Day One...and counting

So midnight passed, and I have decided to take a Facebook Fast, so I can focus that energy on writing.  I had to stay up to keep an eye on the dog (long story) so got cracking with the first couple of scenes, because I remember how much it helps to get ahead of the 'average' count, to allow for difficult days.

NaNo second thoughts

After last year's sabbatical I thought perhaps I would not manage to get back into NaNoWriMo - having an essentially lazy temperament - but I feel like I should not let myself off so easily - having just enthused about it at talks I gave on Saturday.

So, I have a couple of days to wobble, and then it starts!  It cuts down on my trivia (FB and Twitter) and my television time. It focuses the research game and my reading.  And it can prove fun!

So I decided to go for manifesting the cliche of a conspiracy thriller I outlined in a template previously.

That at least gives me a framework, which can shape my thoughts; it will allow me to use esoteric bits and pieces of Forteana; I can always have the investigators sit down and be given a lecture by 'the professor', just as I can drift into tourist information about the famous locations (leaving a trail for readers to pursue, if they so wish), etc.   Oh, and I might get to kill people off (I've always been too nice). Not sure I can manage the torture bit too well (it's a essential ingredient) but we'll see - perhaps I'll just place that in an abattoir, so the horror of what meat-eaters ignore every day is what makes the reader squirm.  Who knows?

I have started compiling my lists (see the template in the post linked above) - choosing a main city, a MacGuffin, a few of the goodies and baddies, etc.  I have a couple of maps and guides to stimulate thought.

And I will use Scrivener this time (I've never done a NaNo on Scrivener) - and perhaps it will bump start the autobiography all over again.

Getting Down To It

I can see the 'write-a-novel-in-a-month' challenge looming on the horizon. I have done it, and completed the task, for four years now. This time I have literally no idea of what to write, or whether I even feel up to the task. I need to make a decision soon!

Meanwhile, I have migrated the data from a wiki that we created for the Illuminatus! study group, which never really took off as a collaborative tool. Instead of the wiki structure I have now started building the material as a website, so it does have much more of my own stamp on it. As before, the intention remains to re-read the book with close attention, and to elucidate some more of the puzzles it contains.

The autobiography drove into the sand again, and sits around looking hopeful, like a dog on a rainy day.

The history of NoFit State (another wiki that does not attract contributors) has proved helpful, at least, in so far as the Timeline has helped when we started sorting pictures for display at the 25th Birthday bash, which is coming up. The task has proved dauntingly complicated, and we have huge gaps in the material (posters, programmes, pictures) from the early days - and then an overwhelming amount of choice since the digital picture era.

Uninhibited

I realise now one of the reasons I have trouble writing this year. When I did Infinite Monkeys I wanted to write something without the gimmicks that often sell books: misery, violence, sex, angst, adrenaline and all that. I deliberately wrote something that pottered and meandered along (although one rude word slipped in, I notice!)

I guess that comes from my previous life as a 'children's entertainer' when I eliminated ambiguity from everything I said and did in public, deciding that (without going Disney) the world was quite full enough of innuendo, prurience and dirty jokes, etc, and I would avoid such stuff.

This year, although it hasn't quite worked as planned, I wanted to write a conspiracy thriller, and this 'tameness' wasn't helping at all. I guess there's the fear of being judged (as ever) but no-one (let's face it) might ever read it. So I decided to let my characters swear, think about (and perhaps even indulge in) sex and violence, etc.

We'll see how it goes, but it gave me a couple of thousand more words, and they all count. What might have to go in the editing remains to be seen.

Blahs and Doldrums

It was great to receive a pep talk email from Chris Baty (founder of NaNoWriMo) this morning. It maybe explains why I do this with the group, and not just any time of year when I think I will have time, etc.

To know that you have hit the same problem as thousands of others seems reassuring, even as people quit and fade for reasons of their own (and no-one sneers at someone who can't run more than ten miles in a marathon...)

That's still ten miles further than most people... I hope he won't mind me quoting chunks:

Bah. Those of us who are grappling with sluggish stories and dwindling mojo? We're having the real NaNoWriMo party---the Struggler's Party! I've been hanging out at this low-energy fiesta for the past week, and I've been hearing some familiar laments around the punch bowl.
"I think I picked the wrong story.""Work ate my word count.""Nothing seems to happen in my book.""My main character is getting on my nerves." The most common refrain at the Struggler's Party, though, is that we're just feeling Blah. Our stories are Blah, our writing is Blah. We've spent the last two weeks mining our creative depths, and many of us have emerged with too few diamonds and way too many lumps of coal. [...]


1) Incite change. If your story is losing momentum, juice it up by inflicting some major changes on your characters. Crash the spaceship. End the marriage. Buy the monkey. Change is scary because we have to figure out what comes next. But feeling afraid is ten times better than feeling bored, and your book will benefit from your risk-taking. Go big this week! You won't regret it.
2) Trust the process. If you're doubting yourself or your story, just keep moving forward. It will work itself out in the end. Every year, NaNoWriMo authors who press on to 50K are treated to the equivalent of NaNoWriMo's northern lights. This is the electric moment when the tangle of plots and people we dropped into the first half of our books end up forming unexpected connections with what we write in Weeks Three and Four. Themes develop. Arcs emerge. As we fly out of the 30,000s and into the 40,000s, a current begins to flow through our writing. Things crackle, then hum, and, at the very end of the month, enough circuits connect that the whole story lights up with a charmingly bookish glow.

Thanks Chris!

Our Hero

When I tried to analyse the thrillers [see July post] that I was reading I seem to have missed out the most obvious cliché or stereotype.

The man who can do everything.

Whether he's sexy like James Bond or a paranoid loner (damaged by something in his past) he will have been in the SAS, or some secretive service. He can speak all languages, kill people with his thumb, appear equally at home in an illegal poker game in a warehouse, a Baccarat game in a high-end casino, or a sedate Bridge game in a country house. He can cook, drive fast, fly planes and helicopters, etc. He can hold his liquor, do martial arts, break codes, run fast, etc. You've met him in almost all thrillers aimed at men...

It all sounds a bit like Heinlein's list, which also struck me as odd male fantasy:
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.”

But unlike most of my generation I didn't read Stranger In A Strange Land, because there remained something I didn't like about Heinlein, and I couldn't put my finger on it.

Why Don't I Listen?

Sometimes it feels as though I don't listen to myself!


Only six weeks ago I highlighted a distinction between showing and telling which I thought helpful, and I already fell into the trap.


I wondered why my word count had fallen so low (in spite of visitors, and other distractions) and realised that I had started telling again (which is very compressed, rather than showing all the little details). Doh!

Does Not Compute

A year went by, and NaNoWriMo came around again. Having completed three times I dived in, only to suffer the whole anxiety of the first week again - what am I doing? Why did I start this? Who would care if I quite?

I haven't got quite as far behind as the indicator might imply (I needed to have reached about 11,500 by Sunday night to stay on track) because I have some stuff pencilled into a reporter's notebook on the train (didn't feel like typing).



I will try to get those scribbles digitalized ASAP, so that the thing looks less scarily behind, but I know I need to keep pressing on...

It's currently called "Does Not Compute" though that may change.

Easing the tension

Well, finally I got a couple of characters going, playing scenes, thinking their thoughts, getting on with activities.

That helps.

They haven't started talking to others yet. I haven't even spent a lot of time describing the surroundings for one of them.

I even have a couple of announced others, waiting in the wings.

I've kept the word count up, and now look forward to finding out what these characters do.

That helps a lot. G'night.

I don't get it

No, this year I have really no idea what I have set out to do.

• Year One: started as semi-auto-biography, only slowly getting brave enough to make stuff up, and end up with more fiction than fact
• Year Two: deliberately set out to break down into chapters, make everything up, not base characters on friends, or events on my experiences, etc
• Year Three: began to fall apart (thinking too much) and although I have several sections I enjoyed writing it never totally shaped up, and I have never re-written it (so much of it needs cutting)
• Script Frenzy: broke the pattern, having to write a 100 page script in a month - and I enjoyed it, plotted it, tried to give it structure and tension, etc.
• This year's NaNo will not get going. It seems so abstract. If this falls into the category of a 'novel' we might have to stretch the definition in all directions, from Tristram Shandy to Naked Lunch. I could do with, at least, a few 'routines' - and I could certainly attempt to use the self-referential, if it isn't going to go away. (sigh) Just keeping the word count up, and gagging and hoodwinking the inner critic...

Staggering along, but not yet despairing. Maybe this year I will dive into the forums (fora?) and ask for help.

Help!

Still reading thrillers

A while back I discussed with friends why my own novels might prove almost unreadable (well, being written hastily in a month might contribute to that fact!)

Anyway, as people seem to think I lean in the direction of Dan Brown territory I decided to look at blockbuster thrillers in the conspiracy realm, just for an experiment, and began to make a list of essential ingredients.

This was my original post, back in February. These are the main points:

• Famous Location(s) - Tourist attractions, cathedrals, special cities, etc. which might (or might not) like the publicity your book generates.
• Famous People of the past - Who's been done? Mozart (Freemasons), Van Gogh, Gaudi, Da Vinci (or rather Leonardo) of course, Jesus and Mary, Shakespeare, Kennedy Bros, Elvis, Marilyn.
• Imaginary organisations (or imaginative alternative uses for existing ones) or very secret societies - [eldritch rising organ music]
• Scary events - Bond villain plans for the world – religious prophecies – natural catastrophes – alien invasion – ritual murder – abduction
• Alternative Historical interpretations of source of civilization/religion, etc
• Money (almost infinite resources to jump on planes, etc)
• Religion - and esoteric belief systems of magic(k) or witchcraft
• Espionage – codes and cyphers, cryptograms
• A MacGuffin everyone is looking for (manuscripts, formula, Holy Grail, magic spear, etc)
• Ingenious methods (technology from Q, magic from Jonathan Creek)
• a couple of investigators - partly qualified but a little out of their depth [edit: I seem to have overlooked the 'man who can do everything', so 'partly qualified' seems a bit weak. Check this update.]
• some innocents dragged into the whole thing – often in jeopardy
• plenty of disposable villains (for getting their come-uppance)
• the Grinning Sadist – boss’s sidekick or lone wolf?
• a worthy opponent for our heros (curiously charming - but dangerous - Big Boss, or terrifyingly unhinged tyrant)
• Special helpers (Mycroft Holmes, professors, etc) - usually die, too
• Anonymous super-rich people (malign or benign) – provided with helicopters, forts, wodges of cash, etc
• Celebrities (who, like police and spies, have access all areas – assistants, second homes, etc – disadvantage – easily recognised)

Anyway, currently reading The Cult of Osiris by Andy McDermott and it certainly ticks the boxes: female archaeologist seeking to restore her reputation; ex-special services boyfriend (only kills baddies, but seems to cause collatoral damage wherever he goes); disfigured baddie; secret society/cult; Egyptian treasure under The Sphinx, etc.

At least the hero attempts some Bruce Willis-type sidecracks during the action...in contrast to the total lack of humour in many of these type of books...