I won Nano!

I did it! I finished my Nano story a week early even. I didn't win last year, so this was a nice confidence boost on the writing front. It was good to just get something completely new on paper. I started from a literal blank page with no ideas on day one.

And I wrote this weird book. Still editing to do, and it's on the back burner for the season so to speak, but here's a bit about it, and a little excerpt.

The Forest of Souls 

Natsuki (Nat to everyone) was adopted by the Faroe-Thompson's when she was eight-years-old. Totally colorblind after a head injury when she was younger, she takes her life with a heavy grain of salt and a pessimistic world view. Her brother, Jamie, is the bane of her existence.

But things are about to take an unexpected turn for Nat during a class trip to Gettysburg--where Nat learns that she can see the dead in living color. Will Swift, Union soldier and ghost, has decided it's his job to protect Nat now that a cabal of mediums is on her scent. Will one earnest ghost be enough to save her? Will Nat figure out how to use her gifts in time to save her friends, stop the cabal and keep her family safe?


Excerpt

After spending way too much money on ridiculous trinkets the class was trooped over the see the reenactment of the Gettysburg Address. The actor playing Lincoln was passionate at least, but having had to recite the address by rote before we even left on the trip meant I was used to the sound and my attention…wandered.

There were some actors dressed as soldiers off to one side fiddling with their equipment. I don’t know what drew my attention to them. One of them was different and it took me a few seconds to figure out why. I raised my eyebrows, jaw dropping in surprise. He’s in color.

I could see the color. The dark blue of his uniform, the peachy color of his skin—the red of the dried blood on his sleeve. Sometimes I dreamed in color, but this was different. It was just him. Maybe he felt me watching him or something but his head turned and he stared at me. His eyes were blue. His eyes narrowed and his head tilted. He was maybe a hundred feet away from me, but I blinked and suddenly he was directly in front of me.

I backed up, stepping on Lito’s foot.

“Nat?”

I turned back to look at Lito and then back to the soldier, but he was gone.

“Sorry, I—thought there was a bee,” I said.

“Oh.”

I took a breath and looked back at the soldiers, but the man I’d seen before wasn’t there. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. What was that?

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Lito asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Totally fine.

***

That night I woke up again to cold feet, but this time I was afraid to open my eyes. I tried to ignore the cold air. I pulled a pillow over my head and willed whatever it was to go away. Please go away. Please go away.

I felt a cold, icy touch run down the bottom of my foot and screamed, jerking my foot away.

“Nat?” Christina flipped on the light, rubbing her eyes and she fumbled for her glasses. “What’s wrong.”

I stared at the end of the bed. There was no shadow there, but for the briefest of moments, I swore I saw that soldier again, standing over my bed with his finger pressed to his lips.

“I—uh—bee?”

“A bee? Really?”

“Not really. I think—don’t judge me—I saw a ghost.”

“Really?” Her eyebrows went up. “A ghost? That’s awesome.”

“Not really.” I shook my head. “Maybe it was a just a nightmare.”

“Well let me know if you see another one, okay? I want to get a look at it.”

“Sure thing, Christina.” I flopped back onto the pillows. “Let’s try to get some sleep.”

“Okay, but wake me up if you see another ghost, okay?”

“It’s a promise.” I turned off the light and tried to go back to sleep.

***

I woke up the next morning annoyed and puffy. I got coffee at breakfast and Papa raised his eyebrows.

“Late night, pumpkin?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” I added enough sugar to make it taste less awful and some milk for protein.”

He frowned and steered me away from the coffee station by the elbow. “Are you having nightmares?” he asked in a low, concerned voice.

“No, Papa, it was just—new place. Excitement. I’m okay.”

“You’ll tell me if you aren’t.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“Okay. But only one cup of coffee, and eat some oatmeal.”

“Yes, Papa.”

He was the worrier; not like he didn’t have reason to worry. When my dads’ took me in I was not okay. I had nightmares. I went to a lot of therapy. I hadn’t needed to in a while but they worried.

He was definitely going to keep an eye on me. Not so great if I had more encounters with the soldier from yesterday. We were touring some historic buildings today and after lunch we would head to the Gateway Theater.

I stuck with Lito and Christina as we made our way through a period-furnished house. I felt uneasy. It wasn’t just that I hadn’t slept the night before. I felt like there was something waiting for me around every corner, hovering. I couldn’t shake the feeling. The hair kept prickling up on my arms. I almost felt like I was being followed. Like—someone was watching me.

I tried to ignore it, focusing on Ms. Irwin’s lecture about the house and the living conditions of everyday people during the Civil War but the sensation persisted. Even when we left the house, I could feel eyes on me. As we walked away down the sidewalk in a ragtag line I glanced back at the two story Victorian and paused. There was that soldier again, standing in the downstairs window. He was in color again.

“Nat?” Christina called.

I didn’t want to look away from the soldier in the window. I felt her join me, touching my arm.

“What is it?”

“You don’t see him?”

“No. What do you see?”

“A soldier, in the window.” I pointed. “He’s in color.” I kept my voice pitched low. “You don’t see him?”

“No.” But I didn’t hear disbelief in her tone.

“Girls, keep up please!” Ms. Irwin shouted.

I turned away from the house, following Christina back to the group but that prickle of the back of my neck told me the soldier was still watching me. I took Christina’s hand and she squeezed mine gently.

This was definitely not normal.

 

NaNoWriMo

I have been participating this year! Thus far I'm on target (slightly ahead of target actually) and have kept up word count every day. I've been in a slump for the past year, and I pretty much had a writing slump the year prior too so... Meh. So, in hopes of getting out of said slump and kicking my creativity back on, I decided to wait until day one and then pulled an idea out of thin air and started working on it.

Generally I try to use Nano to finish stalled projects and the like, write the next book in a series or some other such use. This year, I went in with the spirit I had the first time I participated and gave myself a blank page and spent the first several hours of Sunday brainstorming. Spent much of Monday that way too actually. But in the end I managed a viable idea and am sort of plodding away at it hopes of greater things.

We all use Nano for different things, I think. Some us are first timers just trying to finally get that novel on the page. Some of us are old hats delighting in the camaraderie that comes from the challenge, the social exercise that we, as writers, rarely get to participate in from our desks. It's a group effort with cheering and new friends and chance to help other authors flourish and grow.

It's a month where we don't have to keep to ourselves. More importantly, it gives us a goal to strive towards. A finish line we can accomplish. 50,000 words can seem like an unreachable goal to someone who had never done it. And only a month to do it in? Impossible.

And then you do it, and you realize, hey, this wasn't as bad as I thought. Or, inversely, this is awful and I never want to do this again.

But either way, you learned something about yourself. For instance, I learned in my first year that I could write everyday while attending college full time. I learned I could juggle a fledgling writing career with another thing.

As I continued to grow as an author, as I continued to do Nano, I realized that I had words to offer in encouragement and I really found enjoyment in helping my fellow writers learn and grow.

I found new ways to tell a story. I found confidence. I learned what kind of writer I am.

Nano isn't just about word count. It just just about the story. It's also about what we, as writers, learn about ourselves during the process. It's about becoming better writers. Learning the habits required to write daily and how much time it takes to get that writing done.

I'm so glad I signed up that first year. I'm so glad I've kept doing it, even though I've not won every year, the important thing was that every year I've done this, I've learned something. I can't wait to see what I learn this year.

The Debacle

This article (and the comments to said article) are so infuriating. The “fill-in-the-blank” remark by the author is condescending and smacks of the typical patriarchal attitude towards books written for/by women. We should be focusing on the fact that this author plagiarized books, not the genre those books fall under.

Moreover, equating romance novels, and especially M/M romance novels (as is so often the case) to pornography is infuriating. The tone deaf commentary of some commenters “I don’t understand why a woman reads M/M romance” and similar remarks really makes it clear that since this is an issue of plagiarism regarding what women read, it’s not as important.
One person even remarked that if the plagiarist had ripped off a well known male author, then of course we would have discovered it quickly, but in the dearth of romance novels, how were we supposed to?

I’d like to know if the person in question has ever looked at the quantity of books written by and for men and compared them to the books written by and for women. Somehow, I doubt they are similar. Moreover, comparing romance as a genre to pornography is a trite, often used cry to minimize female works as a whole.

Funnily enough the Guardian ran a rather similar article (sans the patronizing tone) yesterday. Does that mean all news articles are just “fill in the blanks”?

Happy Me Day

Today I celebrate my birthday. Well, celebrate is a strong word. So far today I have slept in, cuddled with my usually prickly cat, watched the rain, had a cup of good tea and answered well-wishers on the FB.

My dear friend gave me the 1944 Random House edition of the Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe, in green. I love green. The conservator in me couldn't help noting the water damage on the spine and the dusty-slight-mildew aroma. But I can fix that.

On the whole it's in good condition, perfectly readable with some interesting etchings inside. I'm not precisely sure how I'm going to spend my day, but I've got a coupon for a free popcorn and the local ice cream place gives a free scoop to birthday celebrators so... Free stuff could be the way to go.

Of course, my biggest hope for today is the one thing all authors wish for. A yes.

I would like a yes for my birthday. A positive. A little thing to show me that the past two weeks of misery are coming to an end.

Also cake.

The Doubt

When you begin the process of querying agents, you start with a list. That list is generally long, varied and full of mistakes. You then cross people off the list, send out start query letters, get rejections, rewrite your query letter and continue on your way.

But then, what happens when you start to get...noticed? When not one, but two and then three different agents over the course of a year have requested more material. You wait anxiously for news. You wait. You wait.

You wait.

And then rejection.

I have received somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty rejection letters throughout my querying. I can chalk some up to weak query letters I suppose but the rest of them always make me question not only myself, but my voice as a writer. I find  myself asking, what am I doing wrong? Is my voice too this or too that? Should I be funnier? Should I be more serious? Should I change the focus audience? Do I even know the focus audience? Do I even know what I'm doing here at all?

The demons of doubt occupy the head of every person, but I sometimes think the creative community gets the worst of it. It's always there, at the corner of the eyes and the back of the mind: Doubt.

Picking away at what confidence you got from that rather nice and helpful rejection last week. Undermining what you are certain you know. It's hard to push past that. It's hard to pick yourself back up again and say, "I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to do this." You see a lot of people saying it's hard to make a living as a writer, or that you won't get rich doing this. I have no ambitions to "get rich" as a writer.

I want to write full time, of course, because telling stories is the thing that drives me. It's my passion. Whether through art or words, I've always found myself telling stories. I love it. It is driven by my insatiable curiosity and wonder at the world around me and it is dampened by doubt and uncertainty. Some days I go to my day job and wonder if it is all I will ever have.

But I can't give up, because I love this too much. Once, in college, I was told I couldn't do Study Abroad in spite of being accepted at the study-abroad program, because my GPA was .005 under what it was "supposed to be". I had been toying with transferring schools and this study abroad was going to be my way of taking a break from the culture of my college and coming back fresh. I was devastated. I had already gotten my VISA, I was ready to go. But without the school's rubberstamp, I would have no financial aid.

So I told them I was going anyway. I would find a way without them. I held my head up and told my adviser that not only was I going abroad, but if they refused to finance me I would be seeking a new institution for my final year of college. I would transfer to our "rival" school if that's what it took. I was done.

I got a meeting with the provost. It turned out, she was the wife of one of the professors who recommended me in glowing terms to the program. I'd no idea at the time of course. I walked into that meeting prepared to be told no, but hoping, just hoping, that I would get a yes. We talked for a bit about why I wanted to go. About what I would do if I didn't go.

My dad had driven me there and was waiting in the car outside. I was in that meeting for about ten minutes. I walked out of it, walked down to the car and looked at my dad. "I'm going to Italy."

I got to go because A) I refused to take no for answer. I didn't give in to doubt. I knew I deserved to go and B) I got a little lucky. The professor thought I was amazing and I have a feeling he talked me up to his wife.

I went to Italy and I found something there I didn't know I would find. My voice. My writer's voice. It was that elusive thing I didn't know I was really missing until it clicked. I found it because I fought to do something. I'm going to keep fighting for my voice. I'm going to keep trying to put my voice out in the world. I'm going to defeat doubt.

It doesn't matter how many no's you stack up. It doesn't matter how many rejections you pin to your wall, because it only takes one yes from the right person to set you on your way.