Tiger Lily of Bangkok

Tiger Lily of Bangkok

‘Tiger Lily of Bangkok’ is my entry into the NaNoWriMo 2013 challenge. The challenge is to write a book of 50,000 words during the month of November. This is the diary of my MaNoWriMo 2013 experience.

1/11/2013: I have never entered before, but I am ready to write a new book. I decided to go out of my genre and write a book involving murder. I called it ‘Bangkok Lil’ and wrote furiously. In fact, I wrote more words on that day than I have ever done before.

I wrote all night, slept for two hours and wrote all da and night again. My total was 12,136 and that was 3,000+ more than my highest ever.

For the next six days, I hammered out loads more words, but I was expecting a stop. I know abot myself, that if I write at more than 4,000 for a long time, I just dry up.

Sure enough, that happened on the 7th and 8th, but last night, I was able to write again, writing 3,000+ quite easily.

By now I was on 34,077 and due to finish the book on or about the 12th of November, 18 days early. It is not a race and it is not a competition, it is a challenge, but one that I can handle very easily, having written ‘Maya Illusion’ in July and that was 112,000 words.

9/11/13: I wrote my second ever murder scene tonight, the other one was also in this book. I can’t say that it was not nice to do. No, sorry, I can say that it was awkward … No, disturbing to do. Or at least, it was very odd.

It was decidedly odd to put myself in the place or mind or a deranged psychopathic serial killer, plot and carry out the murder (on paper) of a man,. It made it easier knowing that Lily was sure that he deserved it.

I am not happy with the name of the book. ‘Bangkok Lil’ sounds too common. It reminds me of  ‘Fag-Ash Lil’ and Lily is not like that. I tried ‘White Lily of Bangkok’, but that was screaming out for a ‘the’ before it, which I did not want to put for SEO reasons.

I settled for ‘Tiger Lily of Bangkok’ tonight, I think, but don’t try to hold me to it.

I made it to 38,297 words and the end of the chapter, so we will have to see what tomorrow brings. It is midnight now.

10/11/13: off we go again! Day ten of ‘Tiger Lily of Bangkok’, as she will definitely be called now.  I got up at 6 AM, which is not that unusual, although I normally start a little later. That should allow me to get most of the 4,000 words I like to write a day done before noon.

I have the next three 4,000-word chapters fixed in my brain now and that will take me over the 50,000 mark to complete the challenge, but I will probably need at least one more and that is swirling about in my head – I can’t see it clearly yet.

So, here we go with chapter 11, which reminds me that I should upload a new chapter to Smashwords in order to release more words to the public to read (they get 20% starting from the first word in the book).

The keyboard on my Asus is lousy today! It seems that most of the keys either don’t work or repeat, meaning lots of needless editing, costing me time. Anyway, back to writing Tiger Lily of Bangkok…

Can’t get started… I’m thinking of promoting this page, but it is just displacement, not writers’ block. I just need to get started and it will flow from there. A concession… I’ll promote this to Facebook and Twitter first and then start – honest.

That’s the first 421 words of the day written, so the ice has been broken!

I did quite well at the end of the day topping my 4,220 daily average by 700 words. That means I have only 6,791 to go to finish the challenge, but not the book.

I wrote with the Bangkok chapter of NaNoWriMo last night for the first time in a few days, but I will go back tomorrow night at 10 p.m.

I am now wondering whether Lily should get away with her murders (five so far).

11/11/13: I have sorted that dilemma out, but I can’t tell you my decision or I’ll spoil the story of ‘Tiger Lily of Bangkok’.

I have started late today, but I have done all my email, so that is something. It’s 10 a.m. and I’m raring to go with a slight change in plot on the near horizon.

I had a very good day, writing 6,800+ words and completing the challenge by 10:30 p.m.

So, that’s the first 50k done!

However, joking aside, I will add another chapter or two to round it off as Lily has gone and changed the ending again!

12/11/13: starting at 8:30 a.m. today, but been here thinking for an hour.

I have the ending to ‘Tiger Lily of Bangkok’ but I’m not sure how she gets there from here. Usually, for me, it is bst to just write and see what happens. Just thinking can put me in a tailspin of, ‘yes, but what if’s’. The ending has definitely changed though, but at least I can see that, it’s just how to get there now.

I found a path to the ending!

‘Tiger Lily of Bangkok’ is now complete at 53,000+ words and I have started editing.

I bought the URL for the book too – an exact match which shocked me as I could not get anywhere near it on Facebook.

The website is:

http://tigerlilyofbangkok.com

and the Facebook page is:

http://facebook.com/tigerlily.thebook/

13/11/13: I did some moreediting today and I worked on the FB page and website. ‘Tiger Lily of Bangkok’ is coming along nicely! 🙂

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