NaNoWriMo, Still Plugging Away

It's a little more than half way through the NaNo process, and I have to say it's been an eye opener. I'm nowhere near reaching the goal of 50,000 words, but that was never my personal goal. I decided to NaNo because I was stuck on starting this particular novel, and figured that plunging into it at break neck speed was as good a way as any to get things out of the world-building, character-building and thinking-about-writing stage and into the actual work of story building. And it has been.

In the process of speed writing scene after scene, I'm learning a lot about the characters I've created, what motivates them, what they want and where the are headed. I've also gotten my plot all messed up, forgotten who was doing what when, and have written bunches of sentences that are just plain awful.

I've learned a few things about my story. As with all learning, it's best done by doing, and in NaNo I've done some exciting new things and some really, really dumb ones. Here's my short list of wonderful/awful NaNo discoveries:

• Argyle is the stupidest character name I've ever created
• I have no idea what the cats are doing
• I love Fenniman the trickster. He never would have emerged if I hadn't NaNo'd
• Alpacas hum when they are happy and spit when they are mad.
• Love triangles are interesting
• My first gay character emerged, and she's pretty sassy

One challenge I'm having at this point is that my plot is a mess. I'm solving this by calling it "Draft Zero", and have decreed "Draft Zero" to be free of all plot constraints, because with a plot you have to decide what to leave in and what to leave out, and that's the job of Draft One. So, it's back to creating random scenes and throwing my characters together to see what interesting things happen.

Why I Love The Hunger Games

Can you feel the tension?

King-Sized Read

I'm breathless from unloading my trunk after a Costco run, and not just from lugging a 40lb bag of cat litter or wrestling with two shrink-wrapped 100 ounce jars of olives that should embellish my martinis for the next two years, but from this purchase:

Weighing in at five pounds, and with over 1,000 pages, it's a Costco-sized Stephen King novel! How could I resist?

It's been awhile since I've indulged in a little Stephen King--far too long. The last King I read all the way through was the Dark Tower series, which I loved. It has also been a long time since King took on a "big" subject, like he did in the Stand. I hope this lives up to my high expectations, and if the review from Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan is even close, I'll come away satisfied.

"Nobody yarns a “What if?” like Stephen King. Nobody. The implausibility of a dome sealing off an entire city--a motif seen before in pulp magazines and on comic book covers--is given the most elaborate real-life alibi by crafting details, observations, and insights that make us nod silently while we read. Promotional materials reference The Stand in comparison, but we liken Under The Dome more to King's excellent novella, The Mist: another locked-door situation on an epic scale, a tour-de-force in which external stressors bake off the civility of a small town full of dark secrets, exposing souls both very good...and very, very bad."

But I must not open this until I've finished NaNoWriMo right? RIGHT??

Friday Funny

Thanks to Cindy Pon, who made me laugh out loud this morning on Facebook...

Zombies and Werewolves and Wraiths, Oh My!

Pen Tales muses about the trend in book titles...

NaNoWriMo, Here I Go

For several years now, I've watched writer friends sign up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and wondered what the heck they were thinking. Why would anyone blurt out a 50,000 word novel in one month? There's no editing allowed, for Pete's sake. It's a mad dash through the first draft, and you have to let the good, the bad, and the ugly sit there on the page untouched until December. Awful.

But I've just completed world and character building for a new novel and have found it terribly hard to get started with the actual writing of it. Hey, I'm BUSY. I have a job, a family, friends and the need to sleep on occasion. Things need dusting. Drawers need cleaning. I have to post on Facebook, email old high school buddies, harvest on FarmTown, catch up on Mad Men.

Yes, I've been procrastinating.

Don't ask me why I'd procrastinate on a project I'm really excited about. Perhaps it's fear of watching my beautiful idea swished around in my mouth until it looks like backwash. (Gross analogy, but in the spirit of NaNo, I'm letting it stand.)

Possibly, just maybe, Mr. Provost was right and I'm a little bit lazy. I need deadlines. I need NaNo. So, here I go, along with my writing group partners Elise and Jules, who inspired me to finally try this. If you are doing NaNo, come friend me at mthornton.

Watch out novel! I'm going to whip you out!

A Few of My Favorite (Horrifying) Things

It's the season when vampires, goblins and witches roam the darkened streets in search of prey...er...candy. I love Halloween because I love to be scared, as long it's creepy-scared not omygod-we're-going-down-in-a-jetliner-scared. I get a thrill if I think something might be lurking, stalking, watching or waiting to pounce. I crave the chill that runs down my spine when a door creeks, a dog howls or a strange, dragging footfall paces the empty hallway just above my head. So, in honor of Halloween, the best holiday ever, here are a few of my favorite horrifying things.

Vampire Movies

I've always been a sucker for a good vampire movie. By good, I mean Bram Stoker's Dracula or Nosferatu. Twilight is titillating, not scary.

There will be no make-out sessions with THIS vampire.

Vincent Price

He would be scary reading the phone book.

Horror Comics

Tales from the Crypt, It's Midnight...The Witching Hour, and Creepy were always at the top of

my comic book stack. I still have dozens of them (including the one pictured) in a box in the basement somewhere. Lurking. Waiting.

Ghost Stories

I especially love strange and subtle ghost stories like The Others.

Nearly Everything Written

by Stephen King

He's a masterful writer who has caused me to lose more than a few nights of sleep.

But the thing that scares me most--in a distinctly non-delightful way, are clowns.

Call it coulrophobia if you will, but clowns make me want to crawl under my chair, hide my head under the pillow, and run screaming from the room. The only thing more blood-curdling than a clown would be an airplane full of clowns, headed for Las Vegas on a non-stop flight with a dozen babies and no alcohol.

First of all, clowns aren't funny. They are almost as unfunny as mimes and Punch and Judy shows.

I'm sure Stephen King shares my feelings. IT was terrifying. Well, the book was terrifying. The movie was just terrifyingly awful. But the story is set in a place I know fairly well, and my mother grew up in. She used to play near the standpipe when she was a girl. (King has stated that "Derry" Maine is a fictionalized version of Bangor).

Stephen King - Counting The Beat With Pennywise
by goldrausch

(I spent a while looking for a good IT video to post. That was probably a mistake, because now I will have clown nightmares. Maybe I'll have to read Salem's Lot before bed to cleanse my brain of clown images.)

Real Clowns are Scary, Too

I hope I never meet the sick and twisted mind of this criminal. Putting a dead deer on someone's front porch is a prank. Dressing it in a clown suit is just evil.

(from KMEG.com)

SIOUX CITY, Iowa—You'll never see this clown in the circus. Animal control officers in Sioux City, Iowa, say someone dressed a dead deer in a clown suit and wig and put it on a family's porch. Officers suspect it was a prank, considering Halloween is approaching, but they say it's not funny, safe or acceptable.

The deer was discovered Wednesday morning.

Animal Control Officer Jake Appel says leaving a dead animal is immature and illegal. He says officers will dispose of the deer properly.

Sioux City police have not opened an investigation.

No investigation, you say? Sounds pretty suspicious to me. I wonder if the Sioux City police department gives out balloons...