anna's blog

I've finally got my new site up - check it out at http://annacaro.org/. The blog feed is at http://annacaro.org/rss.xml. See you there!

I'm keeping away from the blogging until I get my new website up, hopefully this weekend, but in the meantime you can read my latest publication, 'Navigations', at Full of Crow

1) I´m working on a new short story, ´The Shape of My Wife´. It´s set on a recently colonised planet... with some very strange plants.

2) My short story, ´Navigations´, will be published in the January issue of Full of Crow¨

3) I´m working on a new website, more information to follow. I want to go for more of an author website look, and make the blog mostly a series of columns than just updates.

1) As you´ve probably guessed, I haven´t been able to manage any new writing for the past couple of weeks. I know this is a short term issue, but it´s frustrating just the same.

2) I´ve been determined not to let myself drift from the pattern, so have tried to get at least a few writing related things done - making notes on anthology submissions, tidying up and submitting existing pieces etc. I´m also vaguely looking for a new book reviewing opportunity, after having parted ways with the e-fiction book club (who are very awesome, but were going in a different direction to the one that works for me).

3) The big effect, of course, has been in the impact on the rewrite of ´Invented Wings´; I´m really in two minds as to whether I want to go ahead with this - it seems immensely difficult, but at the same time I think I´ve put too much into this story to just let it die.

4) There´s a Kiwi Writers meeting next week, so I´m looking forward to pulling my socks up and actually getting involved in the organisation, as opposed to just floating around on the email group.

5) In the real world, the Reclaim the Night march I´ve been involved in organising was a success, I´m getting a new job (which is almost exactly the same as my old job) finalised, and possibly looking at buying a house in the new year. Exciting times.

I'm trying to get into a routine, focus on getting some new short stories out. I'm going to experiment with writing a little each night this week, and turning the story of one of my Moving Water characters into a short. It's very definitely not a love story, and is much more supernatural than Moving Water, focusing on her son, and how the series of events Ethie set in motion when she escaped from her childhood home are now catching up with her. Anyone got any experience or tips making a short out of a(n unfinished) novel?

My other focus is the influx of short story submissions for the Foreign Country anthology - I'm going to need to start making notes on some of them soon. Really excited, if a little nervous.

It's probably obvious by now, but I've given up on NaNo for this year. It's a shame in many ways, but makes sense. I have some pretty intense work and activism commitments over the next week, and then I'll be reassessing where I want to go from here.

The answer seems to be no, not this weekend. I've made some decent progress so far, really got back into my story, but getting up to 26k or so is just unrealistic. Even more so because my life is in a state of flux at the moment. I don't talk about my personal life on this blog too much, but suffice it to say that I've been fighting some quite hefty personal demons for quite some years. I'm taking my 25th birthday early next year as a milestone, and a challenge to really put in a push to make sure that they are, if not dead, at least caged and incapacitated by then.

And on top of that (and also the possibility I'll be looking for a new job within the next couple of months) a series of rejections has made me reassess my writing. It takes me a long time to get from first draft to finished product, and some of what I've been sending out started four or five years ago, when I was a very different person. It would be hard to let them go, but I'm wondering whether I should just start afresh.

So, NaNoWriMo? Still keen, still love my story though I'm making major changes, but not at the top of my mind right now. But then again, I only have to do 2309 words a day for the rest of the month to finish. I'm not going to say I'll do it, but I'm not ruling it out either.

Work, activism, personal life have left me horribly behind with NaNoWriMo... but I haven't given up yet.

By the end of Monday, I should be on 26 667. I am currently on 10 793. That means I have to complete 15874 or an average of 3968 words a day over the four days. I have taken Monday off work partly for this purpose.

Can I do it? Only one way to find out.

1) I've got a much healthier attitude to targets than I did a year ago. I'm behind at the moment. I can't say I'm happy about that, in fact I'm a little frustrated, but it doesn't feel like the end of the world. I'm quietly confident I'll catch up. If not, well I've got a decent chunk of writing done.

2) Google Docs is really, really useful - I just wish they had more paragraph spacing options.

3) I don't actually miss the NaNoWriMo forums that much - I've been sticking to the NZ forum, and that seems to be satisfying my need for community.

4) Writing about violence against women is hard. Not in the emotionally difficult sense, though it is unpleasant, but it is easier to criticise when other people get it wrong than it is to do it right yourself. It's a small part of the story, but one I'm agonising over. Which isn't really the point of NaNo, now, is it?

5) Themes of moving place and time to find acceptance are very prominent in my writing - a central plot point in Invented Wings, a significant part of the backstory in Moving Water, and popping up all over the place in short stories. This is autobiographical, of course.

6) Write or Die is made of awesome!

7) Giving up caffeine may not have been as good an idea as I thought at the time :D

What have you learned from writing your WIP and/or this year's NaNoWriMo?

It was a long slog today, but I broke the 5000 words barrier, which gives me a reasonable cushion provided I don't slip too soon. I resorted to write or die, which I think needs to be alternated with regular writing - it gets me the wordcount, but I'm aiming for a semblance of quality this year.

My characters seem to be developing well, including some minor characters. Ethie is being a little more whiny than I think she really is, so that will probably go, as well a rather random and out of place plot twist, but overall I'm having fun.