Sunday Update - a Different NaNo

And I said I was done with Challenges....

November is National Novel Write Month.  And since I am assiduously avoiding working on novels right now, I have decided to play the NaNoWriMo game this year with art and blog posts. (I have, ironically, never used NaNo for novel writing, because I find its silly restrictions make it useless for real production.)

Therefore, this month, among other things, I intend to:

*Create 30 Book Covers and Illustrations -  These will mostly be "pre-made" book covers, but some will be covers for my own work, and some will be illustrations for The Case of the Misplaced Baroness.

*Write 30 Blog Post Drafts - If I get sick of writing blog posts, any one can be replaced by a full draft of a flash fiction story, or 1500 words of fiction on anything else. (However, episodes of Misplaced Baroness count as blog posts, not fiction.)

Update posts do not count.  Also, these 30 blog posts will not be posted in November (well a couple will) but rather are meant to cover the regular posts up through January or so.  Maybe a few guest posts, too.

I think these are ambitious goals, but I also kinda want to beat those numbers.  I'm a little behind already, as on Friday (when I decided to do this) I was really busy and didn't do anything. Today I did one cover, and wrote (I think) 1.5 blog posts.

Now, as for the serial....


Perils of Plink

I find myself spinning my wheels and doing all sorts of cat vacuuming when I set to work on The Case of the Misplaced Baroness.  The reason I'm doing that is because I've started thinking ahead... and I'm not looking forward to make this match up with the place it crosses over with The Case of the Misplaced Hero.

I mean, yes, there are lots of places to have fun with that, but it keeps me from being too adventurous about what happens next.  I keep thinking about how it won't match up with what's said in the teaser chapter at the end of Misplaced Hero, particularly what Lina says to Rozinshura.

My first thought on dealing with that was that I should get it over with.  Just rush the story straight to that point, and get past it....

Except that I think what I should do is the opposite.

Pull back and let this story wander FAR afield of where I think it will end.  Because the farther you wander, the more options you have in wandering back to where you want to be.  Also, if anything said in that teaser chapter turns out to be wrong, it gives me space to set it up as an intentional lie.

I said a long time ago that that's one of the features of a live serial; mistakes and inconsistencies become an excuse for more stories.

Coming Up On The Blog This Week

*Monday: Artisan Writers: The Indie Shake Up, Pt 2
About Expectations and preconceptions.
*Friday: Story Game - Villain and Secondary Character Wheels
Since the villain must pass himself off as one of the other kinds of characters in a Romantic Suspense story, it's natural to talk about all these folks together.

I'm not going to do more than that this week (I might update my Non-NaNo challenge on Wednesday).

See you in the funny papers.

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