A girl wakes up naked…

My main character in TalysMana wakes up to discover that she has been unconscious on the floor for three days, everything she owns has been stolen, she has no memory of what happened, and thugs are standing over her debating “getting rid of the body” versus just getting out of the place and leaving her boyfriend, who “skated,” to take the blame for what he did to her.

Her one asset is a Basset hound named Fred.

She’s about to get a second asset from an incredible source.

516 words, and I’m having fun.

How about you?

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17 responses to “A girl wakes up naked…”

  1. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    I downloaded Liquid Story Binder and took all my docs that were scattered all over the place and put them all into one book (My POW). So, I think I did about 500 words today. My total now for the book is at 7800. Still trying to figure out how this tool works, but I thought the best way was to jump right in. I thought I would be all over the storyboards, especially after Holly’s plotting course, but today I spent most of my time on the outlines.

    I didn’t feel well this morning, so I called in sick to work, but after a couple hours of writing, I felt a lot better.

    1/10th of the way to my goal!

  2. Lisa R Avatar
    Lisa R

    No writing in the last three days because I went to a retreat. I was very blown away on the first day. This last summer I wrote a short story that I am letting percolate. Well, that and I haven’t taken the time to edit. Anyway, I lived a five minute part of the story. Now when I edit this part of the story, I know exactly how I want it to be. This is one of the fun parts of writing!

  3. Gary Townsend (a.k.a. G D Townshende) Avatar

    Yesterday, 1499 words. Today, 1353 words. For a total of 6798 thus far in this short story. Looks like it might go a little longer than the planned 7500, but I don’t think it’ll be too much longer. Still, this is just the first draft. Even if it goes to 8000, following the Algis Budrys rule cited by Stephen King, second draft = first draft – 10%, and that would reduce it to at least 7200.

    I’m still on course to accomplish my goal of having it finished by no later than this Wednesday.

  4. red_dot Avatar
    red_dot

    Saturday I watched a couple hours of Shuttle videos on prep for astronauts. Today is STS-129 launch, watching live feed. The subject of my book requires lots of reasearch. I’m up to about 75 hours of video I have watched.

  5. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    2743, thanks to a hour of word sprints with my friend Lisa. Got in a dynamite bit of dialogue and uncovered a suspect I hadn’t a clue existed. That will need a bit of backtrack work during revision. A good night!

  6. Leigh Avatar

    I’m mired in Nano- I have the whole story layed out… but as i get into scene writing I find myself researching about avalanches and mining and the things that happen in the story, and then i find myself bogged down in “what are the mining rules in colorado?” “why would this be illegal?” “how is this avalanche caused exactly”… i’m not going to make my word count like this! Should I just power through the dialogue/words and drop in later to tweak the science/technical stuff? I’m just worried that the “logic” of the entire thing might be off if i don’t work it out beforehand. arg.

    1. Jessica Avatar

      That’s where I find square brackets useful. I write the scene the way I want it, realistic or not, and then put [whatever needs to be researched] in brackets to get back to on revision. I wouldn’t worry too much about the technical stuff, since most readers probably won’t hang you for it – unless it’s a book on avalanches. 😉

      1. Leigh Avatar

        Ah ha! That’s what those square brackets are for! 🙂 That sounds like a great idea. Thanks for helping me become unstuck.
        Oh, and I’m at 3,163 words.

  7. Adam Avatar

    i’ve just been posting to my writing diary, but i’ve been getting my words and yesterday sat down and finished chapter 21 and moved on into chapter 22. Need to get 2 chapters every 3 days for the next week and a half to finish on my goal, and i think that is a pace i can keep up with.

    just passed 87,000 words with the last installment.

  8. Jessica Avatar

    Another day off to spend with the family. It was almost like being a kid again – playing old nintendo games with my sisters, one parents watching a sports game, the other parent watching a movie… And now that I’m back to work it’s back to writing on breaks and the bus.

  9. Khena Avatar
    Khena

    This weekend was… wonderful, and horrible, all at the same time. I wrote this wonderful scene, that while not going quite to plan, was the best writing I had done in a LONG time. I cried the whole time I wrote it (I killed someone), despite my children running through the halls like little barbarians. It was amazing, and I was high on it for hours.
    Then I wrote an ok scene. I was still happy. Then I wrote this horrible monstronsity, that is just bad. I know there has to be a better way for this scene to unfold, but I can’t think of it. So, I’m just going to have to push through and hope for the best when I edit.
    But I had an amazing wordcount for the weekend, almost 8k words since Friday =) Yay for my nano!

  10. Larkk Avatar
    Larkk

    Beep, beep…here comes the truck backing up with another big load of NaNo words to drop off at Write a Book with Me.
    I didn’t think I had another big word day in me, but about 4200 words at a NaNoWriMo write-in and another scene I couldn’t wait to finish last night landed me a total of 6172 words by the end of the day.
    I guess dialing back my target to be happy with 547 words on Saturday did the trick, and maybe slowing down a bit was just what I needed to get my second wind. Way above my target for yesterday and still happily writing!
    Now I have written all the way to the end of my new scenes, and I have all day today to figure out what I will write tonight : )

  11. DasteRoad Avatar

    That’s some real cool beginning Holly! I can’t wait to see where this is going… my old, huge and now cast aside (being badly wrecked) fantasy project, Infinity, had a contemporary crossover aspect to it too (among the many, way too many threads, subthemes and stuff it had). I was fond of it, because it led me to discover many interesting (and unplanned!) sides of my main character – but it was a bit of a thorn in my side since I realized it was very poorly plotted and didn’t go much farther than the overused plot device of “girl from modern earth ends up on a fantasy world and lives many adventures in the attempt to come back home”. The fact that the MC was from modern earth had heavy consequences on her state of mind and personality, but had no actual consequence on the rest of the plot, which evolved as the usual “unlikely heroes against terrible odds” – apart from a tiny detail which was only discovered in the end, but was more of a cause than a consequence.

    This is what I came to dislike, and one of the many reasons why I dropped that project. Yes, that feeling of being stranded away from home is integral to her character – but it’s not strictly necessary for her to come from modern earth: she would still feel like a stranger if she came from an isolated culture in that same fantasy world, for instance, and in any case it would be much better if the event that took her away from home was precisely *related to the plot*.

    If she comes from earth, I better have a damn good REASON for it other than “so the reader can relate to her”, “it’s cool”, “it just happened like that” or “it’s prophecy” (gah! Take them prophecies away from me!). And this is one of the many things I think I’ve learned from you, Holly 🙂

    I had my reason, but it was pretty close to “it just happened” and “it’s prophecy” (though I had elaborated my own concept of prophecies which allowed for free will and multiple endings – I ended up casting that theme aside all the same: too tempting to use it as a deus ex machina). And it wasn’t just good enough 🙂

    Now back to the matter at hand: WABWM!

    320 words on Sunday for PoB. Erthel gets out of bed to get dressed, and discovers the cause of the pain in her belly. This led me to a bit of research about what women did in the preindustrial world when they had their period, and it was quite interesting, though it wasn’t far from what I could easily imagine (and it wasn’t like I needed MANY details, but still, it’s always better to get a feel for the everyday life of characters).

    There’s a big, juicy red herrings in this scene, hope the reader doesn’t see it too soon.

  12. Leah Avatar
    Leah

    FINALLY! I’m back. My test is done, and so is Cheerleading Far East, a week-long camp and competition held for all the military schools located in the Orient. However, I caught the bug that was going around it, probably the laryngitis other coaches had, and feel a little low.

    Still, did writing today! 706 words! How refreshing!

  13. The Pencil Neck Avatar
    The Pencil Neck

    953 words.

    The Bodyguard, returning from getting new ids made, is angry. He storms past some rioters outside the apartment complex shoving people out of his way. When he gets inside, he happens to catch a glimpse of a face in the crowd of rioters outside and realizes that the Princess is outside being beaten up. He storms out and kills a couple of guys and chases away the rest. Then he carries the Princess into the Apartment complex.

    The next scene opens with a battered Princess shot full of drugs trying to keep it together as they boldly walk into a space port filled with rebels who are id’ing people trying to leave the planet to identify nobles who may be trying to escape “justice.” The Princess sees someone she recognizes.

    I have realized that one of my coming plot points absotively makes no sense. I need to redo that part of my outline. The change is going to have a domino effect through the rest of the book.

  14. Teri Avatar
    Teri

    Another catch-up day for Nano, with 4,106 words.

    Princess Laena has left the capital to visit with her sister, while she still can. On the way, her old nurse waxes melancholic outside a small village, and Laena learns, to her surprise, that the woman was born on a farm and elevated to the queen’s service because her husband died protecting the king from assassination.

    Once she reaches their destination, she is delighted to learn that her sister seems to have grown out of the ill-health that plagued her all through her childhood. They start gossiping about abdicatons, coronations, and weddings.

  15. Tori Avatar
    Tori

    I love where you have started with your character Holly! It reminds me of the beginning of my story, and makes me love it again! So thank you for that.

    This has been my first time participating with Nano and for awhile it was a bit out of control. Because I had not really planned this like I had my other project I was doing for HtTS I sort of let my characters decide where to take the story. For a while that had seemed to be a great idea. But hitting the murky middle changed things. Suddenly my characters were not doing interesting things, they were letting things happen to them. I need to change that.

    I have hit 25k for day 15 of Nano (wrote around 1600 words I believe, maybe slightly less). I am glad I have kept up with the word count. This tells me I can write on a deadline, and I am very happy about that!

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