Keep NaNo Going for Next Year!

Please donate to NaNoWriMo!

Even $10 can help keep National Novel Writing Month going till next year. The NaNo folks do so much more than host a web site for annual novelists; they provide NaN-based language arts curricula for young writers, even loaning out AlphaSmarts to classrooms without computers. During a time when the arts are being cut out of the schools, NNWM is helping develop new authors.

Last year, the NaNo hosts got the donations they needed and more. This year, everyone is short of money and the funds have not been forthcoming. Won't you lend a hand?

NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month is upon us again.



As usual, I'm using it to kick-start my writing. This year, I started my new novel, which introduces a new character, a new city, and a very different plotline from my first novel. Writing has been slow, since I am still settling into the new characters and setting, but I have worked on it steadily through the month.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

It's nearly that time again...

National Novel Writing Month is almost upon us!

I've been working on other projects (including the election) for the last couple of months, but I haven't been idle on book planning. I figure this will be a great way to kickstart my second novel!

I hope I'll see some of my writing buddies there, too (hint, hint).

Save Top Five!

One of the oldest and longest-running humor sites on the Web needs your help! It need fundings to continue. I've enjoyed Top Five's lists for several years. The lists are compiled from contributions sent in from fans of the site, and proper credit is given to the snarkers. It'd be a huge loss to Internet humor for Top Five to fold.



You can click on the logo above if you'd like to buy a pixel square for $50 that will launch a popup with your chosen prose, or you can mail donations to:

TopFive
c/o Chris White
10925 Bluffside Dr., #309
Studio City, CA 91604

The Other Side of the Writer: Political Blogging

One of the political blogs I post on, BlueGrassRoots, was selected to represent Kentucky at the Democratic National Convention last month. The site is sort of like DailyKos, with people posting their diaries for others to read and review. Most of the members are Kentuckians, although not all of them are.

I had the great honor of attending the Convention as one of the reporters representing the site: media pass and everything! Twenty-three years after getting my degree in journalism, I had my first press gig.

There were three of us, so we took turns for who got which night at the Pepsi Center. I covered Tuesday night and got to see all the Hillary action. I also got a pass for the final night at Invesco Field, where I got to see Obama deliver his speech from a skybox seat! It was an experience of a lifetime.

If you would like to see my political posts in general, you can check them out at:
http://www.bluegrassroots.org/userDiary.do?personId=82

Interest or Commitment?

Well, it’s time for the rubber to hit the road.

I have spent the past six months querying agents, working on synopses until my eyes crossed, and pondering rewrites of my novel. So far, no nibbles from agents, but I need to get on with my writing. I didn’t go on hiatus entirely from writing; I’ve worked on some short stories and have done a good amount of political blogging. Political blogging is, of course, when you root out the fiction in other people’s words.

My blogging, in fact, is where I’ve been most successful this year. I was invited to a bloggers’ panel at the local university earlier this year, and I’m one of three bloggers from Kentucky who will be using a press credential at the Democratic National Convention in August. My first press gig comes twenty-three years after getting a degree in journalism! I guess I had to wait for the Internet to find my niche.

In terms of my next novel, though, I find myself in a quandary. After much deliberation and one very telling Tarot reading, I think I would be better off not taking one specific character into the novel format. Too many people are familiar with him and would attempt to take credit for any book I wrote, regardless of content. This leaves me with the following options:

1. I could write the follow-up story to All This and Family, Too and see if I could sell it alongside or separately from the original novel.

2. I could write a Bethany Howard novel sans woo-woo. I’m not certain I want to do this, though.

3. I could write a novel featuring Lana, my lesbian detective in Asheville.

4. I could write an entirely new novel with characters from scratch.

My wife and I do plan to write at least one novel together, but I believe that having separate projects will make us better writers.

Meanwhile, I need to make some decisions... because six months is long enough to take off from writing novels, and I have made a commitment to writing them.

NOW I get it!

The Bluegrass Blogger Bash!

This Friday, I am one of the invited guests at the Bluegrass Blogger Bash, which will take place in the University of Kentucky Student Center. The focus of the event is political blogging, so I was invited on the basis of my work on blogs like Bluegrass Roots and Focus on the 88th. It's not a fiction-oriented event, although there does seem to be plenty of fiction in politics. Come by, if you can!

Short Division

Only one of us will be attending Saturday's Sisters in Crime meeting: Gwen. I will be staying in Lexington to attend my Legislative District meeting and help elect party officials. This is one of my duties as a new precinct chair.

I realize that one seems hardly connected to the other, but there are some strong resemblances between mysteries and politics. They both involve alliances and secret cabals, the examination of motives, and, frequently, digging up the dirt. They used to both involve murder, too, but the politicians have been cutting back on that with the development of good forensic science.

Bilocation

Gwen and I have been presented with a conflicting schedule: the next meeting of our Sisters in Crime chapter, when we will finally get a critique of the story we wrote jointly, will be on April 12th. Unfortunately, the 12th is also the day for the KY Democratic Party Legislative District elections, a very important day for the party. County executive committees will be elected across the state.

It looks like Gwen and I will have to split up for the day: one will travel to Louisville to hear the critique, while the other stays in Lexington to participate in the elections. The one who stays will have to be the one running for the precinct committee this year. We haven't decided which one of us that will be yet. The position is very important, especially in our underrepresented area, but naturally we are both eager to learn what the group thinks of our story! It will be a difficult decision.

Due to circumstances beyond our control...

...we did not attend the ORV chapter meeting of Sisters in Crime yesterday. In fact, there was no meeting of the ORV chapter, because the place the chapter meets was closed due to the weather. Mother Nature saw fit to dump snow and copious amounts of freezing rain on Kentucky this weekend.

Some members of the group were kind enough to contact and compliment us on our first jointly written story. It'd be funny if the story we wrote together wound up in the anthology and not the ones we wrote individually.

While we were housebound, Gwen and I registered domains in our names at GoDaddy.com. Just thinking about the future, folks. I also spent some time tweaking my novel, but the majority of my Saturday was spent parked in front of crime television, watching the birds and squirrels swarm our feeder and viewing YouTube videos of baby sugar gliders.

Perhaps next month we will get further commentary on our story. Meanwhile, I really need to buckle down on other projects.

Productivity

February was a busy month for us. Gwen and I wrote a new story together from scratch for our SinC chapter's bourbon anthology, and I've spent the last few days making final revisions to my solo story for the anthology. It would be very nice if both our solo stories and the one we wrote as a team were published together.

As mentioned before, I have begun sending queries to agents about my novel. We will see if I get a nibble. Keep your fingers crossed!

Welcome...

...to all members of Sisters in Crime. This page was recently added to their list of member websites.

If you've just tuned in, let me introduce my work. I write weird stories. Some are mysteries, some concern the paranormal, and several stories combine these elements. I've written a few horror stories, but I am more comfortable with the term 'paranormal' because so many of them have humorous elements.

I finished my first novel last year, and am in the process of shipping it around to agents. I have already begun outlining its sequel, and I have a few short story projects going on as well. I am writing one of the latter in conjunction with my wife, Gwen Mayo.

Please feel free to check out a short sample of my writing on the left, plus my story in Low Down and Derby.

As I said before, welcome!