Forgive me if my post here is a bit flat. I've been in my head for nearly four hours now, writing and trying to explain elements in the story which are not easily explainable. I finished two very difficult scenes today, ones that I was not really looking forward to because I knew they would be tough.
This is right about the furthest point in a novel I have ever written. I get to this point - the explaining point - and my confidence takes a side step. In the past, it checked out all together. I loose steam, loose the drive. I loose faith. My inner critic whispers in my ear, letting me know that I was dumb to think I could write a novel. "Who the hell are you to write a novel?" he says. "Your ideas are stupid. They don't hold water. Anyone who bothers to read this crap that you're writing is just going to laugh. Or worse, they won't say anything at all and change the subject." My critic is very convincing. Ask my three other novels. They'll tell you.
My critic definitely showed up today. He sat behind me on our bed and laughed under his breath when I tried to explain what was happening to these kids. He told me my dialogue sucked, that my idea was juvenile and that I was never going to get anywhere.
Then I punched him in the face and kept writing.
Is what I wrote any good? Honestly, I have no idea. But I wrote it. I got past the explanation scenes. I got past the doubts and kept writing. Maybe I'll go back and read it later, see what I have, but I think I'll not do that for a while. My inner critic might come back for revenge. For now, he's nursing a broken nose and a broken ego. Serves him right.
Today's Word Count: 3,647
Total November WC: 17,625
Words to go to hit 50,000: 32,375
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Day Eight: Moving On...
Ok, it's way past my bedtime, so I'm going to make this short. I think I know part of the reason why I was so weirded out by writing the scene where all the kids die. Yes, there was definitely finality to it, and it was an odd place to be, the person that creates and decides this fate. But also, I hadn't the foggiest idea how I was going to transition to the next phase of the story. I was stuck, or struck. Not sure which, but there I was.
The answer came to me this morning while I was in the shower. I used to think that I was the only person who felt that her muse was the shower, but come to find out, those mindless tasks that you do every day open you up to ideas and answers that had eluded you earlier. Anyway, as I massaged shampoo through my hair, the solutions started coming to me. As I dried off, another piece of the puzzle presented itself. I considered skipping my morning pages and almost went straight to writing down what I had discovered, but the thought of missing a day of those pages seemed like a particularly bad idea - especially now.
So, I used them to work out my thoughts. At 8:30 tonight, I finally got the chance to sit down to my computer and breathe the new life, the next era, into my novel. And it felt really, really good.
Today's Word Count: 1,778
Total November Count: 13,978
Words to hit 50,000 Goal: 36,022
The answer came to me this morning while I was in the shower. I used to think that I was the only person who felt that her muse was the shower, but come to find out, those mindless tasks that you do every day open you up to ideas and answers that had eluded you earlier. Anyway, as I massaged shampoo through my hair, the solutions started coming to me. As I dried off, another piece of the puzzle presented itself. I considered skipping my morning pages and almost went straight to writing down what I had discovered, but the thought of missing a day of those pages seemed like a particularly bad idea - especially now.
So, I used them to work out my thoughts. At 8:30 tonight, I finally got the chance to sit down to my computer and breathe the new life, the next era, into my novel. And it felt really, really good.
Today's Word Count: 1,778
Total November Count: 13,978
Words to hit 50,000 Goal: 36,022
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Day Seven - I've Killed the Kids
It took exactly 898 words to kill 60 kids and three adults. It took two hours, an Italian meat panini, a cup of mango tea and a whole lot of rubbing my forehead. I hope I wiped my fingers off before I rubbed. There may be panini juice on my skin.
So, now that's done. And I feel weird. I wish I describe what I'm feeling right now. I'm honestly not sure. These are the things I know:
So, now that's done. And I feel weird. I wish I describe what I'm feeling right now. I'm honestly not sure. These are the things I know:
- My characters are not real, they exist only in my head. But I still feel like a creep for killing them. I made them up and it was my idea.
- I've been in a pretty serious car crash, I do know what it feels like. This is a bus crash and mimics one of my personal fears - sailing off a high bridge. Did I do it justice?
- I killed my kids. At this very moment, they are all dead. I feel stalled. I have plenty more to say, but I feel like I need to not say anything else tonight. Is that out of respect? I have no idea, but it feels that way.
This is weird. I'm not trying to be dramatic, I'm not trying to make more of it than it is, I honestly just don't know what to do about this or the weird feeling that I have about it. 898 words to kill 63 people. Somehow, that bothers me. It shouldn't, but it does.
I'm going to sleep on it. Hopefully, I will find the way to roll the story into the next phase.
Todays Word Count: 898
Total Nov Word Count: 12,200
Words to hit 50,000: 37,800
Monday, November 5, 2012
Day Five is Done
I can't stop thinking about how I'm about to kill off a bus load of teenagers. I wrote a few more early scenes tonight, dug a little deeper into a few of the relationships, and I'm realizing that tomorrow I'm going to have to do it. They are about to board the bus for the last time and with some (hopefully) carefully orchestrated key strokes, 60 kids are going to plunge to their death in the exact same way that I run through my head in my own nightmares: off the edge of a tall bridge into deep icy waters.
And that's when the real story will start.
For now, they'll keep. Frozen in the grocery store parking lot until I let them get on the bus. They'll get comfortable, they'll get warm, they'll die.
Am I a creep?
Not going to lie, I'm a little weirded out by the whole thing. But the story that's in my head depends on this one thing, so I'm going to have to do it. Hm. It's also election day. If I were more politically minded, I might draw some connections, but I'm naturally suspicious of all politicians, so I don't think that matters to me much.
Anyway, sleep tight. I'm actually saying that to myself. Everyone else is in bed - and if someone is actually reading this well ... either sleep tight or hope you slept well. Tomorrow is the day of the dead.
Today's Word Count: 2,925
Total Nov Word Count: 10,565
Words to go to hit 50,000: 39,435
And that's when the real story will start.
For now, they'll keep. Frozen in the grocery store parking lot until I let them get on the bus. They'll get comfortable, they'll get warm, they'll die.
Am I a creep?
Not going to lie, I'm a little weirded out by the whole thing. But the story that's in my head depends on this one thing, so I'm going to have to do it. Hm. It's also election day. If I were more politically minded, I might draw some connections, but I'm naturally suspicious of all politicians, so I don't think that matters to me much.
Anyway, sleep tight. I'm actually saying that to myself. Everyone else is in bed - and if someone is actually reading this well ... either sleep tight or hope you slept well. Tomorrow is the day of the dead.
Today's Word Count: 2,925
Total Nov Word Count: 10,565
Words to go to hit 50,000: 39,435
Day Five's Morning Thoughts-Shooting for Trees or Stars
Ok, I'm going to warn you ahead of time that this may be a meandering mess of thought, but's 7:18 in the morning and I need to get dressed and get my butt off to work - however this idea will not leave me alone and I feel like I should simply put it here and let it go so I can have some peace about it.
How do I even start?
So, here's the thing. I have this feeling that there are those that feel that it's better lower your expectations about what it is that you're doing in order not to get your heart broken when you don't reach or achieve your dream. I think this holds true for most endeavors in people's lives, but I think the creative ones are particularly afflicted with this premise because the thought of making money doing something outside of the "norm" and that's fun seems like a long shot. And it probably is. Does that mean you shouldn't try?
Hell no.
I was thinking this morning about people who say, "write for fun, don't expect to get anywhere with it, just enjoy the act." I know this is also said about creating music, creating works of art, etc. And yes, there certainly is a point in this. However, why can't you write for fun and strive to achieve greatness at the same time? Why couldn't you pick up a guitar and play with conviction, wanting to succeed in what ever form that success means to you? Why can't we want both for ourselves? Because if we don't achieve our goals, become published, support ourselves with our art and still enjoy it, we will be heartbroken?
That's crap.
What happened to living life to it's fullest potential? Loving with abandon? Because it hurts when it's taken away? Yes, we are human and we will get hurt. If you open yourself up and try, take chances and end up getting hurt, crushed even, isn't that better than walling your heart up and never feeling anything?
So, for those who say it's better to lower your expectations and not get disappointed when things don't turn out the way you think they will - I say, that's fine if it works for you. I would much rather shoot for the stars and land on the treetops knowing that I gave it all I could than to shoot for the tree tops, land there and look up at the starts always wondering "what if". I would rather break my own heart than to not let it feel the thrill of simply being alive.
And because I feel this is important, I've decided to wait to kill off my bus load of kids. If I do it now, no one will care. I need to take a few steps back and better establish my characters and their relationships. Because once that bus crashes, there's no going back and the reader better damn well care about that - or should I say, I'd better give the reader enough so that they actually can care about it, otherwise I'm just hanging out on some branches. I better strive for some atmosphere here!
How do I even start?
So, here's the thing. I have this feeling that there are those that feel that it's better lower your expectations about what it is that you're doing in order not to get your heart broken when you don't reach or achieve your dream. I think this holds true for most endeavors in people's lives, but I think the creative ones are particularly afflicted with this premise because the thought of making money doing something outside of the "norm" and that's fun seems like a long shot. And it probably is. Does that mean you shouldn't try?
Hell no.
I was thinking this morning about people who say, "write for fun, don't expect to get anywhere with it, just enjoy the act." I know this is also said about creating music, creating works of art, etc. And yes, there certainly is a point in this. However, why can't you write for fun and strive to achieve greatness at the same time? Why couldn't you pick up a guitar and play with conviction, wanting to succeed in what ever form that success means to you? Why can't we want both for ourselves? Because if we don't achieve our goals, become published, support ourselves with our art and still enjoy it, we will be heartbroken?
That's crap.
What happened to living life to it's fullest potential? Loving with abandon? Because it hurts when it's taken away? Yes, we are human and we will get hurt. If you open yourself up and try, take chances and end up getting hurt, crushed even, isn't that better than walling your heart up and never feeling anything?
So, for those who say it's better to lower your expectations and not get disappointed when things don't turn out the way you think they will - I say, that's fine if it works for you. I would much rather shoot for the stars and land on the treetops knowing that I gave it all I could than to shoot for the tree tops, land there and look up at the starts always wondering "what if". I would rather break my own heart than to not let it feel the thrill of simply being alive.
And because I feel this is important, I've decided to wait to kill off my bus load of kids. If I do it now, no one will care. I need to take a few steps back and better establish my characters and their relationships. Because once that bus crashes, there's no going back and the reader better damn well care about that - or should I say, I'd better give the reader enough so that they actually can care about it, otherwise I'm just hanging out on some branches. I better strive for some atmosphere here!
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Day Four
Perhaps I should be posting every day how I feel about the process of writing a novel in 30 days, but I have a feeling it's going to be way too repetitious. So, perhaps an update every few days or when something is changing, or it simply occurs to me would suffice.
Four days in and I have to say, it's going really well! I already told you that day one was great, it was actually more than I had expected. The second day I attended my first "Write In". I had imagined this was going to consist of several like-minded writers banging away at their laptops, feeding off of each other's creative energy. What it was, for me at least, was very distracting. I'm finding that I really have to have very little noise around me in order to hear what the story is, what my characters were saying. I need to dive in, submerge, and come up for air only when I need to. This paddling and splashing around on the surface was frustrating for me. I applaud those that can write that way, I just don't think I'm one of them. That day I wrote a scene, consisting of 1,800 or so words. So it was still productive, but I felt a bit disconnected from what I was doing.
Day Three held a different kind of activity, entailing moving my mom into her new house. This was an all day event, with my husband, my son and two of his friends helping. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that by 5pm that night, we were all exhausted, sore, but felt immensely satisfied. Anyway, I was super tired so I took the day off.
Today, Sunday and Day Four, went really well. Here's the thing. I wrote a scene which dug a little deeper into my characters, giving the reader (assuming at some point someone other than me will read this) some more background and idea of who these people are. Then I took a break to find a way to watch the Walking Dead.
I know this has nothing to do with writing a novel, but I'm determined to find a way to watch that group of survivors meet up in this new prison place and battle zombies and human nature. I do not miss having regular TV at all. We have NBC and a couple others, so I'll watch something from time to time, but I really don't care about TV. I do care about these dang survivors and their stories. It's really irritating to me that I can't stream the episodes on AMC's website, watch them on Hulu or Hulu Plus, or rent them from Amazon without buying "Prime" service, which is about $100. I thought I'd bite the bullet and buy the episodes on ITunes, but the stinkin' HDMI cable that I bought doesn't want to work. We hooked up the Mac with a regular monitor cable and an auxiliary cord, but all of the episodes are in HD and the monitor cable can't handle it. So, I'm frustrated. Is it too much to ask for a good show to be watched in some normal fashion on the new fangled TVs without having to fork out $100 plus $3.00 an episode? For cryin' out loud.
But I digress. After dinner I headed up to the Upstairs Office and wrote the next scene. I think it's pretty good, showing areas of future regret for my main character as well as some decent foreshadowing. The next scene is where I have to kill off a bus load of teenagers. In a way, I'm really excited to write that! In another way, I'm a bit terrified I'm not going to do the scene justice. It's the inciting incident in my story line and if it's not done well, that would.... well, it would suck.
However, I'll remind myself that this is a first draft and I can go back later and revisit the fatal bus scene and make it scarier or more vivid. Tomorrow night is another Write In. This one is at a different location and I'm tempted to give it a shot, maybe it will be better this time. But considering I have to kill 60 or so people tomorrow, I might want to do that in the privacy of my own home. I'm not sure how I'm going to react. ;)
Total November Word Count at the end of Day Four: 7,640
Words to go to hit 50,000 goal: 42,360
Four days in and I have to say, it's going really well! I already told you that day one was great, it was actually more than I had expected. The second day I attended my first "Write In". I had imagined this was going to consist of several like-minded writers banging away at their laptops, feeding off of each other's creative energy. What it was, for me at least, was very distracting. I'm finding that I really have to have very little noise around me in order to hear what the story is, what my characters were saying. I need to dive in, submerge, and come up for air only when I need to. This paddling and splashing around on the surface was frustrating for me. I applaud those that can write that way, I just don't think I'm one of them. That day I wrote a scene, consisting of 1,800 or so words. So it was still productive, but I felt a bit disconnected from what I was doing.
Day Three held a different kind of activity, entailing moving my mom into her new house. This was an all day event, with my husband, my son and two of his friends helping. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that by 5pm that night, we were all exhausted, sore, but felt immensely satisfied. Anyway, I was super tired so I took the day off.
Today, Sunday and Day Four, went really well. Here's the thing. I wrote a scene which dug a little deeper into my characters, giving the reader (assuming at some point someone other than me will read this) some more background and idea of who these people are. Then I took a break to find a way to watch the Walking Dead.
I know this has nothing to do with writing a novel, but I'm determined to find a way to watch that group of survivors meet up in this new prison place and battle zombies and human nature. I do not miss having regular TV at all. We have NBC and a couple others, so I'll watch something from time to time, but I really don't care about TV. I do care about these dang survivors and their stories. It's really irritating to me that I can't stream the episodes on AMC's website, watch them on Hulu or Hulu Plus, or rent them from Amazon without buying "Prime" service, which is about $100. I thought I'd bite the bullet and buy the episodes on ITunes, but the stinkin' HDMI cable that I bought doesn't want to work. We hooked up the Mac with a regular monitor cable and an auxiliary cord, but all of the episodes are in HD and the monitor cable can't handle it. So, I'm frustrated. Is it too much to ask for a good show to be watched in some normal fashion on the new fangled TVs without having to fork out $100 plus $3.00 an episode? For cryin' out loud.But I digress. After dinner I headed up to the Upstairs Office and wrote the next scene. I think it's pretty good, showing areas of future regret for my main character as well as some decent foreshadowing. The next scene is where I have to kill off a bus load of teenagers. In a way, I'm really excited to write that! In another way, I'm a bit terrified I'm not going to do the scene justice. It's the inciting incident in my story line and if it's not done well, that would.... well, it would suck.
However, I'll remind myself that this is a first draft and I can go back later and revisit the fatal bus scene and make it scarier or more vivid. Tomorrow night is another Write In. This one is at a different location and I'm tempted to give it a shot, maybe it will be better this time. But considering I have to kill 60 or so people tomorrow, I might want to do that in the privacy of my own home. I'm not sure how I'm going to react. ;)
Total November Word Count at the end of Day Four: 7,640
Words to go to hit 50,000 goal: 42,360
Thursday, November 1, 2012
NaNoWriMo Begins!
November 1st has finally come! I waited patiently all day, even exercised after work, made and ate dinner. I was biding my time until I can go to the Second Floor Office and begin my novel. I'm not going to lie, while I was eating dinner I was having doubts that I would be able to spit any words out at all. I had no idea, no first line that comes spilling out. I'm usually good at first lines.When the time came, I took a minute and said a quiet prayer, that Jenna and the other characters will show up, the scenes will reveal themselves. Then I sat and stared at the blank page for a couple minutes, trying not to think "Crap, this isn't happening." But then it did. The first sentence came. Then the first paragraph. About an hour and a half later my first scene was written. I was laughing, I was excited and a little heartbroken. Perfect!
Today's word count: 2,226 words. The average daily word count to get to the minimum of 50,000 words is 1,666. I'll admit it, I like the little cushion I made for myself tonight!
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