Going in circles...

Am I the only one who finds that my writing progression and techniques seem to loop back around to the beginning every so often? Or that there seem to be phases to techniques and productivity?

For instance, I used to outline. Obsessively. It was over-outlining that actually killed more than one project, because I would write myself into a corner. I tend to take deadlines and outlines and any other kind of line seriously. I was one of those kids who learned to color inside the lines very, very quickly, because the idea of going outside the lines and making a mess was nigh-on sacrilegious.

And then, one day, I just decided to go with it. To just write and let what happened happen. I think I can thank my first NaNo for that. While that project was the offspring of an older, outlined project, and thus had a lot of paper fostered in, it was all background information. The actual story was new and thus I just had to roll with the punches as they came.

Now, I'm at sort of a middle-ground. I'd still classify myself very much as a pantser, but occasionally, I find myself scribbling out a tentative plan for the future. Not even a real outline, or anything really in-depth, but a plan for the future nonetheless.

I don't imagine I'll ever regress back into over-outlining, but I do find sometimes that outlining even that little bit can kill an idea, or at least my enthusiasm for an idea. But I don't count that as a bad thing. The advantage that does exist in outlining is that it can show me the weaknesses in an idea outright, in the beginning stages, before I get too emotionally involved.

Of course, sometimes that is a bad thing. I tend to over-think things sometimes and instead of just rolling with the idea, despite the weakness, and figuring out something along the way, identifying the problem can sometimes just cause me to freak out and avoid it.

But it fluctuates sometimes, which is the entire point of this post. Sometimes I find myself writing notes - outlining, if you will - to avoid forgetting things for the future. Sometimes I find myself actually planning out storylines and character development in advance. Sometimes I don't touch paper outside of actual story. It goes through phases. But those phases happen in a pattern. It's weird.

On slaying the Shiny New Idea (a love story)...

Because I thought about slaying:

Quite possibly one of my most favorite performances of my most definitely favorite poem.
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So, a few days ago, I contracted a case of the Shiny New Idea. I blogged about it. And, in blogging about it, I found that I was able to counter it.

See, the thing is with Shiny New Ideas, at least for me, is that they tend to fall apart if I think about them too hard. Actually, this is true for most ideas I have, but the difference is that I'm still excited about my current hedgehog project and so the Shiny New Idea doesn't hold the appeal it did because it is being overshadowed.

And so, on this, Valentine's Day, I'd like to share a short love story about my hedgehog project.

Young Writer's Society has a group called "Your Novel" in which members post short open letters to their novels. Often just a few lines if that, they are a cathartic way of venting frustration or love about a project. Recently, my own posts have followed an arc of sorts.

GryphonFledgling: Dear Novel, 

Be patient with me. It takes some time to move from one relationship to the other. NaNoWriMo took a lot out of me and I want to be able to give you my everything. These scribbles in-between are actually working for us, I promise.
Wed Dec 22, 2010 

GryphonFledgling: Dear Novel,

It's not cheating, just flirting. I'll come back, I promise. Just give me a little time to realize just how amazing you are and then you'll have the satisfaction of seeing how I come crawling back to your pages.

Mon Feb 07, 2011 

GryphonFledgling: Dear Novel,

See? I told you I'd come back. Here's chocolates and a rose to prove my love for you on Valentine's Day.
Tue Feb 15, 2011 
 

The first was right after NaNo, when I was sort of scribbling little scenes and things in lieu of actual writing on anything besides this blog. The idea was there, the want was there, but my heart just wasn't ready for that kind of commitment yet.

The second was right when the Shiny New Idea struck. It was all awhirl, with its glitz and glamor and snarky humor. I saw it for what it was, but I still begged for the time for a little excitement, a little adventure.

The third is self-explanatory. I wasn't dumped, I walked away before I got too involved with something that wasn't worth my time. I went back to something that I loved and that loved me and together we're going to make something amazing.

This is a project meant to last, methinks. Or at least I hope so. Right now we are going through a little rocky spot with regards to a beginning (seeing as how the beginning is going to drive the rest of the story). I'm thinking I may actually have to (*le gasp*) do a little brainstorming / outlining (*more le gasp*).

But despite being at a point where I'm feeling lost enough to want to do that, I feel good about this project. I might regret saying that in three months, when I'm mashing my forehead into my keyboard with frustration, but I've been with this project long enough for the puppy love of a Shiny New Idea to wear off and I'm still giddy with excitement at times.

Because, this project did start out as a Shiny New Idea, if you recall, in the middle of November. But, unlike this last Shiny New Idea, the hedgehog project stuck around long enough to be called a project at all, even to the point of getting me writing again after a post-NaNo funk.

I did write down my Shiny New Idea and maybe one day it will inspire me again, or at least let itself be hacked to pieces and stitched into other stories somewhere, but for now, true love triumphs and the hedgehog story and I march forward together into the great unknown.

Bursting at the seams...

First off, a big thank you to Hannah from Musings of a Palindrome for her shout-outs to me and other small-time bloggers!
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A sedentary body equals a sedentary mind for me. I find that the less I do in a day, the less I end up writing. It's why NaNoWriMo is such a frantic month, but always one of my most productive, while my writing always seems to stagnate during the summer months when all I do is laze about. Many a writer has bemoaned a surplus of free-time as hindering their writing.

That said, it seems like after a period of non-activity, my brain always seems to start cooking stuff up, just when I don't feel like writing at that moment.

For real, haven't been feeling fantastic lately (everyone else in my family has gotten sick and I'm the only one hanging on to health) and have been sleeping a lot. The other day, I spent the entire day sleeping, eating and playing video games (class had been mercifully cancelled due to snow) and while it was somewhat refreshing, I was frustrated afterward when I realized how little of anything I'd gotten done.

Cut to yesterday, when I had a full day of class and two essays to write. Suddenly my brain seething with inspiration and ideas, but I don't have the time to write any of them down.

Cut to today... The inspiration is still knocking around, but I am still feeling under the weather. I've been browsing the internet, reading a little and just generally not doing anything again. And I'm driving myself crazy because while I want to be writing, I really don't want to be writing.
---
Of course, the key is often to just start writing anyway. As I write and moan right now, I'm feeling the urge to simply grab a pad of paper and start writing something worth writing. So I likely will.

Funny how just taking a moment to purge and whine can actually set you on the path to activity. Anyone else find that they tend to follow any of these patterns? Or do you do something completely different?

In defense of fanfiction...

Before anything else: The wonderful Elena Solodow over at You're Write. Except when you're Rong. created a super-cool new hashtag for Twitter.: #lastlinetoday. At the end of the day, post the last line of whatever you wrote that day. I intend to start, seeing as how my Twitter tends to lay dormant for months at a time when it's not NaNo. Though my last lines tend to be long after I've shut my computer down for the night, so maybe they'll be posted the next morning? As sort of a start to the new day? Hmm...


Now onto actual blog posting!
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So, in one of my late-night deliriums of inspiration I've been talking about lately, I started a fanfic. Just a short little drabble, brought on by the superficial similarities between two characters of two different fandoms. It's fun and it's something outside of my other projects, giving me somewhere else to flex my writing muscles a little without having to worry about world-building or character casting or anything. I've never really written fanfic before (aside from one alternate character interpretation fic for two minor minor minor characters of Tales of Symphonia that can be found here for the interested) and I have to say: it's hard.


I have respect for fanfic writers. I think I've blogged before about literary sandboxes and whatnot (though I can't find the post and if I haven't, I will soon) and how fanfiction can be really awesome. I enjoy reading my share of good fanfiction (because there is certainly a lot of not-good out there). I mean, good writing is good writing is good writing, right?


I can see where haters of fanfiction are coming from. I mean, most of what you'll find is badly written, etc. etc. etc. and the authors aren't coming up with the characters and setting themselves, but there is something to be said for writing a character that isn't your own.


It's one of the reasons why it is so hard to find a good fanfic. When you are writing your own characters, you're allowed to flub them at first, finding their voices, exploring their psyche and letting them grow organically. But in fanfic, you've got a character already laid out. They've already been made to someone else's specifications and you're not really allowed to tailor them all that much. Out-of-character moments run rampart in bad fanfics because the authors try to fit the character into a role rather than letting the role grow out of the character.


It's hard for someone like me who never knows anything about her characters unless she sees it unfolding in front of her. It's very easy to fall into flanderization and pick just one trait of a character and let that be the basis of the story, which isn't fair to the characters or the original creators. 


The whole thing is very foreign to me, but I think it's good practice. It is nice being able to think about how an established character would react to something, rather than trying to make up my own character's opinion on a matter. And that's good for me, maybe teaching me some of the benefits of different styles of writing. 


So yeah, I'm having fun with it. That and I'm writing it mostly on WriterFeedPad, which is always a pleasure. Every time I use it, I like it more. 

An ending...

Whew. One month into the new year already.

With the end of January comes the end of a sort of unofficial-yet-very-resolved resolution to post every day of the month. I sort of decided to do it after a day or so in the new year when I was being consistent and I never actually made it official because I was afraid that if I said anything, I would jinx my resolve. But now it is over and I can celebrate my completion of another resolution this year already!

That's not to say I won't be posting every day or nearly-every day in the months to come (in fact, I want to keep it up for as long as possible for the rest of this year) but I won't do the "Oh crap, it's 11:49 at  night and I haven't posted anything yet" panic that I did a few times last month. It's a good exercise in consistency for me and it helps me hash out a lot of things about storytelling and writing.

For this new year, I'm going to be trying a lot of new things, both in my writing and in the rest of my life, and perhaps in my blog. Anything you guys would like to see me try here? I'm open to suggestions as I turn another corner this year.

Nostalgia and crack...

So, in being all nostalgic and stuff on my birthday today, I was reading over my old writing, namely from around 2006, and was impressed with the thoroughness of some of it. And shocked that my memory was so bad.

It turns out the bulk of the writing for my old project Ocean of Fire was done when I was fourteen through maybe early sixteen, which is older than I had thought. But reading over the notes and things almost made me want to pick it up again. I wrote a ton of stuff back then, like folders and folders of outlines and notes. I had forgotten just how much it was, even if I do remember having the entire twenty-page original outline up on my wall for a long time.

That led me to thinking about one of my other more-favorite characters from that abandoned project, Meirzen, and how I occasionally feel the urge to resurrect his story the way I did Quina and Red's. And I then had the cracktastic idea to combine his universe with that of my hedgehog story. I don't know if it's actually going to happen, or if it does, I'll just be stealing the world and there will likely be no mention of Meirzen himself (seeing as how if there were, he would end up dying and I don't want to kill him off in case I ever do decide to resurrect his story) but I was just shocked at the audacity of my brain for even thinking of such a thing.

There needs to be a term for original fiction writers and ideas for crossovers and such like that within our own writings. Fanfiction writers have the term crack!fic, where they have the strangest crossovers or ships or simple out-of-characterness, but we original fiction writers don't really get that, seeing as how it's all in our head or in our private universe. No one outside of us cares because no one outside of us has ever seen it. But we do crossovers and cameos all the time. I once wrote something like four pages that contained every main character I'd ever written, all in some sort of secret agent group hunting down their respective antagonists or something like that.

Seriously, we need our own term. Suggestions?

How To Write: Gryph-style...

Well, I was so super late on the uptake on this, only having found out about it on this, the day of, but here is the What's Your Process Blogfest!

Writing process... Hmmm...

It really does vary from project to project. Sometimes I get an idea for a character and want to write their story, other times I get an idea for a story that I need to add characters to. For actual writing, I usually just put some characters on a page and have them do stuff, and sometimes I do little test runs, almost auditions, to work out how the story is going to be told. When it comes to editing, I almost always just completely rewrite the sucker, rather than line-by-line edit or anything. My first draft is like a big long rambling outline, really the only outline I do.

To show some of the differences (however minor they might seem) I'll illustrate two of the most different: my NaNo for '09 Scorpion and Sandman and my current hedgehog project Once Upon a Spine. Buckle up and get ready for a rather long and rambly post! Yay?


Scorpion and Sandman


The idea for this actually has a really crazy long story. When I was like thirteen, I had an idea for a story about a blind kid named Bain. It started because I had just had an idea of a blind boy running through a field as if he could see. I think that idea came from "The Lost Year of Merlin" series by T.A. Barron. It was mostly about him, later evolving to include his estranged father who was a disillusioned warlord, and an elf girl who would eventually become Quina.

It took a long time though. Initially, she was some sort of savior character, downtrodden and being trained for her place in the world by a drunken half-elf. He was initially supposed to be some sort of pseudo-romantic interest. Then Quina was supposed to be captured and imprisoned and I came up with the idea for this human prisoner who would fall in love with her and help her escape at the cost of his own life. To my thirteen year-old self, it was all very grand and epic and I loved it.

That itself eventually changed to a slightly more happy ending, with this new character, Red, and Quina ending up together, though they did have a rather long bout of slavery.

The project eventually sort of died, seeing as how a) it grew huge, with no less than eight different protagonists and b) I was so enamored with outlining and planning it all that I didn't really get to writing it. I got through one entire draft of the first book in a proposed trilogy, but then it just sort of died.

Then I had an idea to take each of the protagonists' stories (combining some of them, seeing as how some were intertwined) and write several books that way. I started with Bain, but he eventually evolved into such an emo-tastic tortured soul that he was no fun to write for anymore. But there were two characters who were always a blast to write: Red and Quina.

They were sort of secondary characters, a married couple living in the slums because he was a former slave, still branded, and she was an elf. I loved them to death and when the new project died too, I was actually heartbroken to have to let them go.

Fast forward a few years to NaNoWriMo 2009. (I'd actually signed up for NaNo in '08 and never done anything as I discovered later, having completely forgotten about signing up at all.) I needed a story, I had two characters whose story I wanted to tell. Lovely!

Now, I say usually that I am a pantser, just sort of writing things, but Scorpion and Sandman had a huge backlog of history (seriously, those few paragraphs up there summarize several years of my life). I had some fairly developed characters already and an idea for how I wanted the story to go. And, this being the first time I had done NaNo, I did some simple outlining.

I could still make an argument for my panster status, since those outlines were never really more than a page long and a few of them were made on the fly in the middle of the month, just so I wouldn't forget the resolution I had projected, but that was actually the beginning of my panster self.

As mentioned before, part of the reason the parent project died was because I was so enamored with outlining that I never actually got to the writing. I'd learned a little since then, but it was really the "omigosh, have no time, no ideas, need to write 2k words nao!!!" attitude of NaNo that really cemented that idea of just sort of going "blah" on paper.

So I did. There was a little bit of outlining and a whole lot of previously acquired knowledge, but I pretty much wrote that novel on the fly. I started with two characters with stories I wanted to write and just wrote them.

This project has been on the back burner, in the queue for editing, since NaNo09's completion, but I've never really dug into it hardcore. Mainly because I'm terrified of messing it up. I love that novel so much. It represents so much; the completion of a childhood obsession, the first accomplishment of NaNoWriMo, etc. etc., that I'm afraid of sullying that memory. I'll get over it eventually, I'm sure, and dig into it (seriously, writing about the parent project is making me want to pick that up again), but there's really been no editing as of yet.

Once Upon a Spine
This was inspired by (mm-hmm, here it comes) Princess Tutu, right in the middle of NaNoWriMo this past year.

Actually, I'd wanted to write a fairy-tale princess story for a while. This was an example of just having an idea for a type of story I wanted to tell and sort of sticking things into it. The original idea was for it to be a delightfully quirky story, completely not-full of my apparently trademark angst that I keep finding in all my works. (Hahahahaha, hold on while I finish laughing at my own naivety... To think I thought I could keep angst out of this story.)

It was just the idea of a hedgehog wanting to become a princess that was practically blatantly stolen from Princess Tutu. I wanted to explore what would happen if a character went through drastic changes for a single motivation, only to discover that those changes gave them other motivations as well.

This, I didn't quite jump into immediately. Instead, there was a sort of "waiting" period between NaNo and a new project. It wasn't as bad as it was last year (when I literally didn't write for months after NaNo in some sort of horrible burnout) since this year I did actually do a crapload of blogging and some scribbles of fiction and nonfiction alike in my own portfolio. And, mixed in there, were some little scenes and snippets of ideas for my hedgehog story.

They were sort of previews, sort of teaser scenes that I wanted to include, or that sort of captured the mood I wanted. I don't know if any of them will actually make it into the story itself, but they were fun to test the waters. Got a few ideas for character motivations, and came up with an idea for a potential ending for somewhere down the line.

But then, on January 4th, I actually started writing. Didn't think too hard about it, just sort of picked a narration style, and just started writing. Panster style all the way. There was no history to this project, no built-up knowledge of my characters. Just them, not even named (not even joking) standing there, wanting to know what they were supposed to do. So I made them do stuff. Two of the three main characters have names (Rat and Gareth), but that's it.

It's been like that since then. I write down notes to myself whenever I think of a revelation that I want to remember (like, further character motivations), but mostly it's just been hashing it out and seeing where it goes. It's pretty much a long, extended outline. I can tell you for almost absolute certain that the section I'm writing right now will not be in there, or at least not in the place or form it's in.

Unlike Scorpion and Sandman though, I'm actually looking forward to editing this one. Of course, it might be way too early to tell on this sucker, seeing as how I've only been legitimately working on it for a grand total of two weeks now, but I have a good feeling about it. I sort of know where I want this story to go and even though I know that what I'm writing right now isn't fitting into that most tentative of tentative mental plans, I know that I need to write it. It's the raw "blahsome" for my future "awesome".

Whew... Long and rambly that.

Bits'n'pieces...

Been sort of kicking around the beginning to my hedgehog story, consistently scribbling on it in inconsistent places. For real, I've got the first part on my computer, the second part on pages ripped out of an old spiral-bound notebook, the third bit on the backs of scrap paper, the fourth bit in my writing notebook and now this fifth bit on looseleaf.

In a way, this sort of broken writing is frustrating, in that I can't look at my previous bits to see what I wrote before (seeing as how I don't always have them all together), but for that same reason, it's almost helpful. I can't look back and be discouraged by what came before, and it forces me to keep writing. And I have been. It's been like NaNo all over again, only not quite with the stringent word counts and guilt-inducing failures. Writing every day, chugging ahead without worrying too much about what's going on. It's fun, and without a deadline hanging over my head, it's almost relaxing.

I don't do scheduled writing time, but this is becoming my writing task for the day. If I were to say "first thing every morning, I will write", I would drive myself crazy because I wouldn't be able to keep that commitment, what with how my daily schedule changes so much every day. However, if I sneak in writing in the spare moments -  like today, when I got in a solid half-hour of writing (two and a half pages of looseleaf, baby!) while I was waiting to pick up my brother from guitar practice - I get writing done, feel accomplished, and avoid boredom.

Basically, writing becomes my time-killer, rather than watching television, reading magazines or twiddling my thumbs. My poor video games are feeling a bit neglected, but I'm getting writing done and it's awesome.

Music of the write...

One thing that film gets that prose doesn't: music. And I am super-jealous of it.

For real, I was listening to some of the soundtracks to my most favorite movies/shows/games recently and was literally just plain aching. I mean, music manages to bring so much into a story, playing with your emotions almost subconsciously, connecting you to characters and situations more quickly and effectively than just showing them would have. Music can stick with you long after a story fades, or be the glue that makes a story stick.

For instance, years ago, I watched the movie Escaflowne: 

(Yeah, don't believe the cover... it's not good. The show it's based on, however? Utterly fantastic.)

It's not that great of a movie. I mean, it's okay (it is really, really pretty to watch), but not the greatest (the English dub really ruined it for me too...). It was one of my first encounters with anime and while the story didn't impress me all that much, the music. Oh gosh, the music.

In particular, there was one song, sung by a minor character a few times through the course of the movie.

This. song. haunted. me. 

I mean, for years. 

(Related: Yoko Kanno is a genius among mortals. For real, check out her music - soundtracks especially.)

It was what actually made me watch the series years later when I found it on TVTropes, the sheer nostalgia of that one song. 

I love this song so much that I actually bought the soundtrack, it being the second CD I ever really bought and the second soundtrack I purchased (the first CD and soundtrack being the Labyrinth soundtrack). 

This song stuck with me much, much longer than the movie itself did. Or rather, the movie stuck with me because of that song. 

Music is important to writers, regardless of medium or genre. I listen to music all the time when writing (mostly my ever-growing collection of soundtracks for their virtue of having no words that I could sing along to and thus write down). It taps into some deep, visceral part of us and humankind at large. 

It can make something seem epic (really, try doing anything to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack without feeling just a tiny bit awesome) or subtle or emotional or flippant with just a few notes. It can build or deflate tension. 

It can also make or break a scene, as evidenced by those scenes/movies when the soundtrack is way too over-the-top for what's going on, or too underscored. But even then, the power of the music is demonstrated in the way that it does make or break the scene. 

It makes me jealous. It really does. The closest we writers get is collections of music that we pick out for our novels (there are many folks who do this, especially around NaNo - making lists of music that relate to or inspire their story) or original music like what Maggie Stiefvater did for some of her books. But regardless, we lose that scene-by-scene synch that films get. Even if a reader listens to the music while reading the story, they lose the moment-by-moment impact and timing, since everyone reads at a different rate.

The closest we could get, I suppose, is an audio book with music, similar to some of Brian Jacques' Redwall books, where the song lyrics he writes are actually sung. But instead, there would be actual music throughout the whole thing, in the background. Which now I want to do. Like, start a company to do. The difficulty would be original music for even a fraction of what is often a several-hour epic read.

Motivation...

Motivation.

It's key for characters. You get a couple good characters, give them some motivation, and throw them in a setting and plot will happen like crazy. I've always been far more character-oriented than plot-oriented, just because plot comes from characters, so you just worry about the one and the other follows.

But motivation takes some exploration to find. Right now, I'm still finding my characters' motivation. It's how I write. I just sort of stick characters together, let them interact, let them blather on about unimportant stuff, until I find something, anything that's important to them. You get those one or two things and make that character work for it. And it can change. It often does.

It's why my first drafts are so messy. I mean, it's said that you will cut out the first three chapters of your first draft. It's certainly true for me, since that's when I just sort of hash around and mess with everything. I never know what I'm doing going in. The first half of my NaNo is seriously just me poking things and seeing what jiggles.

So right now, I'm playing with the idea of motivation for my characters. My narrator is just sort of complaining right now, but I have an idea for future motivation for her. But as for my knight and his hedgehog, I'm sort of kicking around layers of motivation. I mean, the hedgehog wants to become a princess. However, that's not enough.

To continue my references to Princess Tutu, (I just rewatched it this weekend), there are several layers of motivation. It starts out simple: Ahiru wants to save Mytho. Everything she ever does is in pursuit of that goal. But as she continues to work towards that goal, she accumulates more goals. She wants to remain a girl. She wants to be with the people she loves. She wants so much more than just to save Mytho, even if that is her primary motivation. It comes down to the point where she isn't even sure if that, her original goal, is still want she wants anymore.

Plot unfolds from that.

So I guess I'll just be hashing around for a while, putting down as much blahsome as much as possible. The editing will come later, actually sorting through it all to find the awesome (or least sucky) hidden in there.

Viruses and Hedgehogs and Lampreys, oh my...

“Language is a virus from outer space.” – William S. Burroughs

It is my firm belief that writers are highly susceptible to the virus.,We are obsessed with manipulating and exploring language. We are also the primary vectors by which it propagates, evidenced by our mad drive to shove our virus-laden pages at other people.

My brain is riddled with cosmic microbes and I must share them with you!

~ Paul E. Holmes, on a blog comment at Chuck Wendig's Terribleminds

Yeah, it stuck with me for some reason.

In writing news, I actually did some today! Yay me and actually starting a project when I said I was going to! The writing isn't great, but it's a first draft. I'm just telling myself that over and over again as I hash out a rough roadmap for the story.

I can't plan beforehand. Really. I end up overthinking and tinkering and not actually writing until I've convinced myself it's a lost cause. Much better for me to just jump in without looking to see how far I actually have to swim or how there's a pit of lampreys between me and the end.

Somehow, it all works out...

Strange how I can spend so much time trying to think of character motivation and development and arcs and whatnot and not actually write a word, then just sort of come up with a change and let the characters run with it and end up with stuff that is a million times better.

So, there was this magician character I had planned for my hedgehog story. He was originally a guy. But what if I was to make him a girl? Suddenly, there is a great deal more opportunity for growth than there was before, just by changing the dynamics that will automatically arise from her interactions with the rest of the characters.

Yeah, yet another glowing example of how much of a pantser I am, that I literally do much better when completely winging it than when I try to outline/plan/develop the story beforehand.

Tomorrow, I vow to begin writing.

So...

Hello to you, 2011. Come in, make yourself at home.

It's funny, even though I was blogging and doing some scribbling, I felt like I was waiting for something to end or something to begin before I really dug into writing. Probably a holdover from NaNo still, what with being married to deadlines for the month. It might also have to do with the crazy work schedule I've been dealing with. Whatever it was, I was sort of subconsciously waiting for a corner to approach so I could turn it.

And now it's the new year. I don't feel any different. But at the same time, I do. It's like... I have a whole new year!

So, with the turning of that particular corner, I'm jumping into writing. I've still got two days of heavy work to go, so it might take a day or two before it happens, but it will happen. I've got a free week before school starts again and I don't intend to let it go to waste. Sure, it will be filled with oversleeping and copious amounts of video games, but I will be writing. I will get writing done.

It helps that I think I've figured out how to actually begin my hedgehog story. It involves jumping right into a relationship, rather than trying to establish it from the beginning. I think it might work.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

December 20 – Beyond Avoidance What should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?)

- Should have written more. Like, a lot more (trying to fix that now).

- Should have read the box of library books sitting across my room (seriously, some of them have been out for, like, months).

- Should have watched the last few episodes of the last season of Beauty and the Beast (for real, that has been out for months... I want closure, I just can't bring myself to sit down and look at Elliot's mullet again).

There's always going to be "shoulda, woulda, coulda"s in life. But all of the above were avoidable. Like, easily avoidable. But that means that they could still happen. I just need to stop watching YouTube videos and start on Maddigan's Fantasia.

Un-solitary...

December 9 – Party Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

The NaNoWriMo write-ins. Oh, the NaNoWriMo write-ins. I have always written solitary. It just seems like writing would naturally be a solitary pursuit. Sure, you can have people read and talk about your work with you, but the writing itself is a one-man job. But then I went to a NaNo write in at a local bookstore.

I was a little late and I wandered through the bookstore, looking for something, anything that looked like people writing. Right smack in the center of the store, clustered around a little table sandwiched between the music display and a six-foot fountain, there were three or four people hunched over laptops. I sort of walked by them once, pretending to browse, trying to work up the courage to ask if they were NaNoers. I mean, if they weren't, I'd have to explain myself and look like an idiot as I wandered the store to find the actual NaNoers.

I sidled up apologetically.

"I feel a little silly, but are you the NaNoWriMo people?"

Suddenly I was surrounded by the gushing welcome of writers to one of their own. They ushered me into the cramped space, arranging chairs and laptops so I had table space. My knees were pressed uncomfortably to the table leg and my backpack nearly tripped several people where it peeked out from under the tiny chair, but it was marvelous.

Almost the first thing I did was yank the bookmark out of my notebook. It apparently hadn't been glued in too well, because it just popped off in my hand as I tried to flip it out of the way. I stared at it for a moment.

"Oh, that's not cool," I said in a tiny voice, still afraid to talk, as if I might be interrupting.

"What?"

"I pulled my bookmark out." I held up the sad little scrap of ribbon. Again, the gushing began, an outpouring genuine sympathy. It was such a wondrous, comforting display. I was at home. These were my people. I could write with them.

The evening was spent in mostly-silence, with little bursts of conversation about nerdy things, writerly things, serious things, before going back to writing. I spent three of the happiest hours of my writing career there.

I went back the next week.

Simplicity...

If not here then definitely in my head, I've bemoaned the fact that writers get no bling. Sure, computers, pens, notebooks, programs... But when it comes down to it, we don't really need them. Plain old paper-n-pencil works just fine. We don't really need anything else.

Then it hits me.

We don't need anything else.

Imagine, if you will...

A writer in the wake of National Novel Writing Month is not a pretty picture. Imagine, if you will, a person with slightly greasy hair, wrapped in blankets that need washing, wearing an unattractive oversized turtleneck, having eaten an ungodly amount of little candy-coated chocolates and typing sporadically while watching silly videos on YouTube. You would have imagined me at this moment.

The good news is that I friggin' won NaNoWriMo. 50,006 words, baby! The cheering of the victory video by the OLL was recorded especially for me! 

However, as noted above, I'm usually a mess in the aftermath of NaNo. What usually happens is my writing drops off for several months. It's a trend that I've noted for both of my previous Novembers and I intend to avoid it this year. Fortunately, I have an idea that I'm excited about (it involves princesses and hedgehogs!). I think that excitement will help my productivity level from diving off a cliff this December. 

Another thing I'm trying out is Reverb10, a blog challenge someone in my NaNo buddies recommended. Yet another thing to keep my muse from hiding under the bed for months. Plus, I have a bunch of scribbled notes and ideas for blog entries if not short stories, so I think that I could actually fend off the dreaded post-NaNo shlump. 

One last meme entry:

Day 30 - Share a link to either your NaNo profile or a location on the internet where your story can be found.  If someone offered to beta read for you, would you be willing to do the same for them during the subsequent editing process?

Actually, here's a place you can read all three of my previous NaNo novels: Scorpion and Sandman ('08) Dirt Queen ('09) and this year's Glass and Salt. 


As of this writing, Dirt Queen and Salt and Glass aren't fully uploaded, but they will be very soon. Right now, I just want to dive into the pile of library books I've been ignoring for weeks and watch some more Tin Man (which I started yesterday and which probably is the reason I was writing all the way up to November 30).

To be truly honest, I don't think I'm going to be editing this sucker any time soon, so a beta reader would not be necessary. I'm perfectly willing to beta for anyone interested though, as long as they're willing to work with a full-time student, part-time kennel worker's schedule.

I are a winner! *whoot*

P to the R to the OCRASTINATION...

Yeah, I really need to be writing. Like, a short story for English that's sort of due tomorrow, but was pushed off and forgotten in the hectic-tasticness that is NaNo this year. And it sucks. I mean, really. It's what comes of having to write a genre that I never write in, namely, genre-less writing. "Literary" fiction. I suck at it. I create this box in my head and have such a hard time crawling out of it. And I am trapped in this box with two six year old characters who refuse to let me let them grow up. I mean, how do you handle six year olds who are in "like" with each other?

And the rubber duck. Oh, the rubber duck, how I hate it.

Look at its beady little eyes.

I think Scrubs is going to die. Actually, I'm certain of it. What I'm not sure of is how his father is going to react to it. I mean, he has a one-shot pistol. I said that specifically. He's already fired his one shot. So how is he going to shoot Scrubs again to kill him? And how is he going to react afterwards? How is Ian going to react? Gah... Here's hoping I can wrap it up in just over 9k words.

Meme-ness:

Day 28 - Name one thing you shafted all month in favor of participating in NaNo.

That short story I was talking about before. (Funny how these meme questions seem to be corresponding to what I'm talking about. I don't plan it, I swear.)

Being held back from writing by writing...

So, there's only four days of NaNo left. I'm about 7k words behind what I should be for this particular time in November, but I swear I will make it. This resolution is helped by the fact that I've been crazily typing, which goes much, much faster than handwriting. (I really do think I could have done this by hand if only I hadn't been quite so busy/lazy this year. Last year it would have been a pushover, handwriting and all.)

Anyway, I feel as though my creative energy is being stifled by NaNo. There is so much I want to be doing, but I have to be NaNoing. And on the one hand, I resent this, and on the other hand, I almost appreciate it. After all, it's only a month and you have to practice disciplining yourself sometimes.

Been reading The Right to Write by Julia Cameron. I've found that there are two kinds of writing advice that I like: the snarky, vicious and personal (Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, "TERRIBLEMINDS" a blog by Chuck Wendig) and the tranquil, almost-New Age (The Right to Write, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg). And I get through the tranquil, almost-New Age by balancing it out with the snarky, vicious and personal. All of them often have the same things to say, just different ways of saying it.

Seriously, I have so much I want to be writing. Scribbled rants, blog posts, essays, stories, scripts, poetry... I want to make words! Curse you, NaNo, and your guilt-inducing word count deadlines!

On that note, more of the meme:

Day 23 - Do animals play any part in your story?  If so, how do they add to it?

I have goats. Mostly because I needed a source of milk. Because fae apparently hate milk in my novel.

Day 24 - Is religion featured in your novel at all?  If so, which ones?  If it’s/they’re your own creations, describe it/them and how it/they play(s) a part in your characters’ lives.

Meh, not really.  I'm sure there is religion in these people's societies, but it hasn't come up in my novel.

Day 25 - What are the names of at least two of your main characters?  How did you choose their names?

Chevy Lancer and Ian Woon.

"Lancer" was originally supposed to be Chevy's part in the story (based on this trope) and I really like the name "Chevrolet".

"Mr. Ian Woon" is an anagram of "NaNoWriMo". I needed a name, someone on the internet was far more clever than I, and so a throwaway-character-turned-main was christened.

Day 26 - Was any research involved (historical or otherwise) in your NaNo prep? 

"Research"? We have not this word in my country.

Dear Bruce Coville...

originally written Wednesday, September 15, 2010

posted here for illustration of this point

---

Dear Bruce Coville,

You don't know me, but I have been a fan of your books since I was around ten or eleven. I understand you're well-known for your quirky books like My Teacher is an Alien, but I'll admit I've only ever read your fantasy work, such as the Magic Shop series. I loved loved loved Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. But the work that has influenced me the most has been The Unicorn Chronicles.

There were only two books, Into the Land of Unicorns and Song of the Wanderer, when I first discovered Chronicles. I searched in vain for more, since it was obvious the story was meant to continue. I asked librarians. I used my abysmal internet skillz to see if you had died or had given up or if I was just stupid and the library lacking. But to no avail.

Years went by. Then, one day a year or two ago, I happened across the third volume in the series. Eagerly, I snapped it up and read it in scant hours. 

Years more went by until yesterday, when I was deliberately combing the shelves and found the fourth volume. I snapped that up too and stayed up until one in the morning finishing it. I was exhausted today in my early-morning class, but having finished a beloved series from my childhood was well worth the hours of lost sleep.

In the letter before the fourth volume, you mention that you started the series in 1991, the same year I was born. I discovered the books at about ten or eleven, meaning that the books I read were at least several years old. Having looked it up, the first was published in '94, the second in '01, third '08 and fourth just this year in '10. This series has taken my entire lifetime to be published.

I am one of the readers you mention in your letter who started reading the series in childhood, have since grown up, and yet were still wanting you to finish the series. I noticed too that your books seemed to grow up too. The series went from a simple escapist story of a girl going into the land of unicorns that was perfect for my younger self, to an epic with its own take on myth and legend, dealing with mature themes like death and love and family, that was a very satisfying read for my present self. I was able to enjoy the work as much for itself as for its nostalgic value. And for that, I thank you, even if it took you nineteen flippin' years to get the darn thing out.

Sincerely, 

~ a fan