Here there be dragons

One of my resolutions for 2008 is to re-write the “novel” I wrote for NaNoWriMo. It has a great basic idea and I adore my characters and the world they live in. Still, the story lacks a certain something, a something that happens to be a requirement for a publishable novel: an ending.

Of course the manuscript ends - right around the 51K words that earned me the NaNo bragging rights. But I estimate that’s only half-way through the actual story. The main reason I stopped writing it after NaNo is because though I have a general idea of where I want my heroine to end up, I no longer know how she gets there.

I wish I were one of those people who could hop in the car and just go - thatta way! like Captain Kirk. But I’m not. Most of the time, I need to have at least some notion of where I’m headed and what the terrain may be like along the way. I need a map.

I adore maps. Old maps, new maps, computer generated, hand-drawn. The backseat of my car is strewn with all types. A well-made map is a thing of both beauty and utility.

Maps make me feel safe and, perhaps somewhat paradoxically, free.

I can go anywhere I want, by myself if I choose, if I have a map for it. There and back again, I am self-reliant, depending only on my own ability to know north from south.

One of my best memories is of a road trip a friend and I made to Alaska several years ago. Just me, Diana, all her worldly possessions and a cranky Siamese cat stuffed into a Suzuki Sidekick, racing the snow up the ALCAN from Seattle to Anchorage.

A two-thousand mile drive is a bit intimidating in itself, but doubly so when its the Alaskan-Canadian Highway. It cuts through the vast Yukon territory, and has long stretches of absolutely nothing resembling civilization. If you are lost in the Yukon, baby, you are fucking lost.

But we had a good car, an extra can of gas, water and a sweet map. As Diana likes to say, it was all good.¹

Plot outlines are maps for writers. At least, writers like me. Some writers can jump in the car and go, eschewing any kind of premeditated plan. They think maps stifle creativity, keep them from seeing the funky detours that might lead to amazing adventures. But that’s confusing planning with control.

Maps are not about control. On the contrary, they are about options. And that’s what makes them so great. The ability to plan a journey is often what gives us the courage to take it. Then we aren’t afraid of the detours because we know that if we don’t like them, our map can lead us back.

In preparation for NaNoWriMo, I read a few books on using plot outlines and then sketched one out for my story. Anxiety quelled and courage bolstered, I set off down the road.

My story started out as a light-hearted, almost farcical occult fantasy, with ironic characters and sarcastic one-liners. Somewhere along the way, though, my muse got a wild hair and took a hugely unexpected detour.

While she started out cruising down the sunny highway of the mind, she now finds herself navigating the dark alleys of the soul.

Thus the journey has halted for the time being, as my muse camps out at the side of the road to revisit the map. The good news is, its main road and final destination are fairly solid.

That and a can of gas in the trunk gives her the confidence to keep going.

Technorati Tags: writing, fiction, fantasy

1. Of course, anyone who’s every used MapQuest knows that all maps are not created equal. A bad map can turn a fun road trip into the Yukon into a foot-eating survival ordeal. Do your homework and find a map you trust. [↩]

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

And I have come to the conclusion that that’s too long to not live the way I want to live.

I wouldn’t say I’ve had an epiphany, as there’s been no single moment of revelation. More like a few recent, seemingly-disparate events culminating in a subtle but life-altering shake-down.

In August I turned 39. Which means next August, I will turn 40. Yeah, forty might be the new thirty and all that stuff, but do the math - it still means that one’s life is roughly half over. Which means goodbye to the comforting delusion that one has all the time in the world.¹

I am not afraid of “aging.” What scares me is aging desperately. I’m not there yet, but it would only be a short trip.

If you read my NaNoWriMo rant in November, you know I’ve had a troubled relationship with my writing - oh hell - with my creativity in general. My studies in Armchair Psychology lead me to conclude I’ve been unconsciously waiting for Someone’s approval.  NaNoWriMo gave me “permission” to write crap and enjoy it. The experience was bittersweet: submerging myself in imagination and creation was wonderful, but getting out of the pool left me cold and goosepimply.

Once life had the Writer in me by the short hairs, it grabbed for the Artist. I got a new job - one that not only pays me to write, but also to play around with Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I am equal parts thrilled and chagrined. I’ve wanted to learn both programs for a long time but couldn’t justify buying the expensive software “just for me.” ²

Another dip in the water - it’s bracing this time of year.

Of course, just as my metaphorical heart begins to beat again, my flesh and blood one starts giving me trouble.

There’s a chance my congenital valve problem may be coming back to haunt me. Until I see a cardiologist on January 8th, I won’t know if it’s truly serious. But I can say right now that whatever havoc is being wreaked in my chest has brought a new appreciation for my health.

I’m not just talking about the 5ks and barbells. I mean the general physical well-being I’ve had for the majority of my relatively pain-free, fatigue-free life. Some days, pain and fatigue make aiming for the wastebasket seem impossible, let alone the stars.

Well, nothing lights a fire under an uppity Rib like the impossible.

Today is the first day of the first year of the rest of my forty or fifty-odd years.

I can spend them working for The Man and passively consuming other people’s creativity, then retire with my gold watch and second-hand memories.

Or I can get back in the pool.

Now for the important question: Bikini, one piece, or birthday suit?

I’ll try them all. I have time.

1. I heard a similar clock-ticking when I turned 35 and realized if I wanted kids, I needed to get on the stick, so to speak. But that crisis was resolved in one trip to the mall. [↩]
2. I don’t even want to talk about how lame that looks in print. [↩]

Today I am thankful for Saintly Supporters.

Or: The Novel That Almost Wasn’t

As of 1 pm, Friday, November 30, 2007, I have written 50,092 words and am an official NaNoWriMo winnah. It is a brilliant novel cleverly disguised as a terrible novel, as only a novel written at breakneck speed can be.

In due time, when it’s published in its true, award-winning form, the following will be the author’s Acknowledgments:

I would like to thank Kevin, my primary Saintly Supporter,¹ without whom this book would quite literally never have been written.

On the eve of the long Thanksgiving weekend, at precisely 18,202 words, I quit. Gave up. Said goodbye to NaNo and its ridiculous expectations.

This did not sit well with my primary Saintly Supporter. He takes his job extremely seriously and apparently, I was making him look really bad.

An argument ensued. It went on for probably an hour, but in the end, only two things were said. I insisted that doing NaNoWriMo was, for various reasons, “too hard.” Kevin said, “It’s the hard that makes it great.”

Turning point. (Cue moving music.)

For those of you who haven’t seen A League Of Their Own, go rent it. Tom Hanks plays Jimmy Dugan, a former major league baseball coach-turned-alcoholic loser women’s baseball coach. When his players whine, he comes out of his stupor long enough to give them a necessary what-for. His “It’s the hard that makes it great” is the best line in the movie.²

That afternoon, Kevin was doing his best Coach Dugan, minus the chew lip-bulge and Jack Daniels smell.

There may be other parallels than just dialogue. Coach Dugan may want his players to win so they will become famous and support him in the way to which he wishes to become accustomed. He may want them to win so he’ll look good. He may want them to quit whining so he can enjoy his Thanksgiving weekend.

But the truth is, Dugan doesn’t want them to win so much as to do the best they can with what they got. To do what they said they would do, even when the going got tough - to step up to the plate, as it were. Because that’s what winning really is. That’s the hard that makes it great.

My book is dedicated to Kevin, the Saintliest of Supporters and most beloved of sweeties.

I would also like to thank the following players on Team Saintly Supporters:

Michael, MVP, for writing tips and pom poms and unflagging faith in me.

Ribsis, for pre-orders and not giving me any shit for not coming down for Thanksgiving dinner.

Jo, for sage advice and Dad, for the writing genes (even if you are a hard act to follow).

Lachlan, Bayou, and Amaya, for steadfast encouragement, true friendship, and link love.

The bodacious babes of Beautiful_Us, for the healing power of listening and virtual hugs.

Mushell, Kellie, James, Jennifer, and all the righteous Rib Readers, for giving me the best reason in the world to write.

And Kevin, again, for talking-tos, space heaters, turkey sandwiches, inspiration,³ coffee delivery, back rubs, and the freedom to rediscover my love of the game. I love you.

Technorati Tags: writing, National Novel Writing Month

1. Term coined by Chris Baty, NaNoWriMo creator, for those family and friends who support the mad writer as she huddles over her computer, writing like a bat out of hell, shirking all responsibilities, throughout the month of November. [↩]
2. Except for maybe “There’s no crying in baseball” which I also heard a few times this month. [↩]
3. Woodchipper. You’ll see. [↩]

Today I am thankful for electric heaters.

It wouldn’t be a holiday unless something got fucked up.

Last year, it was Christmas a la Laura Ingalls Wilder, toasting muffins over the gas stove and hoping fifty thousand candles don’t burn the house down before the power comes back.

This year, it’s Thanksgiving in the Arctic. Our furnace mysteriously stopped working on Wednesday, the day before the long holiday weekend. Which means nobody can come look at it until Monday.

It was 37 degrees last night.

Kevin went down into the crawl space to peer at the thing and has done what he can, though to no avail; further troubleshooting would involve the possibility of electrocution so I put my foot down. He went to the store and bought a couple of electric heaters which have actually warmed up our living room and bedroom pretty well.

I, however, am in the office all day which feels like a meat locker. I wear fifty layers of clothes, drink my weight in hot tea, and write my NaNo story until my fingers freeze and can’t type anymore. I’m woefully behind but charging forth at top speed. My goal is to be within 5,000 words of 40,000 by Sunday night.

Wish me luck.  And I hope you all had a safe, warm and happy Thanksgiving!

Technorati Tags: NaNoWriMo, domestic bliss

Today I am thankful for Neil Gaiman.

I wrote 3,000 words today. Which means I now have 13,026 words down, and 36,974 to go. Urk.

I find the micro approach superior to the macro: I need to write 711 words an hour, assuming I write 4 hours per day every day until November 30. I can wrap my brain around 711 words an hour.

One of the cool perks of NaNoWriMo is the occasional pep-talk from well-known writers. Today the latest one arrived in my email, an excerpt from which I will share with you today because clearly the author siphoned the first paragraph right out of my brain:

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

By now you’re probably ready to give up. You’re past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You’re not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end, when words and images tumble out of your head sometimes faster than you can get them down on paper. You’re in the middle, a little past the half-way point. The glamour has faded, the magic has gone, your back hurts from all the typing, your family, friends and random email acquaintances have gone from being encouraging or at least accepting to now complaining that they never see you any more—and that even when they do you’re preoccupied and no fun. You don’t know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you’re pretty sure that even if you finish it it won’t have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you began—a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you ever read—it falls so painfully short that you’re pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.

Welcome to the club.

That’s how novels get written.

He goes on to share with us the story of how in despair over the pointlessness of his last novel-in-progress, he called his agent to tell her he was scrapping it. Just like you said you’d do with the other ten he’d written and published? asked his agent. So he hung up and kept writing.

One word after another.

That’s the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes in to Chapter Nine, it’s the only way to do it.

So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.

Take it from Neil Gaiman, one who knows.

Technorati Tags: writing, National Novel Writing Month, Neil Gaiman

Happy All NaNo’s Eve

Kevin and I have handed out candy every Halloween since we bought our house. The first year was a kind of milestone: our first trick-or-treaters in our first house together. Awwwww.

Of course, this new warm-fuzzy didn’t come without a price - specifically, the big fight we got into earlier that day in grocery store.

It went something like this: I felt one can never have enough bags of Halloween candy, and Kevin disagreed, suggesting that I was an impulse-buying spendthrift. I countered loudly that he was a party-pooping tightwad. Soon the bags were flying in and out of the shopping cart with increasing violence and nearby children were crying into the backs of their mothers’ knees.

The fight ended with me grabbing the cart and ordering Kevin to “just go away and let me buy the fucking candy.” He stomped off, disappearing into the dairy section to mollify himself with free cheese samples.

We reconvened later at the register, Kevin glaring in stony silence as the cashier rang up approximately 300 bags of mini-Snickers. He stayed mad at me for the whole rest of the day, until the first trick-or-treater showed up at the door, which is when warm-fuzzy kicked in and all was forgiven.¹

We’ve managed to make it through subsequent Halloweens without arguing, mainly because I say “Yes, dear” on the shopping trips and then supplement the candy stash on my own time.

This year it may be a moot point, however. Tonight Kevin will be helping a friend move into a new place, and I will be hard at work worrying about the story I’ll begin writing in just twenty-four hours for NaNoWriMo.

My brain is crowded with vague characters elbowing each other and staking out territory and badgering me for a plot. How can I court the muse with the constant interruption of needy, masked midgets at my door?

Then again, if I hide in the dark all night, I’ll be stuck with 300 bags of candy. And with my luck, all my characters will be doing Sugar Busters.

Technorati Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing, Halloween

1. And for the record, even with all the extra bags of candy I bought, we still ran out too early. Let that be a lesson to all party-pooping tightwads. [↩]