Lawyer and Writer

The response to my survey was truly exciting, and I am already noodling ideas for the first module, which - by popular demand - is definitely going to be about motivation, and Getting Shit Done.

However, I won't be putting anything out until at least December. Because NaNoWriMo. I'm sure you understand.

But in light of that delay, I'm putting something out there as a challenge and an awesome opportunity for people who are interested in the course. Those people should totally do NaNo with me.

I know NaNoWriMo can be scary, and I know that you have only a week or so before November starts. You may be saying "But Jess! I don't have a plot or anything, how can I get ready in time?" You may be saying "I've never written anything original before, and now you want me to start by writing a 50,000 word novel? You're crazy!"

The thing is, this is my 11th year of doing NaNoWriMo, and after all my years of doing this crazy challenge, I know one thing for sure: There is no downside to trying, and there are tonnes of upsides.

If you sign up and don't make 50,000 words, then you still made however many number of words you likely wouldn't have written if you didn't sign up. I will not personally come to your house and shame you for not finishing the task. What I will do, is congratulate you for doing what you did. Because anything you do is an accomplishment, and you deserve to feel good about it. You can still try again next year, too!

Not only is there no downside to trying, but just by signing up for the mailing list and committing to helping me put together this course, I am going to make a HUGE commitment to you that may actually screw me over for finishing NaNoWriMo myself this year: If you come along with me on this journey, what I do promise is that I will help you. I will schedule live online write-ins so we can get together and bang out words. More than that, I invite you to write to me if you get stuck or need encouragement. I will even spend the rest of October helping you to get ready.

All you need to do is join my buddy list AND join my mailing list, and when you need a lift or have a problem, then email me, and mention in your email that you are part of the course mailing list. I will do my best to help you, whatever the snag you've run into. I will brainstorm with you, give you advice, and coaching and buttpats. A lot of the people who filled out the survey told me that you would pay for coaching - well, here is your chance to get some for free.

But you have to be doing NaNoWriMo this year.

This is going to be awesome.

Been a busy busy couple of weeks!

Accomplishments:
- Set up a twitter account
- Became a lawyer, officially
- Entertained guests for whom I will be bridesmaiding next year, and assisted them in purchase of their absolutely gorgeous dresses (Two women, one marriage, I felt like I was giving their movie tagline every time I went into a store and had to explain)
- Started my Big Bang for originalbigbang
- Completed my Reverse Bang for originalbigbang and submitted it in time for the deadline.

For the last, they still haven't given any indication of how I'm supposed to submit it, but today is the deadline, so I just emailed it to them. If the community has died or something, I'll probably just post it on my AO3 account.

Though there's the outside possibility that I'll publish it in an anthology at some point, or submit it to a contest, or something, so I'm not sure. But I don't really want it to wind up in a virtual drawer gathering dust, because I'm quite proud of it, so I'll probably toss it up, regardless.

Well, I finished my story for the Reverse Big Bang at originalbigbang tonight! My beta reader went over it already so I'm considering it done. I'll probably read it one last time before I send it off, since I've got the luxury of time. The deadline isn't until May 22nd.

I'm honestly really pleased with this one. It's written in a very, very different style from what I normally write, but it was just what flowed.

I had taken some general notes and was letting it percolate, but the characters weren't really gelling in my head. I didn't have a voice, or anything at all, except for a plot idea and a direction. But after a couple of days of no breakthroughs, I decided to just sit down and see what came out

Suddenly the main character (who is nameless, actually) just started talking. First person present tense, with some really outlandish similies peppering the whole thing, and a lot of sensory impact. I usually write in third person past, in a pretty unornamented style, and similes have always been a weakpoint of mine.

I don't know what happened, but I have a feeling I'll write this guy again, sometime.

Yeah, so I've committed myself to a bunch of things and I feel I should probably... get them straight in my head so I don't miss a deadline.

And who knows, it may be interesting to someone besides me. So this is what I'm working on, in some kind of hierarchical order whose logic is obscure even to me:

• Final line edit and polish of The Sleeping Death - 189/402 pages complete


• First draft of The Dreaming - 18/27 chapters written. I've actually got to go back and total up the words on this because I have no idea how many words I've got total.


• World building and plotting for a series I am referring to as Harry Potter in Space with Aliens (working title for book 1: Dale Shepard and the Bug Aliens from Outer Space)


• Signed up for a 10,000 word original story for originalbigbang - Rough draft and summary due September 15th


• Signed up for a 1000 word reversebang for originalbigbang - Claiming April 24th, story due May 22nd


• Research on Sengoku-period Japan for a possible alternate history steampunk series set in that time period.

In addition to those substantive projects, some things to keep in mind:

• Going to try to write some ebook reviews and crosspost them to sps


• Signed up for thedailywriter, with a goal of 10,000 words for the month of April. It's April 6th and I'm already blowing that goal away - 6191/10,000


• also signed up for words_count with a goal of 500 words per day and 1 hour per day of writing-related activity, including editing. I've been doing well with that and have checked in each day with my activity.

So that's what I'm up to. How about you?