So it begins...

At midnight tonight the game begins. I'm still sketching out my characters and plot but I can start...and away we go...

The time has come to speak of word counts, and walruses, and other shady characters...

Well, here it is. MCI and MCII are done. I just need to stick them on the wall. And, I'm starting to consider my characters...shady and otherwise. Where, when, why? It's all rolling together...

And please note my proud new word counter. Very impressive set at zero. Q posted the link - http://www.zokutou.co.uk/wordmeter/ so you too can have your very own.

Thought for the Day

"If you won't enjoy reading it, you won't enjoy writing it. If you truly are fascinated by the plight of he nation's mentally ill, the ongoing politicization of religious sects in Saudi Arabia, or inner city high-rise housing projects as metaphors for racial injustice and miscarried modernzation, by all means put them in your book.

But if, in your heart of hearts, you really want to write a book about a pair of super-powered, kung-fu koalas who wear pink capes and race through the city streets on miniature go-karts, know that this is also a wonderful and completely valid subject for a novel."
Chris Baty

Preparations are underway...

• motivational help - check
• finish reading chapters 1-4 - check
• location...working on this one - home, coffee shop, cafe, b&n wireless, maybe even the library since I've never been to the Towson library - they could all work
• Journal/notebook - check
• pen - check (heavens, I've got so many...but THE pen, got that one too)
• word-processing device - check (working nicely, in fact)
• Elements of Style AND the Chicago Manual of Style - got'em already
• music - got lots...just need to pick the right listening stuff
• a writing totem - hats maybe or, hah, hair barette...that's it...a barette? I'll think about this one a bit more i think.
• right snacks and drinks - need to go to the grocery store
• read chapter 5 - ok...that's next...

Your Idea of a Good AND Bad Novel

So, you have to clarify what you're writing.

Answer this on a sheet of paper - What, to you, makes a good novel? (for more background/detail on this part, take a look at pg. 85-89 in No Plot, No Problem). On the next sheet of paper, answer this: What bores or depresses you about novels?

These two lists are important - you'll want to aim for the good, and avoid the bad. Keep them posted throughout the novel-writing practice and check back...are you adding the good and keeping the bad stuff at bay?

A direct quote, and good advice: "As you plan your book this week, remember, above all else, that your novel is not a self-improvement campaign. Your novel is a spastic, jubilant hoe-down set to your favorite music, a thirty-day visit to a candy store where everything is free and nothing is fattening. When thinking about possible inclusions for your novel, always grab the guilty pleasures over the bran flakes. Write your joy and good things will follow."

Monument

Monument - wow - what a book. I have to say that I think this is definitely one of the better fantasy books I've read in quite a long time.

The main character isn't noble, he isn't exactly predictible, and he isn't exacly likeable, but by the end of the book, he seems to be all those not-exactlies in a very understandable and well-written way.

And, when I say well-written, I mean it was a captivating quest and a beautifully portrayed journey (definitely an outer journey, maybe some of an inner journey too in a wierd way). And still, who is redeemed at the end? I'm not sure - what is done out of true heroism and what is done out of a sense of self-preservation in one warped way or another? But that's what makes this SO darned good. There are easy answers to grasp if you're satisfied with them, but the characters are actually much more complex.

Ok. That last paragraph sounds really englishly of me I know, but that's what makes it so good. It isn't an easy book. Oh, it's an easy read...but that's not the same thing. Wow...that was good.

Another one that's powerful like that is The Alchemist by Donna Boyd.

Time To Write

Ok...here's my intended schedule during the month of July.

Daily - writing for two hours minimum (either at home or out but there will be NONE of that silly thing called communication via phone or internet till I'm done).

Now - this takes into account the fact that I am a procrastinator to the nth degree and that means that - at SOME point during each day, I'll write 'till I reach that word quota. It may be 10 am (the goal), or it may be midnight (let's be honest...it's likely) but write I will.

So - the first week:

Day 1 1667 words
Day 2 3334 words
Day 3 5001 words
Day 4 6668 words
Day 5 8335 words
Day 6 10002 words
Day 7 11669 words

The Month-Long Novelist Agreement and Statementof Understanding (Form: #A30/31/50K)

I hereby pledge my intent to write a 50,000-word novel in one month's time. By invoking an absurd, month-long deadline on such an enormous undertaking, I understand that notions of "craft," "brilliance," and "competency" are to be chucked right out the window, where they will remain, ignored, until they are retrieved for the editing process. I understand that I am a talented person, capable of heroic acts of creativity, and I will give myself enough time over the course of the next month to allow my innate gifts to come to the surface, unmolested by self-doubt, self-criticism, and other acts of self-bullying.

During the month ahead, I realize I will produce clunky dialogue, clichéd characters, and deeply flawed plots. I agree that all of these things will be left in my rough draft, to be corrected and/or excised at a later point. I understand my right to withhold my manuscript from all readers until I deem it completed. I also acknowledge my right as author to substantially inflate both the quality of the rough draft and the rigors of the writing process should such inflation prove useful in garnering me respect and attention, or freedom from participation in onerous household chores.

I acknowledge that the month-long, 50,000-word deadline I set for myself is absolute and unchangeable, and that any failure to meet the deadline, or any effort on my part to move the deadline once the adventure has begun, will invite well-deserved mockery from friends and family. I also acknowledge that, upon successful completion of the stated noveling objective, I am entitled to a period of gleeful celebration and revelry, the duration and intensity of which may preclude me from participating fully in workplace activities for days, if not weeks, afterward.

Ms. Glenna, 6/20/05

Novel Start Date 7/1/05 Novel Deadline 7/31/05

Matthew 18:19-20 "Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them."

PostSecret

PostSecret

I just found the PostSecret site this evening. It's funny and tragic and beautiful and thrilling all at once.

A night owl

You know, I've always been a night person. The last night of the school year, every year, my big treat was to be allowed to stay up all night without any nagging or concern.

During the school year it was a different matter. How many nights and how many flashlight batteries did I go through? Pitch black, bedroom door closed, towel curled up and stuffed under the door to try and stop as much of the light as possible from shining around the edges into the hall, while there I sat in the middle of my bed under a fuzzy, glowing, pink tent of a blanket, reading - or rereading - my favorite books.

I learned to play the gutair in the middle of the night; it was quiet then, and a good time to focus. The drums too.

Writing all night long - papers, journals, articles, stories. Clackety clack on the typewriter, then the computer.

Romance and bars are best experiences in the dead, middle quiet of the night. Staggering through a snowstorm with someone else's boyfriend. Him claiming he's madly in love. Me just wanting an adventure, a whirl, under the fuzzy, glowing white tent of the streetlight's blanket.

Novelists

Novelists, we knew, had it made. They got fawned over in bookstores, and were forever being pestered for insights on their genius in newspapers and magazines. They had license to dress horribly, wear decades-out-of-date hairstyles, and have their shortcomings interpreted as charming quirks and idiosyncrasies rather than social dysfunctions.


- Chris Baty, NaNoWriMo

So it's ok if I write in my pajamas? That would also mean I don't need to worry about my shoes. I love good shoes though. Maybe that's an idiosyncrasy in itself? To love good shoes? Newest shoes - chacos (madly in love with), technica hiking boots (oh the possibilities), and black flipflops with glossy, iridescent beads (so flirty).

Anticipation and nervous silliness

To buy the computer or not? Ok...I know it really doesn't make any difference whether I keep the desktop or buy a laptop to do this thing with. And I own a windows machine (and, yes, I know it could be linux if I took the time to investigate but that's a whole 'nother matter.) so I was thinking windows again.

But, today I was seduced by that which is mac. And it was a simple little thing too. Simple in it's perfection, really. Mac has created a touchpad that scrolls down when you drag, not one, but two fingers across the surface. Ah...the beauty...

In reality, I'll probably get that which I am most familiar with. But to dream, to flirt with the possibilities...

Heck, I'm not even sure I really need a laptop anyway. Pragmatism tiptoes up and taps the available shoulder.

Garrison Keillor and the Librarian

Garrison Keillor told a story today and I'm paraphrasing...a librarian snapped one day because she realized that everything was arranged, day in and day out, by Dewy Decimal number - every day the same thing. So, she started arranging books by color instead. Green books, purple books, red and yellow covers. It was beautiful and people came just to take pictures of the vasty array. They took away the unexpected. The housewife took a book on sailing, the preacher read about NASCAR, and the mechanic read Shakespearean poetry...a crazy, mixed up, wonderful world. How the world did change for each of them.