I'll Protect You From The Big Bad Wolf

Just a little taste of part of my NaNoWriMo story.  Not perfect, no editing or revising yet, but I do like how this particular scene is coming along.

“What do you think of our alpha?” he asked.

I gave him a questioning look. “Alpha?”

“Liam Kincaid our Commander in Chief, Lord of our Domain and Alpha of our local werewolf pack.” He clarified irreverently.

“I’m not sure what to think,” I said honestly. “It’s not every day fantasy bleeds into reality.  I think I’m still processing." I hesitated, "But he seems okay.” I finished lamely.

He waited a beat before throwing his head back and giving one of those deep belly laughs when something is really funny. “Okay, she says.  You mean you weren’t won over immediately by his arrogant attitude and intimidation tactics?” His laugh was so infectious I started laughing too. I realized part of it was just left over tension and stress but it felt good to laugh.  To realize Brian at least, had an easy way about him that made all of this seem a little more comfortable and real.  It helped make them all seem a bit more normal – more human I acknowledged.  Liam walked in a few moments later frowning at the two of which only made us both laugh harder.

When we finally caught our breath Brian leaned across the desk and put a hand on my cheek, blatantly ignoring Liam.  It was an intimate gesture that forced me to look him once again in the eye.  “You come find me if you ever tire of our fearless leader’s ways.” When Liam audibly growled it startled me, but I couldn’t look away from Brian. “I’ll protect you from the big bad wolf.” He added and winked.

Seriously.. Thoughts?

Writers Cramp

I'm in to day two of NaNoWriMo and let me tell you, this is a lot harder than it looks.  I'm doing really well on my word count, but this experience has been enlightening in so many ways already.  For example, I'm apparently for the most part incapable of writing out of order. I wrote what I feel like is the ending of the story some time ago and I'm using that as the jumping board of the rest of the plot, but there's a lot to cover between the beginning and the end. And now that I've dove in head first to the story-line, I can't seem to break from it.  So when I get stuck with dialog that doesn't sound believable or I haven't been able to convince myself that my character has every right to get down right snippy with her co-star everything comes to a screaming halt until I work it out.

The NaNoWriMo people say over and over not to edit.  Editing is bad.  Edit in December, after your story is complete.  And several people I know who are participating in this craziness have joined in with how freeing it is to let go of your inner editor and just let the writing flow.  For me though, I feel like my story is incomplete with all of those disjointed parts that don't flow naturally together.  And I often find myself re-reading to figure out where my plot will go next.  Maybe if I'd had more time to plan this out instead of deciding to just "do this thing" three days before the event started.  Or had more than a half baked idea of what my story was even going to be about, I might be okay with just letting the writing flow.  Okay, probably not.  Too much of a control freak I guess.

Those same friends have offered up a few programs that help them in their writing flow and I thought I'd share them here for anyone who's interested.

Scriviner:
This handy program lets you write your book in individual files or scenes that you can re-order and organize at a later date.

Yarne:
A lot like Scriviner but free.

Write or Die by Dr. Wicked
I love the concept of this if you're able to actually sit down and devote a set time to your writing.  This handy program forces you to write by providing consequences if you don't.  Some of the fun consequences include: disabling your backspace, a full-screen mode to cut out all other desktop distractions, disable save until word count goal is met, makes it so the program is always in front of any other programs, or a time limit.  While I'm not sure writing by punishment is the way to go for me, it sure does sound like a lot of fun.

But I think the very best part of this experience so far is writing more of this one story than I have ever written for any story ever.  I've just broken 10,000 words - so 1/5 of the way to my goal.  I do consider myself having cheated a bit in that count since I'm including the ending I wrote and posted here last Sunday in my word count, but that's only about 900 words, so I think I'm still doing really well.  And because this is a contest of sorts, I feel compelled to keep going - to keep working out where the story is going - than I would have otherwise.  I've written a lot of incomplete scenes but never tried to bring  story so completely to life like I am this time.  That, is freeing.

Seriously.. Thoughts?