I didn't think I was going to be participating in Camp NaNo for the forthcoming month, but I realized that it's been a while since I've done a full on writing/editing blitz.  I have one novel that I'm writing from scratch and another I'm editing down, one of my aforementioned projects.  I haven't had much time to carve out, but I'm planning on making it count.

To everyone participating this month, I wish you all the best. *waves virtual pom-poms and hands out virtual chocolates*

It's been a little while since I had a Top Ten Tuesday post, and I had actually planned to pen this entry anyway, so it was perfect timing with the turn of the new year.

This was my post from last year, and mostly - last year's goals will be a repeat for this year, though with a few new updates.

Suffice to say, 2015 was a busy year for me personally.  While I was able to do many things within the year, it was a slow reading and writing year.  So I'm hoping that what I didn't accomplish in 2015 will be things that I ace in 2016.

Here are my top ten resolutions for the new year:

1.  I will read 350 books this year.  My effort to read 450 books last year, unfortunately, was a failure.  I'm still doing the final tally for my 2015 year end post, but it looks like - including re-reads - that I barely made it above 150 books last year alone.  The problem came from two things: massive book hopping (meaning I didn't finish as many books as I started) and not doing a very good job of keeping track of what I was reading and when on my book communities.  Though I'm happy to say I made a lot of trips to the library last year (much to the chagrin of my twin, who tells me I read too much already. She read one book last year, which is actually really good for her considering she has more of an issue with book hopping and DNFing stuff).
2. I will work to get to 75% feedback ratio on NetGalley this year.  This will effort on my part since I'm about 30% now with submissions.  That may not seem like much to get up to speed with until you realize just how many books I've got to submit feedback for, some even reaching back to 2012-2o13ish.  But my goal this year is to work through my list, decide what to take on, and just stick with the schedules I plan ahead of time. I think I can improve my scheduling for this year with better time management.  And while I started the NetGalley spotlight posts last year to help with this, I'll have to be better about sticking to my reading schedule for it to work.
3. I will be better about making posts on the blog - almost every day of this year.  Part of this will be steadily bringing back theme day posts, and also bringing back some of my old posts out of archive/draft form.  I have far too many posts that I have submitted drafts for, but never posted to the blog - I'm thinking it's because my train of thought and planning was there, but somehow ended up getting stalled - much like my massive book hopping issues last year.
4. Publishing two writing projects in 2016.  So I ended up not completing the writing projects I wanted to last year because I ended up starting (and finishing) two completely projects that I worked on last year for Camp NaNo and NaNoWriMo.  So I can pat myself on the back for finishing my NaNo stuff last year (whoo-hoo!)  but not having anything to show for it (Ughh).  And mostly that progress has been behind the scenes and another reason why my posting was sporadic last year, between working with day job and focusing more on the editing process. I've had to push some stuff back, but I'm hoping to be better about this for 2016 and keep you guys informed when I'm planning to release.
5. Do More Reading Challenges.  I failed almost all of my reading challenges last year (my Audiobook challenge was the only one I kicked butt on - ended up reading over 60 audiobooks - my YA and other stuff though - not so much), so this is a carry over.  
6. Record more Video/Writing tutorials (and possible audio/V-blogs) - carry over from last year's goals.  This will probably start sometime in March or April.  Reason being is that I ended up ordering better audio/recording equipment mid to late last year (including a new headset - because my other one failed.  Which is why I ended up not recording anything last year.)
7. Read more books across a span of genres.  I accomplished this goal last year, and I'm making it a goal for this year as well.  I'll have a more thorough breakdown of what I ended up reading in my 2015 Year End post.
8. Making myself finish stuff I have pending before starting anything new.  General goal - I recognized this as a problem last year with both my reading and writing.  I always get excited to start new things, but I find my mind kept wanting to hop to something different.  It wasn't really writer's/reader's block as much as it was having too many things in my head that I wanted to get down or do, and just transitioning between those in-progress projects or goals made no time for me to actually come back and finish what I started.  So definitely making myself stick to that this year and show some fruit from the things I've done - as well as share it with all of you.
9. Cleaning out my TBR jars.  I have the crafts, I have the jars.  I actually enjoyed making the ones I've shared in the past, and I'd like to share more of that.
10. Catching up with my book reviews. At the end of 2016 - I want to have written reviews for everything that I've read in the past several years and have actively caught up with my "pending reviews" and "on-hold" lists.  So that's something to look forward to doing.

That's everything.  I'm ready to take on 2016 - let's bring it.

Best,

Rose

I am a NaNoWriMo Winner for 2015.  That's the good news. :)

Bad news is that this is yet another NaNoWriMo where, despite the fact I've reached over 50,000, the novel's nowhere near done.  My actual word count is around 62,000 - some of it was handwritten, and the rest of it was typed, so I tried the word generator to supplement what was typed...and it screwed up, but I'm leaving the count on the site it as is. Probably when I end up finishing it, it'll be 85,000 - 95,000 words.  So it's hefty.

The idea for "Mark of Contagion" came from a number of inspirations.   (Took forever to come up with a title, but nonetheless it finally came to me mid month as I was writing).  I knew I wanted to pen a female protagonist of color in a fantasy realm that was a blend of old and new scenescapes - so I ended up creating a blend of tech heavy environments and rustic environments in the novel as the backdrop.  Not to mention I've been somewhat inspired from settings that were designed in the backdrop of the old Amiga game "Shadow of the Beast" (which I've heard they're remaking for the PS4).  I think that's the best way to describe the mind and vision I had when penning the novel.

Sadi's a young woman (15-16 years old) who lost her entire village to a brutal plague.  First part of it physically turns the person into a foul looking creature (and this is a transient stage - meaning the person infected can turn back to a human if they can manage the symptoms), second part they lose their humanity and ability to make decisions, third part is a self-destruct stage where the monster's body breaks down, so ultimately it destroys them from within.  The onset of the plague was so brutal in Sadi's village that her people never went through these distinct stages, and she's the only survivor left to tell what happened to her village - at least among the humans who weren't either killed or turned.  She realizes that she's symptomatic of the plague and that she only has so much time to figure out the cause, how to cure it, and how to warn others of its on-coming (because otherwise it'll kill her), but she fights an uphill battle because not everyone is welcoming of her (since she's symptomatic), and some even think she's untruthful and might've been behind the killings of her village and want to kill her before she loses her humanity.  But she travels with a group of colorful comrades who believe in her mission and want to save her before she succumbs to the plague.  That's the basic description of it without major spoilers.

I still have yet to determine how I want to end it, but I know that I'm still working on structuring the novel so far, and there may be some characters I decide to keep and some I take out.

I'm pretty sure that this novel will be one that I work on for another year or so, so after a point, I may set it to the side and try to finish other projects once I get the first draft done.

But I'm at least happy to have gotten the first leg of it completed.  It took me all month, so my other projects are going to be on delay, but nonetheless, I'm going to start back reading and writing at my normal pace in December.

Happy reading/writing all,

Rose

I've been feeling under the weather the past several days (despite having an eventful and restful weekend), but thankfully I'm back to sorts enough to post that I finally have a NaNoWriMo topic to work with.  I'm drafting the outline and hopefully will finish that this week between working on my current WIP.

I still haven't given it a title though.  I've added a tentative synopsis on my NaNoWriMo profile, but I'm pretty sure I'll revise it to something more developed as the month goes on.

The base story though: YA fantasy/otherworld centered around a young woman undertaking a journey to figure out why a magical illness/curse took the lives of everyone in her village, and stay off a progressive deterioration of her body and mind in the vein of that illness while trying to find its cause, cure, and prevent others from succumbing to the same effects.  If that makes any sense.

Anyone that wants to add me as a writing buddy, here's my profile below.

http://nanowrimo.org/participants/rosepetals1984/

I know it's a bit early to ask around (I mean, it's not even October yet, but it's marching close enough for me to start putting on my thinking cap and deciding which manuscript I want to tackle).

I know for certain I'm participating, but I'm still trying to decide what I should do.  The next month is going to be me writing the outline for my NaNoWriMo project while putting the final touches on this WIP I've been working on for months. (It's been a trade off of deciding what to keep in, what to take out, and I've had the difficult task of realizing that I actually needed to take out characters I liked for the sake of the story, which is why you guys haven't seen me posting much around here. Hard sell, but I've had to do that in previous manuscripts I've written too.)

I'm going to stay intentionally mum on the WIP that's almost finished just to keep people in suspense, but I've mentioned it way back when on my New Year's goals post.  My hope is that by the time the end of October rolls around, I'll have one finished manuscript and another to start on.  Gah, fingers crossed.

In the meantime, when I finalize my choice for my NaNoWriMo pursuit, I'll keep all of you in the know.  But if you guys need a cheerleader, I'll have my pom-poms out for you.

Cheers,

Rose