Back in November 2000, BSB did something crazy. They went around the world in 100 hours to promote their new album, "Black and Blue." They did a DVD of said trip. There was even a board game! Yes, BSB had a board game! I owned it.
When I left my ex, I left with the bare essentials. I then had him eventually pack up everything else. Well, apparently, something got left. When I was digging through all my boxes, I never found my BSB game. I thought it must have gotten lost when we moved from SoCal back home so I let it go.
Somewhere after the fire, I think, my kids told me about this "Backstreet Boys game" that their step-mother had. I told them that I had one at one point too.
So this past Christmas, they told me that the gift they got me while they were at their dad's they actually found in the garage. When I heard that, I kinda guessed it was the game. And low and behold, it was!
Okay, so now on to the next part of this game story. Our sitter lost her mom back in October. She was finally cleaning through her mom's things and said she found something that I just needed to have. She came over to visit a couple weeks back and brought said thing, which happened to be THIS GAME! The only difference is that the inside of the game her mom had is STILL FACTORY! Yes, all the pieces are still in the bags. The stickers were never put on the die. Yeah, the box isn't in the greatest condition, but still! So now, I have TWO of these when I thought I had lost it so many years ago!
Back in September/October of 2018, I had an idea. It started with this video:
There was also this idea I had way back in the day where Howie was the leader of a vampire clan. (Think Kindred: The Embraced.) So I thought, why not combine the two ideas. Major difference: I had to have Kevin in this fic! Similarities: red eyes, Day Walkers, Gentri and that was about it. Beyond that, the story was my own.
I had an idea about how I thought it would go. November started and I took off on this 50k word adventure! It was the first time I had written BSB fanfic in years! By the end of the first week, I was three days ahead in my word count. The CD lived in my car. I listened to the song constantly! Words were flowing out of me! But then, the fire happened. I didn't write for three days, and when I did write, it was strange. I could sometimes get words and sometimes couldn't. I chalked it up to stress and kept pushing through. I managed to get to 30k in my story. I took that as a win with all that had happened. On top of that, that was about what I averaged for these events.
But when I went back and reread what I had written in the remaining weeks of November going into December, I realized the story had changed drastically. No longer was the plot I had started with the plot that it was following. Instead, it had become a subplot to something darker and more sinister. I went with it. It seemed to help.
I got stuck around a year ago in chapter 17, the climax of the story. I didn't want it to be told entirely from the main character's point of view. Plus, it just needed to be done right. So instead I worked on chapter 18. I figured knowing what was going to happen after would help drive what happened in that chapter. Almost six months later, I finished that dreaded piece. It then became ending this story. I had parts written. I dabbled in it. But I guess part of me didn't want to finish it yet. This was the story that had gotten me through the fire. Finally, in January of this year, I finished chapter 19. I knew then that it was all downhill from there. The last two parts were practically written.
But alas, another project had taken my interest. So I put it on the back burner. I got pressure to finish it from all over. But it just wasn't coming. Finally, after I finished the one project that had taken my interest, I decided to come back to "Sire." And guess what? It practically finished itself! I worked on it for two days and in both those two days, I managed to finish chapter 20 and the epilogue! In the timespan of a week, I had finished TWO monster stories! So here are the deets on this story:
Title: Sire Final Word Count: 81,492 Summary: Howie is the leader of a clan of Day Walkers, half-human, half-vampires who are tasked with enforcing vampire law in Las Vegas. His clan is composed of his adviser, Kevin; his tracker, Nick; his messenger, Alex; and Brian, his new pet. They've been together for twenty-five years and things are just now coming to light. Having taken Brian as his pet, Howie is beginning to realize just how broken he is. He also realizes that Brian needs to reclaim his power over his past. But there are demons in the way; demons that seem to be coming back to haunt them. As the lawbreakers, or Gentri, seem to be growing in numbers, the leader of the vampires, Carson, is growing impatient with his Day Walker clans. He orders more clans to be brought in to help with the problem. One of the new clans, however, has ties to Brian that threatens to undo all the work Howie has done with him.
I realized that since I hadn't updated this blog in like a year, I hadn't had a chance to talk about NaNoWriMo last November!
So, a brief history: NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) is held every November. The goal is to write a 50k novel in 30 days. I've been participating since 2003. I have only won once in 2004. I took 2016 off because I was beyond busy with school and two jobs and everything that even thinking of an idea was overwhelming! And 2018 was starting to be a year I thought I might actually win. Then the stupid fire happened. I didn't write for THREE days. I wound up managing to get 30k that year. So I guess that was a win, being I was homeless and all.
So that brings us to 2019, last year. Now if you've followed me in any of my writing circles, you know that I suffer from this awful plague of never finishing ANYTHING! Well, I guess I just needed a "tribe" of other writers to propel me. Because suddenly, in April of last year, I began to *gasp* finish things. So I thought that maybe this year for NaNoWriMo, I MIGHT finish a story!
After toying around with ideas, I settled on this one:
Essentially, the plot was my usual idea: Destroy Brian's life! (I do this a lot in many different ways!) But this time, I wanted each chapter to be a song title. And since DNA was their latest album and I had seen them in concert in August (that pic is MINE from the nosebleed seats!), I figured that the chapters should be titled after their songs. (All but one is.)
So I undertook this idea. I planned. I created a playlist. I wrote the minimum amount of words and more on some days. There were days I totally didn't think I was going to be able to do this. I had those in my "tribe" not understanding that, yes, I was pushing myself extremely hard, but I wanted to! And yet, I persisted. And I actually did two things:
Wrote 50k in words by the 28th of November!
Finished the story!
This was a huge deal in my mind. I hadn't won NaNoWriMo in 15 years! I had literally dozens of started stories that I had never finished! (Including the one from 2018!) Sadly, most of those were lost in the fire. But SOME survived in the cloud or email. So I've been able to salvage some of my works in progress.
But THIS. This was monumental! I actually FINISHED a story AND won NaNo in the same month!
On Friday, Baylee took over CountryaAFRadio and gave his top 10 songs that made him the artist he is today. So are you ready? I guarantee, some of these, you know if you've followed him AT ALL over the past 2 years.
So #1 was Randy Travis's "Forever and Ever, Amen."
This is not surprising as he's met him TWICE within the past year!
The first was at the Michael W. Smith event a year ago. And the second was when Baylee did CMA fest in November!
Ok, #2 wasn't surprising either. It was Merle Haggard's "Silver Wings." Why wasn't it surprising? This:
#3 was Brad Paisley's "She's Everything." And #4, I'm glad, I was outside with the kids for. It was Tim McGraw's "Don't Take the Girl." This song makes me bawl like a baby! Again, not a surprise, though, because of this:
#5 was "One Good Reason" by Hunter Hayes. #6 was "Burn Out" by Midland. #7 was probably the oldest one on his list. It was "White Sport Coat" by Marty Robbins. "Homemade" by Jake Owen was next. Followed by another non-surprise, of "Signed, Sober You" by Hardy. He's talked about that one a few times. And his list couldn't be complete without the great George Strait. His pick: "Troubadour." And then, to finish his time, he had to drop his own song!
And speaking of this song, it's in the Top 12 again this week. I just don't know where it fell because everyone is keeping it quiet and I don't have cable!
Monday, I was in Zoom meetings all morning. When I Zoom, I always have my phone with me just in case my staff has to get in touch with me while I'm doing things. Well, one of the great things in following BSB and Baylee on YouTube is that I usually get alerts when they drop something new. This time, I didn't. But I knew something was coming from Baylee because he had teased it on his Instagram on Saturday.
Anyway, I was in my meeting and when I finished I decided to check Baylee's YouTube page. Low and behold, there are the 4 videos! They became my playlist for the next 30 minutes while I worked on stuff.
So here is your "Second Helping" of "Baylee Littrell: Homemade!"
My fav! "Nobody Tells Ya" Love this version!
"Dirt and Gold" is just to die for!
"Why Did You Leave" is amazing!
"Stuck in the Middle" is quickly becoming my new fav original of his!
Title: Finding Control Total Words: 62,532 Total Chapters: 24
This book has been amazing to write! I'm so sad to see it end. But it was one of those things that it does need to have an ending. And by participating in Camp NaNo this year, I was able to figure that out. That was my main goal, not so much the word count. And once I figured that out and then realized how close I was to it actually being done, the goal became to finish the story. And I'm pleased to say that it is finished.
It has been such an amazing experience jumping out of my comfort zone in so many ways. Working on this erotic novel that pushed the boundaries of what I normally write. Not only was it a second-gen MC, but that MC's evolution throughout this book too. And the OCs in it as well were just amazing!
That being said, I won Camp NaNo this year. Now, granted it wasn't as big a task as NaNoWriMo was this year, but I really feel that this Camp experience was all-encompassing. I increased my goal with a week left and STILL managed to meet my new goal. I managed to find direction for this story AND I was able to finish it!
Title: Finding Control Words Added: 19,526 Chapters Uploaded: 1
So, I upped my goal to 20,000 words. Why? Well, as I said in the beginning, this Camp NaNo wasn't about the word count. It's always been about finding a direction for this story. With that direction now found, the new "goal" is to finish this story. It's so close! And when I finished the previous chapter at 14k words added, I knew I had more than 1k in words till this story finished. So I decided to up my goal, figuring 6k would be good. And in doing that, yeah, it makes sense. After the last chapter, I was at 17k, so 3k away from my 20k goal. The last chapter can easily be 3k in words!
In fact, as I write this, I am less than 500 words from reaching my goal of 20k! I KNOW this story isn't going to finish in 500 words or less, so I'm happy to keep writing on it after I reach the goal, likely sometime today. I'm hoping to actually be DONE with this story by Friday.
In saying that I'm almost done with this story is actually kinda sad. I have really enjoyed writing this one. It is SO different from anything I've ever written. And it's done SO WELL on AO3 too!
