Ghosts of the Lonely Shore

Here's a quick refresher course on my oh-so-interesting writing life - I had a major case of writer's block with my story Seaspear last summer and so decided to do Nano to get back into writing and set Seaspear aside for a nice long nap.

So now, I'm thinking about the plan I made my plan before Nano....  I will now set my Nano novel out of my mind, even though Section Two is unfinished, and use December and maybe even part of January to work on Seaspear again.

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The title of this post is a phrase from a poem I wrote in 8th grade, titled "Secrets of the Sea."  This is a lot how I felt about Seaspear last week when I picked up the first couple chapters and flipped through. It was as if I approached the loneliest shore - one I used to know but which now seemed foreign.  

Right now, poor old Ren and Grailyn and Lord Shiloh are painted in cracked plaster, ancient in my mind even though I still love them dearly.   

But I think that no matter how ghostly this shore seems, I will tread on it again and stir up the water once more.

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One thing that motivated me was a visit to California this past weekend.  It was my first time seeing the Pacific Ocean, and since the ocean plays a...um...large part in my story, that was pretty cool.  I took pictures and also some videos for the book trailer I'm planning to make.

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Some things I plan to try and do with this draft of Seaspear...

- Work on character voice.  I don't want all my POVs to sound the same.

- Not do anything with the spear itself that will be anticlimactic.

- Make Ren - my female MC - more involved with the action.  She must play a bigger part...somehow.

- Work on my bad guy's goodness.  Even though Lord Shiloh is bad, he had definite reasons for what he does.  (Vague reasons being for one, his love for his daughter, and for two, his love for his country.)  I just need this to be more obvious. 

That's all I have so far, but it will all (including the book trailer) have to wait until after exams week and finals week.  I only have two big finals left but they will require a good deal of studying.

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P.S.  As a side note, I've become somewhat of a celebrity in my On Course class because the professor found out about Torn Heart in a journal entry and she brought it up several weeks ago. 

I've made some money in that class so far.

Link of the Week: Month of the Novel Episodes These episodes are hilarious in the very best sort of way.  I laughed out loud (in real life) so hard that my sides almost burst. The episodes follow a fictional young writer through her first crazy Nano adventure and are complete with a rather indecisive jester, an ancestral sword, and even...balloon animals? 

'Til next week! Until then, I will be using this poem by Thomas Hovey as my inspiration:

Sea Gypsy

 I am fevered with the sunset,

I am fretful with the bay,

For the wander-thirst is on me

And my soul is in Cathay.

There 's a schooner in the offing,

With her topsails shot with fire

And my heart has gone aboard her

For the Islands of Desire.

I must forth again to-morrow!

With the sunset I must be

Hull down on the trail of rapture

In the wonder of the sea.

The Obligatory First December Posting

With all this talk of 'winning' NaNoWriMo,' I personally do not think I made 50,000 words in November, so am I a 'loser'? I don't think so. My only goal was to have a finished novel by the end of November. I'm glad to say that I now am the proud owner of another finished novel. Yes, everyone. I finished it. So, since that was my only goal, I guess I 'won' NaNoWriMo. To be honest, I was sure that I would have finished my novel much sooner than the 28th of November. But really, I don't care. This novel has never had a set deadline for anything. And I love deadlines, mind you. I don't just love the whooshing sound they make when they fly over my head either. I like lists and deadlines and stuff like that. But this novel has never been anything I planned. I would have been happy if it took me to January to finish. It didn't though. I'm very happy with being able to say I finished it.

And a word count, you ask?

107, 352 total words. 

107, 352

107, 352

(?!?!?!!?!?!?)

Yeah, I don't know how I did that nor how my printer is going to print that off next month. No clue whatsoever. My poor printer. I just know it's going to self-destruct to get away from that chore.


Really, it hasn't yet set in that I've finished. I'm still thinking at the end of the day, 'oh, you're got to go write, Sarah.' It's slowly coming though. I'm starting to have all those thoughts that it's going to be terrible, I'm going to hate it, and that I'm going to have to edit/fix absolutely everything in it. This usually comes after the first few days of finishing a novel. It leaves after a week or two, when I start to forget about my novel and un-attach myself emotionally from it. Later, I'll read it and love it and have a 'I'm a genius moment'. That happened a bit today when I read a bit of a chapter only to think, 'this is actually great.' Of course, that's all I'm allowing myself to read for the next month. A writer must fully forget about their novel to ever look at it again correctly.

In the mean time, I'm fully anticipating some severe post-novel blues. I can deal with that. As long as they aren't like Virginia Woolf bad. I've been hoping to reverse this by rewarding myself. Very Pavlov's dog of myself, huh? Rewarding myself by going to a concert seems to have worked though. So... I'll be doing that more often, I guess. Good job, Sarah, turing that oxygen into carbon monoxide. Here's concert tickets. We'll see to what proportions I carry this out.

The next behemoth... editing. Ew.

The Lost and Glorious Cause

So, I lost NaNoWriMo 2011: my novel lacked the 23,691 words needed to turn that wordcount bar purple. Am I disappointed? Not really, because I met my goal: I'm still not convinced that I should stop writing. And like everyone at the website and blog are saying, those of us who didn't make it (losers, to say it outright) have a bunch of words we didn't have a month ago. After several months of unimpressive consecutive writing, I am satisfied with my 26,309 words from these last 30 days. 

I hope that that didn't sound too defiantly self-justifying.

The novel did take on that told-of life of its own, with characters switching roles and places of importance being the most surprising surprise. I stayed in third person narration, too, which maybe wasn't too wise: MC's internal monologues are abundant.

I plan to continue to write every day until this novel is done. Bonne chance to all as you finish, rewrite, or edit your literary masterpieces!

Mia

A song for this second day December:

Sunflare

As I go through my writing life, I realize something.  Writing inspirations are like Sun flares.  They are random, rare, but powerful.

Last week, I was absolutely blank, I had NO IDEA for writing except for my Fan Fiction, but, I have been revived!

Some recent ideas:

 First off, I have changed my Pen name to Lillian Grace, as I can od all sorts of things with that name.

*Lily And Grace

*Lilly Ann Grace

If I get tired of one, I shall switch!

But, to the point of 'Dance'.

It will be a very different novel for me, thats for sure! 

Allison (MC) is suddenly thrust into a world that none could imagine, with a man who thought he could never love.  Daymon is much like Hades, and Allison his Persephone.  When the time calls, will Daymon give up his one chance for reaching humanity, or return her to where he knows is best?

This is sorta like a redo of the Greek Mythology of Persephone and Hades.

Very different then my normal.

Doesn't she look impish?  Thats cuz she is.

Personal friend of Peter Pan, master fairy tale teller, and Nanny to Cassandra.  Cassi's family might not particularly 'like'  Nanny Fae Mags, but  Cassandra adores her to Neverland and back.

Those are just the ideas that have names.
I'm being flooded, but this sort of flood is one you can't drown in!
CONGRATS to everyone who finished NaNo! I didn't do it this year, even though I wanted to.  But I give all of you'ins  a great big hug!

Oh, and I'm still on my Fan fiction.  I'm actually restarting from chapter 1.  One of my 8 siblings spilled coke on the notebook containing the story...thats one way to cut a novel short.  It really did need the rewrite, however, it was going crappy.  Thanks to siblingspillerofcoke, It's doing a bit better.  Another reason to buy a laptop, however.

Oh, (I realize this is the second 'Oh' in a row) I'd like to thank Ellyn. 
*Thank you for getting my addicted to Blakcmore's night.
*I am now listening to Way to Mandalay.
*Fearie Queen is cool
*But, when I listen to Way to Mandalay, I want to dance like a gypsy.
*I actually did dance like one, for about 3 seconds.  Then someone came into the room.

~Ashley~

Jewel of Jeopardy

Last Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving, I was sitting at my rolltop desk, eyes brimming with tears, tapping out the words, "...for the last time." Having finished Chapter 33, I sniffed loudly, put my computer to sleep, and a little shakily went to stand outside in the wind to clear my head.

I had done it.  I had killed the very character I had decided so firmly that I would not kill.  She is a central part of the story and I felt killing her would be the easy way out.  Somehow, such an act of rebellion did not make me hate my story, but it made me want to write more.

When I came inside, I gave my dad a few of the details so he would know why I was wandering around with a rather blank, empty look on my face.  After family prayers, I could think of nothing else, so I "went galumphing back" up the stairs, woke up my laptop, which was rather testy at me, fired up my radio, and started writing.

I listened to a variety of music that memorable night, including the soundtrack for Pirates, Crooked Still, Enya, and Blackmore's Night (an odd, Rennaisance-rock band whose lyrics I have been using as my post titles).

I had started with a word count of around 45 K and I kept checking my word count, thinking to myself, Only _ K more! You can do it! I think it was about three and a half hours later, ten minutes to midnight, when I did it.

I hit 50,000 words.

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It was the most amazing feeling, even more satisfying than I had thought it would be.  Unfortunately, since it was ten to midnight, I couldn't scream and dance and jump on the bed and...well...you get the point.  So I spent ten minutes telling Facebook and the Nano forums about my victory, then I turned off my computer and radio and slipped into bed.

My Nano win was definitely something to be thankful for, as well as the fact that my family had a relatively quiet Thanksgiving holiday and I was free to spend that Thursday with them and help make some of the food.


The book's not done, of course - I thought it could be, but it would require a sequel and I didn't know if I wanted to do that.  So when I started writing again (during a relaxing hour on Thanksgiving), I just typed "Book 2" on a blank page and went from there.


Naturally, my writing has slowed down a great deal since I won, but it's still going steady.  For all of you doing Nano, if you won, I congratulate you! If you didn't, just remember that without Nano you probably never wouldn't have written what you did this month!

Anyway, the moral of the story is - when I defied myself, I shocked myself into a writing storm.  Sometimes a little change of rules and thinking outside the box is just what you need to get the gears of your story grating again.

Happy End-Of-November from a very happy and relieved,

Ellyn




P.S.  Link of the day: Minimize distractions with Write or Die, a web app that punishes you for cat vacuuming!
P.P.S. About my laptop - it needs a name.  I'm going to put up a poll soon so you can help me choose :) No guarantee I'll obey the majority, of course, but as Sarah always says, it'll help "cement" my choice.

More Updates

I'll keep it short and sweet.

4,294 words since I last updated.
I currently have two and a half chapters left.
Short story remains in drawer.

Those fires in the night...

The current most used phrase in my Nano novel probably goes something like "Later I will add in...."
or "Later, insert..."

Since last week, my desire to have a completed book at the end of November has increased.  I don't want just 50,000 words.  I want to type "The End" and be ready for revisions.

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I guess I want to be done.

I'm not exactly tired of my story, but I can see the potential creeping in between the lines and I want to go back and polish it up and make it pretty - make it presentable for someone other than myself to read.

As for the steampunk vibe, that is not going well at all.  All I have are steamwalkers and steamcannons, which are pretty boring.  I'm thinking that when I go back, I'm going to make it either sci-fi, fantasy, or fuel/electro/something-punk.

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To increase motivation, I made a "radiance" list, as was suggested in one of the Pep Talks on Nano.  On that, I listed all the scenes that I had really felt pleased with.  These scenes are my "fires in the night", spontaneous blazes of emotion in the black wanderation of Nanowrimo.  (Like that word, 'wanderation'? I just made it up :D)

So far, my story has made me teary-eyed twice - once in a flashback that involves a yellow butterfly, and   again when Dust discovers the mental state of her childhood best friend.  I think those scenes are gems indeed.

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Fires in the night have come few and far between lately.  As I said before, I'm skipping over a lot, striving for a finished book whether it's 50,000 words or not.  Last night I hit 40 K, and I felt like a zombie doing it, although part of that was due to the fact that I had played paper dolls almost all day with a six-year-old cousin (how do little kids do it?) and Enya was putting me to sleep with her magic voice.

Anyway, I made 40 K and was happy, though not ecstatic because I knew that most of that would probably have to be cut out when I start editing.

Of course, Nano-ers aren't supposed to think about that, are they? Onward to Week Four!

- Ellyn

(No, I have not been keeping my writing log like a good girl.  Whoops.)