Name That Book

I thought you might like to see how I visualize Chief of Police Ari for the United States Colony on Mars. And beside her is Dr. Robb Otts, the doctor, medical examiner, dentist, and surgeon for the U.S. colony. Don’t they make a nice couple?

I’ve been on fire with my writing for NaNoWriMo! In the first four days, I banged out almost 12,000 words, way ahead of schedule. As of this posting, I am sitting at 11,832 words. However, this morning, you can count on me being at the keyboard adding more to the tale. By the time you read this post, I expect to be approaching 15,000 words. That’s only 3168 more words today.

So what? Every year I am so stuffed with ideas that it’s like my head explodes on the keyboard and gets uploaded to my pages. Admittedly, I have hit more words this year than usual by this time, still to lift a phrase from GOT: I know that “winter is coming.”

The dreaded saggy, soggy middle, exacerbated by fatigue, means that a slow down is coming. I know it, expect it, and fear it! Am I creating my own self-fulfilling prophecy by anticipating the slow down. I bank words every year against what I see as inevitable—days when I come nowhere near the daily 1,667 words that, if averaged daily, will result in “winning” National Novel Writing Month. Maybe this year will be different.

But to take my mind off the coming (maybe) slough of despond, I have a job for you to do. Help me out here. I need different title. Murder on Mars  is so BOOORRRING!

Think of this as book one in a trilogy of “Mars Murder Mysteries.” What title would grab science fiction and mystery lovers? What shall I call this book set 100 years in the future on another planet?

Please offer suggestions in the comments below. If I choose your title, I’ll name a character after you in book two. How’s that for an incentive? Put on your thinking caps! And thank you for taking a whack at my dilemma.

Now, back to writing!

National Novel Writing Month, 2018 Version

Yes, I know. I've been gone a long time. I've been busy, okay?

What, you've been busy, too? Well, then you probably didn't have time to read these musings anyway.

But you knew I'd be back for NaNoWriMo, right?

I'm not going to share much today about it since we begin the madness next week at 12:01 am on November 1. However, let me tease you. At the top is the main setting. Can you figure out where I'll be all month?

Here are two more clues for you. Yes, it is a mystery (but of what?). And the non-culinary mystery shares a genre with one I've not tried to write before.

Hmm! Come back next Monday for an update on the this NaNo mystery. Oh, and if you want to speculate, comment below. I'll be sure to respond to you!

No Rest for the NaNos

This week is the All-American Gorge Fest known by some as Thanksgiving. Most of you will be slaving away over preparations for The Feast. NaNos, however, get no rest. Must. Crank. Out. Words.

Oh, sure, we’ll join the family to gulp down the turkey and gravy. You gotta be polite to family and friends. I suggested making a Turkey Dinner Shake so I could keep writing, but my family nixed it. They want me, for some odd reason, to join them at the table this Thursday. It could take hours to eat the menu my future daughter-in-law has planned. What was she thinking? Well, she’s new to the family, so I cut her some slack.

But what is a NaNo to do? Get up earlier. Put in seat time before called to cooking duty. And record your pathetic word count for the day. (Gotta get the badge for updating the word count 30 days in a row!)

You tell yourself that you’ll make up the deficit. That low word counts for thirteen days (in my case) won’t be a big deal. All you have to do is write like crazy once these family obligations cease.

That’s what you tell yourself because you blew through your banked words long since. And you have to tell yourself something, or you’d quit.

Given that you might be lying to yourself, and that you’ll never recover from the mounting word count deficit, you really ought to give in.

Relax. Play games. Laugh a lot. Enjoy Thanksgiving. NaNo isn’t really LIFE. Really. Right?

Funny? Please share on your social media outlets.

Facebook: Ready for a little humor with that turkey, NaNoWriMos? Relax. The world won’t end if we take a day break. http://bit.ly/2zNbNZV

Twitter: Ready for a little humor with that turkey, #NaNoWriMos? Relax. The world won’t end if we take a day break. http://bit.ly/2zNbNZV

Keeping the Pace

On another of my blogs, I wrote about PlotOber and planning the fifth in my culinary mystery series so the writing of it in November for National Novel Writing Month will go more smoothly.

Well, I’m into November, one-fifth of the way through today, and by the end of the day I need to have logged a minimum of 10,002 words to be on track to finish November 30^th with 50,000 words.

I’ll make it. Last night I recorded a word total of 8356, slightly over the 8335 that I needed. Pretty darn good, with weeklong company, if you ask me.

I started strong, as I always do. That story has been percolating for months and I focused the thoughts by using two magic elements: my Plotober massive planning elements and by brainstorming with my two critique groups. My crit partners have AMAZING minds! Have I said how lucky I am to have them part of my writer’s life?

Here’s a peek at my time tracker to-date. The far right column is the minimum total number of words I need to have written to keep on track for NaNoWriMo. I got a strong start, “banking” words, so to speak for when I couldn’t write much.

Note, for example in the second column, that I had three days when I couldn’t make my minimum 1667 words for those days. Company. You gotta love ‘em, but there is a toll. My cushion of banked words let me enjoy my time with her.

Falling behind is inevitable, if my past years are predictive. But it is not fatal. I will just need to write more words on other days to catch up. She leaves today, so this afternoon maybe I can bank some more for the other days I’ll not write much if anything.

Have I mentioned that we are traveling for Thanksgiving this year? Again.

Each year I have about ten days of limited productivity due to company and travel. So I just have to write harder on those days that aren’t committed to fun, food, and family. I’ve got this!

2017 NaNoWriMo Time Tracker

TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD

Book 5 “Dinner is Served”

Date	Daily Words/Pages Total	Running Total	Minimum Running Total
Nov. 1	2228/7	2228	1667
Nov. 2	2886/19	5114	3334
Nov. 3	1563/25	6677	5001
Nov. 4	725/28	7402	6668
Nov. 5	954/32	8356	8335
Nov. 6			10,002

The NaNoWriMo Merry-Go-Round is about to Open

Some call it NaNovember. Some call it #$*&!^%. Or perhaps they use the more popular NaNoWriMo.

No matter what label (epithet?) you use, National Novel Writing Month is a time to remember. And dread. And anticipate. And gleefully romp around in.

Re this blog, likely, as November progresses, I will not have long posts, just short ones and updates on progress once NaNo begins on November 1^st.

I will dual post some days on “Write Away” (my writing issues blog) since the posts will be about my new culinary mystery and the writing process. Hey, that way you only have to read one blog and get credit for two this month!

I rarely struggled with planning my culinary mysteries in the past, but this one was difficult for me. I had trouble imagining, at first, my 10 key events (and ended up with 11 weak ones), and other elements that I use when planning my mysteries. Why is that, I asked myself as the deadline approached and I didn’t have a single scene card done?

I was scared.

What if I was dried up with no more stories to tell and only clever titles to toss out? What if I had a great premise and concept but not enough stuffing to prop up the saggy, soggy middle.

Where’s the tension? What are the characters’ motivations? Omigosh, “stuffingf” like that was missing. Big problem when you’re writing a mystery.

Enter a couple of brainstorm sessions with fab crit partner Sandy Bremser, and voila. I broke through the fear. We identified the major flaw (there are numerous big other ones we found, too) and brainstormed fixes. After the first session, I generated 6 scene cards. I got in another 10 after the second session. I am nearly at the halfway point (I usually create ~40 scene cards).

Now I know how the novel starts and how it ends, and I moved what I thought was a key scene in the middle to earlier so I could have a scene there that has much more tension. I created a bad guy, because, well, I didn’t have one before. Wow, Sandy! Thanks so much.

So still behinder than I’ve ever been at this point in my NaNovember PlotOber planning sessions, but I can do this. I will have those scene cards done before Wednesday morning. And, for the kind of writer I am, that is a huge relief.

Bring it!

POTLUCK: My Plan to Win NaNoWriMo

The entry that won my National Novel Writing month contest at Write on Sisters was Potluck, 

book three in my culinary mystery series. In that post, I showed you what I was going to do to plan Potluck for NaNoWriMo success. Here’s some of what I did before November 1^st to plan my novel. I completed all the steps described in the link above.

Book Blurb (~250 words)

Making food mixes to infuse with medical marijuana seems the perfect way for Alli and Gina to supplement the income from their personal chef business. Complications to that plan arise when someone dies and Alli is accused of the murder. Alli still wonders where she belongs and who she is as she lives with a surrogate family, visits her jailed biological brother, fends off a romantic

relationship, and anticipates a visit from someone from her past. Potluck contains recipes to add medical marijuana to as well as recipes for large-portion dishes for neighborhood potluck dinners.

Microsummary:

Creating mixes for ganja foods gives Alli and Gina’s personal chef business a boost that goes up in smoke

Theme:

Family is fundamental but what constitutes family is a shifting landscape.

Sub-Themes:

1.    Insecurities affect relationships and interactions.

2.    The search for identity can be uncomfortable.

3.    Impulsivity has both good and bad sides.

Character Sketches:

ALLI WESSON and Gina, her best friend since 2^nd grade, are partners in a personal chef business that is still struggling to support the two of them. Alli always has ideas of expanding that strain their relationship. Alli is a cork-screw curled dyed red head whose impulsivity leads to as much trouble as her creativeness leads to brilliant successes. Abandoned by her parents as a teen, she moved in with Gina’s family and lives in a casita on the property. Her brother Cal showed up in the last book and is in prison for murdering his and Gina’s boss at the hospital.

GINA SMITHSON admires Alli’s contrastive personality until they clash over just how far to go. Still, the bond between them is strong and loving. Gina’s husband died so she lives with her mother for financial, emotional, and caregiving reasons. Maria helps with Nicky and Carrie’s childcare and general housekeeping. Gina is wound tight. She needs to be in a relationship but has had trouble letting go of her dead husband, Nick. A tall, thin streaked blond, she is attractive but doesn’t play to her assets.

MARIA MARTINI is Gina’s language mangling mother who took in the teen Alli when her parents deserted her. They share a bond and a passion for cooking that Gina is jealous of. In Potluck, Maria’s arthritis triggers her getting a medical marijuana card for chronic pain. She hides it from the family for a long time. Maria can be interfering but it always comes from a place of love. She is about as tall as she is wide with graying black hair.

EVAN KATZ is now a homicide detective on the Glendale police force. He and Alli have had an on-off romantic relationship for years. He wants to make the relationship permanent, but Alli is resisting. He knows she loves him, but she won’t commit and that puzzles him.

CAL WESSON wants a sole relationship with his sister Alli and resents her having a boyfriend or living with Gina’s family. He claims the murder he was imprisoned for was accidental, and while Alli wants to believe that, she is uncertain. Cal holds out the hope that Alli can be reunited with other family members that Cal claims to be in contact with. He knows family is important to her and uses her need to control her.

PEARL is Maria’s best friend and as a former hospital supervisor, she got Gina her job there. However, she was very supportive when Gina and Alli started their personal chef business. She helped Maria navigate getting her medical marijuana card through a doctor she knew to be an easy prescriber.

MOS SAENZ is a high school friend of Alli’s who owns Mos Taco, a biker bar and grill in a shady part of town. He’s always been in love with Alli but their timing for getting together has never worked. He puts Alli in touch with Bodie, a local grower to help with her questions. Tall, athletic, there isn’t a part of Mos that isn’t tattooed or pierced. Maria never liked Alli hanging out with Mos’ older crowd in high school. But Mos is a softie who loves to cook and serves his mother’s recipes at his place.

BODIE, Mos’ friend who grows pot to supply local distributors, is a ganja expert on varieties, doses, and ways of medicating. He has both legitimate and illegitimate business associates. He has more enemies than friends because of their interactions. A botany major in college, Bodie is the premier grower in the Valley. He finds Alli attractive and hits on her.

DR. FINNAGILL is a doctor who generously prescribes for medical marijuana cards, especially if you slip him some extra money. His patients are mostly men in their 20s who want to buy street cheaper marijuana but with a card that says they can have the drug legally. He also gets marijuana from local growers by recommending them as suppliers to the distributors. He gets kickbacks from both. Except Bodie. Bodie resists paying the money. The doctor threatens to stop recommending the purity of Bodie’s products to distributors and promoting the products of others unless he get a kickback.

NURSE ZOEY STEVENS is Bodie’s girlfriend. She thinks he’s seeing someone else because he’s so busy all the time. She knows about doc trying to screw Bodie over distribution, milking Bodie for money. She plays both sides.

REPRESENTATIVE NATHAN WILLIAMS is an outspoken foe of the medical marijuana legalization in Arizona. He fought hard and used the issue as his main platform plank for re-election. The problem is he is a drug addict beholden to his supplier, Bodie. If his addiction is made public, he loses everything. Bodie has indicated that if Williams changes his mind on the legislation and offers protection, that would keep him quiet about the Congressman.

DONNY BUTCHER  is another friend of Mos’ who is a druggie known for petty thefts. He robs local growers in small quantities so he won’t be caught. But Bodie confronts him with evidence and threatens to call the police. Donny, who uses more than MJ, gets very angry and threatens Bodie as well. He also knows about the Congressman’s addiction.

SETH STEVENS, a rival grower, is jealous of the success of the varieties Bodie is growing and mixing and providing to suppliers. He knows Bodie is doing something underhanded and files charges with the police to interfere with Bodie’s business, but he can’t gather enough evidence to convince the police. Bodie also was romantically involved with his sister while he and Bodie were initially in business together. They separated over ethical issues. Seth knows that the doctor is putting the screws to Bodie over distribution issues.

BELINDA FRIDMANN, cousin of Evan (but Alli doesn’t know it); journalism grad student writing thesis; enrolled in cooking school to do investigation, hates cooking and is bad at it ; helped Alli solve murders. Graduated now and working free lance doing investigations and articles.

Key Events:

1.    Maria’s arthritis is so bad she gets a medical marijuana card for chronic pain and a customer can’t inhale marijuana so Alli and Gina create recipes. to add MJ to leading Alli to want to market the MJ-friendly mixes.

2.    Alli wrestles with her relationship to her brother Cal, just released from prison and with Evan her boyfriend.

3.    Through a high school friend who distributes marijuana, Alli finds a grower as a resource for recipes and dosages.

4.    While visiting the grower, she observes a threatening note, overhears a phone conversation, and witnesses a confrontation.

5.    The pot grower is killed.

6.    Alli receives a mysterious letter and afterward acts distant and testy.

7.    Alli is arrested for killing the pot grower and her recent behavior seems to point that way.

8.    Out on bail, Alli begins to track down various suspects to uncover the real murderer.

9.    Alli is kidnapped by the killer but manages to save herself and get him arrested.

10.Alli reveals a high school pregnancy and that her child wants to meet her.

Scene	Who	Where	When	Point of Scene	What Happens
1	Maria, Pearl, Dr. Finnagill, Nurse Zoey. Bodie	Medical Marijuana Clinic	Morning, early Sept	Maria gets med MJ card to treat arthritis; Bodie arrives with shipment, argues with Doc; see neighbor as leaving	There early so maybe no one will see them; Pearl and Maria talk about how to hide from family; concerned MJ will not be available because of what heard; decide to get different devices and use at Pearl’s
2	Alli, Gina, Ms. Peterson	Peterson’s kitchen	Same morning	Woman undergoing chemo wants to adjust meal plan	A & G concerned woman can’t eat but must. Plan a bland diet with lots of nutrients; woman asks if they’ll help her put MJ in food; shows them a food (recipe)
3	Alli, Gina, Maria, Pearl	Maria’s kitchen	Labor Day	Potluck neighborhood party makes Maria worry about discovery	Gina and Alli overhear Maria talking to Pearl about being outed at the potluck (recipe)
4	Alli, Maria	Family room	Early next afternoon	Alli discovers Maria is hiding her pot use and confronts her	While doing Internet search, Alli finds pot sites; smells pot on Maria; pot to eat
5	Alli, Maria	Alli’s kitchen	Late afternoon	They try to make a food product and both get too buzzed	Alli and Maria try to adapt a (recipe) for Maria to ingest her med mj so no one else in the family knows
6	Alli, Gina	Kitchen	Next day, morning	Alli tries to get Gina to agree to make mixes for Med MJ	Gina appalled at the idea; has no idea Maria needs it, too. Refuses Alli’s idea without more research; don’t know what they’re doing; fixing casserole for dinner (recipe)

I continued this way for 40 scenes, which printed off, were glued to 5x8” cards for me to turn over each day as I work my way through the scenes.

Well, back to turning over scene cards. Onward to NaNo winning! Oh, and my word count stands at 14, 111--ahead of schedule! So far.

A Month of Starters

I post each October some story ideas that I am considering for that Month of Madness called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and then let readers vote on which one I’ll write for 30 days and 50,000 words.

If you want to chime in on this year’s contest, hop on over to Write on Sisters and cast your vote in the comments section. The polls are open for one week only!

I don’t have trouble coming up with story ideas, but some authors I’ve met are always casting around for the idea for their next book. They go about the search in a number of ways. Maybe they scroll through a Twitter feed and collect interesting ideas. Maybe they use news story headlines. Maybe they collect first lines of other peoples’ novels. Story starters are everywhere!

One source is a list of story starters and play the “What If” game with the idea.

You know the game. Identify a trope or a premise. Then ask: “What if … happened? And then what if she …? Or what if …. “? You can create a heck of a lot of scenes that way. I play “what if …” all the time. Sometimes I alternate with “How Come …?”.

Since I write culinary mysteries, I definitely have to create multiple scenarios with the same clues so somebody is guilty and all the other suspects get cleared. It makes for a messy outline, let me tell you!

Here are a month of starters for you to play “What If” or “How Come” with.

1. Virginia Dare, first white child born in the Americas, survived and grew up in Pocohantas’ tribe.

2. A woman inherits her Welsh uncle’s manor house and possessions but she must destroy the contents of the attic without examination.

3. A mysterious ancient document is discovered in an unknown language that the best computers cannot decode.

4. A woman is about to leave her abusive husband when he is almost killed. When he recovers, he is a completely different personality.

5. A woman is killed while walking her dog, and her spirit enters the dog’s body and determines to live there despite the dog’s spirit still being there.

6. Five young girls form a ghost club as a summertime activity that turns dangerous when a ghost visits one of them.

7. A young boy goes around his neighborhood asking if anyone has a crime to solve.

8. A family moves into their new home and the strangest things start happening.

9. A 19-year old moves to Hollywood to break into movies but it’s not as easy as she thought.

10. Children playing in the woods notice something odd sticking up out of the ground and start digging.

11. As a deadly virus sweeps the world a group of religious initiates begin to practice some horrible rituals.

12. A woman survives breast cancer only to lose the most precious thing in her life.

13. He popped the cork off the old flask and took a sip.

14. A woman has the kind of personality that drives away everyone around her until one day, after a single act, everyone wants to know her.

15. A huge crowd of undead stood at the doors of St. Peter’s Cathedral pounding on the doors seeking salvation.

16. Blackmailer, briber, and charming were words she used to describe him.

17. Their love was the purest, sweetest thing the man had ever observed until one night when everything changed.

18. She blinked her eyes open when she heard the chime, but she wasn’t where she had fallen asleep.

19. He is fighting to get the medical marijuana laws in his state changed, but someone wants to stop him.

20. The alley is dark, uninviting but he enters anyway and one-third of the way in he begins to giggle.

21. She walked into the house after work one evening to voices, one of which was her dog’s.

22. When he was picked to be Mr. January for the EMT calendar, he thought his romance worries were over.

23. While watching an old Twilight Zone story, she heard a sound upstairs that was just like the sound on TV.

24. The dismissive princess watched the impressive parade of suitors from her tower window, but one man stared boldly back.

25. The old man sat on the park bench soaking up the warm summer sun when a chill ran down his spine.

26. The holidays were always strained with the relatives, but the couple expected even more discomfort this year after what had happened.

27. The young woman opened the drawer next to her grandmother’s bed and pulled out an expensive sex toy.

28. It wasn’t until they were in bed that she noted the green reptilian skin on his back.

29. The machine hummed just as it was supposed to, and when it stopped the door slid open to revealing an Egyptian embalmers room.

30. The fur-wrapped and sandal-clad man struggled across the glacier.

31. She closed her eyes knowing that when she opened them again she would be in paradise.

Now that you are all stoked for your next several writing projects, head over to Write on Sisters and vote for what I will write in November for NaNoWriMo. Thanks! I’ll announce the winner here next week.

Is NaNoWriMo a Cute Stuffed Animal? Most Assuredly Not.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled show for this

service announcement.

Today will NOT be about food, or recipes, or kitchen gadgets, or cooking

tips, or any other reason for showing up here.

I need your help. I am entering the NaNoWriMo this November,

 and I need your help selecting a story to work on.

Here is a blog entry being posted on all three of my blogs this week

trying to get enough people involved to pick a story. Here goes:

Is NaNoWriMo One of those Cute Boutique Animals for Grandparents to Buy?
Someone in one of my FB groups asked that (cute, huh?), so I thought I would rip it off, err, borrow it for the title of this blog. No. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s a non-profit organization, so any donations made are fully tax deductible.

NaNoWriMo is my new Pillsbury Bake-Off. For years I said that I was going to enter some of my delectable dishes in that contest. One year I finally said to myself, “Put up or shut up.” So, that year I entered 4 recipes. None were ever even acknowledged, let alone placing in the competition. I call them my Pillsbury Bake-Off Losers”--and I still make them.

Same thing with NaNoWriMo. I want to enter. I want to be a winner. But, I just never got around to it. So this year, “Put up or shut-up.”

The rules are pretty simple: you write 50K words during the month of November and upload at the end for a word count to verify. 50K? You’re a “winner”. Has to be done from scratch, but it’s on the honor system. You can plan in advance, write character sketches, and do research--just no composition of scenes or chapters. 

That sounds pretty clear.

What shall I do? I have tickler files with dozens of story ideas. I kind of wanted to work on my Slippin’ into the Future book (daughter/father relationship complicated by dementia) or book two of my culinary mystery series (Prime Rib and Punishment) or even book two of my erotic romance “Sex Sells” series, but you can’t have written any of it--honor system--in advance, and I have.

So digging deeper into the tickler files I find three plots that really, really interest me. (Who am I kidding? There wouldn’t be a tickler file if it didn’t really, really interest me!) So help me pick one of these three! Vote below or with your comments. As a side note, I have never written a novel in any of these genres, so I am stretching myself that way, too.

1)   My paranormal rom-com I call my Quick and the Dedd series. Isabella Quick owns a security agency: I.Q. Security, “Your intelligence is safe with us”. Isabella is hard-boiled divorcee, carries a gun, votes Republican, and is a founding member of the N.F.A. (National Firearms Association) .Riley Dedd, a widowed hunk, was one of her investigators. He was a liberal on social issues, but tough on crime. That is, before he was killed by an unknown assailant. She had a thing for him, sexual tension between them, but it was never pursued. He’s been dead now for several years, but recently he has been appearing to her in her dreams. At least, she assumes she’s dreaming brought on by stress. When he finally convinces her he’s real, but a ghost, they set about getting his murderer caught and convicted. Working title: The Quick and the Dedd

2)   Another paranormal takes a different tack. My tagline for this maybe-series/

maybe-single title is, “Djinni are the new vampires.” 28 year-old Gwyneth Catrin (Welsh meaning for the two names: luck, happiness and pure) Warlow, who recently broke up with long-time boyfriend, receives a letter from a Welsh solicitor regarding an inheritance. She is the closest living relative to her great-uncle, Emrys (Welsh meaning: immortal). She arrives in Wales to claim the estate left to her. It is all hers to dispose of as she wishes with the exception that she is not to touch anything in the attic. Emrys was a world-traveler and collected many things. All in the attic is to be gathered up by a mover and burnt without an examination by Gwyneth . She of course does and uncovers an artifact that is home to a djinn, Abdul Wahid (Arabic meaning: Servant of the Unique One). Complicating things is Uncle Emrys who has tricked the djinn into giving him partial immortality, and trouble ensues when he shows up. Working title: I Dream of Djinni.

3)   Number three is Sci-Fi medical thriller. I clipped news items from three disparate events that I combined into a story idea.  There is a document that always makes the list of undecodable text--the Voynich Document contains unreadable text and illustrations of strange objects and flora. The second news item detailed a mystery sunken craft in the Baltic Sea. And the third was a description of a strange new illness (named Morgellons) which causes open sores, sprouts of strange fibers on the skin, and a feeling like bugs crawling on the skin. All three cool, huh? The story premise is that Dr. Nia Parker, a marine research microbiologist is recruited under the pretense of discovering a cure for Morgellens but in actuality it is a secret government group out to discover more about the alien roots of the disease. A cryptologist, Dr. Rhys Fenner, was similarly recruited under false pretenses. He is given pieces of the document, presumed to be an ancient accounting of the disease, to decipher. The two form an immediate disdain for the other since each their needs are at cross-purposes and each is told to share info in isolation. He thinks Nia is in over her head, and she thinks Rhys is a prima donna. When they discover the government agency may be a rogue group set to control the alien resources for their own purposes, the two form an unwilling bond to fight the group. Unnamed medical sci-fi.

Vote--See the poll and the bottom and tell me which one you’d like me to write/update you on.

Recap: 30 days; 11, 669 words per week; 50,000 total words. Now if I subtract the time I’m at my brother’s wedding in Iowa and add those days’ word goals to other days, I can still do this. On average, 1667 words per day or less than 7 pages. Pshaw! Nothing to it!  Find out more, and sign-up yourself, at www.nanowrimo.org