Into a New Year

I wouldn't say 2011 has been a particularly great year for me, when I look back on it I see the difficulties I've faced in just about every aspect of my life, and can definitely say this is one year I wouldn't want to live over. But it's also been a growing year in many ways, and it has set me up to look forward to bigger and better things in the new year.

With my writing, while I'm still on that rollercoaster of writing/revising/querying, I definitely feel stronger and more confident in those three aspects. I may not yet have an agent, but the fact that my last few novels all got partial requests make me feel as though I'm at least on the right track. I've been plenty discouraged and disheartened, but I've always picked up and kept going, and for the new year I hope that motivation stays with me. Statistics wise, I wrote three books and did two serious bouts of querying this year, and participated on NaNoWriMo for the first time, which was fun, frustrating, and enlightening. I'm hoping for more growth and more success in the new year; I've been cruising the rest of the year out, but once the new year dawns I'll be getting right back into the trenches.

Happy New Year everyone!

Just in time for fun?

On Saturday I finished my NaNo novel, which was a goal I was happy to meet. This novel was a lot of fun to write but was also frustrating, but that's to be expected, books hardly ever just write themselves without complications. I also learned a lot about myself as a writer, specifically that I can just take an idea and run with it as long as the idea is strong enough. That doesn't mean I've turned my back on plotting, but writing a book without one sure was interesting. It's also nice that I finished in time to focus on the holidays and having some fun, since my best friend and I will be getting our vaca on in FL on Thursday, heading to Orlando and Daytona Beach. Hopefully it's warm enough that I can reclaim five days of summer weather. I've been so writing focused for the past few months that I think I'll take a little break and start up again in the new year....editing, querying, and all that fun.

Guess my character's age

Update: She's 25

Brenda Drake is hosting a cool blogfest where we have to post the first 250 words of our novel and others have to try to guess our character's age based on the voice. So here's mine:

After a three month leave I was looking forward to going back to work, even though for me that involved dealing with demon politics that made being stuck between a rock and a hard place look like a cozy place to take a nap. When I turned onto the sidewalk from the parking lot though, I had a nice reality check waiting for me in the form of people marching and chanting up and down the sidewalk and street. They were hardly my welcome back committee. I sighed as I headed into the throng of Humans Against Demons protestors, preparing for an uphill battle to make it to my building. It was my fault anyway, for not remembering that the Offices for Demon Control was one of HAD’s favorite places to put on their song and dance.

As I struggled through the crowd, I wondered at the sheer volume of people that were here; there seemed to be three times more protestors than usual, which meant the stench of BO was three times worse. It was like these people weighed the time it’d take to shower against the ten minutes of protesting they’d lose, and showering always lost. Suddenly, my attention was caught by the celebratory shouts coming from a group of people clustered in the middle of the street. Wary, I hauled myself onto the roof of a parked car to have a look. When I saw what they were gathered around, I pulled my gun out and fired a few shots into the air.