write a novel for young people

I see my last entry on 43 Things was 6 years ago. A lot has happened since then. But I have about 4000 words on this book done!

Yesterday I only wrote 164 words for NNWM (and at least 1/4 of them have to go). Then this morning, as I put blue stuff in the toilet because it needed it, I was reminded of what Andrea Dworkin said: “Men writers write but women writers write AND clean the toilets.”

And of course, now I have to walk the dog. :)

This morning we went to breakfast. We’ve been married 23 years but we like to go out and talk (and talk) and breakfast is the cheapest meal to do that on. And we have a car for the weekend so it was a good excuse. And we forgot about the time change back to standard time last night so we were up really early for a Sunday.

Anyway, Peter asked me what ideas I had for the NaNoWriMo which starts on Tuesday and I told him what I commented to “JakeB”, that I hoped my subconscious had been working on it in the lead-up. Well, I talked for the next 20 minutes about what I was going to write about and it seems my subconscious has been very busy! So I am now not worried about what things I might write about, in the story of my 14 or 15 year old main character in this novel. There will be two story lines and they will link in the sense that my girl grows from her experiences with each. One will involve the neighbour and her cat (I think) and the other will involve her history teacher at high school (I think).

I’m now signed up at NaNoWriMo. The form for my profile asked me for the name (or title, I can’t remember) of my novel and I had NO IDEA. Now I have this to think about too.

I found out about NaNoWriMo from people here on 43Things and as soon as they fix their overburdened site, I’m signing up for the Nov. 1 marathon. I decided to change the wording of this goal a little to kind of tone it down and make it seem a bit more approachable to me. In the meantime, thanks to HobokenMartha, I have decided to put out feelers for an agent, rather than a publisher. Interestingly, last night a Rob Reiner movie was on tv (Alex and Emma) in which a writer has 30 days to write a novel otherwise he’ll be killed by loan sharks. I thought it was okay but the folks at Allmovie.com (whose reviews are fabulous BTW) really disliked it. Well, I was just looking for mild entertainment.

The book I want to write will have as its main character (the heroine if you will) a teenage girl about 15 years old. Unlike Nancy Drew, my girl won’t be old enough to drive so that restricts her a little and I think it will add to the possibilities for story. Also unlike ND, my writing hopefully won’t be formulaic. I have been rereading the ND books that were published in 1930 and the writing isn‘t as bad as the modern ND books (they are terrible) and it has the benefit of being quaint, with descriptions of ND’s car as a low slung roadster, her dresses as frocks and shoes as pumps. In a storm (which seemed to happen a lot), she would have to stop to put the chains on her tyres. And in one mystery, her father gives her his revolver to carry for her own safety.

I am starting to picture my heroine now and will be fleshing out a plot line soon, in preparation for NaNoWriMo which starts November 1. I like the idea of the externally imposed discipline of writing like a mad thing for a month but I want to have the outline before I start. It will be set now and not in the past or future and it will be aimed at the “young person” market but I am hoping it will be good enough that it will appeal to a broader range of readers – sort of like how Harry Potter does.