Halfway

It is now halfway into Nano and I start today about 8000 behind, including what I need to write today.  (See, it’s not so bad).

The 15th seems like a good day to take stock.  I have shelved the steampunk novel I started for a time when I can do the research necessary to let me be happy with what I’m producing.  Instead I am writing what I will call a sci-fi novel.  The second restart began on the 4th of November so technically I am on track if my month runs from November 4th until December 4th but I don’t think it works that way.  Fortunately I have complete faith in my ability to catch up.

I’m really excited about both my concept and how the story is developing so far.  When I write there are these magical moments when my characters will take on a life of their own and start doing things I didn’t know they were going to do.  This can tangle the plot in delicious ways that I get to sort out.  It’s why I keep writing even when I want to throw my laptop through a window.  This would be especially bad since I’m using DH’s spare laptop for Nano. In this novel the characters are coming alive like never before.  I dream about them.  I think about them when I’m in school and when I write about them they continually surprise me.  When I’m laying in bed thinking about what to read, I want to know what they’ll do next.  I love writing, I can’t imagine not writing but I think I’m finally starting to see what an addiction it can truly be.

Without further ado here is a brief synopsis of my novel.

A woman born directly into adulthood with memories that don’t match the world she is living in and a man born with an affliction so terrible he has been in hiding since he was an infant must choose whether to save the civilization that rejects them.

The snowflake method will require me to pare this down to 20 or even 15 words but I’m not ready for that yet.  No time, Nano calls.

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Preparing for Nanowrimo

Big News

I’ve submitted for the very first time!!  One of my flash fictions is now in the hands of Flash Fiction Online and I wait their 10 week average turnaround time for reply.

It’s an exciting thing.

Next goal, submit something else before I get a reply.

 

What I’m Working On

Most of my writing of late is more in the planning stage.  A lot of ideas for Nanowrimo and also a lot of other ideas.

I did have an idea for a longer story, sci-fi, apocalyptic, but done in the form of a series of vignettes.  Letters, news reports, radio broadcasts, political speeches, etc.  Basically something that would work as a serial over several issues of a publication.  It plays up my new enjoyment of writing flash fiction as well.

It might even work for nano if I can come up with enough disparate parts to reach the 50,000 goal.

 

An Idea

I do a lot of brainstorming at work and tend to jot it down on small slips of paper.  There is a growing pile of them on my desk that is starting to look alarmingly like kindling.   I’m going to get a shoebox, tart it up with arts and crafts and into it will go all of these slips.  It shall be my treasure box of ideas.

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Research

Today I was doing research for a story I want to write about genetically modified foods.  I thought it would be a fun project for nanowrimo 2009.  I’m interested in health but I didn’t have an agenda.  I wanted to write an engaging story, not propaganda.  My choice of topic was something I peripherally knew to be a hot issue.  I grew up with food-wise hippie parents and I thought I knew the basics behind the arguments and research would only yield necessary details to build a realistic framework.

I may never eat corn or canola oil again.   The truth is already so much more evil than what I had concocted.

The current situation provides a framework that perfectly supports the dystopic future I am envisioning.  The nightmare scenarios I have envisioned for my fictional novel seem like potential prophecy.  Do I really want to give these corporations more ideas?

I am somewhere between being desperately excited that I have a brilliant idea for an engaging and believable novel that taps into a a very real fear in our society and should act on it now and wanting to crawl into a hole and hide from the terrible truth.

(Obviously I’m going to choose the option where I write.)

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