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nano_writers2019-10-11 04:25 pm
Get-To-Know-Yous and Project Intros
I know a bunch of people are interested in using this space to track our NaNo projects, so I figured it'd be nice to have some intros.
Let's do a round of posts to get to know each other.
Here are some possible questions to answer:
1. Who are you?
2. What are your fave books?
3. Have you ever done NaNo before?
4. What's your project looking like? What kind of support do you want/need?
5. Anything else you wanna share!
I'll start!
1. Who are you?
I'm a queer femme witch, living in the Twin Cities, MN. I'm a total weirdo, in love with pop culture and trying to become a professional writer.
2. What are your fave books?
It feels cliche to say this, but the Harry Potter series was incredibly formative for me. The HP Fandom fostered a sense of community for me when I was just learning about being a witch.
Otherwise, in terms of books, I love Fun Home by Alison Bechdell, The Border of Paradise by Esme Weijun Wang, The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan, and countless - COUNTLESS - books about witchcraft. I'd say The Border of Paradise and Fun Home probably have the biggest influence on my thinking about writing fiction.
3. Have you ever done NaNo before?
Yes! I won one year, and I think I've participated 2 other times.
4. What's your project looking like?
I'm writing a couple of things, and want to use NaNo to finish them. I'm working on a grimoire for a class I'm teaching, and I'm also writing a book about Norse mythology. I need to have the grimoire done by the end of the year, and I'm not quite set on a goal for a manuscript of the book, but ideally by summer. This is kind of like a jump start - I really want to do getyourwordsout next year, so this is a bit of a jump start of that.
I'm not totally sure what kind of support I want - mostly I want a chill space to talk about word counts and such. I've already got beta readers for my various projects, but sometimes I need a lil encouragement. Would also love any suggestions on the editing process, as well as pitching work if any of you have done that. Also ... encouragement on the fiction front! I love writing and reading fiction, but I write so much for work stuff that I don't have much energy at the end of the day for fiction writing.
5. Anything else?
Not totally sure! I love horror and weird fiction, and so I kind of want to jump into writing some of that in short story form. I'm also back on my bullshit with fandom, and I've got a fanfic that is on the backburner while I try to get other stuff finished. I'm constantly reading like, 5 books at a time and so my attention is a little scatterbrained.
Like I said above, I'm a professional witch and tarot reader and that is a HUGE part of my life, but I kind of want to keep Dreamwidth more anonymous. I need to do other things than chat about work all the time.
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1. Who are you?
Hi, I'm Jenett. By day (and not by a name I link in public), I am a research librarian working with a really interesting specialised collection near Boston, and a total research geek.
Other times, I am still a research geek, but I write romance novels set in the 1920s with magic as Celia Lake (see answers #3 and #4 for more) and I'm a priestess and witch with a coven in a small religious witchcraft tradition. I've also got 7 (I think it's 7) chronic health issues that need juggling. (My series also has strong disability/chronic health issue representation, for what are probably Obvious Reasons.)
I'm also part of
2. What are your fave books?
The book that has absolutely been on my top five list since I read it late in high school is Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. Beyond that I read widely (basically anything that sits still long enough) though I no longer feel quite so obliged to professionally as I used to when I worked in a high school library.
My usual happy place involves historical mysteries, romances with intelligent or pragmatic characters who don't make foolish errors for plot reasons, urban fantasy with cohesive magic theory and cosmology, or non-fiction books that dig into interesting topics. (And I also read a bunch of witchy books, but those are more for 'how does this person discuss things' or 'I'm trying to figure out alternate options for Y'.
3. Have you ever done NaNo before?
This is my fourth time.
Last year was my first win, on absolute classic mode (start a novel on page 1 on November 1st, have at least 50K words at the end of the month), and In The Cards is currently in editing for publication sometime in November (because everyone needs a locked room murder mystery set on the Isles of Scilly in 1926 and a very brash American, with bonus Tarot geekiness, right?)
It's book 5 in the series, and book 1 was 2017's project, and book 2 was (in an earlier form of my idea for this) a NaNo project way back in 2011. I've learned a lot about my personal writing speed capabilities over the process which is really helpful. (I normally reliably average about 1000 words a day, so Nano is about 150% of my usual.)
4. What's your project looking like? What kind of support do you want/need?
I'm writing a standalone in the same world, but earlier (Edwardian, sometime between 1906 and 1910, probably) featuring two characters who have shown up in the 1920s series, as a "arranged marriage that later becomes a love match" trope. It's going to involve art forgery, and before I get started I should brush up a bit on some pieces of what I need details for.
Mostly, I'm looking for amiable companionship - I read the Nano forums, and last year I went to a few writeins, but I'd love a space that doesn't feel as vast as the Nano forums or 4theWords (which I use for writing rough drafts - it's a gamification tool, but they do great quests and projects for Nano, and I find it fun and motivating to get me to do just another couple hundred words, etc.
5. Anything else you wanna share!
I am a little nervous about pacing, because the current book in progress has been very slow going, and while I can still reasonably finish by the end of October, it's going to mean keeping up close to a NaNo pace for ... well, um, 7 weeks or so. On the other hand, that book is now finally in the stage where the plot rolls downhill and it gets easier for me, so I'm hoping that'll be okay.
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Can I just say I'm ALREADY obsessed? This sounds spectacular. Also I might need some romance recs, I usually get my romance fix through fandom but I'd actually really love to read a good romance that's original work. Especially if it's queer.
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My romances are M/F (because romance as a genre, you mostly have to pick what you're doing) but I'm doing my best to get queer characters into the stories as plots allow. (Current book in progress includes heroine having a conversation about Sappho with the nice academic lesbian couple in the boarding house she's staying at, one of my heroes is canonically bi and insistent about being honest about it.)
If you have not already read any KJ Charles, and want historical queer romance, start there! (for which one to start with, depends a bit on your interests, but her website will give you a sense. You might get a huge kick out of Proper English and there's another book involving those characters, Think of England, but if you want the explicit magical part, try This Spectered Isle (Other stuff also awesome.)
I also really like Cat Sebastian's Hither, Page, and have other stuff in my TBR pile.
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I have nothing against reading M/F, I just loooooove a good queer romance. I've also been incredibly in the mood for some Jane Austen lately, so that tells you where my head's at in terms of romance. I've read (and loved) Pride and Prejudice but I'm thinking of reading Sense and Sensibility.
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*grabbyhands*