A Busy Month Ahead

As I'm sure you know, if you actually follow my posts, I'm taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo this year, with a word-count aim of 60,000. I'm actually hoping to do more than that, but I was aiming to just do one thing: complete three novellas. In reality, if I could write an average of 3,000 words per day, and keep it up after July, I'd be at the point of writing as much as I'd want to.

However, for now we're just going to focus on the 60,000 words.

This works out at just under 2,000 words per day. That's doable. Extremely doable. Today I wrote a short story longer than that, and I was in work. Writing that every day for the first eight or nine days should bring The Hounds of Hell to completion. In theory. That leaves roughly 11 days for each of the next two books, The Blood of Leap and The Fires of Tara.

Now, I'm not just doing Camp NaNoWriMo next month. No, that would be too easy.

I'll still be writing on my blog every day. I'll still be writing poetry every day. I think I'm even going to force myself to start pitching articles to magazines, soon. That could mean having articles to write in the middle of all the other work I'm doing. What that means is that I could actually start earning money from writing while I work on the longer-term projects. You know, like other writers do it.

To top it all off, I'll be undertaking a large project with some friends, too. We have to set a start date and work out some finer details (and if they're reading this, and they're remembering what I'm talking about, they really ought to contact me to find out what's happening) but once it gets going, it'll take a fair bit of work to keep to going.

That's vague, but I'm trying not to spoil what I think is an awesome idea. For once, I'm not keeping it a secret from everybody before I write about it here, though.

I've also got to launch The Hounds of Hell during the month. In order to actually release more than one book in the space of a year in the series, it's necessary to actually publish it in July, while I'm writing the other books. I'm hoping that if I can work consistently from July 1st onwards, I'll be able to finish writing the series before the end of September.

That seems so far away right now, but I know that when I finish writing the final book, it'll seem like no time at all has passed since I started writing the series. It feels weird now to think that Balor Reborn was written last summer. A year ago, only three other people knew about it. Now I don't shut up about it.

Speaking of things I'm not going to shut up about for the next month, don't forget to enter my competition if you're taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo this year. Details can be found here: http://paulcarrollwriter.blogspot.com/2013/06/camp-is-back-on.html

Happy writing. Tomorrow, I'll give you the first update on my progress during Camp.

Book Giveaways

Hello valuable reader!

I've got two giveaways, in case you don't know. Well, you can't possibly know about one of them, but the other has been ongoing for a short while and concludes next week! Tell your friends!

The info on this giveaway is available here

As to the other one... well, I have a copy of Geneticide, my own book, to give away. So far, half the story has been posted online, and the rest will go up after this giveaway. The hard copy of the book, though, has more than what you'll get online. There are some Interludes in there that tell short stories of their own. I'm actually happier with them than I am with the rest of the book!

To be entered into the draw to win this, simply answer this question: If you had a super power, what would it be?

Stuck for inspiration on ideas? Check out http://geneticidebook.blogspot.com to read the book and get your mind thinking!

Competition ends February 18th, 2010. Open Internationally (ditto with the YouTube giveaway)

YouTube Giveaway

I knew today that I would have something to blog about, I just didn't know what.

But now I know! I'm doing a giveaway on YouTube, of The Literary Den Book of New Fiction 2008. The video can be viewed here:

The info in the "sidebar"

Subscribe and answer to enter:
What's your favourite children's or young adult book, and why?

The book: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback...
The charity: http://www.lauracranetrust.org/
The group: http://literaryden.wordpress.com/

Deadline: Feb 10th 2010

Good luck everyone! (remember, comments on the video, not here!)

Locked up with God

I had a weird experience last night... the Fat Fighters trapped us in the Pastoral Centre (note: Fat Fighters is my immature substitute for Weight Watchers). When I say "trapped" I mean they turned off all the lights but the one in our room, put on the alarm, and locked both locks on the door. When I say "us" I mean myself (obviously), Niamh, Ingrid, Sorcha, Cliodhna and the religious woman... I forgot her name, okay!

Thankfully Niamh knew the code to turn off the alarm when it went off...

Why am I telling you all this? I have a video about it!

Also, keep an eye on my YouTube channel and this blog - I'll be doing giveaways next week!! And they're good giveaways too. One is with a book that the money of which goes to charity and the other is a book you literally can't buy anywhere.

Peace, Love and Potter,
Paul.