starting on NaNo

NaNo Memo

(shamelessly stolen from the wonderful Jennifer)

Working Title: None 

Genre: YA, Fantasy, I don’t fucking know. Romance.

Projected Word Count: I think I can make it to 10K or 15K 

AT THE START DO YOU:
Have an outline? nope
Scene-by-scene? nah
Know how it starts? not really 
Know how it ends? absolutely not 
Have your climax in order? HAHAHAHAHA NO. 
Have your main characters yet? YES (woohoo!)
Plan to draw on your experiences? no, I don’t think so. 

IS YOUR WORK GOING TO BE:
Funny? I don’t know. 
Serious? somewhat? 
Sad? briefly
Semi-Autobiographical? no. 
Based on another story? No. 

HOW MUCH HAVE YOU PLANNED? HAVE YOU USED:
A paper journal? no. 
A computer? no. 
Index cards? No. 
Bulleted lists? no. 
Plot Charts? No.
Character Charts? No.
Character formulas? No.

ODDS AND ENDS:
Favourite writing resource? the internet. 
A line you would like to use: “Is that a zombie?.”
A scene you would like to include: a picnic. and zombies
A concept you would like to explore: I. DON’T. KNOW
A cliché you would like avoid: NONE. ALL THE CLICHÉS. ALL THE TIME
A character you would like to use: Rose & Georgia

FORWARD THINKING:
Do you expect to be able to complete it? no.
Do you intend to complete it? probably not.
Would you ever try to publish it? not really
What do you expect to get out this month of frantic writing? an aneurism. 

I FAIL TO SEE HOW THIS COULD GO BADLY.

ALSO. In case you hadn’t realized, my contingency plan is an apocalypse. Of the zombie persuasion. BECAUSE WHEN IN DOUBT BRING ON THE ZOMBIES.

You know what I hate?

Having this kind of vague, but really nice, idea for a story — characters and settings and mood, but no plot. Just this vague feeling.

I need to brainstorm things further — also have an inkling that this idea might be too ambitious for NaNoWriMo, and that maybe I should be going with something simpler and quieter. I don’t know. 

This is hard.

Finally finished writing my latest fic for a fest. It’s about 11K long.
Funny how a few months ago I was despairing ever being able to write anything over 3-4K and now I have a hard time writing a fic below 10K (I’ve tried. This one was supposed to be about 8K, but then feelings and plot happened and well…).

ANYWAY. 

This is all just fanfiction. Now for the more important thing of figuring out what I want to write for NaNoWriMo, because I’m still quite not sure and it’s rather soon.

Oops.

I think I’ve found an idea for NaNoWriMo — not quite certain yet (I should hurry, it’s soon)

But it might be a dark fairtytale motif involving a mash-up/retelling of “Hansel and Gretel” and “Brother and Sister” with Green Man/Erl King mythology.

I have to do some research. And come up with a plot. I don’t know if I have the time….

Trying to come up with a sensible ghost-turned-spiritual-guide-ish character for my Rose/Georgia original story.

The only thing that comes to my mind, because I’m being very cranky, is this old grumpy ghost of a Professor haunting the mezzanine of the library where he had a heart attack, and he sits at one of the table or walks among the stacks and rolls his eyes and mumbles incomprehensible insults because could the students get any stupider, I swear they are getting stupider, and stop bothering him with their problems, please please, he’s not a bloody counsellor, or therapist or one of those annoying self-inflated egos that like to answer letters in the local newspapers. And would Rose just get a grip on herself it’s quite clear what she has to do, really, it’s what she does best, which is to run and run and run, except, please girl, don’t be ridiculous, you have to run toward something, not away from it. Jesus Christ.

I’m also sorta planning on writing a fic based on my experience working in an art gallery in university. I’ve been spending A LOT of time coming up with what kind of art my characters make and what medium they use and what it looks like, and I’m generally getting too excited about something that might be only vaguely mentioned for some of them.

But you don’t understand, this character makes stylized sculptures out of metal of female bodies and armour, while this other character creates mixed media pieces using traditional crafts such as embroidery and scrapbooking. And they are going to have a show together and it’s about gender expectation and contemporary feminity and…

Neither of them are actually quite important to the main plot, both are secondary characters.

One of the main character is going to be either a painter or a photographer. His art will be most likely renditions of myths and tales and about the impact of stories that shape the human experience. 

I’m getting way too involve into the fictional art of fictional characters.

writing woes

Do you know how hard it is to write from the perspective of a 13 year-old angsty gay boy? Do you?
It’s hard okay. Very hard.

Especially when you make the mistake of having a SMALL flashback and you write it in the past perfect, but then the flashback turns into something else and you’re 3,000 words into it and you cannot get rid of the stupid past perfect and oh my god, you just want to die, because writing in the past perfect is ridiculous, but you cannot change it and you have to do it in a POV that is really hard to grasp.

Seriously, almost done with that overgrown flashback though. 
Lesson learned.