#bee does nano

[theherocomplex]

'Tis the night before Nano, so if anyone wants to be buddies, here's my profile link!

This year's project can be best described as "the little love trial interlude with Bai Fengjiu and Dong Hua in Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, but I'm really hopped up on Coheed and Cambria when I'm writing and also almost everyone is a demon".

[theherocomplex]

Not really a Nano update but I do love this note on my heroine’s personality.

[theherocomplex]

Tonight’s Nano snippet: behold Aurelie, who has her priorities in order.

[beezarre]

It’s 5 pm and I’ve already started and (forever) set aside two stories for Nano.

It’s going to be a(nother) long month, isn’t it?

[theherocomplex]

NaNoWriMo 2020!

I know this year has been hot garbage, but is anyone planning to do NaNo? If so, be my buddy!! 

My plan is to do the Vam Lin rewrite while ALID rests before the finishing touches/edits, so if vampires, folk horror, apocalypses, folk tale deconstructions, and Tam Lin are your thing...then this is the book for you! 

My profile is here -- add away, and good luck, whatever your goals may be! 

[theherocomplex]

NaNoWriMo 2019 Post-Mortem

Words Written: 80,931

Highest Word Count Day: 11/03/19 -- 7,224 words.

Lowest Word Count Day: 11/19/19, 189 words (life/work stress, sigh). 

Projects: Vam Lin (original novel, for which the vast majority of those words were written); A Lesson in Drowning (DA2 longfic); various WTNC bits for the sandbox I’ve created with @kindervenom​. 

Thoughts

Wow. First off, this is a personal-best year for me; I’ve passed 60K for the past few years I’ve done NaNo, but this was definitely the year I pushed myself most. 

I went into Vam Lin with an extensive (for me) outline, which was a huge change from how I usually operate: most of the time, I know the beginning and ending of a piece, as well as a few magical cookie moments I want to hit along the way. This year, I plotted out the entire arc of the book, along with breaking it into three acts, which were then broadly plotted as well. Before NaNo got started, I spent a night writing up a timeline for Vam Lin and making worldbuilding and character notes. 

All of this prep, along with having the idea of this story in my head for months, meant I was already extremely familiar with the world before I got started. 

I also set a preliminary word-count limit on each chapter, aiming for 2,000 words per chapter, both to give myself some leeway when I went back to edit and expand, and to give myself the illusion of momentum (nothing like seeing finished chapters piling up to make you feel like you’re succeeding!). 

And then: 

I planned to write the book in Rowan’s first-person POV; 

but I realize the first night it should be in third-person; 

then I wrote the first eleven chapters -- 

-- only to realize the pacing was a mess, Jian was almost completely absent from those chapters, and that the story was missing a lot of personality with the third-person narration. 

SO. I restarted the novel on 11/11, after aking a few nights to replot and bring Jian into the story in the first chapter so that the Rowan/Jian relationship took center stage. I also expanded my word count goal for each chapter to 3,500 words in this draft. 

The end result of that was an immediate shift in both the energy of the story, and in my engagement with the story. Rowan burst into life, sarcastic and wry and kind (and very reckless), and with Jian and her cohort of fellow mage-soldiers to bounce off of, every scene was fun to write. For example: 

I tear my eyes from my plate to meet his. He's smiling close-lipped, eyes gleaming. Delighted by the game, delighted by —

"Rowan," says Matthias, loftily, "isn't allowed to play. She cheats."

I wheel on him, my fork poised and ready for the attack. "I do not! Just because I have a better sense of smell than you doesn't mean I'm cheating, you wretched excuse for —"

Across the table, Mel starts chanting Fight! Fight! Fight! as Matthias laughs and I jab my fork at his arm. Holly buries her face in her hands, clearly despairing over the loser humans conspiring to humiliate her in public. And Jian — Jian starts laughing, a startled sound, like it's taken him by surprise as much as the rest of us.

I stop trying to skewer Matthias. As one, we all turn to look at Jian, along with a few people at other tables nearby, and stare while he tries to get his laughter under control. It's more of a giggle now, hummingbird-quick, no less endearing for the very visible fangs.

"Sorry," he says, a moment later. "Sorry, it's just — is this your first response to everything, Rowan? To start stabbing?"

I have a feeling the question isn't rhetorical, but I let the rest of my cohort answer for me with a chorus of Yes and You have no idea and She's our stabby girl and we love her. Jian's eyes hold mine, still gleaming.

"Wonderful," he says, like he means it.

I ended up with eleven completed chapters for Vam Lin, which I adore, and that form the first part of the story. I’m sure that will grow after I finish the book, but I’m about as content as I can be with a first draft. 

Since I got to the end of chapter eleven on 11/28, I decided to leave Vam Lin at that stopping point, and to switch my attention to ALID. It’s a major shift, mentally and emotionally, to go from the very plotty, action-filled loud world of Vam Lin, back to ALID, where everything is careening toward a very dark, claustrophobic conclusion. I ended up not getting a ton of words written, but I replotted sections of this last arc, and feel pretty good about moving forward. 

So what’s next? Finishing ALID by the end of the year, and then turning my focus back to Vam Lin while I polish ALID for posting, and Slow Grows the Coral (a Patreon reward novelette) for inclusion in a little monster-lover anthology I’m working on. I’m also planning to submit something for a wlw fantasy anthology, so the next couple months are pretty busy! 

My goal is to have Vam Lin done, and given a first editing pass, by the end of March 2020. At that point, I’ll be looking for alpha readers who hear “post-apocalyptic supernatural romance Tam Lin retelling, with vampires” and say “yes, please!”. 

Overall, this was a very successful month. I wrote every day, I did morning pages every day, and I love what I started. Now it’s a matter of clearing the deck, as far as fic is concerned, because the more I write original fiction, the more I want to focus on that. 

[theherocomplex]

Really, the subtitle to Vam Lin should be “Vampires, but self-aware about it, and the half-feral human they decided to adopt for funsies”. 

[theherocomplex]

Me: Let’s make Rowan in desperate need of affection and also desperate to please the vampire who raised her but also in denial of actually deserving affection and praise! 

The Nyx watches me, eyes soft, then leans down to kiss my forehead. "I'm very pleased with you, Rowan," she whispers, her breath icy on my skin. "Pleased, and proud. Don't forget it."

I have survived so much of this bleak, fragmented world. I should not feel so reassured by the kiss, or the words, or the cold hand on my cheek. But I am. I am.

At least she was there when I woke. At least she hasn't forgotten me, now that her real child is here.

"I'll make you a deal, my darling." I'd call the Nyx's smile impish, if it were on someone else's face. "You go to sleep, and I'll tell you a story."

I'm twenty-six, I tell myself. I'm twenty-six, but my legs hurt, and I've seen too much death today. It would be so easy to tell her yes, and let her voice lead me down to sleep.

But I catch her eye, and see the fondness there, and the age behind it. And I think, as I do sometimes, the Nyx thinks of raising me as a game. A delightful game, full of challenges and trials, but beloved, even when the game is screaming and crying for no reason. She loves me, but from a safe, amused distance, the only way a mortal can be loved by something that can't die.

"Rain check?" I say, tugging the blankets up around my chin.

The Nyx gives me one of her knowing looks, but nods. She vanishes an instant later, in silence, and while the dorm is almost as quiet, it takes me a long, long time to fall asleep.

Also me: Oh no.