Beautiful Books part 2: NaNo update

There's another Beautiful Books linkup going this month! Normally Cait and Sky do 'Beautiful People' - questions about your characters - but around NaNoWriMo they change it to questions about your NaNo story. Last month's linkup, Part 1, was to introduce your NaNo story to the blogging world. I skipped it, though, because I had Julian's whole WIP Special to introduce my story with.

But Part 2 of the Beautiful Books linkup is a sort of NaNo update.

So, since I am all about ignoring my responsibilities and NaNo in particular accountability and boring you to death with abundant but insignificant details of my writing life keeping you up to date with my progress, I thought I'd take the questions this time.

Why are you even here you should be writing.

1. Overall, how is your mental state, and how is your novel going?

HAHAHAHAAA

I'm a much slower writer than everyone else seems to be. On the bright side, I spent a few days thinking, and ended up with a few pages of plot! Like, two whole pages! Or one and a half. But it's definitely helped me write more... decisively. Because I now have an idea of what I'm aiming for.

(Did you think that because I don't plot, my brain isn't screaming, "PLOT, YOU FOOL"?)

(Because it is. It is screaming.)

Beautiful People #27 || I finally talk about Three Sisters

Annnd August's Beautiful People has been open since - well - the start of August?? - but I'm just getting around to it now. (Because if I procrastinate too much longer, it'll be September.)

Beautiful People is a link-up hosted by Cait @ Paper Fury and Sky @ Further Up and Further In, so thank'ee kindly, ladies, for that.

I'm going to go with one of my three major characters from Three Sisters for this. (You would never have guessed there were three major characters in a story with the working title Three Sisters, would you??)

I should probably give a little context? since I haven't talked much about my writing at all?)
There are three sisters in Three Sisters (cue more astonished surprise); Billie, Elsie and Josie (or Ells and Josh... but never Bill). They live in a forest, in a cottage they [Billie, mostly] built themselves, and in varying degrees of uncomfortable-ness. Josie likes the freedom and spends her time riding their bony old horse around and waving a bow; despite having lived in the forest for seven months, she still views their life as a great adventure. Elsie... well, she had a life before they came to live here; she dislikes the forest, pours her heart into her writing, and feels her sisters don't appreciate how hard she works making their life tolerable (she does the cooking etc). Billie does appreciate Elsie, but she won't say it; they've all had to make sacrifices for this new life, and Billie keeps it going by sheer stubbornness and very hard physical labour.

The story opens with Josie coming home unusually rattled; she was caught poaching in the forest by its legendary resident beast, who demanded her life in forfeit. Billie makes light of it, but when the Beast turns up at their cottage, furious that Josie didn't honour her bargain (to say goodbye to her sisters and then return), Billie is ready with the crossbow. Which... is a commendable effort, but doesn't do much. Out of options, she offers herself to pay for her sister's crime; although she isn't aware, this, according to traditions held from ancient times, is binding: the Beast can neither refuse, nor in any way harm her.

So now Elsie and Josie, believing Billie dead, argue and leave the safety of their cottage. Meanwhile the Beast - who, as I'm writing him, is turning out more and more like a grumpy/legalistic but very bewildered great-uncle who just wants to be left in his library while everyone follows the RULES (no romance involving him, by the way) - has an angry young woman prowling around his house and smashing his china because she can't leave but she can see (via a handy book that's basically a magic mirror in book form) her sisters making dangerous choices without her there to stop them.

Annnd... that's basically as far as two 10k Camp Nanos have taken me.

I have more in mind, including a Cinderella thread, a Robin Hood thread + bandits, an angry empress, sisterly loyalty + sisterly fury, and nods to various fairy tales.

Please note: all of this is regarding a nowhere-near-finished first draft. Characters and plot are still developing. Answers are not set in stone. In fact, I will probably tend to waffle for a while and then admit I don't know the answers.

Oh, and I'm answering these questions for Billie. ;) Time-wise, this is probably... soon after she's taken?

_______

What are they addicted to/can’t live without? 

Billie can't live without her own strength. She has to be in control of the world/situation around her. So... does that make her... addicted to power??

That... was not my intention.

But the transition to her new life in the forest has meant she's had to live without a lot of things, and (so far as I know) she's not addicted to anything physical. Like, say, coffee. (That's a strange foreign drink which [it's strongly implied that] one of the other characters introduces them to.) So I think anything she can't live without is definitely non-physical.

Like power  control of the world around her her own strength, so she can protect herself and her sisters. (Because that has gone amazingly so far... I suppose she did manage to keep things going for seven months, though.)

It's actually also likely that she can't live (or wouldn't have been able to create this new life) without her anger (see the 'what are they holding on to' and the 'someone they resent' questions, below).

Name 3 positive and 3 negative qualities about your character.

Positive: Protective, strong-willed, strong
Negative: Over-protective/controlling, stubborn, relies on her own strength instead of trusting others

Oh look, they're basically the same. I love it when that happens. I think it's a good thing for characters' strengths to potentially be their weaknesses.

Are they holding onto something they should get rid of? 

I can't think of anything. As far as physical objects go, anything with an emotional attachment got dumped when their forest life started. Instead she keeps a simmering lump of completely justified anger and resentment.

...I suppose she should get rid of that??

...Or I could kill the other person.

...After all, that lump of bad feelings is probably 49% of what drives her to make their new life succeed, no matter how hard it is. (Basically, out of spite. "Haha you dumped us, but look at us now. We're doing F I N E." *attacks problem with sharp-bladed shovel* "JUST F I N E.")

(The other 51% is protectiveness. Because I too am a big sister.)

(I think we're far enough off topic now and I should move on.)

If 10 is completely organized and 1 is completely messy, where do they fall on the scale? 

Um. She used to be probably an 8? but her new life involves a lot of nature and nature isn't really something you can keep organised. I think she likes inside the cottage to be tidy (at least, she put up hooks and stuff), but otherwise she's silently rebelling against her old life and has embraced the mud and sweat and deliberately does things which she would never have done in her old life because #ew. Not that that's relevant to how organised she is. I'd say probably more like a 4 or 5 now.

What most frustrates them about the world they live in? 

Billie gets frustrated when she can't control the world around her. She did it in her old life, and with enough stubbornness and sweat, she can usually do it in this new one. Except when she can't. Mostly that's because of the Beast, but sometimes it's Elsie or Josie being rebellious.

e.g. [Billie yelling at the book:] "I told you not to leave the house where do you think you're going get back here this instant or else" (Beast: "I'll just... there was something I urgently had to do... on the other side of the house." *leaves awkwardly*)

How would they dress for a night out? How would they dress for a night in? 

I may have mentioned "rebelling against her old life" and "spite" in my previous answers??

Billie would wear her most worn-out dress - clean, but still worn-out, and completely not the kind of dress that's worn on a 'night out'. And her boots. Not just because she only has a few dresses (and scrubbing the mud out of them kind of wears them out) (and they're a bit darned around the hem and knees) but because she refuses to be the girl she once was. Because that life let her down and now she refuses to go with anything but the new life she built for herself + her sisters.

How many shoes do they own, and what kind? 

This is obviously a very important question, and I'm ashamed of myself for not having thought of it before.

Uhhhh...

One pair of scuffed leather boots; good-quality, but well-worn.

Do they have any pets? What pet do they WISH they had? 

Billie has a bony old horse. His name is Old Bill. Her sisters thought that was hilarious, but they're smart enough not to call her Bill. (She doesn't like it. Or she wouldn't like it... no one's actually dared do it, yet.) Unfortunately - although Billie could really use Old Bill for plowing the vegetable patch or for dragging logs - Josie has claimed him.

Is there something or someone that they resent? Why and what happened? 

She resents her father. Because he chose the path that benefited himself and threw his daughters to the wolves.

I know... another terrible parent, when YA's full of them already. I'm sorry. I'll try to write some nice ones too.

What’s usually in their fridge or pantry? 

They have a cellar that Billie dug, and it usually has whatever game Josie's caught recently + vegetables from the garden. There would be leftovers from the last meal, in a bowl wrapped in a damp cloth, except they don't usually leave leftovers.

_______

I hope you enjoyed that journey into my WIP! It's late, I know - August is almost over - but I've been enjoying other people's BP posts so much that I felt I had to do one. Plus I've been half-promising to give you a few more details about Three Sisters since, I don't know, April?

So. That's Billie! Do you think she sounds addicted to power?? Do you sympathise with the over-protective big sister or the younger ones who just want to have their own lives? What do you think of the Beast?

Beautiful People #26 (my first time participating!)

Me: I should do a Beautiful People link-up post! talk about my characters to all the people who read my blog because apparently they have nothing better to do!
Me: *waits for post that isn't about family because my characters are all orphans*
Me: hooray new questions!
Beautiful People: today we're talking about you writers.
Me: ...
Me: close enough.

1. How do you decide which project to work on?

I shuffle through my folders and see which story captures my interest.
This may be the reason for the answer to Q2.

2. How long does it usually take you to finish a project?

Forever, apparently. At least - if we're talking novels - I haven't finished any yet. THIS WIP WILL BE THE ONE. (or not.)

3. Do you have any routines to put you in the writing mood?

Sit at my desk, open laptop, stare at wall, rearrange desk so everything is lined up and at right angles, stare at wall, listen to Owl City, stare at wall, switch to Pinterest tab, don't write.

4. What time of day do you write best?

I would love to be a morning writer. Not early morning, but after breakfast. I could get my writing done, then move on to other important things. Like Life (let's just pretend I have one).

Instead, I procrastinate and then have to stay up until eleven at night (that's REEEALLY LATE, okay guys??) and get my writing done then.

5. Are there any authors you think you have a similar style to?

I don't think I've been writing long/intensely enough to have developed a style. I do love the dry, understated humour of some classic children's books... but I don't think I have that in my writing.

6. Why did you start writing, and why do you keep writing?

BECAUSE AUTHORS ARE INCONSIDERATE AND HAVE NOT WRITTEN THE BOOKS I WANT TO READ.

7. What’s the hardest thing you’ve written?

Psychology assessments for university (I'm so glad I didn't continue that course)

Not to seem like a bad writer or anything, but if it's hard I kind of - leave? work on something else? or more likely forget writing altogether.

8. Is there a project you want to tackle someday but you don’t feel ready yet?

I have a heap of projects I started and then abandoned, with the intention of finishing them one day... that might count?

There was one I started and really loved the idea of, but it required more knowledge than I had about police procedure + hospital procedure + how do comas work? + how does amnesia work?? (If anyone has information about any of these, please comment and tell me!! It's set in Australia, though, so telling me about your sheriffs and PDs will be fascinating but unfortunately unhelpful.) It isn't exactly that I didn't feel ready; I just couldn't 'pants' my way through it, during NaNo, when important points rested on things I didn't know. (E.g. If a cop's girlfriend is under investigation for multiple murders, he's probably put on some temporary leave-thing, right?? But he had to be working on her case [up until she murdered his sister] because #plot more like #noplot. And what's the procedure for holding an amnesiac murder suspect in hospital?? Would they believe she has amnesia?? How severe can amnesia get, anyway, and what's that like??)

9. What writing goals did you make for 2017 and how are they going?

I didn't make a list of goals (maybe I should, next year? I might actually get something done??) But participating in April and July's Camps was certainly good... I think I'd like to finish the draft of Three Sisters (my WIP for both Camps) this year? Hopefully it will be going a lot better after July (and November, if necessary).

10. Describe your writing process in 3 words or a gif!

[I apologise for the grammar error. It wasn't me.]

So that's me + a few details of my writing life + my first time participating in the Beautiful People link-up! Want to talk about anything? Do we share any writing habits? (I hope not, for your sake.) Do you have some helpful advice or some information about comas or amnesia??