Done!

I did it. 44097 words added to HDP in June.

I'm thrilled.

Thanks to the organisers of the June Challenge. I know I would never have written that many words without it.

I was reading an article yesterday on the website of brilliant New Zealand author, Karina Bliss, where she talked about writing every day. I think that's what I'm happiest about. I wrote every day for a month, even though one day my total was only 82 words. And it might never happen again!

Now for a celebratory sundae!

End in sight...

So, there's about one and half days left in June. Which means there's that long to go in the 50k in 30 days challenge. I wasn't ever mad enough to think i could manage 50k but i did set myself the nearly as ridiculous 44k goal (roughly how long to get to 55k of the WIP).

Last night i arrived home at 7:30pm after a day at the in-law's farm with the kids and had a zero count. I was on target overall. I didn't want to give up with three days to go, but it was such a struggle to try for the 1467 words i needed. Somehow the lure of a sundae reward and some procrasitnating emailing with Rach made me start. And after a while the words flowed. VERY SLOWLY. But at 11:51pm i finished with 1468.

Now I have 2900w to go to reach 44000 words for the month of June. The end is in sight.

Must type more words...

Heroines

I've been thinking a lot about my hero recently. He's a loner. Is he too dark? Is he too in touch with his feelings? As my first 'bad boy' I've worked hard to achieve a balance.

But it seems to me the heroine trips us 'pre-published' up in a lot of cases. Can she be strong and likeable? Can she have vulnerability but not be weak?

It seems to me that for catagory our heroines have to be particularly aspirational. In HDP i have a heroine who didn't tell the hero that she was pregnant because he'd left town. Some contest feedback from another story and a friend's feedback on hers has me thinking that I'll need to work very hard to make sure her choice is justified. Did she try hard enough? Did she have a good enough reason not to hunt him to the ends of the earth?

.

I'm not sure. More thinking required. I think.

Words, Spiders and Sick Kids

I've been plugging away at the June challenge and despite having a day last week where 82 words was my only achievement i'm at 19708 for the challenge - only about 1k behind.

I'm not sure about the quality alas, but that surely can be helped in the edits. Am finding i picked a good story to try this with. Lucas and Gemma want to share their story with the world it seems. I've not been stuck too badly yet and i have ideas for the next scenes.

I had lots of distractions yesterday.

I have three sick kids (pretty sure it's not swine flu) and Princess nearly-Four is a puddle of woe wanting Mummy. She NEVER wants Mummy.

Then hubby casually mentioned there's a massive spider living somewhere in the car. Am I alone in being deathly afraid of spiders? The thing is, it was living on our gates and hubby refused to evict him from the property cos he wasn't harming anyone. (!)

AND he is still on the car cos hubby tried to 'shepherd' him away in peace. Not hero behaviour.

This is not time for peaceful negotiations!

So hubby is in the bad books and has been told it is time to find the spider and remove it. It's his 'save the cat' moment.

How i hope he comes through...

For the love of a good... Laptop

Over the last few days I've been reading about Anne McAllister's new love, Charley and it's got me thinking about my laptop, Ender, and how much I adore him. He was new last year when I complained that if i wanted to write in the evenings I had to hide away on the desktop (hidden from kiddy fingers).
Now, with the help of Ender, Hubby and I can sit side by side working on our laptops (he's in IT and has geek stuff to do most nights).
Ender is also banned from the internet which means i'm not distracted by email or facebook. It's with Ender's help I've managed 5000 words already off the 44k I've aimed to do in June. I'm hoping the trend continues!

50k in 30 days

Yup, I'm giving this a go.
Aiming for the 44k needed to finish His Dark Past.
I was going to try last year but all day morning sickness saw me wimp out. I shall be stronger this time, i hope.
To everyone else trying this, welcome to the insanity and GOOD LUCK!