Guest Blogger: Stacey Voss Author of Thunder and Blood Talks About Nanowrimo

Where is Stacey Voss?

I’ll give you a hint: It is the day you all have been waiting for.

She’s HERE! She’s HERE!

Yup, that’s right today is Stacey’s sixth stop on her whirlwind Thunder and Blood virtual tour!

Stacey Voss is here live and in virtual person, as my very first Guest Blogger and the first ever author to stop by my little virtual club house for a Book Blog Tour! In honor of her visit today I will be giving away a signed copy of Thunder and Blood with a signed Thunder and Blood bookmark! (This giveaway is in addition to the Thunder and Blood Game Contest. So this is an extra chance to win!) Details at the bottom.

Thunder and Blood Back Cover:

When Sarah Ingram and her sister Christine left Thunder Bay on a chilly November afternoon, they thought that they were going on a weekend getaway, leaving their problems behind. What they didn’t realize was that they would end up in a world that was, in many ways, very different from their own, but at the same time eerily familiar. Separated almost at once, the two women found themselves struggling to come to terms with the reality of their situation. How did this world become so different from the one they knew? What secrets were their new ‘friends’ hiding from them? Was it possible that there could be more to the vampire stories from their own world than simple myth?

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Stacey’s Guest post is about Nanowrimo, how she ended up writing Thunder and Blood and the journey she took to publishing it. She will be here all day (8AM – 4PM EST) answering questions and chatting. I am particularly excited about this post because This year I will be participating in Nanowrimo for the very first time! If you are joining in the crazy fun of Nanowrimo add me as a buddy! Stacey’s profile link is available at the bottom also.

If you are new here today,then welcome I hope you enjoy Stacey’s post, take a few minutes to say hello and look around my humble little virtual corner. 🙂

With that, Let the Games Begin!

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One Month, 50K Words, Inspiration and a Creepy Fog – by Stacey Voss

A lot of people have asked me about how I wrote Thunder and Blood during Nanowrimo 2007. When Heather asked me to do a guest blog, I suggested writing about Nanowrimo because it’s one of the most fantastic under-publicized events for writers held around the world.

Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month. While it started out as a national USA event, it has grown over the last eleven years into a global event. The first time I ever heard of it was during the last week of October in 2007. A friend of mine posted a status update on Facebook that said “Lock up your inner editor” along with a link to the Nanowrimo site (www.nanowrimo.org). Intrigued, I clicked on the link and discovered the challenge: write 50,000 words in 30 days.

I’d always wanted to write a novel, but had issues getting past the first few chapters. I was always caught by that “inner editor” that my friend had mentioned. I’d get a few thousand words into the story and then be distracted and go back to the beginning and start editing what I’d already written. It was far easier to keep editing what I’d already written than to progress and continue the story.

This time I was in a place in my life where I was ready for the challenge. I had recently remarried that summer and my husband was extremely supportive of my wanting to participate in Nanowrimo. All I needed was an idea. Many participants plan for a month or more ahead of time, doing character sketches and building their world. The main rule for the challenge is that you can’t write a word of the story until November 1st, but planning is allowed. I didn’t have time for much planning or for coming up with a new idea.

There was a story that had been running around in my brain for the last ten years. In fact, the inspiration for the story had first come to me around 15 years before when I had been a teenager. I was driving around the countryside late at night, probably thinking about boys, and suddenly drove into an extremely thick fog. The fog was exactly as I described it in my novel. It slid over my windshield like layers of silk and I couldn’t see either side of the road, let alone any oncoming traffic. At the time I was terrified, but when I finally drove out of the fog and made it home I thought ‘what an amazing idea for a story.’

It remained an idea until I was 24, when I started posting my writing on a website called Themestream. After submitting all of my short stories and a few of my poems, I decided to start a serial novel. Basically I wrote a short chapter every week. The website was taken down (just as I had earned my first cheque) and although I had printed out the chapters that I wrote they were put in a box somewhere. I’m sure I came across those pages a few times over the years, but they were finally lost when my daughter and I sold everything that we owned and moved to Germany in 2005.

Two years later I took that idea and did two days of planning before starting writing at just after midnight on November 1st, 2007. I wrote my first 1,667 words in just under two hours. I kept up that pace as long as I could. I had about 15,000 words when my husband and I left for our honeymoon to the Canary Islands for two weeks. During my honeymoon I managed to write about another 10,000 words. I was under the gun at the end, but managed to finish those last 25,000 words during the last week, completing the challenge and earning my certificate at around 11:30 pm on November 30th.

I was so happy to be done that I just put the novel aside and left it alone. I picked it up again in March for Nanowrimo (National Novel Editing Month) but didn’t manage to put in my 50 hours of editing time for the month. I finally started editing again in October and that finally lead to me finishing and sending the novel in for publication at the end of April 2009.

Nanowrimo starts up again in ten more days. If you feel inspired and ready to take on a new life challenge, feel free to add me as a friend – http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/214979 – we can help each other get to that 50,000 word finish line.

Giveaway Rules:

To enter the giveaway all you have to do is follow my blog or subscribe to the RSS feed and ask Stacey a question or leave her comment.

For additional entries Tweet about it and include @bookobsessedGrl in the tweet so I receive it, or blog about it & provide me with a link. Every time you tweet it or link back to it will count as an additional entry. (You must leave a comment with the links in order for them to count)

Include you First Name & initial, along with a contact email address or your entry will not be counted.

This giveaway is ONE DAY ONLY!!! I will announce the winner tomorrow morning (10/23/09).

Open internationally!

Thunder and Blood Trailers:

Find Stacey and more info about Thunder and Blood:

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

Shelfari

Thunder and Blood Cafe Press Store

At Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers you can read an INTERVIEW of the CHARACTER Adelaide.

Stacey’s Nanowrimo Profile

But wait there’s more… (isn’t it exciting when there is more?)

If you are not the lucky winner of todays fabulous giveaway don’t fret you can still get your own copy of the book, at a discount price! Stacey has set up a special deal good for this tour only! Head over to CreateSpace and use code 3Z8WYLY2 at check out and you will get 25% off the normal price! You’ll have to hurry though as the code is only good until November 30th!

Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to join in the fun today by chatting with me and Stacey! Who knows you just might win!

Cheers,

Heather