NaNoWriMo 2011

A little bird is hinting that they might just do a month of NaNoWriMoing in late summer as well.. check it out at http://www.nanowrimo.org/ .

NaNoWrapUp

With three days to go, I am at within 1,500 words of the goal.  Alehouse Tales isn't finished, but everything after tomorrow is, as they say, gravy.

Here's a partial list of the topics of the chapters.  Since I plan to publish this one independently, I can reveal whatever I want ab out it.

• A Viking raid forces Leofwen of Hamwic to flee her home - a historical event, by the way.
• Leofwen tells how she runs her alehouse, how she brews her good Saxon ale and cooks for her guests.
• Stories about her regular customers, including two merry fishermen, a hunter, an old soldier who fought with King Athelstan, an Irish bard and others.
• All about the people who work at the alehouse, including the ostler and the serving wench who is still waiting for her man to come back from the war. 
• The story of a tragic fire, how the arsonist is found, tried and punished.
• A sad tale of how Leofwen's young love and his family face reprisals against Northmen.
• How charcoal, salt, leather, swords, fine jewelry, linen and wool , and many other important things are made, and how a house is built.
• Several other stories, including the marriage of King Aethelraed.

All of this taking place in the King's city, Wintonceaster, now known as Winchester, whose walls were built and streets paved by the legendary Alfred the Great about 90 years earlier.

I hope to have  this book ready for you in the spring.  I am doing one of my "yarn paintings" for the cover..

All this while I patiently wait to hear what a publisher thinks of my other book started last NaNoWriMo, working title "Beloved Pilgrim".  Stay tuned for news.

Can't wait to read one of my fascinating novels?  Then read An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England by Nan Hawthorne!

It Starts!

Gnash Less, Write More: National Novel Writing Month 2010

November 1 - 30 a whole lot of hopefuls will be hitting the old keyboard to try to write 50,000 words of a novel during that month.  This will be my third year.  I thought it was mostly a good idea, and I liked what they said, that people give up to easily and better just to write and write and write than give up.  You can always apply the genius in December.

In 2008 I did not finish during the month.  I didn't make it anywhere near 50k words, even though there were lots of four letter ones in it.  I did not make it to 50k.  But nevertheless my historical erotic novel, Jack Random, got written, and the manuscript is just sitting in my hard drive waiting for me to get to it again.

It was a different story in 2009.  I wrote a novel!  I wrote the entire first draft in those 30 days, then spent  the next several months turning it into a pretty dang good novel, if I say so myself!  I managed to write 80k words that month, and the book, which is now finished and at an agent's office now, turned into 113k.

I think two factors can be thanked for my success the second time around.  One is a better story, of course, but the two I refer to here are the albeit admittedly artificial structure of aiming for a certain number of words a day.  The other and perhaps more significant was the fact that my husband got that I would be rather occupied for the month, and being my Number One Fan, sans sledgehammer thankfully, he honored my space.  It is a lot harder to get that if you are doing this everyday.  The parameter of a month worked wonders.

Now I am just waiting for the National Novel Writing Month site to reset to 2010 so I can get back to planning this year.  It will be even easier and more satisfying this year, I think, because I've done it now, have the proof in manuscript form, and I can't tell myself it's too hard. 

Join me for NaNoWriMo 2010!  When you do, look me up so we can be Writing Buddies!   My username is nan_hawthorne .

End of November: Is it Soup Yet?

We Are the Champions, My Friends!

Check it out, one of the two heroes of the end-of-the-world movie 2012 is a novelist.. and an underrepresented one at that. Yay us!

National Novel Writing Month 2009

NaNoWriMo is all but over in the Pacific Time Zone. I finished! I reach my 50,000 somewhere around November 20th, then switched my goal to finishing the first draft of my novel. I did that today, with a total count of 78,307 words! The novel itself, the story of a woman who goes to the Crusade of 1101 disguised her late twin brother, will no doubt be around 100,000 to 115,000 when the second draft is done. I plan to seek a publisher for the book this time.

The most important part of participating in NaNoWriMo for me this year is that it broke me out of whatever block or slump or miasma or whatever was stopping me from getting writing again. On the theory I once heard that anything you do, or don't do, for 21 days becomes a habit, it worked for me. Llike most if not all of you, writing gets my endorphens spouting.. and I am happily addicted again.

Interesting New Blogs

Fictional Appearance By.. Real people in Historical Fiction will cover a topic I find intriguing, obviously what real people have been fictionalized in historical fiction. There are several articles posted already, about many of the historical figures we all love to follow like paparazzi follow movie stars. Go take a look and see who is there.

Fans of History and Women will be glad to know that while the original blog has been retired, a replacement popped up almost immediately. The New History and Women blog has a selection of the biographies drawn from the old blog and will continue in the same tradition, with authors Maggie Anton, Greta Marlow, Anne Gilbert, Brandy Purdy, and me as the remaining editors. Gemini Sasson has stepped away to finish two manuscripts, and Mirella Patzer, the woman responsible for the history and Women blog and all its awards, is focusing on other projects of her own, including her own fourth novel.

Speaking of Brandy

If you are looking for Brandy Purdy's upcoming release of The Boleyn Wife in the UK, look instead for The Tudor Wife by Emily Purdy. It's the same book, same author, just amde up to sound more British, I guess. Youo can find out more and read the great reviews at www.brandypurdy.com .

Holiday Music, Celtic Style

'Tis the winter holiday season, so it is, and i am after invitin' ye all to partake of a Celtic celebration on Radio Dé Danaan. I am looking for, and finding, winter holiday music from not only Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but also Cornwall, the Isle of Man, the Orkneys and the Hebrides, Brittany, Astirias and Dalicia, and Cape Breton in Canada. This will largely be Christmas music, but believe it or not I have found CVeltic music for Hanukkah as well, and needless to say some Yule music for our Pagan fans, and that most famous Scottish song of all, Auld Lang Syne. So tune in soon for an increasing saturation of holiday music on Radio Dé Dnaan, Music of the Pan-Celtic World.

Now.. to get back to all my back emails....

NaNo is Mega!

ou've been listening to me fret about just not getting into anything I was writing, watched me take one step after another to get myself revved up.

It is Day 14 of National Novel Writing Month and I just topped 40,000 words! The goal is 50k, which I will hit early this week. The novel itself is only about half done. I have to say that the whole thing felt right from the first sentence. If NaNoWriMo is supposed to get you to put words on a screen, it's working.

Just for the record, it's the story of a woman who dons her late twin bbrother's armor and sets out to join the disastrous Crusade of 1101. Just to be different my MC is German, not English, and there is not a single Irish character anywhere. It's a lesbian love story, a very sweet one at that, but my fans can count on my usual earthy style.

Why a lesbian story? It''s more interesting, that's why. And Elisabeth gives me a female character to write about who is more active, more adventuresome, and just plain more to my liking. My husband pointed out to me with the last book that none of the main characters I wrote were women. Of course, the queen is, but to be candid, I don't much like her. I invented Leofwen to try to make a woman character more to my liking. But her book is yet to be finished. Elisabeth, traveling as Elias, fits the bill.

I am having fun ridiculing people like Odo of Burgundy and Stephen of Blois (the other one), showing the pilgrim knights, they weren't called crusaders yet, for their more likely motivations, adventure, plunder, romanticism, and wanting the "get out of Hell free" card the Pope handed out. I am enjoying contrasting the groups who befriend Our Hero(ine), three high minded but clay footed knights and a band of mercenaries who while scoundrels are the more honorable. And I plan to solve the mystery of whatever happened to Ida of Austria.

I self published my first novel, but I have my eye on finding a publisher for this novel. An ebook publisher, which suits me since that means I will be able to read the thing too.

More than anything, I am astounded at how well this has gone. I think it was just what I needed. I find myself sitting down to scribble a few paragraphs in the next scene, a technique I use to get myself started the next day, and slapping out 1,000 words. I am confident that my writer's block or whatever it was is over. I can't wait to get back to Kerrick and Alehouse Tales!

So, NanoWriMo folks, old buddies, old pals, a great big THANK YOU for the impetus and inspiration to get what I needed back. The endorphens are spilling all over the damned place.

Let the Pens Begin! National Novel Writing Month 2009

It is just over four hours until the start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) here in the Pacific Time Zone. My friend Jack Graham started hours and hours ago, since he is in Sasebo, Japan. I know what he is going to write for NaNoWriMo this year, but I ain't gonna tell you... that's a good rule. What I will tell you is that Jack, who is a high school geometry teacher, has set up a local NaNoWriMo group composed of teachers and students from E. J. King High which is located on an army base. I will look forward to watching their pages pile up!

But, you ask, Nan, you are an established author! You don't need to prove to yourself you can write a novel. I blush, clear my throat, shuffle my feet and thank you for your generous assessment - and cast a baleful eye at the rest of you who giggled and rolled your eyes. But I answer your implied question, why am I doing NaNoWriMo? That's easy. Once I had my magnum opus finished and published, and it took me three years, not one friggin' month, all my drive seems to have wandered. I keep getting plotbunnies. That's not the problem, as most authors can attest. I just need to focus. The first novel had been brewing in me for decades. Now I had to see if I could start from scratch. I have started three novels since last fall, but while one, my NaNoWriMo from 2008, is nearly done, I have never finished it. I keep going back and forth between my mystery and a book of short pieces, fictionalized accounts of life in Anglo Saxon England. Coincidentally November happened again in 2009.. and I thought, hey, this could be just the thing!

What I hope to accomplish for NaNoWriMo 2009 is to get back into the habit of writing on a daily basis again. No wait, I do that now, but it's not books. I write blog entries, lots of them. I write little bits of fluff like this, book reviews, biographies of women in history, occasional fun pieces for Ghostletters. Other stuff. I want to get back into that magical addictive mindset of writing a single story. I want to get involved in people I am just now meeting, my characters. I want that state of mind where I am lost somewhere and sometime else. And I want that if at all possible to become my permanent state... Once one story is done, I start the next. They say it takes 21 days to develop a habit. NaNoWriMo is plenty long enough. To make the 50,000 words in 30 days I will have to write an average 1,667 words a day. I plan to do more, since I might actually want to come up for air on Thanksgivbing Day at least. I think I can write for as many as four hours at a stretch.. we'll see.

I also want a second novel (third book, fifth if you count my volunteer resource management training manuals) written and shopped to publishers. Do I know what I want to write? Boy howdy! It was just a cute little baby plotbunnty until about a month ago. I wanted to do a woman/woman love story with one a the women a crusader knight. Yeah, I now, there weren't any women knights. Well I am here to tell you that the research I have done in the past month puts that absolute statement of truth into doubt. And besides, historical fiction has a speculative aspect. What if? And I have come up with a plausible set of circumstances for how this phenomenon might come to pass. Don't worry, there will be an author's note giving my evidence and apolligies and resisting the temptation to tell people who don't like it to relax and enjoy the story.

I will set my story during the Crusade of 1101, one of the lesser known Crusades that was basically a farce - a tragic farce, but a farce all the same. It is also called the Crusade of the Faint-hearted because it was peopled by those who didn't quite actually, you see, I mean, I tried to go, but.. there was this.. um.. thing.. I had to do. Oh and others who did go but ran away. It was such a disaster it made all the subsequent Crusades harder to do. It gave rise to the power of the Italian merchant city-states because it lost the safe route so only ships could get to the Holy Land. I should restate that. The Crusade was an unqualified success. For the Turks. Into this flopping about and cowardly behavior on the part of the leaders of the crusade I am dropping my ear lest Elisabeth, a Herman novlewoman who takes her late twin brother's armor, weapons and squire and heads off to free .. well.. something from someone. or something. She will meet a Turkish woman, fall in love, and various hijinks will ensue. Will it end tragically or happily? I don't know for sure yet. My characters will tell me as the writing goes along.

If you would like to track my progress, the little widget in the upper right of this blog will theoretically keep up with that, though it isn't working yet and I can't get an answer from the folks at NaNo as to what to do about that. You can also check my author page on their site.

nicol_harrity's Novel Writing Page

... yes, I know.. that's not my name. Actually it is. That's my pen name for erotic novels, which is what I wrote last year, an erotic romance set in Oxfordshire right after Waterloo. My novel this year is not an erotic novel per se, but it was just easier to keep the same account.

Wish me luck, be patient with me, and I look forward to reporting on December 1 how it all went. As the road signs say, if you write to me, "expect delays".