Beautiful Books: Nov edition.

Last month Further Up and Further In hosted Beautiful Books in place of Beautiful People. And this month - the precious month of NaNoWriMo - they did it again! This time we are going to talk about the writing process.

Of course, I will be talking about my NaNo novel that right now, for the sake of ease, is being called Alternatives (though that is more likely going to be the title of the sequel - yes, I'm already planning the sequel.)

Now for the questions:

1. Is the book turning out how you thought it would be, or is it defying your expectations? - Well, some of both, I haven't really gotten far enough into the story to let it completely run away, but some new characters have already sprung out of nowhere.
2. What’s your first sentence (or paragraph)? - I'll give you the first three (they're pretty rough right now): "In the land of ____, in the country of ___, in the year 00--.  The sun rose and cast a gentle orange light on the six lands of _____: ___, ___, ___, ____, ___, and ____.  And as it dawned upon them that it was time to wake, twelve year old Cinderella was already busy at her chores."
3. Are you a plotter or a pantser? Have you ever tried both methods and how did it turn out? - Usually I am more of a Pantser - though I do put some thought into the story and characters before I start. But this time around I tried to be a planner, and I plotted away, however my plans were foiled because my lap-top died - fortunately a friend of mine was able to rescue my documents, but the lap-top is dead so I don't have a way of accessing them, and my memory is awful; therefore, I was forced to be more of what I normally am.
4. What do you reward yourself with after meeting a goal? - I'm not really a reward based person... Meeting the goal is the reward...
5. What do you look for in a name? Do you have themes and where do you find your names? - I like the names of my characters to have meaning and to relate to the story, but I don't always make them do so. I look through baby name books or I'll google names with specific meanings. My favorite name site is Meaning of Names.com especially if I'm working on a fantasy story.
6. What is your favourite to write: beginning, middle, or end — and why? - Well... I don't know... So far in my writing career I've only written beginnings or isolated scene ideas.
7. Who’s your current favourite character in your novel? - oh, wow, tough question... Well, I have this cool fairy guy, his name is Valor: he is young, handsome, and he loves his friends and would do almost anything for them - as is demonstrated in the story. He's near the top, of my fav list, but I really don't think I have one favorite.
8. What kind of things have you researched for this project, and how do you go about researching? (What’s the weirdest thing you’ve researched?!) - I haven't done any research yet for this story. But probably the weirdest thing I've researched for a story in the past was the Portuguese man o' war - and it was not becuase someone gets stung by one.
9. Do you write better alone or with others? Do you share your work or prefer to keep it to yourself? - Bit of both. For this story I like writing alone, but I think that if I were with a group of other writers, the atmosphere would be good for writing. I often share my work, the responses are a lot of what keeps me going.
10. What are your writing habits? Is there a specific snack you eat? Do you listen to music? What time of day do you write best? Feel free to show us a picture of your writing space! - I am a very inconsistent person, so I really don't have any writing habits. Pretzels and trail mix are good writing snacks. I sometimes listen to music while writing, I like some of the playlists put together by this site: SoundFuel. I often write best a night, after everyone else is asleep; but at other times it is simply whenever the inspiration hits! I don't have any picture of my work area but I shall attempt to describe it to you: Sometimes it is the brown office chair, with my work in my lap. Sometimes I lie/sit on my bed with my work either on my lap, in my hands, or on a make-shift desk constructed from pillows.

That was fun!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. Now, go and see what others have said, and maybe answer the questions yourselves.