Writing Blog Number 2

20241113 - NaNo-13

NaNoWriMo #13

Day 13.

I had a busy morning involving job searching, getting mail and collecting the latest book one of my short stories has appeared in. (‘New Occupant’ in A Little Fantasy Everywhere from New Jersey Ink, 2024). I had to do some work, and then I sat down to write.

An hour later I got a phone call and had written a hundred words, tops.

After the phone call, I sat down and hand-wrote the start of a short story which died a horrible death.

I started and deleted the next section in the cryptid story a few times.

I went back.

I found the problem. I needed to get the lazy guy to the dig site so that tings could be tense ans the campsite would be vacant.

So I added some words, and then wrote about an uncomfortable dig, then they went out for tea (dinner to USians?) at a local pub (pub and hotel are interchangeable in Australia – don’t get hung up on it) where they are confronted by someone who is rather insistent on knowing what happened there. The story of the death and injuries had, of course, got around.

They get back to the campsite and find that guy has beat them there… and is dead. I stopped there because I am not sure what the characters are going to do next. I do know, however, that this new character who I so quickly and crudely killed off is an Internet “journalist”, a cryptid hunter who believes the killers are yowies. He’s wrong, for what it’s worth.

What’s a yowie? I hear those from culturally isolated countries ask. It is the Australian version of Bigfoot or the Yeti. It is a transportation of the Bigfoot legend into Australia, attached to only vaguely related (that is, not really) Indigenous legends. Like the Bigfoot and Sasquatch, to be honest. (I’ve been researching creatures and cryptids for coming up 20 years – don’t @ me!)

Anyway, that kept me going, and the cryptid tale has finally moved forward with only some rewriting…

Now, get this – I wrote down a list of ideas for my demon-woman story. Not a pan, but ideas. Number ‘5’ dominates, I have the past event, I have the way this is going to start. I’m not counting these as words, but it is as close to planning as I get. When cryptids are done (if…) then I can go straight into the next one!

3039 words today
Total words: 68211