The Spete Blog

It's (almost) November, and you know what that means! It's National Novel Writing Month! This year, I'm all kinds of prepared (although really, how can you ever be prepared to sit down and write a novel in a month?) and this time, I'm going to finish it! What is NaNoWriMo, you ask? This! http://www.nanowrimo.org/ ...have you ever found yourself lying around, wishing you could write a novel? Have you ever contemplated becoming a hermit for a month? Have you ever said to yourself, "why is there nothing interesting in November?" or "How can I escape all of these Christmas commercials?" Look no further. NaNoWriMo is here for you. For those who don't know, the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, starting November 1st, and ending the 30th. You can track your progress online, commiserate with fellow writers in your area, and become a recluse for 30 days. It's also a great excuse to drink a lot of coffee (or other caffeinated beve...

Let's be real; I'm not good at blogging. Still, I decided to put up an update for the world to enjoy! The cover for Andrian Adventures is in the works, and I've now finished one whole chapter of Part Two, which probably gets me a huge celebration, and maybe a trip to Lion's Tap. This means that I now have one chapter and two half chapters completed, which is exciting stuff, you know, considering that I've been "working" on Part Two since... June. Also, I was at the library today (when am I not at the library?) and re-discovered all of my teenage-hood author crushes. Notably Patricia C. Wrede, who I'm still willing to fan stalk around the Twin Cities until we can become best friends. Disclaimer-- I've never creepily stalked her... well, only online, which doesn't count. Right? Right. It's fun getting back into YA fantasy... I think during college and after I graduated I decided that I wanted to read Big Kid Books so I've mostly been...

Moved today! You know it's an exciting time in your life when you make the momentous trek from one Minneapolis suburb to the adjoining Minneapolis suburb. No big deal I live the high life :)

This morning I was thinking about antagonists in my stories, and realized that I'm actually horrible at creating really solid evil characters. I have plenty who are snotty, or rude, or sort of grumpy, but not any villainous  villains. I think I'll work on creating someone spectacularly wicked for the second part of Andrian Adventures. I'd like to stay away  from the usual fantasy/fairy-tale stereotypes, and since I've already made a wicked wizard for the first part of AA, I guess that's out. Maybe it'll be a recurring antagonist-- should they go from being good to bad? Time to get to work :) In other news, here's a picture of some alien beer. We actually didn't find this in Roswell, but in Las Cruces... in hindsight, I wish I'd tried some. I was flipping through pictures on my phone and was filled with regret :)