And now, a NaNoWriMo Meme

Working Title: Ghost / Strain 10
Genre: science fiction horror for both novels (one is during the apocalypse, the other is post-apocalypse)
Projected Word Count: 150 – 200k total, but my goal for NaNo is between 75 and 100k since my schedule won’t be as open as I’d like.

AT THE START DO YOU:
Have an outline? I have half of Ghost outlined, and all of Strain 10
Scene-by-scene? Yes for the section of Ghost I have outlined so far. Not yet for Strain 10, but it’s not a traditional format, so that’s kind of okay, and I’m writing it second, so I’m not so worried about it
Know how it starts? Ghost yes, though not in perfect detail yet (still working on some character details), and I’ve already written the first few chapters of Strain 10, so yes.
Know how it ends? No for Ghost. I’m still hammering out the details. Strain 10 I have a better idea, but I still need more details also.
Have your climax in order? Not at all for Ghost. I’m struggling with the second half of my outline. Strain 10 is shiny good though, I’m not worried about it.
Know your main characters yet? I have at least 4, maybe 5 MCs for Ghost, and I’m getting to know them all slowly but surely. I know my three MCs for Strain 10 – they’ve been around for a good five months or so now, so they’re easier to figure out.
Plan to draw on your own experiences? Somewhat. Strain 10 is post-apocalypse, so there isn’t much I can draw on there, but Ghost has some pre-apocalypse elements, so I’ll probably draw on those, especially to write my teen/twentysomething characters

IS YOUR WORK GOING TO BE:
Funny? Both Ghost and Strain 10 are pretty dark, so any humour that occurs will be pretty dark. I have some very snarky characters though, so  expect some of that to show up.
Serious? Yes to both. They’re both dealing with the collapse of civilization after all.
Sad? Yes, but I hope not to go overboard to the point of Narm. I’m hoping it’ll be sad where it needs to be, but more bittersweet than heart-wrenching
Semi-Autobiographical? No, since they’re both, again, apocalypse tales, but some of my characters might be inspired by my experiences as a college student.
Based on another story? Ghost shares a few elements with my boyfriend Jeff’s current WIP, but they’re different enough for government work. Strain 10 is my brainchild almost entirely.

HOW HAVE MUCH YOU PLANNED? HAVE YOU USED:
A paper journal? Nothing nearly that organized, but I have two notebooks in my bag full of doodles and notes and freewrites set in the same universe
Multicolored pens? I use my purple pen sometimes, so I guess that counts
A computer? Definitely. I use my computers for most of my prep work
Index cards? Nah, not really
Bulleted lists? Yes for Ghost, not yet for Strain 10
Plot Charts? Can’t say I’ve ever used one of these. Might look into it if my plot gets pissy at me
Character Charts? Not yet – I’m seeing how far I get without one
Character formulas? Eh?
Favorite writing resource?: Well, I love the internet as a research tool, though I’m sure the government is getting interesting pings off of me for googling stuff like ‘amateur amputations’ and ‘street price of heroin in new York city’. Other than that I just love my laptop and good ol’ MS word along with my notebooks. I have one that has ‘Hell is Other People’ printed in large orange letters.

ODDS AND ENDS:
A line you would like to use: Ghost: “I never thought I’d get the chance to use my zombie plan!” – “Will, there aren’t any zombies.”- “It’ll work just as well without them, the point is civilization is collapsing all around us and we know where all the guns are!” Strain 10: nothing yet. Give me some time
A scene you would like to include: Ghost: I already have the plan for a rather nasty home amputation scene. It’ll be gruesome. For Strain 10 I have the final scene, where one of my MC’s confronts the father of another MC.
A concept you would like to explore: Ghost: The idea of what the collapse of society is like when the internet is involved as a tool to spread fear and information. Strain 10 I want to look at the aftereffects of civilization falling apart.
A cliché you would like to avoid: I’d like to avoid traditional sci-fi horror tropes for the most part, however hard that may be. I also don’t want either book to end up too much like Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’, which is an influence. I figure if I limit the number of perspective characters I’ll be okay. Oh, and that happy ending business. I don’t want happy endings, but I also don’t want to drive my readers to suicide.
A character you would like to use: I’ve got my characters straightened out. The stripper who is also a nursing student is especially fun though.

FORWARD THINKING:
Do you expect to be able to complete it? Ghost: Yes. My outline is a bit more comprehensive and I’m working on it first. Strain 10 I hope to finish it if not by November, then by the end of the year or in early 2011
Do you intend to complete it? Yes, I want to finish them both. I really like both ideas.
Would you ever try to publish it? Definitely. I have high hopes for both of these novels, as companion pieces.
What do you expect to get out of this month of frantic writing? Two first drafts, as close to complete as possible, and more experience writing, same as every year. We’ll see how it goes!

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

The Spirit of the Thing: NaNo, Wordcounts, and Us

So on Friday evening the forums reset at NaNoWriMo.org as they do every early October, and like all my fellow forumites I began the exploration of the shiny new sections and threads and caught up with old buddies from years gone by. They’ve really outdone themselves this year, I must say. The forums are looking lovely, and mucho kudos to everyone involved in getting the 2010 boards up and running.

One of the threads that popped up yesterday was this one, and I was unsurprised to see it, but disappointed that it had appeared nonetheless, having had hope that maybe this year things would be different.

So now I’m going to put on my ‘opinion’ hat and put in my two cents on the matter. It’s just what I think: don’t take it as anything more people.

I don’t know if can truly be counted among the ‘Overachievers’ as this particular thread defines them – I reached 72k last year and this year I’m aiming for 75 to 100k in 2010, and compared to many of the people in the Overachievers Thread that’s just a blip on the metaphorical wordcount bar, but needless to say it means I feel a kinship with the people aiming for more than the base 50 thousand words.

That said, I once again feel that this division between the ‘normals’ and the ‘overachievers’ has GOT to stop. I won’t play blame games here, but for all the accusations and disagreement, people who count as overachievers are a lot less braggy and open about their high wordcounts as certain people claim. Everyone on the overachievers thread in my experience is very kind and supportive, and the closest they come to showing off their high wordcounts is their green display bars. They tend towards discretion. So that’s my first point. Nobody I know in the Overachiever thread intentionally tries to show off how much they have written. They don’t try to make anyone feel bad.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, NaNo is about nothing more or less than the achievement of a personal goal. We operate on an honors system, not a competition where the first person to 50k gets a big shiny prize. 50 thousand words is a lot, don’t get me wrong, and I definitely fought to get there my first year. But for many people, 50k isn’t enough of a challenge. 50k is just a milestone, and their novels are longer, their ideas stretch further, or they have multiple ideas they want to explore.

Whatever our goals are, we should be encouraging each other, not accusing people of discouraging others. Nobody on the NaNo boards actively discourages anyone, because we’re all in this together. We are all creating something from scratch, something out of nothing, and that’s not an easy thing. It’s cheesy to say that just trying to write a novel is an accomplishment, but it’s true. We’re the people with the balls to say that we have what it takes to create form from chaos, matter from void, to think we have the ability to tell a story alongside the people we consider great literary figures of our time.

So what if it takes us a thousand, 50 thousand, a hundred thousand or a million words? The purpose is the same, and we should bond over this, all of us.

Respect is a big part of an honors system, and that’s what we should be aiming for, not accusations of cheating or discouragement (unintentional or otherwise), nor assuming that Overachievers write mostly incoherent drivel and just type words for the sake of typing and keeping it up, nor that they give up their social lives and livelihoods for their writing (well, I do this, but I doubt everyone does 😉 ). Conversely, I certainly don’t think people who only hit 1000 words, 25k, 50k or anything in between weren’t trying hard enough,  and I can almost guarantee that my fellow Overachievers would never think such a thing. (there are more of them of course, but those are three lovely examples of people I respect and admire throughout nano for their prolific wordcounts and warm encouragement. Buddy them. They’re lovely).

We’re all in this together folks. Lets act like adults about it and encourage each other, not accuse or grumble. I know not all people on the first-mentioned thread accused the Overachievers of unfairness, bragging or cheating, and not all Overachievers are innocent. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we all need to stop whining and remember what’s really important: NaNo works best with a support system, and bickering about what’s okay to post and what’s not okay to post is counterproductive. I’m sure accusers don’t intend to be jerks, and overachievers don’t intend to rub their wordcounts in anyone’s faces.

So lets all put our toys back in the pram and focus on the writing, shall we? There’s only a month until we have to start our novels!

… And that’s all I have to say about that. Who wants a cookie?

Read Full Post »

‘It’s for research! I swear!’

Yesterday I sent a text message to my friend Andrew, my go-to Mad Scientist for novel research. The conversation went as follows (slightly paraphrased):

Me: Hey Andrew, are you going to be online later?
Andrew: Yes, what’s up?
Me: How much do you know about gangrene/tissue necrosis and amputation?
Andrew:…

Two minutes later I got a frantic call from him asking if everything was okay. He was quite distressed at my questions until I explained with those three magical words:

“It’s novel research”

After that he instantly calmed down, but his reaction was unfortunately comical. Next time I’ve been instructed to preface my texts with ‘it’s for a novel’ so he won’t freak out.

Poor Andrew. Besides Jeff, he’s my strongest supporter in my attempts to become a writer. I shouldn’t scare him like that. As amusing as it may have been.

As for why I’m doing research on amputations… it’s better not to ask. I feel bad for whoever monitors my browser history. There be monsters there, most certainly.

Still anxiously refreshing the NaNo site waiting for relaunch. I’m excited for the shiny new message boards! That’ll take up my time tonight along with going out to dinner (Jeff’s taking me out for Greek food), good beer and a giant Halo Reach tournament. October’s shaping up to be a damn good month so far.

Read Full Post »

The Fun in Dysfunctional

I return to the internet after my weekend absence. I missed it here. It’s warm, and the people are faceless, just the way I like them. Did you miss me internet? I missed you. *cuddles*

My weekend was rather eventful, bouncing between borderline alcoholism and multiple miniature fiascos. My extended family is an… interesting bunch. Interesting like a Lifetime Movie Special (but with less wife-beating and rape).

But long story short, we gathered and celebrated my grandma’s 80th birthday, we ate overly sugary cake and bickered, drank many interesting beers (the local grocery store had Blue Moon. I did a little dance to Dionysus in thanks), I stayed up too late watching old shows on Nick at Nite (I secretly love The Nanny. Don’t tell anyone), I read a few books and picked up a few more at the local Borders, and decided that when I become a member of the elderly community, I will pay people to make sure there are no gnomes in my garden.

I love my grandma dearly, but she has garden gnomes. And they creep me the HELL OUT.

[this is where I’d put the picture of the creepy gnome in her front yard next to the statue of St. Francis, but it creeped me out too much to record it on camera in any way. So here’s one I found through google:

I call him ‘creepy child molester gnome’. Seriously. His stare makes me feel wrong inside.]

So I returned to Nebraska yesterday afternoon (somehow, despite both flights being turbulent and nauseating) and was greeted by the cozy pile of work awaiting me this week. Papers are due (another one on Macbeth – seriously, I have to have written at least twenty papers on That Damn Scottish Play in my times reading Shakespeare during the last decade), there are short stories to be read (most of them boring, but more on that in a later post), books to read about lesbian nuns (no, seriously) and of course, multiple shifts at work. It’s gonna be interesting. Interesting like … something witty and violent. I don’t know. I’m still tired, too tired to come up with a good comparison. Make up one of your own. Feel free to share if you like.

In other news, the NaNoWriMo forums are wiping soon to ring in NaNo 2010, which means shiny new forums, shiny reset wordcount bars to refill, old friends returning to the party for conversation and scheming, and thirty days until the madness begins and November swallows my soul.

So, as well as all the difficult stuff this week, I have NaNo novels to plot out and prep for. But I’ll actually enjoy that, so I’m looking forward to it. That and my new book (A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin) is getting very good.

Now to figure out what to get for lunch. Perhaps a delicious sammich. I love sammiches.

Read Full Post »

I Must be Incredibly Dull

Already a week into September and I’m hitting novel-plotting road blocks. Nothing major, just difficulty planning the novel I intend to write. My characters are being uncooperative, my muse is sitting in a corner with a bottle of whiskey muttering to herself (she’s a belligerent one), and I’m tired enough that I’m blogging in class instead of paying attention:

There I am. In class. Not paying attention. Only week two and I’m back to my slacker style. Can I get a woo hoo?

I’ve been lurking back on the NaNoWriMo forums now that November is creeping closer. I’ve missed them.

I have writing class later today. We have two short stories to read and discuss: Silver Water by Amy Bloom and Brownies by ZZ Packer. I’ll get them read after History. hopefully they’ll spark interesting discussion, otherwise I’ll be spending the class period trying to plot out NaNo items.

So I’ll hopefully get back on here later to talk about that.

This blog isn’t nearly as interesting as I’d like. Maybe I’ll work on that later this week. We’ll see.

Read Full Post »