Let the Insanity Commence!

“It’s the most wonderful tiiime of the yeeear!”

No, it’s not Christmas yet (though it’s never too early to start bellowing out the Christmas tunes in my opinion). I’m actually referring to. . .NANOWRIMO.

Yes, it is heeere! And thousands of writers have folded up their lives, put them in boxes, and won’t be pulling them back out until December. Because hello? We’ve got novels to write and life is not part of the equation. Duh.

Per tradition, I go a liiittle insane during NaNo and am currently sitting on 17k words. Oops? I do tend to do a double NaNo though because my novels are MONSTERS, usually ending around 100k words or so, and I like to get them done as quickly as possible. So not oops?

But, uh, guys? I LOVE MY NOVEL.
LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!

“He only then seemed to take note of the girls, and at the sight of them his exasperated features turned to a mix of shock, relief, and, most surprising of all, joy. Because Eryth knew this boy, and she had never known him to be joyous to see Bryth and her, but she understood. She was already sprinting toward him and throwing her arms around his neck, because he represented Sivral, home, and whatever strife they may have had in the past didn't matter anymore in the grand scheme of things. At that moment seeing his familiar face was the best thing she could have ever asked for.”

You see, even though this is technically the 6th book of my Colors of a Dragon Scale series, this is sorta kinda my first official sequel to write. Say what now? I know, confusing. See, each book of the series basically resets to the beginning with new characters. So even though I’ve written a bunch of books in the same series, each book felt like a brand new story. But this 6th book is continuing the characters’ stories from all the last five books. Thus, my first official sequel. Make more sense now? (Who knows? I’m the worst at explaining things coherently. Such a nice trait for a writer. . . *rolls eyes*)

But I think I like writing sequels. It’s so fun bringing things back up from previous books and moving the plot forward and raising the stakes and destroying the characters’ lives even more. Huh? I didn’t say anything.

And the CHARACTERS. My sweet, adorable, rebellious children. <3 I’m revisiting allll meh babies from every single one of my previous NaNos and reminiscing over each NaNo as I write about the main characters from that particular year and GAH! I’ve missed them all so much! *smushes their cheeks*

It also made the beginning sooo much easier. Usually I’m struggling the first day or two during NaNo trying to grasp my characters voices and get a feel for writing them. But this year I haven’t had to worry about it. I already know these people. I’ve written entire books about each of them. Even though it’s been quite a few years since some, it still feel so right, so natural being inside their heads. Instead of difficult like the previous years, my first day of NaNo proved to be easy and far too much fun.

“"This is my cousin Ai—"
"Airen, Prince of Sivral, at your service, milady." Airen swooped up in front of Naidren and bowed low.
Naidren cleared his throat and stepped around his cousin. "I hope it's all right I brought him along. His sister is in Velnoroth, too."
"And I think you'll find I have many useful skills," Airen added.
Naidren closed his eyes and tried not to groan.”

Never a dull moment.

Of course my favorite bits have been when characters from one book meet up with characters from another. Such delightful character reunions, full of yelling and heated arguments and assassinations and strangling. Wait. That’s not what reunions supposed to look like? Well nobody told me.

“"Oh, let her have her thoughts, Eldoren," Riana said. She shot Bryth a smirk.
"We all know she's prone to memory loss. Who forgets their entire childhood and adult years alike? She probably has some kind of brain damage."

Riana was pinned to the floor before Eryth could even stand. Eldoren tried to pull Bryth off his partner but she shoved him away and wrapped both hands around the girl's neck.”

Anyways.

Sequels are fun. Lots and lots of fun. And needless to say, this Nano is going fabulously.

In the midst of my NaNoing endeavors, and to avoid going into complete hermit mode, I’ve discovered a new love for TWITTER. I’ve had a Twitter account for a little over a year now, but I sort of forget about it and thus go weeks without touching the poor thing. But when NaNo was approaching I thought it’d might be fun to have a place I could quickly share all my NaNoing experiences without using up a bunch of time. Writing a blog post every day would take up far too much writing time, and you guys would probably get sick of me. So Twitter it was. And, um, I think I finally understand the Twitter obsession. It hardly takes two minutes to use (unless you get distracted by all the new tweets but we won’t get into that) and it’s FUN. I can go on there, see how my other fellow NaNoers are fairing, and share my own crazy experiences. I can be a hermit and socialize. Win-win! It’s perfect for little five minute breaks amidst all the writing. Plus, just watching others NaNoing as well and sharing accomplishments and struggles and really seeing others writing their novels right along with you is a magical feeling. I can’t even describe it. I love the NaNoing community.

I can’t for the life of me get the fancy embedded tweet feature to work and had to resort to screenshots. Boo.

SO if you have a Twitter account and I’m not following you, leave a link should you wish and I shall remedy this situation! Because, like I said, I’m only just now starting to get into the Twitter bandwagon and am still working on following all my peoples. I needs to follow all my lovely friends. So linketh me to your profiles, m’dears! And if you’re doing NaNo and I haven’t friended you over there, feel free to leave me a link to your NaNo profiles as well. You can find me thisaway. Right now there and Twitter are about the only places you can catch me. So far I’ve had texts from sweet friends I keep forgetting to respond to, am shamefully ignoring my ever growing inbox, and have already gotten way behind on reading new blog posts. Though occasionally I say hi to my family on my way to the coffeepot before burrowing back in my room.

Yep. NaNo season has indeed begun.

So tell me, adventurers, are you doing NaNo? Are you EXCITED?! How’s your story going? Are your characters strangling each other like mine? Share with me all your NaNoing endeavors!