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There's an evil flesh-eating beastie looming ahead, and he has a RED PENCIL
Although official signup isn't for another week, it looks like I've committed my brain to NaNoWriMo this year.
Now all I need to do is figure out how to get out of it.
The trouble is, the damned book really and truly wants to be written now, and given the amount of useless downtime at work with nothing even remotely better to do, I don't have much excuse not to do this thing. Plus, I've crossed two hurdles that pretty much guarantee this is going to happen one way or the other:
1) I have a title that I'm happy with. (The Noise of Endless Wars, from a Milton quote, if you must know.)
2) Someone asked me what the book was going to be about, and I told them.
Plus, the pieces are starting to fit together in my head, kinda. I've been working the grimoire (my NaNo brainstorming and organizational notebook) for about a month now, and I'm beginning to see the path of the story, not that the path is anything startlingly original or anything. I just wish new plot elements would stop popping up in my head and lingering: "Hi! I'm going to be a character in your book! No, you don't have a choice! And don't ask me how I'm supposed to fit, either. That's your problem, Writer Boy."
Also, since (a) this is my first attempt at genre fiction, and (b) I will commit hari kiri if it turns into cliché-ridden codswallop, I'm walking a bit of a thin line. It doesn't help that my protagonist already told me her name—Tala Kiernan—in no uncertain terms, which means I'm going to be fending off Mercedes Lackey comparisons in my head for an entire friggin' month. Luckily, I've already determined both that the story will take place in contemporary America and that Tala is the sort to use the word "fuck" a lot in casual conversation, so hopefully I can maintain the edge.
The other problem? I'm getting the sinking feeling that this story won't fit in a single 50,000 word novel. In other words, trilogy in progress. Sigh.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
issendai doesn't call October "NaNoOhShitMo" for nothing.
Now all I need to do is figure out how to get out of it.
The trouble is, the damned book really and truly wants to be written now, and given the amount of useless downtime at work with nothing even remotely better to do, I don't have much excuse not to do this thing. Plus, I've crossed two hurdles that pretty much guarantee this is going to happen one way or the other:
1) I have a title that I'm happy with. (The Noise of Endless Wars, from a Milton quote, if you must know.)
2) Someone asked me what the book was going to be about, and I told them.
Plus, the pieces are starting to fit together in my head, kinda. I've been working the grimoire (my NaNo brainstorming and organizational notebook) for about a month now, and I'm beginning to see the path of the story, not that the path is anything startlingly original or anything. I just wish new plot elements would stop popping up in my head and lingering: "Hi! I'm going to be a character in your book! No, you don't have a choice! And don't ask me how I'm supposed to fit, either. That's your problem, Writer Boy."
Also, since (a) this is my first attempt at genre fiction, and (b) I will commit hari kiri if it turns into cliché-ridden codswallop, I'm walking a bit of a thin line. It doesn't help that my protagonist already told me her name—Tala Kiernan—in no uncertain terms, which means I'm going to be fending off Mercedes Lackey comparisons in my head for an entire friggin' month. Luckily, I've already determined both that the story will take place in contemporary America and that Tala is the sort to use the word "fuck" a lot in casual conversation, so hopefully I can maintain the edge.
The other problem? I'm getting the sinking feeling that this story won't fit in a single 50,000 word novel. In other words, trilogy in progress. Sigh.
issendai doesn't call October "NaNoOhShitMo" for nothing.
no subject
no subject
That, and you're being lazy.
So quit your belly-achin', get off your duff and do this thing. Sign up. Participate. Even if you don't finish this year's event, it can get you back in the habit of writing again, which you say is what you need more than anything.
*exhales* There. I feel better now.
no subject
...
...hmm.
OK. Message received. Something for me to think about.
(I never said I wouldn't write anything else ever. Doing my "Firefly at the Mission" entries got me seriously thinking again about tryin' the fiction again. The book I started in NaNoWriMo stands at -- let's see, let's open the file -- 42,575 words, not all written in November 2002 but continuing into early 2003. And I can see the ending. And I think I know how to get there. I need it finished; I want to get to that end. And as Neil Gaiman emphasizes, it's the finishing that's the big, key thing. The resultant novel, however long it is, will probably en toto suck, and I accept that. (I accepted that when I decided to title it with James Blish's term, The Idiot Plot.) But I want to see myself reach that ending, sucky path to it or not.)
Here's one thing: November is likely to be a month where I'm traveling at the start of it. Hint, hint (he hinted, hintingly). So I won't be lazy at the start of the month. Hmm. Maybe I make October my writing month. Or something, anything.
We'll talk more. You've already gotten me to reopen that Word file again. That's a start.