Heckler

Although I'm still making good progress on the Vesta story (really need a title for this, but don't think it will happen until the end) I am beginning to hear that inner Heckler. "You should put more in about the story cards early on" and "You need more setup with the great aunt." So far I've been able to tell him to shut up. And that is the point of the whole NaNoWriMo exercise. To shut off the Heckler (or editor or critic) so that you just get the story down.

I do know it's a pretty bare bones story right now--with a few flashes of great (if I do say so myself, and I do) evocative writing. The benefit of having written one novel is that I also know that's how I work. The first pass is to build the skeleton of the story. I may know what the end is, but rarely how to get there. That's what is both fun and frustrating about my process.

Ali just posted about Freshman Comp. students and their inability to just let go and brainstorm. To have fun with writing. I was lucky to finish high school before they went to so many standardized programs. I had some fantastic English teachers. I also had the martinet who was more interested in even margins than what was between those white spaces, but she was in the minority. I took Creative Writing from a man who taught us to journal and to free associate. Our high school College Comp. teacher played music and showed us paintings as prompts. Funny how often I hear the voice of the one bad teacher, though. But I'm learning to shut her up, too.

And on a totally different note, I just looked outside and it's starting to snow. Should be a good day for writing.

Hitting Stride

Almost two weeks in and I finally feel like I'm hitting my stride. Comfortable with the pace, even if it's not as fast as others, I know I can maintain this one. So 5-10 pages a day seems to be what I can do. This means that I now have 36 pages of a book that only existed in my head until November 1st.

Another nice thing? I'm having fun with it. The words seem to flow easier than when I first started. Not that everything is planned in advance. On the contrary, characters are showing up who I didn't expect. An eighty-year-old black woman who may be hinting at secrets about Vesta's parents' deaths. Hmmm. And a gray tabby cat just walked out of the swamp on Thursday. That last one may be because of Ali's new cat, but still, I didn't expect Vesta to have a cat.

Anyone else hitting a stride? Just letting go and writing? I hope so.

Made Me Laugh

I'm at 17 pages, and pretty dang happy about it.

The Workshop

The Scaring Your Readers workshop that took up most of my Saturday and interrupted prime word-churning time was absolutely worth it. They didn't seem thrown by the fact that only a couple people raised their hands when they asked how many wrote horror. They went on to ask about various genres and acknowledged that no matter what you write, you need to amp up the tension sometimes.

I especially like Carrie Vaughn, author of a series about a werewolf named Kitty (no it's not just the name) who is a radio talkshow host for other supernatural beings. She was funny and honest and talked structure and pacing to build suspense. I'll definitely pick up Kitty and the Midnight Hour after the first of the year. She's the one who gave us the exercise that D.B. used for her prompt this week. I'm thinking of using the scene I wrote somewhere. It's another exercise that took me to my dark side. Has to be a positive thing for my writing. I don't think we have to worry about me staying there. Too long.

The venue was okay, but needed more restrooms (which should have been out of earshot of participants--don't ask). The food, however, was really good and there was so much of it. Broke up the day nicely. Of course, everyone was drowsy after lunch and that's when they scheduled the gentleman with the deep, soothing voice. It's a good thing he had a handout of everything he covered.

All in all, another great workshop from Pikes Peak Writers. I always feel like it's going to be too much money or take too much time, but so far I've been pleasantly surprised by all of them.

And now it's time to go work on adding pages to the Vesta story. I know what's next, and that's always cool.

And Some Stumble

Looks like John and Whit got off to great starts on the NaNo front. Jenny has written an amazing amount in the last month.

Me? Crashed and burned. Okay, not exactly. More like stumbled and smoldered. Only seven pages since the first of the month so majorly behind at this point. The good news is that I have not planned anything for this coming weekend except writing, and the minimal amount of housework, so I should be able to at least get close to catching up.

Ever the optimist.

And They're Off

to a 4-note theme. 100 points for anyone who gets that reference. My money is on Nicole for this one.

So November 1st. Time to state goals for the month. I've already said I'm going to attempt NaNoWriMo this year. That's 50,000 words. Which I believe D.B. (the accountant) figured out is between 6-7 pages a day. So, two hours of non-editted typing should pretty much get me there. The non-editted is always the hard part, but is the main point of the whole exercise.

Wow, just felt myself tense up thinking about that. So an addendum to the goal is to do it without hurting myself. My buddy, Geoff, actually ended up in the hospital a few years back from stress and exhaustion. Deep breaths, walks, plenty of sleep. All part of the monthly goal.

For the rest of the week, through Sunday, I'll write 24 pages and attend the Scaring Your Readers Workshop that PPW is sponsoring on Saturday. Tension was one of my weak areas in MMG so an all-day workshop should help.

Good luck to all of us on our goals this month, whether or not we're doing NaNo.

Cheating and Eating

Since I don't belong to the CSFWG Sunday group anymore, but do go out to dinner with the group after the meeting, I decided to go to the Starbucks at the B&N where they meet and do a little writing. I wrote seven pages of the Vesta story while I waited for the meeting to finish. Since my goal for the week was 5-10 pages, I met my goal. But, since one of the rules for NaNoWriMo is that you're supposed to start a new book, it is cheating. Oh well. Pirate.

It was a fun dinner, as usual, but more . . . just more. I was sitting pretty much at the center of the table and at one point there were three different conversations going on around me. I was having a nice conversation with Nicole, Ali and Jenny while Whit was regaling John and Marie with something outrageous at one end of the table and a somewhat political discussion (that I KIND OF [inside joke] wanted to jump into) happened at the other end of the table. Everyone seemed to be wound up. Maybe it was the length of the meeting and the sheer number of critiques.

Some topics of discussion:
--Dumbledore's sexual orientation
--Christian Bale
--Historical accuracy in fiction
--Neil Gaiman
--Strange coworkers
--Halloween costumes and customs
--Russell Crowe
--Slumber parties
--Fortune telling
--Heroes (the television series)
--Acting one's age and what that means
--Joss Whedon
--Dinner auctions (see Ali's blog for more on that)
--Pan's Labyrinth, Solaris, Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon and other disappointing movies
--Do people think your characters are you?
--Having too much to do
--Zombies
--Sherman Alexie
--Cheating at NaNoWriMo
--Bad writing
--Good writing
--Turning bad writing into good writing
--Great Big Sea (briefly, but they must be discussed at each monthly dinner)
--Whiny boy singers (watch this space for more on that and a related topic)

There were more, but I can't remember them right now. All I know is that it was late when we left and we were still chuckling.

Oh, my goal for the week is to write another 12 pages of the Vesta book. Another cheat I'm doing with NaNo is to set my goal at 30,000 words which is 20,000 fewer than what you're supposed to write. That comes to 4 pages a day and since Saturday is the 3rd . . . And I'm going to the PPW Scare Your Writers workshop on Saturday since I need some help with building tension. That's it.