Contagious

I've been writing my whole life, and when we were younger, I used to read my stories to my two little sisters. Sometimes, the older one would start to write her own version of the story. Usually, so that she didn't "copy" me, she'd change the names of the characters, but other than that, same story. I thought it was cute. She used to do a LOT of things in imitation of me, most of which drove me crazy. This one never bothered me.

But eventually she outgrew that. Stopped "borrowing" my plots, stopped re-naming my characters, and so far as I knew, stopped writing entirely.

I live 800 miles away, so usually I don't get to hear all the little details of her life. I'll ask "How's school going?" "good." "What have you been up to lately?" "Stuff." Mostly, when we talk, I'm the one doing most of the talking. Right now, she's in 7th grade.

Obviously, with NaNo being so much of a focus in my life right now, I told her how I was doing with it. Something along the lines of "Well I was doing really well, but I've hit a block and I don't know what to next."

Her response was "Well you should send it to me. We had to write a story for Halloween that was supposed to be between five-hundred and fifteen-hundred words. I wrote mine and it was three thousand. When I turned it in, he got annoyed that it was too long, so I went home to write another one, but it ended up even longer. I turned it in anyways, just to see what he'd do." I laughed, and asked what happened. Turns out that he graded them both (and both got As) but he did give her a sternish note asking her to follow directions and stay WITHIN the word counts next time. She then went on to tell me that she was writing another story, this one, just for her own personal enjoyment. When I asked her what it was about, she said that it was "a surprise" which hopefully means I'll get to read it when it's done.

It excited me. It feels so wonderful to know that the thing you love, brings joy to a person you love. It's also strengthens the connection that I feared we were losing. Despite our 7 year age difference, we were always really close, but we me far away, and her never talking much on the phone, we were slowly growing apart. Now at least, I have fodder for conversation.

Mostly though, I'm really proud of her for writing two great stories, and I can't wait to read them. Plus, that's a lot of writing in such a short time, especially for someone who hasn't written much at all in years. I'm impressed, I'm excited. I'm thrilled.

The writing bug is contagious.

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NaNoWriMo: Week One

Originally, I planned on writing a post here ever day, in addition to doing NaNo..... what am I? Crazy? Apparently so. Clearly that didn't happen, so I think I'm just going to do things at random as needed, and then do a weekly update every Sunday (because NaNo started on a Monday this year)

Day one was fantastic for me. I ended up writing over 3000 words, so I'm a day ahead of schedule, which is great, especially considering I have no hope of writing on Thanksgiving. My fiance's mother asked me to do Thanksgiving dinner with her this year. For me, that's a huge huge honor, and I'm very excited, but she lives almost 2 hours away, and between driving there, cooking, eating, spending time with teh family, and coming home.... there isn't going to be any writing time for me. So I'll probably end up not being ahead of schedule later in the month. Or maybe I'll get lucky and I will find a way to get even more ahead.


The week in general has been great. I've met my minimum-word-count-goals each day, my characters are coming to life... and my plot. OH MY GOD! SO GOOD! I feel so enthusiastic! I've had so many wonderful revelations, and I feel that everything is really coming together. I'm excited to write (though I haven't started writing today yet, because I have an assload of other things on my to-do list) I'm enjoying things. My MC is supposed to go completely insane by teh end of the book, and I was really nervous about how to do that, but I was looking though what I wrote last night and realized that she's already heading in that direction, naturally. I hadn't even meant to start her down that path yet, and it just happened.

Sometimes I get tangled up in the details, it's been a long time since I've been in second grade, and some things I never thought to research in advance... that's where facebook comes in. I am friends with so many different types of people that all I have to do is change my status to "How long in advance are field trips announced, and permission slips sent home?" and suddenly 4 people have commented on my status with various information, one telling me that permission slips are sent home 2-3 weeks in advance, the other talking about when the school board finds out about them, one mentioning that they're usually due to be turned in 2 days before the field trip. All useful, relevant information, but all different. So good!

My current word count (from last night) is 11,759. I've been keeping it update on my facebook, on the NaNo site, and now I'll keep mentioning it here too.

Good luck, to everyone else doing NaNoWriMo, as we go into week two. This week last year was my downfall. Let's hope it goes much more smoothly this time around.

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I'm Absolutely Terrified!

So let me be honest. I'm absolutely freaking terrified of writing this book.

For one thing, NaNoWriMo, though super exciting, is also just a Li'l bit scary. That's a lot of words, in not a lot of time.....


For another thing it's horror. 
Let me tell you a story about when I was in 3rd grade. It was around Halloween, and we had an assignment: write a scary story. I wrote it. It's title was A Little Girl's Horror. I worked so hard on it, and was so proud of it, that I brought it in to school early, and showed it to my classmates! Apparently, scaring your classmates in 3rd grade is rather frowned upon. I got in trouble, and was even made to see a therapist. I haven't written any "scary" story since then. Not one. Since I was.... about 88 or 9.  I turn 20 during NaNo.

I'm scared that I wont be good at it anymore. I'm scared that once again, people will get angry at me. I'm scared that once again, people will question my mental health. And I'm scared that once again, people will be disappointed in me. My mother was so upset by my story. When I was 8 or 9, her opinion meant a lot to me. Her opinion still means a lot to me. Right now, my relationship with my mother is strained, at best, but still, her approval means a lot to me.

And then there's just the accuracy-problem. My book deals with a condition called Selective Mutism. I was never a Selective Mute. I have never known a selective mute. In fact, until I read a memoir about a women who specialized in selective mutism, I had never even heard of the problem. I've read a bunch of books now, an scoured the internet for information. But some of my information may not be right, because I don't have first-hand knowledge of the condition. Even more of my knowledge my be wrong, because I choose to disregard it. Because it doesn't fit with my story. Plus my Selectively Mute character is my antagonist. She's my horror-monster. My bad guy. I don't want to offend anyone who has dealt with or knows someone who dealt with Selective Mutism.

I guess this is mostly just a rant.

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NaNoWriMo: Part 2

First things first. If you NaNo, add me here. Now, the more fun stuff

Welllllllll I talked Chelsea into participating. I'm glad to have someone I know IRL in this with me. Of course, I have all the amazing writers from Accentuate, who I love to bits, but as much as I love them, I love my IRL friends too. I think everyone should do NaNo. Yeah.

So, I think I should give you a little information on Only Make Believe, because really, I've shared it all with the rest of the internet, why not my blog readers?

(Unrelated: speaking of blog readers, I live for comments. Give me some love? I'm totally not above begging.)

I've drawn out these GORGEOUS character profiles. The have pictures of the characters, and small, not-overly-detailed, but substantial, list of things about them. I have a horrible habit of forgetting what my characters look like, so I also added a few small details about their appearances (things you cant tell by looking at the pictures)..... and I drew them by hand, and have a broken scanner. Perhaps tomorrow I'll line them up pretty to take pictures of them, but I feel silly taking a picture of them.

 In the mean time, I'll tell you a little about the story itself.

It's supposed to be horror. I haven't written anything even remotely scary since I was in 3rd grade.
Time now to write a scary story. Hope I can do it.
Since I'm lazy, I'll just post my synopsis here

Sarah Marsdon is excited to be back in school, teaching a second grade class, after three years in the 5th grade. What she hadn't counted on was a selectively mute student, Katie. Why hadn't anyone warned her? Katie appears to talk to her cousin Chris, also in Sarah’s class, but hardly even acknowledge anyone else. Katie is bright, that much is obvious, but so unbelievably withdrawn. Sarah attempts several times to reach out to the family, but they don’t answer the phones, don’t respond to the notes, and never seem to pick the children up or drop them off.
For Sarah, the questions and confusions of dealing with this difficult and confusing child become even worse when Katie starts talking. From one day to the next, she isn’t consistent in attitude, speech, and suddenly, not even school work.

 __________________________


Oh and I realllllyyyyyyy want this. Perhaps if I win the Lottery.... which wont happen because I don't play the lottery... but perhaps if I decide to play the lottery, and win it.

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NaNoWriMo 2010: Official

This is part one, because I'm sure there will be more parts and updates. I don't know how many or when they will be, but there will be. I;m officially signed up for NaNoWriMo 2010. For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. It's a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel (according to the official rules, a new novel that you hadn't started yet) in ONE MONTH.

 I've registered. If anyone wants to be my writing buddy, you can add me under Boatkicker. This month, pre-nano, I'll be doing two things.
1) Taking a break from The Circle. In fact, this break will be a two month break
2) Pre-planning for my NaNo novel, which is currently titled Only Make Believe.
3) Trying to convince my dear friend Chelsea to participate with me.

I think I'll post some of my pre-planning here, starting with a copy-paste from something I wrote over on the Nanowrimo forums. The thread was called "Things you will do differently this year."

This year I will
1) (Hopefully) Not get a computer virus at the end of week 1
......1a) If I do get a computer virus, I will NOT spend ALL of week two fixing my computer. Instead, I will keep writing on paper, and if I have time after meeting my daily word goals, THEN I will work on the computer.
2) If I get behind, I will not give up. Last year, the virus got me way off track, and being so far behind everyone else unmotivated me. I lost at 14,000
3) I will participate in lots of word wars. Oddly enough, some of the best writing I did last year came from those short bursts. Last year I only did a few. This year, I will do many!
4) (If there is one in my area) I will go to a write in. I've never been to one before. It sounds like fun.
5) Research BEFORE November. Last year I didn't do any research before starting. Then, I wrote slowly because I was researching as I went along. I've already started this!
6) Appearance lists? Yes please. Most of my characters jump into my brain with mostly-formed personalities and NO physical appearance. In editing last years novel I noticed that I had a black-haired brunette blond with red hair. No, I'm not kidding. Missy's hair color changed several times... without any hair dye. And another of my characters was both "extraordinarily short", and "rather tall". This year, I will be keeping track of what everyone looks like.
Last and most important 7) I WILL WIN NANOWRIMO!

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Internet and Ellipsis

For the past several days, I haven’t had internet. I just moved (yes, again) 800 miles. The place I’m in now doesn’t have internet. I have a laptop. I can go to the library. It’s right up the street. About 200 yards away. Not far at all.

But I haven’t except to do necessary things. The libraries where I grew up were so numerous compared to the number of people living there. About one library for every 4 square miles or space. There were hardly ever more than 12 people in any given library at a time (and in some libraries, considerably less than that) They were always so private. It felt like you were alone, which for me, was comfortable.

Relevance? I went to the library here yesterday, and there were at least 60 people. It felt crowded. Over populated. I can handle crowds just fine, but not in my library. I was made really uncomfortable by it. I know that sounds silly, but to me, I library should be a private place to be alone. (Funny side note- despite the large number of people, this library was actually quieter than any of the libraries I grew up in)

I didn’t like it. So I’ve just been sitting in my new home. No internet. All my books are packed away in who-knows-which boxes, but we don’t plan on living in this house for more than a few months, so we aren’t unpacking much of anything.

No internet. No books. Lots of free time, because I’m not unpacking, and because I haven’t found a job yet in this new place.

Two days ago I wrote 5,000, FIVE-THOUSAND words. That’s a lot of words. I’m really liking this no-internet thing (except for the fact that I can’t get anything BUT writing done)

I get internet installed tomorrow (hopefully) but I think I’m going to make it a point not to use it until I’ve written 2000 words/day (until I get a job and start going to school, than I might... MIGHT cut the number back a little)

Those are almost NANOWRIMO numbers. Last year I failed. This year I wont. I’m already planning for it. Haha.

I meant to talk about Ellipis, but I try not to make my posts too long, so those will have to wait.

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Water

I have an 11 year old sister who asked me to go with her and her friend to a pond near our house to swim. Although I was tired, I agreed. The weather was getting a little chilly, so instead of swimming with them, I sat on the bench on the shore. The little beach, though public property, is unnamed and secluded; only people who live in our neighborhood even know of it's existence.

Bored, I watched a frog that jumped around in the water, and was suddenly inspired to write. I had no paper, of course, since I hadn't planned on writing, but we were alone, so I pulled out my cell phone and turned on the voice recorder.

I spent the next hour telling the next scenes in my book to my phone, and watching my sister, bunches of fishies, a few frogs, and a turtle.

Water does this for me. I do my best thinking in or near water. I can't tell you the number of plot-holes I've filled while washing dishes. I can't explain how many ideas I've gotten while in the shower. The writing I do when sitting on the shore or listening to the rain is better than any other writing I have.

I think I'm going to start going to the pond more (also, I need to find the headphones that go with my phone, so that if I need to record things again, No one else has to listen to me tell a story, and retell it, and correct myself, etc)

On a slightly different note, I am now going to start closing ALL my posts with a word count of whatever it is that I've been working on lately.

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