Snow!!

Hey guys...I doubt any of you are even still reading this, it's been so long. But I am glad to report that I have submitted all my college applications, and so between that and the fact that I'm kind of snowed in to the house here I can turn my attention back to the novel! Regular (hopefully) status updates and perhaps excerpts will resume.

Thank you, if you're still here, and Merry Christmas!

Status Update #7

I'm not going to do the whole thing right now. Sorry.

Word Count: 28,827

Status Update #6

Word Count: 14387 (still behind, but telling myself that that is what the weekends are for)
Current Scene: 4.5 (I had to add one)
Current Chapter: 2
Characters Killed: 0
Characters Going to be Killed: 1
Sentences of Pure Nonsense Written: 1

Summary: Scene 4 introduces Aoibheann (pronounced Aevan in my world...yes I know it's different in real life but I don't care. I've decided that I like this combination of spelling and pronunciation), an elf (and royal princess) who really wants to see the world. 500 years ago the elves withdrew into their forest and metaphorically slammed the door, because they didn't want anything to do with those stupid humans and their bloody wars. The leftover magic from the war that caused this, by the way, is part of the reason why Robin and co. are stuck in the clearing that won't let them leave. So anyway, Aoibhe (Aeva, aka Ava) has decided that, as the next in line for the throne, she should know what else is going on in the world. So she goes, but actually she's pretty darn nervous because she's never really left elf-world before and she's never met a human and has heard that they're barbaric savages.

Scene 4.5: Aoibhe is happily riding along in the forest when she is suddenly interrupted by the telepathic thoughts of a girl (Ithelle as she is running through the forest). She thinks that it's very strange to find someone with that much untrained telepathic ability - and dangerous, so she goes after her. She comes upon the clearing where they're all stuck and decides to listen in for a bit because she's shy. A shy elf. Geez.

I'm So Behind.

I need some motivation. I need to get through 5k tonight to be back on track. Not gonna happen. But maybe I can do half that?

I'll be up late, clearly.

An Interesting Site

which discusses many of the problems encountered in fantasy. I'll be adding it to the links.

Limyaael's Rants

Status Update #5

Word count: 7860
Current Scene: 3
Current Chapter: back to 1 again
Characters Killed; 0...but getting closer

Summary: Our four travellers (Robin, Dorstan, Halle, Teren) head out with the dawn. There's some tension between Teren and everybody because he's a pain in the ass. As they're riding, they hear a rustle in the bushes. A young girl runs out in front of them on the road, sees them, and takes off. Robin, being the gentleman that he is, goes after her. They catch up and it turns out she's from a nearby village that has been attacked by bandits and she is the sole survivor that we know of.

- small gap because I was loosing steam on this part -

It's decided that Ithelle (that's the girl's name) should go with them because really, what else is she going to do? They try to return to the road. Robin soon realizes that the forest, being magical, is changing every second and they're all totally lost. cue dramatic music.

I also added an Interlude between scenes 2 and 3. An interlude, in my novel at least, is mini-scene, written in first person (the rest of the novel is in 3rd), and written  much more in a stream-of-consciousness style. I don't know if they'll make it into the final draft but for now they're helping me with character development and they're easy to write (and therefore boost my wordcount)...

Status Update #4

Word count: 3437
Current Scene: finished 2, started 4
Current Chapter: 1, and a little bit of 2
Characters Killed: still 0...but not for long

Summary: This other random guy also decides to join up. Robin is not pleased because he's getting some bad vibes, but he can't really say no.

Then a little jump to the next chapter (skipped scene 3 because it was long and I was tired). Aoibheann (don't ask, she's an elf) has decided to leave the forest in which the elves have remained apart from the outside world for the past 500 years. She's been preparing: reading everything she can find in the library, copying maps, etc. She's all set. Now she has to go tell her father.

Status Update #3.5

Word count: 1,762 (ahead of schedule!)
Current Chapter:1
Current Scene: 2
Characters Killed : 0

Summary: The traders show up, and with them a strange guy who gives Robin the stink eye. Later in the evening there's a party at the inn. Dorstan makes an impassioned speech about being a mercenary and recruits Robin and Halle to go join the army with him.

Status Update #3

Word count: 445

Current Chapter: 1

Current Scene: 1

Characters killed: 0 (well, 1 but he doesn't know it yet)

Summary: Robin and Dorstan talk about the recently posted notice asking for volunteers to join the army. Dorstan says he wants to join, for a variety of reasons. Robin, being rather unattached, decides to go as well. They head to the inn.

I've still got a ways to go if I mean to make 1,667 tonight. Speaking of which...

Nanowrimo is here!

Well, sort of. It starts Monday and I am raring to go! (We'll see how long that lasts).

Get excited for the first nano status update! Actually, don't. That's not really so exciting.

I Apologize

I can only focus on so much at one time...

This weekend is the designated College App Writing weekend. I will be working nonstop around rehearsals to get everything I possibly can done including a photography portfolio and arts supplement DVD, so there will likely not be new posts for a little while. Sorry.

In other news, it's almost November!!

Writing Software

So. I've decided I want some writing software for various reasons, including:

-it will minimize distraction
-it will keep all my million billion separate documents organzied for me (you gotta love technololgy)
-it makes me feel more writerly (just kidding)

no but really, i want something.

So the question is what to you guys use? Do you use writing software or a word processor like MS Word or Pages? If you do use writing software, what do you use and why?

I'm planning on dowloading the Scrivener Windows trial when it becomes available, and of course I'll get a discount on that if I decide to buy it, but I'm trying to explore all my options here.

Problems of Teleportation

My outline is now officially worked out... I haven't written down every word of it, but I know what happens in the whole book.

A couple of small details got lost along the way, but nothing too horrendous...and then I realized that a character that was supposed to be in a different city from the others magically appeared back where she came from. Since teleportation is not a feasible explanation, I will have to come up with a fix.

Oh, and a character who is supposed to be pregnant at the end never actually, um, got a chance for that to happen, let's say. Immaculate conception is not an option either; maybe this outline has more problems then I thought.

Ok, lets say outline, draft 1 is officially completed. I'll keep working on version 2.0

Also, I'm a bit upset because in talking to my brother, who went to ComicCon, today, I discovered that several major publishers had booths and I missed quite a few interesting panels. Drat.

My Favorite Prompts (because I promised)

Favorite prompts from this year, feel free to steal any that strike your fancy:

Wednesdays were worse than Mondays for two reasons.

"Everyone has the right to act stupidly sometimes; you're abusing this privilege."

Ignoring the bloodstains on his shirt, she asked "How was your day?

  

Apparently pepper spray works on anyone, including vampires.

I was fairly certain I was actually going to die this time around, and it was more than likely going to be my own damned fault.  

That last one is actually the beginning of a chain novel on the NaNo forums that I might just have to steal...we'll have to see; my projects list is starting to get a little out of control (by the way, would you guys want to hear about the crazy ideas flying around my head? or am I just kidding myself that anyone actually reads this?)

It's Storming

There's thunder and lightning and a cable outage. I want to be curled up in bed with my laptop, writing. But alas, I have school tomorrow.

In other news, the NaNo forums have become my new favorite procrastination station. (Welcome to all NaNo users, and thanks for stopping by!) They're fantastic sources of knowledge (and writing prompts). I'll share a few of my favorites in my next post.

And I've started messing around with a cover idea. I NEED NOVEMBER TO COME ALREADY!

Too Predictable?

I went on a little bit of a TV binge Friday. I didn't have school so basically I woke up at ten, watched TV for five hours, and went to ballet. Mostly I caught myself up on Fringe, which is a fabulous show although if you're not a sci fi person it's probably not going to be your favorite.

Anyway, I was watching Fringe. Mind you, this show requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. It gets its name from "fringe science", so...you get the idea (in case you don't, click on the link). The point is that even with a show that's totally weird, I could predict half the plot points. Oh, nothing major, nothing that would ruin the show. Little things. For instance, in one episode there's this box which emits ultrasonic waves and fries your brain. In the opening scene we see it frying all these people's brains but this one guy, totally unaffected, closes it up and walks away with it. The FBI agents are all confused as to how someone could have done that. I immediately think "he's deaf". They puzzle some more. Eventually they find the guy and it turns out he is deaf, but something so obvious to me totally baffled these characters.

The point is, and I do have a point, is that this got me thinking. Where is the line between familiarity and predictability? We like reading about similar plot lines: quests, guy meets girl or vice versa, murder investigation, some combination of the above, some combination of the above involving vampires...etc. But eventually, you know exactly what's going to happen and there's suddenly no point in reading the book.

On the other hand, if something is all twists then, first of all, the reader gets lost (and gets a headache), and second of all the twist starts to lose their impact. In order to surprise someone you have to lull them into a false sense of security first. When the rules are out the window from the beginning, the reader stops caring.

As a writer, you have to balance familiar plot and character tropes with enough twists to keep the story fresh and exciting. It's hard, but it's worth it.

The Upside to Regular Writing

First though: my outline is getting LOOONGGGG. As in, approaching 4 pages and it will probably end up closer to 5. There are scenes that I'm coming up with that I am practically SALIVATING to write. I can't wait for NaNo!!!

Ok, so upsides to regular fiction writing:
-your writing improves
-your brain recharges on something totally unrelated to your real life
-it becomes easier to write other things.

Like, school things. Like, lab reports and essays (well, I haven't tried an analytical one yet this year but we'll see). Now, don't get me wrong. Working every day on writing the Great American Novel is not going to suddenly make you understand molar ratios. But if you already understand molar ratios, it will make it easier to quickly write a coherent discussion.

Today I wrote my discussion and finished up my lab report in 40 minutes. It was excellent.

So let me introduce you to my good friend Bochok.
BOCHOK: Butt On Chair, Hands On Keyboard. Let's see some writing!

Expectations

My brain feels completely fried. I have been up and working for ten hours now, and the second-to-last thing I want to do is write. But writing beats homework, the last thing I want to do, and so I may actually end up writing something tonight. It probably won't be in coherent English though.

Ah well, you can't have everything.

I came up with the most brilliant scene the other day. I already talked about it with Blue, and she was enthusiastic about it too (I hope it was real enthusiasm! :) It's the kind of scene that pops into your head and you think YES. It has everything a scene needs: purpose, direction, action, excitement, clever dialogue (if I can do it right) and it's just plain cool. I am SO excited to write it. Too bad it's like halfway through the book!

And now for your feature presentation: expectations. I've been thinking about this, because in Spanish class we were talking about writing the other day and it came up that two (out of a huge class of - count them - three) of us write. My teacher, of course, then started asking me a bunch of questions about what I wrote, how I wrote it, etc. And I felt a little uncomfortable. So I tried to figure out why - and what I think is that it has to do with expectations. You tell people that you are writing a novel, and they have expectations. There is this weird sense that normal people do not write novels; that to write a novel you have to be a Writer (capital letter intended); and that soon there is going to be a finished product for them to see. They want to measure you by that.

What they don't realize is the beauty of writing and the fun part for me is the journey, the creation, the in-between parts. So even if I write a thousand words and then delete all one thousand of them, even though I have nothing material to show for my efforts, those efforts were valuable and useful to me.

Every so often you get someone who is understanding (and forgiving of first drafts). Those people are lucky finds, because they won't judge you or assume things about your work. Those are the people you want to have on your side, and I think I'm fortunate enough to know several people like that.

You guys are amazing.

I GIVE UP. And I hate lemmings, too.

AHHH. Fine. Writing every day has just become writing every other day. Deal with it.

I'd just like to let you guys know that I spent an hour and a half finishing my brother's lemming project.

In other, and better, news, I spent an hour today on the novel and got farther on the scene outline, although now I'm stuck again.

Time to do some homework.

Excerpt

Hi. I'm cheating today, because I'm at a loss for topics and I really need to go write my discursive essay now. This is an excerpt from a novel I started over the summer, just to get a little writing practice in. It's about vampires, because it's an easy topic with a practically built-in storyline. I did try to mix it up a little bit, but it's nothing special.

She was on the floor below, in her bedroom. The door was half open, and through it I could see her standing by the window. She was on the phone with someone.

“- well of course I think that’s strange. But really – this has nothing to do with me and I’m busy – “

There was a pause as whoever was on the other end answered.

“No, I understand,” continued Olivia. “You need to let off some steam.” Another pause. “Right now? I really can’t, Jay. No, not tomorrow either – no, listen, it’s a little complicated right now.”

I didn’t doubt that I was the “complicated”.

“You could come over here,” she offered. “Great. I’ll see you then.” She hung up, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

I pushed the door open the rest of the way. The hinges squeaked and Olivia swung around to face me. Suddenly she looked worried.

“Hi,” she began. “Do you –“

“We need to talk,” I interrupted. “Now.”

She nodded like she wasn’t surprised and came towards the door. “We’ll go to the kitchen.”

I let her pass and followed her down to the ground floor.

The kitchen was beautiful, large and modern, all stainless steel and granite – the whole nine yards. I practically drooled. I love to cook, always have, and our little kitchen at home was always full of food. You could say it’s my coping mechanism – when I’m stressed or upset, food output easily doubles. No, I guess I should say it was my coping mechanism, since it seems I will now be feeding rather than eating. There isn’t much you can make using blood, after all. Blood sausage, I suppose. Blood pudding. Both of which I hate.

Olivia pulled a stool out from the center island and gestured. “Have a seat.” She poured herself a glass of wine, and I watched her as she moved around the kitchen. I was interested to note that it seemed to be fully stocked with food. Was it just for show? That seemed like a waste. As she was putting away the bottle Olivia asked me if I wanted anything. I looked at her blankly.

“Water? Orange juice?” She prompted.

I think I stammered out “Orange juice”; in any case that’s what she poured me a glass of. She sat down across from me. I stared down at my glass, wondering if the liquid it contained would still taste like oranges now. Since it was an easier question to ask than some of my others, I decided to start there.

“Am I even going to like this now?” I asked, staring at the thick orange liquid.

A little more viscous, a little more red…

“Hmm?” Olivia looked surprised.

“I just mean that I thought I wouldn’t want –“

“Oh, oh! Of course. I’m sorry. I keep forgetting you don’t know about any of this – you must be overwhelmed.”

I laughed, but it was without humor. “Whatever gave you that idea?” My voice was almost so sarcastic as to be painful, and I regretted it immediately as Olivia’s eyes darkened with hurt. Whatever problems I was having, Olivia was trying to help me now.

“I suppose I deserved that,” she said heavily. “To answer your question, though, we still eat and drink normal food. Not a lot, and not nearly as often as a human would, but it’s still just as enjoyable.”

So my cooking hobby was safe. But I had another question, now. “We?”

“Vampires. You and I.”

“Are there others?”

“Yes.”

I processed that for a minute before asking, “Just vampires?”

“No. There are other kinds of – you know, I think that that’s maybe a little complicated to get into right now”

I frowned, but I wasn’t going to push it. “So what about sleep? Do we sleep?”

“Very little. An hour or two a night. I have a library, on the third floor, if you need something to do.”

I paused. I had more questions about vampires, about what they could do and what my life would be like from now on. It was becoming clear to me that I was in an entirely different world from the one I had known. But first, I needed to know for sure what had happened after the car crash.

Olivia sensed my hesitation and seemed to guess its source, because she downed the rest of her wine in one gulp before asking me to continue.

“After I left…” I trailed off.

“When you were discharged?” Olivia asked softly. I nodded.

“I-I was in the car. We were driving home.” My voice broke.

“You were brought in maybe an hour after you’d left.” Olivia’s voice was quiet, reserved. The doctor giving you bad news. “Your parents,” she paused, took a breath, and went on “were pronounced dead on arrival. You weren’t breathing; they’d revived you twice on the way over but you’d crashed again. The rushed you straight into the OR.”

When she said my parents were dead, my stomach constricted. I’d known, of course. I remembered coming to briefly in the hospital bed and screaming for them until the nurse had told me they wouldn’t come. Tears were welling up in my eyes but I held them back with sheer determination.

“They admitted you to the hospital, after that. You were on a ventilator for a few days, before you woke up. They had to keep you sedated, though, because you wouldn’t stop screaming.” Her voice broke. What a mess we were. “You got an infection. Your fever wouldn’t respond to any antibiotics. And then, maybe a week later…”

“I died.”

Olivia winced. “Almost. I turned you, to save your life. It was selfish of me but to see you suffering there – I couldn’t.”

“It’s all right,” I said. And it was. I knew there were so many things I would miss out on now, friends I would never see again, a life that couldn’t be mine anymore. But if Olivia hadn’t turned me, I would have died and I would have lost all of those things anyway.

I walked out of the kitchen without another word, leaving my empty glass on the island. I walked all the way back up to the fourth floor – I needed to be alone tonight. I had said it was all right, and it would be, but tonight I needed to mourn my family and the life that I could never reclaim.

I didn’t sleep that night.

I'm a Hypocrite Who Loves Her Books (and Her Beauty Sleep)

Ach. I wrote that whole long rant about discipline and then I didn't write for two days. But honestly, you have to balance discipline and commitment with getting enough sleep to function the next day.

So today I'm going to talk about reading, because I don't have much to say about writing. Besides, after all, every writer must also be a reader.

I think you should read what you enjoy. I mean sure, you should try new things, expand your horizons, and read the classics. But the truth is you should never read something that is just so boring that you can't get through it. It's helpful to learn from the masters, but if you can't even bear to read it you're not going to learn much anyway. And there are writers of genre fiction that tell a story so well that it doesn't matter that it's not the Great American Novel. It's a good story that makes you want to read more.

In the end, that's the most important thing.

Biting Imps. And Codenames.

Today I learned that imps bite.

How did I learn this? I got three mosquito bites.

Let me explain.

I got three mosquito bites the other day on my arm. Two of them are on the outside of my forearm, close together, and one is at the base of my index finger. Earlier today I was musing aloud and said that they resembled a vampire bite, or at least the bite of a vampire with three oddly spaced fangs. My friend Blue (this is a codename; real name withheld to protect identity) suggested an imp, so that the two bites would be from teeth and the third from the tip of the tail.

And thus was my biting imp born.

 This ties in fabulously,  by the way, with my free write on "it was a dark and stormy night" which involves an imp.

So many thanks to my wonderful amiga and I find it so amazing that we are totally on the same wavelength. I encourage you all to read Good Omens, by the way; it is a fabulous book and will change your life. You will see mosquito bites and think "biting imps". And it's funny. Read it.

Discipline (the Good Kind)

Hi. I didn't blog yesterday. (bad faith)

I should have, because this whole exercise, although definitely being about the novel and venting my energies, it is also about discipline.

Discipline means writing every day.

So that means that today I am writing this, although I have no clear topic in mind and nothing, really, to say.

I could continue to talk about discipline, I suppose. It's an important consideration in any long term project, really, but in novel-writing especially. You just have to sit down and write the damn thing.

For instance, I have the very bad habit of procrastinating my butt off and then starting an essay the night before it is due. For this project, I don't really have a deadline since I'm not under contract. I can take my time. But what I can't do is say "I'll start it tomorrow" and then never follow through.

On the other hand, if that due date wasn't there, I would never write the essay.

Now, of course that's not really the same thing because in general, I don't find writing analytical essays to be a fun process. I wouldn't do it on my own time, unless I had a very good reason. Like money. Or cookies. And then it wouldn't be totally voluntary, would it?

But the point is still valid- and that is that I need a deadline in order to function.

"But," you say, "aren't you forgetting something? You have a deadline! 50,000 words in a month! Doesn't that qualify?" And you're right, it does! So nanowrimo gives me the deadline, and that's great. But I still need the discipline.

The discipline to sit down every day and meet my target word count.
The discipline to push through even when I'm tired and hungry and incoherent and having a bad day and the words aren't coming and everything I've written so far sounds horrible.
The discipline to write crap and fix it later.
The discipline to see this through to the end, and not let this novel, like so many others before it, fall by the wayside.
The discipline to realize when it's finally time to move on.

In short, the discipline to write a novel.

Free Writes (or, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night)

I try to write a little most days, if not every day. When I get closer to writing the novel I will get more disciplined about it. But I try to write something, even if it's just a couple of lines of dialogue.

Other times I free write.

Free writing is a fabulous concept. I used to find it rather stupid until I figured out that the way it worked best for me was if I found something that really inspired me, rather than just picking something random.

So, for example, a photograph of Jennifer Ringer, one of my favorite dancers. That free write actually ended up talking about food, because I was hungry at the time...or the painting "Nighthawks" by Edward Hopper. There was a print of this photograph hanging across from where I sat in English class last year. We had just read Mrs. Dalloway over the summer and as dizzying as I found stream of consciousness, it totally fascinated me. Those two ideas combined and produced an interesting and valuable (as a learning experience) piece of writing, which, looking back, is not half bad. Or the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night" which is now such a cliche but caught my fancy today and resulted in a little snippet of something which definitely has the potential to become a short story if not a novel. Or not.

But that's the beauty of free writing. You never know what will come out of it.

Ice Cream

Today I discovered a wonderful thing.

Checkered Flag ice cream.

It is wonderful. Heavenly. It is, because I'm sure you were wondering, vanilla and chocolate ice cream alternating in squares.

It's the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Why? Because I find that when I eat just chocolate ice cream, my tastebuds are overwhelmed by its chocolocity (new word!) and vanilla ice cream on its own tends to be a bit plain. So, this ice cream is basically tailor made for me.

What has this got to do with writing a novel? Absolutely nothing. But it was too exciting a topic to pass up!

An Unusual Analogy, To Say the Least

Let's pretend my novel is a sweater that you knitted.

This is a little strange, I know, but just bear with me for a bit. You knitted the sweater, so you're very proud of it. In your eyes, it is beautiful. You'll probably never wear it because it's a little lopsided and it has so many holes it could be the poster child (well, poster sweater) for naphthalene. That's mothballs, by the way.

This is what my novel is like right now. It looks like it could make sense, if you tilt your head and squint your eyes a little bit. It's almost there. But not quite.

Plus it has more plot holes than...well...I'm not really sure that I can finish this sentence. But I can tell you that my novel has a lot of plot holes at the moment.

Actually, it looks a little bit like Swiss cheese. I'd better get working.

More Inspiration...This Time On the Bus

I was riding the bus to school this morning, and I was pretty spaced out. I was tired, didn't feel like reading...you know what I mean. Anyway. So as I was sitting there, suddenly I had a thought.

Actually, it was more along the lines of seeing a scene in my head. There was a woman. She was dueling (with swords, of course) with another man. People were watching intensely. She has the perfect opportunity for a kill; she doesn't take it. She bonks the guy on the head with the hilt of her sword and dismisses her audience with something along the lines of "I refuse to kill any more promising young men for your amusement".
It's going to be a gladiator-type situation. I could go on, but I won't because I really need to focus on one idea at a time now, especially as I get so close to writing this one. But I might end up working on this idea and the sequel (of this current book) concurrently. We'll see.

It's always been interesting to me to see how authors get their ideas for books. One of the answers I've seen fairly frequently is that there is a character who "talks" to the author. Tells them about him or herself. Berates the author when the writing is not to his or her liking.
Now, I actually don't think that's crazy, now that I'm beginning to write and to spend so much time with the same characters. They do come to life. But I think, as a visual person, my ideas tend to be more of the "looking through the window" type. I can see what's happening and what's being said as if I were there, but there is no interaction between me and the characters. They're more like daydreams than anything else I can think of at the moment.

Sherwood Smith describes a similar experience in writing several of her books. So I'm not a total freak.

Inspiration From an Unlikely Source

“London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes - gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.”

—	Bleak House, Charles Dickens We read this passage in English the other day and I love it. Love it, love it, love it.

Status Update #2

Draft: 1
Word Count: 0 (I have some little bits written out longhand but I'm not going to sit here and count them)
Chapters:0
Characters Killed: 1 (Haven't written it yet but it's pretty much a done deal)

New developments: I have a scene outline of the first part of the novel...maybe three or four or five chapters. I think I may have settled on a name for my girl.

My toe is in the water. I think I'm just about ready to jump in!

Life is Good (Mostly)

I’m feeling good about this whole thing today. Everything is starting to come together. I’m having lots of ideas for scenes, and I’m itching to start writing this thing. I might have to cheat and start before NaNo…shh don’t tell!
On the other hand: I’m having some name issues, and secondary characters that I LOVE are getting sidelined. They may make it in to the novel eventually, but right now I’m not seeing how.
Also, I think I’m going to have to kill a character. And I liked him, too. And he had a girlfriend. But he serves more of a purpose dead than alive (doesn’t that sound horrible?) and this is, after all, a dangerous world. Sorry, Halle.

Another Quote

“Not unheard of. Unusual, I grant you, but remember my great grandfather married a washerwoman.”

—	Meric (I won’t tell you when, or to whom, in case you end up reading the book)

My Love-Hate Relationship With English

I have always loved to read. Always. I used to walk down the street reading a book. Actually, sometimes I still do. But the point is that reading is, always has been, and hopefully always will be one of my greatest pleasures.

English class, not so much.

First of all, to clarify: my English class is a literature class. There was briefly some grammar way back in early middle school but ever since then it has been strictly analysis of literature.

I HATED it. To me, it completely ruined the pleasure of reading a book to sit down and poke and prod at every little detail. I didn’t understand where the teachers and the other students were coming from when  they talked about character development, or theme, or significance. Nothing.

I mean, looking back at some little things I wrote (I don’t have any of my middle school essays but I have a few paragraph-type things) I did have some sort of clue. There were some valid insights and every so often a teacher had written “good!” in the margin. However hindsight, of course, is 20/20 and at the time I was confused, displeased, and overwhelmed.

That started to change in high school.

The Name Game

I’m having SERIOUS issues coming up with a name for my FMC (that would be female main character, for those of you who didn’t know).
It has been one name, then another name, back to the first name, a third name…back and forth so often that I’m sick of it. I feel bad for this poor girl - she can’t even be sure of what her name is. How can she function as a full-fledged character?
So, the name list currently stands at, in no particular order:
-Ithelle
-Kelisin
-Elissa
with Elie being a nickname for any of them. I’d love to know what you guys think. Of course, I’m also open to other suggestions.
Which is your favorite?

Pennsylvania

…is a good place to steal names. Some of those little towns are just begging to used in the book.
-Merion
-Narberth
-Sansom (actually a street name - those are good too)
-Elwyn
-Cynwyd (this is SO elvish)
-Radnor
Wynnewood is also a direct lift. I hope I don’t have to change these too much; I really like them!
Looking at these, “wy” seems to be a common elvish construct. Elwyn, Cynwyd and Wynnewood all strike me as elvish or elvish-derived place names. I’ll have to work that into some of their proper names as well.

Possibly The First Sentence of the Novel*

“The notices had been posted in every city, town, village, and reasonably large collection of dwellings in the kingdom by the king’s decree, and Wynnewood was no exception.”

*Anything and everything subject to change

Ideas

Ok. If I’m going to tell you the story of how this novel idea came to be, we’re going to have to travel back in time, before the Great Hard Drive Meltdown, before my computer was organized and I didn’t know what any of the documents were, before I even had a computer…in short, back to when my brother and I played with toys.
My brother had these things called “Imaginext”. They were kind of like Lego, in that you had various pieces you could put together to build castles or pirate ships or dungeons or wizard towers or whatever (we had the medieval set, if you couldn’t tell), except the characters were more lifelike, and you couldn’t take their heads off. Anyway, we would make up the most complicated story lines for these toys…it was epic. My brother being young and impressionable, I basically dictated what would happen. I gave these characters names, jobs, relationships, backstory…everything, it turns out, you need for a novel.
Fast forward a few years. It’s the summer, or maybe just the weekend. I haven’t got any work to do. I decide to do a little spring cleaning on my laptop, and come across a document titled “characterlist”. Curious, I open it up. And what do I find? Everything I had invented for that game, typed up. Suddenly, I was delighted. Reading the document, I had ideas upon ideas for these characters. I started writing them down. And then I thought “Why not write a book?”. I have been an avid reader for years, especially of fantasy, and this seemed to me to be the logical next step.
“Ok, fine.” You’re thinking. “You felt like writing a novel. So why haven’t you started?  And what on earth is that NaNoWriMo thing you mentioned in the last post?” Hold on, hold on. I’m getting there.

Status Update #1

You’re probably thinking something along the lines of “This is a blog about a novel. Where’s the novel?” Well, at the moment it doesn’t exist. That is to say, there isn’t anything titled “Chapter One” followed by any sort of coherent prose. Right now, the novel consists of:
-A printout of a character list, covered in random notes (the original file, by the way, was deleted in the Great Hard Drive Meltdown)
-Various other notes on character, plot (disclaimer: still subject to change), snippets of dialogue, backstory (SO MUCH BACKSTORY), possible sequels…
-The first draft of a world map - still needs to be expanded, refined, and colored
And that’s it! I’m planning on starting writing in earnest during this year’s NaNoWriMo, so by then I’ll have some more to report.
Tomorrow I’ll explain where the idea for the novel (and the blog) came from, and why I thought NaNo during senior fall would be a good idea :P

The First Post

And yes, that’s First Post with capital letters. Not only am I exploring something I’ve never done before by writing a novel, but blogging for the first time too! This is going to be interesting…*grin*
I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I do!