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100k in 40d NaNoWriMo

Recap Time

Well, I sort of went radio-silent after claiming that I was going to beat the odds and still hit my goal on November 30th. The reason? I was kind of busy doing it.

You need to see my stats to appreciate what happened in November. I have created a graph for you to observe.

No, I’m not kidding. This is actually how I work. What you are observing is a numerical depiction of what it means to have energy-spikes. This really worried some of my professors in college.

This graph only spans from Day 7 forward. I got the brilliant idea of creating a word-count log in my writing notebook at that point, so that’s where we start. Yes, you are reading it right, I had a zero-word day on the 14th. My brain went on strike. I also had an 8,245-word day on the 23rd.  Not claiming that was particularly healthy, either, honestly.

I hit my 100k on day 39 of the proposed 40. My average word count per day was 2,982. But as you can see, I rarely did anything like that. Overall, I like to think I was pretty unstoppable, considering that I was way behind where I wanted to be until the last two days. I kind of decided not to worry and to just embrace my talent for uh…total inconsistancy.

In this way, Dronefall III was born. Book three is called Rainchill, for those who haven’t heard. There’s been a great deal of action and suspense and some big reveals. If you get through the first two books, you will hopefully be rewarded by this one. But you still haven’t gotten the chance to read Lightwaste.

That will be rectified soon enough. Hold on!

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Uncategorized

BLACK FRIDAY! a huge selection of indie books available

So, I thought it would only be fair to stop my insane last-week-of-NaNoWriMo writing and tell anyone within hearing some news from the wonderfully generous world of indie authors. There is a huge sale going on through Cyber Monday. There are over 150 clean indie books in a wide variety of genera on sale for as little as 99c or free. There are even some paperbacks available.
  You could get yourself a pretty good lineup of reading material if you tried. I’ve watched a lot of these authors, and some of the books are on my own to-read list, even though I try really hard to keep my to-reads under control.
  Anyway, check out the sale. And hurry up.

This is the link. You know you want to click it.
What’s more, if that’s not enough, there’s also a crazy giveaway going on. A really crazy one. I mean a literally 20 paperbacks to the winner crazy one. Do I have to say more? You probably will be wanting the link to that one too, won’t you. Okay.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Best of luck to you!

Categories
100k in 40d NaNoWriMo

Watch This

100k/40d day: 15

NaNoWriMo day: 5

Total word count: 21,525

Status: lagging 15,975 words

I have just finished drawing 290 little circles.

I’m alright.

I organized the 290 little circles in rows of ten. Each circle represents 100 words. Every 100 words, I plan to fill in one of the circles with a yellow colored pencil I have here with me. I’ve sectioned the rows off into 5 groups of 5 and 1 group of 4. The sections represent the six days I’ve given myself to catch up.

It almost looks possible. Especially with a cup of coconut almond bark tea—both of which will likely be gone before I’m finished writing this. I’m going to attack this thing. You probably won’t hear from me until Monday or later. I refuse to report until I’m caught up.

So, until then, good luck on whatever your own daring and dangerous adventures are this week. And I kind of hope you’re not as impractical and over-ambitious as some of us. I expected to do more tutorial and how-to post along the way here…but mainly I’ve been doing things wrong. So, here’s my tip for the day: don’t do things the way I do things.

Be back when I’m caught up. What, you don’t think I can do it? Let me show you something. Hold my tea.

Categories
100k in 40d NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo Begins

100k/40d day: 12

NaNoWriMo day: 2

Total word count: 13,662

Status: lagging 16,338

Well, I’m not sure that I calculated that quite right. I counted today’s minimum required word-count as missing. I have not yet begun to write! Not today. I just got off work.

The books is going very well. The plot moves very fast but there’s still time for jokes and stuff, which is important. This entry is going to be quite short, I think. I don’t have much to say here, but I definitely need to get back to the book.

Happy NaNoWriMo to all. If you want to “buddy” me on the official NaNo site, my user name is TheLaughingVulcan

Categories
100k in 40d

Still Alive After Nine Days

100k/40d day: 9

Total word count: 10,038

Status: lagging 12,462 words

Well, to my credit, this is how you’re supposed to start a story—a comfortable while after its actual beginning and with the protagonist already in major trouble. 12,462 words behind? Do you know what that would do to some people’s blood pressure?

I’ve heard people on NaNoWriMo forums freak out about lagging by 1,000 words—just for scale.

Luckily, I have naturally low blood-pressure to start with, and am not particularly concerned. Here’s a little math.  Even if I wrote no more today, and nothing at all tomorrow, when November hit, I would still only need to write 2,998.7 words a day to clear 100k by 11/30. That, for me is still only about 2.9 hours a day at the keyboard.

Okay, somebody take this calculator away from me. I have the nasty habit of mathematically justifying procrastination.

But that’s the numbers. So, how’s the actual book going? Not horribly. I’m in chapter three. I’m busy foreshadowing plot point one, which is due in chapter five. It is, by far, going to be the most intense first plot point I have ever used in the series so far. It’s going to have dramatic effect on the whole rest of the series. I’m very excited.

So, don’t pretend you don’t know me yet. If you keep watching, you will see me catch up. I’ll try to keep you better posted than I did for the first 9 days, as well.

Signing off.

Categories
100k in 40d My Books NaNoWriMo

I’ve Got an Even Worse Idea Than Usual

Well, time to shoot the moon again.

For those of you who don’t know me as well, I have a reputation for taking on projects that may or may not be possible and driving myself crazy. It’s funny because when I have some practical task to undertake, I prefer to find some clever way to shirk it. I’m not a deadlines person. I’m not a checklist person. But I like to prove things to myself now and then.

And it’s just about that time of year.

In November of 2016, I was in the first semester of my senior year of college. It wasn’t an ideal time to attack my first National Novel Writing Month marathon. But, you know, I didn’t relish college life and I took the opportunity to distract myself. I kept my grades up, but otherwise…well, it went better than I expected. I exceeded the 50,000 word goal of NaNoWriMo, and passed all my classes.

So, basically, I’ve decided that was too easy and have built on to the 50k words in 30-days challenge. I’ve given myself a timeframe and a wordcount. 100k words in 40 days.

The project begins 10/22/18

The manuscript will be the complete first draft of Dronefall III, entitled Rainchill. My daily minimum wordcount will need to be 2,500. Slightly more demanding than the traditional NaNoWrimo itinerary of 1,666.666666666667 words….

Shout-out to the crazy people who actually know how to write .666666666667 of a word.

I invite you to gawk at my bizarre antics throughout this 40-day period through the window of Stardrift Nights. Hopefully about twice a week I will be logging my progress and increasing panic here on my blog. I’ll be keeping you updated on total wordcount, where I am in my plot (sans any spoilers), challenges I’ve tackled, weird typos, snippets, records and anything else broken.

I wish you all the very best of luck on your own NaNoWriMo challenges this year. And whenever you need to assure yourself someone is suffering more than you are, feel free to come over to Stardrift Nights.  

The race is on.

Categories
Poetry Writing Snippet

Like Chimes in the Wind

I thought I would share a poem of  mine with you today, anticipating the release of my poetry book Songs from the Small Hours, and celebrating the turn of the seasons. (Fall is coming!)

Like Chimes in the Wind
Then autumn took hold

as bloodlessly as rain from off the eaves

a still morning broke

 the circulation changed inside the leaves

Like chimes in the wind

Like yellow warblers dancing in the light

Like voices through fog

Like hidden thrushes singing in the night

The taste of the air

Was like a stream from deep inside the rocks

And in every tree

The nervous feathers gathered into flocks

And then came the hush

Of wonder at the blue behind the gray

And smoke on the breeze

And as you breathe it in, it fades away

Like chimes on the wind

Categories
Dronefall My Books

A Long-Expected Surprise

Guys! Guys! I have an announcement to make. Some of you might be able to guess it, but some of you won’t, so you’ll have to read on.

But not very far, because I’ll get right to the point. Dronefall is at last and finally available on Kindle. I caved and got professional formatting help, and Victoria Lynn did very well for a very reasonable price. I know a lot of people are hesitant to buy paperbacks. Even avid readers. Maybe even especially avid readers. Book-money is scarce, shelf-space is precious real estate and to almost everyone, I’m an unknown author. But a lot of risk just got removed.

It’s going for 99c right now. So, if you’re curious at all, you might want to swipe it while it’s cheaper than practically everything. If you’re ready to grab it right now, here’s the link. Not ready yet? Okay…here’s the link again. 

Alright, I’ll stop. But the fact that you are now able to hit a button and in seconds drop into a world I have been isolated in for uncounted hours is very exciting. Though I don’t have every scene planned from here to the end of book five, I have quite a map laid out, and my head is spinning with thrilling plot-developments. Well, they sound thrilling in my head, at least.

Anyhow, the first book of the Dronefall series with its colorful cast, non-stop mystery, unique setting and slow-burn suspense is waiting for you on Kindle. If you’re the kind of fangirl or fanboy that loves a complex story-world, quirky characters and a lot (and I mean a whole lot) of raw material for fan-theories, I promise you will have fun.

So, thank you for reading this post. I know it was kind of dumb and not very meaty. The meat’s in the book. And it’s currently 99c.Oh, and here’s the link..

Categories
Character Interview Dronefall My Books

Halcyon Speaks Part Two


Welcome to part two of our interview with Halcyon Slavic, the main character of my most recent novel “Dronefall.” In this interview we will get a glimpse of the story-world through her eyes. So, with no further introduction, we’ll get back into it.
Exactly what is the role and function of the drone surveillance in your city?

Budapest has an enormous system of surveillance drones that persistently combs the city with cameras and tracking technology that lets them gather information from people’s phones and wearable devices. There’s a huge grid system that crisscrosses over most of the city, and I think that’s entirely owned by the police. Supposedly this massive amount of data-gathering is keeping a lot of crime off the streets that would otherwise be there. But of course, only a small percentage of the data relates to any crime whatsoever. All this information is always readily available to government officials, the police, and anybody who knows how to hack in and get it.   

And how does the public feel about this?

I don’t really think they think much of anything about it on a day-to-day basis. Most people will scoff at you for raising an eyebrow about it. They argue that the system has saved—however many lives, it varies by who you talk to. They say it’s all actually very secure, and if you are bothered by police watching you, you must have something to hide.

Honestly, I think it bothers more people than are openly saying so. Nobody wants to look paranoid. You can get a lot of harassment if somebody says you’re afraid of the government. It looks pretty backward to some people.

You grew up in an Advocates for Education and Social Development school. Who is AESD, and what was your experience like?

AESD is an international machine that has more or less monopolized school systems in the west. They’re kind of their own government—though their funded by the actual governments of all the countries that they work in. I don’t even know how they started, but they were set up to reshape civilization according to a brilliant agenda that’s going to save us all from ourselves.

I’m starting to suspect one of their main goals is to extinguish Christianity in the next generation, but I know better than to say that. It would get me laughed off—loudly.

Just going on my experience though, the notion isn’t particularly laughable. I wouldn’t say the quality of my education was particularly good, but one thing they certainly did was start teaching children to be revolted by religion—and one religion in particular—at an early age. They used a lot of films and VR in teaching. And a lot of shock factor. 

How would you describe attitudes toward Christianity among educators, students and the general public?

AESD teachers set themselves up as champions of acceptance. If you suggest that they have something against Christianity they will quickly deny it. And then they’ll go on to tell you what an oppressive, hateful, superstitious old religion it is and why it’s responsible for all society’s ills. To them, the thought of any rational moral person believing the bible is inconceivable.

Students are an odd lot. It’s hard to put them all in the same category. Most of them just follow along. They’ll believe or pretend to believe whatever they have to to get good marks and graduate. It’s a wonder any of them have opinions of their own by then. There’s so much opinion-sculpting that goes on in school. Some are just rebelling against their Christian parents—others might just be rebelling against their anti-Christian teachers. That’s how I started out.

There are still real Christians among the general public. But they tend to be bullied into silence by the rest. It’s definitely popular to have no respect at all for it. I’ve heard of a lot of people getting treated badly for voicing certain convictions, and when they reach out for more decent people to stop the unfairness, they are often met with silence. Decent people don’t want to look like they affirm Christianity.  

What do you think it would take to change people’s minds about Christianity?

I have no idea. I don’t even know if it’s possible. They’d rather blatantly lie to themselves than consider it. At this point, all I want is to get away from them. They hate the one thing that’s important to me—the one thing that gives me hope and peace. I don’t know what we could ever do for them, now.

Categories
Character Interview Dronefall My Books

Halcyon Speaks

The next two blog posts will be a two-part interview with none other than the main character of the Dronefall series, Halcyon Slavic. Today’s post focuses mainly on Halcyon herself, giving you a chance to meet her if you haven’t yet, and learn more about her if you have read Dronefall.

Tell us three things about yourself.
1) The first time I jumped off a train, I was seventeen. My technique was so bad, it was a miracle I didn’t break anything. 2) My favorite book of the Bible is probably Revelation. 3) I like to feed pigeons, and it makes me unreasonably resentful when people try to enforce rules against it.

Did you have friends growing up?
They would draw names at random and herd us into new “socialization groups” every week at school. This clever strategy almost destroyed any opportunity to make any friends at all, especially as we got older and slower at connecting. I hardly remember the names of any of the kids I grew up with.

Have you ever played any sports?
I played chess. Not that I was particularly good at that, either.

Can you play any musical instruments?
A rather plunky bit of piano. Music wasn’t emphasized in our educational programs, and I didn’t have the drive to become good. I can sing some, but I have kind of a rough voice.

What was your strongest school subject?
I did well in science, especially chemistry. Biology disappointed me, because we never actually got to dissect anything. I didn’t love math, but I could make it work.

Tell us three things you’re good at and three things you don’t do well.
I’m kind of good at criticizing myself—but then again, I don’t think I try hard enough. Anyway, I think I’m pretty good at holding my ground once I’ve got something figured out. I’m good at resisting peer pressure. I also have a knack for avoiding people I don’t like.
I’m kind of bad at finalizing things. I get overwhelmed with options and possibilities. I can kind of ruin my resolve by looking at situations from too many perspectives—which kind of cancels out my ground-holding skills sometimes. I can’t talk very well. I think that part of my brain must be slow. And I also can’t do anything with my own hair. My braids are terrible, and I end up with a frizzy, knotted mess if I try anything new.

Who’s your best friend?
Reveille Jacobs. She introduced me to train jumping and drone-tracking and Jesus Christ. In other words, she ruined my chances to live a normal life. I appreciated that. I might be stuck in mundanity without her influence.

Describe your relationship with God.
It’s there. Sometimes I question it, but it doesn’t disappear. It’s a quiet relationship. Nothing’s dramatic. Everything grows slowly. I get impatient sometimes, but I don’t know what more I’m expecting, when I think about it. He’s never asked me to do anything crazy, and I find that a little disconcerting, maybe.
Stay tuned for part two, in which Halcyon discusses her upbringing, her culture, and the powers under the surface of 2040’s Budapest.

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