NaNoWriMo: Day 8

This weekend was definitely tougher going than the first week.  I finally had to [cheat – fill this in later!] because the scene just wasn’t jiving in my mind.  See the posts on Writing Transformative Sex why certain scenes can be difficult for me.  I didn’t have two characters just falling into the sack.  I had two characters who were afraid, confused, lost, upset, SOMETHING.  I needed the emotion and I couldn’t put my finger on the “journey” inherent in the scene.  Not exactly.  So I broke voice and just typed out a few ideas I had on my mind and I’m going to move on.

Sometimes, for a first draft, you just have to move on and finish the damned book.  Later, in revision, I may find I don’t even need that scene.  For this book, I think I will — but I’m hoping to have a better handle on the sexual journey after the next “day’s” events unfold.

In Deathright, I decided that to make this story fit into the overall world I’m building that I should also introduce a thread for Her Majesty.  But then I immediately stumped myself, because I can’t write a scene for a character when I’m not clear on her motivations.  Oh, in general, I know things, thanks to the plotting of Seven Crows.  But I also got stuck in that little story.  I knew something wasn’t right, and it has to do with the Queen and her story.  Every character is the star of her/his own story, so I need to know what her goal is.  Exactly.  In excruciating detail!  I didn’t feel comfortable writing in the main file, so I started a new document to type out ideas and see what I get.

Today, I need to write a PR letter.  I hate PR letters.  I can write all day about people who only exist in my mind, but I hate writing about myself.  I really need to get some ARCs out, though, and I have no excuse, other than a reluctance to get this letter done.

I don’t have individual file word counts handy (plus it’s complicated now that I started a THIRD file!) so I’ll just go with the total NaNo counts.  Victor did break 40K last night so I’m definitely past the halfway mark.  (I’m targeting 70k, about the same as Dear Sir, I’m Yours.)

NaNoWriMo total:  20,484

Snippet:  I’ll show you how I “cheat” when I haven’t finalized the worldbuilding details yet.  This is a bit from the Queen’s POV for Deathright and is ROUGH.  I don’t just throw names at stuff — I try to make them mean something — and I have no idea how Sublime Space has been laid out yet.  Details, details.

As soon as her advisor stepped into her chambers, Queen Majel knew by the tightness of his face and stiffness of his shoulders that he approached with foul news indeed.  She threw the datapad down on her desk and rubbed her aching temples.  “Another planet has fallen to MIGS.”

“I’m afraid so, Your Majesty.”  Seneschal Murray activated the viewscreen and brought up a chart of [Gamma Sector].  “Lady [name] notified me moments ago of an SOS signal we intercepted from [planet].”