oh, yes, that would 50,290 words that I just finished writing............. :-)  doing the happy dance around here.

You know, the interesting thing about doing Nano for the third time is how little I care about it this year.  I'm doing way better than I have any other year-- I'm at about 32,000 words with a week to go, and I still have plenty more to write about-- but I just don't care.  I think part of it is my choice of plot.  It's sort of like that movie "Love, Actually" where there are a half dozen plotlines that revolve around people's love lives, which are loosely interwoven (very loosely, in this case).  

It's sort of like writing a soap opera.  It's a great choice for Nano because I always have something to write about, and the words seem to flow (at least sometimes!).  As opposed to the past two years, when I was trying to write something that felt "significant" and nothing was happening.  But on the other hand, since it just feels like fluff, it's hard to care.  What difference does it make if I write it or not?  And of course, it doesn't make a difference to anyone but me. It never has.   I know from experience that I will never let anyone read it.  Not even my spouse has read my Nano novels.  It makes no difference to anyone but me.  This year I'm determined to get to 50,000 just so I've done it.  And then I don't think I'll ever do it again.  

I haven't written much about what I've been up to this fall.  Since I still couldn't find a job, I decided to go back to school.  I wanted a challenge, so I signed on for the first semester of Chinese and a programming class.  I've been having a ball being a student again, although it hasn't kept me from whining about having to study.  I was a really good student back in my "real" student days; you might say it's the only thing I've ever been really good at (which is a bit depressing, don't you think?)  And I still am a pretty damn good student.  What I've lost in terms of mental quickness I've more than made up for in experience, in understanding what the teacher is talking about and having experiences that give me a context for what's going on.  (I'm the only person in either class that's over 20.  Besides the teachers, of course, both of whom I'm older than.  Was that correct grammar?)

That long aside just so I can say:  it is really really obvious how much more I enjoy programming than I do writing.  I love getting a new programming project and having to figure out how to solve it, writing the code, debugging it, and getting it to work.  Makes me wish I lived somewhere where I could do it for pay (do I sound bitter?)(no, not me).  And in direct contrast this month has been trying to write this damn novel, which has barely held my attention at all in comparison.  I always thought I wanted to be a writer, but you know I have to say based on this experience that maybe I was wrong.  Maybe what I've wanted all these years is to give readers the same happiness that I've received from reading-- the wish that I could do for others what my favorite authors have done for me.  I'm discovering that I just don't like to write, at least not fiction.  It's a good thing to know.  Nano has been an interesting experience, one I'm grateful for, all three years of it.  But I don't think I'll be doing it again.

the view from here

You know, I've kept a blog for almost five years now.  Up until last spring, with a few short-lived exceptions, I've never had any problem coming up with things to write about.  Even if I wasn't posting very often, I was always mentally working on posts-- most of which never made it online.  I'd drive around town running errands or doing whatever while typing away in my head.  Sometimes it even reached the point of being a compulsion-- I couldn't sleep or concentrate on anything else until I sat and typed out what I was thinking about.  But I have to say since last April, I've had NO desire to write in this blog.  I've had to force myself to type out the few posts that have made it online.  It's kind of strange.  

Actually, I guess it was the compulsion that was strange.  Since most people don't feel compelled to post their thoughts online, maybe I'm finally hitting normal here.  Whoa.  Scary thought.  A couple of weeks ago I even thought about deleting Aunt BeaN's blog, since at the moment I can't imagine that I'll be writing in it much anymore.  But, NaNoWriMo started on Saturday (National Novel Writing Month, click here for the website), and for the past two years, posting here about what I'm writing there has been pretty helpful.  So maybe I'll post a bit more this month.  (not that anyone really wants to read about my forays into the world of writing fiction, but I'll probably post them anyway).  

So, that's what's up with me.  The first year I did NaNoWriMo, it was a young adult novel.  Last year I tried to write literary fiction, and it bored me to tears.  So this year I'm taking the low road and writing genre fiction, although it won't be anything nearly as steamy as the books I mentioned in my previous post.  I get to the point where they're kissing, and I'm already embarrassed.  But although it would probably be classified as "romance" if anything, the love story is secondary to a lot of the other things that are going on.  (Since this hasn't been written yet, maybe I should say "a lot of other things that I hope will go on...")  And both of the lead characters are older, sort of ummm... plump, and, well... normal, as opposed to the main characters in romance novels, who are always devastatingly handsome/gorgeous, well-built, slender, and amazing in every way.  So we'll see how it goes.  But I've already, in three days, written more words than I did in almost the first week last year, so I think this will go better.  It's certainly more fun.

H&K,

AB

I made it to 40,400-odd words. Better than last year, but still not 50,000. Maybe next year. Third time's the charm, right? The main consequence (for me) of participating in NaNoWriMo has been the most utter, profound respect for anyone who has written a real, full-length book. You are all gods, every one of you.

As I've said before, I'm not a very outgoing person. So it was with a great deal of courage that I packed up my laptop and headed to Borders tonight to meet up with a half dozen other local writers who are participating in NaNoWriMo. Fortunately everyone was very friendly and it was a lot of fun. After an hour or so of talking with the others, I can tell you this: I need to get out more. My life has become so boring. It was very stimulating to hear what others are doing. We have one fantasy writer, one history buff, one writing a near-future suspense novel with worldwide catastrophes, one with the most amazing cast of characters I've ever heard, and me, with my 10,000 words and NO IDEAS. Well, I think I might actually be coming up with some ideas now that I can riff off what other people are doing. It was fun. I hope we do it again. And just think, only another FORTY THOUSAND words to go in a mere 17 days. Ah, I love Nano.

Aunt BeaN

The death knell of sanity for someone who writes is becoming utterly convinced that one has nothing to say. It is easy to fall into, because what can one say that is anything more than a pebble tossed into the sea? Even great writers, real writers, writers with true works of art (or alternatively, bestsellers) to their credit can't claim to have changed the world. Remember awhile back when I said I had become more cynical in some ways and less cynical in others? That is where I am more cynical: I no longer believe it is possible to change the world.

But here is the way in which I have become less cynical: it doesn't matter. Or, rather: changing the world isn't what matters. And I'm still figuring out the implications of this. It is, on the one hand, an enormous relief. To not be responsible for changing the world, I mean. But on the other hand, the things that remain to be done become both less huge and more important. Faugh. words are failing me again.

to participate in nanowrimo is to come up with intricate, philosophical, bizarre, and hilarious excuses not to write.

epononymously yours,
Aunt BeaN

Oh, that just sounded so confident yesterday, about how I wouldn't be able to post much this month because I would be writing my novel. Oh, such delusions. I finally made myself sit down and start typing this morning, after avoiding it all day yesterday because I was afraid nothing would happen. And it was predictably awful. Triggering all sorts of dire thoughts about what an awful writer I am, how insane it was to think I would be able to do this again, etc etc etc. I could bore you to tears with this stuff, trust me. But at least I got 595 words done, so on day two, I only have 49,405 words left to go................ what the hell was I thinking???

The topic I left unaddressed yesterday was the whole realm of coffee substitutes. Coffee substitutes are in and of themselves a sufficient reason to stay addicted to coffee for the rest of your life. I'm trying to be caffeine-free, not just decaffeinated, which limits my options severely. But I still want something hot and somewhat coffee-like in the morning. So far I've tried Pero, Teeccino, Postum, and malted milk. They must definitely be an acquired taste, and I have not acquired it yet. But I'm trying. Teeccino is the best so far. Herbal teas are OK for the afternoon, but in the morning, they are too feeble. wimpy. anemic. whatever.

and that's it for today.
AB

Well, I'm back. But since it is NOVEMBER and November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org) I don't know how much I'll be posting. I'm trying something very different this year and it may make me crazy. I was going to start first thing this morning, but since I was on a plane yesterday, and since being on a plane requires motion sickness meds, I am like a zombie this morning-- still, at 11:20 a.m.

I will tell you about one adventure I had in the past seven weeks, though. I think I am coherent enough for that. Starting almost immediately after I went on hiatus, I decided that I would wean myself off caffeine. (I thought using the word "hiatus" would make it sound glamorous, like a TV show that had left you with a season-ending cliffhanger or something.) I am a caffeine addict, there is no denying it. Any form-- chocolate, coffee, tea, Diet Dr. Pepper, chocolate, and... well, chocolate. I've had caffeine every single day for at least the last ten years. I know that because if I didn't, I'd get a migraine. The leaning-over-the-toilet throwing-up-your-toes kind of migraine, which I hate. I even bought caffeine in pill form (yes, they still sell NoDoz) so if we were camping or travelling, I wouldn't have to worry about finding coffee.

But for some reason I decided it was a good idea to do this insane thing, so I plunged in. The first week, I just pushed back the first caffeine of the day -- so instead of having it first thing in the morning, I would wait until 11:00 a.m., and then 1 p.m., and then 4:00 p.m. That went OK. Then the next week I cut back to decaf (which still has a little caffeine, you know). That was pretty dang miserable. I'm prone to migraines anyway, and I had a mild migraine every day. "Mild migraine" may sound like an oxymoron, but if you have them often as I do, there is definitely such a thing. I classify a headache as a migraine if no over-the-counter meds will touch it (advil, tylenol, aspirin, excedrin-- though of course excedrin has caffeine in it, so it was no good for this purpose). A "mild" migraine would be one that makes you grumpy as hell, but you can still be up and about and haven't needed to take anything stronger. (You can imagine how much my family enjoyed this, by the way. It has already entered the status of legend when my kids talk about it: Remember When Mom Went Off Caffeine? and how horrible it was?)

But then the next week I cut out caffeine entirely and it was MISERABLE. I had a "real" migraine practically every day for the next ten days. Meaning, imitrex/zomig/maxalt (pick one of those three) and/or percocet. But then finally, a month after starting, it got better. And now I think I am truly off, although I am still adjusting behaviorally (I swear it was like getting off something much worse). I still want that damn cup of coffee in the morning, and I want it bad. And I miss the Diet Dr. Pepper caffeine boost in the afternoon. Oddly, I haven't missed chocolate as much as I miss the coffee. I walk down the coffee aisle at the grocery store and I find myself stopped in the middle of the aisle, just inhaling the smell of coffee.

Was it worth it? I honestly don't know yet. Preliminary results are inconculsive. I think I have to stick with it for awhile to see if it makes a difference.

This is somewhat crazy. I admit it. Hey, I wonder if I could use this in my noveL???

SWAK.
Aunt BeaN

MADE IT TO 30,000 -- YAY ME!!

There are five days left in the NaNoWriMo and I just passed 20,000 words. Making it unlikely in the extreme that I will get to 50,000 by the end of the month. Early in the month, I wasn't worried about being behind, because I knew I had a bunch of time coming up at the end of the month. But you know, life intervened-- I could list all the little things that happened, but the specifics don't really matter. Yes, I could have stayed up until 1 a.m. making up for time that got lost, but I didn't. I have been plugging away at it, though, and for that I am very proud of myself. Not that many years ago, I would have just quit. But I've been writing 500-1,000 words a day with not all that many exceptions. I took four days off when we had out-of-town company, a couple of days off when I had to re-think my whole plot, a day off when my son was home sick. But other than that, I've worked on it every day.

The main thing I've learned is to just keep typing. The hardest part there is to ignore that little voice that is saying, "This is a pile of crap, what's the point?" "This is boring. No one will ever want to read it. Why are you wasting your time?" "No one talks like this [dialog being written]. This is stupid. Just stop embarrassing yourself and give it up."

Because... and here is the best thing I've learned.... as long as I can ignore that inner critic, this has been really fun. Thinking up ideas and turning them into words is something that is endlessly entertaining to me, even if it does turn out stuff that is boring to everyone else. (with the obvious parallel being this blog). And I've learned a few tricks about how I work that have helped, too-- things that I sort of knew before but hadn't ever put into practice. Like: I usually start with the endpoint, and then do the bulk of the writing to figure out how that endpoint happened. Example: I was plugging along with Sarah's school year. I had this really good idea for something that would happen in April, but I didn't feel like I should write it until I got there. But I was totally running out of steam, so I finally decided to jump ahead and write the April scene. That scene poured out like it was inspired and as I typed it, a half-dozen other ideas for things that needed to happen along the way appeared spontaneously. Then I remembered that I'd had this experience before the last time I tried writing fiction-- I would start with a certain scene that came very vividly to mind, thinking it was the beginning. But as it turned out, the rest of the story ended up being about how the characters got there. Which is different than what I've read about other writers doing, but if it works for me I guess it doesn't matter.

So anyway. Yesterday when it finally sank in that there was no way I was going to hit 50,000 words, I was kind of depressed about it. But today, I'm just glad I did this. It was fun. I hope I can do it again next year. And I hope I'll hit 30,000 anyway-- there's still five days to go!

I'm pretty sure I was not meant to be a novelist. It is like pulling teeth to keep on writing this thing. Every word is like pushing a boulder uphill. And I'm not even that far along, I just passed 10,000 words this afternoon! I keep waiting to get my second wind where the words pour out the way they did for the first 5,000 or so, but it hasn't happened yet. I'm not giving up yet, though. I just want to see how much I can get done, even if it's not 50K. It will have been worth doing even if I never get past 20K, I've really learned a lot.

So here's the thing. My nano was supposed to be told from the point of view of a 13 year old girl who's mother has just died. How I came up with that is another story but I'll save it for another time. Originally the whole thing was going to be told through her journal entries. The problems with that, when 50,000 words are required, are quickly evident. 1) 13 year old girls don't write 1,000 word journal entries. Mine are coming in at anywhere from 50 to 400 words, and it takes a whole dang lot of those to add up to 50,000. 2) She quits writing in her journal for about six weeks after her mom dies, and after that, her entries are even shorter and sparser-- two in the month she starts writing again, and then 3-4 per month for several months after that. So it is almost impossible to get a lot of words. But the story arc, at least the way it exists in my head at the moment, takes place in the space of about a year-- so in other words, I'm about six months into it right now with 8,000 words, and it's going to be nearly impossible to get more than about 15,000 done the way I have it in my head-- even if I pad pad pad and add a bunch of scenes with a traditional 3rd person narrator.

THere is a perfect solution: she is part of a group of four really close friends. So instead of the story being one girl's version of a year in her life, it could be told by four different voices, each of whom has her own things going on. Four x 12,000 words or so and there you are. Some of it I've already figured out: one girl's dad is an alcoholic, one's parents are hyper-religious. But it's a huge mental shift. Until I figured out this word count thing, I had only planned on Sarah's story. And I've gotten pretty attached to her. part of the problem is that I just don't want to tell the other girls' stories.

But on the other hand, it would also solve some major problems-- like this way the reader would get to find out what was happening with Sarah in the weeks when she wasn't writing at all or not much. example: there is no description of the memorial service, because I figure Sarah would have been too numb and miserable to write about that. But I could easily have one or all three of her friends describe it.

OK, not that anybody wanted to know all this but it's what I've been thinking about all day today. If I'm going to stay in the nano "competition" I really don't have any choice-- and it will probably be good for me just as an exercise. But it's going to take a few days to regroup, I think.

it feels like wrestling with peanut butter.
H&K,
Aunt BeaN

So here it is a week later and I've only written about another 1,200 words in my NaNo. I do have a good excuse-- my mom was here visiting for four days. And I have some free time coming up, so I hope I will be able to make it up. But I'm seeing the value in having told a few people that I'm doing this: I think if I had kept it a secret, I'd just bag it at this point. I have just under 9,000 words written and my plot has pretty much petered out. (I could permit this post to be printed almost perfectly with p words but I imagine it would get boring.) The ideas I've come up with so far for subplots and backstories and descriptions don't interest me very much. but I think that is part of the point-- or at least, the point that I needed to get out of this: sometimes it is more important to get it done than to get it perfect. Now doesn't that sound like something that should go on a poster somewhere?

So since my eyelids are starting to shut of their own accord, I'm going to bed now but I'm hoping some sort of huge inspiration will hit me overnight and I'll be ready to go tomorrow when the school where I work has an "early out" (the kids go home early, which means I get to, too). It would be great to be at 12,000 before the weekend. That's my goal. but as you can probably guess, I'm pretty good at rationalizing.

Love,
Aunt BeaN
(typing is my life)

So the same day I started this new blog, I went hunting through the support section to find out how to include a link. I know a little HTML, but I just wasn't sure how you do it in this context. But while poking around the support pages, I discovered NaNoWriMo, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month. Turns out some guy named Chris out in the Bay Area has declared November to be National Novel Writing Month, and the challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. It's been going on for 5 or 6 years now-- the first year with a handful of participants, this year with more than 70,000.

I don't exactly believe in fate, but the fact that I discovered this on October 29 seemed a little too pointed to pass on. So I went to Borders and got the NaNoWriMo book (No Plot, No Problem by Chris Baty, which you can also find at Amazon). I'm always in favor of reading a book about something when it allows you to put off actually doing that something. And eight days into the month of November, I have written almost 7,000 words-- behind schedule (you're supposed to average 1,667 words a day), but I'm OK with that. The reason I'm telling all of you is because I'm likely to be writing about this quite a bit.

It's an interesting process. The point is not to be perfect, not to do any polishing or editing, just to pound out 50,000 words. I've written short stories before, and I've wanted to write a novel, but I've never actually gotten past the planning stage (well, besides one really crappy first draft I wrote about 15 years ago). But I can tell you after only eight days that I can already see the point of doing it this way.

Since the goal is to produce an insane amount of words in a mere 30 days, a lot of wiffly-waffly dithering around just gets slashed. You don't have time to worry about perfection. For example. If I weren't doing this NaNo thing, I would have decided yesterday that I needed to start over with a new plot. But there's no way I could start from scratch on the 8th day and get done. So I pushed through, and what do you know-- after plodding through another 100 words or so , I got an idea that put me back in business with the same old plot.

The problem with my plot is a) it's depressing and b) I don't think I"m going to get 50,000 words out of it. But when I was whining about this to my spouse last night, he pointed out that I can't possibly know that until I get to the end of it. Which is undeniably true. So I'm slogging away at it. It's kind of fun in a way. Like standing at the top of a ski run that's a little beyond your skill level, you have to just point your skis down and GO. At a certain point, you let go and get down the hill-- it may not have been pretty, but you're at the bottom.

The observant among you will note that I figured out how to include a link, too. Feeling just a BIT proud of myself this evening. But my shoulders are sore from all the typing. :-)

Love,
Auntie BeaN