Tag: Nanowrimo

Nano 2015 #1

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 10 Comments

whew and we are off. So last night I dragged my tired, medicated, sick butt down to North Bend for the first minute write in. Mainly because one of our MLs, Quinnleeeee really pulled a small miracle and talked a local business into opening just for the Nano First Minute Write In. After all her hard work, I could hardly stay in bed now could I?

Anyway, 20 minutes of set up, 90 minutes of gabbing, 20 minutes of writing and I was driving back home through a nasty storm. I have to say my first chapter is TERRIBLE. But this year I am letting it ride that way. Forward and on.

To the second Kick Off Write In, this morning at 11 in Fall City. 30 minutes of waiting for a table, an hour of writing, an hour of discussion about what we are all doing this year, our publication plans, and whether or not I should have a theme for my character photos for the blog this year. (I decided no. My brain hurts too much as it is right now)

It has not felt like a positive start. I am tired and still about 40% sick. I’m struggling to get my 1667 today. Struggling hard.

And it ain’t gonna happen.

Words today: 1421

Total Words: 1421

Time Spent: 2 hours.

Estimated Completion Date: December 6th ;(

Excerpt from today:

Detective Name Later was strongly tempted to slam the Liue’s door as he left her office but the smarter part of him knew the situation wasn’t really her fault. If only his partner hadn’t been thinking with his little head. Damn Stephanie Lewis. He knew she was trouble from the moment Tom introduced her. Flipping her blond hair. Batting those dark eyes. One of the two had to be fake right?
He stormed through the bullpen, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. He needed some fresh air. Some Space. Something before he lost his shit. In the parking lot, leaning against his car was his partner, Tom Southby.
“You just hear it from the Liue?”
Name Later nodded.
Tom inhaled slowly. Then broke eye contact to exhale towards the ground. “We had a good run. Sorry it’s going to end this way.” Tom stuck out his hand.
“Is this your way of telling me they are going to find against you?”
Tom nodded shortly.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
“It’s not like I planned it to go down this way.” Tom shook his head, without words to explain.
“I knew that bitch was trouble from the jump.”
“Don’t. Just don’t.”
“You can’t seriously tell me you still care about her.”
“We should probably not talk again until this whole mess gets cleared up. I don’t want any blow back ending up on you.”
Name Later shook his head. “No way. Seven years together counts in my book. We’re family.”
Tom leaned forward to give a brief back slap that came as close to a hug as the two men ever shared and loped off for his car.
Name Later unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel with the realization he had no idea where he was going.

Character Profile: Detective Name Later

chrispineYou’ll notice I have no name for my leading man. He’s a detective, has been for some years, previously military, special teams, don’t ask. Currently working on a huge serial killer case. His partner just got suspended. He’s cranky, irritated, and not really happy about the current state of affairs.

So let’s hear some name suggestions for him.

Wednesday Writer’s Cafe – Not

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment

So my book came out last Friday. Yeah, me! And what does any writer worth their salt do after launching the first book they have ever published? They go on vacation. So I am gone.

While I am gone however, things will continue to tick over here. Tomorrow I will have my last Virtual Book Tour blog stop. Weekend workshops and Monday Book Reviews will continue to appear with the well oiled functionality of wordpress’s scheduling service. LOL.

I’ll tell you all about it when I get back, in time for Nanowrimo, I promise.

Weekend Workshop preempted for my Virtual Book Tour Schedule

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 4 Comments

Scripting the Truth Front cover final

I am so excited to finally be putting the dates out there for my Virtual Book Tour. Every other day I will be stopping by a new blog to share a bit about myself and excerpts from Scripting the Truth. Each stop will have a different excerpt from the novel, giving you a taste of the first few chapters.

Today I pack (my words) and get ready for a flight (of fancy) because…..

The tour starts tomorrow (5 Oct) with a first stop in Macedonia.

The Phantom Child

Per TPC: Zoran’s blog is a worship temple for stories. It doesn’t matter if these are stories from the big screen, books, stories captured through a camera’s lense, or original stories he’s trying to write. He believes the fictional adventures are what makes our real life adventures more enjoyable and interesting. And he certainly hopes some of his own stories will eventually reach the general public.

TPC and I share a love of Nano and he has kindly agreed to host my first stop on the birth tour of my 2014 NanoNovel.

On the 7th I will be popping in for a visit with my good friend at Tommia’s Tablet.

Tommia

Tommia is an award winning blogger who shares her stunning photography, poetry, and occasionally more (like me) with almost daily posts and still she wants to give “a big “THANK YOU” to the fellow bloggers for sharing your artistic ways, a joy to read at the start of days!” Did you notice those two lines rhymed? wink wink.

On Friday October 9th, the officially release date for Scripting the Truth, I will be off across the planet again to hang out in sunny Florida with Dan Alatorre.

Dan Alatorre, Author

Dan Alatorre is the author of several bestsellers and the hilarious upcoming novel “Poggibonsi: an italian misadventure.” Check out his other works HERE 

Not only is Dan kindly hosting this momentous stop on my release day but he makes a serious effort to help his fellow writer with his daily blogs which are a great resource of information he has learned or collected so we all can be more successful.

Continuing back across the Unites States on the 11th to stop in with Sheri J. Kennedy…

Riverside

Sheri had published one novel,  SECRET ORDER OF THE OVERWORLD under pen name KENNEDY J. QUINN. She is about to release her second opus, LIKENESS, in mere days.

On the 13th I fly back across the US (good thing these are flights of fancy, I don’t think I have enough miles to cover this) to beautiful North Carolina to hang out with Skye Hegyes, mother, author, blogger… I can relate.

Skye

Per Skye: I am a mother, author, blogger, and creative enthusiast. I read and write paranormal romance and fantasy, and I absolutely love a good love story. If you walk into my home, you’ll instantly find yourself surrounded as kids, dragons, cats, birds, and sharp objects (generally knives and swords) have made their home in my home… As well as the occasional partridge in a pear tree. I’ve recently (within the past six months) started a YouTube channel about books and reading – although I need to get better about updating it – called The Dragon’s Den.

Finally back home on the 15th to spend a little time with FreeValley Publishing.

FreeValley Publishing

Where Stories Run Free… FreeValley Publishing connects readers and writers. We aid independent authors in the journey from Story to Publication and in encouraging book sales the way they’ve always imagined. Their Vision, Their Books. Stories for all!

Wednesday Writer’s Cafe – Denied

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 5 Comments

I didn’t get to go play tonight. I had to attend a mandatory parent orientation meeting at his home school coop. 122 kids go there. Not bad for a little grass roots coop.

Anyway, where I am at….

My physical proof is on it’s way from Create Space. I am super excited for it to get here next Tuesday.

In the back of my head I know I need to be pulling all the elements together for my post cards but I just haven’t found the time. Everything the kiddo does for school outside the home, started this week and it has left me wore.

I have prepped my lecture for Saturday’s seminar, North Bend Library at 1030 AM. Topic: Nanowrimo success and how to pull that off.

Can I just circle back to my proof is on it’s way? My completed physical novel, that I wrote, is on it’s way. AGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Ok sorry about that. Back to normal here. No, no, I’m not. My novel is coming, my novel is coming, my novel is coming. Three weeks and 2 days til launch.

Friday Fun

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment

woohoo, I actually made it to writer’s cafe this morning. Did I get any work done? laughing…not really. I wrote three blog posts. I had vague hopes of getting all my weekend workshops for the next two months written and scheduled. I wasn’t crazy enough to think I would get the exercises done as well but at least the summary posts right? shrug, oh well.

So where am I with my novels.

  • My spy novel is on hiatus, again.
  • My romance is in the midst of being read out loud to my hubby. As soon as we are done hashing all that out, I have a fresh reader lined up to take a gander. I still need to research one more thing. I need a 1949 convertible sports car. That has not proved to be an easy google. But I tarry on.
  • Nano 2015 novel. Still researching a bit but feel like I have a grasp on what I really need to know. Not eager to get started though, I have too much fun life stuff between now and then.

Fun life stuff:

In a week my cuz and his wife are coming to visit for a few days. I haven’t seen them in years. So super excited about that.

Then I have an anniversary party, 10 years, which I am catering as well as enjoying.

Then my friend Patty comes for a few days.

Then I am running away for the weekend.

Then I am launching my romance on the world.

Then a cruise with the hubby and kiddo.

Then NANO.

So not rushing this fall. I plan to enjoy every moment of it. I can’t ever get some of these experiences back again. Time to savor them. What are you looking forward to this fall? What are you writing at Nano?

Friday Fun

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment

It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring, he went to bed and bumped his head and he didn’t get up in the morning….

“That’s not funny. mommy.” Said with a frown by my kiddo when I tried to sing this to him outside the library. Children today. LOL

By (dubious) virtue of not walking the dog, doing yoga, or showering, I made it to the Friday write in today. It was just Alex and I. That is dangerous. Because Alex and I can talk about everything under the sun, twice, and still come up with something entertaining to say to each other. I edited one chapter. Just one. It was a long one though, does that help in any way? laughing.

We did however discuss our book covers, nano this year, World Con, how stunningly unbelievable it is that his wife just turned an age number I won’t repeat, but actually thought she must be lying – she looks so flipping young I thought she was my age, possibly a little less.

So some writing related work was done.

All those other conversations will help in some way I am sure, some day. LOL.

If you’re keeping track, that’s 5 chapters edited. Thirty odd to go.

It was a glorious weekend

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment

It was one of those weekends full of reminders that I am indeed an adult and I almost behave like one naturally.

Example A) I got food poisoning or maybe the stomach flu Friday, spent Friday night sick as a dog. When my husband suggested he would go shopping for birthday presents for my son’s favorite playmates (seven year old twin girls), I said yes and got back in bed. Where I stayed all day long. All day.

Example B) The community pool opened this weekend. Except here in the Pacific Northwest the temperature didn’t get above 60 this weekend. My husband took my son who couldn’t wait to go swimming while I gave the whole thing a pass. Just because the body of water is open doesn’t mean it has to be swam in.

Now these sound like little things, and maybe they are, but to a girl who once skinny dipped in San Francisco Bay in January just because she could, these are big growth moments. LOL.

On the writing front, it is half way through my first week and I have written zero words on my spy novel. But I think I have both an idea and access to documents for the research end for my Nano this year. It will be a murder mystery. And yes it is in the foam bowling pin range. Not sure what I’m talking about. Read up here. Plot Stucture

The Pitfalls of writing over a long period of time

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

When I wrote my Wednesday Writers Cafe recap, I sort of glazed over the whole Mongolia and Moscow situation in my spy novel but I thought touch on that a bit more.

See when the night started I thought my characters were in Uzbekistan. I had just finished editing the most recently written section of my novel, where my main characters infiltrate the home of an arms dealer and force him to tell them who he stole the warhead for and where it is now, not that he knows the latter. But in that section I have the arms dealer speaking Uzbek to his son, who tries to defend Dad, it’s a long story, about 40K words right now. So at the start of the cafe I was grumbling about how to get them out of Uzbekistan without sending them back through China which is how they got there.

My writing friends, like true friends, began throwing out all sorts of suggestions, and I started checking into the feasibility of them, flight distances, etc when I suddenly realize when I started writing the section, 18 months ago, all of my distances, and travel times, and issues have them going from China to Mongolia. Mongolia, not Uzbekistan.

Crap, somewhere in those 18 months I forgot where I put the arms dealer’s house. I started writing based on where I thought I had left them and because really I wanted to be able to say he spoke Uzbek.

Sigh, so now not only did I have to rewrite some stuff but my spies are in Mongolia and I need to move them out of there. Repeat the previous fun and games where I try to figure out how to get them out of Mongolia without going back through China. sigh.

This is the problem with writing a novel over the course of 2 1/2 years at current count, and it’s only half done. Plus I just decided to change the bad guy because of that whole mess with North Korea and the movie. All my North Korea research is for naught and I must start again. This time however I picked a bad guy I know something about, having taken a class in it while pursuing my degree. This will hopefully cut down on the amount of research I need to do.

Ok new goal. If I want to finish this spy novel before this year’s Nano how many words per week do I need to write….There are exactly 23 weeks until November first. If I write 2k words per week for 20 weeks, that leaves me 3 weeks to research this year’s Nano before it’s time to write. That’s not bad. I think I can actually do that. But that does raise the question, what am I going to write for Nano 2015? Don’t tell me one challenge at a time, I don’t work that way.

So Many interesting prompts….

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 1 Comment

Usually I post up here then check out what all the folk I follow have been up to lately in my reader. today for some reason I went the other direction.

So the first prompt that caught my eye was sleep, we spend 1/3 of our day doing it, write about it.

LOL. 1/3 of our day. snort. The prompter must not have small children. I am currently in the midst of trying to change my sleep patterns. When I got Jersey back from the new-old home, I decided I needed to rework my schedule to give him the best chance at being happy here. Not to mention I was only managing to yoga once every three days with my son’s current busy schedule. So away with spending the first two hours of my day drinking coffee and working on my novel and/or blog. Given my 7 – 730 wake up time that was a problem. So I need to roll it back. Today I was woken at 530 and rolled out of bed at 6. I get that isn’t an extreme wake up time but I am a night owl. I never want to sleep before midnight. Actually I took a melatonin last night so I could fall asleep by ten. And that’s my plan, melatonin until my body gets used to sleeping by ten and up at 530. Grand plan isn’t it. LOL. This means I can drink coffee and write until 7, walk the the dog and yoga before by 830 or 9. Get everything done by the time we have to leave the house or start home school depending on the day. The price for this miracle? Giving up all my alone time at night. I love my alone time at night. When the house is quiet and the world is black and comforting outside. I love the vague sensation I am the last human on the planet. Just me and my trusty dog curled up at my side.

But everything costs something and if I want my dog, my health, and my writing I have to pay the price.

Next fun prompt, “Be careful – No man that has gone in there has ever come back alive” “Good thing I’m not a man.” Thanks to Kristen P. You can check her out here. https://wordpress.com/read/blog/id/36299514/

In honor of said prompt a little snippet from my spy novel highlighting Galatea.

Talon and Galatea both nodded their assent. They checked their clips, their knives, and pulled masks down over their faces. A masked assailant always had a psychological advantage over an open one. The unknown was always more frightening than the known.
They slipped out of their fox hole and moved silently towards the house. Ideally Talon and Galatea would take the guards on patrol at the same time and at opposite apexes of their path. They split off from each other moving to where they had decided they should cover the wall. With a quick four step run up each planted a foot part way up the wall and used their momentum and an outward push with the planted foot to grab the top, pull up, and vault through and over with a noiseless landing.
Galatea slipped out one of her 12 inch throwing knives. It weighed less than a pound and felt like a feather in her hand as she adjusted her kneeling stance and prepared to let fly. The guard walked heavily and quickly, marking time rather than looking for actual intruders. She raised her throwing arm back and released halfway through the arc towards straight and parallel to the ground. She continued her arm’s swing to move her body forward into a three pointed crouch. When his body hit the ground she leapt forward into a low sprint and reclaimed her knife wiping the blood off onto his body and replacing the weapon gently in its sheath. She slipped around the cool mud exterior in the shadows of the many plants unwisely allowed to grow too close to the home. With excellent cover she moved to meet Talon.  

“Different TDY, Same Shit.”

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment

That’s the final line of my spy novel. It amuses me every time I read it because the TDY the assistant is wrapping up is handling Stanley. And it’s Stanley who’s asked the question. The hwole novel the assistant has quietly propped Stanley up or soothed his ego as the situation called for. It’s this easy little tweak of the idiot the assistant is assigned to run rather than being able to do real work.

Not that the spy novel is done by any stretch of the imagination. But I wrote the final chapter during the first Nano I worked on the spy novel in. Yes, you read that right. I worked on this spy novel for 2 Nanowrimos and the year in between. And still it’s not done. I’ve only got about 35K words. I expect another five years will get it done. Laughing. Given that half the year I am working on a nano, researching it, writing it, editing it. That doesn’t leave much time for Galatea, Talon, Gareth, and Stanley. On the other hand it provides a much needed vacation from these characters so I don’t hate them, because after three plus years, I’m a little tired of them every now and then.

I went to writer’s cafe last night. I love when I’m working, editing as it was in this case, and I’m not wholly absorbed in my work so that I have twenty percent of my brain available to catch the amusing snippets of words from other conversations. My writers group is having an Old Fashioned Radio Show on May 27th at Boxleys in North Bend. There was lots of conversation about that tonight which I won’t repeat here, LOL. Then an odd discussion on writing advice from Stephen King. But I think my fave was when I got drawn into a conversation that started like this…If Castle had a cross over episode with NCIS who would Rick bond with best? Hello, Tony of course. But that led me down a long rabbit hole of amusement which ended with me explaining that soon I would be back at the Friday writers cafe because my son would be done with co-op on Fridays and I hadn’t enrolled him in any classes on Friday for next year after a long debate over education versus my writing career with my husband. The woman I was talking to got that “oh you poor dear, I understand” look on her face so I felt compelled to explain that I had been arguing for Henry’s education, while my husband had been arguing for the writers cafe. She says, “What incredible support.” To which I could say quite easily, “yes, it was. My husband is amazing in all the ways that really matter.”