756 words today. At least I got something done.
I also had a long talk with a friend about something that’s been upsetting me, and a revelation I had today. It was good to hear her voice. We haven’t talked in a long time (other than on Facebook). There’s no substitute for actually hearing the voices of your loved ones.
I hope tomorrow will be a bit more productive.
976 words today. And every one of them was a struggle. Every. Damn. One.
I did get the sticky plot point explained. But for some reason, this book is nowhere near as much fun to write as the last one. It’s ridiculous. The story has so much more going on. I know how it ends (I usually do). I have one awesome scene I’m saving until I’m almost done, because writing that one is going to have me giggling like a little kid.
I don’t have a soundtrack for it, I don’t love my protagonist, and I don’t care about the larger social issues the book addresses. I thought now would be a good time to get this done, since I’m not working, but all I can think about is that I’m not working. Among other, more upsetting things.
Hopefully 2013 will be much, much better than 2012. Of course, that’s what I said last time.
I don’t know what my word count is today; I’m not done yet. It’s been a suck of a day. I woke up this morning feeling like dog crap. So I drank my coffee and decided to do my work under the blanket today. Just as I got going, there was an explosion, and the power went out.
Apparently a squirrel had committed suicide on a transformer in my neighborhood. There was nothing I could do. By now I was hungry, so I got dressed and went to my favorite diner and had some lovely French toast and more coffee.
If he’d had French toast to look forward to, perhaps he would not have despaired.
Image: Franz Xaver / Wikimedia Commons
I then went to the library where I farted around on the internet for about an hour. My neighbor called and said the power was back on. So I went home and farted around some more, answered some emails and watched Judge Judy.
Yes, writers have days like this. If I were working, I would have been at work. I might have gotten more done at lunchtime, but then again maybe not.
I’m working now, but just doing some maintenance on a few scenes. Altogether, I’ve probably hit around 500-600 words for today. Hopefully I’ll get more done before I knock off. I’m still feeling pretty punk, so I may just hit The X-Files and the bed a little early tonight.
Am I disappointed in myself? Yes, but sometimes that’s just the way it goes. There’s no reason to freak out about it, like someone who fell off a diet. I can make up my word count tomorrow.
See you then.
Holy crackers, Batman, I got 2,207 words done.
That’s counting some notes I took, since I need to do some further research for this scene. So technically, I guess it probably worked out to around 2,150 words all together.
A 50,000-word novel written over a month works out to around 1700 words a day, roughly. To do that, you just have to turn off that inner editor and write. Part of the thing is that you don’t stop to look stuff up, a bad habit I have.
Well, okay, I stopped one time to go in my chat room and make a light saber noise when “Main Title” of Return of the Jedi came on.
Nerd and proud of it.
Photograph by Elizabeth West
And I stopped again when my phone rang. It was a recruiter for a job I applied for in April. Better late than never, I guess.
I wanted to put a NaNoWriMo banner or something on my posts, but for some insane reason, I can’t even sign up on the site. So screw them.
I hope everyone who signed up is doing well. See you tomorrow!
Here’s my first attempt at shaving a pumpkin design. I used a free template I found online. I think it turned out rather well for a first try. For those who aren’t Doctor Who fans, it’s the head of an evil robot called a Cyberman.
“You will be upgraded.”
Photograph by Elizabeth West
No matter what you’re doing this year, please remember to stay safe. Watch those candles around costumes, and never leave them unattended. If your kids find the stash of candy you saved for yourself, don’t kill them. Just steal some from their bags.
From last year, but damn funny:
Tomorrow is the beginning of NaNoWriMo. I told you earlier that I would be participating this year. I’m not formally signing up, because technically, you’re not supposed to use NaNo for something you’ve already started. But I have to do something drastic, or I’ll never finish. This has been unequivocally one of the worst years of my life.
Because, you know, chaos.
Image: US Navy- Aaron Peterson / Wikimedia Commons
I’m creating a category—NaNoWriMo 2012—and I’ll probably only be posting updates this month, especially if I find a job. I’m not restricting myself from publishing any other posts if I think of one, but all NaNo materials will be under that heading for easy reference. If you’d like to follow me on Twitter, I may be tweeting things there as well during this time.
Good luck to all other writers who are NaNo-ing this year!
The ISU Grand Prix begins today with Skate America, live from Kent, WA. I have a vested interest in this year’s competition series: I know one of the competitors!
Gracie Gold, 2012 U.S. Junior National Champion, will be competing at Skate Canada and at the Rostelecom Cup (Cup of Russia). We both began at my home rink, although she now trains in the Chicago area. She’s worked extremely hard and sacrificed a lot, with the full support of her parents and twin sister Carly (also a very talented competitive skater!), and we’re all very proud of her.
Good luck, Gracie!
Watching skating for me is both entertaining and feeds my own attempts. There’s no way in hell I’ll ever get to the elite level. As you can tell by my repeated posts about it, I do enjoy it even if I kind of suck. I like to copy what I can, which given my limited technical ability, isn’t much.
I couldn’t do a sport that didn’t have creativity at its heart, and skating does. Putting together my latest program always starts with the following elements, which are very close to how I construct a story.
Music
I only pick music that speaks to me. Since I’m an adult skater, my coach doesn’t choose it. Only once has that happened, and she picked Schindler’s List, which is John Williams so I can live with that. It has to have an emotional component, which I also seek in story subject matter. The music is the idea, the basis for a skating program.
Your idea is what you’ll build your story on. The possibilities are endless—true love, the zombie apocalypse, a trip to another world, or any combination thereof.
Here’s something I skated to (I had to cut it for time):
Choreography
Each movement communicates the idea or mood to the audience. For the somber “I Could Have Done More” from Schindler’s List, I used long, slow strokes and smooth movements to express sadness and regret. Jumps by their very nature are explosive. But you can temper them with the surrounding elements and connecting moves. For “Dance of the Witches,” in the above link, I used taps, turns, and hops to reflect the more lively music.
In writing, fast-paced action sequences call for short, staccato words. Longer sentences and phrasing fit stream-of-consciousness passages and introspection. Words are how a writer shows movement and mood, the way choreography shows it in dance and skating. That’s one way different arts share similar elements.
Costume
Admit it—you like to see what they’re wearing. I know I do; the costumes are one of the reasons I always wanted to skate!
And flying. Yes, doing spirals is like flying.
Image: Vesperholly / Wikimedia Commons
Dark colors impart a serious or melancholy feel, but so can very delicate colors if they’re muted. Sparkles? Yes, I like them. If you’re not careful, an excess looks too flashy for a conservative program. Costumes are rarely literal, but a jazzy number may have fringe or long gloves, while classical music lends itself to flowing, poetic fabrics.
I make my own dresses to save money. Costumes are the cover on my little two-minute book. Okay, I haven’t tested Adult Bronze level yet, so technically it’s only 1:50. Sue me!
Genre
Four kinds of music used in competitive programs that you tend to see each skating season:
I’m almost at the point where I can tell by the costume what kind of music I’m going to hear. And skaters recycle music like nobody’s business. There are certain pieces that just lend themselves to skating, with variation in tempo and crescendo, and give skaters a lot of room for interpretation. The genre dictates the program, the costume, and everything else.
Show programs, like the ones you see at the final exhibitions or in ice shows, are flashier, looser, and less serious. Comedy is always welcome. Evgeni Plusheko, three-time Olympic medalist, skated a good example in 2006:
The general writing equivalents would probably be:
You have to know into what genre your idea fits. This will color the way you write it, and determine the way it’s marketed. There are certain standard plot elements in genre fiction also, and although readers like a fresh approach, they still expect the basics.
——-
Check your local listings for the Grand Prix series, which airs on NBC through December 9. Below, see a schedule someone was nice enough to post online. Thanks, Heather Winfield!
http://heatherw.com/mk/sch.htm
Next month is November and the National Novel Writing Month spectacular, aka NaNoWriMo. Yes, writers are lazy; why type all that shit when we don’t have to?
What is NaNoWriMo? It’s this crazy idea that in thirty days, you can bang out a 50,000-word novel. It’s a chance to take that idea swimming around in your head and birth it out into reality. Not polished perfection, mind you—that takes a much longer commitment. Since many writers suffer from butt-in-chair deficiency, NaNoWriMo is designed to force you to sit still and write.
To do this, you can formally sign up for the process at the NaNoWriMo site and participate in the contest. Or you can do it on your own, whatever. The site has forums, advice, word counters, and much more.
I hate trying to crap out first drafts. HATE HATE HATE HATE. I’m considering doing NaNoWriMo informally this year, just to finish something.
I would like to get some voice recognition software and just talk the damn thing out, like “Then Dr. Equate stabs the zombie four times—no, three—and his evil diseased brain cocktail is about to fall into the water supply! Yeah! And super spy Dirk Fabulous shows up and forces him to drink it!” Same process; no hand cramps. I can clean it up later.
The awesomeness of this would be, well, awesome.
Image: Victor Habbick / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The current WIP is stalled, but I think I finally figured out something that was borking my story. By borking, I mean it threw up a giant roadblock that effectively killed forward progression. This has nothing to do with the fact that my life imploded, by the way; it was a glitch in the plot.
If you want to do this, I suggest you take these next couple of weeks to prepare, if you haven’t already.
Do an outline
I get a rough concept of a book and when I’ve thought it out a bit, I write a synopsis and then break it down into scenes. Later, I use it to organize chapters. Since I tend to skip around when I write, the outline keeps me on track.
Get your life in order
My writer buddy James Allder recommended that I make sure I’m not interrupted in any way during my NNWM writing time. He’s got a good point. A break in concentration can mean death to a writing session. Shouldn’t be hard, considering I have no life right now.
If you have one, make sure you get extra crap out of the way so you can sit down at the same time every day and work.
Do a few practice sessions
You may already have a set time you write every day. If so, good for you.
Here’s your trophy, you self-righteous bastard.
Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
If you don’t, I would suggest a practice run. Take a few days and try it out. It doesn’t matter if you’re only writing gibberish, just so you get the feel of actually working during that interval. Mind you, it’s against the rules to work on your NNWM project before the start date.
Remember it’s only a tool
You are not going to produce a complete book in one month. Let me repeat that, because it’s important: you are not going to produce a complete book in one frigging month.
A complete book, ready for publishing, will require at least another few months of editing, rewriting, polishing, submission to first/second/third readers, more editing, more polishing, etc. before you can even think about querying.
Your goal is to finish something, not write a goddamn bestseller. Use it to get your butt in the chair. When the month is over, it’s up to you to keep it there.
NaNoWriMo is only a tool. Its purpose: to make you WRITE. In a burst of uncensored, freewriting word diarrhea. Your brain will open the creativity floodgates and not even the Brain-o-pectate will stop it. At the end, you will have the bones of a book.
If I do NaNoWriMo—and I think I will—I’ll create a separate category on this blog where I can update my progress and tears. You may live through the actual process of writing (well, finishing, technically) a book along with me.
Lock and load.
Image: vudhikrai / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
———
Helpful links:
“25 Things You Should Know about NaNoWriMo” by Chuck Wendig
Chuck is no-holds barred. If you don’t like me saying goddamn and shit, you’ll hate him. But he knows what he’s talking about, goddamn it.
“Getting Ready for NaNoWriMo” by Steve Shepard
Some decent tips, even if it’s kind of an ad for the Storyist software. I prefer PageFour myself. Plain old Word is fine; you don’t have to buy anything to do NNWM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Novel_Writing_Month
History, rules, and more.
P is for pizza, prestidigitation, paranoia, and pizza. Did I mention pizza? Yes, I’m hungry.
Onward!
Paisley –a drop-shaped, ornamental fabric pattern. It originated in Iran, but the word paisley comes from a town in Scotland. The pattern is very popular even today in the Middle East and southeast Asia. As a kid, I had a paisley dress of which I was very fond.
Purty.
Image: Makemake / Wikimedia Commons
Pallid – pale. In The Yearling, Penny Baxter is bitten by a large timber rattler. Author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings describes his face as “green and pallid, like a frog’s belly.”
Note also the use of simile as illustrating the point-of-view character Jody—his thoughts, comparisons, etc. reflect his world. He would not have compared his father’s pale face to a ream of fine silk, for example.
Pearlescent – a lustrous finish, like a pearl’s surface.
The Doctor bent so close to the beached alien’s glistening, pearlescent surface that his nose nearly disappeared. “I smell–NOTHING,” he said. “If this is really a Zaken, it should smell like kippers and chutney.”
Penury (PEN-yuh-ree) – extreme poverty or deprivation.
Phallic – pertaining to or resembling a penis.
*snicker*
Image: AgnosticPreachersKid / Wikimedia Commons
Phrenology – a pseudoscience where measurements of the skull and bumps on the head are studied and thought to reveal aspects of the person’s character. It was popular in the early to mid-nineteenth century.
Piquerism (pick-er-ism)– From the French piquer, to prick. A fetish involving pleasure at piercing the skin of another person with sharp objects. Found this one when studying serial killers.
Batman’s lip curled in disgust at the collection of dark-stained pins, sharpened chopsticks, and nails in the drawer. From the condition of the bodies, he had suspected the same as Gordon—the Pokey Stick Killer engaged in piquerism. Now he had proof.
Placebo – a substance that produces a result, such as cessation of pain, but which has no medicinal power. The result is typically psychological, and is termed “the placebo effect.”
During the sixth season of M*A*S*H*, the 4077th was stuck with a bad batch of morphine, and tried to convince patients that sugar pills were a special new painkiller, until a fresh shipment could arrive.
They know what they’re doing. Most of the time….
Pluperfect – also called past perfect, the past tense form that shows something happened before something else. Usually the writer will use had to show this.
Many writers don’t like to use had over and over throughout a passage, such as a flashback, in this tense. It’s perfectly acceptable to start with it, and then switch to regular past tense. To avoid confusing the reader, the end of the passage should return to past perfect. This will close it and return to the present.
Giles stood over the sleeping Buffy. He wondered if she were dreaming about the last time they had encountered the Kek demons. Buffy threw them through the flimsy drywall, leaving chunks all over the floor, along with green bloodstains and loose scales. Her powerful kicks left holes in their chests. Light fixtures lay like broken Easter eggs around the room. The mess was incredible. They had barely escaped the building before Willow’s magical barrier had worn off.
He went to her and shook her gently. “Wake up, little Slayer,” he murmured. “Time to go home.”
Polymath – a person who is well-versed in many subjects. Leonardo da Vinci is probably history’s most famous example.
Prurient – lustful, lascivious.
“I say, Jenkins, this phallic Dorchester architecture is engendering the most prurient thoughts,” Miss Havisham said, fanning her neck.
Image: Quinnanya / Wikimedia Commons
Psittacosis (sit-uh-KO-sis) – an infectious disease caused by breathing an organism found in parrot poop.
Psilosis (sahy-LO-sis) – hair loss. Not caused by parrots.
Pteronophobia – fear of feathers. No, really.
Puerile (PYOO-er-il) – pertaining to a child; immature, childish.
“You must be slipping, Joker,” Batman said. “Your traps have become puerile. A half-dead alley cat could have escaped that one.”
Python – a large, non-venomous snake of the family Pythonidae, found in Africa, Asia, and Australia. Pythons are constrictors—that is, they wrap around their prey and squeeze them to death, then swallow them whole.
Also make good cat toys, apparently.
Image: Josh Scheinert/BNPS.co.uk / telegraph.co.uk
———-
That’s all for this post. I must go prepare for possible severe weather. I’ll wave if I fly by your house.
As the American Library Association is fond of pointing out, in the US the last week of September is set aside to celebrate the importance of free and open information, and that many books that provoke controversy are still available.
Many works were lost during the Nazi regime, and going back even farther, at the destruction of the great Library of Alexandria. Most of this can be attributed to attempts by one conquering group to control another, by restricting what they are allowed to read and to think.
A book-lovers nightmare, Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451describes a totalitarian regime that employs firemen not to put out fires, but to set them. The fuel? Books. ALL books.
Ideas and creative thinking are deemed dangerous, and society is controlled by incessant and vapid television programming and medication. So far-fetched! That could never happen NOW!
Oh wait….
Image: imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Yes, it could. Read this article from CBC News.
These days, most objections to a book are for excessive bad language, sexual themes or situations, or violence. Some believe that if it offends them, then it must be offensive to everyone. Access to material must be controlled, because what if a tightly-regimented young person comes into contact with a new idea? This will not do.
Are those books behind that little guy? Quick, do something before they infest his brain with ideas!
Image: Milan Jurek via stock.xchng
Relax, folks. Schools and libraries know what they’re doing, I promise you. If they included something you’re not sure about, why not take a look at it yourself before you erupt in fury? I’ve heard a lot of people complain about a book or film they never read or saw. How do you know if there is a problem unless you check it out?
Children’s author Betty Miles wrote a book called Maudie and Me and the Dirty Book, a story about two classmates who inadvertently create controversy when they read a picture book about puppy birth to younger children. It illustrates beautifully how crazy parents can get when their children are exposed to certain subjects.
My take? Start teaching kids young. Birth and death are part of life. People are different-looking and act different sometimes, but underneath we’re all pretty much the same. I think it’s wrong to keep information from anyone.
Granted, I’m not talking about subjects that are beyond a young kid’s understanding, or adult-oriented. There’s no need to shove too much crazy at them too soon. But we don’t give them enough credit–kids are pretty smart. And they can spot a hypocrisy faster than anyone on the planet.
“You lied to me about where this stuff comes from, didn’t you?”
Image: imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
We have brains for a reason. Without them, we wouldn’t have antibiotics, the Hubble telescope, or laundry detergent that removes grass stains. There would be no medical advances, no Harry Potter series (a frequent entry on the banned books lists), and no smartphones. Yeah, that one would hit you were you live.
ALL the cool cats have them.
Image: koratmember/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Interestingly enough, the captcha code for that image download was “arbitrary rightwit.” Sounds a bit like an Elizabethan insult. I think it’s an apt description of those who are determined to control other people’s reading, don’t you?
I dearly hope that someday I write a book that someone wants to ban. Not for gratuitous sex, blood, or violence, but one that challenges people to think a bit. Some people don’t like to do that. I have a couple of ideas. Perhaps you’ll see me on that list someday.
When you choose a book to read this week, make sure it’s one from the Frequently Challenged Books list. Keep knowledge accessible to everyone. Visit and support your local library today!
Graphomaniac - A. Elizabeth West 
