Introductions

Hello, everyone! The closest I've gotten to seeing New Zealand is spending time in an airport there as a stopover. But it looked lovely outside and I hope to come visit if Melbourne wins the next WorldCon bid.

Meanwhile and more important, I've got a detailed plot and I'm ready to write. I did NaNoWriMo last year and that novel is currently in the someday-to-be-rejected pile at a publisher. So, onward to create a new novel to make the rounds.

Good luck to all participants!

And by the way, it's still June 1 over here, and not yet 11 AM.

Hey there! Nice to have you with us for the challenge, it's great you have a project all ready to go with! What genre are you writing in this time around?

WIP: Ayden: 92,043/95,000 (estimated total).
Rough Editing: Lifelines: 104/104 pages.

J.C Hart

Thanks for the welcome. I've got a very ambitious timetable. This novel has to be finished including rewrites by the end of September so I can plot another NaNoWriMo novel in October. And be ready to hit the ground running come November 1.

My story decided it was women's fiction. That's a big category, but mine is the kind of tale that reunites multiple older heroines and reveals multiple melodramatic secrets in their past. There will be lots of tears and shrieking.

oh that sounds fun!!! I love that whole 'revealing secrets in their past' idea.

WIP: Ayden: 92,043/95,000 (estimated total).
Rough Editing: Lifelines: 104/104 pages.

J.C Hart

Hi hopefullily, you are a busy person. Your story sounds great, I like the idea of having older womem heroines as I am........one of those :)
Have fun and see you on Nano008 as well. :)

http://gay_belle.livejournal.com

'Southern Scriber.'

Wow. Where on earth were you going from/to to have a stopover in NZ?

Good luck for SoCNoC!!

No Excuses. Just Write.
WIP - Freeing the Flame: 31/66 scenes of scene review #3.
Eve's Vineyard: 3,375/6,000 (Sept Zing Thing)

Good luck for SoCNoC!

Wow. Ambitious plan, yes!

And your plot idea sounds very intriguing! Mind elaborating on details?

We were returning from Australia to the US when we stopped over. Frequent flyer miles gave us the trip, and access to the business class lounge and all the adorable little meat pies that we could eat, and a lot of service. Yikes.

My story is about three women who know each other, but their friendships are not equal, and various pairs have secrets. I'm trying to include the gamut of believable life experiences for middle-class women aged 45-60, focusing on their love and family lives, but not including children as active characters.
I'm pretty sure I don't want to discuss details.

It sounds fun, hopefullily. I don't think any topic should be off limits just because women are older.

No Excuses. Just Write.
WIP - Freeing the Flame: 31/66 scenes of scene review #3.
Eve's Vineyard: 3,375/6,000 (Sept Zing Thing)

One topic that has been off limits for romances forever is abortion. Although many, many decent women have had abortions for various good reasons, in romances abortion is always portrayed as the selfish action of the villainess. This is pretty darn self-hating, and really a major form of denial, considering who is writing romances.

So, even though currently my plot does not contain a reference to an abortion, I think at least one of the women should have had one. They are of the generation that did, often illegal ones that resulted in sterility.

Hopefully, because my characters are older, they will find forgiveness for youthful mistakes of many kinds. But I am not writing about women in rocking chairs. They have lives. They have men. They have troubles.

It sounds even more intriguing. :) I can understand why abortion wouldn't fit within the boundaries of certain romance genres. I think that any real life topic is fair game for novels or any genre. As you say, it's all part of human nature and the attitude towards abortions has changed over time. It will only continue to change with people showing abortion and the people who have them, or don't, in new and different lights.


(Yay, you got your signature working!)

No Excuses. Just Write.
WIP - Freeing the Flame: 31/66 scenes of scene review #3.
Eve's Vineyard: 3,375/6,000 (Sept Zing Thing)

Yep, the signature is finally working. Now, of course, I'm feeling the urge to mess with it.

I wasn't even in the mood to write this novel today and I spent considerable time doing other things, including visiting blogs, writing e-mails, and re-plotting another story. Even so, I managed to get an incredible number of words down. It's all because I have a detailed outline. The thinking has been done in advance. Thank goodness.

I think individual attitudes towards abortions have become quite accepting in the main. But I don't like that it's a convention in romance that abortion equals evil. However, I am not writing a romance this time around, so even including one is only going to be a nod to a better attitude, and not a big challenge to established cliches. Remember, for the longest time it was a romance cliche that the hero went on a drunken bender if the heroine left him. And that he smoked. Those two are gone. I'd like to see the end to this one, too. That's all.

Well, time for a well-earned rest from fiction writing.

By the way, it's supposed to be 98 degrees here in West Virginia today. Although this is a mountainous state, where we are (the eastern panhandle of it), we share much of Washington, DC's hot, muggy weather.

Which has been compared unfavorably to tropical Africa.

Unfortunately I live about 20 miles south of DC, so I share your pain. I figure it's a sign to stay inside and write where it's nice and cool. Your novel-in-progress sounds fascinating! Good luck :)

We have your trouble with the nice weather during Nano. :)

http://gay_belle.livejournal.com

'Southern Scriber.'

Good point.

November for us is cool and sometimes rainy, seldom snowy. The leaves have all dropped, the annuals have been killed by frosts, and everything is beginning to hunker down for winter. A perfect month to write up a storm.

But then, if we aspire to becoming professionals we'd better begin to think of every month as a perfect month to write up a storm.

Yes lily, there is no time like the present. Creative urges come when they feel like it. :)
It is quite pleasant this week here, no frosts, wind, odd bit of rain at night, and the sun is now shining. The southern area where I am has cooler temperatures than the north. When you consider is only a week off our shortest day of the year.

http://gay_belle.livejournal.com

'Southern Scriber.'

Today is turning out to be a good writing day because the weather is confusing. High eighties and sun, then clouds and rumblings of thunder. I'm supposed to mow the lawn, but it isn't happening until the thunder stops.

Projects take on a life of their own if we nurture them. Many times, though, we turn our backs on them for days or weeks at a time, and then we forget how good it feels to be immersed in them. Since people so often write on spec, there is no money or deadline looming as carrot and stick. That's why a challenge is a help; it provides an external reason to return to the manuscript. And a place to brood about it publicly.

I totally agree. :)

http://gay_belle.livejournal.com

'Southern Scriber.'