there's no shame in writing

Insert obligatory NaNo kick-off post here! Huzzah! Enthusiasm, et cetera and so on.

Okay, okay, I can't really resist the chance to wax optimistically about the coming month. Actually, it's possible that my kick-off posts are often longer than my first shot at the NaNo come midnight. So. Here we go.

NaNo is, of course, the silver lining on the creepy cloud that is Halloween for me, a fact tend to overlook while coming up with short ways of explaining my dislike for Halloween. Nevertheless! Today is the 31st, which means that in just a few short hours, I'll be writing the first thousand or so words (fingers crossed) of this year's literary masterpiece.

A few words about the project itself, so this isn't just a self-indulgant post, but one I can refer back to on those days when I'm feeling directionless around Thanksgiving or so, with only a few days left in November and several tens of thousands of words left to write. . . . This year I'm testing the waters of the romance genre, since I could use a couple extra thousand dollars if I write one I can sell. The irony of my writing romance is that my first few years of NaNo I used to scoff that "romance" was even an option in the drop-down menu on the "Novel Info" page at nanowrimo.org. I couldn't imagine why anyone would choose to spend their November writing romance manuscripts when they could be plotting a Real Novel, the one that could get them into the "Fiction/Literature" section of Barnes & Noble.

Now, of course, I've changed my tune. I think for the better. Especially since I've decided to join my love of romance with my love of reality television, a match made in heaven.

The plot involves a plucky field producer, Marnie Arthur, and the devastatingly handsome yet accessable star of one of those insipid reality dating shows (a la The Bachelor), Theodore "Trip" Taylor. When one of the original female contestants on Real Love bails at the last minute, the show's producers insist that Marnie replace her in the house. As per her agreement with the producers, Marnie is guaranteed not to be the winner, but as her time in the house wears on, she isn't so sure it's what she wants. Will Trip defy his agreement with the producers, and choose Marnie anyway? Will true love conquer all? Or will Marnie be left on her couch, watching reruns of the love stories she herself helped create behind the scenes?

Dramatic crescendo ensues.

So, sure, I'm pretty excited about this November. Nothing too strenuous, hopefully remaining fun as the final wordcount approaches. I am especially excited in that I can watch old episodes of The Bachelor or A Shot At Love if I start to lose steam. Obviously not my favorite reality television program, but I do love people being awkward in large groups.

Let the fun commence in T minus five hours!

NaNoWriMo has totally made this year rock harder than any other year I've participated. And since I've participated half the years it's been operating, I'm pretty sure I can vouch for the quality of the rocking that NaNo does.

Neil Gaiman wrote out pep-talk email this week. Second week it was Sue Grafton. Sue Grafton's sounded suspiciously like the normal ones that Chris Baty writes, but Neil Gaiman's was pretty funny and to me that makes it uplifting.

Next year they're going to have some tough shoes to fill.

About twelve hours before November kicked off, I came up with a rather brilliant idea for a fiction piece for NaNoWriMo. So the nonfiction idea went out the window, and I've been working on a sort of historical/fantasy novel. Note: when I say "fantasy" I do not mean anything to do with magic or dragons or anything like that. It's mostly historical in an unidentified time period in a made-up land. So perhaps it's more like a folk or fairy tale than a fantasy novel.

Anyway, with 6500 words, it's already becoming painful to me to write the thing without taking care with the sentence-to-sentence structure. When I rewrite the thing, I can pay attention to that, but for now it's paining me to ignore tone and really good grammar and things of this nature.

I'm also about 4,000 words behind at this point, which I think is better than I normally do once I head into week two, but I've been coasting on backstory and I'm starting to push into the actual body of the story I've been meaning to tell, and now I'm starting to get nervous that I won't be able to come up with enough actual story to successfully make it to the 50,000 mark. "Successfully" in this context meaning "nothing that I'll immediately cut in the rewrite." So far I'm doing pretty well at keeping the backstory consistent and not contradicting myself, so we'll see.

Arg.

This amused me:

"According to my own observation, every writer must have six essentials at his command. Some are born with them. Others must develop them over many years, or hire a professional to provide them. They are . . .

1. empathy
2. the willingness to endure solitude
3. the belief that the world cares about what you have to say
4. the ability to describe facial hair accurately
5. a large desk in a quiet room of your own in which to chase your demons (preferably a circular room, so that the demons have no place to hide)
6. special stationary with pictures of typewriters and/or quills on top."

- John Hodgman, The Areas of My Expertise

So, hello. I know I have over two weeks before NaNo gets rolling, but I wanted to put down some thoughts since I've been tinkering with my profile page over at nanowrimo.org. Mostly these thoughts entail my plans not to post my entire novel this year, which actually isn't going to be a novel, as such.

The project I would run with is too far in the making to start thinking about the way one needs to think about NaNovels. Unless I come up with something on the spur of the moment, then, I'm going to write a nonfiction project I've been meaning to write since last winter, when I took nonfiction with Gail. I wouldn't have written it for class, because the basic gist of the piece is explicit detail about the relationships I've had in college, and how they seem to interweave and lend themselves to understanding each other better. Which seems like what I do in my spare time anyway, dissecting my boy drama and trying to make ridiculous connections between various people and events. In the end I suppose it'll help me see the ways I've grown (or remained the same) in the last four years.

Anyway, my point is that I probably am not going to post the bulk of my NaNovel this year, because knowing that other people will see it will hinder the "truth" of it. I am currently reading Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, and she makes this same point in the chapter I just began reading. You have to write like no one, not even you, will read what you're writing or you'll start editing things before you even set the words down on the page. And the entire point of this project is to get at the truth of things.

La. There's no 'nonfiction' option in the drop menu for 'title' and 'genre' of your work-in-progess on the NaNo profile, though. This makes me quite sad.

Some say April is the cruelest month,
but April’s when I fall in love, when those first
heart-shaped, cancerous cells start blooming
pink in veins; those artery-clogging
pulsatory tumors grow big and brainlike
under my skin; this blinding white love plaque
threatens to attack. Lovely April begs laughter,
sun-bleached warmth in the tall grass,
happiness even when thunder coils in cumulus.

It’s May whose tearing teeth might destruct
this fragile state: here, the testing complete;
here, the diagnosis. The tumor: inoperable, swelling –
in time, it will overwhelm the body, drag it down.
Suffocating, the lungs collapse, the liver offers
one weak cough. Nothing’s dead yet, no –
but in dying, the wanting grows. The slow death
rattles ribs, capillaries, joints, tendons, watches
as the breathing rasps, rips carelessly into night air.

June brings the anesthetic IV drip, a gentle numbing
of the body, the brainy tumor and shadowy space,
a cool hand spreading under skin, under muscle,
considerate ice fingering bone. A letting go, a turning
elsewhere, the lashes flutter against bruised sockets.
My last wish: a thinning cigarette to feed the cancer,
which must be ravenously hungry; and in the kiss of morning,
the last mechanical breath, the bleating of black and green
machinery, glossy charts, nurses penning sharp marks until
shoulders sinking into stinking sheets, we fade.

I just wrote a poem about Ninja Warriors, and another about a dysfunctional relationship in terms of egg tempera paints.

( Does he have what it takes to become the next NINJA WARRIOR? )

( untitled, in the style of Gerald Stern )

The Iggy Pop poem, modeled after Terrance Hayes' "blue" poems. I decided on Iggy after reading "The Blue Bowie."

The Blue Iguana

And I would freestyle. I can rhyme quickly.
- Iggy Pop

this is it
this ain’t no bullshit
you think I’m just gonna sit
and let things happen? shit,
I got things to see
I got things to be
you’re trying to keep me
from being me?
I’m a real wild child
I’m no mild child
I got big dreams
rip old Jimmy down the seams
even he’s not what he seems
we’ve gotta make it big
we’ve gotta get this shindig
rolling, no time to dig
our own graves this time
it’s time for my rhymes
to earn me my fair dime
just a modern guy everyone steals
from, don’t make no deals
on, can’t even put my heel
down on something real
anymore. I’m ready to pop
out, break open, maybe flop
onto that crowd, never stop
not even when I drop
dead of an overdose or old age
I just gotta reach the top
I’m hittin’ all the bars
pulling peanut butter from jars
hanging out with guys from mars
and everybody knows it just ain’t rock
without blood, sweat, tears, and cock

I still need to write section three, but I don't know what to write about yet. It will come to me. I just don't want two "you" sections next to each other like that.

night dreams

1.
When the girl, the girlfriend, comes to me in my sleep, I think,
Oh. She’s come to kill me. But something in her dull eyes tells me otherwise.
Then it’s fingers digging into collar bone shoulder blade rib cage
scalding her whorly prints into my skin, the little hairs. I hesitate to ask,
Where is our boy? and she laughs. She ducks her head to lay her lips
in the blank space between my throat and earlobe, she reappears
transmogrified: the woman poet now, heavy breasted, glistening eyes,
hair curling over her cheek, teeth shining in the dark.

2.
the vacuum snuffles greedily at the hairy blanket on a bed that isn’t yours
we’ve drawn the curtains on this sunny day
but when I lean into your heat like summer tarmac
you don’t pull away

3.
***

4.
you stand on that solid rock and I cling to you
like you are my rock, my redeemer
(can you support my fatty issues?)
the ocean like a poster, a postcard, a photograph
pale beaches, sandy blue waters, an endless blue awning overhead
a different blue, deeper, darker
out of reach
the slurping tide
will come in soon
then all of this will flood and drown

5.
Then there was the time Elijah Wood started to lecture me on my dating habits,
namely the fact that I never acted on all of these big ideas I had about love.
Perched on the splintery edge of his giant wooden crate, his cigarette pinched lovingly
between two pale fingers, he smoked and spoke, an angry line between his eyebrows,
flushed patches of color in his cheeks, and the smoke rising around him. On waking
I wondered if somewhere Elijah Wood was waking and lighting a cigarette, thinking vaguely
about a nameless unhappy girl in Michigan to whom he’d offered his weighty dream advice.

6.
The first (and only) time we have sex
in this rotting basement bathroom,
the maroon carpet tacky underfoot
outdated fixtures, brown everything,
and a thin light under the door
the television glow and my sister
laughing. Ssshh, your fingers pushing
against my teeth, my lips. Or my fingers,
your lips, your mouth? I might have three
arms, for all I know, or wings, or a tail.
Your head hits the tub, the sound hollow
(though from the tub or from your head?)
and it’s good, of course it’s good
but there’s mold around the drain
and the flourscent lights flicker
your skin bleached, then just pale
and shadowy, then pearly and electric
under my hands.

I'm going to be writing a lot this quarter. Instead of clogging up cup_o_jo, I'm going to make use of this journal and clog this one up instead.

I'm not going to promise that any of this will be any good. And now that that disclaimer is out of the way...

From the women's workshop last night,

( The Story My Body Was Made to Tell )

( Homage to the Body )

( An Open Letter to Myself at Eighty )

Some NaNotes. (That will never get old. In fact, throughout November, instead of saying 'no' I'm going to start saying 'NaNo!' just for dramatic flair.) Also known as character profiles, with some plot summary thrown in there for luck.

( Jolene )

( Macaulay )

Still to work on:
- 'casting' of the characters
- tour dates/road trip itinerary
- work out how the Roadmaster would have to be packed

I'm getting psyched about this project, despite the noticable lack of time I have to commit to it. The way I see it, November only comes once a year; the SIP can be done in December.

Also, Rocketstar is eerily empty tonight. I wonder if that'll change at eight, when the evening crowd usually starts arriving.

Tentatively, since I'm not sure if I'll even have time this year to do NaNo unless I go without sleep or any social interaction whatsoever for at least two weekends, I have a plot for this year.

A couple of childhood best friends follow a singer (called Sommer Long) on tour during the summer after their high school graduation. Various relationship and/or family dramas ensue.

A half formed idea that just stemmed out of a Fisher Price SparkArt Easel commercial.

In the future, the child (early/middle teens?) of a wealthy family has grown up in a completely safe environment. His toys are all but virtual simulations of "real life" situations he would have to encounter as an adult - things like board meetings and dinner parties and the like. There are also simulations for lower classes that handle situations like muggings and whatnot, though these are organized in the schools and community centers, rather than in the home. Obviously this child's family has higher quality ones.

Obviously, something goes wrong, and this child has to face the real world without proper training, befriends some local color (a la A.I.). Type of local color yet to be decided.

How to Write a Novel by Justine Larbalestier.

A nifty guide that may come in handy someday.

Of course, she does make it look easy. But it's the first draft that's the easiest, because it's allowed to be shitty. Later drafts are more complicated, because they have to make sense.

Greetings, all!

I hope those of you still watching this journal have had an eventful ten months since the last NaNoWriMo season ended.

This will be my fifth NaNo adventure. Though it's barely September, I'm beginning to organize myself for the coming November. The most immediate question I must ask myself is: What am I writing this year?

I've been writing Chasing Jailbait since 2004. This year my annual attempt at writing Lyon's story may have to be put on the back burner, as after more than three years I've finally got the characters in a place that may lead to something solid in terms of a plot. I'm inching closer to giving Lyon a voice, something that eluded me completely until only a few weeks ago.

Other possible stories include:

+ a girl, her religiously zealous father, and her shapeshifting dog;

+ a mystery centering around a girl who works in the dining room of an old folks home (teenager + old folks + disappearing walkers = hijinks ensue);

...and that's all I've got right now.

At any rate, this is my annual reminder that soon this journal will be essentially spammed with stupid ideas, rapidly swelling wordcounts, stressed rants, and corraled ideas.

Cue the friendslist recoiling in horror at the prospect of having to witness the insanity that is my creative process for another year.

wordcount: 23,608

( Lyon tutors Bethany; Andrew and Lyon discuss grandparents and being weird. )

I actually wrote this a few days ago, but forgot to post. I'm still wicked far behind, though.

wordcount: 22,171

( Drama. Lots and lots of drama, mostly between Lyon and his family. )

wordcount: 19,463

( Andrew comes back to Lyon's dorm room; Andrew wakes up in Lyon's dorm room; Lyon receives a visitor; Lyon doesn't want to talk about his mother right now; Andrew is absolutely insane. )

wordcount: 14,528

( We (finally) meet Lyon's dad; Lyon drives Bea to work and Maude to school; Kay and Lyon have another heart to heart; and Lyon and Andrew clear a few things up. )