Live blogging the NaNoWriMo kickoff!

Internet connection is spotty, but I wanted to pop in from the NaNoWriMo kickoff.  There are tons of us here — not sure if we're going to surpass last year's count (which was 76 or 77), but if we don't I'll be surprised.  I think there are at least 50 of us on the side of the store where I'm sitting, and that's not counting the seating area right in front of the cafe counter and the "quiet reading" area on the opposite side of the store.

We're having the kickoff party at Fireside, a 24-hour used bookstore and coffee shop in South Denver, actually in the small city of Englewood in the south Denver Metro area.  This place is AWESOME and besides last year's kickoff party, I did numerous write-ins here last year, not to mention the occasional late-night writing session when I've had a deadline and needed some caffeine and a different environment in order to stay awake to finish.

Last year I came an hour early (at 9pm) to make sure I got a table for me and my friends, since I already knew the place and knew it was small.  I was glad I did, because a lot of people ended up sitting on the floor.  This year, I tried the same thing, but the place was already packed when I arrived — others had the same idea, after last year's craziness.

This quick iPhone picture doesn't show much of the store, but the entire place is equally as packed as in this picture, so it will give you an idea of how many people are here.

The MLs brought goody bags for everyone with NaNo stickers and a couple of little fun things in them.  This is my itty bitty frog buddy.  I've decided he is my word count frog.

Hello word count frog.  Please bring me lots of luck in NaNo this year!

1920s images for character portraits and book covers

One of the things I'm most excited about regarding my novel — well, besides the novel itself — is the images.

A few weeks ago, I had the idea to look for authentic 1920s photographs as representations of my characters.  Originally my idea was to use them solely for my own inspiration, so that I'd have a visual of my characters to help me in creating them and their world.

But when I actually started looking, I was having a hard time finding real photographs that I liked.  Then I ran across a few old French postcards, showing couples together in romantic poses.  Some of the poses were very risque, and I started thinking about what great book covers they would make, if I just Photoshopped in some teeth and blood.

On Etsy I found sellers who sold scans of postcards, instead of the postcards themselves, and I became intrigued with the idea.  I contact one seller, FrenchKissed, and told her what I was looking for.  Next thing I knew, she was sending me proof sheet after proof sheet of 1920s postcards!  I found the perfect images for my characters, as well as several for book covers — such as the one that is the header on this blog (and the cover for the first book, which you can see on my books page).

Finding a "sheik" for my star vampire, on the other hand, proved to be a bit of a challenge.  A lot of the men pictured alone on these cards are awfully girly — why I don't know — and that just was not the look I wanted for Victor.  Trishia (FrenchKissed) finally found him for me in an old photograph.  I'll unveil him soon — he's somewhat of an exception, since the photograph is coming to me and then I'll have to scan him — but I have to tell you, I'm already half in love with him myself!  Ruby ought to appreciate everything I do for her!

Like I said, I'm really excited about these images.  They've given me to-die-for (literally) covers, not to mention a way for my readers to see the characters for themselves.  Plus, I think the great 1920s images lend the entire story a feeling of authenticity.  I can really feel the aura of seduction and danger surrounding my characters, even more so than I could before I found these images.

What do you think?  Are you in love with all of these images as much as I am?

Noveling playlist: 1920s music

I find that when I'm working on fiction — or just writing in general — music can be either a help or a hindrance.  The right music will help to create the mood I want to evoke in my novel's tone, while the wrong music will distract me from my writing.  I find that lyrics can be especially distracting, especially if it's the wrong kind of music or I have the volume up too loud.

Writing nonfiction and marketing copy, I tend to write without music.  It's been a long time since I've written fiction regularly, but long before there were iPods and playlists, I was choosing specific music as "writing music."  For instance, for one of the novels I started in high school (never finished — still intend to someday, as it was a fantastic idea) I listened to a lot of Enigma to achieve that dark, otherworldly mood.

For Ruby's story, I'm listening to 1920s music.

I could easily get by with stuff like Enigma, and as Ruby gets more heavily involved in the vampire world, perhaps I will.  But I find that 1920s music keeps me pretty well grounded in flapper and speakeasy culture while I write.

When hubby and I got married in 2007, our wedding was 1920s-themed, so we'd bought a bunch of 20s music from iTunes.  When I started working on Ruby Ransome I pulled out those old CDs and created a new playlist.  The jazz of the 1920s is fun and full of energy, but it also does well turned way down, as background music while I write.  If you are interested in 1920s music, here are a few of my favorites from my playlist:

• Crazy Rhythm
• Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue
• Ain't She Sweet
• Sweet Georgia Brown
• Ain't Misbehavin'
• Coquette
• Dinah
• If You Knew Susie
• My Honey's Lovin' Arms
• Second Hand Rose
• The Black Bottom
• The Sheik of Araby
• Who
• The Charleston
• Honey
• Shiny Stockings
• Down Hearted Blues
• Makin' Whoopee
• My Blue Heaven

You might notice that a lot of these come from a 3-CD set called Rhythm Crazy, but you can also find a lot of them on YouTube, if you're just interested in hearing some 1920s music!

My vampires don't sparkle

Today Anne Rice shared this amusing article on Facebook:

Should vampires sparkle?

The article gives a brief, but interesting, history of vampire fiction.  The genre has been around longer than you might think — a lot of people think Bram Stoker's Dracula was the first, but that's actually not true.

Much of the vampire lit of the 17th century was poetry, often about the dead returning from the grave to kill a former beloved. The poetry often featured a religious theme as well.

Vampires remained present in literature throughout much of the 1800s. Varney the Vampire, a penny dreadful published in 1847, was the first vampire novel to explore the concept of a vampire entering a window at night to attack a sleeping maiden.

The article goes on to say that Dracula was inspired by the 1872 novella Carmilla.  Dracula was not the first novel to present vampires as sexual creatures, just the most famous one.

The article also talks about how authors of vampire fiction in recent years all want to do things differently.  The ultimate example of an author changing the rules is, of course, Stephanie Meyer's sparkly vamps.

I have to admit, I'm changing up the rules a little myself.  What fun would it be if I didn't?  Then I'd just be writing about somebody else's vampires, instead of creatures entirely of my own making.  My vampires aren't undead Halloween monsters, but they aren't sparkly, either.  They are super-predators, and hell yes, they are sexy, too.  I think my ideas work quite well, but then again I may be biased.

I am curious...  Whose vampire "rules" are your favorites?

Word count woes

I did a little bit of searching yesterday for information on typical word counts for a novel.  I know I once saw a chart that showed the expected word count according to genre, but I don't recall where that was.  I think it was an edition of the Writers Market, back before I realized that the Internet pretty much eliminates the need for that book, but it's not the last edition I bought (and the only one still on my shelf), 2007.

Anyway, I found this most helpful post in determining the appropriate word count for juvenile and YA books, but since I decided some time ago that Ruby Ransome wasn't YA after all, that's not very helpful.  I did some other searching, and finally Googled the titles of a few books I think are most like mine in subject matter and audience.

Dead Until Dark, the first of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, is at right about 90,000 words.  I found another site that stated adult fiction should be above 80,000.  I also found some information about word count per published page (250-300) and according to that, if I want my book to be 300 pages or so (which I do, at least that), what all of this means is that I really do need to make 80k.

So, after a short period of doubting, I'm back to my original goal for total word count.  Hopefully, once I fill in the gaps in my outline, this won't seem quite so impossible!

NaNoWriMo countdown!

FIVE DAYS TO NANOWRIMO!

The kickoff party will be Halloween night, and I will be there, ready to start writing on the stroke of midnight!  Well, not start start, since I've already started work on this novel, but start my NaNoWriMo word count, specifically.

I've currently got a little over 19,000 words on my novel.  I was originally hoping to get to something like 30k before NaNo started, so that I could add 50k and finish my novel out around 80k.  Now I'm aiming lower.  I'm undecided on how long my novel should be, but I don't think I'll get to 80k, so if I start NaNo with 21 or 22k that will enable me to get 50k for the month before I run out of steam.

What else am I planning on doing before NaNo starts?  Obviously adding a couple thousand words before then won't be difficult, providing my life behaves, of course.  (No more days like yesterday, please, with lots of various forces conspiring to keep me busy running errands and such all day long!)

I also plan to work a bit more on my outline.  I know what I want to happen in the middle, and I have a vague idea of the end, but not much of the in-betweens.  I've been kind of winging it, so there are times when I get to the end of what I had planned, and think, Hmmm, what should happen next?  That's not conducive to writing quickly, so I need to make plans for how I'm going to fill in some of the holes in my plot!

NaNoWriMo: Finding time for 1,667 words a day

Since I'm doing NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, in November, I'll be trying to write at least 1,667 words every day (what it takes to get to 50,000 in a month).  This will be especially challenging because it sounds like I'll be starting an after-school nanny position on top of my regular freelancing.  My client work has slowed down a lot over the last year, especially this summer when I decided to work on my novel part-time and back off on client work.  Theoretically I should have enough time to do it all, but I'll have to get a little better about managing my time — I've gotten a little more susceptible to distractions in the past few years.

Yes, I'm looking at you, Facebook.

On average, I write about 1,000 words in an hour when I'm writing fiction, more if I'm really on a roll (and less if I'm stuck.  I probably need to set aside 2 hours a day for noveling during November if I want to meet my goal.  Add an hour or two for blogging and admin, an hour or two for client work (on average — the actual workload varies from week to week), and 4 hours or so for nannying (included commute time).  That adds up to at least 8 hours, which is fine, until you add horseback riding and sleeping in (I am so NOT a morning person) and various time-devouring monsters.

My conclusion: I will have to slay the monsters.  Or hide.  I wonder how hard it is to type when you are laying on your stomach under the bed?

I'm thinking I'll have to work out a schedule in order to keep myself focused and get all of this done.  Most of all I don't want Ruby to suffer!  I'd love to finish the novel by November 30th so that I can set it aside for a month or so before working on the first set of revisions.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this November?  How do you make time for writing?