Tuesday, October 27, 2015

National Novel Writing Month

I enjoy reading murder mysteries, whether cozy or police procedural. I've taken classes on homicide detectives, forensic science, crime scene investigation -- all geared toward writers. I follow a former LEO's blog, and am a member of a Yahoo site related to writing crime.

But I'd never thought I'd write a crime story, until recently. Well, scratch that. I had written one, a paranormal historical whydunit called The Ripper's Daughter. But that doesn't count, because while there are murders, the reader knows who the killer is, and the question becomes can the hero stop that person?

Okay, confession time. I wrote a screenplay with a homicide detective and his retrocognitive partner investigating a series of murders. In fact, I'm considering submitting it to contests.

Maybe I should have started with I'm trying my hand at writing a possible police procedural series, particularly an occult police procedural. In fact, I'm working on two of them, writing one now and plotting the other for NaNoWriMo next month.

The first one, currently called the Tzadkiel Project is one of the few stories I'm writing off the top of my head. The other, called the Memitim, is being plotted in WriteWay Pro and Dramatica Pro. I'm also using the Tarot for my characters' hero/ine journeys.

Usually, I end up writing NaNo by the seat of my pants. October 1 rolls around, and I think, "I have a whole month to plot, write my characters' goals, motivations, and conflicts, etc." October 15. "Oh, I still have two weeks. It's all good." October 31, 11:59 AM. "Damn! All I have is  name!"

Yeah, even I'm surprised I'm more ready for NaNo than usual. Now if I had Walter B. Gibson's drive to write thirty pages a day. Then again, he didn't have Facebook or YouTube to distract him. *grin*

So yes, I'll be participating in NaNo again this year. If anyone wants to look me up, I go by Sapphyre. To all those who'll be aiming for 50k in November, good luck and happy writing!

For more info about NaNo, click here. And remember, if you've ever wanted to write a novel, but were too afraid to ask, NaNo is a great way to dip your toe in the writing waters.

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