NaNo Update: Draft of Chapter One

This year for National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) I’m writing “Hunter Moon and the Red Wolf.” It’s the sequel to”The Bear, the Witch and the Web”, which is the sequel to “Dark Love.” BWW is in the review editing phase right now.

Below is the rough draft for the first chapter. And I mean very rough. (Oh and it has some graphics parts so determine your own comfort level.

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“Dark Love” Sample; Update on WIP

raven and moon_ canstockphoto10827044Well November is over! I don’t remember much of it, but I’m 66.5K words into a WIP, so I haven’t noticed much. Had the day off today and wanted to get a good chunk of the climax chapter in the can. Didn’t happen.

Not ready to call it block, I think it is a bit of writer’s fatigue. The old brain is just tired. And I think this part of the story needs to cook a little longer. I know what needs to happen, but I don’t know how to say it yet. That’s the way I write, like a cat stalking a mouse. I watch it, study it, look at it from a different angle and then I pounce. Right now, the little sucker is over in the corner munching on cheese.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with this story. Although I’m still surprised at the supernatural elements in it. I never imagined I’d be writing stories about cute Gypsy boy witches and fairies, but there you go. You know, once you go dragon, you can end up anywhere.

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Update: NaNo Cover and Blurb

dark_love_cover_01_D_med_blog
For a thirty-year old, Dieter knew too much about loss and now he had lost one more time. Wolfgang, the great-uncle that raised him and his brother, was dead.  When they went to shut the old family farm down, they found a mysterious box. His brother tossed it aside as trash. Innes, his friend, warned him that is was a dark and powerful object. No one knew what was really inside. No one could predict what he would find: family and his dark love.


“Dark Love,” a paranormal story with romance and mature themes, is a work in progress by Stephen del Mar and is part of the Stories from Bennett Bay collection.

Well I swore I wouldn’t do NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) this year. I was actually listing the reasons in my head as I found myself filling out the form online late in the evening on November first. One of the reasons I didn’t want to do it, is I’m still trying to finish up the novel from last year. I really like that story and the characters in it are pretty core to my Bennett Bay series. Well the non-paranormal characters that live by the Bay. I’ve been cranking out some shorts that for some reason have been exploring the apparent spooky and funky side of the area. Yeah, apparently there are ghost, vodou practitioners, dragons, witches, and fairies out there in the swamp. Something the Chamber of Commerce will not be including in their material! So I really want to finish Return to Cooter Crossing, but all the shorts I’ve published kept pushing it out of the way.

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NaNo Rap Up

bowlingMy NaNo region had our “It’s Over Party” this afternoon. A few of us gathered at the bowling ally. Kind of nice to socialize with other writers. Normal people just don’t get your issues with plot or unruly characters. I am thinking I really need to join one of the Writer’s Associations here.

Anyway, I am set up at Starbucks, I have my white chocolate mocha and I am ready to crank out the words!

Pax!

Post NaNo Update

Sad Day.

Just got home from the night job and realized the clock had rolled over to December 7th. Some date. For me, the day means Pearl Harbor. My country’s entry into a World War. War that never seems to end. May humanity someday figure out that it is better to share the bananas rather than fight over them, but then we are limited by who and what we are.

Sigh.

Then on the more mundane level, NaNo has been over for a week.

Kind of an interesting week. I slept in some. Tried to catch up on some paid work. (My main job is freelance video production–more fun than the nigh job from hell but the money is inconsistent.) Dealt with a low grade respiratory infection that I embellished to get out of a social occasion and kept hacking away on the Novel.

I’ve gotten another 5K words done. I really want to bring it to a close but the character’s aren’t helping, they keep doing unexpected things, which was cute for a while, but now is just annoying.  They just don’t seem to understand or even care that I need to end this thing because it is going to take months to edit this sucker!

Sigh, again.

Well it is now one in the morning and I need to get some writing in.

Peace and blessings to you.

–Stephen