Words, Art & Science by Anthony Francis
Quick Sharpie sketch of an Apsara dancer, a mythical spirit appearing in Southeast Asian cultures. Came up in some tangential research for a scene in Dakota Frost #7, SPIRAL NEEDLE, but decided this was too rich a mine of mythology for a throwaway line, so I ended up using something else.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Oh, and on Camp Nano: just got ~1000 words so far. Not sure why I got fewer words when I had more to do yesterday than today. Perhaps I need to break more paintings? 
Quick Sharpie sketch of King Mongkut of Thailand, the famous king from The King and I, and also, not a bad mathematician and astronomer. Tangentially came up in today's Dakota Frost Camp Nano adventure (2300+ words today, still behind, but catching up). The real guy's head is more egg-shaped, and the left eye has an iris placement mistake: we are near the limit of what I can do with a Sharpie, but it's still the best tool I have to keep myself drawing when it's super late and I'm tired.
Drawing. Every. Day.
-the Centaur 
Sharpie sketch of Peter Capaldi from the Doctor Who episode "The Pilot," which is lightweight in tone and stakes but stands up surprisingly well to repeated viewings, especially Capaldi's knockout speech about time in the beginning, the Doctor's amazing office, and the introduction of the TARDIS.
The sketch is ... OK. Slightly squashed, and I'm still doing eyes too big (likely a function of the Sharpie sketches, which put a minimum size on the features I can draw). But it ... kinda looks like him? His head's not turned the right way, and I still have trouble getting the "landscape" of the face right.
Still, drawing every day.
-the Centaur
P. S. Only got ~50 words on Camp Nano, but I feel good about those words, as they're stitching parts of a scene together so I can really roll with it tomorrow. 11K words behind, but I've been behind worse. 
Character study for a Dakota Frost picture, inks on vellum over a roughs with inks and blue on Strathmore 11x14. Required some Photoshop surgery as I didn't anticipate how the shading would riff off the hair and make it look like the model had a beard. Compared to the original, the forehead is too high and the nose too large. Back to practicing, sigh. I think the below is from the Peles Salon Instagram, though I actually found this picture from like 1,000 different Pinterest boards.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
P.S. Got 600+ words on Camp Nano. Picking up speed, more in a bit. 
Day 3, just under 600 words, still behind. A lot of today was spent on planning the scene.
Rough draftiness, with Dakota infiltrating a church using her magic tattoos:
My eyelids flickered as the orchid petals infiltrated the lock, a jumble of images and feelings flooding back to me as the interlocking parts of the stamen column felt the tumblers. It was hard to see and “see” at the same time, much less guide the— Click. I drew a careful breath, then turned my hand. The petals and sepals closed on the knob and turned it, softly, and I gingerly opened the doors. My vines and their floating leaves shifted as the heavy wood parted, but did not otherwise react: no security system had been triggered. The church was spacious, almost cavernous … but not wholly dark. An eerie blue glow filtered in from the twin rows of stained glass, but the white light glinting off the rows of pews came from a pool of spotlights, pinioning before the altar a gleaming silver coffin. “My friend,” came a quiet Asian voice. “You should not have come here.” Instantly I whirled 270, twisting mana up in my body, murmuring shield just as I came face to face with … a priest? A typical, nay, stereotypical long-cassocked priest, stepping from a confessional, bearing an ornate pectoral cross and carrying a gun … no … a water pistol? “Let this be a warning to you,” he said, and fired. “Begone!”Writing every day. -the Centaur
Just added roughly 250 words today. An excerpt, all first-drafty stuff:
I strode up to the silver coffin, the parallel blades of the Salt Chamber Sword singing hungry in my hand. The closer I got, the more it vibrated, testing my grip and rattling my teeth. The coils of my Dragon looped out around me in a spiral, pushing the guards back; her wings covered me protectively, but none of them were fool enough to try shooting again. “Alright, alright,” I murmured to my sword. “I’ll give you what you want.” I drew the Salzkammergutschwert down the length of the silver coffin. The black tuning-fork blade squealed through the thick metal case as easily as drawing a pen across paper, except the line left by this writing instrument was a hot metal gash. The ancient faerie blade jerked and popped in my hand, and I struggled to control it so I didn’t harm the occupant—oh, that precious occupant!—as the screeching Salt Chamber Sword popped clamps and cut hinges alike, bits of hardware clattering to the floor in glowing showers of sparks. My arm completed its motion. The Salzkammergutschwert quit singing. Something thudded against the lid, which shuddered, jumped, then flipped aside, the thin hands of the occupant clawing for the air. A slender child rose from the prison, screaming, fanged, eyes glowing, and for the briefest snap-second I imagined it might have been Cinnamon. Then the starved vampire child’s gaze fell on me—and he lunged.Onward. -the Centaur
Taking on Dakota Frost, Book 7. Added 305 words. A raw unedited excerpt (including some prior text from Tuesday for context):
Agent Grant, commander of the MIRTH unit—if I remember my DEI alphabet soup, that stands for something twee like Magical Incident Response Transportable Headquarters—turned towards us, turned off his earpiece, and turned completely serious. “She’s right, this is an operation,” he said evenly but firmly, his full beard making him look grimmer and sterner than he already sounded. “It doesn’t matter if you two are the only ones on deck. If you’re not ready, I am not sending you in.” “I fought in the Great War, you ridiculous pup!” But Nyissa’s voice quavered. I knew she was not particularly brave; but what was up? More than just anger at being awakened before the crack of sunset, I think. “But I’ll not be going in at all, I think—” My hand fell on her knee. “And no-one thinks less of you for it,” I said. Nyissa sagged a bit. Grant raised his eyebrows at me. “So we have one operative,” he said. “We have one operative,” Philip said. “And it’s Red Sonja here,” Grant said. “Hey!” I said. “Just because I have a metal bikini and a sword—” “Outclassed by my own supposed sub,” Nyissa said. “Some bodyguard I am.” “Different kind of discipline,” Grant said, looking between us. “Frost, you ready?” “As much as I ever am,” I grumbled, squinting at the church. “What can you tell me?”That is all. Zzzzz... -the Centaur
So it's that time of year once again: I've won Nanowrimo, again, by writing 50,000 words in the month of November; by my records, this is 28 straight wins (counting Camp Nano in April and July in the mix) for a total of ... holy cow ... 1.5 million words in successful Nano challenges.
Welp, I'm calling it: Nano is the most successful technique I've ever used to to boost my writing output --- more than morning pages, more than writing workshops, more than the Artist's Way --- with the possible exception of Write to the End, with which Nano is intimately intertwined (for me).
Now I hear my editor calling: How about boosting that editing output, Francis? I hear you. Writing I don't seem to have much trouble with, but between robots and the zombie apocalypse I've found it hard to get the necessary brain juice to edit the 7, no 8 manuscripts I have in the queue.
Come to think of it, why couldn't we have had the zombie apocalypse while I was writing about a zombie apocalypse? Covid would have been really thematically appropriate when I was working on BOT NET (Facebook zombies) or SPIRITUAL GOLD (actual zombie zombies).
But that was not to be. I don't know about you, but I find the whole zombie apocalypse thing wearing, not to mention the whole election thing. Add to that serious realignments at work, which meant basically reinventing everything I'd been doing to come back to the same place, and 2020 has been a full on freight train of suck.
Not that everything's been bad. I finished the bulk of a novel, JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE MACHINERY OF THE APOCALYPSE, back in April, and I'm halfway through Dakota Frost #7, SPIRAL NEEDLE. We finished our patio here ...
... and started a grand new vegan cooking adventure together ...
And we even found and bought a new house, a very nice new place (it has turkeys) ...
... with a great space for my library and my wife's art studio, which we're in the middle of a slow motion move to while we renovate the old pad. These have been bright lights in an otherwise bad year. By you know how it's been: so stressful that - well, you've seen how much I've been blogging. I feel like this should be the best time ever in my life, yet 2020 has left me feeling a lot like this:
But, we have traditions which can help us through, like Thanksgiving ... oh, dangit Covid! So, ANYWAY, other traditions that do not involve Covid or Zoom, Nano traditions: the stats, and the excerpt. What did this month look like, Nano-wise?
This wasn't the hardest Nano I've handled ... I think the worst was being over 21,000 words behind in 2016 for PHANTOM SILVER, though briefly LIQUID FIRE in 2009 got almost that bad. Nor was it record-breakingly productive, like the astounding 25,000 words ahead finish on BOT NET 2017. This was a middle-of-the-road Nano, helped by really pouring on 12,000 words last weekend:
That was on purpose, so I could coast into Thanksgiving having finished, and spend a very nice dinner with my wife. (We had vegan muffulletas with authentic olive salad filling shipped direct from Central Grocery in New Orleans, which I highly, highly, highly recommend). That left November's work on SPIRAL NEEDLE comfortably in the middle of my previous efforts:a
And so, now, an excerpt ...
Too late, I realized the thickening arms of the octopus mist echoed the ghostly glow of the streetlights. “Teleporter! We’ve got to find a weakness!” I cried, flicking and snapping my wrist to loose a crossbow bolt, a feather from my origami peacock—an analysis spell. The feather flitted out, replicating itself in the flood of magic, its unfolding structure revealing an intricate, oh so intricate pattern embedded in the misty galaxy. Unfortunately, Nyissa, far older and faster than me, had fired her own analysis glyph. Our spells collided in a flash of sparks and feathers. “Damnit,” I cried, flinching. “Only one of us needed to do that—” “Sorry, was reacting to your idea, not your action,” Nyissa said. “I—” A long black shaft lanced out—and with a terrific report, blasted Nyissa in the face. Nyissa flew back. Her mask shattered. It would have been so romantic to scream her name and lunge my hand toward her—but both of us had been in fights so many times before, and I instinctively swung the Waystaff up, its spine catching bayonet and flipping the long gun upwards. The hooked beak hissed, striped cloak flapping, and I saw the thing whole. Towering. Raptor-beaked. Cloaked in tattered striped cloth, draped over a flaring dark greatcoat. Black leather straps bound a tortuously lean torso seemingly rippled with twitching muscle. But the clawed arms fighting mine held what looked like a musket, the striped cloak looked like the ruins of a flag, and atop the thing’s plague doctor mask was a tricorn hat. “What are you?” I yelled, shoving against the musket with the Waystaff. The thing screamed at me, foul smoke erupting from its beak, and I flinched and gagged. It wailed at me with its musket, alternately clubbing aside the Waystaff and jabbing at me with the bayonet, as sparking smoke roiled into what I assumed was the musket’s flintlock—it was preparing to fire! I leapt backward, spinning through a knight’s move version of the Dance of Five and Two, hastily pulling together a spell: “Spirit of flame, act as my shield!” The plague knight screeched and dropped a grimy black ball into its musket—just as my Dragon tattoo uncoiled from my skin and looped around me in a helix of Technicolor scales and feathers. The plague knight fired with a clap of thunder—met by a gout of flame.Wow! Excitement! Adventure! Tattoo magic versus magical monsters! And while we didn't get to see that much of the costumes in this excerpt, we've got cute vampires wearing sexy clothes fighting alongside our heroine in her long black vest / trenchcoat. What's not to like? That is all for now. Until next time, please enjoy this picture of a cat.
-the Centaur 
This month wasn't so bad, though there was a bit of a dip around the time I was writing report cards for our robot learning systems ("Little Johnny 5 tries very hard, but needs to work on his cornering!"). But, as usual, the week I took off for Thanksgiving "vacation" put me back on track:
Yes, one day I did indeed get 6000+ words written, which was a record for the 25th of the month, but nowhere near my record of 9074 words - written on the 30th(!) of November 2016, in what I recall was a delerious mad dash sitting on my sofa wracking my brain to produce enough words to make my goal for PHANTOM SILVER. Frankly speaking, that sucked, and since then I have redoubled my efforts to ensure that I'm never THAT far behind.
So this month looks typical. It's interesting to me how much Nano has become a part of my life. First tried in 2002, first made into a yearly habit in 2007, and first made into a thrice-yearly habit (Camp April, Camp July and November Nano) in 2014-2015 ... now I've done Nano 27 times, with 25 successes, for 1.36 million words of rough draft ... it's a heavy feeling.
Do I want to keep doing this? Absolutely. I wish I had more time to, like, edit my books, so I didn't have a backlog of 6 finished novels, 2 novellas, and 5 partially finished novels. (Gulp!) But I like having a roof more, and the time and money to pay for my laptop, my nice dinners, and my late nite teas and mochas, so, teaching robots to learn by day it is, for the time being.
One of the most interesting things for me is how Nano breaks through your creative barriers. When I started on MACHINERY OF THE APOCALYPSE, then titled TWO YEARS OF HELL, I had the idea of writing an action-adventure steampunk hard science fiction story around computer science concepts, and conceived it as a connected tale made of 16 short stories --- two to the fourth power, a number beloved of many computer scientists.
But as I've written, the story has sprawled out from my original design, and there are at least two, perhaps three set pieces which may demand their own stories. Or perhaps existing stories will have to be cut or deleted. I don't know; I just create the worlds, but once they exist, they follow the laws of physics (plot and character physics). Here's an excerpt from one of those diversions, which may or may not make it into the final design:
The dark doorway loomed before her like a maw. Jeremiah steeled herself: she had been her at best a handful of times, but she felt like she knew every rivet of the damned hatch, felt like she was right back to waiting on the damn Keepers while they prepared themselves. Oh, she did not, did not, did not want to be back here. Yet she was, not a child, but a Major. She straightened, nodded. “Major?” asked Thompson, looking back at her. “You look a bit green.” Jeremiah smiled, to give herself a moment to speak. What would a cracker-jack young major say? Or … wasn’t that putting on airs? What would General Weiss have said? Perhaps she should just be … honest? “Good eye, sir, but I don’t just look it: I feel it too,” Jeremiah said, forcing a grin—was that fake, or did she just want to take this in the best humor possible? “Every time I’m here, it takes me right back to my childhood.” “Childhood?” Thompson asked. The white hairs in his saltpepper eyebrows sparkled as his brow beetled. “Why were you here as a child?” “I, foolishly perhaps, asked to see the thing that killed my mother,” Jeremiah said. “And … foolishly perhaps, the powers that be let the granddaughter of Benjamin Willstone get what she asked for.” Thompson stared at her strangely, then turned away. “I would have let you,” he said at last. “Seems to have been the first step into forming a fine soldier who doesn’t flinch.” “Oh, I assure you, I flinch,” Jeremiah said. “Just not from duty.” “That’s the Major Willstone of my reports,” Thompson said. He leaned over and said a bit cheekily. “I hear you scream like a girl even when you’re firing both blasters at point-blank range—” “Why, I never—” Jeremiah colored. “Well, that does speak to character—” “Yes, yes, it does,” Thompson said, “and to good sense. Alright, in fairness: the report just said ‘cried out in shock before blasting the thing,’ but one could imagine the girlish scream—” “Oi!” Jeremiah said. “Wait, what thing was this?” “Er,” Thompson said, as the hatch opened. “I … don’t recall. Frankly, Major, with your record, the monsters start to blur—” “Not all of them,” Jeremiah said, striding forward with a projected confidence she absolutely did not feel. “Have a look at that.”Enjoy. Back to writing! -the Centaur
Every year, I donate to the Nanowrimo foundation to help them not just keep the lights on but to support young writers everywhere with their Young Writers Program. This year, consider helping them bring literacy and creativity to more people all around the world!
-the Centaur 
Wow, I just won {Nanowrimo|Camp Nanowrimo} for the twenty-third time!
For readers of this blog who have missed, like, 75% of my posts over the years, National Novel Writing Month is a challenge to write 50,000 words of a new novel in the month of November, and Camp Nanowrimo is its sister challenge in April and July. I adapt this to write 50,000 words on top of whatever I'm currently working on, and have been doing it since 2002.
This is my 25th Nano or Nano-like attempt, and my 23rd victory. (Interestingly, my two failures were times that I tried Nano on my own, without the motivation of the Nano "Validate your Project" button).
This month, because of friggin' March, man, I started out pretty far behind, compounded by my robot work and the fact that I was working on JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE MACHINERY OF THE APOCALYPSE. This is less a novel than a series of loosely connected novellas, each slightly different in setting and tone, and has been my most research-heavy project to date. But, nevertheless, I got back on track and climbed the mountain.
Interestingly, a couple of the days in there were my most productive writing days ever - 7,000 and 8,000 word days, right up with the 9,014 word day that I did once on the last day of Nano. I didn't want to do that again - I wanted to take today off - so I powered through 8000 words on Saturday, finished with 2,600 words on Sunday, and leisurely wrote 2,000 words today unpacking a few of the ideas I had that were still fresh.
And now, the traditional excerpt:
“So,” General Weiss said, sitting down. “You desire to become one of my acolytes?”
Jeremiah glanced over at him, trying to contain her glare. “I desire to learn, sir.”
“What I have to teach is not easy to learn,” Weiss said, patting her leg. “It requires long-term commitment, supreme dedication, self-sacrifice—”
“Are …” Jeremiah felt her brow furrow, tried to control it. “Are you aware of—”
“The nature of your injuries?” Weiss said. “Yes, I heard you were reckless.”
“No, sir,” Jeremiah said. She hit the switch to raise her bed until she could look the man more closely in the eye. “I have been injured, repeatedly, because I have been sent into the line of fire without adequate support, repeatedly, and I did my duty, repeatedly.”
“The story goes is that you tried to leap across a city street, four stories up.”
“No, sir,” Jeremiah said. “A monster that had killed dozens was about to make its escape, and I leapt for it, sir, dragging it down to the street, possibly saving hundreds more lives—well, that’s debatable, but I definitively stopped it, at least that is not in dispute—”
“No, no, you’re quite right about the outcome of the operation.” Weiss rubbed his hands together. “And whether I think you’re reckless in the large, I would never dispute the actions of a operative in the clinch. But do you know why the enemy exposed itself to you?”
“I …” Jeremiah said. “But it didn’t. We caught it, and tracked it—”
“Yes, yes, and let’s not dispute that either,” Weiss said, leaning forward. “A hypothetical. Imagine you had two operations running, physically separated, one large and important, one … less so. To protect them, you can run recon missions looking for the enemy, but the enemy might find them. You can run ten recces in the operation period. Where do you put them?”
“Er, well,” Jeremiah said. “Proportionally on the more important—”
“No,” Weiss said. “You run five. All around the least important one. Why?”
“Er …” What clues had he given? “The larger force, is well, larger. It can defend itself.”“Yes. And?”
Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed. “You want the recces caught?”
“No, not really, but I do, yes.”
“But the smaller force, exposed—”
“And overwhelmed,” Weiss said, “by a mass mobilization of the enemy. Away from my primary force. Now the other five recces probe ahead of the main op, clearing the way while the decoy fights for its life. If done properly—if the decoy force is given both a true objective and the best chance of success, their fight for their lives will only attract more enemy forces. If they win, you have a true two-front victory. If they fail, you don’t even need to send reinforcements—the moment the main force engages the enemy, the enemy will naturally pull back.”
Jeremiah’s brow furrowed.
“Yes, yes, there are many specifics which would make this kind of plan succeed or fail,” Weiss said. “To truly instruct you, we’d need to work through many more patterns, then make them concrete for the kind of forces you will end up commanding—”
“All of them,” Jeremiah said.
“What?”
“I’m going to command all of them,” Jeremiah said. “My aim is to be Minister of War.”
“Oho,” the general said. “Then we have a lot of work to do. Tell me why the thing exposed itself to you. Quick, now.”
"They're—" Jeremiah's mouth fell open. "The things are wearing us down."
Sounds like they have a lot of problems on that boat. The first of the stories in THE MACHINERY OF THE APOCALYPSE is already out: A Choir of Demons, at Aurora Wolf. For the rest ... well, you'll have to wait a bit. Enjoy!
-the Centaur
Well, the Nano climb is starting off great, for a switch! Fourth of July, and I'm already 800 words ahead of what my goal is for this time of the month.
Not bad, but then, I am on vacation. :-) An excerpt:
On our way out, I sighs. “That went … well—” “It so very did not,” Karoo says, bouncing from rock to rock. “What?” I says. “We learned a lot—” “We learned nothing but that this so-called Huntswoman wants the Ere Mother dead—or worse!” Karoo snarls. “You learned nothing from the Huntswoman about the Ere Mother herself that I could not have told you, had you only asked—” “Was she wrong about the spell that’s killing her?” I asks, and Karoo says nothing. “If you knew that, why didn’t you tell me?” “You didn’t ask,” Karoo says. “Well, maybe I should change that,” I says, “startin’ now. But I learned a lot—” “A faerie queen flattered you by putting you through paces that would not have fazed the most junior adept in medieval times, when training meant something,” Karoo said. “You learned what you should have learned months or years ago in your training—” “I have not been wand training for years,” I says. “Graffiti magic, three years, wand magic, more like one and a half. Actually, a bit closer to one—” “So you’re hungry and she fed you,” Karoo says huffily. “One way and one way alone this creature is like the Li’ía Ní’qua I remember. You heard her banish me from her court, me, her consort? I loved her once, with all my heart. Now I hate her with equal fervor—” “Don’t say that,” I says. “She’ll … she’ll eventually remember you—” “Li’ía Ní’qua is dead,” Karoo says. “I never want to come back to this place again!”Ouch, Karoo, that's harsh! Especially coming from a cute glowing anthropmorphic fox. -the Centaur
Well, so insanely busy, I haven't posted in a while. But not for want of working on things that I want to post about! Most pressingly, my Camp Nano project for the July Camp of 2018, and what I hope is the last major chunk of the third book in the Cinnamon Frost series ... SPELLPUNK: ROOT USER!
Cinnamon Frost, once-delinquent weretiger stray, is now a rising star in the secretive werekindred kingdom ... until she unwittingly unleashes an ancient faerie monster and is banished to the human world as a result. As the monster wreaks havoc on human and werekin alike, Cinnamon must scramble to save herself, save her city - and save her mother, as the monster turns upon them all in its rage.And, of course, the obligatory excerpt:
I clenches my fist. The fox shimmers, his magic going through my fingers; of course, it’s a magic projectia, not a holographic projection. Mom told me about this: an entombed court of faerie, and the warriors that went back to finish the job. I folds my hands to my breast. “I’m sorry,” I says. “I knows the story. I just didn’t know it happened here too.” “Only three of us were left,” the fox says. “My shattered body. The queen, entombed in layers of crystal too hard to be destroyed—though she freed herself and left us, I have no idea how. And the other, the Ere Mother, entombed half-alive, half-dead on the other side of the cavern; I have not seen her directly for centuries … until now.” The hair creeps up on my spine: the cracking and scraping is louder now. “Did you free her?” the fox asks. “Perhaps she will be grateful—” I whirls. Behind the shattered iceberg, something looms, a glint of red—and a mammoth bony paw slams down to the iceberg’s right. Rock scrapes on rock, and the crystal-encased paw grinds against stone, formin’ and reshapin’, crystal planes flashin’ intermittently within as it rearchitects itself. Then the lumberin’ split head of the sloth-corpse roars into view, wobblin’ on a half-crystal, half-bone neck, its single red eye blazin’ like a laser. “Maybe yes,” I says, “and looks like no!” Red eye blazin’, the Ere Mother screams magic at me in a rasping bellow of rage.Now, none of the Cinnamon Frost books have been published yet; since Cinnamon Frost #1, #2 and #3 are interleaved in time with Dakota Frost #4, #5, and #6, and since both are loose trilogies, I've been working on all six together, in a giant manuscript which would be close to 750,000 words if all put together. Oy! But the outcome is I understand the story much better, and when this giant Hexology is finally put out, I think it will be a much stronger story. Onward! -the Centaur Pictured: a mockup cover for SPELLPUNK: ROOT USER, based on a picture of an eremotherium by Eden, Janine and Jim, and a picture of Doll's Theater in Carlsbad Cavern picture by Daniel Meyer, both licensed for reuse with attribution on variants of the Creative Commons license.
And I'm supposed to tell you that my biographer, Anthony Francis, is working on my third book, ROOT USER, for Camp Nanowrimo! Camp is the sister challenge to the November challenge to write 50,000 words in a month, and that sounds crazy unless you are my brother and love writing words, and are not dyslexic and ADD and whatever, and what was I saying? SO! Anyway. My biographer's busy writing, or something. So you get me! Except, um, I gots nothin', except, hey, I'm a teenage weretiger, and this is my third book! The first two ain't out yet, but this one has monsters and high school and kids straight out of Harry Potter and yummy yummy wereguys fightin' over the me. Choice! I am awesome, if I do say so myself about myself. Hee hee!
What? Oh! Ok. My biographer is askin' me to post an excerpt or somethin', so, here goes:
I glowers. “Fine,” I says. We steps up to the blockhouse surroundin’ the base of the mineshaft. Nri nods to the guard, makes a funny hand sign. The guard nods, opens the chain, lets us in—but as he puts the chain back, he flips down a sign that says, MAINTENANCE—OUT OF ORDER. “This elevator seems to be out of order a lot lately,” I mutters. “Your doin?” “Yes, but why do you care?” Nri asks, pullin’ out a key. “You have a teleporter—” “Common knowledge, thanks to you,” I grumbles, and it’s true: Nri has no respect for my secrets, none at all, but he’s cagey as a wolf. “Now everyone wants to pop out in my den, every time you’re doin’ whatever you’re doin’—what are you doin’ down here, anyway?” “Using the elevator’s special features,” Nri says, slidin’ the gate closed. He inserts the key, turns it—and the elevator starts to go down. “Hey!” I says, as the blockhouse recedes above us. “I thought this was ground zero!” “Ground floor,” Nri corrects. “But no, it is not. The Werehold is a basement. This …” “Sub-basement?” I asks hopefully, as the shaft recedes above us. “I said I’d tell you on the surface,” Nri says. “I never said the surface of what.” And then … the world turns upside down. “Whooaoaaoaa!” I cries, as my feet lifts off the floor—and the elevator keeps descendin. Nri has moved to the side of the elevator, and grips the cage, turnin’ his body a hundred and eighty degrees, so his feet are pointin’ at the ceiling—and then I falls. Up! “Ow!” Nri’s feet land on the ceilin’. I lands on my noggin.Ow! Embarrasin'. Why'd you have to call up that bit, Mister Biographer, huh? Rip your face off, I oughtta. Grr. And stop calling me cute when I growl. A tiger, I am, not to be mocked by those who could be morsels---stop touslin' my hair! Grrrrr. Enjoy, or whatevers. -Cinnamon, on behalf of the Centaur
This somehow all magically happened because I never lost my momentum after the Night of Writing Dangerously, oh, and because this is Cinnamon Frost, and she's awesome!
This is the most I've ever written in Nano, by a long shot - almost 10,000 words more. Not quite, and I'm not super motivated to make it exactly 10,000 words more. If I think of more words tonight, eh maybe.
Oh yes, the traditional excerpt:
The first challenge was easy—spirit. Awareness. Being aware of faerie. The second challenge was harder—mind. Intellect. Learnin’ the logic of faerie. The third challenge was the hardest of all. Body. Emotion. Feeling faerie in your bones. A huge cacklin’ thing bursts out of the water. Its head is as big as Krishna’s, a huge green dripping thing under a mass of hair, its wide smooth but mottled nose remindin’ me of a diseased muppet. We can’t see the thing’s eyes, but its arms loom around us. Ben and Surrey screams. “Do you care?” it screams, openin’ a maw filled with giant teeth the size of playing cards. I think it could swallow any of us whole. “Do you care if you diieie?” “Aaaah!” Benjamin and Surrey screams. “We care! We care!” The thing looms further forward. “Then flee, mortals, or you may perish here!” “Don’t flee,” I murmurs. “Or you may perish elsewhere—” “We—we will not flee,” Surrey cries. “For we may perish elsewhere,” Benjamin says with sudden insight. Did he hear me? “But stay here, and death will be certain, mortals!” the thing cries, loomin’ over them. “Stay anywhere, and death is certain, for mortals!” Benjamin cries. “And you don’t care if you die,” I murmurs into Surrey’s ear. “And we don’t care if we die,” Surrey says. “What? Ci—” “Surely death comes to all mortals,” Benjamin says. “Why should we care?” “I could make death hurt,” the thing cries, stretchin’ its arms out like a giant Muppet. “Or we could die in our sleep,” I murmurs. “But I can make death hurt him more.”I actually have practically finished BOT NET, so next up is Cinnamon Frost #3, ROOT USER! Oh, and editing Dakota Frost #4, SPECTRAL IRON! Due in about 4-5 months. Aaaaaaa! Onward! -the Centaur
I won't just beat my best record ever (which I already have) ...
... I'll hit the somewhat ludicrous amount of 75,000 words in a month, beyond the 70,000 I've already hit.
4,648 words to hit that goal ... less than I did yesterday or even today. Let's get cracking.
-the Centaur 
~2900 words a day, not counting today ...
I will beat my all time Nanowrimo record of 65,995 words:
Sounds like a worthier goal than spending the same words responding to everyone who's wrong on the Internet.
Onward!
-the Centaur 
Hey gang, now that I've succeeded at National Novel Writing Month nineteen times, I thought I'd take a little time out to tell you that my secret to National Novel Writing Month success is to put Nano first.
Now, that seems obvious - almost, like, too obvious to be advice - but I want to put it into perspective by first asking you a few questions.
This year, I was working on BOT NET, the second Cinnamon Frost novel. I'm writing these three books in one huge manuscript, which I successfully took from 179591 to 229911 words as of today!
This year, the combination of participating in the Night of Writing Dangerously, plus having the luxury of taking off the week of Thanksgiving to write, really pushed me over the edge:
Interesting, the hole at Thanksgiving. I wonder if that's true every year? That's not something you can readily see when you look at the yearly charts since it moves (stay tuned, these charts are going to come back later):
There was a time when almost every post about Nanowrimo I'd include an excerpt. Frankly, that's gotten harder to do as I've switched from doing Nano once per year to three times per year; the Nano material has become more inchoate as I blaze new paths out into story space, requiring more work to turn it into final material. But, occasionally, I can indeed include some material that gives you a flavor ...
“I … I gotta be honest here. I needs help.” “Cinnamon,” Nri says gently. “I know that. I’ve had many, many students before.” “Another damn teacher,” I rollin’ my eyes. Then I realizes—“Did I say that out loud?” “Yes, you did,” Nri says, smiling sardonically. “I don’t even think that was Tourette’s.” “It-it wasn’t,” I says. “I’m sorry, sir, but …” I grimaces. I genuinely don’t know what tone to set here. Act like Mom’s world, use Southern politeness, act like the werekindred, use growls and barks … or, maybe, just be me? Who’s that then? “I, uh, don’t, ah, know how to say this but I wasn’t tryin’ to insult you before or to butter you up now but we gots a real situation and if we leaves it up to my Mom there’s a very good chance that the D of the W. A. will spirit my boyfriend and my alt-crush off to the wilds of nowhevers, and if the elders of the werehold finds out where they are they may go and do somethin’ stupid right on the doorsteps of people totally prepared to do somethin’ stupid, so I’m guessin’ the smart thing is for the people who are smart and wizardly to do somethin’ smart and wizardly, but I can’t do this alone, because I am, like, thirteen, and why in godsname does everybody think I can do everythin?” Nri stares, blinks, shakes his head, like he’s comin’ out of a trance. “God, I’d wish I’d timed that,” he says. “I think you talk faster than JFK—” “Who?” I asks. “Nevermind," Nri says. "I’m sold.”Ah, Cinnamon, you and your wacky hijinks. Thanks for coming into my writing life, wherever the hell you came from. And now, on to all the things I've been putting off blogging while I've been working on Nano, including ... how to succeed at Nano! (I hope you'll agree I have some credentials in that area). Onward, fellow adventurers! -the Centaur
Winning at Nano always feels like climbing a hill, but for me in particular it almost always feels like I start out sliding back down, Sisyphus-like, as I struggle to get a handle on the story.
But then there comes that magic point where I need to write 1,666 words in a day and I. Got. Nothing. Then I'm forced to be creative, and the real fun stuff happens, an event I call "going off the rails". Hey, let's try to embed a tweet!
So now things are back on track for the month, and I'm smack in the middle of where I normally am this time of Nano ... Actually, it appears I'm ahead. Checking the stats ... yep. At this point, I'm normally just shy of 6,000 words behind ( -5,984, though that estimate is numerically precise, it is not likely to be meaningfully accurate ) but today I am 169 words ahead of the Nano wordcount:It's all too easy for stories to fall in predictable ruts - but in #NaNoWriMo , when you've got to produce 50,000 words in a month, sometimes your story "goes off the rails" into territory your conscious mind never expected ... and that's gold! https://t.co/Qmtuzb1XKE
— Anthony Francis (@xenotaur) November 13, 2017
I'm one more thing too: 200,000 words into the Cinnamon Frost trilogy.
There are 3 published Dakota Frost novels: FROST MOON, BLOOD ROCK and LIQUID FIRE, and three more finished rough drafts: SPECTRAL IRON, PHANTOM SILVER, and SPIRITUAL GOLD. By my count, I've written about 900,000 words about Dakota Frost, Skindancer, the woman who can bring her tattoos to life. But in one sense, that's expected: I planned Dakota. I wanted to write a character that other people who can relate to.
Cinnamon Frost, as I've said before, is a character I never expected. She shoved her way into the Dakota Frost universe, in one of those "step off into space moments", and she shows no signs of leaving.
Cinnamon might say 200,000 seems significant because of how humans process patterns - how we love all those zeroes - but it's just a number: 2*10*10*10*10*10. But somehow, it feels right to take it this far, and I look forward to writing the next 100,000 to 150,000 words that will finish her trilogy and give her a chance to live her own literary life.
Time to get back to it.
-the Centaur
P. S. I said milestones are coming. If you've read closely in this post, you'll realize another milestone is coming soon. Stay tuned ... 
