I was thinking about uploading my short story collection to google docs so I could livestream my writing process. While this is a great idea for competitive, quick writing like NaNoWriMo, I wonder if people would be interested in it for just other, regular times I write.

We could chat while I write, and it would be more like a writer’s workshop, which always makes writing easier for me. IDEAS? Would you watch me write live if you could? Is anyone interested in this?

EDIT:

onehundredbilliongalaxies answered your question: I was thinking about uploading my short story… http://marawilsonwritesstuff.com/writing-advice-from-auntie-mara/… Item One!

It’s not like I’d be promoting a finished project, it would be just a digital writer’s workshop.

SAM COLE, Let’s make this a thing! We could write at the same time and workshop together!!

First sighting of my romance novel’s love interest…

And then a man I didn’t know I’d later know walked in. There was no way for me to have predicted how much of an influence this man would become. In the coming weeks he would save me, both emotionally, physically, and in ways I didn’t even know I’d need saving.

My romance novel so far:

In retrospect, I recognize myself as a walking satire of a woman with more dreams than discipline. I wrote every day of my life. None of it amounted to anything, unless you counted term papers and cryptic blog entries vague enough to convey no real information. There was no evidence of my craft. I was twenty-five, and quite talented at short bursts of creativity. But instead of a body of short stories for a portfolio, I had a dozen starts to novels going no where. There was one book that I finished writing, but I was twelve years old and it was terrible. Instead, I had a portfolio of broken promises to myself.

My journal was filled with lofty plans and expectations. Now that I was finished with my bachelors degree, I was going to backpack through Europe for inspiration. Like Hemingway, trains through Spain and France would serve my creativity. I was going to drink wine and espresso at the same time. I was going to hang out with the tragically hip, and go to bars to read classic literature. I was going to live the starving writer’s life style, drink only coffee, lose 10 pounds and finally be happy and anxious free. I was going to write a novel with strong female characters that was decidedly not chick lit. My expectations of the world were unrealistic,and Europe had different plans for me.

Working on my main character

So, here are the things Harlequin is looking for in a protagonist:

The Heroine:

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She is the Cosmo woman: fun, fearless, female


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She is independent


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She does not need a man to make her life complete, but he is the icing on the cake


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She’s adventurous and daring both in the bedroom and out!


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She values her female friendships


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She is focused on her career


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Our heroine (and hero) grew up with reality TV, texting, online dating


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She is most likely in her early to mid-twenties


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The heroine drives the story

I can get down with that.

Too many days off.

I’m incredibly behind in word count. I’ve just skipped too many days, which is unfortunately only 5 days. My successes in NaNo this year lay in the fact that I’m still writing around 2,000 words a day, and that I’m actively invested in what I’m writing.

Any NaNo that keeps you writing after November has ended is a success in my book.(No pun intended.)

I’m actually really proud of some of the things I’ve written, and I think after more writing and a ton of editing, I could really come out of this with something I’m excited to share with the world.

I keep telling myself it’s still too early in the process to think about publishing.

So, I had a reallly scary experience two nights ago.

I wrote this as a narrative because I’m including it as a scene in my NaNoWriMo. However, none of this is exaggerated. This is exactly as it happened:

The night was dark and I was waiting at a bus stop. I was meeting up with my boyfriend and I didn’t want to have to throw my bike in the back of his truck, so I decided to take the bus. I waited for the bus at the same stop I have been using all my life. Less than a block away from my parent’s house, I’d waited at this bus stop a thousand times before.

The stop was on the edge of a large parking lot, with a gas station and a 7-11 on the third side. Across the street was a mirrored parking lot and gas station. The only difference was the missing 7-11 on the opposite side. I always caught the bus on this side and got off the bus on the other.

As I approached the stop I noticed a couple sitting on the designated bench. They were engaging in public displays of affection. Not wanting to sit in their personal space, I stood a little to the side. Still between the bench and the bus stop sign, I was directly underneath the street light.

It was raining very lightly, but I had no reservations about standing for five minutes in it. You could only really tell the weather was poor because of the way the light flickered off the mist beneath the street lamp.

There was a lull in traffic, and a man used this opportunity to cross the street towards me. He reached the bus stop, but instead of facing the direction the bus would be coming, or even looking at the street at all, he looked directly at me. He positioned himself between me and the road and stared. My heart was racing, and I diverted my eyes to the ground.

The man introduced himself and I instantly forgot his name. I said nothing, hoping my unresponsiveness would give him a few context clues.

“Your hair is wet,” he clumsily attempted to start a conversation.

I found myself staring him in the eyes. This reaction had less to do with active listening, and was more akin to a doe’s instinct to freeze and stare directly into the headlights of an oncoming car.

When I held my breath instead of answering, the man expressed concern that I would catch a cold. He rambled for a bit about my health, and I discretely released the safety on the pepper spray in my pocket.

He reached out his hand. I froze. He jutted his hand out further and asked me what my name was. I couldn’t breathe. There was no way in hell I was going to shake this guy’s hand.

“No.” It felt like a whisper, though I had so much adrenaline pumping I could have been screaming.

“No?”

I looked to the couple to my left. They were lost in each other, unaware of the my dangerous situation feet away.

My eyes again reached the man. He was much taller than I was. His shirt hung absurdly off of his skinny body. He wore short sleeves and no coat, which was strange for a rainy November night.

“No,” I repeated. “You’re a stranger. It’s night. I’m at a bus stop.”

His eyes darted in the direction of the incoming traffic, and then back to my eyes.

“Good job,” he responded.

And with that he retraced his steps back across the street. Reaching the farther parking lot, he opened the side door of a van and talked with a silhouette inside. Seconds later the bus arrived and I left.

While the bride could not follow their quick conversation in low German, she was entranced by the melancholy images on the man’s forearms; dark silhouettes of leafless trees danced like skeletons against his pale skin. An owl with a scowling left eye, the right obscured by a deep scar; the eye seemed to follow her as she circled around to the other side of the stranger. A wolf’s head with a bloody dagger thrust upward through it adorned the man’s right forearm, with braided garlic forming a frame about it. The words beneath the bloodied beast read: “Der Wolf macht alles für nichts.”

Upon inquiring for a translation, her husband said “The wolf does it all for nothing.” The gruff, tattooed Bavarian could not reply to her directly. His English skills, he claimed, did not really exist. She found this strange, as the man’s job required interaction with the youths usually found backpacking through Europe. Apparently this area did not get many travelers.

Their bed was less comfortable as you’d expect a hostel bed to be, and the bride could not wait to rid herself of this place and its strange inn keeper. It was a good thing that they planned to keep moving. The husband, with his more useful conversation skills, asked the tattooed Bavarian if he could recommend another hostel as they journeyed towards the infamous Black Forest.

He did not know of any hostels on the way, especially on these back roads. The inn keeper told the couple that it was in their best interest to head for the main road, due to more accessible lodging and for safety issues. The groom relayed this information to his bride, omitting the Bavarian’s concern for safety.

We Are All Cursed Here, NaNoWriMo 2012

NaNoWriMo 2012: We are all cursed here. Update

All of my stories so far are from the Werewolves’ point of view. Most of them consist of, “this is why it sucks to be a werewolf. I didn’t ask for this! I know I killed a lot of people, but sympathize with me. Wahhhhhhhhh!” I did want to focus on how tragic it is to be a werewolf and how all werewolves are both victims and killers, it’s a vicious cycle, etc. That’s why I named it We Are All Cursed Here. Because the curse hurts everybody in the situation… but at the same time defending murder over and over again feels so icky.

So, for the next week or more I’m going to focus on survival. Some classic scary stories, from the victims’ point of view, where good triumphs over curses. My NaNo needs some balance. I mean, if I want people to feel conflicted, I have to give them equal conflicting messages.

Follow my NaNo progress:#NaNoWriMo 2012

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