I've officially given up on JMoWriMo for this month, mostly because I wanted to wind down a bit more from the holidays. This February is a shorter month, true (though, not too short with the Leap Year and all), and already promising to be a bit more low-key. I'll pick up my monthly challenge again in a couple weeks.
I haven't written in "Kray" since NaNoWriMo because I've sort of reached a wall and can't figure out the next step in the story. I don't know what I want her and Rok to find in the compound after eradicating the Ratiri, but we're damn close to climax right now.
I also wrote myself into a bit of a corner: this book not only introduces Kayt and Kailyynn--Books 2 and 4--but it also introduces the oldest of the two brothers, Kaven, whom as of yet has no timeline, no story and no heroine. I had always planned the five sisters to have two brothers, but they have never--never--played a role in the sisters' stories until now.
And now as I sneak my way into pre-planning for the series after this one, the one that focuses on all of their children, I'm pissed that I not only have the sisters' eleven children to write stories for--that's right: eleven--but what roles do brothers Kaven and Kane and their wives play in the stories and on the island? And their children?
Since I started writing tidbits of "Luciana", Sebastyan and Kailyynn's daughter's story, I've planned out a bit for a few more, including two of Rowan and Kayt's sons, Darwin Alexander and Marshall Maximillian, and Dagibyr and Karyi's second son, Arick.
(Incidentally, "Arick" shook out a few juicy scenes [and by "juicy" I don't necessarily mean sexy, although there was a scene or two of that] at the end of last week. And I became a writing fiend in the desperate need to get all the dialogue and plot points down. From Friday the 13th to Monday the 16th, I wrote over 12,000 words.)
I figured that second brother Kane and his wife would have twin daughters, and then I thought it would be cute to give them an A-name and a Z-name, so there you go--Ava and Zoë.
As the royal family tree started turning into the family Great Banyan Tree, an idea occurred...
Posterboard and post-its.
A do believe tacking a posterboard with people, plot points and planets will not only keep me sane and my thoughts on track, but it will inspire me more each day to see my ideas come to fruition. I will wake up seeing that posterboard glaring me in the face, and I will smile and think, Yes, indeed, I am quite pleased with the name "Leviticus Vaughn" and my choice for his journey towards love and passion.
Which brings me to another point: geography. I had already decided long ago that this takes place in our Universe when other livable planets have been discovered. I never had any names or descriptions of these planets until very recently. Pretty soon I fear my entire bedroom will be masked in posterboard with poorly-drawn maps of fake planets, along with the biospheres that encompass them and the groups of people who inhabit them. I'm no cartographer, geographer or sociologist, and yet this makes me giddy with anticipation.
Hold your horses there, J. Leigh. You still have a series of five (actually seven) books to finish.
And thus is my problem. I get so damn excited about future and beyond-future projects that I forget about the stuff that I'm working on currently, the stuff that has the best chance of being done because it's almost done.
JNoWriMo will be all about that: completion. Every other month will be editing, research and dabbling in other stories.
Sounds like a good plan.
JLH
