I finished writing the first half of Sisters! Parts Zero (Innocence) and One (Survival) are done. Now comes the most difficult part of their lives yet.
Part Two’s theme is destiny. Allegiances are made and loyalties are tested. I am looking forward to powering through this section. If Innocence and Survival gave me FEELS, I can only imagine how Destiny is going to be!
A window into their world
This is what their nightstands would look like in real life (click to view full size)
Here is a closer look at my Kathy and Ann peg dolls
I’m going back to the original writing strategy I had for Sisters. There’s no way I can reach NaNo’s goal of 50K at this point. The initial plan was to write three chapters, pause and revise, visit the outline and note any changes in plot, and write three more chapters.
Rinse and repeat!
Anyone who has ever had to edit can tell you what a tedious, short-attention-span producing task it is. Imagine saving ALL of it for later and going back to several hundred pages of it. No thanks!
This is something I’ve never done before. I’ll still have to go back after I finish writing and reread it all, but the goal is to make the dreaded revision task a little easier.
Because nobody asked, here’s my two cents on current events…
Has it made working on Sisters harder? Yes. Did I vote for him? No. Am I going to move on and keep living my life? Yes.
I just want to say one thing, and then I’ll shut up because the last thing I want to turn this blog into is a political stomping ground.
I’m going to talk about Internet rants because, good Lord…There are right ways to express your anger and there are obnoxious ways.
Throwing tantrums online, labeling every single person who voted a certain way a [insert buzzword here], and declaring that you’re unfriending every last person who voted differently than you does one thing, and one thing only.
It alienates people, even those who share your views.
“Your crazy Internet rant really opened my eyes!” said no one ever.
Want to win people over to your side? Hilarious memes & rationality
Last week was a wild one, wasn’t it? I’ll be frank: I didn’t even consider the possibility that our current president-elect would be the president-elect. It didn’t even cross my mind for a second that he even had a remote chance of winning.
I was in the “I hate them both” crowd, but fully expected Clinton to win and to be irritated yet secretly relieved over it because putting a bland, run of the mill politician in the White House would have made everything go back to normal, and that’s all anyone wants, right?
So what does this have anything to do with writing and NaNoWriMo? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Sisters started out as a what if scenario. This year’s crazy election fueled my Sisters frenzy. What if someone similar to Trump really did win?
Needless to say, I was shocked to the core when I woke up, checked my phone, and saw the words “Donald Trump won the presidential election.”
I didn’t know what to think. I certainly didn’t know what to write. I was in a state of bewildered shock for several days (just look at my NaNoWriMo stats!).
Worry not, friends! I managed to gather the confused pieces and am already at it. I probably have a shot in hell at making 50K by the end of the month, but that’s not going to stop me from finishing it. I’m actually a few words shy of 20K, but since I started it before NaNo, I didn’t count anything before November 1st.
And so, I’ll leave you with a few Sisters themed images.
I’ve written the first three chapters to get the setting down and a feel for the characters. Once I did that, I paused to create an outline for the rest of the novel.
It just so happens that we’re a few days shy of November (well, at the time I’m writing this, anyway). I couldn’t ask for better timing!
Hello, NaNoWriMo! It’s been a long time. I’ve got a novel brewing for you that I’m all too excited to start. It’s going to be made of feels. Such feels.
For those who aren’t familiar with NaNoWriMo, they challenge writers to write 50K words in one month (the month of November).
If you love to write, take the NaNo challenge! See if you can hit 50K. You can sign up at nanowrimo.org/
I’ll be posting about my progress. Just look out for #Sisters422.
I know NaNoWriMo suggests that you just write, write, write, and ignore grammar, but I’m not going to do that this year. Going back to edit something like that is:
I sort of dropped off the face of social media lately (how people manage to do ten million things and still have energy to tweet up a storm on Twitter is beyond me, and I will forever admire them for that ability!).
Here’s the scoop I’ve been working on several exciting projects that I’m thrilled and pumped about! Believe me when I say that I’ve been working non-stop on these projects for the past few weeks!
Beneath the Red Lamp & Other Tales
The short sequel to The Year is Now (TYIN) will FINALLY see the light of day. I’m working on an ebook of short stories set in the empire before and after the events of TYIN.
Beneath the Red Lamp explores what becomes of Elly after the Battle of Pluto.
Details on when this will be released will be coming soon. I don’t like to give out dates like candy. I need to make sure that thing is polished before I let it join the dating scene 😉
*This is not the final cover, just a placeholder.
An Actual Website
I’ve been building a website from scratch. I am PUMPED for this. I cannot wait to let you all see it!
It’s almost ready, but I plan to release it into the wild to coincide with Beneath the Red Lamp, so keep your eyes peeled. Oh, and don’t worry, The Command Deck will always be around because the blogger platform is easy to use for, well, blogging! It will be linked to the site.
Sisters This project is my baby. I haven’t been this emotionally attached to a story for a long time. It’s set apart from the rest of my works because it does not take place in the empire. It takes place in another alternate reality, a much grimmer one than our own world and Elly’s.
*This is not the final cover, just a placeholder.
“Sisters” as I’m calling it, is in its infancy. Yes, this will be a full fledged novel. I’m going to do something I’ve never done before and live tweet my progress on it. Follow #sisters422
With that being said, it is on the back burner right now (you have no idea how much it pains me to put it aside while I get Beneath the Red Lamp up and running! Copy-editing and formatting are the most tedious tasks ever, and I cannot have any distractions).
