NaNoWriMo: Day 12 outtakes (passed 20,000!)

Wow, just passed 20,000 w0rds. Time to take a break ... Eww ... baby girl needs diaper change. Guess I need to attend to parental duties. But I have a feeling I'll be able to crank out a bit more before I got to sleep tonight. (After kids are in bed.) Basically: I'm on a roll! Twists around every turn ... it's a bit surreal. I look forward to going back in the second draft and beefing up certain areas, tightening up others ... but right now I'm just following the plot. I can add better descriptions and tweak the chatter more later. Right now, I need to keep up with figuring out where the storyline is going, as it's quickly escalating into an actual plot.

Day 12 outtake ... he's alive!:

“Hey, did you know Colin Smith?” Viki asked. Liz went cold for a moment and looked over at her roommate. The newspaper was in front of her friend. She was afraid to ask. “Is he in the same lab as you?” asked Viki.

“I think so,” Liz said quietly. “Why do you ask?”

“The guy’s in a coma,” said Viki.

NaNoWriMo: A few reflections on the past 11 days

Eleven days into the 30 days of NaNoWriMo and I've discovered that "write what you know" doesn't necessarily mean what I thought it did, at least not for me.

The first few days, I struggled with trying to start with the known world, and I came up short. I would begin with a situation that I knew, then try to fictionalize ... but trying to take my reality across the great canyon-like divide to my character's fictional world just wasn't working. I wasn't able to make the leap. I'd try, and fall into the deep crevasse with its many sharp rocks. Trying to shed a 13-year relationship and three kids and a long career and many other personal quirks, it was painful. I felt like I was bouncing Homer Simpson-style from sharp rock to sharp rock into the ravine and then trying to pull my damaged, near lifeless character back out. Trying to flesh out one character, I kept thinking "but where did the kids go?" "did they die?" (couldn't go there for a backstory, it's a mom thing) or "but I don't know what single life is like." Every attempt felt like I was cheating on my actual life. It was really silly. But it was simply too personal to start with myself and then try to shed identifiable elements in my effort to channel the fictional world. I couldn't let go. And I spent many hours staring at the computer screen forcing myself to type SOMETHING.

Yesterday was a completely different experience. All of the sudden scenes were flowing out hundreds of words at a time. Instead of hitting "word count" and finding myself 50 or 100 words further when I was hoping for many more, I'd find my word count go up by nearly 1,000 words at a time, and it seemed nearly effortless. Some editing will definitely be needed later, but it's like I'd finally gotten the muse to stay in the room for more than 5 minutes at a time.

The biggest switch? Perspective.

Instead of looking across that canyonlike divide between my nervous reality and the freedom of the fictional world and wondering how to transport myself across the spanse, instead of trying to transform myself into something I'm not, I'm now taking a person from the fictional world and working in some of "what I know" as secondary details to the story. And I feel silly that I was stuck in the first place. I feel like this is knowledge I once knew, that this tact is actually quite elementary -- but my fiction gears were oh, so rusty.

So here's hoping I can keep up the pace ... and seeing as it's a stormy day, a holiday, and the kids are being good ... I might actually get a bit ahead at last and be able to breathe a little easier this week.

NaNoWriMo: Day 11 outtakes, round 2

Been typing like a madwoman for an hour or two this evening. It's going much better than just a week ago, and I'm definitely making up for lost time from the last couple days of being sick, and being sicked up on. The words are flowing fast, and the story lines are coming together. I might even have a plot by the end of the month, lol.

And in that vein, I need to get back to the writing, especially while it's still flowing out in hundreds-of-words-at-a-time bursts. So, my mini excerpt of the last couple graphs ...

Day 11 outtake, round 2:

With a deep breath, she resurrected a bit of courage and stood up from her dark corner. She saw Colin across the room, lying still on the cold floor with a hole in his head, a pool of blood growing on the floor.

But he moved. Just barely, but she could see he was not gone. Not yet.

NaNoWriMo: Day 11 outtakes (makin' progress)

So, I'm definitely not done for the day. But the kiddos have requested early Thanksgiving, so we're a cookin'. And a couple folks a comin' over. I made pumpkin pie. I made cranberry sauce. There's mashed potatoes, chicken & turkey, bread, cooked pumpkin and so much more.

But I still found time to write today, and am strangely finding a possible blend between my "channeling conflict" storyline and one I'd brought up to my writers group a few weeks back. So perhaps I'll have more of a novel by the end of this than I thought. No matter, the experience is definitely pushing me. Definitely making me realize the areas I need to practice more and challenge myself more if this is something I want to be serious about. And definitely making me realize that creative writing has so many avenues, and I've not traveled the fiction road for far too long.

Anyhow, no one's puking, and dinner's not quite ready, so better post while I can ... :) And Ed, glad I could make you laugh. Meanwhile, we had to change sheets in the middle of the night. But LUCKILY, no splatterage on the laptop. Escaped by inches.

Day 11 excerpt:

Liz wasn’t sure what she was looking at.

She’d left the lab in a hurry that evening, wanting to slip in an early dinner with a girlfriend before settling in with her computer and files for homework. ...

She’d apparently grabbed the wrong files. Shit. Her evening schedule had been closely scheduled in order to allow at least a little time for sleep, and now she was going to have to run back to campus. Liz flipped through the files, hoping that her eyes deceived her and that perhaps she just wasn’t recognizing her own data in her delirious busy-ness. She shuffled through the manila file folders, thumbing through thickly paperclipped bunches of papers, hoping to see her familiar blue medium-point pen markings. But these were all Sharpie-labeled with the handwriting of an engineer -- each line the same, each letter’s slant exactly matching the one before. Perfect, and clearly not hers.

NaNoWriMo: Day 10 (today's excerpt interrupted by puking child)

Baby girl just puked on us. Today's update is postponed until further notice.

NaNoWriMo: Day 9 (you'll just have to wait)

It's Friday. I'm tired. It's a three-day weekend. I'm finally starting to feel better. I'll soon be writing my heart out. If there are any suggestions or requests for direction attempts, just e-mail me or comment. I'm fearing I'll venture back into the land of the benign, as I'm trying to figure out the next stop of afore-written-about plotline. I may have to start a new line of conflict, but I'll try to pick another part of the already-touched-on storyline. Might be before, might be after ... I think I can do it. But I'm nervous.

But for now: Sleep. New haircuts and new hair colors (not quiet as daring as Ms. Zesty) mean need for sleep. Or should I blame the anarchists. That's it .. .this novel is facing anarchy.

Hmmm ... no, just tired.

NaNoWriMo: Day 8 outtakes

The work week is nearing an end, I'm beginning to recover from whatever has been draining my energies, and tomorrow downtown Tacoma could erupt in craziness and potential violence, or a simple peaceful protest. No matter, I'm tired. I plodded through another 1,000 or so words to keep myself somewhat on track. (Only a day and a half behind!) Not the best words, not the worst words. But I'm tired, and am going to treat myself to sleep and see if my dreams can awaken the destiny of my main character's quest. But for now ...

Day 8 excerpts:

First, a follow to yesterday ...

The trio sat in stunned silence. Their breath before them, nothing but the sound of intake and exhale. Then George began to shriek. First it was little more than the sound of a balloon when you slowly let the air out. But it soon escalated into something more piercing than the squealing wheels of a road-racing Mustang or a 2-year-old who’s been told no. But Liz would not be shook. “Tell me,” she insisted. The slight laceration on Davin’s cheek still fresh, he retorted, “Tell you what." His voice was soft but clipped, his lips pursed. He was subdued, but still stubborn. ... “Why I’m here,” she responded. “It’s a pretty standard question. I don’t appreciate being a toy.” The shrieking continued to escalate. George was entering the realm of banshee before Davin spoke again. “You’re not a toy,” he stated. “You’re a weapon.”

Liz kept her gaze on Davin for a few more seconds, trying to read his face, find fact within this man’s fiction. But she couldn’t ignore George’s shrieks anymore. He was now writhing on the ground. As she watched, he began scratching at his clothes, pulling at his hair. He was beside himself. Soon his hysteria led to welts. Then scratches. Then there was blood not of her own hand.

“You’re killing him,” Davin said calmly. Liz kept her position.

“I thought this is what you wanted,” she retorted.

“We wanted to test you,” Davin responded. Unfazed. “It was a success.”

And in another scene (we will return to conflict at a later date) ...

Liz turned as a drunken young man tumbled across the five-way intersection, jolting to a stop every few feet as if he’d just dodged a car. The streets were all but empty, making the stumble-step-step-dodge pattern look like a bad dance routine. Perhaps a clown act. She couldn’t help but stare. When he finally made it across the street, he stood to attention with a goofy grin. Did he even realize his precarious ambling? “You look lost,” he insisted.

And now to ponder ... does he get killed off? Is he a spy? Not human? Or just a distraction for the dear reader ... (quick! Look over there!)

Good night!