Dusting off a few rabbit trails.

Since I haven't been writing for NaNo like I'd hoped (yeah, you read that - hoped; I had no particular zest behind it this year), I've been cleaning up a few loose ends of stories that have been swirling around between my ears.
Completed:

• a poem to my grandfather
• The Reproductive Habits of Lagomorpha leporidae pulvilagus
• several blogs (I write three...happy hunting!)
• journaling - I can't tell you how long it's been since I've journaled; there's a lot going on right now

I have a short list of story ideas still to be fleshed out. Wonder if these little tidbits can be part of my NaNo word count? It's writing, after all... And who knows - maybe my novel's not actually about Achilles? Maybe it's a psychological study of a writer...!

NaNoWriMo, Day 9 - Epic failure is imminent.

I've been distracted. I can hardly focus on my work, much less extra things outside of work. But I won't blame him - he's wonderful and encourages my writing, even though I'd rather not do it when he's around.


So remember my last post about how hard a time I was having with the high-English structure? And I kept finding myself bored with what was going on in the story. (Which is sad, since I'm only 6 pages in...) Well, the awesome people at NaNoWriMo headquarters sent around a pep talk today that really helped! It's by Aimee Bender, author of "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake." Aimee says,

"Go to that anthill, instead—maybe it'll actually lead you back to where you need to go. We are surprisingly structured and repetitive in our preoccupations. And this NaNoWriMo process does not have to be linear.

So, in a nutshell: go where the writing goes. Follow your interesting work...A poet friend of mine, Allyson, once said, "It's so strange how our mind knows more than we are aware of it knowing." It IS strange. It's one of the strangest things of all about being human. But it is also your great and unending resource, and your instincts and impulses, your non-plans, your tangents—although messy!—(if you follow this, you will finish the month with a mess of pages! That I promise! But who cares?) have a higher chance of leading you to a deeper, more layered book."

And now let the self-doubt begin! Do I have the strength of character to override my OCD, type-A personality and write (all in one document!) about whatever pops into my head? That terrifies me. (I'm weird, ok? Really linear and orderly for a creative.) And at the same time, does the fact that I'm a little bored with what I'm writing mean that Aimee's is a good suggestion for me? I'm beginning to think so.

Aish. Here's to liberation and strength of character and whimsy!

NaNoWriMo, Day 3 - The squirrels may be dead.

It's been so long since I've written fiction that each sentence is painstaking. (It doesn't help that I'm writing in a very high-English tone - I rarely speak that way and I find myself struggling for the just right word.) I'm beginning to suspect the poor squirrels in my brain have keeled over and died. Their tiny muscles atrophied (rather quickly, too - the smaller, the quicker, right?) and they just fell off the treadmill.

I must not write about squirrels.
I must not write about squirrels.
I must not write about squirrels.

My novel is now titled ("The Deadliest Arrow"), word-counted (varies, but I'm currently at 1371), and synopsised (or is that synopped? "The story of Achilles, as told by the five women who loved him."). Short and sweet. I should write more of it... it's pretty good, I think.

NaNoWriMo, Day 2 - The muse is...Hemant?

Our VP, Hemant, stopped to chat with me over lunch. He's got a brilliant background in physics and business, and he gives me and Rina a hard time for being artists. So he asked about the NaNo hashtags I've been using on Twitter, and he asked what I was writing.

So I kinda bumbled around about my niche is mythology, but specifically re-centering myths, but usually it's from a female perspective rather than male, but this one's been frustrating because it's about Achilles and he keeps talking too much... and I pretty much made a big mess of it.
And then, the most amazing (writerly) thing happened: I started telling him about this specific story, and what came out of my mouth did not match the notes on my page. It had it's own creative momentum, and it drew from all the research I had done, and it was true to my self-proclaimed re-centering niche. The muse! She's...Hemant!

So here it is, more coherently than it's been thus far:
I'm writing the story of Achilles, but told through the eyes of the women who loved him and who he loved.

Suddenly, there's less oppression in my mind. I might even give each of the five women their own Word doc, and let them ramble away. Hmmmm.

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

My Dear Roommate and singularly best friend, Rachel, is a photographer. She also likes to adventure. So we road-tripped to Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsdale, AL this weekend on a mini-adventure. We talked about a lot of things along the way, but one thing really sparked our imaginations. I mentioned NaNoWriMo to her (peer pressure = motivation, and since you lot aren't commenting on any of my posts, I've gotta get it somewhere!), and she said, "I wish I could write 50,000 words in a month."

We invented a photo challenge for her to go hand-in-hand with my writing challenge. So we're inviting you (if you don't write), to join Rachel on her adventure. Here's how it works:
November 1st to the 30th
10 photographs a day
NO editing/retouching/critiquing/whining

By the end of the month, you'll have 300 photographs (or 50,000 words) to show for your efforts, and then the editing can begin! So I'll be blogging here about the weirdness of WriMo, and Rachel will be blogging about the Create and Dream Photo Challenge at onthEdge Creations. Dare to push your boundaries! You're not alone... we'll be slogging along with you!

Truth is truth - to the end of reckoning.

Adaptation of a Stephen King quote: All fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.
I've found in past writing experiments (and we're talking strictly fiction, here, people - the stuff I really love) that the truth always shines through.
By truth I mean this: the things I believe, the principles I base my life on, the hardest core bits of me that will never break up no matter the intensity or pressure from the outside. I think we can argue that fiction is fabricated so it can be completely separated from the person who made it up (and we do argue this to protect ourselves - from pre-judgements, from pigeon-holing, from criticism).
But at the same time, I think it can be argued that creators - no matter what medium they use - must infuse the work with some of themselves. A sculptor cannot create a piece of art without touching the stone, running his hands over the planes and textures, dripping sweat onto its surface, scraping his knuckles against it. In the same way, a writer cannot write a piece of fiction without leaving traces of herself in the work.
I would have it no other way! While it makes the writing process infinitely more painful - picking at threads of your soul and weaving them into a story other than your own leaves you frayed, to say the least - the end result carries that ring of truth that we all search for in books. It becomes a human work that speaks the same language as its readers.

All of this is going somewhere, I promise.
I've been encouraged to join NaNoWriMo this year, and I have. I'm terrified. I don't think I've ever written for a month straight. I am full of stories, though, and the terror is tempered by a building excitement.
So if you're interested (thousands of people all over the world writing 50,000 words in one month? curious...!), you're welcome to follow me: here at the WriteMe blog and on Twitter @ScribbleMeJ. Beginning November 1st, this blog will be a scratch pad for the NaNo process. I'll try to get the fancy word count widgets and such, but I make no promises (I suck at computers).