Top 5 guys for 2010

Favorite guys from 2010

In no particular order.

1. Varen from Nevermore: Dark, tortured, brooding and mysterious is how I like my guys, and Varen Nethers is about as tortured and brooding as you can get. There's just something about his stoic resignation that makes you want to leap in and save him, both from himself and the horrors that surround him.

2. Will from Firelight: Technically, I'm just starting this book, but I already love Will, the young draki hunter out to get Jacinda (in more ways then one). Like I said, I've only just begun, but I expect the romance to get fire-breather hot really soon. :D

















3. Gale from The Hunger Games: No, I am not Team Gale. I am not Team Peeta, either. I will reserve judgment for who I think should get the girl. But Gale is a skilled hunter and a rebel, and I like him slightly more then the soft, somewhat bumbling baker boy. (Team Peeta, don't kill me. I like Peeta, too, just not as much.) I have a sneaking suspicion who Katniss will end up with, but having only recently read Hunger Games (yes, I'm late), I still have two more books to see where the story takes the characters.

4. Kylar Stern from Way of Shadows: Not a YA book, but Kylar starts out as a street rat and grows into a formidable assassin. That's all it takes for massive love from me. Anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for assassins (my favorite YA hero is and remains Valek from Poison Study). I don't know why I love assassin stories so much. Maybe its the mystery, the dark allure, the inner torment. Or maybe its because I'm also a ninja nut.

















5. Mackie Doyle from The Replacement: Mackie is weird. He's different. He's a changeling. And I might have a biased love for all things faery. But Mackie tries so hard to be human, to do the right thing, even though he really doesn't belong in either world, that you can't help but admire his determination.



Those are my top 5 guys for 2010. Who are yours?

Happy Holidays from us all

Ash and Puck need your help

Hey, Ash and Puck fans!









Harlequin TEEN is offering an amazing opportunity. Today at 12pm EST, they are having a poll to decide the models for the cover of THE IRON KNIGHT. You, yes YOU, can vote to decide which Ash or Puck you want to see on the cover.


I have my favorites, but I'm not telling, lol.


Go to The Iron Fey Facebook page to cast your vote. Voting ends January 3rd, 2011.

Teaser Tuesday

Can you believe its less then a week until Christmas? Where did the year go?

Anyway, several people have asked me for one last Teaser Tuesday, as a gift of sorts, and I agreed to one more teaser. The wait for Iron Queen isn't long now; January is right around the corner.

So, here is the last teaser of 2010.


***

If I’d known, I might’ve done things differently. But beyond that moment of regret, I felt calm, certain, filled with a resolve that pushed back all fear or doubt. I was ready. There was no other way.

***

Happy holidays, everyone!

Julie

Webcomic the first. Introducing Chibi Ash, Puck, and Grim

Got some new Prisma Color markers that other day, and thought I would play around with them a bit.

This is the result.
































My doodle skills are a bit rusty, but I'm thinking of doing a monthly or bi-monthly comic, with chibi Meg, Ash, Puck, and Grim. What do you think?

Julie

Christmas theft and fruitcake

Its Christmas time again. And very snowy and icy, down here in Kentucky; our cul de sac has turned into an ice rink and people are in full Christmas panic mode. It reminded me of another Christmas, about two years ago, when I was writing in my LiveJournal blog. It was faintly amusing, so I'd thought I'd share it with you here, too.

***

December 17, 2008

Ah, Christmas. While it makes us want to bake cookies, decorate our yards with inflatable moving reindeer, and stand in fifteen below weather singing to people we've never seen before, it can unfortunately bring out the worst in people, too. With all the shopping and gift buying, fighting mobs of fellow humans in malls, and circling the parking lots like hungry sharks waiting for the raft to sink already, this can stress some people out. It can stress them out so badly that they snap like a dill pickle and do stupid things, like cut in front of everyone else's kid in the line to see Santa, or wrestle old ladies for the last roll of discounted wrapping paper. Or bake fruitcake.















When I was working register in the endless torture of the Store That Shalt Not Be Named, Christmas time always meant a spike in people who wanted to screw you over. Those idiots who thought I was too busy and stupid to notice they still had merchandise on the bottom of their cart, like they could hide it underneath a see-through grate. "Oh," they said, acting surprised and annonyed when I pointed it out. "I guess I forgot about the two-hundred dollar peice of merchandise I stuffed under my jacket. I guess I don't want it after all." "Oh," says the man clutching a roll of bills so fat he could play baseball with it, "you didn't give me the right change. I gave you a five, and I'm supposed to get back a twenty, but I'm hoping you're too busy and frazzled to notice I'm lying through my rotten teeth."

So, Christmas crime is nothing new to me. That being said, I was still mildy surprised when my husband found the contents of somebody's purse scattered in the leaves on the side of our house. This obviously wasn't trash; there were gift cards and a work badge and a 1gig memory card, and pictures of a nice family with three beaming kids. The work badge gave me her name, but there was no wallet or I.D. to tell me who this person was. Long story short, I dug around until I found a list of phone numbers in a coupon envelope, called her friend, who called the husband, who picked up the stuff this morning. Turns out, a thief just snatched the purse from her cart at Wal-Mart and took off. Wal-Mart security chased him through the neighborhoods (we live two minutes from Wal-Mart), but never caught the guy. He was a quick bastard, apparently.

So, I'm glad I could return the stuff to it's rightful owner, and hopefully make someone's Christmas a little brighter. As for the thief, may he run himself straight into an oncoming truck, shatter all of his bones, and spend Christmas alone and friendless in the emergency ward, where they feed him nothing but fruitcake.

Wither ARC giveaway

Who wants a WITHER arc?












I have this gorgeous ARC that Simon and Schuster sent me (thanks so much!), and while I must stick to my No Review policy, I will say that I enjoyed it, quite a lot in fact. So I want to spread the love around, hoping that maybe someone else will read it and love it and post a wonderful review.

So anyway, just leave a comment with your contact info and I'll let Random.org choose a winner on January 1st. (I'd love to send it out for Christmas, but honestly the post office lines terrify me right now.)

(U.S. only this time. Sorry, but tis the season for sending lots of packages, and my budget is feeling the strain already.)

Good luck!

An Iron King trailer

Wow.

I'm in awe. Check out this awesome AWESOME fan made trailer for The Iron King. It has everyone; Puck, Ash, Ethan, even Grim! (And Grim is hilarious.)




Bravo! Very well done.

This seems familiar

Sigh. This is why our house cannot have Christmas trees. (Just imagine TWO cats instead of one.)





I feel your pain, Simon. I really do. :/

Best I've Read

I'm a BIR author!

Woohoo!

For those of you not in the know (like me, a few days ago), BIR stands for Best I've Read, and is being held by several fantastic bloggers all over the blogosphere. Today, I'm featured at a couple of their blogs. Go check them out; some of them have giveaways for cool stuff. And, as we all know, stuff is great.

Page Turners Blog

A Readers Ramblings

Between the Covers (with interview AND giveaway)


And here's an interview with me over at Vampire Book Club , where they talk about The Iron Queen, faeries, and even have a picture of a HBWS (Hot boy with sword).

And yet another interview, this time with Meghan and Ash at Page Turners Blog



Thanks so much, ladies!

The Sims3: Tying the Knot

Disclaimer: Sims3 posts are in no way related to the actual events in the Iron Fey series.


Today is the big day. The guests have been invited, and everything is set up and ready.

















And that evening, the ceremony begins. (I don't know why the guests are standing when there are chairs right there. Sims can be strange sometimes.)


















Everyone looks on


















as Meghan and Ash say their vows,


















exchange rings,

































And finally kiss.


















Perfection.



















Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the newlywed couple, Ash and Meghan Winter.


















Aftermath: Meghan receives congratulations from family...
































and friends.



















Mab leaves as soon as its over, but Sage stays a bit to offer congratulations to his brother.



















And finally, Ash and Meghan share one perfect dance. They're finally married, but their future together is just starting.

















To be continued...?

Winter is Coming.

There are no words for how excited I am.

Except maybe...these:

Winter. Is. Coming.





*Chills*

That is all.

Post NaNo: New goals and congratulations

Today is December 1st.

Yesterday, at 3:35 pm, I crossed the finish line for NaNo WriMo, at 50,024 words.

It was an exhausting, grueling, trying month, but I'm SO glad that I did it. I know this particular WIP would've taken me twice as long if I hadn't NaNoed the first half of it. My plot meandered, my characters did crazy, nonsensical things or nothing at all, and I couldn't count the times I wanted to go back and erase that page or paragraph or chapter of horrid prose that would've made Shakespeare roll in his grave. But erasing even one word would set my precious word quota back, the one I had clawed and cajoled and wrestled to get it this far. You can't look back, in NaNo. You must keep moving forward.

So. If you are among the few stubborn, stalwart, never-say-die people who crossed the NaNo finish line, congratulations! I salute you.

If you didn't quite make it, congratulations! I salute you, too! You tried something most would put off, or would've seen as impossible. You wrote. Whether you wrote 100 words or 49,999, you still put fingers to keyboard and words in front of the other. That is something to be proud of.

But its not over, yet. For me, my novel isn't quite done. I still have another 30,000 words to go. For my fellow NaNoers, that 50,000 word novel isn't done yet, either. Now comes the clean-up, where you go back and fix your plot holes, snip those loose threads, and try to get it looking its best. If you're aiming to get that story published, you have a lot of work to do. Firstly, consider padding your novel with another 20,000--30,000 words. I know *GASP*, that's a lot of words, but 50k is a VERY short novel, and most publishers prefer something a little longer. You can do it--you already have a beginning and an ending. And you wrote 50,000 words in a month; this should be cake.

















Or, if you don't see how your novel can be salvaged, write another one. Yup, just like that. You already know you can do it. That's the most valuable thing NaNo can teach you; you've already written a book. You can do it again.

For those who didn't finish, keep going! What's stopping you? NaNo is a tool, a motivational device to get you started, but you don't need it to finish. You've already begun your story. Completing it is just a matter of putting words in front of each other, little by little, until you're done.

Finish your novel. You don't need NaNo to do it. =)

Julie

German Cover

Check out the German cover for The Iron King, now titled "Suddenly Fey--Summernight."























What do you think? I do love the cover; its very eye-catching (no pun intended). I wonder what they're going to do with the second book. Suddenly Fey--Winterday? Hmmm....

Sunday Musings: A Zombie Question

So, here is this idea I had.

On Sunday, I ask a question, about anything really--books, characters, movies, ect. And we can discuss it in the comments section.

Sounds fun, right?

So, here is my musing for this week: Zombies. Fast zombies vs. slow zombies. Which do you prefer to read about/watch? Which would be more frightening, and which version would be easier to survive? (28 Days Later freaked me out the first time I saw it. FAST ZOMBIES?!? Aaaaaagh, what the heck!)





















On a different angle, do zombies make good heroes or protagonists? Or are they best as a terrifying, unstoppable enemy that the hero must fight against to survive?

Let me know your thoughts!

Black Friday and the Iron Queen Arc winner! (And zombies)

Welcome to Black Friday!












(AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!)


Pardon me while I cringe and crawl under the covers, lol! I'm SO not an early riser, nor am I particularly fond of shopping (unless its for books or video games), so Black Friday will see me at home.

Alllllllllll day.

But, I do have a nice surprise for one person. The winner of the Iron Queen ARC giveaway. I couldn't believe how many entries it had; 567! Insane, truly insane. And, Random.org has picked the lucky winner, which is:

Rebecca! (rebecca-camilleri@hotmail.com)

Congratulations, Rebecca! Check you email so I can send you your book post haste. :) And thank you for everyone who entered. This won't be the last chance to win an Iron Queen, so keep your eyes peeled for another future giveaway.


Thanks again, and happy Black Friday!
















(The similarities are uncanny. o_O)

For Aspiring Authors

Happy day before Turkey Day!

And just a quick note: this is for all aspiring authors. My wonderful, creative, awesomely talented agent recently uncovered her brainchild, the San Francisco Writer's University, an ONLINE university where you can learn everything you wanted to know about writing. Plus, you can learn about the business side of writing, the agent secrets and the publication process and how to write a book proposal.









So, at the risk of sounding like a commercial, what are you waiting for? Its free to sign up, the premium classes are reasonably priced, and there are a ton of free classes as well. (The classes are downloadable as mp3 files.) You can post comments, join discussions, and reach out to other writers in the community. (I'm a member, so feel free to friend me, if you like.) I know Laurie McLean, and I know she's very big on helping aspiring authors get published, so this site is really tailored to that. And, since it's just getting started, it's all set to explode into something fantastic.

Hope to see you there!

The San Fransisco Writer's University

Julie

Have some wallpaper?

Well, this is just awesome.

NEW from Harlequin Teen, Iron Fey wallpaper.














See the pretty? It's so pretty! Go to Harlequin Teen's Facebook page to snag one for yourself.

Teaser Tuesday

Announcement:

Since The Iron Queen has arrived on Netgalley and reviews are starting to trickle in, this will be the very last TIQ teaser on the blog. I know, I'm sorry, but February will be here before you know it, and I was actually running out of non-spoilery quotes that I could post. ;-) So, anyway, here it is; the last Iron Queen teaser of the year. It's very short, but I hope you enjoy.



***


"You are my heart, my life, my entire existence."


***


Nope, I'm not going to tell you who said that, but feel free to speculate. :) And if you're a blogger or reviewer, you can still go to Netgalley to request an eARC.

Thanks so much, everyone! Onwards to the new year.

Julie

Some early reviews

Hi all!

Halfway done with NaNo, and finally over the Week 2 Hump, where it seems your plot is floundering, your characters are completely lame, and you have so much better things to do then type another 1700 words--like laundry or dishes or scheduling a root canal.

But now Week 3 beckons, so onward we go!


Also,since The Iron Queen hit Netgalley earlier this week, I wanted to share some early reviews. Some of these may contain minor spoilers, so if you don't want to know anything about Iron Queen, I would refrain from reading. And a huge, huge THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to read and post. Seriously, you're the best. :)

Fire and Ice

Fangs, Wands, and Fairydust

25 Hour Books


P.S: If you're a blogger or a reviewer and want a copy of The Iron Queen, check out Netgalley to request an egalley.

The Iron Fey trailer

Good things keep happening from Harlequin Teen.

Check out the new Iron Fey trailer. I do believe they have outdone themselves yet again. =)






Very epic, right? You can go to their Iron Fey Facebook page and let them know what you think.

The Iron Queen ARC giveaway

Who wants an ARC of The Iron Queen?





















I have three shiny new ARCs of The Iron Queen sitting on my desktop right now, so I will be giving one away shortly. Spread the love, right?

If you would like an ARC of The Iron Queen, just leave your name and email in the comments, and answer this question once and for all:

Team Ash or Team Puck?


That's it! And I'll let random.org pick a winner on the 24th.


ETA: I always forget to say if its international or U.S only. So...it's international, woo!


Thanks everyone!

Teaser Tuesday

It's 1 am here; technically its Tuesday, right?

Also, did someone order a carton of angst?

Puck: most think of him as the goofy, funny, loyal-to-a-fault best friend. But Puck is a legend, and he's not all mischief and charm and pranks. He has a dark side, and sometimes, when pushed just far enough, it can come out.

So, today's Teaser Tuesday features Puck in a somewhat different light.

***


Puck’s eyes gleamed, feral and menacing. “Oh, I don’t know, princess. Maybe it was because I was stupid enough to care about you. Maybe I actually thought I had a chance. Silly me, thinking that one little kiss meant anything to you.”


***


As always, tell me what you think. :)

Oh, and I wanted to thank everyone who tweeted and posted and commented about THE IRON KNIGHT. I'm so thrilled that everyone is just as excited about it as me! Thank you again for such incredible support.

Julie

The big SEKRIT PROJECT reveal

By now its all over Twitter, so this a bit late, but anyway...

I've been keeping this a secret for months, and I finally get to announce it.

So, here it is, the big SEKRIT PROJECT:



Iron Fey #4

THE IRON KNIGHT:

Ash's story.


Coming soon from Harlequin TEEN.






And that's all I'm going to say for now.

:)

Sims3: Snake charming and other skills

Disclaimer: Sims3 posts are in no way relevant to the actual events in the Iron Fey series.


When we last left the gang, Ash had just proposed to Meghan...

















And Puck was vacationing in Egypt.

















Turns out, Puck discovered more than tombs and sphinxes while on vacation.
















Could this be the start of something? Or will miles of separation kill anything before it even starts?






















Puck returned home soon after, but he brought a souvenir back with him.









Of course, he has never been one for safe, conventional hobbies.

















Um, I'm not sure that's going to make the snake appear any quicker, Puck.

















Right.

















Aha, there it is.


















Well, now he has an interesting party trick. Let's hope he doesn't use it for evil.


















Soon after, Puck met a familiar face in the park. It has been a long time since they had their fight; has enough time passed for them to try to mend things?



















They're not best friends anymore, but its a start.
















And just in time, too, for Ash has a big day tomorrow.

















To be continued...

Game Review: Fable 3

Oh look, another rant.

Warning: SPOILERS below! Do not read if you haven't played Fable 3 yet and don't want to hear the ending.



As you all know, I'm a gamer. And the game I was most looking forward to this month was Fable 3. I really enjoyed the first two, and I thought that THIS Fable was going to surpass them all.





















Boy was I wrong.

For those who have not played the game, Fable gives you the "moral choice" option of being a good, honorable hero, or an evil, selfish, power-hungry jerk. Your appearance will change depending on the choices you make, and I usually go for the "good" option the first time around. And for the first third of the game, everything was fine--barring a few annoying Fable idiosyncrasies (broken combat system, obnoxious identical NPCs, frustrating travel system). You were the younger brother of the king, who was a real tyrant, and eventually you had to flee the palace with your butler (voiced by John Cleese) and your mentor. You then traveled around Albion, gaining support, amassing followers, promising to clean up the land when you became king, and basically start a revolution.













Oh, and along the way, you discover an ancient evil is approaching Albion, and that the kingdom is in danger of being swallowed by darkness.

Well, then the big day comes. You storm the castle with your loyal followers, dethrone your brother, and become the king, as was your destiny. Turns out, your brother was being a jerkface tyrant because that was the only way to "get ready" for the army of evil that was approaching from across the sea. So, once you become king, you have one year to raise enough gold to combat the darkness, otherwise your people will all die.


















And from there, everything went to crap.

After you become king, the game gives you 5 days or "sessions" before the darkness arrives, forcing you to start each day in court, deciding the status of the country. You have to choose whether to keep your promises (i.e rebuilding the orphanage) or be a tyrannical jerk (i.e force all the children into child labor). Remember, up until this point, I was playing the good, just character. But all those good choices resulted in a massive loss of gold, sending your treasury into the negative and bumping the "projected civilian casualties" even higher. The game wouldn't give you a break, and the "choices" you had to make were all so black-and-white. Build a school or open a brothel. Construct a sanitation factory or dump all the waste into an eco community. Protect the lake and surrounding woodlands or destroy it for mining.

Each time, I would go with the "moral" choice. At the end of the "year," I was nearly 2 million gold in the hole, and you needed 6.5 million to protect your people from the darkness. Then the evil army came, and though you beat the final boss and drove it back yourself, your kingdom was empty of people because everyone was dead.

So, moral of Fable 3? Its better to be evil than good and just. Its better to break promises and send children into slave labor and be a selfish tyrant, because only by being evil can you save your kingdom. Yeah, that's nice. Great moral lesson there, Peter Molynuex. Try again.

My Pro-NaNoWriMo rant

All righty, so I am aware that there are those who do not like NaNo. And, to a certain extent, I can agree with them. NaNo is not for everyone. We all have our writing habits, and for some people, NaNo is far too crazy/frantic/sloppy/ect. I'm not here to argue with them.

I WILL say what I like about NaNo, and why it works for me.

1.NaNo makes you write crap. Some have said NaNo encourages sloppy writing, that it focuses more on word count then making your words pretty. And my response to that is: it absolutely does. Who here writes perfect prose their first time around? I know I certainly don't. That's what the rough draft is FOR, just getting the words down. As Stephen King and Ernest Hemmingway and Anne Lammott have all said: the first draft of anything is crap.

For me, my inner editor is constantly trying to make me write perfectly the first go-around. And when I listen to it, my writing slows to a crawl. NaNo frees me from the inner critic and lets me just write whatever comes to mind. And you know what? If the writing is crappy (as it almost always is) that's OKAY. I don't want to focus on pretty prose the first time around; I just want to get the skeleton down so I have something to work on later. First draft=crap. So, write joyfully, and don't worry that your words aren't perfect. You can always fix a bad page, but you can't fix a blank one.


2. NaNo gives you a deadline. I know everyone can finish a novel if they really, really want to. That doesn't mean its not hard. Having clear goals certainly helps me stay on top of things. I know that I have to write 1,667 words everyday to meet my goal of 50,000 words in a month. It keeps the pressure on to keep going. Before I was published, I wrote when I felt like it, when the mood struck, when I got "inspiration." And you know how long it took me to complete my first book? 5 years. Then, I signed up for NaNo, and suddenly discovered I could write an entire book in 2 months! THAT was a revelation. Now, when my contract says I have this many months to write, polish, and send a book to my publisher, I say: no problem.


3. NaNo encourages you to try something impossible. A novel in 30 days? Crazy talk! Before NaNo, even published, well-established authors would mock such a ridiculous concept. Even now, people will sneer at NaNo authors, stating that a book written in 30 days is certainly crap. That its just a bunch of words thrown together, with no plot, no style, and it CERTAINLY would never get published. To that, I say: you know this YA book called The Iron King? That was a NaNo project. So it can happen. That's not to say it will, and I HIGHLY discourage sending off your unpolished NaNo project to weary editors at the start of December. They will be receiving a flood of NaNo books already, still in the "crap" stage. You want your manuscript to stand out from the river of unpolished sludge. 50,000 words on paper does not a novel make.

Instead, NaNo encourages you to write, for the sheer joy of it. Don't worry about getting it perfect or published or penning a literary masterpiece. Just write. At the end of the month, you'll have written a novel. In 30 days. Who can say that, really? Let the Naysayers nay. You've finished a book. You've done what others only talked about. Be proud. You are now a writer.


Again, I'm not saying NaNo is for everyone, or everyone has to love it. But for those of us who DO love it (including yours truly), don't let anyone discourage you. Write joyfully, write everyday, and I will still see you at the finish line.

Julie

NaNoWrimo word count (day 2): 3,558

Teaser Tuesday, NaNo, and giveaway winners

Welcome to November 2nd.

How's your NaNo count going?

So far, so good. We shall see what it looks like after today. In other news, I also have a winner for the ghostly Grimalkin rock. I had so much fun reading through all the costume suggestions. Some of them had me rolling on the floor. But it looks like the general consensus is: Ash is too serious to dress up and Puck would go as Ash so he could annoy him, LOL!

Anyway, I decided to let random.org decide the winner, because I couldn't pick just one favorite. And the winner is:

Marciewood(at)aol(dot)com

Congrats, Marcie! I'll be emailing you soon to send you your prizes. :)


Anyway, onto today's teaser. It seems a couple ARCs of Iron Queen are already in the wild, which means that the teasers will be drawing to a close soon. With that in mind, please enjoy today's teaser, and a certain someone's possessive streak.


***

“Hey, princess.”

“Hey,” I whispered, as Ash slipped his arms around my waist from behind, drawing me close. I could feel his glare aimed at Puck over my head, a silent, protective gesture that spoke louder than any words. Mine. Back off.


***


Now, I'm off to NaNo! Good luck, fellow NaNoers; another 1667 words await. :)

Ready, set....NaNo!

Yup, its that time of year again.

NaNo Wrimo is upon us once more.

Even as I type this, I'm checking the NaNoWriMo official site, which is being ridiculously slow tonight, probably as hundreds (thousands?) of NaNoers are doing the exact same thing.

If you are one of these brave (insane) souls, kudos to you! Its comforting to know, as we gear up for the most frantic, stressful, neurotic month of the year (Christmas doesn't even come close) that there are thousands of writers going through the exact same thing. So, as the 1st of November looms ever closer, let's promise ourselves these things...

We will write everyday, through rain and sleet and falling snow, through TV shows and outings and parties and people who want you to socialize. By now, you should have warned any family, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, relatives, and spouses that they will probably not see you until December.





















We will not let our inner editor tell us our writing is crap. (Its 50k words in 30 days, its SUPPOSED to be crap.) This also goes for going back and "fixing things." Do not worry about fixing things; that will be December's project.


We will not fall behind.

If we do fall behind, we will soldier on and not give up.

We will not let the siren song of email, twitter, facebook, myspace, blogs, ect ect ect distract us from churning out our words. This also goes for phones, friends, children, pets, spouses, ect.


















At the end of the month, we will have written a 50,000 word mess of a story, with dangling plot threads, nonsensical scenes, holes you could drive a semi through, and so many mistakes our English teachers would scream, but we will have written a complete NOVEL. And we won't worry about the mess; we can always clean it up later.

So, my fellow NaNoers...on this last night of October, as the costumed children return from their candy begging, let us eat a good meal, get a good night's sleep, and say farewell to our loved ones.

For tomorrow, we NaNo.

I'll see you at the finish line.