First of all, Happy New Year! I neglected to post something in celebration of 2010 and don't want you to think I forgot about it.

Here's how crazy this month is already. And it's only the first.

-I need to finish research for nanowrimo. That means many trips to the library and a lot of time on the internet at Fireworks.
-It's time to finish transcribing a novel for a friend of mine. He wants to be able to release it to family and friends by Christmas and if I don't finish it this month, it won't be ready.
-I have to get ready for the book club meeting October 3rd. I need to go through Prophecy and be prepared to hit various parts of the novel and I have to go through Forbidden and pick out what part is going to be previewed at the meeting.
-I need to finish the revisions on Forbidden and do one more real time edit of it to make sure that the new stuff flows with the rest of the story and clear up any formatting mistakes.
-Hubby and I have to go out and take the pictures for the cover of Forbidden. I want a lot to choose from.
-Awakening needs to start winding down. Deadline to finish it is November 1st so it isn't hanging over my head for nanowrimo.
-Shipping out books to family and friends who wanted copies of Prophecy. I'm so behind!
-I have to get with Hubby and design the logo for Fank Marked since we're using that as my office now and we want to make t-shirts. Yeah, we're weird.

Whatever doesn't get done this month will get crammed into next month. Argh.

I know, I know. It's not November yet Kell. It's not even September yet and here you are, harping about three pages a day and now you're talking about nanowrimo. What's up with that? Here's what's up with that.

I did nanowrimo last year and I've never regretted a moment of it. Nanowrimo has made me a little bit of money by giving me the chance to publish my first novel successfully. If a very good friend of mine hadn't pushed me to do it (thanks NP. You'll never know how much) I would still be where I was last year, questioning my talent and wondering if I should just hang up my pen and go out into the real world again.

Here's why you need to do nanowrimo if you've never done it before. You'll be pushed creatively, you'll find you can write those 50,000 words (don't freak out at the number. It's not as hard as you think), and you'll be richly rewarded afterward when you do finish it. Plus, once you see that you can make the word count for the month, you'll never say three pages a day is so hard again. Trust me on that one.

So why am I bringing it up now? Come on, it's August still. Well, you can't work on an unfinished work for nanowrimo. It has to be brand new. That means you better get your research done right now. That means your character mapping needs to be finished next month or in October. It means you need to prepare for it right now.

"But I'm still working on a project. I don't have time." Stop whining. You think you're busy? So is everyone else. Believe me, I have too many irons in the fire right now. I'm releasing a book in November, as well as finishing up a first draft before November 1st, transcribing a novel for a friend that needs to be done by November 1st, and I'm doing my research for nano right now. If I can do it, so can you.

At least give it a shot. You'll get tips and advice along the way that will be very helpful for you. It's worth every sleepless night and stressful day. It's worth it to be able to say that you completed something. That's the first step in cultivating a successful writing career isn't it? You have to finish something.

So sign up and get ready. Once November gets here, you'll be shocked how fast it flies by.

I'm not referring to things like Earl or Duke or King or whatever else you can think of. This is about the title of your book of course!

You may not realize this, but the title is extremely important. It can be the hardest thing you have to do in your writing career (if that's the case, you haven't done any editing yet have you?) and it can be so easy you'll smack yourself on the forehead and say "I could've had a V8".

In my experience, I don't title a novel until after it's finished most of the time. If I have a cover page on the novel while I'm writing it, that's entirely too much pressure and I can't even get started. Once the book is finished though, I find it so much easier to sum up the work in one or two words. I think it's because I know the story by then and I know what the point is. When I'm starting out, I don't know what twists it's going to take. What if I gave it a title that gave away the ending?

There are exceptions of course. Awakening and Resurrection (book 4 and 5 in my series right now) are already titled obviously, but I'm still writing Awakening. The only reason these are titled early is because I know what I'm doing with these two books. The first novel in the spin off series though isn't titled and the first draft is completed. I know what series it's in, but I can't think of it as anything more than Order Of The White Rose Volume 1 right now. Obviously that won't work as a working title.

Titles don't have to be elaborate works of philosophical meaning to be awesome. Is the word Twilight enough to cause a person to have an existencial crisis? No. Neither are titles like Dead Until Dark or Bad Moon Rising or City of Bones. I know when I saw Acheron as a title I almost stopped breathing, but that's because I knew instantly what the book was going to be about and Acheron is one of my all time favorite fictional characters.

If you need help finding a title, pay a visit to your local library and/or favorite bookstore. Write down any titles that strike you. Go home and read your novel while you're editing and see if anything sticks out in your mind that would sum it up without giving anything away. Prophecy is titled that way because...the story involves a prophecy and it's big. Simple and straight to the point.

Now get back to your work and finish your three pages unless you're on a minor sabbatical like I am right now. I obtained my replacement computer today so I'm taking the day off from fiction. I'll probably take tomorrow off too while the information is being replaced. I might even take Sunday off and actually have three days where I don't do any writing at all! Let's not push it. Also, if you find yourself inspriationless on Sunday night and you have HBO, check out True Blood. It's awesome if you don't mind the sex and nudity and bloody scenes. If you do, rent something.

Today, I was going over the plot for Legacy, the prequel in my series, and I had some thoughts that I wanted to share with other writers in the world. I personally hate doing research.

This probably comes from the days on end I spent in the library researching for speeches in high school (I did competitive speech, or forensics as it's called out here) and I have found that I can't stand to do research anymore.

For Legacy, I had to research Scotland's history from the 1600's through the 1800's. That's a lot of history. I know more about the Battle of Culloden and the history of tartans than I really ever wanted to know. While some of the research was really interesting (like learning which clan had what tartan), some of it was dry and I had a hard time finding anything reliable about warfare and weaponry from that time.

In the future, if I can afford it, I think I might push that kind of research off onto someone else who likes to do it and has time to do it.

But there is research that I find quite intriguing. About eight months ago, I did research on vampire myths and folklore. That was very interesting. I also did some on werewolf myths, but that wasn't as fruitful as the vampire search was. I've also buried myself in books on Norse mythology recently. It's very interesting stuff and I would recommend anyone who wants to dig into that topic to do so and share those results with me. My library is sorely limited.

What kinds of things do you like to research? What kinds of things do you wish someone else would look up for you?