point that autumn has truly arrived.

Me, I tend to cling to the final vestiges of summer for as long as possible. I’m grateful that the cooler weather in Colorado often doesn’t hit until well into October, but the change in temperature, the gradual lengthening of the night, starts wearing on me right away, pulling me down into glumness that’s going to last until spring returns. I’m just a summer girl, that’s all there is to it. I love the sun, and enjoying bright daylight until 8 PM. If I can’t walk down the street in a tank top without shivering, it is too cold. ;)

Halloween surprises me every year with how quickly it pops up, too. I’m never quite ready for it. You would think, with all the sewing and costuming I’ve done, that it would totally be my thing (and I do love the costumes) but I think that preparing for Halloween would sort of be an admission that summer is gone, so I put it off as long as possible and then have to throw something together at the last minute. O.o

Anyway, Shasta and I are scrambling right now to finish our fence project before the cold weather hits. This unfortunately means that between my full time job with it’s hour-long daily commute and the hours and hours spent installing the fence I’ve had no time or mental energy to make writing progress. *sigh* We think it’s going to take about two more full weekends of work to get the fence finished — just hoping that the cold weather will hold off until then.

We’ve only got one corner of the house finished thus far, but I shall share with you the before:

And the after:

We removed the old fence, dug out all the old fence posts, dug the new post holes, cemented the new posts in, strung the rails, put up the pickets and then stained the whole thing ourselves. (You will also note the removal of the tree… we actually removed something like 13 dead trees from around the house as the previous owners went a little tree-happy in their landscaping.) *flexes muscles* I think we’re going to get a neighborhood reputation as being those hardcore DIY lesbians who are always working on their house… :P

Anyway, Shasta’s texted me several times today saying she got about four more sections of the fence up, so when I get home hopefully we’ll have enough light left that I can throw on some work clothes and go help her stain it. What a lot of work!

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