March Catch-Up

Well, March has certainly been a productive month so far!

Just hit 60k on my WIP, and it's really starting to take shape. I have a good idea what I need to do in the next draft and I'm fairly confident that, after that, it'll just be a matter of tweaking. I don't think I'll have quite finished by April, but it'll just be a matter of a couple of scenes left if not.

Got married on Wednesday (will do a longer post about that when I get the photos back!) now we're recognised everywhere as properly, legally, wifes ^^ Finally!! But yes, more about that later :)

Finally got sorted into my Camp Cabin and, well, it's just about perfect. Most people I've been chatting to for a fair while, and there're a couple of new faces too. Our word-count goals range from 30k to 350k, and everyone's psyching each other up to push themselves -- which is exactly why I wanted to be in an OA cabin in the first place. It's an inspiring group to be a part of! Ironally, OAs have proven to be the most open and the most accepting group of people on NaNo -- they know that anything's possible if only you have the courage to try, and the word count themselves rarely come into it at all. It's much more an attitude than a word-count thing.

So yes, all good things! Having a break from paper work and visa thoughts before we change the visa into a green-card (I don't even want to think about how much that's going to cost -_-) But everything's looking up!

Visa and Writing Updates

And there we are! I have my visa and my passport is coming back to me within ten working days :D The sun is shining and I'm feeling excited about my writing again -- Life is good! 

I've done a bad thing, but a good thing for me -- I've restarted my story again. Well, sort of. I always knew I wanted to go back and redo the beginning and recently I've had a terrible craving for present tense, so I'm doing some experimenting with that; going back and re-reading the stuff I did almost a year ago now, right at the very beginning of the project. And I actually really like it. Definitely going to try and incorporate that into what I've got. I really didn't think I was going to need another rewrite, considering how happy I've been with what I've got so far, but the idea of making it even better as really got my blood going again! 

My goal is to have a completed draft done sometime in March, ready for when Camp comes along in April (!!!) This year is already going so fast! And the last year too... I can't believe I've been working on this story properly for a year! It sort of feels like I haven't got as far as I'd like to with it, then I remember that I handwrote a draft, did 40k of rewrites AND wrote two novels in NaNo... Perspective. Or something! But this year will be better. I know what I'm doing now, and all I need to do is do it. 

Thoughts for Camp... Well, I really would like to do the final book in this series (I, amongst others, really want to know what happens!) but I also want to write Kai and Tamsyn's story as a sort of parallel, and I also want to do a sort of prequel with Lysandis and Aurelia, and I also want to do something completely different although I have no idea what, but I love pantsing! I don't know... I suppose I'll see how much of break from this world I'll need once Book 1's done. 

Okay, so here's what I'm listening to today -- Page 47 from National Treasure 2 by Trevor Rabin. I might've already posted this, but I love it so much! It's such a gorgeous piece of music!

A Good Day

Today was a good day, writing-wise and personally. Made big steps in my visa application and didn't have a panic-attack when I checked by bank-account. I feel like I can breathe again. 

Writing was slow but good. It was one of those scenes that needed to be maneuvered carefully and revised a couple of times to get right, but I'm very pleased with the end product. The characters have done what they needed to do and stayed true to character, which was particularly tricky today. Very much a matter of compromise. I am both excited and terrified of my writing schedule for tomorrow. I'm giving myself the evening off to just think about it. Once I've got past this point, the rest should come pretty smoothly (maybe hopefully??)

Here's some appropriate music :)

Only a Dream by Mary Chapin Carpenter

A Busy Couple of Months

And it feels like so much longer!

It's been pretty intense, being in St Louis with all that's been going on. Even though we're twenty-miles away from Ferguson, knowing it's just down the road is terrifying. There have been loud bangs going off every evening and no-one seems to know what they are. No-one seems very concerned either, so I'm just trying to follow their lead.

I thank God that Britain isn't pro-gun, I really do. It's another world over here. It's another world twenty-miles away. But the scariest thing is that it isn't another world at all; it's real-life in which people are being gunned down in the streets by rampant, militarized police. We're living in a dystopia.

My own little world has been taken up with writing and visa-applications. One is going well, the other is making me want to rip my hair out. Objectively, it's all going to plan, but I can't seem to make my brain accept that. I'm terrified of it being rejected and wish I could run away from it, but I can't. Once it's done, it'll be the best feeling in the world.

Writing is going very well. I've gone through the 50,000 words mark (!!!) and I've hand-written 147 pages. It feels like an achievement and the closer I come to the end, the happier I am. I know there's going to be a huge amount of work at the other end, but I'll be starting in a place I can be proud of.

Every time I sit down to write, the story and the characters take me off into completely different territory that I could never have planned. All my plans have fallen along the way, but the story as it stands feels right. I'm going to have to take them in hand when I start typing up, but at the moment I'm content to let it develop as it wants to. I've stopped being afraid of giving up - if something's not working, I re-work it until it does.

It's going well.

I've started developing my 2014 NaNo playlist and have rediscovered Brain Crain. Beautiful music, and I especially love his piano/cello duets. Recommended for tranquil writing time.