I’ve been sick and just not mentally in a place where I could write this week.  Even knowing that each day I’m falling behind, I feel ashamed at bedtime when I realize I haven’t even opened Word or Scrivener yet.

Part of it is Thanksgiving prep.  I have less than 7 days!  *dies*  Also, I had several full days at the Evil Day Job, not only making up for being sick but also preparing to be out of the office for a week.  Everybody had questions yesterday and today, and I was fielding stuff all day that I hadn’t allowed time for, plus all the responsibilities I had hoped to finish.  I worked late tonight hoping to get some progress on my item, and I just couldn’t get it to work.  Frustrated, I had to send an update out that I hadn’t made my goal.

I hate that.  I really do.

My NaNoWriMo goal is in the same boat.

But do not despair.  I have next week off, even though I have a thousand things I need to do.  Wednesday will be a big prep day.  Unfortunately I realized tonight the monsters are out of school on Wed.  Ugh.  They’re going to be in my hair all day while I’m making 20 lbs of mashed potatoes, baking pies, etc.  They’ll help, yes, but then I’ll have to clean up after Hurricane Lizzie in my kitchen.

Even if I can’t make up the lost ground, I have finished two stories.  I’ll just do the best I can.

I’m spluttering a bit, which makes me nervous.  Yes, I’m ahead, but not by much.  I don’t have any days off this week, so I really need to get my words in each and every day!

However, we had a HUGE weekend of shopping and prepping for a family dinner today.  The two youngest monsters were baptized today, and we had family over after church for dinner.  I had to get up super early to get the dish prepared.  Michael Smith’s fancy spaghetti was wonderfully yummy, but it needs an hour to simmer (to burn off the alcohol).  I could have done it Sat. night and then put it in the crock pot to warm this morning, but I didn’t feel up to it.  Somehow in all the organizing and cleaning Thursday or Friday, I tweaked my lower back.  It was worse Friday night/Saturday to the point where all I really wanted to do after shopping all day was to put my feet up with a heating pad on my back.

Luckily today it’s much better although still stiff and sore.  Up Dark & Early to cook, but it was sooo worth it to come home and devour such delicious food.  I had the salad prepped, even the garlic bread ready to pop in the oven (one with roasted garlic that I prepared while the spaghetti simmered).  Definitely a WIN for lunch.

However, I didn’t get much done at all on the writing front.  To make it even harder:  I had to START a new story and openings can be slow to get going.  I have to get the setting and voice of the characters nailed, and I’m still a little shaky.  However, I’ve just about got this introduction figured out.  I started in Phantom, but I plan to work in Miseryland too until I get settled on one story for the rest of month.

NaNoWriMo total:  27,025

Snippet:  horribly rough opening.  I know I’ll change it a dozen times.  There are a lot of clues in these lines, though, about what this story is really about.

“Son of a bitch.” Christel stared at the incriminating numbers on her laptop’s screen. “He was right.”

For the last six weeks, an anonymous tipster calling himself Phantom had been leading her through GHI Shipping’s books on a bread-crumb trail of international weapons smuggling, fraud, and murder. The man had to work for GHI to have such in-depth knowledge, but she had no idea who he was or how he’d gotten her name in the first place. Somehow, he’d known exactly why she’d finally let her mother—who just happened to be CEO—browbeat her into accepting a position in the family company.

All she knew about him was his cell number—pre-paid, evidently, yielding no clues to his identity—and his firm belief that the culprit she was looking for could be no other than their boss, Rafael [last name].

Unfortunately, her mother surely suspected him too, or she wouldn’t have sent Christel to the Houston office.

She took off her glasses and rubbed her temples. Not Rafe, surely. She’d known him her entire life. Once upon a time, her mother had even dreamed of a merger between two of the three founding families of GHI, even though Christel had her eyes set on the third family, not Rafe’s. That dream had been doomed from the very first—and only—kiss.

Between yesterday and today, I finished a first-draft plot for Miseryland (post-apoc).  I played around with a tarot reading to get some ideas on how the climax and resolution should play out.  I’m still fairly vague on several key items, but in general, I have the road map figured out.

Then I returned to Phantom tonight and began plotting it in more detail.  Since Scrivener is really working well for Miseryland, I created a new folder for this project too.  I love the notecards!  LOVE.  I’m almost to the end of Act I for the plotting, but it needs to be tightened.  I want this to fall into the 20-30K range, so I need a small cast of characters.  I’m also shooting for an erotic work, and so far, there’s nothing erotic about it.    Will definitely be working on that tomorrow!

NaNoWriMo total:  25,953

Since I’ve finished up the first two projects, I had major planning, plotting, worldbuilding, etc. to do for the other two.  Yeah, I have notes and some details already figured out, but not enough to confidently plow through one of these new stories.  I fully intend to SUBMIT these stories for publication, so it’s important that I know what the @#*% I’m doing before I get too deep!

So for two days, I worked on the plot for Miseryland (post-apoc).  I’m doing it in Scrivener, and I’ve managed to complete at least a rough draft of the plot through Act II part 2.  I still need the big showdown and final climax.  In general, I know “what” happens.  I just don’t know all those pesky details.  *sheepish*  I’m hoping those will filter out naturally once I get closer.  I do at least have an ending point to write to, and then I’ll have to figure out how the good guys actually WIN.

The other project, working title Phantom, has been giving me some problems.  I had the premise pretty well thought out in my mind, and it’s a shorter work, so I don’t need a lot of plot.  I actually don’t want a bunch going on to detract from the erotic elements.  But the characters themselves were just little cardboard props.  I had no idea WHY they had to be in this story, with those names, those goals, etc.  So today, my job was to sit down and write out all the backstory I could think of.

When did they know each other (for space reasons, I need them to know each other relatively well before the story starts)?  How did they grow up?  What problems did they have as teenagers and young adults?  Who’s their family? Who’s the antagonist?  Who’s the red herring and why? Who did they not get along with? 

WHY WHY WHY?  Always, that crucial question. 

I managed to get over 2k of backstory written.  Now most of this will NOT end up in the story, but I have a much better feeling of who these characters are and why I need to tell their story.

And yes, I’m counting all this synopsis/pre-work for NaNoWriMo.  It’s words that I have to have to be successful.  Consider them a “draft 0.”  I’m hoping to begin drafting a bit of Miseryland while I work out a more formal plot of Phantom.  Whichever one takes off the most in the next week will be the one I ride to the finish line, but I’d really really love to have first drafts of both done by the end of the year.  Doable since I think they’re going to be about 70-80K total in first draft.

No snippet tonight since I’m just plotting and building.

NaNoWriMo count:  24,200

Another one bites the dust!

Since I have the day off from the Evil Day Job today, I stayed up late last night until I finished the short novella.  Yes, you read that right.  NaNoWriMo has helped me finish TWO projects.  Could I have finished them without NaNoWriMo?  Of course.  But the pressure and challenge of this month gave me the extra push that I needed in order to finish Vicki.  She’s been the albatross about my neck since March or so.  Now she’s done, the short novella is done, and I’m free to start one of two brand-new projects.

I’m spending the day plotting a post-apoc, working title Miseryland.  I don’t know how much wordage I’ll get, but I’m writing up an outline in Scrivener.  Of course I have another short — the Gregar prequel — I could also work on if I get desperate for words.  Right now, I’m ahead.  Taking the time to plot a bit will only help me come up with a working, usable project.

NaNoWriMo total as of last night:  20,173

Last snippet of Golden:

As beautiful as the most delicate orchid, Empress Lei lay back onto the Emperor’s bed, her gaze studiously locked on the ornate ceiling and drapery above.  Fine silvery lines traced over her stomach, bearing testament to the son she’d delivered, but otherwise, not a single flaw marked her body.  The stories of her bathing in milk and honey to keep her skin’s youthful glow must surely be correct.

Naked as her, he stretched out at her side so he could look across her at me.  His hand was dark against her skin.  I knew how rough he could be, the hidden power in those cruel fingers that could make me squirm in pain or scream in bliss.  Yet he touched her lightly, as though truly afraid that she might break.

A tiny piece of my heart cracked off and crumbled to dust as I watched him touch her. 

Lots of real life stuff came up today.  We’re having an impromtu family dinner for four, possibly five, guests tomorrow, so it’ll be frantic cleaning, etc. tomorrow.  I also learned our Thanksgiving Dinner (which we host) count has gone up by 5, bringing us to 18.  We also have a special class to attend after service at church on Sunday.  Don’t even ask about the mountain of laundry.  I also need to get groceries. 

Sigh.  Whose idea was it to make November the National Novel Writing Month?!?

But as Lynn Viehl blogged tonight, real life is always going to interfere.  We just have to find a way to balance it all as well as possible. 

I continued work on Golden tonight (1681 words) bringing my total to 16,113.

Snippet:  Jin’s instincts warn that something is terribly wrong.

I untied my sash, carefully slipping my two favorite blades into my palms.  Casually, I hummed beneath my breath and slowly moved toward the massive bed, even though my heart pounded like a thousand Mongols at full charge.  A slow turn around the room as I slipped off the outer robe indicated nothing alarming.  All the doors were shut.  None of the tapestries rustled against the walls.  Yet that prickling sensation came again, a fleeting warning.

The attack will be from above.

Drilling with General Wu for years had honed my instincts.  I waited until my nape screamed with urgency, refusing to look up.  How many assassins had the Empress sent?  One, I was confident I could handle at least this first time, because no one expected me to know how to protect myself.  More than one assassin, though, and the Emperor would likely return to find only a bloody corpse on his rugs.

At the last possible moment before my nerves erupted into a firestorm, I threw myself to the floor, rolled upon my back, and tossed the first knife at the black shape hovering six inches above where my head would have been.  I didn’t stop to think.  I tossed the second knife before the first even landed.

A man crashed onto the floor.  Blood sprayed my gown, my face, but I jerked the next knife out from inside my sleeve.  The first throw had caught him in the neck.  The second in the eye.  But they were slender blades.  Maybe not enough for a killing blow.

I heard voices, the rush of running feet, but no one called out to me.  She must have paid off the token servants left to see to anything I might need in the Emperor’s absence.

The assassin didn’t make a sound, but he twitched uncontrollably.  His right arm jerked out toward me and I stumbled back, knife cocked.  He crawled after me, but blood bubbled from his mouth.  I kept out of his reach, but I didn’t wound him again.  The man was dead.  He simply didn’t know it yet.

At last, I heard the Emperor’s raised voice and the thudding of feet.  The grand door slammed open and guards poured into the room.  He took one look at the black-clothed man on the floor and turned narrowed eyes on his captain.  The man fell to his knees, while the attendants wrung their hands, crowded together like a flock of squawking chickens.

“If one precious hair on her head is injured, you shall all die.”