HEX CODE, the Cinnamon Frost YA, is progressing nicely this National Novel Writing Month. I’m 11,500 words in, which means, given that I started with a seed of 1500 words, that I’ve just finished 10,000 words so far this month.

That’s 20% of the 50,000 words that make up Nano. HEX CODE is looking to be a slightly more complex YA than I initially thought, probably 90,000 words rather than 60,000 (unless I can keep it tight) so I’m probably about 10% done with the book.

It’s quite fun – the Atlanta Homicide Barbershop Quarter, Rand, McGough, Horscht and Gibbs, have made their first appearance and now that all our principals know each other the scene fits like a glove. Interesting seeing things from Cinnamon’s perspective!

So … onward!

-the Centaur

So it’s another year, another National Novel Writing Month. This year, what was supposed to be my first YA (young adult) novel, the Cinnamon Frost story titled HEX CODE. Actually, I’ve already started a new young adult novel called STRANDED, which makes me feel even better about tacking this new genre.

A sneak preview of the first young adult novel featuring the adopted daughter of the best magical tattooist in the Southeast, Dakota Frost … the mathemagical weretiger, Cinnamon Frost:

It sucks trying to do your homework when you’ve turned into a tiger. It’s not that your body turns two sizes too big for your chair, that your balance goes so you can’t stand, or even that your claws are so sharp that you could punch straight through a keyboard.

It’s the little things. Big cats are nearsighted, so you need big old dorky “tiger” glasses you can barely get on once your hands have gone to claws. And we’re predators, reflexes tied to movement, so I has to fight smashing the screen every time my mouse pointer moves.

And turning into a tiger hurts like getting pummeled with a thousand bars of soap in socks, so the only thing I really want to do after the Change is gnaw on someone, regardless of whether I have three papers all due tomorrow morning.

The material above is actually from the 1500 words of “seed” material I started prior to National Novel Writing Month. I always start with a seed, be it 500 words or 10,000, but commit to fulfilling the Nano challenge by doing 50,000 additional words. This year my final target, counting the seed, is 51544 words. Time to climb that mountain!

Already 1129 words into the challenge (not counting the seed). Go Team Centaur!

-the Centaur
Crossposted at the Library of Dresan, where I’ll be doing more day to day updates than I do here at the Dakota Frost blog.