Adventures In Novellaing, Um, Novellating? Writing A Novella? Darn.

So it is National Novel Writing Month. I chickened out of it last year, rationalizing that I wanted to focus on writing short stories that I could try to submit for publication. All well and good, but I still haven't submitted, although I have a couple pieces just about ready to go. This year, then, I decided to do it. But then I forgot all about it until November 1st, so I went into the project with no plan.

On the surface, this was a good thing, because I could just start writing and playing and seeing what happened, and hopefully cross the 50000 word threshold with something that superficially resembled a plot. To make it totally liberated, I decided to write a fantasy story, ala George R. R. Martin, since I just recently finished A Dance With Dragons. I had an intriguing opening dream sequence, and a troubled protagonist with a haunted past that included a monastery. Monasteries are gold when it comes to fantasy stories.

But then the trouble came after the first few days. I wasn't able to write much due to a frenzy at work, thanks to the National Bank Transfer movement that saw a massive surge of inquiries and applications for membership with the credit union. And then when I did write, all that happened was that the hero had a bad dream, looked out the window, and then ran through city streets until he got to the gate. I tried to inject some soldiers going door to door, but it all fell flat. It was like Myst, in that the character was just walking around, looking around. I never did get the hang of Myst. I was never much of one for computer games that I couldn't win easily.

So I decided to go back to the old tried-and-true method of writing about obsessions, such as my obsession with why someone acted they way they did that one time. After all, no one is really going to read this, so I might as well use it as a repository for psychological speculation. Now, all of a sudden, I cranked out 1500 words in just a couple of hours.

Encouraging stuff. I'm sure there is a profound lesson here when it comes to the mysteries of writing, but I'm not sure I have time to explore it as of yet. On to 50,000 words!

Writing: The Prequel

First, can I just say to all the Firefly fans out there that I hope you got to see this week's episode of Castle? The rumors were true. So gloriously true.

Castle is a fun show anyway. Yes, I said it. Get in there and watch it so it will stay on the air so I can keep watching it. It's brilliant. Imagine Nathan Fillion saying lines such as "He didn't just murder [so and so], he also murdered the English language." Balm to the English Literature major in my soul.

Speaking of writing and writers, November is lurching up from behind the dark side of Halloween, and with it comes the burden/challenge/opportunity/death trap of writing a 50000 word novella with some sort of coherence and meaning.

I won the first year, then fell short by a few thousand (or ten thousand) adjectives, nouns, plot twists, feasible characters with dynamic motivations, etc., etc., each of the last two years. So I'm trying to prepare by doing some writing exercises and reading a book about screenwriting for tips on character development. And so far, no coherent ideas are grasping me by the brain, but I'm hopeful.

Here's the interesting first exercise I tried: the point was to take eight questions from the book and write down the first responses that came to mind.

1) When was your main character happiest?
Drinking in the pubs in a rainy seaside town in Wales with fellow students, or walking along the shore, when everything was simple and sheltered

2) What talent would your main character most like to have?
Ninja skills, or the ability to play beautiful music

3) If your main character could change one thing about him or herself, what would it be?
His nose

4) What does your main character consider to be his or her greatest achievement?
Publishing a poem on the Internet about a parade of Aryan sympathizers

5) What is your main character’s most treasured possession?
Pristine copy of The Beatles’ The White Album

6) What is your main character’s greatest extravagance?
DVD collections

7) When does your main character lie?
When he is thinking thoughts that he thinks should not be popular.

8) What is your main character’s greatest regret?
Failed friendship with someone in rough straits, whom he left behind.

I looked at these answers and thought, "Hmm." Then I turned the page in the book, and it asked, "Did anything surprise you?"

No, nothing really surprised me, except the part about the nose. I don't know where that came from. But all the others, even the ones that aren't true, per se, come from my real life, so that, according to the book, means that I am trying to control the character too much.

My first reaction was What character? I didn't actually have anyone in mind. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe I was supposed to picture someone first. Anyway, I tried it twice more, with mixed results. I'll keep doing stuff like this, and hopefully something will bubble to the surface by November 1st.

I can always write 'the' 50000 times and call it avant-garde, I suppose.