About Writing, Steampunk, New Years and Birthdays

by Elysabeth Williams

There are days when the words come easily. I’ll sit down at my computer, or at a patio table, coffee shop, doctor’s office, where ever – and the words will pour out of my fingers. They’ll keep up with my mind and I can almost stare off into the tv and let my fingers and my mind keep up with each other until I’m through.

I love those days, though they come few and far between.

I’ve been known to go for days without writing a word other than tweets and facebook updates.
Conversations with friends would go on for hours, but if I dare try to focus on a plot, my mind locks up. I can’t even fake the funk and throw some words down in hopes something will catch fire and a scene will arrive. I spent exactly twelve months before finishing my first book, Devil in a Red Kilt.

Then I found NaNoWriMo. I’m sure a lot of you have heard of it. The National Novel Writing Month. It’s thirty days of straight writing. The goal is to write 50k words in thirty days. In 2009, I, with a helpful kick in the ass by a friend, decided to try it. Somehow, some way, I managed to finish the first draft in 19 days. I was sleepy, my kids didn’t recognize me, I had this weird glazed over look in my eye, and my wrists killed. Nevertheless, I did it.

I spent the next 6 months or so cleaning the book up and sent it out on its way. The weekend after Easter, I got “the call.” A publisher wanted it. I was dumbfounded. A total burst of mental energy had made the cut.

Fast forward to today and I’m celebrating its birthday! The Electrifying Exploits of the English Three - a Victorian Steampunk adventure with lots of action and romance – (something akin to a Steampunk Charlie’s Angels) is now available from Lyrical Press, Inc, just three days after the first of the year.

I couldn’t have asked to start the year out on a better note. I hope everyone here reading at Pop Culture Divas is starting out with a Bang as well.

Here’s to 2011!