NaNoWriMo 2012 & Other Things

Hey everyone!

I've been so busy with writing my NaNo novel, not to mention school work, that I haven't even had time to post about NaNoWriMo yet.

In short, I'm behind. On my NaNo wordcount, I mean. As for school work, I am keeping up just fine, thank you. And my grades are there to prove it!

Anyway, I'm just about at 20,000 words. My novel is called Phantom Desires. For a while now, I've wanted to try my hand at a modern day, young adult retelling of my absolute favourite story, The Phantom of the Opera. And I like how this is coming along. The problems I've run into so far are:

• Raoul is rather one-dimensional, and I am having a lot of trouble making my version of his character likeable.
• The romance between Raoul and Christine seems to come out of nowhere, and while that works in the stage version, it's not going to fly in a novel.
• The Phantom is actually really creepy. I've always been enamoured by his character in the musical and movie, but now that I am writing him as a 21-year-old man in modern times, I've realized that a modern-day, 17-year-old version of Christine just wouldn't put up with that at all.

Still, I do like what I have so far, even if it will need an awful lot of editing. And I have changed all the characters' names, except for the Phantom's...I used Erik, which is his name in the Gaston Leroux novel that the musical is based on. And I recommend that book, by the way. Very different from the musical (not nearly as romantic and about a hundred times creepy) but still good in its own right.

Once I finish this novel (which probably won't be for a while...outside of November, it's low priority), I will publish it to Smashwords and Amazon. But it will be free, since it does borrow characters and story elements from both the novel and the musical. I think as long as I provide it for free and give credit where credit is due and state that I do not own any of the characters etc. then I should be safe, but I will have to look into it. I will make it available somehow, though, whether as an ebook or just online. Even on my blog, maybe! I could post a chapter a week or something.

Oh, actually, I decided not to use chapters in this novel. I know, how artsy of me. So maybe a decently sized chunk a week? That could work.

But my number one aim would be to provide it as an ebook. 

But first I need to finish it! Which, as I said, won't be for a while. I need to finish up with Oppressive Underground, which, you may recall, was my NaNo novel from last year and is coming along quite nicely. I've almost finished up the plot, and then comes the hours and hours of proofing and editing. And then publishing! Yay!

And then I need to write Rise of the Women. Getting that written is long overdue, I know! 

Good luck to my fellow NaNoWriMo participants. I know that it is no easy task, so just try your best and have fun with it!