Seriously…who needs a drink?

Seriously…anyone need a drink? I must say, after the past few days I’m in dire need. So this is a bit of a NaNo writing update. Suffered major setbacks with my story this weekend, and performed the bloodiest un-necessary surgery on my story, yes, during the first draft, and pulverized about 2000 words from my word count. How does tequila sound?

I have this problem, even though I don’t consider myself a highly dysfunctional perfectionist, I can’t stand when something is sitting there all wrong…it paralizes my momentum, and subsequently, when this flaw dawned on me, I could not longer write my story. …So I went in, with the delete-key blade and performed surgery. I ended up being satisfied by Sunday night, but the word count made me flinch.  On Monday, I officially wrote nothing. I just couldn’t recover my love, my feeling, my passion.  I started thinking…switch to short stories, start something else, re-write some more fairy tales, write 20 pages of “you suck”, copy some other novel, what ever.  Instead, the day really paid off, because as these fruitless thoughts did their rampage through my brain, I realized that what I was doing was good, maybe exceptionally good, and that with some editing (later–yes!) it could be publishable.  So I dove in on Tuesday and banged out nearly 3200 words, tied up the loose ends from post surgery trauma, and infused the story with some nice intrigue and mystery set ups.  I hope. I may be waving my own freak flag, but hey, sometimes we have to give ourselves our own thumbs up too! Right? 

On top of this, handling those nasty comments from this weekend (on Nip Tuck Scene post from last week, if you didn’t catch it) on this very fine blog which I love, love, love and refuse to retire from, didn’t help my writing situation, but it did spur my courage to push on no matter what people, I mean assholes with assholes, say about me personally or professionally. The use of the c-word pushed me over the edge a bit, not that I lost one bit of sleep over it, but it made me wonder: How could some nice girl, from a nice town, with nice intentions,  nicely share her opinions as she has a right to,  not asking for any money to do it,  is always willing to engage in constructive thoughts and other’s opinions, even if they differ from hers,  and nicely share some eye-candy with those she cares about,  end up being called such a word as the c-word??? 

It makes one wonder…

Pushing on through with the National Novel Writing Month of November.  It truly has become a memorable one. I think I’ll have that drink now.

Photo by Doisneau

Novel Writing Update…

Yes, I am still going full force with the novel for National Novel Writing Month. Have written about 19,000 words so far and am pushing forward. It has been a blast I must say. This story brewed in me since the summer, when I jotted out a few notes and did some character profiling. Now I am outlining a bit ahead as I go along, with a very, extremely general outline on my story board, and outline that can go any which way with the story or the character’s choice…we all know what those characters with minds of their own can do…or not do. This is fantastic for me in that sometimes when I completely work out a story the thrill of it just goes flat, like a deflated balloon. Then I loose the desire to sit down and type anything out. Tell me if this sounds familiar to you writers out there.

In any case, as part of my story board process that I mentioned earlier, I’ve created a soundtrack for my novel–like if it was a movie, what songs would I love to see in it. Except for a few songs, I haven’t picked scenes for them yet, but I just know from the feel and emotion of the songs, and from some of the lyrics, that they enhance the story line. Thought I’d share my soundtrack, a sort of playlist, if you will…

My Immortal  by Evanescence
Nothing Like Tomorrow  by Supreme Beings of Leisure
How Soon is Now?  by The Smiths
Good Enough  by Evanescence
Bring Me to Life   by Evanescence
Never Let me Down Again  by Depeche Mode
Stand or Fall   by The Fixx
Enjoy the Silence  by Depeche Mode
Goodnight   by Evanescence

Novel Writing Update

If your in NaNoWriMo, this may interest you…if not, read it anyway, eye-candy below…

So…I’ve been making awesome progress with NaNoWriMo…seriously hoping this will last. The second week is the great test to keeping up the race…it is why I love writing short stories so much, they are done by that time.

I usually keep a notebook with various notes and a kind of timeline-outline of events when I write a story. This time, for the first time, I’ve created an IDEA BOARD on a poster board that I keep under my desk and pull out when I begin to write–setting it up facing me.  It has worked wonders.

On the left side I’ve glued pics that I nabbed online of my characters, actors that I’d love to see if my book were a movie, or just a likeness of my written character. It helps me visualize… In the right hand corner I’ve glued a pic of the setting (sort of) just so I have the looks of the place in mind.  Multiple settings would require more pics of course.

Then through the middle of the board I’ve hand written What if questions, the character’s name and some ideas as to what will happen to them, what they’ll wear, what they’ll overhear, anything my mind brainstormed as possibilities to put in the story. It is so cool to just look up and see an idea I had last week, written out, reminding me to insert it when the time is right. All these little things hopefully will add up to a convincing and interesting book…with a bit of scare factor in it too!  Just a note on brainstorming: If you haven’t done it–do it!! Just sit and look at your characters and think of what could happen…then write it all down!

I have also written out a soundtrack for the story: If your story were a movie what songs would you choose as the soundtrack for it?  You can also connect the songs to different scenes.  I only have three songs picked so far…all fitting to the story line. What seems to happen to me, what I call my own “synchronicity” factor, is that when I’m in my car I’ll hear a song that just goes with what I’m writing…this always happens, I kid you not.  So take a listen to your radio, randomly, with openness, and the world of writer’s spirit may give you something you can use.

Up to 6311 words as of Tuesday, Nov. 3.  (1667 a day to stay on track).

Here are my a few of my main character pics, all pretty, I know, what can I say…