And the Winner is ... Me!

This week has been an exciting one. First, as I mentioned in my last post, I far exceeded my Camp NaNoWriMo goal for the month (30,000 words), having written 44,576 words of the first draft of Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars in April, bringing my total so far to more than 100,000 words. And then the second exciting thing happened: I woke up one morning with the realization that the first novel of my Sancta Futura series really needed to be two novels.

So I've been getting used the fact that I've finished my draft of Cast Out. It's exhilarating! and I owe it all to my clever, subconscious mind, which worked out that I really had two plot arcs squashed together end-on-end. Like the mother of conjoined twins, it took me awhile to convince myself that separating them really would be best for everyone involved. Now, I'll admit that this idea probably occurred to me first because I was nervous about producing what looked like it was going to be a 175,000 word behemoth, and also because I just wanted to be done with the draft (having set a deadline of May 23, my birthday). But once I started rethinking the plot arc of the first book (which ends with chapter 12, the one I just wrote), it became clear that the first book is all about my protagonist figuring out that, hard as it was for her to give up so much of her past, the loss really made possible -- maybe even necessary -- a much more exciting future.

Not only that, but it meant that in the second book (which I've already got pretty well plotted out) I will be able to focus on developing twin story lines in which personal difficulties will parallel difficulties in the planetary settlement group she and her new husband have just joined. And having more time to work on interpersonal dynamics among a cast of characters that will mushroom in book two means that I'll also be able to give attention to an emerging situation that will dominate book three.

Camp NaNoWriMo Victory!

Wow! Camp has been great. As you can see, I've won the archery award. What's better than a perfect bulls-eye? Whatever it is, I made it -- my goal was to write another 30,000 words on the first draft of Cast Into the Deep Sea of Stars, and I've already written nearly 45,000 words, with another day to go. Even more exciting, I just have a few thousand more to go to be done with the draft!

A few days ago, just as I was reaching 100K words, I had a sudden realization -- what I thought would be a single novel (the first in a series) really needs to be two separate novels (the first and second of the series). Not only was I at 100K words when I was less than 2/3 of the way through the storyline but, once I began to think about splitting it into two books, I could see that this will really clarify the narrative and character arcs in both novels. In the first book, the story hinges on the tension between the growing romance between my lead and her beau and the danger she finds herself in. This gets resolved when the young lovers get married just as they also find a way out of danger.

In the second book (working title: At Sea Among the Stars), my newlyweds have just joined fifty other young couples in a super-secret planetary settlement project. As they journey toward their new home, there will be lots of new complications as they try to mold the group of settlers into a team, deal with tensions in their new marriage, and struggle to survive a deadly stealth attack. In a secondary plot, there will be more human drama as the young priest acting as chaplain and ship's doctor to the group finds he's getting a little too attached to Stella, who is having some identity problems of her own (Pinocchio, call home).

But all that will have to wait awhile, because book one will need some careful revision before I move on to book two. Stay tuned!

Camp is Great Fun! Wish You Were Here

Nearly halfway through Camp NaNoWriMo, I'm having lots of fun participating in classic camp activities. For instance, I've been tying knots (in the lives of my two leads), pulling pranks (writing entire scenes and then making them disappear), making new friends (literally -- I've created fifteen new characters, one of whom will probably not even appear in the finished novel), bouncing on the camp cots (no, wait, that was my protagonist), and picking ants out of my food (they have discovered me on the patio).

Off to Camp Nanowrimo

I haven't posted here lately because I've been hard at work on the novel -- I'm over half way on the first draft (about 69K words), and I'm off to Camp NaNoWriMo this month, so I'm hoping that will help me near the finish line. The camp website is acting up at the moment, so I'm having trouble listing my novel there. But the camp has already helped me come up with a new blurb:

Kate Malone had joined the planetary survey ship, R J Boscovich, hoping to gain some life experience far from her home on Old Earth, but she got more than she bargained for. Love, loss, and death threats cast her into the deep sea of stars and propel her into a quest for a new life on a new world.

Fortunately, April in my part of North Texas is beautiful -- grass is growing, trees are leafing out, birds are singing, the sky and the lake are both a beautiful clear blue. It's a great time to be camping! I "camp" on my patio all day, with my laptop and a cool drink. It's not a bad, gig, folks, and I get a lot of writing done.

Today, I've got to get my protagonist out of danger and into the loving arms of her companion-in-peril, who is about to discover he is not who he thought he was. Lots of complications in store ...

A Toast is in Order!

Perhaps a toast is in order?

What is the ritual sailors have for when they cross the equator? (I hope it doesn't involved getting a tattoo.) I feel like I should be doing something to celebrate the fact that my progress on the first draft of my novel has reached a significant milestone. The plot of my novel falls into three parts and I've recently completed the first part and moved on to the second.

The first part of the story takes place on a planetary survey vessel called the R. J. Boscovich, where my lead and her fella are falling in love just about the time that they learn the five year mission has been abruptly cancelled and they're about to be dumped on a space station at the back of beyond. Yikes! Fortunately, they decide to stick together and are planning a jaunt back to her home on Old Earth (yes, it's time for him to meet her parents), so when the Boscovich leaves them on station G16 (quaintly known as Swagman's Rest), they decide to take their time, have some fun, and weigh their options before choosing a route home.

Just for fun -- the Thrilling Tales Pulp-o-mizer and Word Clouds

Taking a break from writing and editing my sci-fi novel, I discovered the wonderful Pulp-o-mizer over on the Thrilling Tales website. The whole website is pretty marvelous, at least to those of us who enjoy retro takes on pulp science fiction. You can try your hand, too, at creating silly covers using this gadget.


I recently found one other fun way to mix pleasure with writing tasks, when I tried out a number of word cloud generators, plugging in whole chapters of my work-in-progress. I found it an interesting way to see which terms get high use -- some surprising results there! Why were there so many body parts prominently displayed (eyes, hands, arms, heads, lips) in the word cloud for chapter three? Below is one I did for the prologue (hardly any body parts at all, but plenty of house parts!), using Tagxedo.

Tagxedo version

Next is another, also of the Prologue, done with Wordle. I like how the Tagxedo one captures the fire that is prominently featured in this beginning section of the novel, while the Wordle one suggests the blackened chaos that is the aftermath of the fire -- sort of looks like a pile of blackened rubble, doesn't it?