Hello, lovelies!
Forgive me for not posting since the beginning of the month, but it has been a BUSY one. The first week of November I kicked off NaNoWriMo with a choir rehearsal on Oct 31st, followed by a midnight kickoff. Then we had a choir dress rehearsal on the 3rd, a concert on the 4th, a NaNo event on the 5th, another concert--this time 90 minutes away--on the 5th. Rehearsal again on the 6th! All of that was while working on my final projects for my digital portfolio for my last Master's class before I graduate in December and working full-time and being an ML (Municipal Liaison for those not familiar). WHEW!!
It's amazing I didn't get too far behind that week. I went into this last weekend about 5-7k behind, but managed to write almost 10k words during the One Hundred Hours of Writing stream events!
I absolutely love this event. It is THE BEST. In 2020, when everything went virtual, a few MLs got together with an idea to do 100 consecutive hours of writing sprint streams on Twitch. It was a huge success, and I was fortunate to be involved that first year as a streamer. Since then, OHHOW has hosted smaller events during each Camp NaNoWriMo on top of the 100 Hours November event. This year was a grand success. I was able to host three streams during which the people hanging out with me wrote a collective 24161, 20754, and 38627 words!! That 38k got my stream sitting at the top of the 5 Most Productive Streams, until the last stream. Everyone was super hyped and really showed up for the final two hours and wrote 63,870 words during two hours! INSANITY!
We almost hit 1 million words as a collective group. The entire event netted 955, 025 words.
Holy smokes! It's so inspiring to be surrounded by such amazing writers and hear what they're writing about and help them celebrate their successes.
If you'd like to get involved with OHHOW next year, either as a streamer or a viewer, you can find out more at this link! Link | OHHOW website
So how is my NaNoWriMo going?
Well, considering the insanely busy month I've had, pretty darn good! I'm still behind, but I'm sitting around 21k (25k is today's goal), so I'll call that a win. Usually I end up about 10k behind the last week, so I'm on par for my normal routine of late nights and a mad game of catch-up before the 30th.
I wasn't entirely sold on this "holiday romance" idea when I decided to start writing it, but I am absolutely loving my characters. I have much more of a love triangle than I expected to have. I've introduced a potential love interest for my main supporting character. I can see the potential for a set of stories set in Tinsley Falls beyond this holiday romance. I'm excited to see where the rest of this month takes me. And I do think I'll be able to tie everything up in a nice little holiday bow around 50-60k!
I'm still considering whether to try to publish this on Kindle Vella or as an eBook in mid-December or not. I've also seen a few small presses taking un-agented submissions for holiday romances for next year. So, maybe, I'll try to submit it for something like that while polishing it up and if nothing comes to fruition before next December, I'll publish it next year.
I want to share it with you all though! I'm loving it.
And without further adieu, an excerpt!!
So, I have these BFFs. My main character Adelaide (Addie) and her best friend, Gemma. They've been BFFs basically for life. Addie is secretly in love with Gemma's brother. I love their interactions. So here is an excerpt from one of their exchanges I particularly loved writing where Gemma potentially gets Addie in over her head.
Also, if you'd like to see some more, shorter excerpts, visit my Instagram! They've also been cross-posted on Twitter and my new Facebook page for Rosie's Reverie. I'll link those at the end!
*****
“Addie! Oh my god. Come here.” Gemma ran out from behind the counter and dragged Addie back into the kitchen by her arm as soon as she walked into the café. “We have a problem!” Gemma held onto both of Addie’s hands and looked her straight in the eyes.
“A problem? What kind of a problem?” Addie asked.
“Well, you know how every year Tinsley Falls has the big Tinsel Town celebration and feast extravaganza thingy?”
“Yes…”
“And you know how I’m doing the bakery part for it this year?”
“Yes…which you’d already asked me to help you with…”
“Right…well…” Gemma trailed off.
“Gemma, just spit it out already.”
“I kind of volunteered you to help with another part of the festival.”
“Oh, did you now?”
“Yes…?’ Gemma responded with a playful grin.
“And what exactly will I be helping with?” Addie tilted her head forward a bit and raised her eyebrow.
“So…” Gemma, a very expressive storyteller, finally dropped Addie’s hands and clasped them in front of her mouth like she was praying. “Old Mr. Flannigan, who owns the family restaurant that usually does all the catering. He seems to have fallen ill with pneumonia and is in the hospital…”
“That’s awful.”
“Yes. Well, he and his wife pretty much single-handedly put together the catering and food for the feast. Of course, they use the restaurant and have help and stuff, but his head chef is out on maternity leave and...”
“Oh my god, Gemma. You didn’t?” Addie covered her mouth with one hand and her eyes grew wide anticipating what Gemma was about to say.
“I maybe told them that I thought you could come in and take over and help run the catering because the other manager and chef left in charge are relatively new and know nothing about catering or the festival and are about to call the whole thing off.”
“Well, they can’t call off the Tinsel Town Feast. That would be an absolute tragedy.” Addie added, rather sarcastically, even though it really would be a tragedy to the town to call off the feast. “But, Gemma, me? It’s like less than five days from the feast!”
“I know, but I know you can do it. You know catering! You’ve worked in New York! You had a restaurant in Austin!”
“Key word there is “had” Gemma.”
“Well, yeah, it closed but that wasn’t really your fault. You didn’t ask them to rezone your building or raise leasing costs all over the country.” Gemma shrugged. “Will you do it? Please?”
Addie sighed and shook her head. “I have nothing better to do with my time, I guess.” Gemma threw her arms around Addie’s neck with such force Addie lost her balance and tripped backwards.
*****
So, there you have it! Addie is off to save the Tinsel Town Christmas Extravaganza!
If you'd like to read more of my excerpts I post shorter ones daily from what I wrote the previous day for NaNoWriMo.
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If you're doing NaNoWriMo, how's it going? If not, how are you other writing endeavors going?
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For now,
Rosie J.
