Updates

I reached the halfway mark.  I’ve got over 25,000 words in.  FINALLY!  I’ll have to do some serious catching up if I want to finish on time.  My hard drive died last week on my previous laptop.  It could have been MUCH worse.  I had all my old stuff backed up prior to November 1, 2011.  Anything after that…well, hubby was able to save some new stuff, but ALL of the old stuff was unreadable.  He DID find MOST of my NaNoWriMo project, so that made me REALLY happy.

 I’m fortunate in many ways I suppose.  My hubby likes to “tinker” with dead Dell laptops.  He’s gotten pretty good at bringing them back to life.  Consequently, he always has computer pieces and computer parts lying around the house.  This is one of those times I’m especially grateful for dovetailing interests!!!  He had another laptop he’d already Frankensteined together ready for me, and now I’m using that one.  My old computer got another hard drive, so it became the back-up computer.  Everyone is up and running, but I feel a little lost without my old computer.  My good buddy, “Microsoft Sam”, isn’t on board yet.  Both laptops are stupid to my needs.  My settings are all off.  Yada, yada, yada.!  It will take time to make either one feel like they’re mine again.

My NaNo story seems to be coming along, despite the computer drama.  I’m still feeling some guilty pleasure in the impromptu choice I made.  I decided around June, that I wasn’t going to NaNo a vampire story.  I had this really cool idea for a murder mystery that was supposed to take place in Detroit.  I had characters names and descriptions.  I knew the settings.  I made a rough outline.  I had everything picked out but the title.  Now I know this sounds silly, but I NEVER write a story without knowing the name of the title first.  I don’t know why this is.  I’m almost superstitious about it.  It made me nervous, not knowing what to call this book, especially because this isn’t my usual genre.  I wanted this to be darker than my usual stuff.  The closer we got to November 1^st, the more anxious I became.

Saturday, October 29^th came.  I was watching TV and I got an idea in my head.  I tried to dismiss it.  Sunday, October 30^th came.  I still couldn’t shake this idea.  I started thinking about the myths surrounding changelings.  I surfed around the Internet a little, but I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to know about them.  Who was getting switched and why?  Questions!  Questions!  October 31^st rolled around.  I was frantically jotting down ideas and possible character names before it was time to take my kid out trick-or-treating.  I still couldn’t shake the changeling idea.  November 1^st came.  I had to make a decision.  Which story do I write?  I had one story that was ready to be written and the other wasn’t an anything!  That’s when I decided to lose my mind completely and go with the changelings.  Good news is I haven’t regretted it.  😉

I could have gone in quite a few different directions, but I decided to pick on the faie world.  To be brutally honest I don’t know much about them in the traditional sense.  I have a short story I’ve played around with where one of my vampires wins a faie woman in a poker game, but that pretty much it.  My husband reads some high fantasy stuff, and thought he could educate me on the differences, etc.  Unfortunately, in this case, his wisdom was lost on me.   I like to take supernatural beings and sully them by bringing them down to my level.  I think they all should have jobs, bills to pay, some sort of family, and a place to live that fits accordingly. 

I spent a TON of time thinking about details when it came to my vampire characters.  I have mountains of research and books on the vampire phenomenon.  My first story has been rewritten so many times because I probably cared too much about these imaginary friends and I wanted to get their first story not just right, but as perfect as I can make it.  I ultimately want a series I can build upon.  I’ve babied these characters, spent countless hours thinking about them.  I’m like a new mom who has recorded every fart, burp, and any other disgusting thing a spoiled book-baby can do!  I needed to take a little time away from them.  They’ll still be there in December!

My new faie characters didn’t have the loving support from their author that my vampires were given.  Sorry kids!  😦  That’s just how it is when you’re on a NaNo deadline.  I gave them jobs, bills, families, and homes to live in, but something got skewed once the actual writing began.  I’m pretty sure my faie characters will all hate their author when this is over with.  I’m also 95% sure that once I get the kinks worked out of this story, I’m going to want to self-publish it.  After all, when you’re writing about redneck faieries living in singlewide trailers in northern Michigan, I think you have an obligation to share their story with rest of the universe!  😉

Take care everyone!

 Juli