Twas the Night Before NaNoWriMo....

And all through my house were stacks of reference books and pages of notes galore. Not a creature was stirring, not even my loyal lap-cat.

It's been a crazy day in the Bay Area, what with Halloween, work parties and crazy traffic due to the Giant's Victory Parade. The clouds outside are threatening rain and I can see the storm hitting far away. It's been an awesome day of crazy costume-and-candy-packed fun and I'm currently sitting with my dogs up [I never wear heels because I'm an Amazon so my feet are unused to the cruel and unusual treatment.], some tea and way too much sugar in my system.

I've got a few more chapters to outline in the next couple of hours before it's horror movie time with the man.  I really wanted to make sure I had my outline finished for Thistledown before tomorrow, because I really don't want to have to worry about getting lost in the story or going off on tangents.

Anyway, thought I'd post before churning out the next few chapter outlines and give you this!

http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/Thistledown/78886037

If you have the time or the inkling, this is a playlist I'll be listening to and adding to throughout the month of November to help me write Thistledown. Please subscribe! :)

Well, time to quit procrastinating and go finish those chapter outlines!

~The Sore-Footed

NaNoWriMo....say whaa?

Yup! The crazily titled "NaNoWriMo" or National Novel Writing Month is just a scant three days away! I'm super excited and anxious as this is my first year attempting the grueling 50,000 word writing marathon in 30 days that is NaNo. I've been spending the past few weeks preparing, and I've pretty much got a solid story going. I haven't started writing yet, that would be cheating, but I have been writing up a ton of notes and making outlines.

November is also my birth-month, so instead of having a party or traveling somewhere, I decided to spend the month on NaNo as a gift to myself. I haven't had the time or energy or the reason to sit down and crank out a first draft in a short span of time. I've decided to make the time and I'm hoping that I'll get a decent first draft out of it and then spend December editing it before publishing it as an e-book.

I know most people would be scrambling to send off queries to publishing houses instead of going for the old self-publishing route of hard knocks. But really, I'm not the kind of person to wait around for 6 months to a year to receive a rejection letter from a publishing house and then have to resubmit it to another publishing house. Kind of a waste of time if you ask me. Sure the editing, marketing and printing is all handled by publishers, but for right now, I like the option of publishing something myself and being accountable for my own work as it stands. One day I'd love to be picked up by a publishing house, but I figure I have to prove myself before that can happen. H.P. Mallory's success story is just that, she decided to go the self-publishing route, used her marketing skills like a ninja, got really popular and caught the notice of a publishing house. Plus self-publishing looks like it's going to make it easier to donate to a charity as I can set the amount per book myself instead of having it written into a contract.

Anyway, enough rambling about my reasoning behind doing NaNo and what I plan to do. I should actually tell you what the hell I'm going to be slaving over...

The story I'll be writing will be called Thistledown and it'll be a paranormal romance/urban fantasy novel. I've been sort of planning out the next two books and I can't say much yet except that the trilogy will have characters from the same universe as another book I've been working on. It'll be fun to see the cross-over when everything is finished, I think. :)

Summary:

Thistle Finley is an herbalist with a mighty green thumb. Many folk in town think her a witch for her remedies and ostracize her for her talent. When her dog is hit by a car, her green thumb takes on a whole new set of abilities and she fixes her dog with plantlife; the vines healing and becoming the damaged parts, creating a half flora half fauna being. Thistle’s world suddenly turns upside down as she’s chased by black hounds, wraiths, assassin witches and a warlock who takes a hit meant for her. His name is Alder and he is on a mission from a secret organization of witches to protect Thistle because she is the last true Hedge Witch. She is the only witch left with the ability to meld plant and animal life, to heal what is broken, to create new life. And everyone wants a piece of her.


I'll have posts on each of the characters later and maybe a cover soon! :)

I can't wait to share this story with you! I'll be posting on the process of NaNo, excerpts from my story, and just share whatever is helping or hindering me from winning!

Red & Grimm: Chapter 1 - Posted on Wattpad!

A few days ago I posted the first chapter in a new book I've let simmer in my brain for the last year or so called Red & Grimm. I went ahead and wrote the first chapter, even though I don't honestly know quite where the book will go.  It's October and I feel the need to write spooky stuffs! :)

Synopsis:
Carmine Dagwood isn't pretty, she has too many scars for that. She’s under a curse and she has a side job hunting monsters who prey on humans that doesn't exactly pay much. As if her life couldn't get any worse, she’s now being followed by Fabian Grimm, the son of Jacob one of the Brothers Grimm, who has decided the best way to gather tales for the second installment of the Grimm Fairy tales is to follow her from village to village as she hunts down the monsters who killed her family.

Link!:
Red & Grimm

The story is sort of dark and weird and I'm probably going to go over it later when I write more and layout more chapters.

Hope you enjoy the story so far!

Interesting afternoon with a bush cricket

I know this has absolutely nothing to do with writing, but today I noticed a bush cricket on the window side of our linen drapes. I'd noticed it the night before up near the ceiling over the stove and swore to take it outside when it got to a grab-able height with a cup and letter. I peeked behind the curtain and saw something really freaking strange. It was a female bush cricket and she had her abdomen curled up to her head and her ovipositor [egg laying organ] in her mouth. I wasn't sure, at first, if it was male or female and figured either it was eating it's own refuse, cleaning that particular area, about to lay eggs or was masturbating.

Never thought I'd say I was wondering if crickets could masturbate. Boggles the mind right?

Moving on...I did manage to glass it and move it outdoors, but really it didn't want to leave the glass, hell it was probably like walking on air for that little gal. I managed to entice her out by sticking some foliage inside which she latched onto and began devouring instantly. What's funny is that she was so preoccupied with her tidbit she forgot about her hind legs and just dangled there from her mandibles while she ate away.

Interested about what I saw I decided to Google it. I saw pictures similar to the cricket I found [it's green] and with a few clicks I discovered it was a female bush cricket of some kind, I didn't care enough to figure out which species, and no where did I read about crickets sticking their female parts in their mouths. I did see some rather disturbing variations on the cricket including my favorite as a kid, the Jerusalem cricket...AKA the potato bug and the mole cricket....I seriously thought the hand drawn picture was a joke until I saw a photograph....the powers that be must have wanted to egg on genetic experiments with this one.

Surprisingly there was little to no information on the critters in my green yuppy home of Marin with the exception of the Cricket teams. I had absolutely no idea there were cricket clubs here, talk about frou frou. But then again the nearby high school has an equestrian team...makes me wonder how many schools have such hobnob pastimes around here. Any kids I have are gonna go to weird and quirky alternative schools and be hippies, screw the rich kids.

October: What's in Store!

So it's only the second day of October, but I'm already getting the itch to not only crochet more warm fuzzy things but to write and not stop until I pass out. I've got some projects I'm currently working on and I'm really planing on finishing a story and publishing it through Smashwords by the end of the year. Here's what I've got planned over the next two months in terms of what I'll be writing. Each time I post something on Wattpad, I'll post a link here to it :)

October:

The Welkinbane - Chapter 4: Fallacious Names & the Acquisition of a Haunted Carriage House
Double Shot - A short novella/short story. Teen Romance. Ages 13+.
Red & Grimm - A horror novel that has to do with Grimm's fairy tales and werewolves. Horror Adventure. Ages 13+


November:

Thistledown - A paranormal romance novella written in the month of November which is national writing month.

Since November is National Writing month, I'm going to take November to focus on and write Thistledown and have it completed by the end of the month.