get ready for NaNoWriMo 2007

I actually managed to finish my outline and scene by scene last night. Very proud of myself. But I also found that I was about 14 scenes short.

Tonight, I will try to go over my outline to see what scenes need to be added and where.

And then this goal will be done, whether I feel ready or not,, Nano is coming.

I’ve been trying to work on my outlines and characters and all that, but everytime I turn around, the boy is whimpering in his sleep… or maybe he’s getting ready to wake up again. And the apartment is still such a wreck. And I’ve had muffins for dinner, although they are zucchini muffins that I made this afternoon. The recycling needs to be done. And my back is killing me. They don’t tell you that in all that prenatal stuff. They don’t say how having kids wrecks your back and the rest of your body, actually. Sure, they always talk about losing your figure, but I’m not talking vanity, here, I’m talking function. MY BACK IS KILLING ME.

And the tv is going, oh yes, it’s going. I can’t tear myself away. I guess I just want to have a little relaxation time. Especially with my scattered brain. Of course, I wouldn’t be so scattered if the tv were not playing. I mean, really, do I NEED to watch Beauty and the Geek? It’s not even a new episode, it’s all “behind the scenes” crap. Come on, Ro. And yet, I don’t want to turn it of and focus down. It’s such hard work. And I’m so tired.

Rant over, I guess.

I have one day left to get this stuff done, and that day is Halloween. I’m not going to get the apartment spotless. I’m not going to have a month’s worth of meals prepared and frozen. I’m not going to have the apartment packed for the move that will probably come in a couple of weeks. I don’t have a comprehensive list of characters or a map of the land. I don’t have my plot down pat, but I suppose things could be worse. So I don’t know every scene, that doesn’t mean I can’t still write. I do have a good idea of what happens. There are so many things I could have done to get ready for Nano, but wasn’t able to get to. That’s okay. It’s because I’m living a very demanding life, and that life doesn’t get to stop just because I want to do Nanowrimo. Whatever I manage to achieve during Nano is fine.

In the best case scenario, I actually develop my writing habits and don’t fall off when Nano is done, and take my writing career seriously. That would be an even better scenario than what happened last year, where I wrote 101 thousand words or so in November, and finished a 140 thousand novel by the middle of December, but after that I crashed and burned and didn’t even look at the dern thing until the summer. (Fine I also had a baby, but we’re talking writing habit, here.) So if I just go slow and steady and hit 50k words, it’ll be good. That’s still a heck of a lot of words. I don’t need to race for a higher word count, really I don’t.

Okay. This helps me. I don’t have to do it like last year, although I like knowing that I wrote more than anyone else in New York except for Jaybiz. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I don’t have a deadline built into my writing. I mean, well, there’s Nano, but I get to keep writing once November is over.

Part of me wants to be freaking out: It’s the 30th, I’ve lost my baby name book (well, how do you name characters?), and I’ve got a character pestering me that I can’t figure out how she fits in the story. I feel totally unprepared.

Yet, the bandleader in me stands calmly, baton in hand, smiling that little half-smile knowing that come Thursday all this energy will marshal into place when she taps that little want on the stand and I sit down to write the first words of the new book.

I kind of like this feeling. It feels…alive.

Given that I’m nursing a headcold and must do building work all day tomorrow, this is as good as it’s going to get

And a good one-dimensional list of characters. In the middle of compiling them, one jumped out at me and started telling her story and became the unexpected central character. Pretty cool :)

after struggling with giving him medicine. Struggle? Wrestle. Pinned him, stuck it down his throat, wiped up spills. Gave chocolate as a reward.

Now I have to get to my Nano planning. I’ve been working on character. Spending some time on the secondary characters, which maybe I shouldn’t have, because the plot is still up in the air. But it did clarify some important characters for me, and I came up with some plot points I wouldn’t have if I didn’t work on the character first.

But I have to go now and get started on my outline.

Shoot. He woke up again coughing.

I’m having serious doubts that I am going to be able to get this Nano done. It’s not like last year where all I had to worry about was one little guy. This double team thing is deadly for my focus, concentration and free time.

I volunteered to lead a write in group at our local bookstore on Sundays. We’re meeting for four hours each Sunday in November to write together.

We meet as an intro for the first time tomorrow, and I think most of us are going to spend some time working on plot development and such. Official writing isn’t supposed to happen until November 1, and so I am not writing until November 1 as per the rulebook.

However, I have a support structure in place. I have a group writing system in place. I have a weekly write in organized.

I think I’m as ready as I can get.

I am going to spend my time tomorrow working on the fundamentals of story organization however. I have done the external legwork lately. Preparing life outside the computer.

Tomorrow during our intro time, I’m going to sit down and use the 4 hours to work on the plot outline, on the story development, character structure and all that type of work. Once that is done, then I’ll feel like I am truly ready.

A novel is all about character to me. The story is led by the characters. It goes where it goes because of their actions. They must deal with the results of those actions and grow or change accordingly.

If the characters in a novel or a movie do not touch me, if I do not connect, then I am not invested in the movie, no matter how exciting the plot.

And as a writer, the characters tell you where to go. Or they go there of their own will. That is the funnest part of writing; when the characters take over and you are just sitting there as the story zooms off into life.

Love that.

So I’m developing the characters. You’d think that I know who my characters are, since I have already written one lengthy book about them, but I learned so much about those characters during the writing, that all the thought I had done on them has now changed. Plus, I need to know where they are at the start of all the new action.

I also discovered that I was about to make my main character passive to the whole story, as everyone else took action around her and she was simply swept along on the tide of events. But doing the outlining helped me catch that and turn the main character into an active participant, even if she is doing stupid things that make everything in the story fall apart. Before, it seemed as if I was keeping her safe and keeping her ‘perfect’ and never allowing her to make wrong choices. She’s the youngest character, kind of an Alice in Wonderland kind of girl, so it’s easy to make her at the mercy of the other older characters, but that doesn’t help the story or the character grow.

I may have thrown my poor little girl in front of some bullets, but she’s making the story a lot more interesting.

I think I might be able to break the plot down now. I did a rough scene by scene, very rough. Just to see what the main conflicts were. Doing it that way, I could see the shape of the story a little better. So maybe now I can go back to the snowflake outline.

Good thing. Ten days left until Nano.

I don’t have one.

I have 10 days to get it all straight in my head.

It needs to be more simple. It needs to be clearer. Right now, I am brainstorming and the plot bunnies are multiplying, and I’m wondering if they are taking over and taking me away from the heart of the book.

Plus, the kiddledeedees are sleeping like…. like something that doesn’t sleep. There’s one crying right now. I’m going to wait and see if she goes back down. I haven’t had time to do more than write a to do list and cheer some folks. Haven’t even gotten to the bathroom yet. Or had anything to eat. Or gotten dressed. (It’s noon.)

I guess that’s a lesson to me. Writing comes first, then comes 43T. I don’t have the luxury of using 43T to get my head organized. And I suppose I should find a way to get dressed when I first wake up.