Quarterly Ishness + Snowpocalypse 2021

Posted on April 16, 2021 by Deborah O'Carroll

Hi guys!

I haven’t done an Ishness in ages so I thought it would be cool to do a very brief recap of 2021 so far! (Well, the first three months. I actually meant to post this two weeks ago, but anyway. XD)

There’ve been some serious ups and downs, but some good stuff in there, and I’ve missed blogging, so let’s go for it. ^_^

January, February, March (2021)

WRITING

January — I finished writing Girls, Spies, and Other Things the Faeries Stole and edited/prepped it for posting.
February — I started writing Operation Foxtail again and shared my Girls, Spies, Faeries serial on Wattpad.
March — I did some short story editing, wrote random snippets, and did some brainstorming, but mostly was too busy to focus on writing.

If you missed it, you can catch my urban fantasy serial on Wattpad HERE!

There are five episodes, completing one arc/mission, and they’re inspired by The Twelve Dancing Princesses and The Snow Queen, following snarky agent Sean and through various shenanigans including selkie shifters, motorcycle chases, portals, and chocolate.

(I’d like to write further missions with Sean, Riel, and company — I’m currently scheming. :D)

Also, I had way too much fun designing that cover. *grin, grin*

(If you don’t have a Wattpad account and it won’t let you read it, check out this sneaky link. ;))

Mostly, I have hit a serious writing slump and haven’t written much at all since November. I feel like I’m in a creative drought, not sure what to focus on, and haven’t been prioritizing writing since I’ve just been busy. Meh. Here’s hoping I can get back to writing more soon, but in the meantime I’m happy to have finished that arc of Sean’s adventures and that I managed a little bit of Operation Foxtail, which I missed. 🙂

READING

(*The 20 books I read in the first quarter of 2021*)

It’s been a pretty good reading year so far. I’ve read a lot of marvelous books. ^_^

Here’s a list of them all by category!

READ ALOUD: Between Frames, Between Homes, Cloudy with a Chance of Dropbears, All the Different Shades of Blue, and Between Walls are part of an urban fantasy series I’ve been reading aloud with the siblings. It’s such fun.
REVIEW BOOKS: I reviewed Into the Heartless Wood, Dana Illwind and Growing Shadows, Blood of the Seer, The Icarus Aftermath, Pangur Ban, the White Cat, and Of Myth and Monster.
REREADS: Oath of the Outcast and Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter were rereads. ❤
AUDIOBOOK: Wish You Weren’t Here was my audiobook read of the last few months.
COPYEDITED: I was honored to be a copyeditor for Cold Snap (mermaid Snow White), Troll Queen (elven marriage alliance), and Between Two Worlds (Roman/Celtic historical fantasy). They’re all lovely! Between Two Worlds is releasing April 27! (Preorder link and preorder goodies link.)
MARCH MAGICS: Witch’s Business, Men at Arms, and The Time of the Ghost were all for March Magics. You can read my wrapup talking about them here.

I’d say that Dana Illwind and Growing Shadows, Blood of the Seer, and Troll Queen are my top three favorite reads so far this year! But everything I’ve read has been enjoyable so far. ^_^

WATCHING

Movies

Ghibli:

I got a collection of Studio Ghibli films for Christmas, so I’ve slowly been catching up on those! I watched a few in December as well, but since 2021 hit, I’ve seen:

Spirited Away — Weird but I enjoyed it by the end, especially some of the characters.
Princess Mononoke — UM. Too creepy for me buuuut the hero and the music are my fave!!! Like. One of my favorite heroes ever and one of my favorite music themes ever.
Ponyo on the Cliff — So. adorable. Aahh! I really loved this one. 😀
Castle of Cagliostro — Totally crazy heisty movie, really weird too, but lots of fun. XD
I also re-watched Howl’s Moving Castle, because of course!

Other movies:

Newsies — I’m not much of a musicals person but Jenelle Schmidt recommended this and I was curious what singing Christian Bale was like, so I watched this on my birthday. XD I enjoyed it. 🙂
Reign of Fire — Intense but fascinating! Another recommendation from Jenelle (she gives good movie recs, okay), this was from 2002 so was “futuristic” England set in 2020 after the apocalypse caused by dragons, and it was so. so. unique. O_O A little sadder than I’d like but it was fascinating and I enjoyed watching it overall.
How to Train Your Dragon 3: Hidden World — This was a re-watch, but I hadn’t seen it since theaters, so of course I had to revisit Toothless and all the feels. 😉

Basically, lots of dragons and Christian Bale and Studio Ghibli have been the trends of this year so far. XD

Shows

(disclaimer: TV shows notoriously have Content sooo I’m not saying I 100% recommend all these buuut anyhoo…)

NCIS — Still watching this sometimes and I adore the characters. Gibbs and Tony are my faves.
Stargate — I’m not very far in yet but it’s definitely been interesting. I love the idea so I’m curious to see where it goes.
Hustle — Basically the BBC version of Leverage. XD Seeing some of that.
The Mandalorian — I finally got to start watching The Mandalorian! Mando is the best and Baby Yoda is so cuuuute and yes, it’s (mostly…) fun so far, though I’ve been too busy to watch anything for awhile so I still haven’t finished it.

And this list reminds me that I need to get back to Avatar: The Last Airbender and Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter, which are super fun shows I was watching late last year and apparently got distracted from. XD

LISTENING

Let’s be real, mostly I’ve just been listening to the theme-song from Princess Mononoke on repeat 98792837 times. XD
Also some Christian rock music (which helps me survive my daily stretches I’ve somehow been keeping up with *collapses*)
As I mentioned, finally finished Wish You Weren’t Here, which was an interesting NA urban fantasy.

I’ve been thinking I need to get into podcasts but I haven’t yet, and my plan to listen to one audiobook per month this year has clearly gone out the window, but maybe I’ll get back to that soon! (I did start listening to a C.S. Lewis essay collection on audio but I haven’t finished yet.)

LIFE

January — My grandfather passed away and I dealt with a lot of grief and stress. It was rough. But there were some good moments in the month too, and some gorgeous snow!
February — The Snowpocalypse of Texas happened. Ice and snow (twice in two months? Texas was very confused) and drama. I was okay and didn’t lose power, so I was much better off than so many, but it was COLD and a very dramatic week or so. The snow was pretty, though. 🙂
March — Had a lovely, lovely birthday (with cupcakes!) and was pretty busy, but enjoyed some March Magics reading. And at the very end of the month, I got internet at home again (after nearly a year without) so this is why I can blog again if I can find the time. 😀

The Snowpocalypse

I wrote up a brief something about the Snowpocalypse for a writing workshop assignment, so I thought I would share it here. 🙂

If you don’t have time for a mini 400-word essay about it, feel free to skip to the end of the post. XD

Snow Visitors by Deborah O’Carroll

The 2021 Texas Snowpocalypse was the first time I made the acquaintance of subzero temperatures—an acquaintance I’d gladly have skipped. I live in Texas for a reason. But since Mr. Negative Temperatures (the name says it all!) was visiting, at least he brought a more welcome guest: snow. The ice was less welcome, although the icicle formations certainly fascinated!

When it wasn’t too cold, I went on some snow adventures. New experiences were had walking down the street to a park, the road completely covered in snow, snow flurries blowing along it, and the blinding sun reflecting off the pristine white—so bright I wore a pair of sunglasses. My sister dropped hers on our walk; we returned later, looking high and low for the persnickety things. Apparently they were as excited to play in the snow as we were. A truck pulled up while we searched. “Did you drop these?” The driver handed over the lost-and-found missing sunglasses.

We made a snow dragon in the snow and he stayed for days even when the rest of the snow had melted; I think he liked Texas.

*(Snow on juniper; bunny hiding in snow; flowers; cat pawprints; ice on desert holly, cardinal in flight)*

I took my favorite winter-themed books outside to use the rare snowy background for my bookish photography for Instagram. Books make good snow walk companions too, though I imagine the one I dropped when I slipped on ice disagrees; it was baptized in snow and no harm was done.

Mostly, I holed up in my room, trying to escape the unwelcome wintry company. Even then, they gusted inside: another visitor was Jack Frost who left a pattern swirled gorgeously across my entire window in feathery elegance. It was stunning—although I would have liked it better if it hadn’t been on the inside of my bedroom window . . .

*(Icicles connecting a vehicle to the ground; ice fallen from powerline forming a sword shape; moooore icicles; snow on ground; frost on window, though the photo doesn’t do it justice)*

I was on deadline for a copyediting project involving an iceberg*, which brought the cold inside in a new way. Editing a cold story, bundled in hat and fuzzy socks, waiting for power to go out, while occasionally running water to keep the pipes from freezing, felt appropriate.

The wintry visitors didn’t feel gone until iced roads melted, allowing shopping, and mail finally arrived in my mailbox—there was no mail delivery possible for a whole week!

So long, snow visitors. I liked the snow, but for the rest of you, maybe next time you could find a better vacation spot than Texas!

*(Cold Snap by Selina J. Eckert; it’s a Snow White mermaid novella and is delightful!)

*(snow dragon; cozy socks/journal/fingerless gloves/mug; snow boots)*

Upcoming Plans

Whew! A lot has happened this quarter, while at the same time I feel like it was Christmas a minute ago and all I did was blink . . . But anyway.

My plans involve . . . more of the same, I guess?

I have many books I’d like to read (I wish I could read faster!).
I’d like to blog a smidge more, if I have inspiration, but we’ll see. (I do keep up with Instagram a fair bit these days.)
I’m trying to catch up on all my review books and ARCS; I thiiink I’m almost there?
I have a fair bit of work these days keeping me busy.
I really miss writing and, while I’m not doing Camp NaNo (can’t handle the pressure right now, and quite busy so I don’t think I’d survive), I am hoping to slowly ease back into writing a bit more often. Which, since it’s been basically non-existent, shouldn’t be too hard. XD I don’t know what to focus on, though! *flails*
And I usually take a break in May to recharge so I’m contemplating that, but we’ll see.
Of course, since I finally got internet again, I’m slowly trying to catch up on things like the 98374983798 emails languishing in my inbox, so there’s that. *cough*
And I’d really, really like to get my author newsletter up and running, and a short story edited and prepped for that (The Secret Piano), but for some reason this is daunting me a lot. Heh. (I have a newsletter set up on Mailchimp but haven’t really sent it out ever and I want to switch to MailerLite or something, I think?)

Conclusion

And yep, that’s about it! That’s what’s been up in my world these last few months. 🙂

I’ve barely blogged here since LAST April, so I suppose it’s probably a bit of a shock that Deborah exists over here, but anyway. XD Hopefully this was mildly interesting. Let me know if you recognize any of the things I read/watched? Thanks for reading!

Writing Wrapup (2020)

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Deborah O'Carroll

Well, I haven’t blogged regularly at ALL in quite awhile, but I wanted to post a wrapup of my writerly accomplishments this last year, if only so I’ll be able to look back on it one day.

It was definitely a slow year of writing, for me. I have difficulty writing when I’m stressed, so between that and spending a good deal of extra time on my copyediting business, the words were rather fewer than usual. But at least some writing happened!

2020 WRITING (ISH) ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Writing

Total words written: 76,160 (not my usual 100K+ but ah well)
53K of Tare/Kedran’s Wood books (starting book 3 for NaNo plus some edits on book 2)
12K of Operation Foxtail
11K on short stories — The Secret Piano (hopefully coming soon to a newsletter?), and three serial episodes of Girls, Spies, and Other Things the Faeries Stole. (I had written the first episode in 2019. The second was posted last January. So I have two more written, and one more planned, which would total 5 episodes. I hope to share them on here when I get the chance!)
I also did some plotting and editing on various works, including making some exciting breakthroughs in various books!

Blogging

I didn’t have home internet for the last 8 months of the year so any blogging that actually got done . . . I’ll take it. 😛

Blog posts in 2020: 49
Page Dreamer: 36
Here (Road of a Writer): 13

Faves:

Instagram

I also focused more on my Instagram in this last year, largely due to said issue of a lack of internet aside from my phone. I can’t really blog on my phone but I can Instagram on it, sooo…

285 Bookstagram posts (daily posts aside from a couple of hiatus months and breaks when I got busy)
Hit 800 followers
I finally did more with themes, even seasonal ones (which was fun) — and aaall the flowers!
Finally made a Linktree and some highlights. XD *is almost getting the hang of this Instagramming thing*

Copyediting Business

*(Some of the books I had the honor of copyediting last year.)*

Words copyedited or beta-read in 2020: 2.9 million words
Novels/novellas copyedited: 15
Short stories copyedited: 11
Beta projects (for friends etc.): 8
(Curious to know more about my freelance copyediting? Info is here! :))

Miscellaneous

Writing journal pages: 136
Won my 11th NaNoWriMo and 20th Camp NaNo (actually did two camp sessions this year)
Attended Hutchmoot: Homebound online (delightful), as well as a one-day writing conference in January, and read 6 books on writing
Sketched my character Teague
Was “in print” for the second time (I mean, just like the first time, it was a private bindup collection for authors of the Modern Bard blog stories, so it’s not like it’s… available? But it was still neat to see A Night in the Life of Glassman printed in a real book, personal collection though it may be!)
Set new word-sprinting records during November
Got a new laptop (after 9 years of writing adventures with my first laptop)

So there is a brief (?) look at my 2020 in writing! Although the wordcount was less than I’d hoped, and I didn’t finish any novels (two-thirds into both Operation Foxtail and Kedran’s Wood 3), it still wasn’t a bad writing year, apparently. I’m quite happy with a lot of these things. 🙂

I hope you enjoyed that! Thanks for reading — and let me know if there’s a writing-ish accomplishment you’re proud of from last year!

April Ishness + Hiatus Notice

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Deborah O'Carroll

Hey guys! It’s May and I’m here with an Ishness post to recap Camp NaNo and my reading/watching/listening of April . . . and also to announce a blogging/social media hiatus for the rest of May.

Firstly . . . Camp NaNo!

WRITING: Camp NaNo

I successfully completed my Camp NaNoWriMo goal with 10,336 words! *throws confetti*

This was a really interesting Camp NaNo. It wasn’t technically a very large goal, but I’d been really stuck all year before Camp, so I’m just really happy I was able to make it — and, more importantly, to write regularly a couple times per week.

I usually try to stay ahead, but I also tend to binge-write a bit and then miss a few days. It was very noticeable this time and I joked all month about the staircase I was building. XD

But the fact that I was able to regularly sit down just twice weekly and get 2K in every week, despite how busy I was . . . this was a huge boost to my writing confidence and just happiness in general. It’s given me hope that I might be able to keep that up sometimes in the future!

It also really helped that I had a list of the upcoming scenes, and between that and wordwars with amazing friends, I made serious progress on Operation Foxtail, which has now passed 60K words! I’m. so. excited.

I also had a short story attack my brain near the end of the month. This story made me frantically type up notes and snippets on my phone at 2 a.m. XD Here’s hoping I can get back to that and see what comes of it! And I’m hoping to continue on Operation Foxtail as well, but we shall see.

Shout-out to my amazing cabin-mates! I had so much fun hanging out with so many awesome writers on the NaNo site. And thanks, too, to all the people who cheered me on over on my social media. So encouraging!

Overall, Camp NaNo was wildly successful and I’m happy I got about three chapters written and started a short story.

READING

Not a lot of reading happened, but what there was, I found to be absolutely lovely! You can read my brief thoughts on these on my book blog’s post.

WATCHING

I re-watched a handful of fun things:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier — Always re-watch Bucky. 😀
The Dark Knight Rises — I’m fascinated to realize that I like this one better than The Dark Knight (even if Batman Begins is still my favorite). I always thought of this one as the dark one and kind of put off re-watching it, but the ending is actually fabulous and makes me happy. So it was just the memory of not knowing what was going to happen while watching it the first time, and how intense it was, that pegged this one as darker (to me). So I like it better than the Joker one, apparently. XD And Blake is awesome.
Despicable Me — This was fun to see again. XD (Not pictured.)
So . . . apparently superheroes, ish?

I also saw a DVD concert of Celtic Women, which was lovely! I’d picked it up at a library sale years ago and never watched it until now. It made me happy. 🙂

And a smidge of NCIS, also not pictured.

LISTENING

I did actually follow through with my plan to listen to Andrew Peterson music. Help, I’ve fallen into this amazingness and can’t get up. Actually, don’t help, because I’m happy here. I listened to a lot of his music across several albums, particularly for Easter, and I love it so much!
Brittany Jean’s new album All the Love was another delightful thing I listened to last month! More happiness. 🙂 Do check it out! ❤ (CD here. Links for online listening.) You can listen to the title song, All the Love, which is probably my favorite, on YouTube here! The songs are lovely and catchy and I often find them dancing through my head. 😀 (There’s even a gorgeous version of Never Enough from The Greatest Showman!) Brittany has a lovely voice and I’ve been enjoying her new songs muchly. ^_^
Also, Tide Lines had a new song, Innocent and Beautiful, and I listened to that several times. 🙂 Go give it a watch. I believe they have a new album releasing this month. :O
I meant to listen to audiobooks again but . . . entirely failed at that. Whoops. XD

APRIL BLOGGING

Book reviews:

LIFE

For me, April was one of the busiest months ever, actually. I was quite occupied with work and copyediting (yes, both from home), and throwing Camp NaNo on there meant that I felt terribly busy basically every day of April. I’m kind of exhausted. 😛

Since there’s not much to share in the life category, here, have a couple of photography attempts and some Easter cake!

A genuine yellow rose of Texas. 😉

Pretty!

Delicious.

MAY PLANS: HIATUS

I will leave you with today’s Instagram photo! I’m so glad I was able to get these lovely flowers the day before Hobby Lobby closed. o.o

Anyway, I’m really tired and just need to take a step back after running non-stop since basically September? I often end up taking hiatuses in May. XD

So I’ll be taking a break from blogging for the rest of May, and also getting off of social media — Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads . . .

But! You can absolutely still get in touch by email, and I’ll still be checking Messenger/Instagram DMs, etc.

(And there are a few book releases I’m super excited about . . . so I mayyyy pop back on for a couple of those; we’ll see how I’m feeling. XD)

Thanks for reading, and let me know in the comments how your April went! I love you all and I hope you have an amazing May, and I will see you on the other side!

NaNo 2019: Know the Novel, Part 3!

Posted on December 9, 2019 by Deborah O'Carroll

The fabulous Christine Smith is hosting the third part of her writerly linkup this month and I’m hopping on to share about how my 10th NaNoWriMo (Nov. 2019) went! (Spoiler alert: It went REALLY well.)

Firstly, I should explain that I’ll be talking about two different stories, since I ended up going Rebel for this NaNo and writing some of Operation Foxtail (codename) and also working on my novella WIP Double Lives at Kedran’s Wood.

Also, near the end I’m sharing a few snippets from the Tare novella!

THE QUESTIONS

1. Firstly, how did writing this novel go all around?

Operation Foxtail: Smashingly well! I wrote 35K, which, although not 50K, is gobstoppingly fantastic considering I didn’t even know if I could write a chapter. XD And I already had some snippets and stuff for this, so I got to connect a bunch of those, and it felt AMAZING. I got stuck a couple of times but was able to pants through the difficult bits until I got to the end of my rough outline and decided I should stop (instead of floundering around with a part I didn’t know what to do with). I think I’m probably about halfway… which I’m super excited about.

And then I switched to something else to finish up my 50K for NaNo. Because Rebel. 😛 (I’ve been doing a lot of NaNo rebelling lately. XD)

Double Lives at Kedran’s Wood (KW2.5): Pretty well! I mean, I wrote 15K on this one and I was able to more than double the wordcount I had before NaNo. I binge-wrote 15K in 5 days so that’s pretty good for me. XD I’d been stuck in the middle part of this novella for a few months and this gave me the chance to finish the middle and get probably half through the big ending stuff.

2. Did it turn out like you expected or completely different? And how do you feel about the outcome?

OF: I’m not sure! I didn’t really know what to expect, but I thiiiink it turned out pretty well so far? And how do I feel? ECSTATIC. I am just so, so, so happy that I got to write so much on this thing, and while I do have a couple of not-sure feelings about one or two things, and it got progressively messier as I went, I’m still super pleased with what I wrote! *happy pterodactyl screaming* Some aspects are definitely different than I expected, but I didn’t really know WHAT to expect, so. And some parts were even better, and I just had a BLAST. 😀

KW2.5: It turned out more rambly than I thought it would and I hoped to be done with it by now (it’s at 27K), but anyway. XD I’m pretty happy? I feel like it’s a mess and for some reason I’m not totally happy with how this one’s been turning out, buuut I’m glad to be getting the rough draft down, either way. And writing it during NaNo and pushing through the parts I didn’t know forced me to pants a little which actually turned out really interesting, especially near the end there… So I guess I’m pleased I got this far. 🙂

3. What aspect of the story did you love writing about the most? (Characters, plot, setting, prose, etc.)

OF: Definitely the characters and dialog. So much fun! I love them so much. 😀 And certain plot/theme/settings that I’m just super excited about! *zips lips*

KW2.5: Probably the dialog and shenanigans that are clearly a part of any story involving two opposite characters ending up looking like each other and having to fill in for each other’s lives. XD A buddy-story where they look like each other instead of themselves is proving to have lots of fun. And I loved the unexpected fantasy parts at the end that happened when I was figuring it out as I went.

4. How about your least favorite part?

OF: Probably the parts where I didn’t know what was going to happen, since that’s scary to a plotter like me. XD But they all worked out so far? But honestly, until I got stuck there at the end and decided to switch, and aside from the times when I didn’t want to write just because of life, I pretty much enjoyed every single part of writing this thing so far! IT WAS SO FUN. AAAAHH.

KW2.5: I was having a tough time with this one, just in general. I think I’m second-guessing a lot of it because it had a lot of new dynamics I wasn’t used to writing with this series… So nothing specific, just trying to get through difficult bits. And using it to try to finish NaNo early since the last week of the month was CRAZY.

5. What do you feel like needs the most work?

OF: I’m not sure I’m revealing plot things at the right pace… But it’s in first-person so it’s a little hard to gauge that. XD I’m sure I’ll need to deal with more PLOT things since, you know, plot is important and I still only have a hazy idea of the second half, which I’m sure will affect the first half. 😛 But otherwise it actually feels a little more polished than sometimes, at least early on.

KW2.5: It just feels messy and rambly, honestly. *hides face* I don’t really know. XD

6. How do you feel about your characters now that the novel is done? Who’s your favorite? Least favorite? Anyone surprise you? Give us all the details!

OF: My favorite is definitely the hero. HE’S JUST GREAT OKAY. But I love all of them. And yes, they all surprised me! :O That time my heroine yelled at a dragon… That time my laid-back hero got furious… That time one side-character’s attitude was so much more attitude-ish than I thought… That way another side character manages to contain two opposite sorts of temperaments and also ended up in the story way more than I thought she would be… It’s been interesting!

(Yes, I’m sharing this pic collage for KW2.5 again and I’m not sorry. XD)

KW2.5: Tare is always my favorite, but I guess it gets complicated who’s my favorite when Tare looks like Adrian and Adrian looks like Tare. XD I sort of enjoyed writing some of Adrian’s parts more because he’s filling in for Tare’s life, which is fun. XD And I guess they both are a little hard to predict in their different settings… So that’s been fun. Heheh.

(Also I realized that both of these don’t really have character-villains at this point in the story at least, so I don’t really have a least favorite. Is it fair when the antagonist is more of a… magical mishap for KW2.5 (left over from book 2’s villain) and… TBD for Operation Foxtail? *cough*)

7. What’s your next plan of action with this novel?

OF: I’m not sure. I’m taking a break, definitely, to work on KW2.5 and just recover from NaNo and deal with holiday busyness, and then I guess at some point I need to plot the rest of the book and write the second half. Heh. Eheheh. Not sure how soon that will happen, but at some point!

KW2.5: I’m taking off a bit to recover from NaNo and then I would love to see if I can finish this novella this month… if possible, in the midst of Christmas and general life-catch-up. 😛 I probably only have a couple of chapters left? Hopefully?

8. If you could have your greatest dream realized for this novel, what would it be?

OF: I really want this one published. Like. Really. Obviously, I don’t know in what way or when, but maybe someday. XD In the meantime my dream is to finish it and for it to turn out how I want it and to manage to edit it, at least enough to get it to beta-readers! Which I’m really excited about. So. We’ll see. 😛

KW2.5: I don’t really know. XD It’s a novella for fun, in the middle of a series for fun, so… have it finished and how I want it? Maybe publish it someday? It’s a little far out still, though.

9. Share some of your favorite snippets!

I’m not quite ready to share Operation Foxtail stuff yet, so you get a few from Mixup at Kedran’s Wood! 🙂

(Context for this first one: Tare-who-looks-like-Adrian, along with Adrian’s sister, Emily, are talking over speaker-phone with Adrian-who-looks-like-Tare.)

***

“We just kind of assumed you broke up with Ivy or something.”

“What?” Adrian said, alarmed. “She—I—we didn’t!”

“Mm-hmm,” Emily said. “It’s just one of the only reasons I could think of why you might actually be acting like this.”

“Tare, stop acting like my girlfriend dumped you. Me. Whatever.”

“I’m not,” Tare snapped. “I’m acting normal.”

“You never act normal.”

“I’m acting normal for me,” Tare said.

“I know. That’s why I told you to stop.”

Tare narrowed his eyes. “You’d better be glad we’re not in the same room.”

***

“We need to get a selfie!” Baz said.

Adrian blinked. “Does Tare do selfies?”

“I’m quite certain he doesn’t, which means we have the once in a lifetime opportunity to get selfies with Tare while he’s not here. I understand that doesn’t make sense when put into words, but . . . anyway,” Baz added.

“Oh, fine,” Adrian said with a half smile. He got up and slid into the side of the booth with Lavender and Baz and leaned over toward them. He grinned (which looked wrong on Tare’s face) and made a peace sign at the camera which resulted in Baz and Lavender both laughing way too hard while Baz snapped the photo, so it looked like they were having the life of the hilarious party.

Adrian dug out his—Tare’s—phone and took one on that too.

“Tare’s going to kill me,” he said, grinning.

“Oh, he’s going to kill all of us,” Baz said cheerily. “It was toootally worth it though.”

***

Tare covered his face with one hand. “What did you do?” he groaned.

“I was just a little conversational—it’s not a crime,” Adrian protested.

“Conversational,” Tare said, “is something that I am not. If you just made it where people are going to start making small talk with me for hours, I’m going to kill you.”

“Add it to the list,” Adrian said with a grin.

Tare scowled all over Adrian’s face. “You do that. And stop grinning with my face.”

“You’re one to talk,” Adrian said, tossing a twig over the fire in Tare’s direction. “Scowls look terrible on me. Cut it out.”

***

“You don’t own anything not-black, do you,” Adrian said. “I was thinking maybe I could find something else to wear, maybe even some grey, but nooo, it’s all black. It’s depressing, that’s what it is.”

“You know what’s depressing? All the yellow you have,” Tare said, pushing aside a branch and not bothering to hold it, so it sort of tried to thwack Adrian in the face before he could catch it. “I had to work to find this.” Tare turned half-way around and flicked the dark grey fabric on his chest.

“It’s no wonder people thought I was depressed and had broken up with Ivy, with you dressing in dark clothes like that,” Adrian said. “And there’s nothing wrong with yellow.”

“I wouldn’t be caught dead in most of your wardrobe. And your jeans are too blue,” Tare said over his shoulder.

Adrian threw his hands up. “Jeans are supposed to be blue!”

10. Did you glean any new writing and/or life lessons from writing this novel?

I learned, as I often do during NaNo, that I’m capable of writing large amounts of words in less than a month, even when I feel stuck, as long as I just sit down and do it. I also learned that writing a book that you’re excited about is the. most. fun. And that pantsing does occasionally lead to exciting unplanned things, which I don’t like to admit, since pantsing scares me because I don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen. XD

I hope y’all enjoyed this little peek into how NaNo went for me!

All told, I wrote 50,188 words in 25 days, and finished the earliest I’d ever finished NaNo! Life was kind of stressful but writing-wise it was a spectacular 10th NaNo! ^_^

Also, partway through, I hit a million words, which I shared about in a previous post. I’m still pretty excited about that. 🙂

If you did NaNo, how did yours go? And let me know if you liked the snippets. XD Who else is in denial it’s December?? *raises hand* I hope you had a good November, regardless!

Undercover, Gifs, & NaNo Know the Novel Intro

Posted on October 14, 2019 by Deborah O'Carroll

The frabjous Christine Smith is hosting her three-month Know the Novel linkup for writers these last three months of the year and I’M EXCITED. The first one is INTRODUCTION which I’m doing today. (Go join in if you like! It’s fun!)

Last week I announced that I’d be writing my NaNo project under a codename (Operation Foxtail) to put less pressure on myself, and then got kind of sad when I realized I couldn’t partake in Know the Novel if my novel was a secret . . .

But you know what? I still can because I want to! I will just be vague and nebulous like a mysterious secret undercover agent writer. XD

This post is going to be full of vague answers and way too many sunglasses/secret agents gifs.

Let’s do this thing.

Know the Novel: Part 1: INTRODUCTION

1. What first sparked the idea for this novel?

Actually, it was the title! (Not Operation Foxtail; the real title. XD) Which, funny story, is half my sister’s fault.

It sort of latched onto a swirling of vague ideas and somehow the story appeared and… I don’t really remember where all the ideas came from but the title definitely pulled everything together.

Even if it’s . . . you know . . . a different title. 😛

2. Share a blurb!

Characters do stuff and things happen and there is drama and banter and doom and we will hope that at least most of them get to live happily ever after eventually!

Okay, I know that’s a rubbish blurb. XD But I don’t even know all the important plot stuff for later-on myself, even if I was sharing what the story is. So.

Here, have the shiny codename cover again to distract you from the lack of information. *cough*

3. Where does the story take place? What are some of your favorite aspects about the setting?

It’s actually going to take place in several places, which is both exciting and daunting, because I have to figure them out. XD But my favorite is how at home I feel with this idea/places and yet also totally out of my depth. It’s gonna be interesting!

4. Tell us about your protagonist(s).

We have a heroine who is spunky! (Actually rare for me.) And a hero who is awesome and I love! And side characters who I also love but are kind of a mess too! And a rather small cast, for me. And yeah, everything else is a spoiler, so. 😛

5. Who (or what) is the antagonist?

GOOD QUESTION. I should probably know this, shouldn’t I. >.> *cough* I think there’s a couple different antagonists but some of them are relationship problems instead of actual physical people… but there are some of those too.

6. What excites you the most about this novel?

The characters and fun of it and just . . . IT. I’ve been wanting to write it for a long time and I’m terrified I won’t be able to but I’m gonna try!

7. Is this going to be a series? standalone? something else?

Standalone, ish. Like I might have some spinoff things? Mayyybe? But mostly it stands alone.

Of course, I usually say that and then KABOOM it’s a series and I’m questioning all my life choices. But anyhoo…

8. Are you plotting? pantsing? plansting?

Ahahahaha. WHO EVEN KNOWS. I’m planning to do some planning but haven’t if you know what I mean. I have SOME notes but definitely need to gather them and do more. So I’m probably plantsing. 😛

Which is slightly terrifying but when am I ever prepared for NaNo? *nervous laughter*

9. Name a few things that makes this story unique.

*squirms* THIS IS HARD. Without spoilers, I mean. Let’s just say I’m taking some tropes and I’m totally hoping to twist them around and it should be fun.

It’s (kind of) a subgenre I haven’t exactly written before?
It’s in first-person which I usually only do for short stories.
It’s going to have all the feels.

10. Share a fun “extra” of the story (a song or full playlist, some aesthetics, a collage, a Pinterest board, a map you’ve made, a special theme you’re going to incorporate, ANYTHING you want to share!).

Well, let’s see, most of those things would probably be spoilery.

Still. We’ll see what we can do. XD

Here is a section of my inspiration board for NaNo! I always do one of these, with a cover and to-do list and inspirational memes, and also pictures for inspiration (not shown because it’s undercovaaahh).