Denise Jaden and some of her friends are having a March Madness Writing Challenge. So what does this all mean?

If you have a writing project you’re ready to start, or a work in progress you’re ready to finish, come and join the fun. Accountability is our main aim and the more support we have, the easier it will be to sail on through the month of March, bouncing along on each others successes.

And did I mention there will be prizes? Prizes will not be awarded based on how much you write or revise, but simply on how involved you are in the Big Accountability Plan. There will be seven check-in points per week. Each time you check in and record your progress, your name will be entered in a draw for some great prizes, including some high-demand ARC’s and writing craft books.

Spread the word, and check out http://denisejaden.livejournal.com this coming Monday, March the first to put your goals officially in writing and find out the locations of the check-in points. If you’re ready to get serious, don’t do it alone…Get serious with us!

My goal for this is to write at least 12 000 words for The Circled Green, thus taking my total from 28 000 to a nice round 40 000. I did hardly any writing last month, as whooping cough does not make for a great writing state, so I would really like to dig in and do it properly this time around.

Are you gonna join in too?

1. What can I say? Any offer of free stuff/prizes automatically gets my attention

So here is what I read that year:

• Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte (Required Category: Pre-20th Century Writer)
• Long Walk To Freedom – Nelson Mandela (Required Category: Auto/Biography)
• The House Of The Spirits – Isabel Allende (Required Category: Contemporary Author)
• Once Were Warriors – Alan Duff (Required Category: New Zealand Author)
• Falling Leaves – Adeline Yen Mah (Required Category: Book Dealing With Another Culture)
• I, Claudius – Robert Graves
• The Shelters of Stone – Jean M. Auel
• The Origins of Humankind -Richard Leakey
• Voyage To Atlantis – James W. Mavor

Some notes I have gathered from re-reading the reviews:

• My review of Jane Eyre was a very polite “WTF?!” That book put me off classics for a good while.
• I read Long Walk To Freedom in about five hours, using a technique that would later be used on the days of Harry Potter releases – I locked myself in my room and didn’t come out until I was done.
• I read House of the Spirits during mock exam week. I made notes on language and the use of third vs first perspective, and the evolution of the narrator’s voice.
• I didn’t like Once Were Warriors‘ use of coarse language – “maybe I am overly sensitive to the language” I see there.
• I may have been sensitive to coarse language, but from my memories of Shelters of Stone I didn’t seem bothered by all the sex scenes. I remember sitting and giggling over the naughty bits with friends.
• I was very clearly in a major archaeology/history mode that year.

I don’t read as much adult fiction as I used to, partially because I am no longer required to and partially because since that time there has been major booms in YA and I have discovered the YA book blogging community (and so I am introduced to YA books that I otherwise wouldn’t have been).

Interesting though what you find when cleaning.

As you can sort of tell, I didn’t win NaNo. I started off pretty good, actually being about a day ahead. And then I had camp, and that meant I lost about four/five days of writing time. I had a second overnight camp (but that still equals two lost days when you factor in prep-time and “oh gawd I am tired *snores” the day after) and then I got sick a little while after. So I kinda gave up, and set a new goal.

So all in all, I wrote about 25 000 words in 20 days. That is omgexcellent for me – the most I have ever written in a full month is 20 000 words, and my average is about 12 000. Now I know I can write so much more than I did before, which hopefully means I can keep doing it and finish the drafts for The Circled Green, Lionheart and Bones sooner than I otherwise would have thought.

Anyway, have one last teaser for The Circled Green (if you haven’t read the others, follow the teasers tag back a bit). I wanted to pick something with Aurora, but this is one of the earliest scenes that wasn’t all wrapped up in other stuff. Also, Ciar appears. Whether he is being less creepy is all up to you.

And yes, I know Aurora is weird at times, but just bear with it. Also bear with any errors or awkward sentences, as this is unedited NaNo stuff we’re talking about.

Grandmother Adelaide would kill her if she found out what Aurora had done.

Not only had she gone out without permission, completely missing out one of her lessons with her governess, she was not riding side-saddle as a lady ought to. Her hair was loose, she did not wear a hat, and she was galloping as fast as she could handle the horse.

And if that was not enough to earn her grandmother’s wrath to the point of murder, the fact that Aurora was wearing trousers to do all this would most definitely have done so.

So she ran. Away from Adelaide and her restrictions. Away from a world that forced her into tight corsets and huge skirts. Away from a world that discouraged her from so many things that she wanted to do, instead guiding her towards simple things like marriage. And children.

She rode so fast that the world was a blur of greens, all different shades from light and dark, blended with browns and greys of rocks and tree trunks and branches. The only thing that was truly visible was the back of the horse’s head, a warm brown colour, and his twitching ears. The world was spinning around her and she was afraid that if she stopped she would find herself in some far-off place, like India, having ridden all the way around the world.

Something dark dashed in front of her, and the horse reared up, panicked. Aurora shrieked and tried to hang on even as it did its best to throw her off. Hands reached up to grab her and pull her off. With one last scream she surrendered, and found herself flying through the air and towards the reaching hands. She twisted and turned, trying to escape their grasp but all she managed to do was to turn over and meet them, face to hands.

The world froze like that, with her seemingly suspended in the air forever. The only real thing in a vision of blurry and messy colours, waiting for the world to start up again so she could continue to fall.

It did, and down she went. The hands took hold of her and then there was nothing.

 
When the world returned, Aurora was not lying on the hard ground. Something was soft beneath her. Soft and moving.

She pressed her hands against the earth on either side and pushed up just enough to look down – and gasped. It was a man, a beautiful man, and he had cushioned her landing with his body. He had to have been the hands that were reaching for her. He had not been trying to pull her off to hurt her, she realised belatedly. He had been trying to save her.

Everything was completely inappropriate – the way she was dressed, the fact she was touching him, the way she was touching him as a whole, legs and stomach and chest all matching up and pressed together. At the very least she should have got up and off him, but she was struck by the way he looked and could not bring herself to move even one more inch away.

She had never thought a man could be beautiful. Women were the ones who were beautiful, like her. Men, on the other hand, were handsome, just like her father. That was the way things should have been, and yet it seemed completely and utterly wrong to call this man handsome. The only word that seemed right was beautiful.

He had striking, high cheekbones, and lips that shocked her with the inappropriate thoughts they caused her to have. His skin was tan but unmarked, the same even colour throughout without a single hint of blemish.

His eyes, when they opened, were so dark a brown that looked black and indistinguishable from the pupils. Even in the brightness of the day they looked like shadows – deep, out of place, and drawing Aurora in even as she fought to look away.

Inside her chest, her heart skipped a beat.

LIONHEART: After he is killed and his sister kidnapped by the same magical force, Leander finds himself the champion of the force that resurrected him – the long-dead High Mage blamed for the destruction of their glorious empire – and in a battle three centuries in the making.

BONES: When Dinah Gillespie discovers that the dying can see the dead – and that there is a ghost in her attic – she makes it her mission to do one last good thing before she dies, and set him free by solving a murder that occurred over sixty years ago.

BLOOD BOUND: The only thing that sucks more than vampire boyfriends and brothers is murder.

THE CIRCLED GREEN: A woman with a mysterious past is eight years dead, the man she loved and left behind is convinced by his domineering mother to stop grieving and remarry, and their beautiful daughter is being pursued by a dark faerie determined to have her at any cost – this is what happens after a supernatural being gives up immortality in exchange for human love.