Day 16

Made my quota, 2,240 words, but tough tough day today. Mostly working on a single scene, a key one for this part of the book, that introduces two of the three key characters, has all three interacting for the first time, and with my having to achieve the right balance between romance, humour, and sudden, explosive violence. The scene is premised on a ticking timebomb type deadline, that only two of the characters know about, and a complete misunderstanding of what is going on by the third character, for whom the whole thing is alternately terrifying and infuriating.

My problem as the author is that when I get the pacing right for the humour, the violence falls apart. When I work out the logic of the violence, the romance becomes kind of icky. If I beef up the romance, it becomes too explicit and flops. If I tone it down, it vanishes altogether, because, did I mention the implicit violence? It's one of those situations that has its own internal logic, but keeping track of what each character is reacting to second by second, and getting that down on paper correctly, without making the scene so long and overdrawn as to collapse under its own weight...well, this writing business is HARD. But then one of the points of doing this NaNoWriMo exercises is to place myself in this situation -- I write a lot of reviews taking potshots at various authors for their sloppy writing, so it is important to walk a mile in their shoes once in a while to be a little more sympathetic for just how hard this all is.

Day 15

Good productivity today, 2406 words. I also spent (wasted?) a lot of the morning revising what I wrote yesterday. This appears to be a necessary step for me to get back into the story, but the end result is that I am fairly satisfied with what I have so far.

I have taken Line Noise's advice, which was that whenever one runs into a block on one storyline, switch to another. I am now working on an SF novel I started outlining, according to my records, in 1975. But the last outline was 2000, with a scene written in 2002. I am not counting any of the existing scenes (not that there was much more than a couple of short fragments) for my NaNoWriMo word count. of course, but the existence of an outline seems to be helping my forward motion considerably. I probably should have started this novel at the outset to see if I could finish it, but I didn't learn of NaNoWriMo until too late to get organized, so had to start with the short story then at hand. So I have two and a half linked stories completed, with two or three ideas for follow ups if those turn out to be successful. And if I continue on with this novel, I should have a considerable chunk of it done by the end. That would be way cool. Perhaps the momentum will continue into the new year.

Current SF novel is straight-forward adventure novel, so relatively straight-forward to write. No redeeming literary values to worry about at this point, no complicated artistic structures, no unsellable pretensions. just action adventure. Well, given the strictures of NaNoWriMo, that's still aiming high.

Day 14

Back on track today. Running total hit 16,257 or 32.5% (1/3) of the way to the target. With 46% of the time gone. So still behind, but catching up. I have to make 2108 words a day on average from now.

Day 12

No progress on Saturday or Sunday; today was also a holiday, but I was able to sneak in a few minutes, 631 words. That brings my total up to 13,431, so now quite behind.

Day 10

No progress at all yesterday; family responsibilities on weekend pretty much preclude any chance of writing. What free time Mary and I were able to generate went to Mary's working on a tight publishers deadline -- a paying contract with a tight deadline has to take precedent over spec writing every time.

Plus, I only have the next half scene worked out in my head -- not sure where the story goes after that. The trouble with writing mystery is that after working out the characters, setting, set up, on-going conflicts and snarky dialog, I still don't have an actual crime for my heroine to solve yet.

Got an email from Sue Grafton this morning. Okay, probably all the NaNoWriMo writers who listed their genre as 'mystery' got the same email, but even so, Way COOL!

But somebody explain to me how I, a guy who has been reading and writing nothing but SF for over 40 years, suddenly finds himself writing a mystery? And with a retired housecleaner as my heroine?

Even stranger, this stuff is flowing out pretty well -- no real writer's block, no real obsession with revision, just steady progress getting stuff down. I always nag my students to "write what you know" and so far, that advice is working well for me. The completed stories are based on a guy I knew, an anecdote Karl told me, aan incident I observed at an SF con, and two guys/incidents that have annoyed me lately. Great catharsis, if not great literature. I guess the setting and the heroine are based on the fact that Mary and I have spent a lot of time lately in assisted living facilities -- but still, odd that its coming out this way rather than something more like my usual SF reading/daydreaming.

Spanish Lessons

Last night Kasia was -- as very night -- resisting bedtime, and blurted, "I hate you!"

I adopted a hurt expression and told her that 'hate' was a strong word, that it hurt my feelings, and it wasn't appropriate to say she hated me just because I was the bearer of the bad news that it was bed time. And proceded to put her to bed regardless.

After the usual stalls ("I need a glass of water"; "I need my other pillow"; "I need my other blanket"; "I need more water"; Can I have a kleenex?"; "I need to go to the bathroom"; "I don't want a blanket, I'm too hot"; "Where did you put my blanket, I'm cold"; "Can I have more water?"; "Where is my good pillow, I don't want this pillow any more;" "I am sleeping Dad, *snore* *snore*) I kissed her a final goodnight and told her I loved her.

There as a long pause and then, "I love you too, Dad."

"Oh great, because you said earlier that you hated me."

Kasia sits up in bed. "Dad! I think you completely misunderstood me. When I said I hated you, I was speaking Spanish! 'Hate' is Spanish for 'Love'. So when I said I hated you, I was speaking Spanish! I love you Dad!"

What could I say to that? Another kiss, "Okay!" and "Goodnight".

And out of the room as fast as possible before bursting into laughter....
-----
That was a new one on me, but the last month or so I've been getting, "When I said I hated you, I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to Doego! Doego was bugging me. Did you think I was talking to you?" Doego being her imaginary friend. So disclaimers, but no actual apologies or taking responsibility for her temper.

Kasia, coming up on her fourth Birthday, does not approve of anyone saying the word 'no' to her. I have never come across anyone so single-minded. We could always distract Tigana and get her to choose a different option, but if Kasia has decided to, say, stick her fingers into a toaster, you have to practically sit on her to stop her from doing it. Then her feelings are hurt (which we always studiously ignore so as not to reinforce) and only eventually will she come back and say, "I'm happy now", for which she is duly acknowledged and we can move on. But we have to put the toaster out of reach, or she'll simply wait until we are not around.

But it is getting slowly better -- I take Kasia's making excuses as at least an implicit acknowledgement that she gets when her behaviour was unacceptable, and we do get the occasional spontaneous apology from time to time if she thinks she hurt our feelings. I figure she will make the final transition to taking responsibility and being polite about the time Tigana moves into her final 'bitch teenager' stage (we're already well into the pre-teen 'attitude' stage), to maintain the household karmatic balance.

Day 9

Made 1921 words on story #3 today, plus some minor edits on the end of #2. Total so far is 12,801.

I am unlikely to be able to get anything done on the long weekend. And tuesday is my daughter Kasia's Birthday, so probably nothing much again until Wednesday. But still hopeful can make the quota in the end.

Hanging with the Simpsons

Day 8

In spite of many other distractions and obligations today, managed to finish second story. The morning was very slow, less than 500 words, as I had to go back and insert a key missing scene to make the story work. But that meant breaking up an existing flow, which I always find hard. And the scene was a hard one to convey.

The evening session, while shorter in length, was very productive and I finished the story with a nice twist and a good last line (I hope.) I am well pleased with the story, though only a first draft.

I am now at 10,880 words. 22% to target, but 26% of my time gone. And I am likely to have no opportunity to write on the long weekend, so I'm worried I am falling behind.

Day 7

Reached 9,245 words today = 18.5% of target; but I've used up 23% of my time. Given that the long weekend is coming up when I am unlikely to have many opportunities to write, I have to consider myself behind. Still, over 9,000 words is good.

I am 3/4 of the way through my second short story, which is linked to the first one -- same characters, different mystery. I'm surprised to find myself writing mystery, since that is not my genre.But thanks to a suggestion from my wife, I already have an idea for a third story in the set, so will probably stick to that through to the end of November.

I'm generally pleased with what I am writing, allowing always that I am leaving editing and revision until December and on. I have already detected a tendency to run on sentences and too many asides, but I'll deal with these later. I remain nervous about investing in story sequels when I do not yet know if the original short story is any good, but I guess ultimately that is no different than wondering whether the novel one is writing is any good...50,000 words is 50,000 words, and in the long run, if I can sell even half the short stories from the series, that would be more productive than finding the all or nothing novel was a no sale.

Day 5

So, I finished the short story I was writing tonight, at just under 5000 words. So I guess I actually have to start writing a novel. Unless I continue to develop the adventures of the protangonist of my short story. My wife just gave me a great idea for another in the series, if that is what it turns out to be. But they are both mysteries, which is not normally my genre. Decisions decisions....

The NaNoWriMo rules suggest not using previous partial novels, but rather starting fresh. I'm torn, because although I probably only have a few fragments and an outline for each of the six or seven novels that I have been writing in my head the last 40 years, I have been writing these in my head for the last 40 years. Part of me thinks that it is obvious that thisis the opportunity to finally get one of these down on paper, But another part of me accepts NaNoWriMo logic that if you use previous materials, you care too much about the characters to do the blind stream of consciousness writing required here.

But it would be great to see one of my long term projects finally down on paper rather than just in my head. But which one to go with?

Kasia art

These two pieces represent significant landmarks in Kasia's art development, and I thought I would share them because they are such textbook examples of developmental stages.

The first shows the first actual figure that Kasia drew -- everything up to that having consisted primarily of random lines, dots and squiggles, though she would readily identify such scribbling as pictures of family or trees or planes or etc. I was astonished that she went from scribbling on a page to this clear figure in one go. But note that the arms and legs emerge out of a single figure -- its all head. This is absolutely typical of this initial stage of figure drawing.

In the second drawing (annotated by her Mom) we see another figure, but in this case there is an attempt to identify a separate head, body and foot.

Day 3

Not much luck at finding time to write, it being a weekend and the kids underfoot. So, grabbed a few minutes whenever I could to look through some of my existing novel / short story outlines, to see if there was anything worth recycling. Had I thought of doing the National novel writing month thing before, I would have sorted through all that ahead of time and been ready to go with something, but it was only mentioned to me the last couple of days of October, and it was only Nov.1 I decided to go for it. So I just started writing the short story that was currently in my head. That should be good for at least one more session, but then I will have to start working on an actual novel or at least some other stories.

Looking through the files, I was distressed to find my most developed novel so far is missing. I'll have to see if I can track down a hard copy out in the garage somewhere. But there are still five or six others that I have in more or less complete outline form, so will have to choose which to go with for the rest of the month. I was a bit shocked to see that some of these outlines are dated from the 1970s or earlier. I know that one of my novels I actually started back in junior high and have been thinking about off and on for the last 40 years. Not sure that is the one I would go with, even if I could find the scribblers full of grade 9 notes (that was pre computers afterall, so no chance of that being in the computer files) but I do have a certain fondness for it, and it is odd how my hero in that book all those years ago was the age that I am now....

Spent half hour this evening rereading and revising short story so far...probably bad idea in terms of hitting 50,000 word quota by end of the month, but will help get momentum up for writing the next two scenes which are less developed in my head than what I've already got down. I went to see if my revisions had actually reduced my word count, but the NaNoWriMo is down just now.

Day 2

Only 955 words today, but still averaging the required 1500/day. I'm relatively pleased with story so far; although rough and in need of editing, it is generally holding together.

One day poster