Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Sittin' Pretty at 25k [Birth of a Novel Blog Chain]

One week down, three more to go, and if I write 25k for all of them, I'll be sittin' pretty. At the end of yesterday, I had a total of 25,517 words. Roughly 500 more words than I had on that date last year. Something else I surpassed this year? I wrote 7,036 words on Saturday, the most words I've written in a single day to date (I was going to post a picture of it, but we've been having earthquakes and big storms down here and the Internet was down).

By Monday night, I hope to be finished drafting SHADOWMAN and the NaNo website tells me I'm right on track for that. Then I'll take a day or two to catch up on Chrysalis stories, edit the first chapter of THINKING OF YOU (I won a critique over at Unicorn Bell), and make sure I have all the last minute details for GHOST SISTER.

But for right now, there's still work to be done and I better get on it. This time, instead of a video, I'll leave you with my summary of SHADOWMAN.
Kierra's family controls her life. She has to tiptoe around her sister, Erinn, not even able to speak freely around her. Her mom stifles any chance she has at a normal social life with her outrageous safety precautions that range from not eating peanut butter to not plopping in chairs. Her dad is almost never available and even when he is, he always takes Erinn's, who reminds him of his dead first love, side.

When Logan Hartley, the homeschooled boy-next-door, transfers to her high school, Kierra starts learning what it's like to be her own person, whether that means dying her hair red or rapping in front of a full auditorium. Then, Erinn goes into one of her rages and breaks Kierra's arm, casting the Croc family into a downward spiral that continues when her Dad is identified as the serial rapist who recently moved to town.

Kierra reaches for Logan to keep her from falling into the undertow. He promises he'll take care of everything, like her own personal guardian angel, a comparison that turns out to hit a little too close to the truth. Promises don't do much good when her mom ODs, landing in the hospital, and her Dad is sentenced to death.

Amongst the tragedy and sudden changes, Kierra is only certain of one thing: Logan Hartley sucks at being a guardian angel.

The Rest of the Blog Chain
Charity Bradford
Angela Brown
Brooke Busse
Tessa C
Elizabeth Davis 
Miranda Hardy
Mia Hayson
Lena Hoppe
Huntress
Fida Islaih
Nyxie Moon
Elizabeth Pool

13 comments:

  1. I love the sound of SHADOWMAN, very cool :) Good on you, you're doing great with your word count!!

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  2. Holy cow you know how to put your MC through the wringer. Congrats on the progress and the awesome word count!

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  3. You are such a speedy writer! And Shadowman sounds very intriguing. I hope something good happens for Kierra.

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  4. Congratulations on your word count, and I can't wait to read Shadowman one day.

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  5. I love that summary!

    Congrats on the word count

    :)

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  6. I think I would have liked it better if Logan had to reach for Kierra to keep from falling into some undertow. It always seems in these YA-type novels that the guy is the source of strength and then disappointment. Why aren't there any strong women and weak men? In real life...there's plenty of weak men that don't have jobs, are shiftless layabouts, and not even phyically strong. My friend Kathy used to carry her boyfriend Nate around in her arms because he was such a wimpy thing. I thought that was funny.

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  7. @Trisha Thanks. I wrote a summary that I actually liked for once. XD We're doing great on our word counts together!

    @Charity And that's not even all of it. I was trying not to make it too depressing. XD However, things get a lot better in GHOST SISTER.

    @Sari Normally, I'm not. But NaNo is sort of like writing crack. XD But I put lots of hard work into this month too. I force myself to push out the words because I will not fail!

    And good things will definitely be coming her way. With the name of Dixon. And turning eighteen. ^^

    @Sarah Why, thank you, Sarah. I can already tell you this book is going to require some major overhaul. I think I might be scared for someone to read it right now. XD

    @Mia Thank you, I put a lot of thought into it since I normally stink at summaries. ^^

    @Michael XD I don't know if I could carry around a guy. I tried to pick up Lizzie and just completely failed. And she's smaller than me!

    And in a way, Logan is reaching out to Kierra to keep him from falling into the undertow. He's not just her guardian angel because he wants to be. She's literally his last chance. I was just focusing on Kierra for my summary. Oh, and he's not the love interest by the way.

    I'll have to explain the domains in a post later. It will make things more clear... Maybe.

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  8. Re: your character killing...I have to do that soonish too! wheeee! I mean, "aww sadface" :(

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  9. Well, they deserve it. If they deserve it, it's okay to be happy. Right?

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  10. Congrats on your writing progress. This is my first year with NaNo. I actually have the TIME this year and I'm loving it.

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  11. Isn't the experience amazing? You'll never want to miss out again. ;)

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  12. Super word count on NaNo! The story synopsis that you wrote is really good. I cannot wait to read more. The girl in that story sounds completely miserable! (which makes a great story in my opinion!) Good luck, sounds like you're doing an amazing job!

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  13. Thank you. ^^ I have to work really hard on summaries because I'm not very good at writing them, but I think this one actually turned out pretty good.

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