‘It was a dark and stormy night …’
Although I’m not going to blog my novel, I will be providing updates throughout the month on my attempt at writing 50,000 words by Nov. 30.
Dave has made some excellent progress, as has Pratt, who is keeping up the Blog of Pratt as well as the Novel of Pratt. If anyone else out there is going through this crazy form of masochism, let me know and I will give you a shout-out because it’s important to remember that we are in this together!!!
As for me, I’ve written a bunch of words. That’s the idea — to write in a stream of consciousness. We need to crank out at least 50,000 words, and we worry about editing later. And this obliterates a number of excuses for me — I always start writing a poem or a story, only to hit a wall (often with my head!) because I don’t know what to write next and therefore stop writing. But now, I’m going to just jump on the muse’s magic carpet and ride out the dark and stormy night without regard for the bumps.
Now, as an editor (among other things now!), I am re-reading and changing things as I see fit. But it’s not a hard edit. It’s more like a “But that made sense when I had a cocktail in my hand at 1 a.m. last night!” realization. Then again, you’ve got to surrender to the fantasy world to get the creativity out, and if a bloody mary loosens the typing fingers, well, it’s a business expense for when the novel gets published. 😉
I am writing what I hope will be the first book in a six-part series. My main character is Stephanie; she is 16 years old in the early 1990s in Pittsburgh. Although, I have to admit, it’s hard to refrain from making pop culture references, so I may just set it in the here and now. I’d wanted her to age right along with me (i.e., she’d also be 30 when I get to the part of the story that happens in 2004).
Her life is, of course, out there, to say the least. I’ve managed to make the first ridiculous situation perfectly justifiable, but I’m about to start venturing into ground that I don’t know much about. And I will probably just write what is in my head and eventualy go back and fill in the holes that I will inevitably leave. But the bottom line is that Stephanie is a “real” girl (and looks like one — this is a character with whom a lot of women may identify) with an extraordinary set of obstacles.
Oh, screw it. Here is an excerpt that I posted. Read it and weep. 😉
That’s about all I want to say right now. I’ve been making notes on this character since I was 14, and I have a box in my closet full of notebooks on this series — the box is labeled “bondage materials” because I figured nobody would open it and mess around with what was inside when they saw THAT written on it! LOL.
Anyway, I hope to post more updates! To all my fellow NaNoWriMo-ers out there, we all rock and we will finish the task and we will get book deals — each and every one of us!!!
On iTunes: Jewel, “This Way”