The ideas come in shifts

I just hit 10,000 words last night. Here's an excerpt from chapter 2 of my novel, tentatively called "Wyoming." It's not bloody Shakespeare, but it's a start...

    Darby woke to the sound of the blender coming from the kitchen.  She moaned and rolled over onto her right side, picking up her alarm clock to better read the glowing numbers on its face.  She had been asleep for four hours and her alarm was set to buzz in ten minutes, but she felt like she had hardly slept at all.  She turned off the alarm and then fell back onto her pillow where she lay staring up at the ceiling, her brain hardly registering the sounds she heard from the other room.  Likely Ellie was making some sort of energy drink, which she usually had around midday.  Though she was practically fanatical about exercising, Ellie somehow had little interest in the sorts of activities Darby enjoyed—hiking, kayaking, camping.  Ellie, preferred her sports to take place indoors, with the benefit of sanitary wipes and air conditioning.
    A familiar jingle sounded, the notes reaching heights that Darby’s second soprano voice could never hope to achieve.  Ellie answered within seconds, cheerfully greeting the caller on the other end, whom Darby immediately learned to be Craig, Ellie’s boyfriend, whose deep baritone filled the kitchen and carried back to Darby’s compact bedroom through the speaker phone of Ellie’s cell.
    “Pack quickly, Hon,” he was saying.  “I’ll be there in half an hour.”
    “What, why?” she said, her voice unusually bright.  Craig was the impetuous type and Ellie was not prone to enjoying surprises.
    “You’ll find out when I get there,” he said, apparently bursting with excitement.
    “No, tell me what’s going on.  Are we going somewhere?”
    “Well, okay.  I’ll give you just a sneak peak,” he said, and Darby could actually hear him take a deep breath.  “Since you’ve got days off coming up, I booked us a suite in the Hamptons.  We leave tonight.”
    “What, just for tonight?” she said.  “That’s a really long drive for just a one-night stay.”
     “No, Hon,” he said.  “We have the place all to ourselves for five days.”  The sound of his voice was still ringing in the air seconds after he stopped talking.
    “El?” he said.  “You there?”
    “Yeah, I’m…here,” she said.
    “What’s wrong?
    “Craig,” she said slowly.  “I took those days off so I could go to Wyoming with Kara and Darby.  We’ve been planning this for months.”
    “Oh, but honey,” he said, his speech gaining in speed, “I had to grab these rooms up quickly because there was a cancellation.  I was just calling them to see when they would be available next and found out we could go this week.  It seemed so perfect because I knew you already had off.”  He paused, the guilt registering in his voice.  “Can’t you go with them another time?”  Ellie heaved an audible sigh.
    “They’ve been looking forward to this,” she said heavily.  “We already booked the flights and the room, and rented the car.”
    “So, you don’t want to go with me.”
    “No, of course I do,” she said, letting her sentence end midway.
    “It’s just that I wanted this to be a romantic getaway for us,” he said.  Boy, he’s laying it on thick, Darby thought, grinding her teeth.  Just kick him to the curb.  Say you’re busy.  Say, “Gee, thanks Hon, but tough beans.  I’m going to Wyoming” already!
    “Okay,” Ellie said.  “I’ll pull some things together.”
    “Great, sweetie.  I’ll be there in thirty.”

    “Darb, I am so sorry,” Ellie said, emphasizing each word.  Her eyes were brimming with tears.
    “Just, don’t worry about it,” Darby said.  She was sitting on the couch in their cramped living room, staring at the floor.  “What else could you do?  It was a bad situation.  On one hand you lose your free frequent flier miles and a partially free trip to the mountains in Wyoming.  On the other hand, you make Craig waste his money booking a suite in the Hamptons.  I think the choice is clear.”
    “But still, I let you down.  And after Kara just canceled on you too…”
    “Yeah,” Darby said.  In the moment she had forgotten about that.  “Yeah.”

Ready, set...Write!!

I tried to post this first blog of National Novel Writing Month last night but my browser at home refused my cookies for some unknown reason. It always appreciated my cooking in the past but has suddenly taken a dislike to my handiwork in the virtual kitchen.  Therefore, I had to wait until today to begin chronicling my progress with NaNoWriMo 2009. So far I'm doing great. I set myself a lofty goal of 5,000 words yesterday, it being a Sunday, and I surpassed the goal in only about 4 solid hours of writing to end at 5,182 words. This will serve me well because I doubt I will get much writing done tomorrow when I go out with a friend to discuss our writing in other formats.  Though many of the members of my writing group Just Write are participating in NaNoWriMo this year, not all of them are, so I will meet with my friend to talk over our short stories. Mine I am hoping to finish within a week or so, so I can send it off to a contest — the very first I will have ever attempted, though I have long been wishing to submit my work for various literary challenges. It is my hope that this will all me to set a good example for myself so I might continue to share my work with some great publications around the country.

As for my NaNovel, I am happy with what I have written so far.  I'm in what I am calling Chapter 4, though my chapters so far are pretty short, and Chapter 3 is more of a summary than actual prose. My protagonist has just arrived at her vacation destination where she will spend the remainder of the novel. Her arrival at the Grand Tetons in Wyoming has not only delighted her but has also helped my writing sanity considerably. Though I love to write and I think myself pretty darn good at what I do, I often find it difficult to begin a novel. Already I have noticed that I am enjoying this novel far more than I was enjoying last year's NaNovel at any point in the process. For some reason, even during the most exciting parts of that novel, I just could not get into the storyline enough to really have fun with it. This time around is different. Though much of the style is the same — realistic fiction with a mystery and some romance weaved throughout the plot — the atmosphere is very different. That novel took place in New England in a small town laden with snow for much of the story amidst people who didn't really want to be where they were. This novel involves a main character on vacation, both in a place she wants to be and in a place I want to be. As I write I remember how I felt when I first laid eyes upon the glorious mountains that force their way out of the earth in sublime magnificence. The allure of it all has remained with me for the last 6 1/2 years, and I cannot wait to be able to witness them again in person. In the mean time I must settle for looking at photographs and visiting the landscape in my mind, but writing this novel helps exceedingly and makes me very happy in the process.

And the countdown begins

It's only a month until NaNoWriMo 2009, thirty days. I was excited up until today; now I'm more nervous than anything else. Last year, though it was my first NaNoWriMo experience and I had no idea what I was doing or what to expect, I at least had a place to be. I had an apartment; I had a computer room set up. I could close the door on everything else, all distractions, and just hole up in the spare bedroom and type and listen to "The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" soundtrack. This year that is not an option. My husband and I are living in the finished basement of his mother's home, while we save and look for a house. We're not going to have a house before November begins, so I'm facing the prospect of sitting at my desk, albeit at least with my brand new laptop, in a wide-open space with everything from the TV to my husband's computer games screaming in my ear. I could close myself into the bedroom if necessary, but that isn't the same as being in my own writing space. There's no desk in there, and the space is too small anyway to fit a desk if I wanted to drag one in there. It isn't conducive to writing. But even this is the best case scenario. A worse one would be if we DO find a house in the coming weeks and close on it and start moving — in November!! I've faced this prospect for the past several months, ever since it seemed likely that we might move in the fall. I don't know which is worse, having to spend thirty days in a dark basement trying to ignore distractions that occur when you keep a space with someone else who doesn't share a passion for writing, or having to relocate mid-month and face the distractions of packing and moving and getting used to a new space.

It's been over the last few months that I've felt like I really understand how Jane Austen felt when she moved with her parents and older sister Cassandra to Bath, where she lived for several years unable to write a thing because she was so completely uninspired by her place of residence and so wholly unable to charm her muse into submission. That is how I've felt since March when we moved into the cave. There's no window near which I might sit, there's no ray of sunlight that falls on my desk and removes my soul to distant lands of intrigue and illumination. It is the pit of despair, the heart of darkness. Over the next month I must figure out how I'm going to handle this problem, for abandoning NaNoWriMo 2009 is not an option.

Great expectations

It’s been awhile since I updated, but well worth the wait I’m sure since now I actually have something meaningful to write. After four months hanging in a consignment shop in a village in Virginia, one of my photographs finally sold. So, yes, I’m very proud to say I am now an artist worth something. The irony of the occasion is that it came shortly after I had decided to hang up my digital camera, so to speak, until next summer and focus instead on my writing. I have not been able to accomplish anything literary or fictional lately with all the stress of also needing to make deadlines for county fairs or craft shows. It’s enough just thinking about the deadlines for writing contests and NaNoWriMo and writing club meetings … and Christmas (the stories I plan to write and give as gifts, because I'm crafty ... and cheap), not to mention that I hope to begin freelancing in earnest one of these days.

Though I write for a living, I currently write full time for a newspaper, which is great and challenging and even spontaneous … but it’s just so gosh darn factual. I crave retreating into the fictional world inside my mind, where it can be winter at the snap of my fingers, or where I can rewrite past real life stories to make them play out the way I would have liked. Of course freelancing likely will not supply the freedom of which I am speaking, but that’s okay. It will balance out the fantasy; only I’ll be able to write from home and move on to something else whenever my work is done. By that point in my life I will also be able to reincorporate my photography into my work schedule.

So, that’s the plan … for now. In the mean time I just eat, breathe, and sleep the written word, whether I am reading the work of others or constructing my own tales on the page in front of me, and for now that must be enough.

Unexpected challenges

No sooner do I restart my blog after 10 months then my Internet connection at home decide to fail! I will have to find out what's wrong with it, but in the mean time I can write from my work computer. If I had a laptop, maybe this would not be a problem. Soon, however, I WILL have a laptop, something basically everyone in America already has. I've been saving up for the past few months in anticipation of NaNoWriMo. I can't wait! I've begun the outline for my story in preparation for Nov. 1. I will not repeat the mistakes of last year and approach the beginning of NaNoWriMo with a story that is not fully-formed and characters that are only shells of actual people. Of course at the time of beginning novel writing month 2008 I thought I had everything all set and ready to go. It wasn't until I started writing that I realized I just didn't have any idea what would come next, and though that can be a bonus to the creative process in general, when you have only 30 days in which to write 50,000 words, that really is not a good thing. My other problem last year was not having a laptop. The only way in which I could attend the write-ins with friends was to bring along my trusty notebook and pen my novel by hand, afterwards returning to my desk and typing up everything I had already written, a practice that slowed down the entire process not only while I laboriously hand wrote the text but then while I wasted time typing it all up when I could have been making better use of that time by plowing through unchartered territory. But, like I said, this year will be different. I will put into practice the Girl Scout (and coincidentally the Boy Scout) motto, "Be prepared," I will have my brand new, gleaming laptop buzzing in anticipation of what is to come, and I will have a year of experience behind me from which to draw for inspiration.

In the mean time I have been keeping busy planning writing groups for my writing club, Just Write. The club began as an e-newsletter in November 2007 and has risen in ranks from about six members to our current sixteen. Four people have told me they plan to do NaNoWriMo this year, plus I've had interest in our meeting in person to do other writing as well, hence the writing groups. In the works are three groups: the writing meet-ups to meet once a month and focus on members sharing and critiquing short stories and such, the noveling group to meet once or twice a month and work to encourage those novelists who enjoying the company of others while writing, and the online group, which will meet once a month on our discussion board at http://justwritenow.ning.com/

Please come by and see us and maybe even sign up for Just Write. We are an international group, and welcome anyone who enjoys writing.

And I'm back!

It's been ten months since I last wrote on this blog, but I plan to finally make a go of this for real. My original intention in beginning the blog was to chronicle my progress through National Novel Writing Month 2008, but, seeing as that was such a limited objective, I can now see why it failed. I didn't have a projection for its future; I didn't have a plan, but now I do.

I have long wished to keep up a blog, but I lacked a purpose. You see, I want my blog to have a theme. The problem was I couldn't think of one. I'm a writer, I'm interested in nutrition and exercise, I even love cats, but am I an expert on any of these subjects? Expert enough to be able to write about any of them with authority ... every day?

Then, two weeks ago, I got my answer. My co-worker who has been very sick lately and in and out of hospitals called us at work asking for help. I drove to her house and found her in a really bad state and ultimately had to call 911 to send an ambulance for her. She has since had two surgeries (and this is after the two she had had for her initial illness.) Looking at her that day I realized that I have no excuse for not accomplishing everything I want in life. Whereas she's weak and unhealthy and has been bed- and couch-ridden for weeks, I am not afflicted by any of those handicaps. She can barely walk. I can run if I wish. There's nothing standing in my way except my own insecurites.

So, this is what I have decided on as for the theme of my blog. I will write about writing AND nutrition AND exercise and, hell, even cats. I will write about life and everything that makes it great, beginning today.

The road not taken

Hi everyone. Sorry I'm so bad about blogging. I did manage to ascend past 25,000 words tonight, so I'm more than halfway toward my goal of reaching 50,000 words by Nov. 30. Too bad there are only 8 days left in the month! I'm going to need to really step on it. Here are some thoughts I had recently, which I wrote first in an e-mail to a fellow NaNoWriMo author:

"I had thought, when I first started doing this, that this was no way to write a novel and that it would just be an exercise in motivation and time management, but now I think this is actually a really good way to write a novel. This way, when I go back to make revisions, I'll already know how it ends and where the characters are going, rather than trying to add in scenes that might not matter in the long run and focus on a character that I end up dropping later on. It gives me perspective, I think, and allows me to focus on the overall story and work out the details later."

Isn't it amazing the kinds of inspirational realizations that come to someone when she's writing her first novel in only a month? In previous attempts I've made to start some books, I've focused too long on every part, writing and rewriting it to make it perfect. Since I've had to rush through this novel, I, of course, have not had time to do that. In fact, I kept a beginning in there that I soon decided I hated, just because I didn't have time to go back and rewrite it. And you know what happened? A couple nights ago I decided maybe the beginning isn't so bad after all. I still have a lot of changes to make to it, but I'm going to keep some of what I would have deleted. If I had deleted it, I'd have to write all that all over again.

Something else I learned about a week ago as I was writing was that writing this story has reminded me of those "Pick Your Own Adventure" books. Every choice I make, every direction in which I take my plot, is the result of a path I must choose over dozens of other options I might have picked. That had not occurred to me until last weekend, but it was funny that a fellow writer (though not for NaNoWriMo) I met for dinner on Monday thought the same thing about her writing, even before I had mentioned it. We both basically had the same realization at the same moment.

I'm so glad I decided to take this risk and devote much of my November to writing this novel. Whether or not I make the deadline, it's still been worth the journey traveled.