CPs, Goals, and Vampires

So today is my day to talk about reading or writing or to do a review. So I wanted to give a little update on my current WIP.

But first I just wanted to say how AMAZING all my bloggy friends are and how much y'all have helped me grow as a writer this last year or so.

Second I wanted to say that I can't believe that it's not even the end of January and I already have a fantastic Critique Partner (Lindsey, I <3 you!!!!!), but also a possibility of a second one. Last year at this time I was seriously doubting my commitment to writing. I had pretty much given up on myself as a writer.

Now I have a WIP I love, 1 (maybe 2) crit partners, and a burning desire to take this thing the whole way.

And it is ALL BECAUSE OF YOU.

Your contests, your comments, your blogfests, your blogs, your spirit, your encouragement.

Like REALLY, REALLY big

So far, I've stuck to the 100 words a day pledge that I made. Sometimes it's just barely 100 words, but I'm writing something each and every day which is a total win for me. I haven't written this much in the last 2 years. I'm up to 6500 words!

I'm falling in love with my FMC (Layla) and beginning to see how my MMC (Tavares) is going to work.

I'm finding myself VERY influenced by Mercedes Lackey's 500 kingdoms series and by Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which I am rewatching for the amazing rewatch over at Nikki Stafford's blog)

I am basically doing a blind rewrite - I know where the story is going and if I want to review a word choice or something I look at my NaNo document. But for the majority of the time I'm just writing it for the first time all over again. And it is SO much better. I did a dangerous thing on Saturday. I reread the 12 pages I've written since the beginning of January and guess what?

I still loved it. I love the changes, I love the tighter scenes. I love the way the characters are moving already. Is it perfect? No. Will I have to edit and revise and cut and rewrite? Most definitely. But that's okay, because I still love it.

Even if it does have a vampire. And no title (yet).

And just to make things interesting I thought I would post a tiny teaser.

            Erandell almost fell over the balcony. She couldn’t have heard that right.

            “Let Moira go and I will stay,” the girl said. Her voice was quiet, but firm.

            Tavares was silent and Erandell held her breath waiting to see what he would do. This whole situation was completely unprecedented. She couldn’t interfere; she could feel the enchantment holding her back and she gritted her teeth in frustration.

            “You would stay in her place?” Tavares asked.

            “She has a family that needs her.”

            “And you don’t?”

            “Are you taking my offer or not?”

            There was definitely something special about this girl with her pale green eyes. Not only had she somehow resisted the impellment charm, but she had spunk. Erandell wondered if Tavares had ever been slapped before.

So how about you? Super excited about any writing projects? Stuck in the doldrums? Cheating on your WIP with an SNI? Do tell!

New and Improved! Resolve!

sounds like a cleaner or something ... oh wait, it is.

Um, moving on...

Soooo the most amazing and spifferiffic Lindsey over at Dangerous with a Pen posted that she had made a resolution to write 100 words a day.

And I realized that this was possibly the most brilliant idea I had ever heard.*

because even when you're dead tired and you've taught 32 ungrateful little freshmen** and have literary theory oozing out of your ear and your pretty sure your contacts are now fused to your corneas from staring at the computer screen for so long, you can still write 100 words. Like totes easy. It's what, a paragraph? pshht. Anyone can write a paragraph.

I wanted to do some major work on my NaNo novel over break, but I hadn't written a single word. I started doing this, each night it's easy to say, oh, yeah. Just 100 words before I go to sleep. And I've managed to work out the back stories and background information I was needing to do before I could officially start the re-write. I've written more in the last 3 days than I had in the last 2 weeks! (which isn't really saying much. Because I really didn't write ANYTHING in the last 2 weeks. Which is my point.)

Sometimes the 100 words turns into like 200 or 500 or 1,000 words. But even if it doesn't, at least I've written SOMETHING. Which is kind of the point of this whole writer thing, right?

So we have an official badge and everything and we're going to encourage each other, because 100 words is totally DOABLE.

Feel free to snag our button if you want a little motivation and you're like us with crazy busy lives that too often zombinize your brains and you think it just might be doable too.

Here's to a year of writing 100 words a day, which, if you think about it, would be 36,500 words over the year, even if you never wrote more and that's like half a novel! Just from 100 tiny little words a day! Crazy talk.

*except for all of those other brilliant ideas I've heard that I say that about.
**well, not all 32 of them are ungrateful