I knew this would happen, or: NaNo update for week, uh, 4.

So much for posting once a week.  Sorry about that.  I've gotten so wrapped in writing this year's NaNoWriMo novel that I've neglected just about everything else -- including the blog.  But the end is in sight; there's light at the end of the tunnel and I'm hoping it's not an oncoming train. 

But really, I ought to get some kind of pass for having written nearly 47,000 words in just three weeks.  Yes, that's right, it's not even Thanksgiving yet and I am within shouting distance of the NaNo winner's circle.  If I had only started my writing career sooner, and been able to keep up this pace, I could have been another Joyce Carol Oates.  Output-wise, at least.

Okay, I'll stop patting myself on the back now, lest I break my arm and miss the deadline, after all.  ("I coulda been a contender….")

I am trying my hand at urban fantasy this time.  It's a little different than the previous two books in that the details need to be not just plausible, but anchored pretty firmly in reality.  I'm doing a lot more googling with this one than I have with the previous books.  It doesn't help that I picked, as the main setting, a place I haven't lived in for more than ten years.  (All I can say is:  thank the gods for Google Earth!  What did we do before the intarwebz, anyway?  I'll tell you what we did:  we lived in ignorance and fear, that's what we did.  Mark my words, someday the pre-intarwebz era will be known as the New Dark Ages.) 

Also, unlike SwanSong and The Maidens' War, this book is not modeled, either in whole or in part, on a myth or legend.  That's scary in one way -- I had to write a story arc because there was no existing framework to hang my plot on.  But  in another way, it's freeing.  This story is all mine.  I can do whatever I want with it, muahaha.  (I actually found myself grinning the other day because I'd realized that this book doesn't have to end tragically!)

And it's easier to write because I don't have to weigh whether to invent a new noun for every stinkin' thing.  I don't have to worry about what this fictional culture would call a cassava melon, for example; they would call it a cassava melon.  (Not that there are any cassava melons in the book.  Let alone any that are integral to the plot.  Muahaha.)

Anyway, rest assured that I haven't forgotten about this blog.  I promise I'll be back on track, writing once a week, from here on out.  And look for the new book (whose name I promise to post just as soon as I figure out what it is…) from yer major intarwebz booksellers sometime in spring 2012.

Oh, and happy Thanksgiving!