It’s the last day of November, and that means the end of NaNoWriMo!  I’m happy to report a very successful NaNoWriMo this year.  I actually passed 50,000 words on November 26th, and managed to make it to 60,000 words today, for a final total of 60,417.

I really wanted to get as much of the story written as I could while I had good momentum going.  I probably need around 10,000 words more to get to the end of the story, so I plan to continue in the first part of December.  At a slower pace, though!

I’ve really enjoyed writing this one all through the month.  I hit some walls around the 3/4 mark, which I hear is common – it’s when the story needs to stop expanding and start contracting down towards the end, and pay-off all the things that have been set up along the way.  It’s a change of focus so it’s a bit of a bump, but I had a couple scenes I was excited to write that helped me make the shift.  I have a couple more scenes coming up now that I’m excited about, so I hope that will help me keep up momentum even though we’re past NaNoWriMo now.

I have a few more books in this series to finalize before this new one will be going out into the world, but in the meantime, here’s an excerpt…

Rose stared across the length of the long lawn, heart pounding in her chest, and felt time double-back on itself.  Surely she wasn’t now, surely she was having some hazy hallucination of then – but the shouting council members, the lurching ground, Elena’s wide-eyed gaze all felt too real, too present.

Which did not explain what she was seeing across the lawn.

A wall of thorns was growing.  Stalks were springing up out of the ground, putting out branches, growing and doubling and expanding at a visible rate.  They stretched along the edge of the lawn and out of sight, surely wrapping their way around the perimeter of the castle.  The branches were brown and gnarled, not a softening leaf or flower in sight.  She couldn’t see thorns from here, but she knew, deep down inside, that they were there.

More than a third of the way through NaNoWriMo already!  It’s been going very well so far – I’ve built up a nice cushion of extra words, which may be helpful in the later part of the month, which I expect to be busier.

I’ve been really enjoying the writing this time around.  The story has been flowing very well, I think in part because I have a solid outline.  I don’t get stuck wondering where to go next, because I did that planning in October.  Though just yesterday I made some revisions to my outline, realizing I needed to rearrange a few chapters and add another one in to make the timeline work.  But mostly I have a good framework to work with.

It also helps that I know all of my major characters very well – I’ve already written at least one book with each character in the lead, and most have appeared throughout the series.  That makes it easier to get into the flow of writing for each of them.

I’m tending to write about one chapter a day, which feels very satisfying, to hit a nice end point each day.  It’s also a sign that the story is moving quickly, and since sometimes I get bogged down with slow pacing, that’s encouraging too!  The first big crisis point of the story hits in Chapter Six, which meant spending the next few chapters with different characters dealing with the crisis.  Trying to avoid spoilers, but my husband likes to joke that I really like writing angst, and he is not wrong… Continue reading “NaNoWriMo 2023 – Day #12” →

Another November and National Novel Writing Month is upon us!  I’ve been planning for this year’s NaNo for the past several weeks.  I’m working on drafting the fifth and final book of my Thorns saga, The Queen of Thorns.  I’ve had some vague ideas around this book for years – back when it was supposed to be Book 3, and I had no idea there’d be two other books in the series!

Since I did end up with two other books, with their own lead characters, I’m excited to use Book 5 to bring everything back together.  I’ve put together a somewhat detailed outline over the last few weeks, and have planned chapters from the points of view of all the lead characters from the series.  So it’s still a Rose and Terrence book, but there are also story arcs and chapters focused more on Elena and Henry (Book 3’s leads), and on Penelope and Cade (Book 4’s leads).  I know from reading other series with multiple leads that sometimes the intended “main” leads aren’t my favorite, and it’s disappointing if my favorites don’t get enough screentime in the series finale.  So I hope to cover that in my own book – and besides, I really like all my main characters too! Continue reading “NaNoWriMo 2023 – Day #2” →