How about you?

I’m taking a break from writing Kai’s book to work on other things. I wrote a 1600-word short story, tweaked the synopsis of Quartz, and began writing an outline of Kai’s book as a road map for getting to THE END. We’re taking the upcoming week off from school (if the public schools are doing it, so will we!) and my writing plan is a healthy mix of submission-type things and for-fun things. More on this later.

Also, some folks over on the HtTS/HTRYN boards have started a Write a Book With Me blog, where you can post your daily wordcounts, and get support and accountability from other writers. They’re holding a contest with a fun prize to inaugurate the new blog, so check it out.

However, in spite of it all, I did get words!

Kai’s novel (total): 63,872 words
Kai’s novel (new): 4, 158 words

I also got 700+ words worth of notes on a story idea (not Secret Project, but another project—Secret Project 2?) when a character popped into my head and started talking. When Right Brain dictates, I transcribe. Simple as that.

I took yet another stab at writing a synopsis of Quartz. This time I went hunting for some how-to tips, and came upon this post by Diana Peterfreund which led me to these workshops by Kathy Carmichael, and the result is that I’m much happier with my current draft. It still needs a lot of work–which I was going to do tonight–but *sigh* I might just stay in bed and nurse my cold and save my energy for school tomorrow.

How’s your writing coming along?

Progress on the writing front has been decent. No spectacular wordcounts, but I’m exceeding my 550-word daily goal (except for on Saturdays) by at least a couple hundred words. The writing is very slow since I’m groping about in the dark, thinking only a scene at a time, working with two new characters and an explosion of information (some of it contradictory ) about the world’s magic, technology and creatures.

Kai (total): 59, 714 words
Kai (new): 8561 words

How’s your writing coming along?

This week I discovered I need to schedule a day off every week, just for my own sanity. I don’t always have to take one, of course, but it’s nice to have it set aside, especially since fatigue has dogged me all week.

I also added in an unexpected POV, which will be fun to work with. I’m almost halfway there, and I’m almost out of planned scenes. Major brainstorming penciled in for this week, along with coming up with a few more honorifics for my languages and some thought given to religious practices. Hard thinking work.

How about you? Any progress on the writing front?

I took too many days off this week. Time to get serious! Nose, meet grindstone. You’ll be seeing a lot of each other this year.

New Secret Project (total/new words): 7,337

Total words for this week: 10,894

Not bad, especially since my target was 3500 words. We’ll see how my progress changes when we go back to school a week from Monday.

Did you get any writing done?

I don’t know if I’ll get another 3500 words by next Sunday (Christmas, family visiting, etc), but I’ll try.

How’s your writing?

Everyone has their own special ornaments and Christmas tree traditions. We drink egg nog and sing carols after our decorating. It’s specially fun now because the olders are able to join the singalong, too. There are several ornaments that are dear to me: the handmade ones that my kids have made, from painted wooden letters to child-stitched felt ones; the one survivor of a set of four a cousin gave us; a glass ball with a painted panda in a Santa hat from Hong Kong; a porcelain Celtic cross from Ireland.

Thinking about my traditions has made me wonder how my characters would decorate their trees. You know, if they had trees in the first place and celebrated the same holidays.

Kai, for one, would say she didn’t want a tree, but really? She does. She wants to belong, she wants to be part of her people’s traditions. She’d find the most imperfect tree in the lot though; the lopsided one, or the thin and scraggly one, or the one with a crooked top. She’d bring that tree home and she’d decorate it with old and imperfect things she’d find in thrift shops, and natural things like pinecones and winter berries and acorns. She’d string popcorn and drape it around the tree, and put oranges under it. And a pyramid of canned food, which is what she lives on.

The Marquis of Rocquespur (from Quartz)–well, he’d get the biggest showiest tree around. He’d dress the tree up the same way he dresses himself, in shades of purple and gold. His tree would grand, but prickly, with scratchy purple tinsel-y stuff. He’d pick glittery ornaments, like miniature disco balls, covered in mirrors, or sequined stars. Hard, reflective, glitzy, rough-textured. Lots of sharp angles.

Oh, and he’d have colored lights on his tree, too. Annoying blinky colored lights. In randomized patterns. The sort that induce epileptic fits.

Rafe is too busy working to have a tree. Knowing his luck–and dedication to duty–he’d spend Christmas being chased through sewers by bad guys and war machines. But, I have the sneaking suspicion, he’d like to have a family and one day go out, cut down a tree, bring it home and stand it up in the tree stand thingy while the littles danced around excitedly. He’d get the ornament boxes out of the basement, and untangle the lights, and put hooks on all the balls that mysteriously lost theirs. He wouldn’t care what the decorations were—if his family wants all cow ornaments, or just pink ones–that’d be okay with him. He’d  just want to see their faces shining with excitement.

I haven’t mentioned Christmas trees to Isabella, though. I might get The Look.

Your turn. How would your characters decorate their Christmas trees?