Beautiful Books is a writing link-up created by Cait @ Paper Fury. Today’s topic is, “How’s the writing going”?

1. Overall, how is your mental state, and how is your novel going?
   My mental state is pretty frazzled at the moment. It is day five of NaNoWriMo 2017, and I have 1057 new words to my name. That isn’t even the recommended word count for day one… Because of this pathetic excuse for a day five word count, I have switched my goal around a little bit. Instead of trying to edit Scarred Flawless and draft 50K words of the sequal, I have made my primary goal to finish editing Scarred Flawless. This is WAY more important to me than drafting a new thing right now because I want to have it in the hands of beta readers by January. Therefore, I’ll be counting every thirty minutes of editing as one thousand words for NaNo this year.

2. What’s your first sentence (or paragraph)?
   The Counsel Hall was no place for the innocent or kind at heart. So much innocent blood had been spilled upon the tiles that it was a wonder the floor was white instead of scarlet. Niko Devereaux had watched every drop of that innocent blood spill a thousand times over, and sometimes the presence of the unseen in the Great Room was so strong that it was difficult to tell what was tangible and what was non-corporeal.

3. Who’s your current favorite character in your novel?
   The proper answer here is, “Please don’t make me pick a favorite fictional child”, but I’ll be honest… Niko is my favorite.

4. What do you love about your novel so far?
   I LOVE my characters! The characters actually came to me before the plot, so they were extremely well-developed before I even started writing.

5. Have you made any hilarious typos or other mistakes?
   I haven’t made any hilarious typos myself, but autocorrect did a number on my first draft! I didn’t realize it was on, and for some reason it insisted that my main characters name should be, “Nero Develop”, instead of Niko Devereaux. Let’s just say I spent some quality time with the find-and-replace feature before I did my first read through… 🙂

6. What is your favorite to write: beginning, middle, or end — and why?
   Beginnings are my happy place! Nothing has to make a ton of sense in the beginning because the rest of the story is there to explain things, but middles and ends require logic! I don’t like it when writing and logic collide!

7. 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 don’t eat while I write because food and keyboards should never mix, but I do drink coffee or tea depending on what I’m up for that day. I do listen to music while I write, )you can click here to view my Scarred Flawless playlist on youTube). I write best either late at night or early in the morning when no one else is awake.

8. How private are you about your novel while you’re writing? Do you need a cheer squad or do you work alone (like, ahem, Batman)?
   No one gets to know about my writing except my closest writerly friends until the first round of edits are over.

9. What keeps you writing even when it’s hard?
   Other people did it, so I can do it too!

10. What are your top 3 pieces of writing advice?
    ◦Don’t chase after any shiny new ideas unless you are absolutely sure that your current project isn’t going anywhere. You’ll never get anything published if you don’t stick with something.
    ◦Write about something you are passionate about. If you love something, you’ll probably also enjoy writing about it.
    ◦Writing has no rules; don’t let anybody tell you otherwise!