Less that twelve hours to go and I'm so unprepared!

I've been putting off and putting off seriously thinking about my story. Like, I know how I want all the pieces to move; I have (almost) the whole game plotted out, but it's the little things that are stressing me out.

I've never really been one to think about my writing in terms of 'themes', but with this project, the more I work on it, the more I find I need to know. I need to know the whys and hows of my characters and, to do that, I need to read and teach myself. Even though it's a (obviously) fictional world and the drug causing the problems is made-up, there are certainly parallels to the real world and, of course, I am dealing with human beings which are fundamentally the same whichever universe you stick 'em in. 

It's very interesting working like this -- backwards, if you will. A lot of writers start with the themes and craft their characters around them. I start with my characters and discover their inner-working as I go. It makes it very tricky when you're toddling nicely along and then you realise, "My god! My main-character is autistic!" so you have to pause and do your research and hope that you've done enough. 

I love research though, I really do, especially in regards to writing. And I love my process. I make notes -- nice, spaced out notes in longhand -- in black pen on the facts, and then annotate in red in regards to my characters and how it applies to the story. 

But ahhhh!!!!! TOMORROW!!! I'M SO EXCITED AND TERRIFIED AND EVERYTHING!!!!!

A Pleasant Surprise.

So, I've been chatting to a lot more NaNo'ers this year, sort of just building up a nice little group of writing buddies, and today one of them said to me -- 

"Your passion for writing and writing quality should be shared with the world! Very few people actually take pride in their work and I believe that you have the ability to light that flame."

Which took me quite by surprise. I don't try and talk with any authority on writing. Any advice I give out is taken from my own (limited) experience. Writing is a very personal process, and it differs very much from one person to the next, so I always expect anything I say to be taken with a grain of salt. 

But it's really nice to think that I am helping people? Even just a bit. Even though I write very selfishly, it's nice to know that it's becoming a less lonesome past-time.

Does that make sense?

In other news -- TWO DAYS! ASDFGHJK!!!

And I really should've started my prep earlier... I need to get to a good pausing point in Book One, write some of the ending of Book One (to get into the older mindset of my characters), write up character sheets so I know all the baggage that they're carrying over to Book Two (and, my god! is there baggage!) and make very brief notes on everything that's in my head and Bloody Hell! why have I left it all to the last minute???

On top of that, I need to finish up and post my NaNo care-package to Leenie and finish up the fic I've been distracting myself with because I really can't do fic as well in November. I just can't. Another not-really-problem is that I've just made a new HP friend who's really getting my fired up about Severus Snape and I want to do fic!!!! But I don't. I love my original story and I can't wait to do the sequel, but but but.......

Everything's going to be fine.

A Terrible Life Choice

I might be doing two NaNo Projects...?

I can't choose so, therefore, I must do both, right?

I mean it isn't impossible.

Doing 100,000 words (!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!) in a month.

...

Oh god.

Uh oh...

I'm getting the Potter cravings again. Like, really bad.

...

<_<    >_>

...

*whispers*

I want to fanfic for NaNo.

What??

Who said that??

Don't tell!

I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING FOR NANO!

Ugh.

I've got such a good idea for a fic, you don't even know.

But is it sustainable?

Is is a waste of my time?

And I'm so psyched for my sequel....

BUT FIC!

Maybe I'll do some fic today and just get it out of my system.

Write-Off

Today was such a bad writing, it was ridiculous. It took me five hours to get into my stride, and then my netbook crapped out and I completely lost my mojo. Asdhjk!! I really wanted to continue when I got home, but obviously my meager attempt is trapped on my netbook and inaccessible until I get a new charger (I really really really hope it's the charger and not the machine!!) So I'd have to start from scratch and ugh! Hate hate hate!

NaNoWriMo FML: It Begins.

My netbook. My baby. My novelling device. Oh, what a love-hate relationship we do have.

It is at once the most convenient, most frustrating, life-saving, soul-destroying piece of equipment that I have ever had the pleasure/misfortune of owning.

As light as my manuscript binder, I can stick it in my rucksack and carry it anywhere I desire. It is unobtrusive and subtle AND THE CHARGER HAS BLOWN AGAIN!

I have owned it for just under two years, and this is the third charger I've gone through. I lost the first one three days into last year's NaNo, when I had no other word-processing device, and the second a few months later just before going back to England.

I don't know why it always, without fail, chooses the moment that is the most inconvenient. I'm pretty sure it's a sentient being and has a little calender on which it writes, 'Esme's Important Writing Time: Remember to Break.'

Oh, and my headphones bust yesterday.

Hopefully (pleasepleasepleeaase!!!) this is the week to get all this silly nonsense out of the way so I can just NaNo in peace.

Pleasepleasepleeaase!!!

Categorization.

When did I start reading according to categorization? When I was younger, I used to just picked up books that interested me, regardless of genre or age-group, and I miss that. I miss enjoying a book purely because it's a good book.

I miss writing a story purely because it's a good story.

There's so much emphasis on audience (narrow it down narrow it down!) but from my experience as a reader, if it's a story worth reading then people will read it. As many adults read 'YA' and young people, and - it used to be the case at least - as many young people read adult books.

I think?

Maybe I was just lucky. No-one ever tried to limit my reading. Quite the opposite, in fact, if someone - usually my grandmother or my mother - read a good book, they would recommend it to me, Age categories didn't come into it.

Now I worry. Now I am more critical, and I hate it. It makes reading and writing and everything in between less fun.

I don't know where to place my story in the spectrum of categories. People say YA, but it doesn't feel right, especially when my main character is twenty for the majority, especially when I have so many adult PoVs... and I don't want to cut people out or change ages purely for the sake of categorization. It feels cheap and nasty. So I try not to think about it.

But I know that I need to know, and I don't.

I just want to write a good story that people will enjoy reading.

Novelling, NaNo and LadyBits

It's been a good couple of days. 

I've hit 30,000 words on The Novel, and managed to execute the transition between parts one and two pretty much exactly how I wanted to. Of course, I expect the feedback I'll get on it will be something along the lines of, "...?" But, right now, that's okay. I'm experimenting with a less linear structure and if it doesn't work, I can always go back and change it.

It's fun writing Alyk again. I don't know why, but I really enjoy writing him. I think, all things considered, he's my oldest character and I can just trust him to do his thing without too many problems. I still have no idea if he's good or bad, though, which makes understanding his motivations a little tricky. But I think he holds up anyway.

It'll be interesting to see which direction he goes in Book Two. 

NaNo 2014 is almost upon us (!!!) and I am so bloody excited! The wife's doing it with me - a collection of interlinked short-stories that I'm really looking forward to reading - and one of my super-talented uni friends has also let me bully her into participating. On a completely selfish note, the competition of having there will really boost me, I think. Failure is not an option because it'll be doubly humiliating with her doing it too.

It's going to be great!

I finally finished my article for LadyBits, and the editor is super pleased with it so I'll link to that when it's up. The first article was definitely the hardest (I picked a killer topic) but I've started writing a couple more and I think I'm going to really enjoy writing for that blog. 

J-j-jitters

I've been feeling really jittery lately, really up and down. Like, more than usual.
Everything's either very exciting or very anti-climatic.
I think it's part method-writing (it isn't healthy, I know it isn't healthy, but it produces good words?) part excitement for November, part 'oh-my-god-why-am-I-wasting-my-time-everyone's-going-to-hate-it' anxiety/fear that grows and grows the closer I get to completion...

...

And part the fact that I have discovered coffee.

Yeah, caffeine might have something to do with it.

I'm trying to channel my jitters, especially at night when they keep me awake. It's easier to make them inconsequential when I turn them into fiction (and they produce good ideas)

But I wish I could just have a chill day. Just, a few hours where I am cool and tranquil and not thinking.

It would drive me mad though.

I think I'm addicted?

I have an addictive personality, and this is a big habit (because it makes me productive? And that makes me feel good?)

Eh.

Part One: Draft Three - Complete!

Yesterday I finished Part One of Draft Three (title: MoonPath has been scrapped because you know how it goes.)

It stands at 26, 254 words, which is almost exactly twice the length of Part One: The Rewrite.

I am very pleased with it, and last night I had a stellar idea of how to merge into Part Two (no, you don't understand - it's perfect!)

So today I want to tidy up Part One a bit, and go back to where I've said [ADD MORE] (there's only two or three places though so that's okay) and do a nice big spell-check (one crappy thing about Focus Write is the lack of dictionary, and I'm hopeless without one!)

Here's some music for you -

An Inescapable Cliche

I used to believe in the Muse
I used to believe that if I waited long enough
With my cigarettes and
Half-bottle of Merlot
I could summon it
For long enough
To create something
Great.

The Artist's Spell.

Patience and
Self-loathing;
Cigarettes and
Half-bottle of Merlot.

As sure as alchemy and
Turning shit to gold.

It was all part of the Game;
The inescapable cliche.
The recipe we all adhered to because
No-one taught us anything better.

Now, later,
I believe in
Coffee shops and
Bottomless tea;
Don't waste a single second
Because every word
Is precious.

Still, always,
An inescapable cliche.

Suck it the fuck up and
Get it the fuck down.

You cannot edit an empty page.

Why didn't anyone tell us that before?

Patience

Patience was a virtue
once
and now it only serves
to make me think
that I
am going
out of
my
mind.

Waiting and waiting
and waiting
for what?

Breathe in
two three
and out
two three
Count down until
it gets
better.

I'm lucky
it's down.

If it were up,
I don't think
I'd ever stop
counting.

I'd go higher
and higher
and further
out of reach.

Untouchable.

That sounds nice

Patience was a virtue
once.
But I'v been patient so long
that I've forgotten
what I'm
waiting
for.

Poetry

The problem is,
it doesn't mean anything.
Just smatterings of pretty words -
echoed sentiments that you heard
she liked to hear -
across a full, empty page.

They told you,
Kept telling you,
It was simply a matter of
breaking up
prose
awkwardly,
breaking the rules that
other people had drilled
into you
in order to make her
Sit up
And Listen.

That was how they did it,
after all.

The words are meaningless and
the more meaningless
the better.

She probably won't get it anyway.

Today the NaNo site updates for the 2014 challenge and I am so pysched!!! Seriously, this year's going to be an amazing. My covers look ACE together; I had a massive breakthrough re: plot in the car coming back from Kansas, and I have more material than I know what to do with.

I need to sit down and sort through all the bits and pieces I've compiled and actually organise them into a plan.

As soon as I've finished typing part 1/book 1 (23,000 of good material in a month!)

Life is good.

Empty Space

Somewhere along the way
I let go of my hand
and lost myself.

In a pile of dirty laundry
that I've put off
and put off
doing

I can't look
(won't look)
at it
for me

Not that I would know
what to look for
if I did

I've forgotten.

It's been so long.

The memory
(flickering fading dying)
is warped
twisted
beyond any
sensible recognition.

I miss it though.

I still see
right at the back
the silhouette
of where I used to be.

That familiar
empty space
that I once
occupied
that was once
mine.

Small and squat
and safe and
mine.

The world got bigger and
for some reason
somewhere along the way
I stopped growing with it.

It left me behind
let go of my hand
and lost me.

What happens now
when the world is too big
for me?

Too Much
Unfamiliar
Empty Space.