Slogging along.

Dear Reader,

I don't know how the nonfiction authors do it. This is exhausting work. And yet, there are nonfiction authors who churn out a book in a couple of weeks. Yeah, that's right. Less than a month. This thing I'm working on right now, I started about three years ago. I got stuck and put it down for about a year. Because I kept fact checking and fact checking, even after I had finished my research. Perhaps the problem is I am anxious about getting this right. Perhaps the problem is that I am just anxious about branching out into new to me genres.

I have been struggling but I am almost at my goal. I'm currently at 46.9K words. My goal is 50. If I was writing straight up fiction, I could have hit that in the last two days. I'll be honest, I have spent way more time double and triple checking facts this week on my nonfiction projects than I have spent writing. I will confess, I had written out notes and an outline for both projects. For one, those went missing. Which one was it? Yep, the big project. It's been a nail biter for me because I want to get everything right. I feel like I'm revisiting college and working on a final term paper.

Still, I'm working hard to do my best here. And that's all anybody can ask of you, right. When I picked this thing back up to work on it, by the way, it was at 39K. Averaging around two thousand words a day is on track for NaNoWriMo counting, but I know I could do better if I could just stop being so anxious about this. The worst part here is the fact that I'm writing on a topic that I have blogged about extensively on another blog of mine for the better part of three years. I've probably written two and a half books worth of material through all of those blog posts. But making a novel length book on the topic has me half panicked I'm going to mess it all up.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I have an anxiety problem. Can you tell it effects my writing?

The Iron Lily: Part 19 - Guest in the Fair House

Halthor looked at the apples sitting in the bowl. "Are they tart?" he asked. The woman in blue looked at the apples and shook her head. "Why are they so big? What do you do with them?" He knew something of cider making because he and Alaric had to build a new cider press for the king's steward's son. The juice of the small apples that were dumped into the press by bucket full was so tart that it was nearly bitter. Alaric laughed when Halthor was duped into trying a taste of the freshest cider in Starhaven, raw tart apple juice. That was when Olren explained that the cider had to go hard for the flavor to improve.


Halthor was caught in the happy memory long enough that he missed at first what his hostess had to say. He realized that he was going to be confused anyways as she spoke of something called 'grafting'. Still, it was pleasant enough to listen to the beautiful elf-woman talk. There was a soothing, musical quality to her voice that put the voices calling out beyond the door to shame. Halthor leaned his head against his left fist as he propped his arm on the table and just looked at the Blue Lady.



She stopped speaking and looked at Halthor. He looked weary. The red haired man had a long voyage ahead of him still. His blue-green eyes had a far off look in them, as though he was thinking about something. His red hair was tangled but he wasn't filthy. He just looked like a man who had a very long day outdoors. The elf-woman folded her hands before herself. It had been a very long time since she had company. She lived alone at the glade where as her people moved northward into the high mountain forests. The rolling hills reminded her of their old home to the east. Looking at Halthor, she realized that she was lonely and this was why she was prating on about apple orchards.



She turned her gaze back to the food before her. With her eating knife, she began to carve the bird apart. The goose was as tender as it could have been. It was perfectly cooked, as was proper for her magic cook pot could do so with any food she put in it. The pot was a gift from her elder brother's wife who foresaw the journey west. She thought of Alyrin who passed her by upon the elfin green way. Her sister had a dear and deep love for the people of this land. The Blue Lady wore a solemn expression as she carved the goose. Then she set her eating knife down beside her bowl and dipped her fingers into a small bowl of water before drying them on a linen towel embroidered with a band of blue flowers.



"The Fair House has not had a guest in a hundred years. To my people it is but a passing sigh in life, but it is a long time to be alone," she finally said as Halthor immediately became attentive as her demeanor changed and through her silence, and now watched her earnestly. "My sister moves amongst men freely, skilled in the arts of disguise and secure in her power," the Blue Lady continued, "I have remained here waiting as she asked me. When our people went north, we stayed behind. Alyrin felt that your people needed a guide. I could not help but heed the call of the land. The waters sang to me. It was a song I had not heard before. They continue to sing to me, different songs every day. In return, I care for them. Alyrin the builder fashioned my brother's hall away in our homeland. She built this house for me. Alyrin's kindness I have never forgotten."



Halthor looked at the contents of the cottage with new eyes. He saw that each stone was laid in place upon bare stone, yet there was no gap for the wind to whistle in. The furniture was carved and joined together with skill beyond what he had seen under Alaric, who had been master builder of the guild for at least as long as Halthor had been under his care. Great pieces like the chair he had sat in earlier were carved from but one enormous bit of wood. As he inspected them more closely, he realized that all of the wooden objects in the cottage could have been disassembled and put together to make a single tree. Halthor turned his gaze back to the elf-woman sitting across the table from him. "Alyrin chose you for your craft and Father chose you for your heart," the Blue Lady said quietly, "I know not why you were sent to me."

Another day, more words to vomit.

And that, dear Reader, is the mantra of NaNoWriMo (and NaBloPoMo to some extent). What's the point to all of this word vomit? To get as many ideas down as possible. Cleaning it up into a workable text comes later. A rough draft is precisely that, rough. There is going to be a lot of stuff that when you come back to the manuscript is just bloat and needs to be cut down. There is also going to be a lot of stuff that needs to have more detail filled in. This makes up for however much you need to cut out of your manuscript in the editing process, trust me.

Just pour it all out on the page. No matter how undignified it may feel. Sometimes your best work comes out of what felt like it was complete garbage.

Suddenly a wild meme appears! Roll for initiative.

I just finished the project I started to cheat on NaNoWriMo. It's barely a novella length, but I made it. Now to work on the next project, finishing the Psychic's Handbook that I've been stalled on for FOREVER. It's like I should have seen the ending of that one coming or something, right?

What's YOUR word count?

Hi there,

If you started early and are a cheater, like me, I bet you've got a great word count already. If you just started today, I bet you have a great word count already. If you are starting in the next five minutes, I know you'll have a great word count.

Because a word count of one is fantastic when you're just starting. A word count of two is even more awesome. String together a few sentences and paragraphs and you've got a lovely beginning. All words count, even the ones you want to delete. So don't delete them. Use strike through font but keep the words. This month is about slapping all of the ideas up on the page. Don't worry about what ones stick, just keep throwing ideas.

Kinda like water balloons at a target. If you throw a massive barrage, you'll hit that target at some point by sheer numbers. :)

Oh crap, It's NANOWRIMO & NANOBLOPOMO! AND A TOMATO!

Dear Reader,

I completely forgot about blog and other writing prompts.

Here's your three prompts for today!

1. Spoiled Food
2. "The best way to tell a lie is to tel the truth, the carefully edited truth."

3. Verbal pet peeves

Good luck writing! ♥

Wednesday Rambling (On Thursday)

Dear Reader,

It is surreal to sit here at the beginning of NaNoWriMo and have it be yet another year with out Stargazer around. She was the reason why I got started with NaNoWriMo. She would do a dual NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo every year. I miss her dearly and keep finding myself thinking what would she think about my project this year.

I have the thing I started last month, because I'm a NaNo practicalist, I have two small children who have a vacation from school in the middle of NaNo. You're just plain silly if you think I'm not starting early to work around that and stuff like orthodontist appointments. November is going to be a busy month on the domestic side of the ledger, which is why I started back in mid October. It is going to be a small novella and I'm approximately at the halfway point. I'm feeling confident I can have this thing done by mid month and still get a good whack at book seven, maybe even finish it.

Halthor's journey continues later this evening. I've been sick with a cold and trying to catch up on everything. As Beloved said, " 'tis the season for sneezing". At least I got the flu shot last week. *knocks wood* Here's hoping no one in my household comes down with it. If my luck goes like last year, I'll catch the other strain of the flu that is going around that there isn't a vaccine for. Which means I'll be writing whilst wrapped up in blankets with extra amounts of hot tea on hand.