Slightly Off the Mark

You won't hear much from me in November, although my regular blogs will continue with stuff already written and saved. Why? I've decided to once again compete in National Novel Writing Month, with the intention of losing.

It's a throwback to my high school days in Physical Education class, something I excelled in losing ... in. I did become adept at finding hiding places around the gym. Under the bleachers was always popular with us nerd types.

National Novel Writing Month, shortened to NaNoWriMo to save typing fingers, has its own official website. My account is here: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/mark-r-hunter. Guess I'd better update it. The idea is to write an entire novel--or at least, 50,000 words of it--in one short month, which happens to be November. Why November?

Why not?

It's not the best month, what with American holidays and all. I would have picked January. What else is there to do in January? Go outside? Ha.

A bigger question: Why do it at all?

Some writers start that Great American Novel, but never finish. Maybe they peter out because they don't manage their time well, or get sidetracked. Maybe they're the type who edit so obsessively they never finish that first chapter, page, or, in extreme cases, sentence. They go over it again and again, and in the end ... don't end.

But the first draft is allowed to suck. Nobody else has to see it, ever. NaNoWriMo is designed to be that butt kick that forces writers to forge through and finish their first draft. They don't have time to edit: To make fifty thousand words in thirty days they have to write almost 1,700 words a day! Go to it, get that first draft done, and edit later.

My own writing habit is to sit down and go over what I wrote last time, to get me back into the groove, and I do usually edit then. Just the same, I've won NaNoWriMo three times: With Summer Jobs Are Murder (formerly Red Is For Ick, and don't I regret that), Fire On Mist Creek, and The Source Emerald. Since then all three of those novels have been edited, polished, and are trapped in submission hell.

(No, I don't think my NaNo projects are cursed.)

So, I'll stick to the habits that worked with me in the past. As a result, I'll consider myself lucky to get 40,000 words done, but I know from experience that once I get that far, I'll be able to power though and finish--maybe in January. And honestly, any writer who takes their shot, works hard, and emerges with something to show for it, wins NaNoWriMo no matter how many words they get in..

What's my new book about? It's a holiday-themed romantic comedy: Christmas on Mist Creek.

Yes, that's right: I'm writing a sequel to a book that hasn't even been published yet.



 Find our books at:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Remember, every time you pass on a book, a typesetter loses his case. Don’t cause all-caps.

Every now and then I have a dream that I can piece together into a decent story, given some time and elbow grease. The other day I didn't sleep well, and woke up twice in the middle of vivid dreams. In the first one, I was with a small group of people at an interstate rest stop when a tornado came by, just brushing the edge of the building. Everyone else hid intelligently in the basement (even though rest stops I've been in don't have basements) while I stood by the window, getting a pretty decent video of the twister as it spun by.

I've had these kind of storm chasing dreams before. The difference in this case is that I actually got some video; usually my camera breaks or goes dead, or something comes between me and the funnel, or otherwise I don't get a shot. Not really an idea to wrap a story around.

Not that I haven't turned storm chasing into stories before.

The second one was one of those dreams that was both vivid and had something of a plot. I woke up from it and lay there, wide awake and staring at the ceiling as my mind filled the blanks in. Then I ran downstairs to the laptop, and slammed out a story idea of about five hundred words complete with characters, setting, plot, and complications. Plus, our dog would be in it.

"Who? Me?"

Thank goodness I have a wife who understands writers.

Here's the thing: Although set in modern times, the story would be a supernatural fantasy. Just what I need ... another genre! That would be, what ... my sixth?

But the idea stuck with me so much that I was tempted to bypass other projects and go right to work on it. The only problem is, I was about halfway through the first draft of a Storm Chaser prequel, which I bragged about doing a year ago ... and I'd already put that aside to work on a new novel that I'm now editing, Fire On Mist Creek.

So ... it goes on my "to do" list, along with ideas for maybe two dozen more stories. Actually, a "to write" list. It has a ways to go before it outnumbers my "to read" list, but it's heading that way.

As most nights are.

            My working title for the Girl Scout story will be “No Campfire, Girls”, which is certainly better than the “Burning Brownies” that someone suggested!

            Meanwhile, the working title of my “space opera” novella, which is flirting with becoming a novel, is: “Beowulf: In Harm’s Way”. Or possibly “The Beowulf: In Harm’s Way”, since that’s the name of a ship.