amazon.com/authors/laurengilley

You can check out my books on Amazon.com, and at Barnes & Noble too.

Saturday, December 31, 2016

2016: Year In Review

From where I'm sitting, this year has flown. I can't believe it's New Year's Eve. A fast year. And for me, not such a bad one. In fact, it's been my best author year yet, and I can't thank my readers enough for making it such a fast-paced, rewarding time to be a writer. THANK YOU, readers!! I've got lots planned for 2017, so I hope you'll stick around.

On the writing front:

I released five books this year. Walking backward:










On the reading front:
I read some really wonderful books this year, though most weren't published in 2016. In no particular order, my favorites were:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon

The Shell Seekers
by Rosamunde Pilcher

Coming Home
by Rosamunde Pilcher

A Prayer for Owen Meany
by John Irving

The Nightingale
by Kristin Hannah

All The Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr

The Ocean At The End of the Lane
by Neil Gaiman

The Martian
by Andy Weir

Happy New Year, everyone!!! I can't wait to see you all again in 2017.







Monday, December 26, 2016

HP Press Debriefing : Walking Wounded



HP Press Debriefing : Walking Wounded

12/26/16

*Author Notes and Insights*



Hi everyone, and welcome to the Walking Wounded debriefing. There will be some spoilers below, I’m sure, which is why I’ve put it under a “read more” cut. So if you haven’t read the novel, and don’t want to be spoiled, come back to this later. If you have read the book, I hope you’ll enjoy taking a deeper look at the novel through my eyes.


Monday, December 19, 2016

#MusicMonday - Walking Wounded Tracks



In case you missed the announcement this weekend, Walking Wounded is live on Amazon and B&N!



The paperbacks should be live tomorrow, and I'll be selling signed copies after the first of the year for anyone interested.

I haven't done a Music Monday post in a while, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite song picks for WW. In my mind, most of the soundtrack is comprised of alternatingly melancholy and hopeful instrumental pieces (secret life goal: write something worthy of an instrumental soundtrack one of these days), but there are a few songs that inspired the storytelling:

"Ever After" - Marianas Trench (this is *THE* song, for both storylines, just THE song, I just love it, okay)







Sunday, December 11, 2016

Sunday Notes 12/11


  • One of my favorite books of this year (read for November's book club meeting), A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving, contains an insightful mini-essay from the author as an afterward. I like to "debrief" my releases, but this gave me an idea to take it further. So...
  • Wed. 12/21/16: Walking Wounded debriefing on the blog. This will be my space to talk about favorites scenes, moments, and passages from the novel, and open the floor for questions.
  • This week on the blog: visuals and BTS stories from Walking Wounded.
  • Friday: ebook giveaway.
  • You can find Walking Wounded on Goodreads here.
  • A Dartmoor Christmas continues through Christmas :)
  • 12/31: my favorites reads of the year

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

#TeaserTuesday: Walking Wounded


88,167 words
275 pages
Contemporary
Historical
Literary
M/M romantic relationship

Coming December 17th

Walking Wounded Copyright © 2016 by Lauren Gilley

Read the Prologue...

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

NaNo Day 30: Last Day


Above: This Kind of War by T.R. Fehrenbach

It's the last day of NaNo and I can't believe it's been a month already. This was my first time "participating," though I use that word loosely because I kept it very unofficial. I have to admit that I didn't reach the 50k word goal. But I did complete Walking Wounded, and I'm thrilled about that!

My major takeaway from the NaNo experience is that if I schedule correctly, keep focused, and limit outside distractions (i.e. everything on the internet), then it's possible to increase the speed at which I write. Good news, since I have lots of projects in the wings. But I've also realized it's important to take days off, sometimes whole weekends off. This fall, football has been a really great way to keep myself off the computer and take a little break from work. So I'm sad the regular season is over - thankfully my boys still have championships to play in.

I also learned, this November, that my abiding love of history wants an outlet. I touched on the Korean War with Walking Wounded, and now I find myself wanting to write a much more in-depth novel set during that time period.  

Today, it's raining. Sweet, glorious rain that we need so badly. I'm praying that it rains in Tennessee as well. The gorgeous Smokey Mountain region of TN that I've attempted to capture in my Dartmoor books is under siege by wildfires, and the photos are devastating. Sending them love and rain-wishes, as I work on Hellhound.

Walking Wounded hits Kindles December 17th.

Monday, November 21, 2016

The Long-Winded Mission Statement


I think one of the reasons I talk so much about my writing process is because I'm trying to use my blog as a sort of long-winded mission statement. The hope that if readers understand the motivation behind certain scenes and certain books, they'll know what to expect. That if they understand what I focus on as a writer, they can read with an open mind. It's a hope that my books will be judged on their own merit, rather than judged as examples of a particular trope or genre. Or even judged against each other. Because my years of studying literature in college showed me that an author can focus on some things, and still manage to accomplish others.

For example, I've never written a book with the intention that it be sexy. I've never said to myself, "I want readers to think this is hot!" Not once, never. That's just not my cuppa, as a writer. So it always makes me smile when someone describes any part of any one of my books as sexy, or steamy, or hot, etc. I'm really glad some readers think that - to me, language itself can be sexy when used skillfully - but sexiness isn't anything I'm banking on, if that makes sense.

Likewise, I never set out to write a MAN. An all-caps, alpha, macho man. There's a lot of ways in which a man can be masculine, and I seek to capture many variations of personality. To this day, one of my favorite negative reviews comes from a blog that described my book Shelter as "shit" because the male lead "wasn't alpha," and "questioned himself." As a writer, I'm not seeking to capture a fantasy-inspired caricature of a man, but a real human man. And real humans come in all shapes and sizes, and they do question themselves. I write about people, not about concepts.

That's the thing about negative reviews: they don't affect my work. When someone complains that my books weren't short enough, or steamy enough, or comfortable enough, or they didn't like a character because he or she was different from them? That's someone who doesn't know or care what I was trying to accomplish. Who went into the book with a checklist of requirements. And I don't write for checklist readers. I write for thoughtful bibliophiles who want to lose themselves in the lives of interesting strangers for a little while. For whom reading is an experience, and not a reenacted fantasy. In a perfect world, everyone would love an author's books, but that's not what happens in the real world, and I'm okay with that.

Where am I going with this?

I've been saying for weeks that I'm excited about Walking Wounded, and I am. I so am. This is the first time I've made it all the way to the editing stage of a project and not started to viciously hate the book. By the time I finished Tastes Like Candy and Loverboy, I never wanted to see those things again. But this one's felt fresh and delightful all the way through. Part of this is because it's different; it was a chance for me to explore new aspects of my writing, to play with a different style. I got to "visit" new cities. I got to tell a story that wasn't mired in the MC.

It's my hope that all my readers will take a chance on Walking Wounded, but I understand that some of them won't, and I'm good with that. This book is very intentionally different from Dartmoor. It's a character-driven, sensitive, but non-confrontational story about - like all my books - relationships. I know it won't be for everyone, but that's okay. It's not meant for everyone. There's so many things I don't set out to be. But it's my intention, always, to be honest and empathetic. I hope every day that I have been.


Thursday, November 17, 2016

NaNo Day 17: Visuals & Blurb

Some lines and visuals from Walking Wounded.
Copyright © 2016 by Lauren Gilley

Georgetown, Washington DC


            When his need for nicotine began to outweigh the craving for caffeine, he trashed the rest of his latte and hit the sidewalk, smoking and walking, unhurried, earning dark looks from posh daytime shoppers who thought smoking was the most disgusting thing a human could do in public.
            He lives in New York. He knows it isn’t the most disgusting thing.
            He’d walked all day, sightseeing. Had peered down into the dark water of the canal and watched his wavering reflection. Had window-shopped for clothes he could never afford.



This is going to take a while. Part of Luke is frustrated by this, but a larger, more secretive, artistic part of him is glad for the challenge of it. When he interviews someone for a piece – which is rarely – it’s all shorthand, tape recorders, and wedging into too-tight corners of coffee shops, his mark shifting, impatient, and nervous as a prospective john caught hiring a call girl. Like there’s something wrong with making a statement that will be put down on paper. People want to be transparent and transient these days. They don’t want anything to stick to them: not mortgage payments, not weekend plans, and not something they said one time to that moody loser with the glasses.


Fall in Virginia

            Trees crowd the road, orange maples and yellow pecans, flicking loose leaves to spiral toward the windshield. Driveways marked with painted mailboxes snake through the expanding fields and copses. The landscape comes from a previous time; they could be driving through the colony of Virginia, rather than the state. DC’s bustle seems an age ago, several miles behind them.

Leesburg, Virginia


            Luke cracks his eyes against the dappled shadows that fall across them through the windows. Squints at the quaint, colonial city-center that he reads is Leesburg from a roadside sign.

Maddox family home in Leesburg


            Luke isn’t loving the idea of getting out – all that movement – so he sits too, waiting. “Did Matt grow up here?” he asks.

            “Yeah.” A smile touches the corner of Hal’s mouth. “Will too.”

            Luke sees them, sepia ghosts moving across the grass. Little Will with a missing tooth and hair shining beneath the sun, rips in the knees of his pants. Chasing Finn, the two of them laughing, the sound bright and clean in the autumn air.

Colonial interior at the Leesburg house


The Leesburg house has its own heartbeat. A pulse reverberating deep beneath the floorboards, flickering in the rumpled top corners of the wallpaper. It breathes, sighs dust motes and the sharp scent of cedar-lined closets. It’s full of benevolent ghosts: children thundering down the stairs, maidens lingering in the library windows, field hands in the front pasture, sickles propped on their shoulders as they survey the grand brick structure. The wear of hundreds of handprints has sanded the chair railing smooth. The field stone feels like marble under bare toes, cold and polished by feet, and socks, and boots.

Tentative release date is Dec. 17.

Synopsis:

Luke always thought he’d grow up to be a famous author. Then again, he also thought nothing could ever damage his relationship with his childhood best friend, Hal. He thought a lot of things that proved to be untrue. But now he barely makes rent and proofreads articles at a New York gossip rag, dreaming about what-might-have-been. He’s not bitter about it. He’s not. And he certainly isn’t lonely.

Will Maddox – Korean War vet, unapologetic curmudgeon – is the father of a controversial young US Senator, and he’s in trouble with the law after striking someone outside a charity event. In Luke’s eyes, he’s just a senile old man with anger management issues, and he has no idea why his editor would send him to DC to interview him. He flies down from New York thinking he’ll stay a day, expecting an epically boring assignment.

The catch? Hal works security for the Maddox family. And he’s really excited to see Luke after three years apart. And Luke is still really, hopelessly, desperately in love with his best friend.

Luke’s about to learn there’s a big difference between expectations and reality. And this interview just might be the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

A book about the bravery of ordinary people, and the wounds they carry.


Tuesday, November 15, 2016

NaNo Day 15: Rough Draft Done!

Yesterday was so productive!!! I completed the rough draft of Walking Wounded, which means today I get to begin detail work.

I'm so excited! 😛😛😛

The official cover, blurb, and teasers will be coming very soon. But here's a little tidbit since today's #TeaserTuesday.

Luke hates opportunities; they’re always so open-ended.


Unlike my other books, this novel has only two narrators: Luke, frustrated poet/novelist working for a small New York gossip magazine, and Will, who Luke is interviewing for most of the book. I love writing Luke; he's a cynic, a smartass, and a secret romantic, though he'd deny it to the bitter end. He doesn't wear labels, he's an individual; this is no alpha-male, genre-specific hero. Everyone who follows me on Facebook knows I have a hard time swallowing the labels that get placed on my books, and if nothing else, I can rest assured that Luke and co. won't suffer the same Goodreads tags as the Dartmoor crew.

Look for Walking Wounded in about a month at online retailers, and stay tuned for giveaway announcements.

Monday, November 14, 2016

NaNo Day 14: Setback


Luke's writing nook in Georgetown

The last three days were pretty much a total waste. I, as usual, came down with some sort of sickness and was a lump of human uselessness. Fever, aches, chills, headache, the whole bit. That's why I don't like to set firm release dates or deadlines, because I inevitably get sick and it throws everything off.

But I'm back at it today, slow but steady style, and I am so, so close to being done with Walking Wounded. That's so exciting for me! It means I'll have plenty of time for edits, rewrites, and the like. In a lot of ways, I'll be sad to finish it, because it's been the best writing experience - the most artistic and driven - I've had in over a year. But that just means it's time to start work on something new that can give me that same feeling.

Favorite lines of the day:

But in the end, he keeps it simple. He tells his children this:
            He doesn’t regret it. Not one second.

Friday, November 11, 2016

Thank You, Vets

USMC War Memorial in DC (Iwo Jima)

In my family, Veterans' Day is doubly special because it also happens to be my grandfather's birthday - and he also happens to be a Marine Corps veteran.

Last month, I sat down with him -  and his brother, my great uncle Ted -  to talk about their time with the Corps. It was the longest, most comprehensive conversation I've had with them about their service, about day-to-day life in the middle of a war, and I loved hearing their stories. I was researching practicalities for Walking Wounded, but I came away from that afternoon with so much creative energy and excitement about the book. I'm so grateful to them both for sharing their experiences with me - there is truly no substitute for a first-person account - and I'm a little nervous about getting it all right.

The thing about war stories: within them we find both the worst, and the shining best of humankind. We see tragedy, and we see a kind of bravery most of us, safe and warm in our beds, cannot fathom. The military history of this nation is one stunning tale after the next, a patchwork quilt of stories from the men and women who've served, stitched together with great pride and patriotism. To study it will make you feel small - in the very best way.

I'm thankful every day for the veterans who have, who do, and who will serve this country. Thank you, all.

Happy Veterans' Day.

Korean War Memorial in DC

Monday, November 7, 2016

NaNo Day 7: Words for Breakfast


Day 7 and week one is complete!

My favorite thing about NaNo is the way it forces me to set everything else aside and just write. I get up and write before first light, and like a balanced meal, a breakfast of words makes it easier to not only complete my word count goals, but power through the rest of the writing day. I'm a realist - I know I'll get tired, and it will get harder and harder to stick to the program, but for right now, it's enabling some really inspired writing, and for that I'm grateful.

With Walking Wounded, I'm employing a strategy I used to a lesser degree with Loverboy: telling a character's lengthy and varied history through a series of specific, detailed vignettes. It's always a bit of a risk because you're highlighting a character's change over time through subtle shifts of characterization across these vignettes, but as a writer I find it to be a fascinating challenge. There are two main story arcs in the book, stories that are parallel in unexpected ways. And like I said on Instagram last week, the book is truly about history of all kinds. By exploring themes of love, acceptance, betrayal, forgiveness, and grief, the book steers you toward the realization that a look back at history highlights the way all generations are similar, more than it highlights the differences.

A favorite passage from week one:


Walking Wounded
Copyright © 2016 by Lauren Gilley


  
            Finn let his legs give out and flopped down onto the grass, spread-eagle and staring up at the sky, chest heaving as he caught his breath.

            Will stretched out beside him, fighting his own lungs. He loved the rush of running for all he was worth, the way it tasted when he breathed through his mouth and sucked in huge gulps of air, legs and chest burning. Adrenaline, his father called it. It was sweet as candy.

            Overhead, the clouds tumbled in lazy formations, fat and white. Will thought one looked like a dragon, its jaws open, forelegs extended.

            Slowly, their breathing returned to normal. The grass tickled at Will’s skin and began to itch; he smelled earth and green things, and the faint musty inside of the barn behind them. Inside, his father had set up a tire swing, and it awaited their pleasure, whenever they felt like picking themselves up.

            Beside him, Finn took a deep breath and let it back out in a rush. “Mama’s gonna have another baby,” he said, like it was the end of the world. He already had two sisters. “It’s gonna be another girl, I know it.”

            “Maybe not,” Will said, soothingly. But a part of him hoped it was. His own brother had died three weeks before he was due; he remembered, vaguely, the tiny coffin they’d buried at the funeral, the way it was no bigger than a shoe box. And so maybe it was selfish, but he was an only child, and he lived in constant fear that the oh-so-fertile Mrs. Murdoch would pop out a little brother for Finn and that Finn would turn his back on Will. He knew that would never happen – he knew; they were best friends – but it kept him up sometimes at night.






Friday, November 4, 2016

Walking Wounded - First Look


NaNo Day 4 and I'm so happy with the progress I've already made. I met my word count goal at 8:30, so yay for that. I'm aiming for a mid-December release for Walking Wounded, and I'm slowly going to be teasing more and more of it as NaNo continues. Today, I wanted to share a real first look.

Meet our central protagonist and narrator, Luke, and his best friend, Hal.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

NaNo Day 2


I woke up at five this morning of my own volition. Because...I don't know why. I thought it was six, and it took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize just how early it was. But hey, nothing wrong with knocking the word count out early.

It was a foggy morning, the kind of heavy fog that fights the sunrise. The kind so thick you can hear it splattering in fat drops down onto leaves. The kind of atmosphere that teases at the Story part of my brain. I bracketed my barn routine with writing, and reached my word count goal at ten. I'll count that as a very good NaNo day.

Walking Wounded has been a creative blessing. It's helped me feel connected to the process in a way that seems fresh and exciting. Working on it has spawned other ideas, and helped me reconnect with projects collecting dust on the shelf. It's helped me feel brave enough to schedule new challenges for 2017, and dive back into a series I've been wanting to publish for a long while now. When I talked to my mom about it, she said Walking Wounded was a book for me, and she was right. It's a story I wanted to write, rather than the story I was expected to write, and I think that's so important. Writing is a long game, a marathon rather than a sprint, and in order to stick with it long term, you have to reward your brain every so often. That's what this book is - a reward for my brain. I hope to have more rewards just like it next year.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Welcome to NaNo!


It's the first day of NaNoWriMo 2016! I'm using exclamation points to hide how stressed I am about it!

It's 11:15 on the east coast and I just hit my word count goal for the day, so that's exciting. I'm not signed up anywhere to participate officially, but I'm going to (try to) chronicle my daily progress here and on Instagram (@hppress).

So Happy kickoff and Happy #TeaserTuesday! I can't wait to share this book with everyone.



~*~

Walking Wounded
Copyright © 2016 by Lauren Gilley

            Will went up to his own room and found Finn there, sitting on his bed and paging through a comic without any interest. Will eased the door shut and kicked off his shoes, walked to the bed and sat down beside his friend.
            Finn sat with his legs curled up beneath him, head bowed, stare fixed on the patterned quilt while his fingers mindlessly turned the pages. His profile, limned in the soft silvery snow light coming through the window, was a finely-wrought shadow, precise lines and endless eyelashes. He sucked his lower lip between his teeth. “I didn’t really know him that well.”
            Will put his arm around Finn’s shoulders, felt the fine tremors of suppressed emotion.
            “Will, I want to go to war,” he whispered, fierce and heartbroken. “I want to kill them.”

Monday, October 31, 2016

Favorite Spooky Reads


This is less a list of favorite spooky reads and more a list of all-time favorite writers. I cut my teeth on horror, and my author idols have all played with the supernatural at some point. In no particular order, some of my Halloween go-tos:

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is possibly my favorite piece of fiction writing ever. I just adore Washington Irving's prose, I love his undeniably American take on folk tales, and just...yeah, LOVE. This one's not scary, per se, and everyone knows the story by this point, but there's something magical about reading it. It's an every year re-read for me.

Pet Sematary will always be my favorite Stephen King. It's the small-scare, local horror of it that almost makes it believable. And that last line. Perfection. The scene in Little God Swamp when the "loons" are screaming gives me chills every time.

"The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe isn't his most well-know story, but it gives me the creeps. I adore Poe. A literary hero for sure.

"At the Mountains of Madness" by H.P. Lovecraft. If Poe is winking at you through his heavy Gothic curtains, then Lovecraft is dead freaking serious. His prose is gorgeous, and all of his stories are deeply unsettling. "Mountains" is in a whole other league. If you've seen the movie Prometheus, then you'll have some idea of the storyline.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. There have been several movies based on this book, and not a one of them holds a candle to the eerie literary perfection that is Shirley Jackson's writing. My version of the book includes an introductory essay by Guillermo del Toro and I would encourage everyone to read that as well.

The Witching Hour. Anyone who follows me knows how much I love Anne Rice. I would read an entire novel dedicated to Lestat shopping for new frock coats. But if I had to pick her scariest book, I think it's The Witching Hour. This book is a behemoth, and it's so excellent. Just a jamb-packed, super rich, Halloween candy overdose of a book, and the end is horrifying! It's delicious - but obviously not for readers with delicate book sensibilities.

Happy Halloween, everyone! And writers, enjoy your last day before NaNo!

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

#WorkshopWednesday - You Never Know

I'm currently reading Pat Conroy's The Lords of Discipline for the WSJ book club, and I think this may be my favorite Conroy novel to date. I've been highlighting like crazy on my Kindle, and today, this passage jumped out at me:



It's a sentiment I can identify with, to a certain degree. I didn't start riding horses because I felt inadequate, as Will suggests here, but I did begin to identify myself with my horsemanship. I was always meek and shy, but once I laced up my boots and walked down the barn aisle, I was a confident, capable adult before my time. There are moments when I think that I lean too heavily on my identity as a writer. And I for sure still feel that frisson of energy when I'm at the barn, in my element.

But the point of this post is this: You never know what's going to resonate with a reader.

As a reader, I love those moments in a book where I feel like the author is speaking directly to me. Those are moments of "Yes! That! Exactly that!" The moments when it seems that an author who lives in a different city, a different state, a different country, who lives a different life from you, says something that touches on your own reality. That's amazing. That's the cool shiver of human connection across oceans and generational gaps. That is magic.

Likewise, that same author, through his or her characters, will share sentiments that you may not share, but which are no less real. Sentiments you feel closer to after having come to "know" someone who thinks this way - even if he or she is fictional.

So when you're a writer, that's the challenge: to create scenarios that readers will respond to with something real and raw. You want your readers to feel that cold chill, that hot rush. You want them to say, "Yes, I've felt that."

Inevitably, there will be detractors. But it isn't a case of the writer being "wrong." It's a case of the detractor having no frame of reference. My message to writers is this: write a truth. Write your truth. Write your character's truth. Because that's a reader's truth, and you never know which line will resonate with which reader. Never worry about the nay-sayers who systematically downgrade your work. I never do - I listen to the sweet words of fans who were touched for the better by my characters. Write the story that you need to tell - you never know who it might help.


Wednesday, October 19, 2016

#WorkshopWednesday: NaNo Prep


I write backwards. That is to say, I don't work off an outline. Sometimes, a scene hits me so strongly - usually while I'm driving and can't write it down, ugh - that I have to open a new Doc and write it out so I can plug it in later. But for the most part, I start at the start and work through to the end, working off a mental outline. It's only after I'm done that I make a written outline, during editing, to ensure all the plot points connect. I like the organic process.

But NaNoWriMo is coming up, and that means 50k words in one month. It's a hard run to the finish line, that doesn't allow for dithering or second-guessing. So you've got to get organized ahead of time. So what's a non-outliner to do?

Prep work.

World-building
World-building isn't just for fantasy writers. The landscapes of your book - states, cities, countries, neighborhoods, houses, bookshops - go a long way toward making the story and its characters feel like real people. And world-building takes time and research. Before NaNo begins, ask yourself where your characters live and work, and what those places look like. Study photos, and small cultural nuances. Get on Google Earth, zoom down onto the streets. If you're making up a town, write out a list that contains as many details as you can provide. I've got maps, first-hand accounts, old photos, and history texts to help me with mine.

Character Study
Get to know your characters well beforehand. Whether this is through listing their traits, or writing short drabbles about them, it's important to know the characters inside and out so you'll know how they're going to move the plot along, and how they need to grow and adapt throughout.

Plot Outline
This is the biggie. It's important to leave room for organic story flow, but in order to hit that word count goal, you'll need to sketch an outline for your book. My project is a story I'm going to break into segments and insert within the larger body of the whole book. So I'm coming up with an overall outline, and then deciding where I need scene breaks; good places for the story to pause. I'm starting with the overall arc, and then refining it so that it fits the ready-made gap that it needs to fill.

Time Management
Create a writing schedule that you'll be able to stick to for the month, give or take. Be sure to include breaks for meals and snacks, time for exercise, and the all-important down time. I write best when I'm reading engaging books, so have reading material at the ready. Get your story playlists in order on your iPod and have them at the ready. Plan to get plenty of sleep and keep yourself away from social media as much as possible - it's a productivity killer!

Most of all, remember that, at the end of the day, this is just a silly thing writers do to help with word count, and if you don't reach your goal by the end of the month, no sweat. Good luck, writers!





Tuesday, October 18, 2016

NaNo Prep - The Emotional Part


Tomorrow, I want to talk NaNo prep for #WorkshopWednesday. The practical, organization of thoughts before you launch into the month-long writing marathon. But the physical prep is only part of the process. In order to tackle 50k words in one month, you have to be completely committed to your story and characters. So today I want to talk about the emotional process: how I picked my NaNo project, and what I hope to achieve with it.

I'd be willing to bet most every author has computer files dedicated to half-formed, partially-written novels, some decently started, some no more than scraps of ideas. Creativity doesn't take a break, but it isn't possible to write everything at once, so you have to prioritize.

In years past, I've juggled multiple projects during November, focusing on overall word count rather than completing one book in particular. But this year, I'm dedicating NaNo to one project, with the hopes that the novel will be complete by December first. That project is Walking Wounded, and I'm using the pressure of November to ensure that I commit to and finish the darn thing.

So why did I pick this novel instead of, say, American Hellhound? Several reasons.

  1. This book is ambitious. It has both contemporary and historical storylines; covers topics I've never written about, and which required quite a lot of research, including first-person interviews; and handles a range of delicate topics across the board, both past and present. It's also a chance for me to try my hand at present-tense narration. It's the kind of book, the kind of story, that makes me question my own writing ability, and in that sense it's exhilarating. I have to push myself to grow, and I most definitely want to grow as a writer.
  2. Anyone who follows me knows I have eclectic book taste, and that I read largely literary fiction of all sub-genres. For the last two years I've written nothing but outlaw bikers, and while that's been fun, and while I'm so appreciative of the reader response, I really want to try my hand at something more literary. NaNo gives me a way to designate time specifically for this book, to ensure I dedicate myself to it completely.
  3. I really care about these characters, and have for a while now. I also get little creative shivers about the story itself. But, as it deviates from the Dartmoor pattern I've set up the last two years, there's a small voice in the back of my head that worries about this book being accepted. During NaNo, there's no time to wonder and worry. You just write, and worry about whether anyone will read it later.
  4. This story has flowed easier and more quickly than anything I've written in the last six months, so I'm taking that as a sign and going for it.

Mostly, though, when I thought about marathon-writing, about my sore back, and too much caffeine, I could only imagine doing it with this book. So in the end, the decision was a no-brainer.

Tomorrow we'll talk about getting organized and ready to tackle all 50k words in one month. I'm feeling very thankful that I still have two weeks left to plan!

Monday, October 17, 2016

October Reading

Happy Monday, I come bearing book recs.

Last week, I read The Nightingale for book club, and this weekend I devoured The Trespasser by my favorite currently-writing author. Great reads for early October nights.


The Nightingale

This one's been at the top of the NYT list since last year, so I'm a latecomer to the party. I'm a natural-born skeptic, and hesitant to read anything that's all the rage; I generally circle a book like that for a while, sniffing and testing the wind. In this case, the hype was well-deserved.

The novel tells the story of two very different sisters and their journeys of survival in occupied France. In them, we see contrasting, and complimentary kinds of strength; we suffer and grieve alongside them. Hannah's prose is precise and hard-hitting; she pulls back the curtains and shows us the horror of the War in a way that feels visceral and current.

I've always had such a soft spot for great WWII stories, and this one is no exception. I think that War, and the men and women who endured it, show us the highest and lowest points of humanity. It's the full spectrum, packed in a few years. There's something heart-wrenching and hopeful about war stories.

Make sure you have tissues on hand for the last few chapters; it's a tear-jerker.




The Trespasser

Tana French's first book, In The Woods, released in 2008, and I've been a fan since. Her Dublin Murder Squad series has all the ingredients of my favorite kind of book: smart, artistic, literary prose; powerful imagery; a subtle attention to human detail; a grounding sort of griminess that keeps it all rooted very much in reality. And I love her characters. I think that's what I love most about her mysteries: the narrator is not merely a set of eyes through which we see the action, but a person we grow to love over the course of the novel, no matter how flawed or prickly.

In The Trespasser, we catch up with Detectives Conway and Moran again, and in a lot of ways I was sad we've already had Steve's book, because I could read another one from his POV. Antoinette is not the heroine for any readers looking for a female lead who is romantic and malleable; I actually quite liked her. Perhaps because I feel like I understand her. But probably because Tana French is just that good. In contrast to Cassie - the other female D we've followed in the past - Antoinette had a very blunt, factual way of looking at the world, not prone to exaggeration...but she wasn't immune to Steve's what-ifs. Not as much as she would hope, anyway.

Dark, and smart, the kind of writing I dream of producing someday in the future, Tana French always delivers, and never fails to remind me why I love to write.