Category: Writing

Mid-Month NaNoWriMo Check In

Posted November 18, 2020 by Kelly Apple in Monstrous World, Writing / 0 Comments

After a looooong creative dry spell (seriously, my friends, the end of 2019 and most of 2020 can eat a bag of dicks for crapping on my creativity like it did), I decided to do what I needed to do to shake myself out of it.

So I signed up for NaNoWriMo (that’s Nation Novel Writing Month for those of us who don’t obsessively roll around in all things writing – you can find me here, if you’re so inclined.). Basically, I set out to write a novel (or the equivalent of one) in the month of November. Normally a person attempts to write 50K words in the month. I set my goal at 30K. Which translates to three-ish parts of a serialized novel.

Why 30K? Because it broke down to 1K a day. And 1K sounds doable to me. Especially when you’ve written minimal to nothing for most of the year.

1K? Yes. I can do that. Almost 2K a day? That…didn’t feel like I could work it into my schedule. And I didn’t want to fail myself out before I even started.

FYI, baby steps are still steps, people. Don’t ever let someone tell you you have to make big strides to get somewhere. All the big things in life are made up of little things. It might take me longer to reach the end, but I will get there. And I (hopefully) won’t sabotage myself along the way by getting down on myself for NOT hitting that bigger daily goal.

So where does that put me now? As of the writing of this blog post, I’ve crossed the 20K threshold on words for November. I’d started writing Wild at Heart (Lon and Ivy’s story in the Monstrous World series) before starting NaNo, so this puts me toward the middle/end of part 4 of the series.

The kicker, while I’d originally planned this to be an eight part series, it miiiiight be a little longer. Then again, it might not. I feel like there’s still a fair amount of story to tell and I’m almost at what I thought was the halfway point. As an aside, that really doesn’t mean anything because there’s a lot of word-ground left for me to play with and the story might surprise me with how it comes together. Then again, maybe this will end up being a super long story. WE’LL SEE!

(As another totally random aside, I am honestly amazed by authors who are all “Hey! I’m writing this book right this moment and I 100% know it will be finished in 2 weeks and you’ll have it in your hands on this specific date.” Like, whoa. WHOA. That’s some sort of black magic right there.)

To make a long story even longer, November has been good to me. I’ve got a chunk of writing under my belt over the first half of the month and I’m feeling good on where things are heading.

FYI, I’m tentatively eyeballing Wild at Heart as a Spring 2021 release. I have a book or two (or three) waiting in the wings for early 2021 and spring gives me plenty of time to finish writing, get edits done, and work on covers (GAH! Covers! I WILL NOT LET YOU DEFEAT ME!) without feeling rushed.

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Looking Back on June

Posted July 1, 2020 by Kelly Apple in Heart of Stone, Writing / 2 Comments
Looking Back on June

Oh, hey. June. Sorry to see you go. I guess. I mean, you were here, now you’re not. Time is weird. Anywho. June. Not a lot done on the surface to report (no releases or whatnot), however, I do have edits back on the next several parts of Heart of Stone (which my editor is […]

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Looking Back on May

Posted June 1, 2020 by Kelly Apple in Heart of Stone, Writing / 0 Comments
Looking Back on May

Oh, heyyyyy. We made it through another month. While there were no books released for me in May, I would like to say that (a) Heart of Stone parts 5-8 are contracted with my editor (OMG!) and (b), after a bit of a dry spell writing-wise, I’m working on something…different. Since I tend to jinx […]

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An update and some plans

Posted March 25, 2020 by Kelly Apple in Heart of Stone, Writing / 0 Comments

I kept reminding myself I need to blog, but my focus is so scattered (SERIOUSLY) that I…haven’t. Frankly, things in the world keep changing at such breakneck speed that I feel like I’m scrambling to keep up. Blogging (and writing in general) have taken a backseat to trying to figure out how to stay safe […]

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Looking Back on October

Posted October 31, 2019 by Kelly Apple in Heart of Stone, Writing / 0 Comments
Looking Back on October

Oh, hey. Another month has come and gone. HOW WEIRD. Honestly, October really was a weird month. I took on two big projects at my day job and have been running in deadline mode for the past few weeks. Which is a BIG part of why Rock and Road didn’t go live when I had […]

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Looking Back On August

Posted September 2, 2019 by Kelly Apple in Monstrous World, Writing / 0 Comments
Looking Back On August

Another month gone by and YESSSSS Heart of Stone is done! Definitely done. Part one is edited. The cover has been completed. Now I just need to format and upload and you’ll have Vane and Cin’s story in all it’s wildly sexy glory! (and since I’m writing this on Sunday, if I manage to find […]

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Looking Back on July

Posted July 31, 2019 by Kelly Apple in Monstrous World, Writing / 0 Comments
Looking Back on July

July was a Camp NaNo month and it turned out to be a goooooood writing month, guys. SO GOOD. In a nutshell, I’m well into writing the final part of Heart of Stone and I’m digging the twists and turns Vane and Cin are taking on their road tripping journey to reconnect with Vane’s family. […]

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And in Other News…

Posted July 24, 2019 by Kelly Apple in Writing / 0 Comments
And in Other News…

Heyyyy there! So, I’m deep in the writing cave (so deep!) and I’m alllllllmost done with Heart of Stone. Which means good things for the future. Namely, that part 1 will likely be ready for an August release. You know, provided I get a cover made for it. Anywho. I’m going radio silent for the […]

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