Rebecca Enzor

I haven’t given up yet folks, although I’ve been sorely tempted as I watch that little purple bar climb further and further away from my little blue wordcount bars. I’ve been writing consistently, but not as quickly as I need to. I’m 10k behind with a trip looming in less than a week, and I kind of feel like I’ve already lost.

And instead of writing a long, lamenting post with a half-assed pep-talk at the end I’m going to point you over to http://doycetesterman.com/index.php/2010/11/midwestern-rules/ for a good ol’ fashioned “buck up and finish what you started” speech.

And now to throw some “Genre Appropriate Ninjas” into my story. Re-Forgetters here I come!

Well, as you can see by the widget on my sidebar I’m not caught up yet, but I am feeling better about NaNo. I became a little worried this weekend when I still hadn’t made 1667 a day – never mind catching up – but I seem to have found a steady writing rhythm again, even if it’s not a particularly quick one. Part of the problem is that I never intended to write this story as a NaNo Novel – I always planned to take my time with it. The other part of the problem is that I really wanted to finish editing Fie Eoin because I now have a small mob of people gnashing their teeth for the next chapter. And the third part is that I didn’t really care about Sean. And that was really killing my writing.

You see, I storylined straight through this book and into the sequel, and in the sequel Sean is a horrible person. He blames the Forgetters for what happens at the end of Book of Souls (which I can’t spoil for you, obviously) and goes on a complete killing rampage. So the only Sean I’ve ever known is confused little boy Sean that goes straight into murderous rampage Sean. I had a vague idea who he was in his last life, but I never really explored that until NaNo started. So I started off the month with a POV character that I didn’t care about, but who was vital to the story.

What do you know, that doesn’t really work for me. So I went back to his last life and figured out what happened. And Sean was not a bad guy in his last life – he was actually a pretty decent fellow who had a horrible death. And he’s a pretty decent guy as a confused kid, too. And then last night he told a little lie to someone in charge of the army and the Rebecca in me fell in love. Now, instead of forcing myself to write his scenes I actually want to. I want to see what’s next for this kid between horrible death and eventual murderer. I want to know what really makes him tick. I care.

Do you care about your characters? Finding that “save the cat” moment may be just what you need to get your NaNo butt in gear.

And don’t forget to visit the others in the NaNo Blogchain! Their sage wisdom (and lamentations!) sure helped me out on Day 4 when I felt like giving up.

I have to admit that I’m not feeling NaNo this year. I’ve got an awesome story that I really want to write, I’ve got awesome minions to help me with my ML duties, and I’ve got a great bunch of excited Wrimos to cheer me up whenever I see them. But I’m exhausted. I’ve been doing non-stop NaNo-duties since the end of August (when my first presentation was given) and I’ve barely had time to see my husband since October started (this is partly due to the fact that work has him traveling a lot right now, but also due to NaNo). I’ve already got a new ML lined up for next year and I want to just hand over the reins today and be done with it.

But then who would take care of the calendar? And the ML emails? And handing out stickers at events? (which, by the way I’ve already run out of – I gave away 50 stickers and blue books in five days! When I started MLing two years ago we had four people total at the write-ins!) Who would answer the questions? (my minions are actually really awesome at getting to the questions right away) Who would be the smiley, bubbly, not gonna take your shit this year, fearless leader? Who really, deep down inside kinda freaking loves being ML and is going to miss the hell out of it next year?

Who almost fell asleep at a red light on the way to the write-in yesterday and needed a night off?

So you know what? I typed up the handwritten stuff from Days Two and Three, poured myself a glass of wine, and watched the last five episodes of Community, which I have missed for over a month because I’ve been so busy with NaNo. Some of the episodes sucked (really? Space capsule from KFC?) but some of them were well worth it (Abed Jesus? Hilarious). And although my notebook and pen were on the table beside me I didn’t even look at them once. I posted my 153 words for the day to the website and I smiled at the new stats area that said “1 unsuccessful day”. Because honestly? I’d consider this a pretty successful day. I had lunch with my husband at my favorite restaurant, I met with my boss to start in a new area of the lab (now I get to play with radioactivity AND fire!), and I caught up on a show that is not my favorite but made me laugh.

Now I’m going to go to bed and wake up on Day Five ready to write again. I gave myself a little cushion the first few days and I can take a day off. I needed to take a day off. It’s been a lovely day off.

The point is: don’t let NaNo overwhelm you – writing an entire book is overwhelming enough as it is.

Want to see how other Wrimos are doing on Day Four? Check out the NaNo Bloggers link on the sidebar!

So, I’ve been teasing you guys with the Top Secret Project for a while (almost a year) as I flesh it out and learn more about the characters. I’m ready to start writing finally, so I’ve decided to make it this year’s NaNo Project. And its name is Book of Souls.

I still can’t tell you a whole lot about the story, because it’s high concept and I don’t want anyone stealing it, but I can give you a general idea of what the book is about. It’s set in a world where reincarnation is the main belief and soul-bonds are the strongest relationships. As I mentioned in my last post, there is no such thing as marriage in this world. There is the soul-bond, which is your relationship with the person you feel most connected to in life – whether that be your best friend, your sibling, your parent, or your mate – and there is your mate, who is there for the purpose of having children. You can dissolve a mating pair quite easily unless that person is your soul-bond (it wouldn’t do to tell your bond that you don’t want to mate with them anymore!), but it’s very difficult to dissolve a soul-bond, as the MCs soon figure out.

The technology is Renaissance and the Library is most important building in the center of the city, taking the place of the church. They do believe in God, but they believe in knowledge more. The city my characters start out in is Bruges, Belgium, with all of its canals and townhouses, and the city they end up in is Alethia (totally made up), on the banks of the Lethia River (also totally made up, but not by me). On the other side of the city is the Forgetter Territory, and the people on this side of the river are known as Rememberers. At 13 years old every Rememberer has their memories opened to them, and that’s where we’ll start off.

Neona and Sean are the POV characters (Neona would be considered the Main Character, but Sean gets his POV sometimes too, because halfway through Neona…well…let’s just say her POV turns into a jumbled mess and it would be un-readable). Nea’s best friend is Alicia, and she’ll be leaving her soul-bond behind to go on a crazy adventure to Alethia with the other two. And that’s about all I can tell you without giving away a good majority of the plot, and what makes this story so unique.