Nano Spotlight: A Fairytale Heart Races Through November

Hey there, friends and followers. Who’s got spotlight fever? I do! Tonight I’m spotlighting Mallory, who goes by wordcorruption over on the Nano site.

Mallory’s history with Nanowrimo, in her own words:
I’ve been doing NaNo since I was at least sixteen.  That’s the first one I remember.  I’ve loved it though, even if I don’t win every year, I enjoy the hell out of doing it.  I think some of my favorite memories are just hanging out with people at various write-ins.  I don’t socialize as much as I could sometimes and every year, I get to go out at east once a week and enjoy being around people who are creative and interesting and enjoy my company.  It is awesome.

What are you writing about this year?
I am sort of doing a retelling of Tam Lin with a polyamorous triad. It involves one of them getting kidnapped by the fae, losing his memories and the other two doing what they have to so that they can get him, then his memories back from the fae.

Who’s the best character in your Nano novel?
I think, this year, it’s going to be either Tess, one of the main three people or Aiden, the cait sidhe messenger for the fae court who also works as an illegal art dealer in the mortal world

What advice would you give to all your fellow Wrimos?
Just keep writing. Even if you think it’s rap, even if you’re hitting your head against a wall over and over again, just keep writing.  Once you come up with a first draft, you can go through and edit the heck out of it.  That’s the beauty of December and beyond.

Sneaky Ninja question! Are you allergic to anything, and if so, what?
I am not, thankfully enough!  I consider myself very lucky for this.

My blog is here: http://itcouldbeourstory.wordpress.com/

Starting a revision post-mortem

My day began with a certain amount of rejoicing. Finally, after some 15 months, the revision of ‘Won’t somebody think of the Children’ was finished! It’s been a long, kinda strange road with Holly Lisle, but I’ve learned an awful lot about editing and good writing from her.

After sending the manuscript off to two intrepid critters, updating my next chapter in the critters.org queue, sending a critique request in to the Nanowrimo ‘December and Beyond’ forums, and scanning through the bonus lesson about query letters and one-page synopses, I turned to lesson 22, to see what Holly had to say about making revision go quicker next time…

And boggled a little!

The worksheet for lesson 22 is a huge post-mortem on the revision process; now that I’m finished, I have to record my thoughts on every step of the process; how much work I had to do from my first draft, how well I did, and if there’s anything I need to keep in mind for my next revision. I like the idea, and it’s a great example of something to dive into during Nanoedmo, where I can get full credit for the time I spend filling out the post-mortem–

But it’s still a bit daunting, especially as I need to start with the lessons that I completed more than a year ago. I’ve come up with some good stuff so far, but I’m haven’t finished the postmortem on lesson 2 yet.

Hopefully it won’t take me all of March. 😉