nanowrimo

Poetry sale to Chantarelle’s Notebook

Published on by Sara Norja

My poem ‘October’s End’ will appear in Issue #29 of Chantarelle’s Notebook. Am very pleased that this poem (written way back in Oct/Nov 2009) has found a home. I’ll post a link when it’s up!

In other writing news, I wrote 6000 words of Nano on Sunday in a (rather successful) attempt at stress relief. Thus, I am now more than back on track (46,129 words). I already got some written today during an extended cafe session, but now could go for some more writing before bed.

After Nano is over, it’ll be the first time since the start of August that I won’t be working on a novel. Weirdness.

Drastic changes: they can work

Published on by Sara Norja

On Wednesday, I finally decided to do something I’ve never done before in my five years of Nanowrimo: to abandon the story I was working on and start a new one.

Now, when I say ‘abandon’ I don’t mean entirely – no, I’ll probably work on the 31K of the first story eventually. Could work as a novelette or novella rather than a longer thing. But for now, in this dreary November when my brain is on overload, it just wasn’t the right story to write. I’m really glad I got it started – a lot of interesting things there – but I’m even more glad that instead of choosing to just plod along with the first story, uninspired, I chose to start a new one.

Of course I’m keeping all the words of the first story, Nano-wise. So, that means I should fit this new story into less than 20K. Hahahahaha. Erm. We’ll see. Because apparently, I’m pretty darned excited by this new, folk tale / family relationships / castles / changelings / folk music inspired story. Have written about 7500 words in the past three days, thus managing to finally – YAY – catch up on word count again. Currently at 38,621 words. Trying to resist the temptation to write any more tonight, because it’s past midnight and I should be somewhat awake at dance training tomorrow morning.

Anyway, I’m going to try to persuade my new protagonist Katherine to get her story finished in less than 12K; or, more importantly, within November. I don’t want to have an unfinished Nano-thing pestering me in December. December is for poems and short(er) stories, dangnabbit.

Procrastinating with poetry

Published on by Sara Norja

Today has so far not included Nano-ing. I’m going to try to get a little bit written now, but doubt will catch up today (yesterday was not a good word count day). I hope to catch up during the weekend!

Anyway, in my defence, I’ve had rather useful ways of procrastinating from Nanowrimo today. First, I worked on some bureaucratic stuff for the folk dance group I’m in. And second, an even worthier reason to procrastinate from novelling: I submitted some poems. Haven’t done that for a while, so it felt good. Wishing my wee poems the best of luck 🙂

Now! for some writing. And then bed. Have I mentioned my difficulties with attaining a sensible sleep rhythm now that I’m working full-time? Well, er, difficulties, I can has them. And Nanowrimo, obviously, is not helping. *shakes head at self for attempting silly things during first weeks of new job*

November

Published on by Sara Norja

Two things on this dark, dreary November Monday:

1) Nanowrimo is still trudging along. I don’t really have too much mental energy to spend on my story, sadly, so it isn’t sparkling, and meanders too much, etc. But with much editing, this year’s Nano might perhaps have the potential for a novelette or similar shorter longfic. I rather like the premise, and if pared down, it could make for a poetic, language-oriented story. And I’m keeping up with the word count (I’m at around 19K at the moment – must get a-writing today’s portion!), which is nice for my word count -obsessive soul.

2) While getting rejections is never super awesome, it’s wonderful when getting a rejection letter makes you smile. I really appreciate editors taking the time to tell writers that they enjoyed reading the submission, and mentioning which pieces they liked in particular. And being encouraged to submit more stuff is nice. So, hooray for lovely editors!

After Nanowrimo is done, I hope to get down to some more poetry-editing and submitting stuff again. I’ve got quite a few pending submissions, but should get some new stuff into the rotation too. Also, there’s a short-ish (krhm, 10K) story that I should edit and submit to places. It involves this delightful theme.

I also discovered that there’s this Finnish-language sf&f short story competition with a deadline of 31st December. I… may have to see if I could write something in Finnish and submit just for the heck of it.

Nanowrimo, day 1

Published on by Sara Norja

Heyup. Have officially passed the word count for the first day of Nanowrimo 2012! Fifth Nano year, here I come.

Exhausted from real-life things. But gosh, it felt rather awesome to escape into my own world for a while – to start something completely new, something utterly unknown!

My Nanovel this year is high fantasy. Something of the sort, at least. It’s about a woman and her journey to discover new things, it’s about languages and friendships and travelling players (maybe), about conflicting beliefs and epic landscapes and loves. Vaguest description ever! I do know more about the story than that, but frankly, I’m so tired now that I can’t do a coherent description.

But I’m enjoying it. Even though this is the least I’ve ever planned a novel (I have a few pages’ worth of scrambled notes, but that’s it). Pantsing ftw, this year! Who knows what’s going to happen to my main character? I certainly don’t. But I hope I’ll enjoy the process of finding out.