Six Months, Forty Chapters, and over 130,000 words

Six months ago, on November 1st, 2009, I started writing a novel called Full Circle. It was only supposed to be 50,000 words and was only supposed to take a month, the month of November, to write. There is a competition each November called NaNoWriMo or National November Writing Month. I decided to participate because let's face it, I had nothing better to do.

I reached the 50k mark halfway through November and decided to keep going as my novel was no where near being finished. November ended, December began, and still I wrote, pecking away at the keys of my laptop as the winter months progressed, January, February, March. Then April was upon us and silly me was still writing Full Circle.

This month has been completely chaotic. Finishing Full Circle, trying to write my script for Script Frenzy, and working on my fourth novel, Unattached.

As you can see all I do, pretty much, is write. It's like therapy for me. I heap my issues on my characters and make them work it out for me and then I'm cured. Not really but you get the idea.

Yesterday I sat down with my notes and began to write, staring at my computer screen and wondering how in the world this roller coaster ride of a story was to end. Happily of course, there had already been way too many tears, but it had to be realistic. I like to think that I write fiction that could really be taken from a day in the life of "insert your name here." I hate reading a book and thinking to myself, "that could never happen."

Except of course if I was reading Twilight or Harry Potter. Then it could totally happen because let's face it: vampires ARE real AND they sparkle. Who knew? And Harry Potter? Well you'd have to be the anti-Christ to not like Harry Potter...and to all you naysayers who wrinkle your nose at Harry Potter...I am a convert. I thought the idea was lame until my friend Becky made a deal with me. Read HP and she'd read Twilight.

Anywhoo...totally getting off topic.

I write stuff that could happen to Plain Jane in Tiny Town, USA, all with a slightly fictitious twist. So as I was saying I started the epilogue, the final chapter to the beast herein known as Full Circle. It took all day and half the night as well. You see it took so long because I had it written, all nice and pretty and then gremlins stole it. I tore my room apart looking for it, only to find the alternate ending. So I had to rewrite it. No biggie, normally the re-write is seven times better than the original.

Then today I found the original. I typed it and saved it in a folder and didn't label it right. I opened it and read it. Oh wow, hot, steamy garbage. I'm seven kinds of glad that I couldn't find it. But last night around ten o'clock I finished it. It was short, sweet and to the point and my poor, formerly heart broken main character got her happily ever after.

I tried to write more of my script, it's been sitting abandoned for a few days now, patiently waiting for me to finish it, but I'm worn out. So I started messing around with Photoshop this afternoon and decided to commemorate the completion of my third "novel" (I use that term loosely as I am not a published author...yet) by making nerdy book covers.

Here's the one for Full Circle. I had the worst time with this one, the story is so chaotic that it's hard to come up with an image that can fit and encompass the story. I used an image of a solar eclipse more for the lighted circle than the eclipse. *shrugs* Like I've been saying. I'm not an artist, just a geek who can use photoshop fairly well...the title came from the title of Creed's new record Full Circle, and the title track Full Circle. I am a HUGE Creed fan and one night I was listening to the song and I told my friend Jenn it seemed like the song was written for the story. The story was inspired by Mario's song, Soundtrack to My Broken Heart. I was making lunch or dinner one night and the song started playing and the plot, scenes from the story popped into my head. I darn near sprained my wrist trying to write it all down. So much of Full Circle came so easily it should have been illegal. So much of this story is dedicated to a good friend of mine who is no longer with us. Many of the chapters in this story helped me get over not having him around any more. Some of the chapters I can't read because they make me cry so much. How odd is that, that a story I created and wrote can make me cry.

Back when the earth was new and...no I'm kidding. We're working backwards here. Disenchanted was the second novel I wrote. It was supposed to be a prequel to Full Circle, but added together, the drama and angst is unreal. That and the plot, well when I wrote it I didn't stay true to myself and I changed the plot to please other people which I never should have done. The title is taken from a song by My Chemical Romance, which is also titled Disenchanted. The plot, however, came from what happened to Jaguars football play, Richard Collier. He was shot in the street of a Jacksonville neighborhood and paralyzed from the waist down. I found, and still do find, his story extremely motivational. His dreams were dashed and he still gets up in the morning and lives his life to the best of his ability. It's very inspirational. This is also the story my script is based off of. I'm planning on rewriting this with different characters as a stand alone novel and the way I want it to be. Everyone else can take a  long walk off a short pier...just saying.

Pictures of You is my baby, its my first novel (I wrote a lot of other stuff, none of which I ever finished) so this is something I'm exceptionally proud of. The title is jacked from the song by The Cure, but the idea came from Elton John's song, Your Song. I was doodling one day, listening to the radio and that song came on and I just started writing. Like, Full Circle, Pictures of You came so easily to me it should have been illegal.

So there we have it. Three book covers and an afternoon spent doing nothing. Tomorrow is Paint with me Thursday over at Simply Feather, so check back tomorrow and hopefully I'll something some kind of arty to show off...