I'm a failure.

I'm a failure, and that's a good thing.

I had a good start in National Novel Writing Month, staying consistently ahead of the goal for the first week. Ideas came fairly easily, kept flowing day after day with a good part at the end of each session to keep the story moving. The second week, I was going well, which is fairly unusual. The second week is typically difficult for people because they realize that the ideas aren't as smooth and that writing is hard work.

My problem was totally different. I got a job where they wanted me to start right away, work from 8 am to 9 pm every day, and take notes the whole time. By the time I got home, I didn't want to write any more. I ended up exhausted, I couldn't get back into the rhythm after that, and then I had a huge paper due for one of my school classes that took priority over the novel because there's a grade attached to the one for school.

This was a good exercise in priorities for me, deciding what's really important and what I can let go of for a little bit. Sadly, the event I'd been looking forward to for a year is what got cut this time. I also wrote more words for my novel in November than I had the entire previous year. I've still got plenty of the story to tell, so I can work on that in the next bit. I've also decided that I'm taking a totally different tack with next November. I think I'm not going to plan my novel at all next year. I may come up with a title and that's it.

Maybe. We'll see.

Holy busy November!

Happy NaNoWriMo! I'm right in the middle of writing my novel and things are going well. Next week, I'm going to feel stuck, I can just feel it coming. But as it is, I'm keeping ahead of the game, despite my life being completely crazy with school presentations, job hunting and being an attentive parent.

I've already done a couple of things with my story that surprised me, the biggest one being that the point of view is not the third person omniscient that's so common. It's not even the normal kind of first person narrative. It's so far inside the character's head like Catcher in the Rye. There's stream of consciousness narrating to some unknown party. Totally hadn't expected that. I was actually fully planning on writing the story in third person. But that's what the month is all about, right?

Here's my favorite little bit I wrote today:

Envelope safely tucked into John Tesh, I headed out of the store. Did I just say “envelope tucked into John Tesh?” There’s a phrase I hadn’t expected to say ever in my life.

Fun, right? If you're taking on writing a novel this month, good luck. And if you need some encouragement or maybe a suggestion to make your story better or keep it moving, please let me know. I like to help. Back to my adventure.

Here we go again

It's NaNoWriMo again and for me, it has been for almost 2 hours. I've almost hit the goal for the day and my eyes are starting to get kind of tired. I was feeling a little nervous about reaching the goal with the other things I've got to do each day, but my progress so far today has made me optimistic again. If you're participating this year, you can do it too. I'm certain.

By the way, I'll probably be tweeting more about it than blogging, so if you want to keep up with how I'm doing, my twitter feed is a good way to do it.

Typography

I just read a book entitled How to Spec Type because I wanted to learn more about setting print and layout. But as I read the book, I noticed some suggestions that involved drawing lines and estimating character counts. What? And then there were comments about how computer graphics just couldn't look as good as hand-drawn pictures yet.

So I looked at the publication date. 1987.

Most of the things that the book was explaining how to do can be done automatically by most word processing programs on computers now. It was good to learn why and what the computer's doing, but I don't think I'm going to have to hand-draw a page to give an idea of what it will look like because I can move things around on the computer in 8 different ways, print out an example of each one and figure out which one I like the best.

Big blog changes

If you've read this blog in the last few months, you'll notice some big changes to the way it functions. I've updated the look because my editor complained about having to read white on black. Also, you'll notice that the RSS feed has the full text of the blog posts. I realized it was dumb to make you click through to be able to read an extra 4 lines. It's not like my thoughts are earth-shatteringly important enough to make you have to click through one more time. I'm thinking of making a couple more smallish changes still and those will probably happen sometime between now and the next blog post I write, if I actually decide to change.

Image via Wikipedia

The other thing I wanted to mention today is that I've got an idea for a paper, treatise, thesis, whatever you want to call it, about the continuation of the narrative in Thomas Pynchon's novels and how it relates to TV. You know there'll be a reference to Hector Zuñiga in it. I just looked for a web link to help those of you who don't know the reference, but I couldn't find anything particularly helpful. This is the best I could do. Anyway, I think it'll be a fabulous paper, I just want to talk with someone about where would be a good place to get it out for people to read and put into their literature papers about The Crying of Lot 49 or Gravity's Rainbow. You know, the four people each year who actually decide to write papers about that. And they probably all read this blog. (Actually, it's highly unlikely, but I'd like to think that.) Anyway, I'm excited about the idea and when it's a little better-formed, I'll bring you into the WASTE system.

Be an author?

In my current situation, I'm thinking about what I would do with the rest of my life if money weren't a concern. I know, it's the kind of thing you're supposed to figure out when you're in college, and I did that, but it seems like a good exercise to revisit periodically, to see if you're on the right track. Ask yourself "If I didn't have to work for the money, would I do this or find something else to do?"

I keep coming back to the romantic idea of moving to some European city with history deep in the stone buildings, finding an apartment downtown and wandering around the city while I write a bold novel. And then I'll sell it and move somewhere farther east while I write another one. I'll keep going east until I decide it's time to stay in one place. Then I think I want to have a boutique book publishing company. Maybe I could do that the other way around and be a publisher while I travel around, writing. In any case, I still think I could be a writer.

Yes, I realize this doesn't mean I can just decide to be a writer and have that just be my new profession. That reminds me of when Michael Scott declared bankruptcy.



What this means for me right now is that I need to learn significantly more about both professions while I finish my master's degree and find a job in the meantime. Thoughts?

P.S. You know I have a book for sale, right? You can get your very own copy at a little bookstore called Amazon.com.

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My thoughts on Twitter and food

One of the most common complaints about Twitter from people who haven't used it much is that it's mostly completely banal things like "best ham sandwich ever" or "Who doesn't love ice cream?" You'll also find the same thing on Facebook with people's status updates. After thinking about it for a bit, I've decided it's because most of us don't have completely thrilling lives. For most of us, the delicious food we eat is the most exciting thing that happens all day. Most people like the food we eat and we generally like to share food that we enjoy. It's one of the ways we bolster our relationships. How many parties do we go to that don't have some kind of food or tasty treats? Not many.

It's also a safe thing to send out to the world. It's a form of self-censorship. Not many people are going to send things out to all the internet things like "I totally drank myself stupid and have a wicked hangover. I need to stop doing that," or "my girlfriend did some crazy things to me in bed last night." Not the kind of thing most people want to share in polite company. Or on the internet either. The internet has a long memory and it can resurface any time, usually at the wrong time. So by posting about culturally safe things like food, people can still have a presence without posting things that may come back and bite them.

The last thing I thought about posting about food is that it's one of the regular things that happens to us all that has relatable emotions attached to it. We may not be in a relationship, not have kids, don't share the same political views, have the same hobbies, but we all have to eat and whether or not you want to admit it, we all have emotions connected with what we eat. That's why there's even a term for "comfort food." If we didn't feel anything about our food, it wouldn't comfort us.

I, for one, am fine with people posting things about their food. It keeps me from having to see uncomfortable posts about "I did something with the thing and it was fun!" or getting way more information about people than I ever wanted to know. As Robert Frost said, "Good fences make good neighbors," and in the case of the internet, I think that information left unshared makes good relationships.

My handwriting sucks

I haven't posted much recently because I'm deep in the middle of National Novel Writing Month. That's coming along alright, I suppose, but that's not what I want to write about now.

This last week, we were watching the old Miracle on 34th Street and I watched Maureen O'Hara add her little note on the little girl's letter to Santa. That's when I had a realization--my handwriting totally sucks. It's not bad, it's just that her penmanship was so much more fluid and beautifully legible than mine.

I think this next year, I want to work on my penmanship. That's what I wanted to share.

In the trenches

Hey there, ladies and gents. It's the middle of National Novel Writing Month and I'm about in the middle of writing my newest novel. I've decided I hate most of the characters' names, but I'm pressing on with the ones I've got. Names can come later. If you're into robot fights and Abraham Lincoln, you may just like this book. I'm not particularly thrilled with it at the moment, but that's probably because I'm in the middle of grinding away on it. I seem to have no problem writing down enough words but I'm not excited about the story itself. Right now, I'm thinking that I'm most excited to just be done with it. I'll catch you up in a bit.

Help me figure this out

I'm getting ready to start NaNoWriMo in a few days and I've got an idea, but I'm having trouble figuring something out. It's a detail, really, but could end up being a good chunk of the novel. Help me answer this question.

Why would a woman get her breasts done that has nothing to do with being in an adult industry? And don't say "Because she wants to." There needs to be an actual reason for it.

Let me know what you think, all 1 of you reading this.

Are you as excited as I am?

In just about two weeks, we'll be in November, which means that National Novel Writing Month is almost here! I'm so excited for it, I've been updating my profile information, polishing up my notes, making sure I have the most up-to-date version of Scrivener, and looking into the month's festivities. I'm so excited to see where this thing goes. I've got a general direction, but I'm not exactly sure how it'll all happen and who all will show up in the story. If you have suggestions (since no one reads this blog anyway), I'd love to hear them.

another week, another update

Here we both are again, rolling our eyes over the same text, but not the same as last time. When I said "same text," I meant you're looking at the same words I'm looking at, but it's different from the last stuff I wrote. Having cleared that up, probably unnecessarily, let's move on.

You know how you have the best ideas in the places where it's not very easy to take notes? Buckaroo Banzai calls them the three Bs: bed, bus and bath. They come to you when you're showering or brushing your teeth, driving or riding on the bus and staring out the window, or while you're lying in bed hoping that you can fall asleep because you have an early morning meeting that you have to be on time for. You know what I'm talking about. They're the best ideas because your mind's relaxed, you don't have to pay attention to what you're doing and your mind is free to make connections between crazy things without fear of being censored. And then you come up with a simple, elegant solution to the problem you've been trying to work out or you've got a great idea that fits perfectly with what you were thinking before.

The only trouble with those revelations is you're in the middle of doing something else and I don't know about you, but I always have to debate whether the idea is worth climbing out of bed for to write down because I know I'll forget it by the time I wake up. Or if I'm in the shower, I have to decide if I mind some water drips on my notebook. Yes, I have some trouble retaining good ideas, probably because they feel all out of place in my head, which probably looks like a frigate in a bottle on the inside. It's not unusual at all for me to be lying in bed and jump out all of a sudden to write something down that I think is absolutely brilliant.

Recently, I've been keeping my iPhone by my bed to take those kinds of notes on. (I have most of my brilliant flashes while I'm in bed.) There are a couple of advantages with that. When I need to write down some notes, it makes its own light. I don't have to turn a light on, like I do with my notebook. The other nifty thing is that the notes automatically make it to the computer I do my writing on, so I have them in one place.

The disadvantages are that I'm less inclined to jump out of the shower to take a note because I don't want to hurt my nifty phone, where with a notebook, I just wipe my hands off and write. A couple of drips on the page don't bother me. The other thing I can think of is that if I have it in the bedroom, it makes noises at me as it gets emails and other things, which is annoying when I'm trying to sleep.

The important thing here, though, is to take the notes. You'll be glad you did.

My feelings about Dan Brown

In case you haven't been paying any attention at all to the world of books, Dan Brown's latest book just came out. With that, I thought I'd share how I feel about his writing style, not him as a person. I don't know the guy, but I'm sure he's an interesting guy to talk to. Now, I know that this could be a potentially divisive post, but I'm hoping to keep it fairly level-headed. I'm pretty good at being objective, but if you think I missed something or that I'm way off base, I'm all for considering your point, as long as you back it up with examples. You can't just leave it with, "You don't know anything about anything, poophead." Now that we've got some ground rules for discourse, here we go.

The first thing I want to say is that the man's books are definitely page-turners. They're the kind of books you pick up and read a chapter and get to the end of that chapter and think, "I just can't stop with that," and thumb through the pages to find out how long the next chapter is. "Oh, that's not too long," you inevitably think to yourself and commit to reading for just a few more minutes so you can finish the next chapter. This process continues until you get to the end, realize that you've just missed that meeting you were supposed to go to, didn't make dinner, didn't take the trash out, and missed your usual bedtime by about two hours. Then you kick yourself for getting so sucked in as you think about how many parts of the story could actually be true.

Having said that, he seems to put comic book characters into his books. They tend to be fairly flat, with their defining characteristics aligned the same general direction. Robert Langdon is just a regular guy who's freaky good at puzzles and codes. Langdon also seems like Superman in that it seems like his hair never really gets messed up, he makes his way through the story relatively unscathed. Sure, maybe he gets beat up every now and then, has to run and hide a couple of times, but he's not like John McClane in Die Hard, bleeding all over the place in his cut-up bare feet, doesn't seem to have a dark side that he indulges when he's on the run and "accidents" could happen. I understand that because he's so smart, he gets to stay just a little bit ahead of the physical danger. But that never seems to help Batman. Batman's the World's Greatest Detective, but he has to get his point across to criminals with his bonecrushing fists.

The last point I want to bring up is how many deep, sinister global conspiracies can there be in the world at a time? Holy crap! And a single guy (Robert Langdon) has dug into all of them? Really? I mean, this is more than Mulder and Scully figured out. They only had to deal with the one about aliens. All the other weird stuff they had to figure out were just unexplained, odd cases. And that was their freaking job! They weren't puppeteers by day, mystery solvers when Uncle Sam called the hotline. They were already FBI agents, so it was their job to dig into conspiracies.

All in all, I think the stories are interesting, the characters aren't. And Mr. Brown sells a lot of stories.

getting closer

I've got an idea for something else to include in the next novel, a secondary plot. It involves some heartache, some disappointment, and possibly some ninjas. But not just any ninjas. We'll have to see how that all works out in November.

I know that it's no fun to get teased with no end in sight, no release at all, so I'll totally hook you up. It's just that right now, I don't have anything either. I don't know where it's all going to go or even all the elements I'm going to drag in. I'm almost as in the dark about this as you are. In a couple of months, though, I'll have an idea what I'm doing and I'll get it put together for you as quickly as I can. Since you're all just clamoring for my books anyway. This is a theoretical audience I'm writing to here. Kind of like Twitter feels like I'm posting thoughts to a theoretical group of people who probably don't care much what I have to say, which isn't much at only 140 characters a pop. Pfft.

Flash of Genius!

I was working (no, really) when I had this genius idea I want to include in my next novel. You know, the one I'm going to write in a couple of months. I'm so excited about the idea that I want to share it with you, so you can be excited about it as well. Ready?

A death-dealing, cybernetically enhanced clone of Abraham Lincoln.

Would you want to take that on? I didn't think so. I wonder where he's going to show up in my upcoming book. Have another brilliant idea you wouldn't mind me stealing and working in somewhere? Share in the comments and I'll include you in a Special Thanks section.

Coming soonish

I've started making notes for my next novel. Just as a teaser, ask yourself this question: How much more fun would it be to read about the Brownings' (Robert and Elizabeth Barrett) love for each other if they were space pirates instead of Victorian poets? Well, this next book will not answer that question at all, but it will definitely be fun. I'll be writing it in November as I take part in NaNoWriMo, so you won't see it probably until next year, but if you're jonesing for something entertaining and not at all heavy to read, you might like to read my effort from last year. You can find it on Amazon or at my own personal e-store at CreateSpace.

My new writing pal

For my birthday, I got a nifty program to help me organize all my notes and other things that I'm really excited to really get into using. It's called Scrivener and I've gone through the tutorial a couple of times. Now all I have to do is collect the notes in it that I've been writing down in a notebook. I'll let you know how that goes. Probably.

Tolstoy's problem

I've been reading War and Peace and I'm doing fairly well, considering it's in another language. But so far, I think I've recognized something that Tolstoy does that I'm not a fan of, but I tend to do myself. He tends to give too much detail about minutiae than I want to bother reading. As I mentioned before, I feel like I tend to do that as well, meaning that's something I'll have to watch out for. If I don't like reading what I write, who else is going to want to read it?

Fixing my problem

I think I've pinpointed a solution to the problem I feel like I have in writing a novel. I may have talked about it before, but this is my blog, so I'm going to talk about it again. As I look through things I've written before, I realized that I usually have a fun idea or an interesting scene I want to fill out a little more, but as I get into it, I realize that I don't have a point. It doesn't usually go anywhere, so I get bored or burned out. And then the work gets filed away in some electronic repository for months. Maybe even years. Every now and then, I'll pull it out and think about where that story could go, and then I get annoyed that I didn't leave myself a clear destination, and I put it away again.

I've thought about outlining a story, but I so rarely outline anything on paper that I fight against that idea. I don't want to stifle my spontaneity, feeling like I've doomed myself to follow a map I've already laid out. On the other hand, Kurt Vonnegut mapped out Slaughterhouse Five so many times and for so long that when he actually sat down to put the words on paper, he just had to fill out the story that he'd already streamlined in his head.

I'm already working on just writing things and leaving them less-than-polished while I press on to write more things, and that's a challenge for me. I tend to edit and polish things while I write, so this is a difficult move for me.

But I think that the solution to my problem is to come up with the climax and the falling action first. Rather than writing the story in order, I need to start with that section and then build out the story from that point. Kind of like a Toni Morrison novel. She always starts with a peek at the climax and then backs up and shows how the characters got there. I think I should probably start taking that kind of approach, but possibly not giving the climax as the opening of the story.

I'm sure that the two of you who read this blog don't care, but this is about me exploring my own process. And who knows? Maybe this'll be highly informative for future generations when I've published something.

Out of books

I've reached the interesting and intermittent problem that many readers have in that I'm all out of books to read. I suppose I could re-read something, like I just did with Buckaroo Banzai, but I feel like tackling something new. If you've got a suggestion for a book I should read, please tell me in the comments. I'm not saying I'll read all of them, but I'm all for gathering suggestions from both of you who read this blog. In the meantime, I'll just spend my bus rides watching old episodes of Mission: Impossible I've put onto one of my digital devices.