TOTAL GENESIS MODE: NaNoWriMo!

Year of Genesis: When you just have to create from scratch

Its NANOWRIMO time!!!

National Novel Writing Month is an online effort to increase creativity across the world by sponsoring a challenge to write a 50,000 book in a month. Yep. 50,000 words in 30 days.

That is roughly 1700 words a day.

Depending on writing speed, that is 2-4 hours a day working on a novel. Or 12,000 words a weekend.

If you have been following the whole Year of Genesis, you'll know that this year was primarily dedicated to THE MERCI LANARD FILES and the creation of three books in that series. Two are out, one is still in the works. It got written in 2020 (super surprised myself), but is waiting to be editing. 

Why am I waiting, you ask? Why aren't I working on that sure thing instead of waisting a month writing furiously on a BRAND NEW THING. 

Well, thank you for asking, because I had to convince myself to make that choice.

1). 2020 has been hard on my writing habits. I've been more like a recreational hopscotcher than an athlete. For the last two months, I haven't been writing at all, only piddling around with words, half reading books. So NaNoWriMo will be like writing bootcamp for me. 1700 words a day will get me disciplined to finish 2020 strong. 

2). My brain is a raccoon. It likes new stuff and when faced with rehashing a murder mystery or working on a brand new secret project (WITCHES!) that my agent and I cooked up together, well, I'll take the new and shiny to help attract me to the hard work that NaNoWriMo will be. 

3). I've had this idea brew for a while and found myself really enjoying creating everything from scratch. This one isn't in the THOSE WHO WANDER universe like all my other books. This is a total top-to-tails creation. So instead of working on something without deadline and potentially squandering a year, I'd like to have a deadline to call it... well...dead. If this doesn't work, if the magic doesn't work, if i can't write it, I've given myself one month to either call it a win or timestamp Time of Death on this idea.

Or at least that is what I am telling myself. 

So as far as NaNoWriMo goes, if you haven't heard of it before, click on the link above. If you have heard of it and think that we are crazy, we are. If you've been itching to maybe try your hand at the creative life, please do! Your story is important.

Have to go now: NaNo-ing!

To the Writers Cave-- see you in 30 days to see how this little experiment went!

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Amanda Arista
Author, Diaries of an Urban Panther Series

The Merci Lanard Files
www.amandaarista.com

A little night musings

Year of Genesis: Giveaways and Ghouls

I think y'all already know how much I love Halloween. The Arista house already has its decorations up, the Bean has selected her costume, and I've got the movie marathons lined up. Not even CoVid is going to stop me celebrating the one holiday of the year that is made for spooky little girls like me. I like to call it the one time of the year that I feel normal.

So with this Year of the Genesis, I thought I'd do something that might generate a little goodwill: share a bit of THE TRUTH ABOUT NIGHT and give away a few copies! Five print copies are available to cuddle up with on a dark night. The Goodreads giveaway is open Oct 1-15 in time to get the read for Halloween! 

Click here to enter!

And just in case you need a little more instant creepiness to get you through the day, below is part of The Truth about Night, available everywhere!

******

From the layout, there was only one more room to explore, the bedroom. I knew the truth about what I
was going to find in the bedroom. Had smelled the garlic of decay when I’d walked in the door.

One foot in front of the other, I made my way toward the back of the apartment. Rafe’s heat pressed against me as he followed closely.

It was on the bed, tangled up in sheets like a rowdy night gone wrong. From the doorway, I could make out a foot and maybe an elbow sticking out from under the white sheet with yellow flowers. Someone had covered up the body.

“Stay here,” I whispered to Rafe.

I took another step into the bedroom. Morning light slipped through the windows, and I was glad that no shadows hid in the corners. With one more step, I stood at the end of the bed. I reached toward sheet, but Rafe came to stop my hand.

“I’ve seen dead bodies before,” I assured him.

“What about evidence? What about—”

“I need to know if it’s Benny.”

He pressed his lips together and released my arm, standing next to me, shoulder to shoulder, a united front against the dead, against what might be under that sheet.

I rummaged around in my bag for a glove and pulled out the familiar blue latex.

An arch formed in Rafe’s brow.

“I’ve seen dead bodies before,” I repeated as I snapped the gloves on.

I slowly reached to pull the sheet from the bed. It wasn’t what I expected.

I’d seen dead bodies before. I’ve seen them freshly bloodied. I’d seen them bloated and floating and spread out across the highway like jam. But I’d never seen anything like this.

It was an experiment human beef jerky. The skin was tanned and dried—all of the moisture completely drained from it. The dress seemed starched, then freeze dried to the figure. The arms jutted out to form sharp angles and her legs were splayed wide, but feet touching. The lips peeled back from white teeth. But the hair was perfect. Long, dark hair splayed out against the pillow made her look like she was peacefully floating in water, like driftwood.

Rafe flinched. He had not seen as many dead bodies as I had, but still knew this was unholy. 

“What’s wrong here?” he asked, easing into our natural pattern of professor and journalist. 

“Everything.”

******

Hope you guys enjoy and keep on being Spooky!!

Amanda Arista

Author, The Merci Lanard Files & Diaries of an Urban Panther

www.amandaarista.com

Insta&Twitter: @pantherista

Art is still Art, even if its tasty

Year of Genesis: Art is art, right?

Hey guys. Well, this has been a year, hasn't it?

Not going to lie, its been a bit rough here in Dallas- we are in day one hundred and something of lock down. I feel like I haven't really been writing, haven't really been promoting my second book, really haven't been revising my third.

I feel like I've got nothing to give as an artist to sooth or ease or help the world with the current situations.

But my lovely Helen Lowe asked, "What else have you been creating?"

She is brilliant that one. My preferred method of dealing with questions and emotions has always been words. The words I write and the words that I read, but I haven't been writing and the books just aren't enough for me right now.

After a quick scan of my phone's photos, it turns out I have been creating. Lots of stuff actually. Funny stuff, tasty stuff, practical stuff. I've been helping soothe and ease and educate my family, my microcosm, my very small world, the one place I can control. They may look small, but they have help me deal with the big questions circling our culture, our family, our future.

So in no particular order, here are some of the things I have created.

Me riding a dinosaur

What I call the "2020 hopscotch challenge"

Old man in the Sea (old man not pictured)

  

Homemade latte

Amazing steaks with home grown rosemary

Birthday cake!

 

Designed a new seating space outside

Apparently I like to watercolor?

New Art for seating space

So there you have it- my strange way of making my small little world a little nicer, a little brighter, and hopefully a little more fun.

I hope that in this time of uncertainty, you have also found a little time for some genesis.

Until next time,
Amanda Arista
Author, Diaries of an Urban Panther & The Merci Lanard Files
@pantherista 
www.amandaarista.com

Year of Genesis: The Birth of a Character

Available @ Amazon

Hello all, 

We have the second installment of my Year of Genesis for my new series: The Merci Lanard Files. 

Year of Genesis: CHARACTER

Merci Lanard was a bit like Athena in her origin story.

While I was writing Claws and Effect: Book 2 of the Diaries series (author edition out later this year), this investigative journalist just showed up on the page. Because of the situation that main character Violet found herself in, I needed someone who Violet could trust right off the bat to give her some information about her romantic lead. I needed a simple herald archetype.

And Merci Lanard appeared, fully named with her actress already cast. Along with her power. Along with a boyfriend. Along with a backstory that was very strange. 

She was an investigative journalist for a newspaper in Philly. She’s dedicated to finding out all the truths in the city that are hurting the underdogs. She’s like their personal Joan of Arc, and Merci doesn’t mind if that means she only has one meaningful relationship with Jack Daniels. As long as the truth comes to light.

Since she was already within the Wandering universe, Merci really got fun to play with because she is not magically powerful. In a world of creatures who can change their shape, fight with psychic power, cast world-altering spells, Merci Lanard has one small, teeny-tiny magical ability that was so minuscule even she missed out on it for the first 30 years of her life.

When she looks at you, you have to tell her the truth. It was simple. Straightforward.

What Merci had in abundance was guts, determination, and a hunger for the truth that nothing can stop. That was her true power.

All I had to do was tear her world apart and rebuild her over the course of the book.

And this boyfriend character?

Rafe MacCallan was a walking oxymoron from the first time he met Violet on the porch. He’s a Scottish professor who specializes in American Lit. He’s a werewolf Primo without a pack. He’s power wrapped up in a tweed jacket with elbow patches. His control is impeccable, but there is something about his unmovable character that explodes when he meets Merci’s unstoppable force.

So much of the paranormal genre is based on alpha males. Rafe is what I have called an Omega male. He’s not going to start the fight, but it is going to end with him. He’s got baggage, but he knows what it is and he guards others against it.

He was exactly the stable force that Merci needed in her life. I just had to prove it to her.

I'm not sure how other authors write, but these two came as a matching pair from day one, with their names, backstories, and arcs just waiting to be written. 

Hope you enjoyed this little bit of how THE TRUTH ABOUT NIGHT came into being and we will see you next month!

Amanda Arista

Author and slave to her characters. 

www.amandaarista.com