You are in luck, my little narwhal friends. Not because I'm talking about Camp NaNoWriMo again, but rather because Camp is over - has been for just about two weeks, so I'm talking about writing a little less. (You know, until July when all of this starts over again.) ALSO you're lucky (or not, depending on your point of view) because I'm BACK!  So, today's agenda looks something like this: Sorry I've been away! Why Camp is awesome Not editing is the worst and the best Finally diving back into the draft! My new project...

I'm home!

My BFF was here for a visit and she kept me away from most electronic devices so I've been absent on here, on twitter, on.. well. everything. (Notice how neatly I'm blaming it on someone else though?) We had a lovely time (and we saw my sister's baby bump!) and now I'm going to get back to a relatively normal blogging schedule! Prepare yourself for a week's worth of Annika-spam on your blog... :)

So yes, I'm sorry I was away! I'll make it up to you lovelies.

Now onto the Camp NaNo stuff:

Camp is kind of actually like camp.

I was so lucky to be in an awesome cabin for the duration of April. It really made the experience worth it. Everyone was so supportive and wonderful and actively participating. It's such an amazing thing to find like-minded people! It's why this actually happened:

So thank you, all my Headless Chicken/Dragon friends, and everyone who's been so lovely here on the blog and on twitter ❤

#NotEditing

The only reason I actually made it to 50k in April was that I stopped editing. If I knew I had some changes to make to an earlier chapter I'd write a small paragraph about it, and start it with something along the lines of "Yo, IDIOT. You forgot to introduce this character three chapters ago. EDIT nowwww." And then I'd forget all about it and keep going on with the story. It is such a freeing feeling! Even if you're not planning on doing NaNo, you should try it.

Getting to the actual work

Editing is so hard. I put my draft away for two weeks, and I've tried not to even think about it. (I started drafting a new story instead which is going nicely!) but now that I've forgotten about 90% of what I wrote during NaNo. I'm ready to jump back in. I think.

Send help! Or coffee.

I started a new thing. Again....

My new project doesn't have a title yet (gasp!) but let me pitch it to you in case you're interested. So far I've got a young burglar trying to find a way to get her family out of a plague-ridden city, a spy on a mission to find his sister who disappeared years before, and a gateway between two different worlds. So I'm back on YA fantasy territory which is where I basically want to live. So yay!

Are you writing? Tell me about your WIP, or if you're planning to do Camp NaNo in July!
Also, have you seen TrishaJenn's Wednesday Writing Prompts? Because they're pretty awesome, and if you're up for it we should take part! The prompt posted last Wednesday was "Never underestimate the lives of old men sitting on park benches."

Hello lovelies!

As you might know, I spent three days without wifi (an entire weekend) recently. It was awful.
But now that I have internet access around the clock again, I feel like I can't get enough of being able to talk to all of you all the time.

Anyway, I'm generally really bad at being spontaneous (or trying new things, or doing things I'm bad at), so I thought I'd venture out of my comfort zone and do a sort of random, chatty blog post about Camp NaNo, because...why not? I'm practising being spontaneous and unleashing my weirdness, letting it attack you lovely people. Win-win.

Camp NaNoWriMo

I'm trying to brave here, so let me introduce my story to you...

(working) title:
the Dreamweaver

synopsis:
Nenna starts seeing the past in her dreams. She lives in a world where it is forbidden and dangerous to even mention the possibility of magic, but there is one exception to this rule. Working for the king means your magic is 'forgiven' - as long as you use it in his service. This is how Nenna and a few other unfortunate souls end up being sent to a mythical lost city in the mountains. Their mission is to find out what magic was used in its destruction, and most importantly to the king: how could that magic be harnessed now? The information they find will be used against the king's opponents, which could well include their own group. How important are their lives at the hands of the king as opposed to the lives of thousands in other lands that will surely be in danger if the king gets what he wants?

opening line:
She was twelve when she met the dead boy.

snippet: (this is from the prologue and I haven't edited it at all, so sorry if it's really messy!)

Later when she would think of it, she would be careful to note that she must have blacked out. But in that moment, she saw a boy. Reddish hair, grown out and messy, and green eyes that seemed empty and hollow, like they were missing something – like a spark should’ve been visible in them. There was a glow, however, around him. It was slight, but she could see it. She reached out again, her hand reaching for his shoulder. “Who are you?”

He frowned. “Ruderick. I’m Ruderick. Nenna, I tried to escape, and I hid – but he found me.” The words flowed out, no stopping them. “They always find us, Nenna. You should run. You must. You can’t trust them, you can’t trust anyone.” The boy was shaking his head, his red hair falling into his eyes. “I can’t stay, and neither can you. Go. Go! Don’t let them get you too.”

“I don’t understand, I don’t know what you’re saying – ”

He leaned closer, too close, his face almost against hers. “You need to go.” His hand groped for her wrist, and frightened, Nenna wrenched herself away, falling onto her back, her head suddenly swimming, her limbs heavy and weak, her vision blurred and dark at the edges. Dazed, she blinked, shook her head, gasped in a breath, then slowly another, and another, until her head could hold more thoughts than ‘I think I’m dying.’ She turned her head towards the side, where she knew the boy would be waiting her out – but saw nothing. The glow was gone, the boy was gone, but the bundle of cloth remained. Everything seemed dark all of a sudden.

Wanna know how ridiculous I am when writing?

• I found this in my draft: "NOPE > don't get rid of characters yet. Kill them later."
• I drunk typed a thousand words the other night. I remember there was a failed attempt at seduction but I honestly don't want to know how bad it is. I'll reread it next month. And then edit heavily.
• I added a character called Theod in for a chapter because I needed his help to get Nenna from place A to place B... She went and fell in love with him, and now I CAN'T GET RID OF HIM. I don't know how this happened.
• It took me two days to realise I had named a mythical, long-lost city after my cat. Oops.

Progress so far

I'm just over 20,000 words in which seems kind of insane to me. I'm maybe a third into the story. Day 6 has been a bit slow for me, I'm focusing on reading and catching up on people's blogs which is a fun change of pace since the last five days have mostly just centred around writing.

A few things coming up on the blog

I'm currently reading SHTUM and the Sign of One - both are debut novels, and both are also set for publication tomorrow (7th April!), so I will try to let you know my thoughts on them fairly soon!

Geraldine @ Corralling Books and Joan @ Fiddler Blue's new Conversations meme goes live this Saturday! Check out the details over at Corralling Books and join by writing your own post!

 

Are you writing this month - whether you're taking part in NaNo or not? Let me know what your story is about! And... I'm kind of already cringing in fear but - if you have a sec I would love to know what you think of my story idea :)