November Aftermath

There comes a point after the elation of NaNoWriMo wears off when you realize, Crap. My novel's not actually done. Yeah, that. It's kind of easy to flaunt your 50,000 word manuscript and forget it cuts off mid-chapter. So now, I have to figure out how to wrap this sucker up.

Also, remember how I had that second draft of my first novel hanging out, about 10,000 from being done? Have to get on that too. But the happy thing about this is, hopefully sometime soon, I'll have two drafts to look at and edit.

Other things:

1) You get a nifty proof copy if you so desire. And when I finish the draft, I will get one, not because I think it's done, but because I think it'll look cool when I pull it out from under my pillow you didn't think I was actually going to show that monstrosity to anyone, did you?. Like I've said before, most of my decisions in life are based on whether or not they will be considered cool. Proof copy? Cool. Now I just need a title!

2) Also, 50% off Scrivener? I'm thinking about it. I don't know if I can really be justified in buying a program just for the sake of novelling, when I'm not published right now trust me, this consideration is important when asking my parents to shell out the money since they pay my credit card bill each month and just because a ton of people say it's nice. Writing on MS Word is fine. It works. I'm drawn by everything that says ___% off because I convince myself that it's such an excellent deal that I have to buy it. I might do the 30-day trial version in January or something and see if I like it. I'll let you know if I do. Do any of you use Scrivener now? Like? Dislike?

3) I feel like I need a NaNo shirt. Just like I felt like I needed a leopard print scarf today (but luckily, I curbed my scarf obsession before I spent $10 on accessories). So, really, do I need a NaNo shirt? 

4) I ordered "Reading Like A Writer" by Francine Prose off Amazon yesterday because Peter Carey recommended it in the last pep talk. The reviews are promising. I happen to think the best way to improve your writing is by reading the better writing of other authors. So maybe I should learn how to read better. I'll read it and tell you whether I think this book is worth it or not. 

Happy Friday!

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER

I WIN I WIN I WIN WINNITY WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN-TASTIC WINNER.

All right. Got that out of my system. WINNER. Sorry, needed to be said. At 50,073 words (according to the NaNoWriMo counter; I would've won 200 words ago according to MS Word which has apparently been lying to me this whole time), I have won NaNoWriMo 2009. A day early, in fact. I just put my nose to the grindstone and got about 3,000 words today instead of the normal 1,667. Do I feel good? YES. I feel like I could fly. I feel like I could jump out of my window and FLY. I won't do that, because feelings can be DECEIVING, but the broken bones are not when I come to my senses. 

I have now, believe it or not, crossed one thing off on my bucket list. Two, technically. One was to participate in NaNoWriMo, and the other was to win. I never thought I would win on my first try! I think my thoughts are too scrambled to have a good blog post. So, some other things to do before I die:

1) Move to Seattle. I spent three glorious days in this city two summers ago, and I'm pretty sure we're soulmates. Me and Seattle. Seattle and me. Someone asked me the other day if my reason for this is because I would be closer to Forks (and vampires). I was totally offended! yeah, not really, but on principle, yes. My reasons are much better than that. Well, firstly, Seattle is ranked #1 on the NaNoWriMo regions. It also has seafood and pretty rain (not gross rain, pretty rain). Furthermore, Owl City has a song called Hello, Seattle. There's no song called Hello, Bloomington-Normal or Hello, Champaign-Urbana. Admittedly, the latter two do not roll off the tongue as easily, but small details aside, SONGS THEY DO NOT POSSESS. Therefore, Seattle is better.

2) Learn to para-glide. This is self-explanatory, right?

3) Become a published author. On the way. I am on the way!

4) Be Libba Bray* minus the glass eye, because happily, I have both of my eyes. You might say that this is a ridiculous goal, but you, my friend, would be wrong. This is a completely non-ridiculous goal. I can totally become white, move to New York City, complete goal #3, and develop a phobia of dolls. Also, then I would be able to move into the YA author mansion and have sleepovers in J.K. Rowling's wing. It will happen one day.**

I have a lot of goals, but:

5) Win NaNoWriMo.

YAY.

Yay also to greenconverses who won too! I wouldn't have signed up for NaNoWriMo by myself. I mean, who would I have complained to for a whole month?

Thanks for listening to my drivel about NaNo for the month of November. And an extra YAY for everyone who participated in this month of insanity!

*Author of "A Great and Terrible Beauty" etc. In case you didn't know, but I don't know how that would be possible since, EVERYONE KNOWS LIBBA BRAY.

**Okay, really, I am not that much of a stalker, so if Libba Bray & co. ever read this, please do not stick a restraining order on me or report me for identity theft.

PS I have a cool award, and I will post about it later when I am more coherent.

Weeks Two and Three

I meant to post this over the weekend but it didn't happen. Really, really busy. I mean, you can ask anyone. All I've done is do homework and write since break started. It's ungodly. Also, it's kind of depressing that my dad is in China, so he won't be here for Thanksgiving. We've had a death in the family, unfortunately. I am grateful to have known my grandfather for the little time I did know him, all across the ocean. Like whenever these things happen, I wish I had talked to him more. I miss him. I hope that my grandmother is doing okay. My brother has been having some problems at school. It's been a not-very-good year for my family. So I guess it's kind of selfish that I spend two hours a day holed up writing and another however many hours doing my homework.

I think, though, it gives me the ability to not dwell on the sad things in life. Writing has always been an outlet for me, and I'm grateful that I have one. Some people don't have such a beautiful and rewarding way to express themselves. It gives me routine, a kind of comfort. So, again, I don't like to talk too much about my personal life on my writing blog, but I have an added need to finish NaNoWriMo this year. 

It's the beginning of Week Four. I never, ever thought I would get this far. Week Two and Three were hard. There were times when I thought I wouldn't finish. Really, really wanted to quit. I knew the middle of my story had started to ramble, speed up, slow down, sometimes not make sense at all. I survived on pep talks. I don't know how I would've gotten through without those things. I survived by stalking other people's blue progress bars and thinking, "I can do better than that." I wrote in one huge chunk. I wrote in small pieces. I wrote in the morning, when I woke up, in the afternoon, sometimes (shamefully) when I skipped class, and I wrote into the wee hours of the morning when I drank inordinate amounts of tea. I wrote when I was really inspired, and I wrote when I wanted to throw my laptop out the window.

There was one day around three o'clock in the morning, when I knew no force on earth could get me to write another word. I stopped writing. I took a shower and cried about how shitty my story was, and I went to bed. The next day, I made up for it by writing extra. No more tears for me.

But now that it's Week Four, there is one thing that I know. I will make it to the end. There is no question that I can write 50,000 words in one month. I am not afraid. The number 1,667 does not scare me anymore. I can do that, easy peasy in an hour and fifteen, or lumbering along in three, but either way, I can do that.

Here at the beginning of Week Four, I have fully and completely defined myself as a writer. Maybe there were times I wasn't sure. I wrote, but was I a writer? I wrote sporadically. I wrote well, and I wrote badly. I wrote in notebooks, and I wrote on my hated/beloved MS Word. I wrote fan fiction and sometimes, I wrote original fiction. Then, it switched. I was a reader. Was I a writer? There were weeks when I didn't write at all.

Here at the beginning of Week Four, I know what it means to be a writer. I took the first step to 50,000 words. I had the sheer dumbassery of believing I could try this scary thing. And now, I know that writing does not scare me. Writing frustrates me, it makes me believe in the world and lose faith in it. It is beautiful, it is ugly, and it is everything in between. But - I am not afraid of it. And I think, this is something I will take with me for the rest of my life. Because now, at the beginning of Week Four, not even at the end of the month: I am a writer.

Are you?

38784 / 50000 words. 78% done!

Progress

Jenita started this week with the question that plagues every writer: how do you evaluate your progress?

I tried to answer this question many times throughout this week.  I found I couldn't come up with one.  Maybe at the beginning of the month, I would've proudly had a response for you, but right now, at the middle, I got nothing.  I don't know what I'm doing.  If progress is feeling good about what you've written, I don't think I've progressed since Week One.  I'm not going to define progress as that, because I would feel like I'm wasting my November.  Instead, I'm going to consider progress as my word count.  It's a pretty lame way of measuring it, but even if I haven't accomplished anything else, I can at least say I've written more than I ever have before in fifteen days.  And that is:

25065 / 50000 words. 50% done!

I'm counting on the fact that I'm going to feel better about what I've written in December. Maybe.  I haven't gone back and read any of it, so what seems bad on one day only continues looming in my head as a bigger and bigger nightmare as time passes.  By the time one week has gone by, I am pretty much convinced that everything I've written is the most appalling thing to ever be put on paper.  My personal (and professional) career as a writer is over.  And I know that they say this happens to every writer during NaNoWriMo, that everybody flails hopelessly during the middle, yet somehow I am egotistical and dramatic enough to believe that my situation is UNIQUE and SPESHUL-er than everybody else's.  That is to say, my middle is the worst middle that has ever been put in any novel since God invented the written word.

So it's probably not the greatest time to ask me about progress.  Although, Maureen Johnson's pep talk has made me feel marginally better about it.

Some people, unlike myself, have made tangible progress.  For example: Elana Johnson, who has a wonderful blog, is a wonderful person, and no doubt a wonderful writer (I DON'T HAVE A THESAURUS ON HAND OKAY, IT'S 2 AM, BUT BE CREATIVE AND INSERT SOME POSITIVE ADJECTIVES OF YOUR OWN), has scored an agent.  Which is wonderful because hopefully one day soon, she'll have her wonderful book in a wonderful bookstore, so we can all buy it with our wonderful money.  Let's all wish her the best of luck.  Man, this has been a great year, apparently, for Lisa and Laura, Sarah (with a chance), and now Elana.  That's progress, guys.  I'm going to call that progress.  

Word Count Freakage

This is a guest post by greenconverses.  She is working on a fan fiction novel for NaNo, titled "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Demigod Snatchers."  If you don't mind my saying, she is one of the best for this fandom.  She's fixed my stuff many a time.  I'm really glad we're both doing NaNo, because I wouldn't be able to handle doing it all by my lonesome.  

If at any point, you've found yourself struggling with word count or feeling overwhelmed by the hugeness of the task or despairing over the people who have goals to write 30k a day (and yes, these people exist; I won't link this person because it would probably kill your self-esteem, just like it killed mine), this is the post for you.

(So, she emailed me this over the weekend.  There are some discrepancies over the days, but like I've said before, you're a bunch of smarties.  You can figure it out.)

The other night, I sat down and wrote 1,000 words of a fan fic that had nothing to do with my NaNoWriMo project. I didn’t freak out too much about this temporary lapse into insanity, though, as I had already met my word count goal for the day and I’d been cruising along right on schedule throughout the first week. But it was then I realized something important.

I have not seriously freaked out about my NaNo project once this year.

All right, that’s not exactly saying much, considering it’s only seven days in and I’ll probably be sobbing into my keyboard by Day 20 because I’ll be 10,000 words behind and will have written myself into a plot hole that no amount of infodumping will get me out of, but I’d like to consider it a win. Learning to step back, take a deep breath, and not freak out about what you are (or not) writing is an important step in the NaNo process.

This is my second year competing in NaNoWriMo, and I know that taking the time to do things like homework instead of my project last year sent me into fits of hysterics last year. I remember frantically scibbling in all my notebooks during my classes, trying to squeeze just a few more so I’d be better prepared when I got back to my computer later in the day; I’d hole myself off from my roommate for hours on end so I could get the daily word count; I’d feel guilty when I went to hang out with my friends because I’d constantly be worrying about the 432 words I’d have to write before midnight that night. The constantly worrying didn’t make NaNo fun.

There’s definitely a difference in my attitude this year. For example, after hanging out with some friends last night, I realized I had only written 3 words for the entire day: “Percy sat down.” I took this information in, shrugged indifferently, and then tried to squeak out a couple of hundred more words before midnight instead of doing the Word Count Freak Out.

The main difference this year is that I’m more confident in my ability to write more than 1,666 words a day, so if I get behind, it’s really no big deal. Of course, I might be singing a different tune come November 29, but that’s still 22 days away.

So, my point is, if you’re in the early stages and you’re getting behind, don’t get bummed or do the Word Count Freak Out. If you’re stuck on a part, take some time out to write 1,000 words of Something Completely Different instead of soldiering through just to make the word count for that day. Take a break for a couple of hours and hang out with your friends or family so you can come back, ready to tackle the NaNo challenge with enthusiasm. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t make the word count for the day – there’s always tomorrow.

NaNoWriMo shouldn’t be about the freak out; it should be about having fun. And if having fun means watching TV for a couple hours before buckling down and writing, then go ahead and go it.

Week One: Tips and Tricks

It's fashionably late, but it has arrived.  Here is where I stand at the end of day eight:

13865 / 50000 words. 28% done!

It's crazyface, for sure.  That's my weekly word: crazyface.  Because it describes how I feel about making it to the end of WEEK ONE.  I'm still alive.  I still have all of my limbs.  My fingers are tired, but they're always tired.  They're just a bunch of whiny babies.  I have gleaned some life lessons (if writing = life, then they're life lessons, I suppose) from surviving one-fourth of November.

1) Baby steps.  Don't think of it as, "I have to write fifty-effing-thousand words in thirty-effing days."  Just typing that freaks me out.  I try very hard not to think of the number 50,000 in general.  Think of it as 1700 words a day.  Actually, what I have learned is to not think of NaNo at all through the day until the time when I sit down to write.  Because thinking about the writing psychs me out.  I don't even plot in my head.  I have two (or more) hours a day to write and those are the only hours I will even think about word count or characters or plots of my novel, period.  It's working well.  I'm playing a crafty mind game with NaNoWriMo, and I'm winning.  Greenconverses will have more to say on this matter on Tuesday, because I feel like a lot of people are stressing about their word counts.  So if you're stressing on your word counts (because I know you are; I KNOW ALL OF YOUR SEKRITS), tune in on Tuesday for inspirational speak.  Or tune in on Tuesday because you're procrastinating; whatever works.

2) Kill the Internet.  No, seriously.  You don't need it for research.  The only thing it does is make you look at the clock after Wikipedia-ing gerbils and realizing that the hour hand magically moved another notch.  Where did it go?  The Internet stole it.  The Internet is a sneaky TIME THIEF.  I have yet to master this tip myself, but I thought I would share so someone who has much better self-control than I do will be able to make good use of it.

3) If you have write-ins, go to them.  I get so much done during write-ins, because it's mildly embarrassing if your ML looks over at your screen and you're casually creeping on, "If I get 1,000,000 people to join this group, my girlfriend will let me turn our house into a PIRATE SHIP."  You obviously have your priorities straight if you're living vicariously through some guy who is a) thinking about adding sails to his house and b) promoting it on a social networking site.  And you OBVIOUSLY have your priorities straight if you actually join that group. Therefore, go to write-ins.  Did that point even make sense?  I'm going to go with it did.  Also, your ML has cool stickers.  Don't you want cool stickers?  You know you do.

4) The first and last 500 words of each day are the hardest.  Is there something to be learned from this point?  Probably not.  I'm just throwing that out there.

I don't know how everybody else feels, but I'm feeling pretty good.  NaNo is a lot less stressful than I thought it was going to be.  Not to say I haven't had my fair share of days staring at my laptop at 2 am and freaking out that I'm still at 300 words.  This has happened.  More than once.  But overall, it's good.  I'm still here, aren't I?

For everybody who is interested (which is everybody), Lisa and Laura are holding a Kindle giveaway because their fabulous mystery novel sold to a publisher and is coming out Spring 2011.  I'm not entering because I personally would probably never use a Kindle (I don't hate them, I just don't like reading on screens because I have easily stress-able eyes), but if you want to congratulate them on their wonderful book deal and/or enter the contest, please do so.

Catch you on da flip side.

One, Two, Three, Four

Day Four results:

7503 / 50000 words. 15% done!

It's so hard to believe how fast I'm progressing.  I'm only on Chapter Three, but it's only been four days.  It's almost like I'm living the story in real time.  I think my schedule of writing 1,000 words per day in the summer is really paying off.  There's no way I would be going this fast without losing my sanity if I hadn't kept up my writing habit over break.

Certainly, it is taking pretty much all of my free time.  But so far, other than TV time and wasted time, nothing else seems to be suffering.  Today was just a crap day, mostly because of circumstances out of my control.  The added stress of the words kind of threw my emotions out of whack, and I almost started crying in the undergrad library.  It's unfortunate that sometimes, the non-writerly people in your life seem to take it for granted that you can move things around at their convenience whenever.  I can't.  NaNoWriMo is not necessarily a stressful thing in and of itself, but it's stressful in that I have to be a lot more economical with my time and planning out my day if I still want to see people.  Sometimes, I feel like I'm the one doing all the giving in give-and-take situations.  I just wish people could be a little more considerate of what is admittedly a hectic month for me.  But I don't like to dwell on unpleasant things.  Tomorrow is another day, as Scarlett, the queen of getting over shit days, likes to say. 

I have to say that writing is one of my favorite parts of the day now (even if I'm freaking out trying to get some time in).  Just the ability to let my mind go wherever without the pressure of having to make everything sound perfect is incredibly freeing.  I always end writing sessions in a good mood.

Last night, I came up with this new idea for an urban fantasy, and I'm completely in love with it.  It took a lot of self-control to shelve it, because it's so tempting.  I've been wanting to write an urban fantasy so badly.  Ah, that's okay.  It'll have its time.  Besides, Tommy* is giving me the evil eye.  He says he can't make two stories suck at the same time.  I agree, Tommy.  I agree.

In case you're wondering, Tommy basically looks like a mixture between the Weightwatchers Hunger Monster and Oscar the Grouch.  I bet my suckmonster is cuter than yours.

*my suckmonster, the little guy who takes the beautiful ideas I have in my head and suck-ifies them once they get on paper; we're friends.

Meet My Suckmonster

Here are pictures of Halloween as promised.  I'm not going to swamp you with photographs of my non-writing-related life so I'm putting up two.  These are pictures we took before we left. There are pictures from after we got back...but I don't think you want to see those.

Also, Day Two of NaNoWriMo has come and gone, and I have spent entirely too much time on the computer today.  After over four hours of fussing and writing and procrastinating on various sites completely writing related things, I went to work and spent another four hours editing news articles.  I think I'm going blind.  This is the end result:

3852 / 50000 words. 8% done!

I'm well on my way to embracing my own adorable little suckmonster.  I have duly named him Tommy.  Just gotta find that leash...dammit!  Come back, Tommy!  Ahem.  Anyway, he's running loose in the room ripping everything to shreds right now and eating the leftover food in my fridge.  I guess this is what comes of doing NaNo.

My new favorite hobby is staring at other people's blue progress bars.  Even if I don't know them.  Today, I found someone with 25,000 words.  I kid you not.  But I am not disheartened! I'm still good.  When my word count is in the red, I will be worried.  I know you're concerned that I am obsessing over quantity over quality, but I'M NOT.  The best part about NaNo is those few moments when I get lost in the story and it flows.  That's when the word count really flies.

Day One

[Currently Listening To: The Other Side of the Door (T Swift); added to soundtrack for The End of You and Me]

Halloween was fabulous.  But it was probably the most unproductive weekend of my life, and I will not be attempting that again in a while.  Time to put my nose to the grindstone and get back to work.  

In the afternoon, I wrote 1,685 words, which is just over the 1,667 you have to get per day. Except then I noticed other people BEING OVERACHIEVERS and getting more done.  Some people have freakish word counts.*  I'm not even sure how that's possible.  So, later I tacked on a bit more so my final progress for day one looks like this:

2118 / 50000 words. 4% done!

I'm probably going to treat NaNo like I treat other aspects of my life: just enough to get by.**  So as long as I hit the 1,667 mark every day, that is it.  I am good to go.  The first day, I went a little extra, but I doubt that will be a common occurrence.

I'm a tad obsessed with the NaNo graphs.  They're so cool (and depressing) to look at.  Go, little yellow bar!  

My story has no title.  This is bothering me.  I'm really bad with titles.  What I need is some kind of random title generator.  Or maybe I can be like Margaret Mitchell (Gone With The Wind) and just draw some random line from the text and make it a title.  GWTW is like a super-bestseller-classic, right?  Hmmm.  I'm going to do it now.  I'm going to point at the screen randomly and see what I get.

From His Heart To His Fingertips.

Sounds like bestselling material.  I'll take it.***

*By some people, I mean Jenita.  Just to make things perfectly clear.

**No, that is not how I treat my life, children.  You should always overachieve!  Shoot for the stars and all that!

***No, I'm not giving it that title.  That sounds like an awkward romance novel or like I randomly pointed at my screen for a line of text.  Oh wait...

Dun Dun Dun...Outlines

So I know you're wondering how the NaNo regional meeting went.  Everybody was really nice, blah blah, duh, of course.  We writers are nice people.  90% of us are fantasy writers.  *facepalm*  Oh well.  I will think of it this way: we're all part of the in-crowd.  It's pretty surreal being able to talk face-to-face about subjects that I normally only relate to Interwebby writers. We're going to have write-ins twice a week.  I'm going to try really hard to make it to at least one each week, but no guarantees.  Distance matters too, as not all of them will be on campus, and I hate taking buses.

In the world of my new, titleless baby novel, I've been outlining.  Very seriously.  Me, the serious writer, outlining.  I have two story maps (incomplete), a T chart, the beginnings of character biopses, and several pages of just free form notes.  I haven't even started the notecards yet.  You can't ever have too many roadmaps, right?  Errrr yes, so I admit I've probably been a closet plotter this entire time, masquerading shamelessly as a flier (by the seat of my pants, although this phrase never made sense to me--how can you fly by the seat of your pants, unless your pant seats have wings or some kind of mystical butt pixie dust?).

Anyway, since I've been reading Gail Carson Levine's blog religiously, I came across a post about notes.  You might want to check this one out.  Apparently, she takes notes during her writing process as a kind of diary/workbook/place to vent your hatred of your stubborn characters.  What amazes me, is how extensive her notes are and how messy.  And how she mentioned that books like The Two Princesses of Bamarre (which I conveniently have in my desk as a reference for a model YA fantasy novel), were "horrible, uncooperative monsters." What?  The Two Princesses of Bamarre was...bad at some point?  I know they say first drafts are never perfect, but somehow, I imagined GCL birthing beautiful novels through mental regurgitation, thoughts appearing on paper effortlessly, all while merrily munching on dark chocolate without gaining weight.  Well, the fact that this isn't true, gives me some perverse joy at knowing that everyone, even GCL, has to struggle.  Is this wrong of me?  Probably.  But she never has to know.  

Now I have notes too.  It's kind of a relief that no one has to see them except me, because they're so disorganized and incomprehensible.  But I bet GCL's are ACTUALLY color-coded with gel pens and decorated with glitter.  I bet hers go in neat lines and read like calligraphy. 

So now, I must ask again: plotter or flier?  What are you?  Have you ever tried the other method?  Do you believe GCL's shenanigans about struggling?  Surely it is a lie to make us feel better!

TGIF

So last night, instead of sleeping (which incidentally, led to me sleeping through my alarm clock this morning and missing discussion...mehhh), I wrote.  A lot.  I guess when the inspiration  hits you, it's like responding to a cocaine addiction: you just NEED TO OPEN MICROSOFT WORD AND TYPE THINGS, PRETTY THINGS.  It's nice when that happens, but for some reason, it always happens at one in the morning or later.  

But it's Friday now, so all is right with the world.  Tonight is the first regional meeting for NaNoWriMo 'round these parts, so I might get to see some writers IN REAL LIFE for the first time.  I don't know any writers that I've met in person.  Zero.  Zip.  Nada.  Unless some of my friends are harboring deep, dark novelly secrets.  I'm pretty sure they're not, though.

I wanted to share a cool discovery I made last night.  Cool for me--maybe everybody else already knew about it.  Gail Carson Levine has a blog.  Besides the fact that it's GAIL CARSON LEVINE (Ella Enchanted, Fairest, Two Princesses of Bamarre, etc.) who is way high up on my list of favorite authors, she blogs only on how to improve your writing.  YOUR writing.  She posts every Wednesday about a new topic, usually a question posed by a commenter.  Occasionally, there are fun exercises she puts up too.  It's very cool and helpful.  I have to rein myself in from wasting hours by reading all of her posts.  Since, you know, she's a best-selling author and all, she probably knows a little bit about good writing.  Did I mention that it's GAIL CARSON LEVINE?  

Next week, I'm going to try a new technique with my writing.  Instead of shooting from the hip all of the time, I'm going to...outline.  I usually plan novels according to what is going to be in which chapter.  This time, however, I'm going to write up every scene on notecards and let them go as they will, dividing by scenes instead of chapters.  I think this will lend a better sense of pacing to the story as I go along.  For NaNo, I mean.  And I'm guessing that I will write faster if I know where the story is going.

Have a good Friday!

How Do I Get To Know My Characters?

Question by Rebecca.

Well, let's see.  I don't interview my characters.  We don't really interact.  Maybe in my head, right before I go to sleep, where no one can see the jumble of insanity going on, I will think about asking him/her some questions.  

I think what I tend to do instead, is go through an ordinary day, and imagine how characters would interact with an environment or situation if they were in my place.  I let myself imagine the snide remarks they would make (if they're the kind of people who would make snide remarks) and how they would feel about a scenario.  One at a time, of course.  I don't need an entire cast crowding my head.

Some of them are more amusing to spend a day with than others.  I designate characters as "the one I would want to be with if we were going to a party" or "the one I would want to be with if I had a huge exam and needed a ton of patient tutoring" or "the one I would want to be with if I was in a crap-tacular mood."

I really, really hate looking for pictures of my characters.  They look so distinct in my head that I can never find just the right picture.  And I also don't like pictures because they're very cut and paste about looks.  If I do look for them, I prefer paintings or sketches.  They give a dreamy quality to the character, a more fictional feel that I like.

But since I feel the need to physically represent a character for you, here are some pictures. They're not perfect, but they're about as close as I can get, I guess.

This is Megara from Across The River Styx.  I call her Meg for short, but nobody else does.  She is the MC and the first-person narrator.  This particular representation of her has green eyes, which is important.  Not to the plot, but to the way she looks.

This is Elladora from the NaNoWriMo project.  I call her Ella.  Most people do.  She's not even the MC, but I just really adore her.  I think she's my favorite character so far, out of everything I've done.  This representation of her has the upturned nose and short brown hair.  That is, apparently, really hard to find.

The pictures are actually of Rachel Hurd-Wood and Tatiana Romanov.  Tatiana usually looks so sad, so I found a picture where she...doesn't look AS sad.  Ella is not a sad person.  Really not.

Also, I am registered for NaNoWriMo under Icy Roses, so if you're participating too, look me up so we can be buddies!

Monday: Sometimes Nonsense

Tuesday: me

Wednesday: Girl With A Notebook

Thursday: Flames and Shadows

Friday: Somewhere Nowhere In My Kingdom

The New Project

Long time, no see.  Busy, busy. 

Since I'm participating in NaNo now, I figured I would need a project. That's kind of important, right?  I was just going to do the fan fiction story, but I'm already a good 20,000 words into it.  That's 20,000 words I can't include in my word count.

Then I decided I might go ahead and actually finish the second draft of ATRS (yeah, yeah, I know; I took a three month hiatus from it), but it's so close to being done that it would be kind of pointless to spend all November doing it.  All I really need for that is a one week writing boot camp, and it'll be complete.  I know exactly what's going to happen, what needs to be written.  I am just L-A-Z-Y.  I'll do that in December, I think, when the dust has settled from NaNo.

I had two major ideas that I was deciding between.  One was the "sequel" (more appropriately, companion novel) to ATRS, which was going to be a real challenge, with two POVs and in present tense.  It would be good for me to experiment with different styles of writing.  This would have a darker tone, older YA or possibly adult.  At the same time, I opened up the three chapters I had finished of "Steam" and reread them.  They're--well, they're actually pretty good.  I liked them a lot.  I hated the fact that it was elemental fantasy (fire, water, blah blah), and it had a distinct, Tolkien-esque high fantasy feel.  Not my cup of tea right now, not at all.

I wanted to do something lighter and happier for NaNo.  Not something archaic and epic.  I wanted to do YA, not adult.  And I really wanted to do urban fantasy, or maybe steampunk if I was especially ambitious.  

Well, I decided.  Ever since coming up with "Steam" (in a very odd and vivid dream), I was mostly attached to the characters.  The plot was kind of quirky and had potential, but all I wanted to do was spend time with the people populating that world.  I spent days drawing up character charts to get to know them better.  I never do that.  And I thought, well, why not put them somewhere else and see what they do?  So the revamped plot is not an urban fantasy, sadly.  It's still set in a fantasy world, but it's much...tamer?  Fairytale-like, I think.  More Robin McKinley and less Lord of the Rings (not that I could ever measure up to anything Robin McKinley writes or J.R.R. Tolkien, for that matter).  The main character is a male fairy (because there aren't nearly enough of those in the world).  I'm a bit worried because I've never written a male MC before, but it will be a fun challenge.  Perhaps I will put up a blurb when I write one (I am oh so horrible at writing those; it's definitely a skill I need to work on if I ever want to attempt a query letter).  

Oh, it has fairies and witches and princesses, and everything I've ever wanted to put in an ideal novel.*  I'm so excited to begin.  Hopefully, by winter break, I'll have the drafts of two novels ready for intensive editing.  I shall take them with me to China where I will have no Internet, so--editing galore!

I know I have total ADD when it comes to projects, and I'm hoping NaNo will give me a chance to just WRITE without thinking about how good or bad it is.  I can always worry about that later, but sometimes, my Internal Editor sends me to a grinding halt.  It's a very annoying thing.  I need the chance to just be able to churn out the crap, so to speak.  After all, every diamond starts out as a piece of coal.  Er, I think.  I'm not that good at geology.

*The only thing it's missing is talking animals, so maybe I should just go all the way and add those too.

NaNoWriMo: Yes, It's Time

Check your calendars, everybody.  It's October 6.  But I guess some people are far more prepared than I, because there are already 15,000+ people signed up for NaNoWriMo 2009. National Novel Writing Month is when everybody goes into a mad scramble to try and write 50,000 words in thirty days (if you are successful, you "win").  So I had this post planned out explaining why I was not going to participate this year (I have never participated before; only found out about it last year).  

Firstly, NaNoWriMo is kind of populated with people who don't know what they're doing (in terms of getting published, not necessarily writing well).  As in, I know I can't query now until at least February, because I don't want to be in the flood of people who do it right after NaNo thinking that quantity = quality.  There is a definite uptick in querying in December and January solely because of this November phenomenon.  Secondly, I physically cannot write 1,600 words a day, which is the average you need to achieve (roughly) to reach that magic number of 50,000.  I can't.  I have never written that much for more than two days at a time. Thirdly, I'm in college.  Is this explanation enough?  There are not enough hours in the day. Also, who wants to write during Thanksgiving?  That's when I'm going to be writing my semester thesis, anyway.

But all of this rational thinking clearly went out of my brain, because I am going to sign up anyway.  Because believe it or not, it is actually on my list of things to do before I die: participate in NaNoWriMo.  I'm going to make it a goal to win too--before I die, I mean.  Not this year.  HA.  I'm hoping for between 25,000 and 30,000 words, and that's a lofty goal. Maybe I should make it part of my schedule to wake up an hour before class to get writing in then?  Time will tell.  You would be surprised how quickly your priorities change when your alarm clock goes off in the morning (brushing your teeth and putting on real clothes suddenly seem like unnecessary fussing)--but I'm sure all of you know this from personal experience. Morning is not a good bet for anything.

Anyway, I think NaNo is a good thing for people who are aware of the intensive rewriting/editing process to follow once you've obtained your 50,000 words.  I would never show a rough draft of an original work to a single soul.  Ever.  Because I would probably cry in shame.  And so would the reader.

So here is my post that was meant to be a post about how I was not participating.  I give up. You win, November.  You win.