NaNoWriMo is Coming!

NaNoWriMo is coming! It starts November 1st. Fifty thousand words in thirty days.

I've participated every year since 2005, but I've never won. I'd like this to be the year. But if I end up with 20,000 words I can use, I'll be a happy loser.

Here's my idea for a story: Zev Moscowitz has a safe, fun crush on Marc Jaffe, his straight boss. But when he learns that Marc had a secret boyfriend back in high school--a boyfriend who's back in town--suddenly the crush doesn't seem so safe . . .

And that's all I've got so far. But I'm ok with that. I'm going to work on the characters in yWriter, but I'm not going to do much else until November. Too much pre-writing works against me. Back in 2006, I outlined a story for NaNoWriMo in excruciating detail. By the time November rolled around, I was sick to death of it. This year, I'll take my chances writing by the seat of my pants!

Edit: I have a working title for this story: Not So Safe. (Ok, I didn't say it was a great title--but knowing me, it's the one I'll stick with.)

The NaNoWriMo Blog Chain

Love yWriter! Now about my story . . .

I adore yWriter! I love having all my chapers, scenes, notes, character backgrounds and character pictures on one easy program. (Well, relatively easy. I had to play around a little before I figured out what I was doing.)

Since I've installed it, I've been writing up a storm for my new urban fantasy blog--a blog that will feature a series of interconnected short stories, flash fiction, and drabbles. But I have one problem: my first story for said blog may contain an excess of cuteness. (Yes, I've been known to do cute. But this one may be over the top.)

It's a story about a pair of Siamese cats who are too intelligent for their own good. It's hard to write about two smart felines without straying into a cute territory! And a little cuteness is ok--I'd just like to make sure that my readers' blood sugar won't skyrocket.

Sigh. Back to editing . . .

Edit: The blog and the story are up! The story is called Sanctuary; you can find it on my Smokeless Fire blog.

Goodbye Index Cards, Hello yWriter!

While there's something to be said for neatly organized index cards detailing characters, scenes and chapters, there's even more to be said for having all that information stored on your laptop in one handy program. To that end, I finally installed yWriter, a free word processing program desinged for writers.

So far, I'm impressed! I'm using it for a brand-new series of stories--my urban fantasy sans vampire series, in fact. So at the moment I'm playing around with pictures for the characters and places to put stats. I'll start working on scenes next. If all continues to go well, I'll be saying thank you and goodbye to my index cards.