Friday, December 20, 2013

What are you doing with your NaNoWriMo project?

This year for NaNoWriMo I tackled an epic fantasy book/series that I have been contemplating off and on for over a decade. I'm naturally inclined to write shorter works and the only previous NaNoWriMo that I won involved a story that, to my dismay, was completed at 50k. I have been working on my capacity for longer stories for years and at the beginning of this year I was finally able to buckle down and weave and outline that would serve this particular project.

Then, come November 1, I sat down at the computer, terrified...
and wrote 87k before Thanksgiving.
I'm still not sure how that happened.

Now comes a task that is equally monumental: Editing. I'm not ready to do that quite yet. I'm planning to start just after New Years, because it is either that or wait until long after the baby is born (wheee!).

Any one else? Have you started editing yet? Any methods you want to share with us? I have no real plan except to read it over from beginning to end, fix descriptive inconsistencies first, then tackle any plot problems. I'd love to know who is suffering through editing at the same time.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Hear My Voice!

No, that's not a play on words in reference to the Bible. Well, OK, now it is.

I have had the pleasure of narrating two stories this season and I wanted to make sure you didn't miss them! The most recent was produced at Parsec award-winning Cast of Wonders:

"Black Hole Sun" by Kelli Dunlap and Alethea Kontis

When Cast of Wonders asked me to do this story, I saw Alethea Kontis' name and fan girl squealed, frightening my husband. Alethea Kontis is one of the few authors that I both adore and have had the pleasure of meeting in person. Her book "Hero," sequel to the lovely, "Enchanted," just came out and I can't wait to get my hands on it. But, uh, I also learned that I have been pronouncing her name incorrectly for years. Thankfully her author website tells you how to pronounce it and, yes, it's pronounced correctly in my reading.

Now, Cast of Wonders contacted me because they heard me in the Drabblecast (also Parsec award-winning!) earlier this season, so, you should, too:

"Twenty Ways the Desert Could Kill You" by Sarah Pinkster

Wow, both of these stories are a bit apocalyptic, aren't they? They were both a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as I enjoyed voicing them!

It's unlikely I'll be voicing any thing else until later next year. Baby #3 is due at the end of January and when I was recording "Black Hole Sun" I could already feel my reduced breath capacity. Silly babies.