Yippee! I did it!!!! 51024 Words

It's a happy day, dear readers...a very happy day, indeed!  In between time with my daughter who came home from college to visit me, Thanksgiving and a fun day of Black Friday shopping, car repairs and filling out all the myriad forms to convert from a contractor to a full time employee (Yay!!!) I actually made my goal.  I completed my novel at a little over fifty one thousand words.  Do I like my novel?  No.  Is it fixable to where I might come to like it?  No: I strayed too far away from the original premise and I had to fight too hard to stick to a cohesive line of reasoning.  My novel is choppy and clumsy.  The flow happens in fits and starts with the occasional 'alright' part thrown in.  The writing is of the bare bones variety and thus, is missing color and breadth and depth.  It's very one dimensional right now and that bugs the absolute crap out of me.  Come January or February I will start an entire re-write on it but for now...well, it's done and I have my first completed (first draft of a) novel.  That's something to brag about, right?  Yippy Skippy it is!

I'm not sure what, exactly, I am feeling right now.  Happy of course, and very proud that I completed what turned out to be - for me, at least - a hurculean task.  Strangely enough, I feel empty as well.  I don't have a new writing goal in place yet (hey - I just finished a few minutes ago!), and I don't have the pressure of the NaNoWriMo deadline looming over me.  It's kind of like, 'Okay, I've finished and I'm enjoying the bragging rights but....now, what?' 

Have you ever had your eyes dilated? You know that feeling where you don't think you can even blink because you're sure your eyes are the size of the giant aggie marbles of your childhood (think the original super balls for my under age 30 readers)and you're sure your eyebrows are up in your hairline? Remember how your eyes felt so dry and tight? That hyper-awareness is the way my brain feels right now. It's wide open and raring to go and I'm not sure I can, or even want to, shut it down just yet. This writing is addictive stuff!

That's why I'm already not looking forward to tomorrow.  I've really enjoyed the rush of writing flat out, of pulling a beautifully perfect phrase out of thin air to illustrate a thought, a color, a mood; I've enjoyed thinking chronologically and logically.  Trust me, those two adverbs are not words usually associated with me.  I like the exercise my mind has received during this month, the sense of accomplishment that settled over me like a warm woolen cloak each time I would post my word count, and I know I'm really going to miss the intensity of writing at this breakneck speed.  Tomorrow already seems like it's going to be a really blah day. 

I'm sure I will need some time to process all the things I've learned during this intense month about me and about my style of writing.  I'll share some of my lessons learned in the next few days.  However, until that time, I'll just sit here in my chair, doing my happy dance, because I just finished my first novel. 

Wow, I'm crying (happy tears) now. 

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Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. ~ Sharon O'Brien
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Holding you close in my heart, sis.

Yikes - Can I Do It?

Good Morning, dear readers.  Turkey Day is tomorrow and I've much to do to get ready but frankly - I'm much more worried about NaNo.  I'm not up to where I should be in my word count!  I have a lot more to say in my novel but it's not coming out and it's to the point where my throat is literally starting to hurt from my brain being clogged up. 

Today, I must get in 4,000 words minimum!  As soon as I post this, I'm going to go back into my novel, close my eyes and just type.  Whatever drivel appears will be wonderful.  I can not and will not allow myself to fail. 

In thanksgiving of all the blessings I have in my life: my daughter, our health, my family who loves me and is loved in return, good friends; I wish you all the warmth of memories, the appreciation of your present, and hope for your future.

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The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. ~Vladimir Nabakov
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Mornin' Li'l Sis. Hope you are feeling stronger today. I've had you in my thoughts and just wanted you to know I love you.

A Zombie Dream as Fodder?

Should we use our dreams as ideas for our next great novel?  I had strange one last night: I was on a boat, I think a fishing boat of some kind with just two decks.  There was the deck exposed to the air that looked like a miniature aircraft carrier - it was flat and barren except for what looked like road lines painted on it.  The fishing poles plopped inside the PVC pipes attached to the outer rim of the boat were so out of proportion to my fishing boat that they looked like toothpicks standing on end.  The interior was like a ferry boat with the bench seating under huge walls of windows and it was filled in the center with those institutional style flat black plastic tables and chairs bolted to the floor in two straight lines.  The working day was over and everyone (mostly men but a few women) had gathered on the bow to watch the sun go down.  Just as it kissed the end of the ocean, everyone started singing a song to honor the end of the working day.  After that, all these people went below decks.  It was dusky dark over the water and stubby candles had been put in highball glasses on each of the tables, held in place with some of the dripped candle wax so they didn't slide off from the swell of the waves.  I was standing on the second stair, enjoying the vision of the twinkle from about twenty candles reflected against the darkness held at bay by those huge windows.  Then, as dreams will do on a moment's notice,  the scene shifted.  It was the same boat but daylight.  Someone I used to be close to was sitting in the second from last booth in the rear on the starboard (right) side of the vessel.  He was bloated and fat and his skin was a perfectly pasty shade of grey.  He made short work of jamming a syringe into his neck and shooting himself full of heroine.  I was both horrified and so incredibly angry at him for doing such a stupid thing that I started towards him to do something - I wasn't sure if I wanted to smack him up the side of his head, yell at him, push him overboard...all those things or none of those things.  I stopped about half way down the aisle.  He looked up at me and the look in his flat black eyes froze me in place.  There was nothing inside his eyes.  It was like little kid night blackness, where you close your eyes when your mom turns out the light and when you first open them again as soon as the door closes, you can not see anything but a heavy curtain of boogie-man filled black.  I wouldn't hold the eye contact because it grabbed for my soul.  I was looking for life.  As I glanced around, I saw people sitting and talking at all the tables and acting like this was normal behaviour.  It dawned on me that I was on a zombie boat.

I wonder how many authors have turned a simple I-ate-too-much-spicy-food-too-late dream into a novel?  Aren't dreams supposed to be a way for your brain to process something or relieve some (un)known stress? How many of our dreams should we writers attempt to capture to use as a potential story line?  Instead of how many dreams, perhaps the better question would be should we use our dreams as fodder to grow something new?  As soon as I awoke, I realized the personal psychological implications associated with my dream.  However, I was also thinking (as writers can't help but do) that this would be a really neat zombie story.

Maybe this dream was not about what a hateful bastard that person-who-shall-not-be-named turned out to be.  Maybe it wasn't about a future novel.  Maybe it was just simply a way for me to look at things with a different perspective - something I wrote about a short while back. 

Hmmm, gotta admit.  I've never written a zombie story and Pride and Zombies, the Pride and Prejudice re-write, is really big right now in honest to goodness literary circles.  Maybe I'll expand my horizon and start out with a zombie short story.  Yeah - now that I think about it...this could be fun.

Woo Hoo...there go my creative juices flowing through my brain like an open fire hydrant on a hot August day. 

Gotta go!  I've got a novel to finish so I can write a story in a new style.

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I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.
- Stephen King
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See you Sunday, Skinny Sis! Love you.

Walk a Labyrinth to Get to a Straight Line

I finished the bare bones of my novel yesterday in that I have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  No, I haven't reached the 50,000 words yet but I'm not worried about that: my main concern was not having a complete story come midnight of the last day of November.  You see, dear readers, I have this internal voice that scolds me, 'If you don't have an actual beginning, middle, and an end that make some kind of literary sense when you reach the 50,000 word win-point, you haven't really won because you didn't really finish a novel.'  I was driven by that reasoning to the point that I only typed the absolute bottom line of information in each paragraph to keep the story going. I'm so happy that I have time to go back in and wordsmith it, fill out all the little bits and pieces that add flavor to the mix. I can now add all the goodies that I felt I didn't have time for if I was going to actually have a coherent, logical story in a month.

I re-read all I had written and surprised myself; I saw such an improvement in my writing from the first paragraphs to the last and I think that after a round or two (or ten?) of revising, my book will be a notch or two above mediocre - perhaps even good - which is so much better than my original impression of this jumble of words.

I did learn something on this journey through the wilds of writing madness. I like circles. I talk in circles and I write in circles. If my writing were to be diagrammed, it would surely be displayed as a labyrinth: the story line follows a rounded path for a bit then turns back on itself.  It retraces steps from a new view and turns right instead of left, then circles around - back towards the center, always towards the heart of the matter. All my characters' meetings, all my clues, all my sub-plots...it's all circular. Like a labyrinth, all the possibilities, all the various directions my story and my characters take, are funneled by a grand design to exit in the same place at the same time. The purpose of the labyrinth is the journey itself, following a rounded path of discoveries to their natural linear conclusion.

My Grandma Lucy grew up in the mountains of West Virginia; like most mountain people, she had an uncanny knack for saying non-sensical things that were somehow perfectly logical.  A woman who was pretty feisty for her time, she would have enjoyed walking a labyrinth just for the new adventure of it.  I can hear how she would have described it as she left the circle: "You've done gone around your ass to get to your elbow." Grandma defined my writing style to a 'T.'

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Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
- E. L. Doctorow
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Sis...who took the picture of us leaning into wind? Love you.

Heart And Soul

I woke up this morning from a strange but funny dream: I was designing the cover for my book – not my NaNoWriMo School of Hard Rocks novel but one yet to come which, in my delightful dream, I had worked on every day for six months straight, wearing my favorite artist-y green silk floor length skirt that makes me feel so free and flowy and writer-y. This book cover (whose title I didn’t see, by the way), had a 60’s feel beige background and was covered in these bright tan shapes – okay, ready for the funny/strange part? While they were all representative of people in that they had arms and legs and facial features, they were hearts. Not the ‘I Love You’ Valentine kind of heart, but the heart body organ. I had drawn about twenty of them, placing them randomly on the cover but they were all slanted on the same angle as the Harlow Solid Italic font I used for my book’s title. Some of my characters, for lack of a better word at the moment, were men but mainly they were women – and the women were all wearing red pumps like the high heels worn by Minnie in the old Mickey Mouse cartoons. All the men were wearing red top hats. These tan heart bodies were heavily outlined in black and with the 60’s style flat tomato red really jumped off the cover. They all had a prop or one little something that was indicative of the period covering the 20’s through the 40’s; one female had a smoldering cigarette in a bejeweled holder that was probably twice as long as she was big, one gentleman wore spats while another had a monacle. These were just really cool looking hearts that made me smile when I realized their message:


Writers give their all, their very heart and soul, to their craft.
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"Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary." -- Jessamyn West
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Hey Li’l Sis, it’s Day 10.
So glad you found the courage
To do this all again.
Love you!

A Different Perspective

I've always wanted to paint.  I've wanted to use watercolors to reflect the soft strength of flowers like Georgia O'Keefe does - sorry, did.  I've wanted to use oils to contain the energy of a raging sea.  The clear colors in Acrylics would be a good choice to highlight the energy of city scenes.  Many times I've bought paint sets or borrowed my sister's art supplies and with all the good intentions in the world, tried to paint the picture that was pulsing in my mind.  There were times when I really believed that by sheer will and the simple desire to paint, I'd be able to put brush to canvas and what I was seeing and feeling would be transferred from brain to fingers.  Alas, I have no sense of painting perspective.  My watercolor flowers looked like a kool-aid stain on a boy's Sunday white shirt - just a ragged, runny, blob of color. My raging sea reminded me of my grandmother's hair when she took all the bobby pins out of the pincurls tucked all over her head - just random swirls of grey laying flat on the canvas. 

I used to wonder why I could never translate what I was seeing into beautiful pictures. Was I not holding my head the right way? Did I need to squint my eyes just a little more to narrow my focus?

I believe I have found my answer. I have become aware, at some really odd moments here lately, that this month of writing has shifted my way of looking at things.  For instance, I went to the movies last night with a woman's social group fully expecting to be transported to fantasyland for 110 minutes of blissful entertainment.  Wrongo bongo...as each scene unfolded, I found myself analyzing it:  how the writer(s?) had so skillfully and uniquely introduced each of the different characters, the flawless scene shifts, the peaks and valleys in the action, how the sub-plots were intermingled to support the main theme.  When the lights came back up, I realized just how oblivious I had been to all those little things that make a successful story.

This awareness, this shift in perspective, will serve me well.  On the drive home last night, I ran the different chapters of School of Hard Rocks through my head and realized I have a few good scenes that will carry my book through, that give it a sense of cohesiveness.  On the flip side of patting myself on the back, I also am now hyper-aware of the areas in which I really need to concentrate my efforts in December, after NaNoWriMo, when I revisit my completed first draft to revise, edit, clean-up or perhaps even totally re-write it.

Now that I've been exposed to this different perspective, everything I do will be viewed through new eyes.  I used to wish I could paint so I could capture the nuances of summer's scarlet sunsets.  Now, I realize that I've been painting for years - I've been using a pen as my brush and paper as my canvas.   

Now I realize, it's all in the perspective.

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Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~Anton Chekhov
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Day Nine, Clementine!  Don't be afraid to do what you need to do. We will always be here for you.

Do-Overs

I tried to re-do a small section of my novel last night and it was disastrous. Thankfully, I had saved my story under a different name before I began redo-ing a character because I managed to wipe out everything but the section I was trying to change. But it had to go…it just wasn’t right. It wasn’t conveying what I was trying to say. I ended up deleting the entire version that I messed up and reverting to my original copy. With some re-work to make that troublesome section stronger, I was able to pick up where I had left off and add a few more thousand words to my count. I’m now up to 29,656 words. Yippee *dancing in my seat.*

But an experience like this, where you really mess up in something you’ve written, made me wonder…

Ever wish you could take something back, do it over, say it the way you should have the first time around so your meaning was perfectly clear?

Have you ever gone back and re-read something and thought, “Oh dear God – that’s not what I meant to say at all!”

In our NaNo life, our imaginary yet so very real world governed by a stupid blue bar above which we must rise every day, a world consumed by characters of our own invention we both love and hate, there is no time to take-it-back. A writer has thirty days to say it the way they should have in the first place. And God forbid one should attempt a do-over. That’s writing suicide, guaranteed failure (well, for me it would be).

Paralleling the writing world in which we can create outcomes is our real life, the one populated with our family and those wonderful friends who mean so much to us. Where our emotions are involved, there are no do-overs; you can’t take something back. Once it’s done, it’s done. You can, however, sincerely apologize and move forward having learned a valuable lesson.

So, dear readers, when you wish you could take that one thing back, re-do it, and say it clearly the first time around, allow yourself a moment to kick yourself in the ass for not thinking it through first. You deserve it, and an extra kick to make sure the lesson really kicks in.

Remember that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, pinkie-swear with the character you almost made unrecognizable that you won’t do it again and then get back to your story!

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The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium. ~Norbet Platt
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Day 8: I heard that you met your pre-Thanksgiving goal. My bonnet’s off to you, Li’l Sis.

Do You Clean As You Go?

My creativity is up and down like a bride’s nightie.

This writing-intensive journey has taught me that I need time to think between scenes, to linger over a word choice, to tumble a phrase in my head until its jagged edges are as smooth when read out loud as they look on the paper. Without this ‘rumination’ time, I find that I’m constantly thinking about what a (written) mess I’ve left behind; it is very difficult for me to start another paragraph knowing that the previous one is only half done.

I’m this same way about my cooking. I have to have my kitchen clean – everything in its place, before I’ll start cooking! It sounds crazy but I have to have it orderly before I can make a new mess. Relating back to my writing, ‘everything its place’ is my outline. Even if I never use it or refer to it again, I know it’s there if I need it. I have to have each paragraph ‘clean’ before I’m able to move on to the next ‘mess’ (paragraph).

I drive myself crazy! Now that I’ve identified and accepted that particular idiosyncrasy, I’m hoping I can turn a blind eye to the mess of my novel and finish up this recipe for murder. However, I can’t tell you how badly I want to wipe down all of chapter seven and replace it with a brand new model.

Aaarrrrghhhh – too many mixed metaphors and excessive use of kitchen euphemisms. I’m not cooking today; I’m baking in the stew of a cluttered mind. No time to clean as I go – it’s back to “School of Hard Rocks.” I’ve got to whip up a couple thousand words today.

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"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." Mark Twain
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Li'l Sis: It's ONE WEEK today! Love and admiration to you.

Not Feeling the Love Today (26, 232 words)

I wish I could write like Alexandra Sokoloff!!!! I'm serious as a heart attack. This published horror author has the most beautiful writing style I've come across in absolutely ages. I almost have a girl-crush on her writing (my first ever mind you), and now I'll be going to the library to check out her books, starting with the first one so I can see how her style has grown or if she just started out with a beautiful novel right out of the gate. You have to check her out at http://thedarksalon.blogspot.com/. She has a ton of followers, including me!

While I blog mainly for my own personal need for expression, I would love to have a blog following and I know if I could write half as well as she, my friends and even strangers would be signing on as Followers in droves. Who knows, maybe even my daughter and nieces would finally sign on as followers. I'll have to make time to figure out what I'm going through when November has sped into December; I'll have time then to figure out why I want others to acknowledge and yes - I'm going to say it - even praise from time to time the effort I'm putting into both my passion for writing and my blog. I think I'm having a pity party for one today. I think I've allowed myself to really experience the loneliness I've been ignoring for so long. When I wrote a tender love scene last night, I cried because I don't have that in my life.

I was feeling so wonderful about my word count this morning - I'm up to 26, 232 words and that count was definitely hard earned. I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday with Debe to meet some other Raleigh writers. Only one showed up: a nice gentleman by the name of Bill. I tried, I really tried hard, to concentrate - to get something accomplished - but I was hungry (always a good excuse to stall on starting the writing process), it was too noisy what with the tutor drilling the child at the table across from mine, and the crying newborns being bounced and shushed and ineffectively comforted by clueless new moms pushing even newer strollers in their pretty new mom outfits: even for me, a woman with a high tolerance for ignoring outside interference, there were just too many distractions. I got about 200 words done in 3 hours so I packed up the laptop Debe's husband had so kindly allowed me to use for the day (I don't have one) and took it back to her house. I'm sure I overstayed my welcome, looking back on our conversation she did drop several hints that she was trying to get caught up on her TV shows she had recorded, and she was yawning a lot. I don't know where my head was on that one. I felt disconnected and invisible when I left; I was lonely and lonesome and really needed the company of people. There was no one to talk to, no one to call, no one waiting for me. There was no one to ask me how it went, there was no one to rub away the crick in my neck from holding myself so tightly against the guilt of not producing a single word. No one to comfort me, to offer me solace. I didn't want to be by myself but I had no choice. I had to go home to my empty apartment to a cat that sometimes loves me, sometimes ignores me (kind of like my ex-husband). I decided to once again squelch those feelings that could easily, and often do, swallow me whole, and looking for a distraction from the lousy state of my non-existent life and the writing that I didn't get done, I realized that my kitchen needed cleaning. I got down on my hands and knees and vigorously scrubbed every square inch of that sucker with bleach and water. Then with Comet. Sebastian the cat just sat back and observed me; he was in the ignoring mode last night. I wiped down all the cabinets and even cleaned the kick plates underneath the cabinets. With every swipe across that ugly apartment linoleum, I could feel the cold stare of my computer, I could hear it calling me: you are behind, you are behind, you are behind and nobody cares but you.

I was at 22,040 words on Friday. I was on track on Friday. I was feeling good about my novel on Friday. Saturday, I simply checked out. I tried, but couldn't write a word. Nothing was making any sense to me. Catana, a NaNo buddy, said in her blog (http://wordsontop.blogspot.com/) that she felt as if she'd hit a wall but the wall wasn't solid -more like rubbery and bouncy as she tried to write a transitional phase of her book. That's the way I felt Saturday and most of Sunday. I kept going back to attempt to write and would have to push away because it just wasn't coming.

After I cleaned my kitchen, I decided I was hungry (Substitution? Avoidance? Not sure but either way, we won't go there). I leaned up against my kitchen sink and crunched and munched my way through a snack bag of baby carrots as I stared my computer down (there should have been cowboy get-ready-to-draw music in the background). I could feel it. Something was building. A tiny nugget, a hint of inspiration, a kernel of an idea how to continue. I didn't have a single word in mind but I knew what was needed would come this time. I whipped out my trusty memory stick and brought up my novel.

With the first keystrokes, my writer's brain - which, by the way, is 180 out from my everyday brain - took over and the words flowed like honey on a hot, July day. Yesterday's word count brought me up to 26, 232 words. I did 4,192 words last night in two and a half hours. Thank God for automatic spell check!

So why aren't I happy today? Because regardless of my efforts, I'm not sure anyone will even read this. To the two people who do read my blog faithfully (and my mother is one of them), thank you! Please pass my website (http://www.thezenofmurder.blogspot.com/) along to all your friends and ask them to sign on as Followers! I'm not feeling the love today and it's lonely here.

I wonder...if I could write 'purty' like Alexandra Sokoloff, would I, too, have a following? It's thoughts like this that make me doubt the point of what I'm doing, that make me question what I thought was a talent for writing.

Ah, hell. I'm just having a bad Monday. I'll keep typing and telling my story whether you are there or not. I know deep in my gut that I'll continue writing after National Novel Writing Month is over and I also have a certainty that eventually, I'll have a mainstream fiction best seller. I have a path I must walk to get there and the steps I must take are mine and mine alone. However, it would be so good to know I could share the results of my journey with you.

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“If we're growing, we're always going to be out of our comfort zone.” John Maxwell

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Day 6, Sis. Hang in there. Much love to you.

Just A Short Note For Today

I did it! I finally went over my first big word-post. 20,140 words. I would write more today but have to get some work done. Gotta pay the bills so I can afford to write, right?

I wish someone would invent the Happy Camper smiley face, or the Happy Happy Joy Dance smiley. That's the way I feel.

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The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anaïs Nin

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Day 3: Hang in there, Li'l Sis. We all love you.

A Few Home Truths

Writing in the NaNo competition has been a time of great revelation for me. I posted a query to a writing forum the other day, asking if any other NaNoWriMo participants had experienced significant changes since November 1st, the day this 50,000 word novel in a month challenge began. Dear Readers, you’ll remember I touched on my personal experience in a two part blog entry earlier this week. I was surprised to receive quite a few responses (16 actually); most of them were a sincere sharing of the way this writing madness has changed them for the better. Since I finally made the correlation of writing and my own growth, I’ve been trying to define what the trigger was that changed things for me.

I tend to look for the obvious first so I thought that just the physical act of actually writing and meeting a self-imposed word limit – something I had very cleverly managed to avoid in the past – was what gave me this feeling of well-being. However, while that’s true to some degree, it’s not the bottom line reason I’ve changed. My next thought was that I was suffering from a case of mis-placed ego; after all, I had wanted to write since I was about 8 years old, and have, in fact, written in spurts ever since. However, I never considered myself a writer. I never finished anything because first of all, I was afraid to commit to my writing, and second, perhaps more importantly, I was convinced that I was no good: that my stories were lame, that my style and my voice was too ornate for my generation (I was a teenager who secretly read Eudora Weldy). I wanted the things I was driven to write to have meaning to the world. I wanted to save myself. I wanted to save myself.

It was a combination of factors that enabled me to transition from ‘playing’ writer to becoming one. Writing one particularly difficult scene made me stop and analyze why I just couldn’t get it – why I was missing the flavor in the passage and it dawned on me. I was writing in someone’s else’s voice. Once I finally realized I was writing the way I thought everyone expected me to, I got giddy. Yep – I was laughing and crying at the same time but oh, lawsy was I ever happy! I became light headed with relief, knowing that I just wasn’t going to search for approval and love from some outside source that just wasn’t going to come. I realized I had to write for me as me.

I broke my self-imposed barriers; I absolutely refused to listen to that one particular ‘you’ll never amount to anything’ refrain that looped through my brain, the words harsh and crackly on that too-oft played reel-to-reel tape.

I knocked down the ‘I should do it this way’ walls and constructed my vision of a beautiful home for my words. I gave them room to grow and dance and in doing so, gave my soul permission to breathe.

I will freely admit, however, that I’ve covered up my true self for so long that this Me is still a beautiful stranger I can’t wait to get to know.

Is it self indulgent that I feel like a Christmas gift to myself? I’ve opened the box and inside are many layers and layers of delicate tissue paper, some glittery, some in beautiful ocean colors. There are shades of the morning sky and mountain hues and starry nights. As each exquisite layer is lifted, the underlying gift that is me becomes more and more apparent. I’m excited by this gift, it’s something I’ve always wanted but didn’t know where to find.

I just thought of something else…I used to wish I could write a generic, lighthearted blog that would draw hundreds of followers who read me everyday and talked of my latest foible around the watercooler at the office, much like people used to discuss the daily newspaper columns (remember those days?). However, that desire to write like others is gone. Writing long narratives gives me great joy and satisfaction.

This is my voice. This is me.

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"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." Unknown

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Day 2, Li’l Sis. I’ve started you a letter and will mail it tomorrow. I love you.

Indulge Me. Please.

The rainy weather today disabused the notion of any kind of hair indulgence as I was going through my morning routine. I knew that any curl I added to my naturally board straight hair, any teasing to plump up the volume in my baby fine tresses would not stand up to Fall’s fine show of gusty winds and pelting, sideways sheets of rain. I realized that I’d have to do some creative hair styling today; I’d need to refine my (I know, I know) outdated ‘bordering on big hair’ look and tone it down to something sleek, chic and deceptively simple. This got me thinking about indulgence in writing ( doesn’t everything we do in our day to day life lead us back to our writing?). Is my style overblown? Would my story benefit from a make-over? Do I dare part the 18,018 word strands I’ve so lovingly grown and snip a little here and highlight a little there? Should I add low lights – more importantly – do I have the time to add low lights and still reach my goal on December 1st? Should I pare down my natural effusiveness into something ‘deceptively simple?’

Yes! And…No! Yes I should be ruthless and start chopping off extraneous words and split ends if I want to eventually market my novel but no, I shouldn’t touch it right now. Not only do I need the word count, but I want to indulge myself in the vain pleasure of wallowing in the beauty of my phrases.

I think I’ll grow my novel a little while longer then start thinning it out. I can always cut out the shiny locks of carefully groomed words, but as everyone knows, once they’re gone, they’re gone. There’s nothing for it but to either wear the new sleek, chic and deceptively simple style with panache or start the long growth process all over again.

What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers. ~ Logan Pearsall Smith, "All Trivia," Afterthoughts, 1931

Writing is a struggle against silence. ~ Carlos Fuentes

11/9: 8:20pm.

My eyes are rolling in my head. Perhaps rolling isn't quite accurate. I think they just might be spinning independently of each other: one to the right and one to the left like one of those googly thingies, or they are swinging from side to side in unison, totally of their own volition. I don't know, because I can't see crapola right now. My baby blue orbs just aren't adjusting from the eyeball grip I've had on my monitor these last however many hours of straight typing. I'm really, really monster hungry, my fingers hurt, my butt is dead from sitting so long and then there's my eyes...well, you already know about them - but in spite of all that, I feel exhilarated. Honestly, I really do. I did a lot of writing today and I feel good about where my novel is and the quality of work I'm producing. I'm a smart cookie. I realize that I'll have a lot of editing to do when this first draft is finished. However, I'm satisfied that I have really good bones in this novel to begin with so I'll be able to go back to the beginning for the first of many edits and with the luxury of not working under a word count deadline, flesh out all the scenes and give them that added punch that elevates a writer's work from a collection of mere words artfully strung together to a richly satisfying, living, breathing story.

Once the NaNo website is back up (routine maintenance is being performed right now), I'm going to go into one of the forums and ask about what I'm experiencing as a writer. I feel myself growing in personal surety, in soul strength, in womanly wisdom and in confidence of my ability to write. I don't know if I'm having a bad case of NaNo ego, or if I'm really going through some sort of metamorphasis. I'll ask the group if any of them have noticed changes when they are in the grips of their writing. If nothing else, it will lead to an interesting series of discussion threads!

11/10/09: 8:38am Am I Off Course?

What happened to my brain overnight? I woke up this morning marveling at how I’ve veered off course in my novel. I’m going down a dark and dirty path; my book is developing a creepy tone that actually makes me hesitate at times to continue writing. My lighthearted murder romp, my little cozy mystery, is turning into a twisted look inside the mind of a man who is fixated on prostitutes in general and one in particular who wears her physical wounds like a badge of honor: “Nia was, to him, a beautiful girl; he didn’t really care about her physical scars as he thought they only highlighted the beauty of her lush, young breasts carefully exposed to show the most skin. He didn’t realize, didn't even care to think about or know that her mental injuries were much deeper, much fresher and much more potent than the long wide line of puckered flesh that ran from under her left arm over the artificial swell of her breast to the center of her stomach. No, to him her brandings just begged for his knife to follow along her body path and open her up again. He do anything to woo Nia away from whoever had the paper on her. He’d pay any price. She needed him. She needed him as a lover, as a protector. She may not say it but he knew it. He excited him that she wasn’t of his kind; it wasn’t like he was going to marry her. He mouth went dry at the thought of dressing her up in a Madonna-like wedding gown costume, lifting her bridal veil and seeing the fresh wounds he’d just scraped into her cheeks. He have to remember that one. It made his hands shake with excitement just thinking about it. Nia would do that, she’d let him play however he wanted and never make a sound. She’d just watch him with those glittery eyes that never gave anything away. He liked that all he had to pay was a little of the money from selling a diamond here, a diamond there; he liked that that was all it took for the pleasure of playing with her. Diamonds were plentiful and he didn’t even have to do any work for the pleasure of playing. All the wickedly delightful things he’d done in the past with the other gals paled in comparison to the plan he had for Nia. The money from that last big diamond would pay off her pimp and then, then at long last she was his. His to carve with one long, slow cut at a time, from her pubic bone up to her sternum, each ribbon of red lying side by side until she looked more like a red seersucker pillow than a cut up prostitute. His to brand over and over, rejoicing in the long red strips that looked like bloody welts from a belt – he’d watch her life flow into a pool the color of red velvet cake and at just the final perfect moment when her life ebbed, he’d strip off his clothes, lay down in the ruby puddle and wallow in her life, rubbing her essence all over his body.”

See what I mean? I have to hold myself back from really going with the gore.

I have what I call pretty passages as well as some scenes that would be perfect in a Harlequin. But my killer, he’s really getting weird on me. I’ve got the detective at his house now and he’s noticed all the new things that aren’t in keeping with a single wide trailer built in the 1970’s. My killer is mad at the detective for questioning him about the day Calvin died. To my bad guy, Calvin simply had something he wanted – no more, no less – something that would finance his wonderful game with Nia. If someone else had found a diamond that size, Mr. Psycho would have taken it however he could. Whores were like the lottery – you gotta pay to play. He had a special playdate in mind for his new gal and needed the money to pay off her pimp. He’d do anything to play with Nia. She was the one.

Arrrggghhh, I can’t stop. Where is all this gunk coming from? More importantly, where is it going? Is it central to my story? Is it important to anyone that they know the depths of my killer’s depravity? The lows to which he willingly sinks to indulge in his rapidly growing obsession with mutilating prostitutes? Once I’ve made that clear to my readers, is it gratuitous to describe any further acts? I’ve heard that you never know what your characters are going to do once they come alive on the page and from what I wrote yesterday, I can attest that that rumor is true. So how far is too far? When do I say, Self, you are not going to write that! I am against censorship on principle: freedom of speech is one of our country’s founding precepts. So what’s a writer to do?

I have a few choices to make here to correct my course, and none of them are easy. First, I can go back and re-write the character of my bad guy. I can make him the poor, misguided not-really-bad-at-heart one-dimensional character we’ve come to expect in novels. Secondly, I can scale way back on the depravity factor. Thinking about it, doing that may leave holes in the story line that would be hard to stitch together without having all the threads previously in place. Third, I can just go for it. Let my mind go overboard and darkly illustrate my killer’s foibles. All the personal darkness so concentrated in this one character is counter-balanced by the normalcy of the rest of the characters.

Wait a minute, who says this direction hasn’t been my course all along? What’s wrong with going for the gusto? Who says I have to write nice, write pretty? I’m a strong woman who’s just broken free of the bonds from her old life. Why should I cling to the idea of something that exemplifies what I once was: safe, bland, boring….vanilla. I truly do not want to put myself back in that box. I find I’m really liking being out on this limb of discovery.

No, I will no longer be silent. I will no longer squelch my voice, my intelligence, my talent. I’m not going to self-edit before I even see where this is going. I will just write it as I need to tell it. I’ll trust myself. I feel it again – the rightness of a decision made from self-truth. I will honor myself and when I feel this certainty in the pit of my stomach, I will follow it. I. am. a. writer. I have a story to tell. I don’t know if it will be savory or sweet, pretty or ugly, or perhaps (hopefully?) a conglomeration of all sorts of contrasts. I don’t know how it will end up but I can guarantee one thing. It will be a doozy!

“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.” - Barbara Kingsolver

Nocturnal Musings

I woke up at 4:13 this morning, thinking of all the things I wanted to add to my novel. I wrote them down in the notebook most writers keep beside their bed to record those random nocturnal flashes of brilliance that if not immediately captured, disappear into the ether, never to be seen or heard from again.

No problem, I thought, at that ungodly hour of the morning that those of us who are aging see more and more of as time goes on; I’ll write all this down and then use part of it for my blog and – ooh – this if the perfect transition for that one really rough part of my novel, “School of Hard Rocks.”

I pushed aside the cat: Sebastian thinks he has to do whatever it is I’m doing. I faithfully scribbled down my thoughts as fast as I could and got down on paper each and every one of those 4:13am beautiful, wonderful, brilliant, totally original and inspired thoughts.

I promptly rolled over and went back to sleep, snuggled securely in the afterglow of writer’s self-righteousness. I awoke at 5:28 and was so excited to get all the ‘good stuff’ from the ungodly hour previously mentioned. I decided to go ahead and shower, get dressed for work – all that prosaic mess that gets in a writer’s way sometimes. I did all that and then fed the cat. Finally, I’m ready brain-wise to sit AIC (author J.D. Rhoades told us at an all day writer’s seminar that his secret to success was simple: Ass in Chair). My coffee is at hand, it’s quiet, I’m dressed and ready to go should I get involved in my writing as I tend to do and once again, lose track of time. Finally, the moment is mine. I look down at my notes, my OMG-I’m-absolutely-f***ing-brilliant notes from the night before…and I can’t read them. That’s right, dear reader, I can make neither heads nor tails of the foreign language on the paper right in front of me. I quickly grab my strongest pair of drug-store reading glasses and take another look. Absolutely no difference.

The gibberish on the paper could have been the writings from the aliens some people claim visit them in the night. Shoot - for all I know, it could have been Sabastian the cat channeling my subconscious thoughts and auto-writing for me. The lines on the page went on an uphill slant from left to right – waaaaaay up hill. I had whole lines crossed out and arrows and circles here and there. My writing had no real ups and downs or curli-cues; it was more akin to the almost flat line on that funky machine next to the dying patient’s bed on a really bad soap opera. All that creativity! All that good verbiage! All those wonderful words that not only connect my novel but get me so much closer to my 50,000 goal for NaNo. Illegible! Nothing to salvage but the thought of what should have been.

But, that's not all, dear readers. Oh no, not by a long shot. To add insult to injury…down at the bottom of the page, cramped into a 1x1 inch square, with several heavy lines repeatedly drawn in a box shape, were the only clearly written words…Make sure you use this!!!!


And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath

My Style, My Voice

I am doing the happy dance here in my chair, dear readers. I am over 10,000 words as of 5:30 last night.

I went to an Author Talk last night at the North Public Library, and enjoyed the moderated panel discussion with Therese Fowler (Souvenir, Reunion), Diane Chamberlain (18 published books, 19th to be released next year, and #20 is being written), and J.D. ‘Dusty’ Rhoades, full time criminal law attorney and author of five adventure/mystery books. It was a volunteer at the library that brought these fine NC writers together: JD was born and raised in Southern Pines and now lives in Carthage – he says ‘Good luck finding Carthage on a map,’ Diane lives in the Outer Banks and Therese lives in Wake Forest. Listening to their conversation last night gave me an idea for a piece I want to write (after NaNo is over, of course) about what makes Southern Writers so special. What is it that draws all of America into our books? Is it our idealism, our soft way of speaking (meaning writing in this case)? Maybe it has to do with the fact that Southerners in general are fantastic story tellers and we pass that know-how on to each successive generation. Or, perhaps it’s something more mundane, like the way we can pretty up the dirtiest pig and ‘shug, no one will ever know’ that we just stuck a ribbon on a sow and called it a beauty queen.

Therese Fowler said something that really resonated with me, something I had alluded to in one of my prior entries – it had to do with style being true to voice. I realized that although I will finish this NaNo mystery novel, I’m more drawn to a different writing style than the way I’m writing right now. I enjoy killing people in stories, it’s fun to think up different ways to do, and explore the dark side of people that drives them to kill, but it’s a temporary exercise. It doesn’t satisfy me in the long run. You see, I’m not being true to myself when writing this kind of story. I’ve always loved words. To me, they are a special kind of music and I can be brought to tears by a beautiful passage in a book. I love to read flowing, lyrical stories. For example, “The Shell Seekers” is my favorite book of all time. I read Rosamunde Pilcher’s novel once a year and each year, I marvel anew at the grace, the beauty, the flow of her words. When I read her books, I am a young woman in Cornwall; I can smell the ocean and the wet dogs as they come in from the rain. I can taste the strong, hot tea and fresh tomato sandwiches on my tongue, I feel the fog and the heat from the fire and the cold, winter breeze that stabs your cheeks like a thousand tiny knives. I see Penelope’s garden (Penelope is the main character in “The Shell Seekers”), and the bike propped against the back wall. I’m transported to Crete with Cosmos and Olivia and delight in their love affair. I despise Nancy for being such a whiney, self-entitled cow of a woman. It’s so wonderfully colorful, “The Shell Seekers,” such a true reflection of family dynamics both good and bad, the many faces of love, the wonder of a life – a life well lived, and the strength of a woman…. Now, I can’t wait for December 1st; it’s time to meet up with all my old friends in this book. It’s time for our yearly reunion.

But – to get back on point – I think in prose, not short, choppy sentences. I can’t simply say, it was a pretty red flower. No, I think along the lines of: The blood red petals of the just bloomed Mr. Lincoln rose glowed with a certain crimson crinkliness in the sparkly afternoon sunlight. That’s my style, my voice as a woman and as a writer.

NaNo is intense. It brings out things that you didn't even know were in you. I'm so happy to be doing this, to make my stand and take my place in what is so essentially me. I'm now living in the moment and enjoying each moment because I'm being true to what's been trying to get out of me for such a long time. Two and a half years ago, when I was first separated and feeling so old and ugly, trying to find my way in a new state, trying to pick up the pieces of my shattered soul and start my life over from scratch and scared to death of everything...at this horrible time of my life, my oldest niece gave me a gift. No reason, it wasn't my birthday, it wasn't close to Christmas. This wonderful gift was a beautiful mirror (the better to see the real me) and a blank notecard with this hand written message inside which has become my mantra:

I am no longer afraid of storms for I am learning to sail my own ship.
Louisa May Alcott

Still Plodding Along @ 8,869 Words

I'm still writing, but not as fast as I wish I could. I'm finding that having to work during the day is having a serious negative consequence to my daily word count and writing career LOL.

Calvin, my fiesty old dead guy, has stepped out of the picture for the moment and Taylor, my Park Ranger hunky hero (a real man's man) is having some very hot thoughts about the editor of the paper (she dumped him a few years ago because of his (former) career in the Oklahoma State Police Department. Lawsy, lawsy, Taylor. Is it hot in here or is it just you? Mm mm mm

My gal pal and NaNo Writing Buddy Debe asked me the other day about wrist problems (she's WAAAAAAAAAY up there in her word count). She has to wear her wrist braces to type now. At the time, it was mainly my fingers bothering me from having arthritis to begin with and then aggravating it by typing so much. Now, I wake up in the middle of the night with shooting pains up the muscle (although it feels like it's in my bone) that runs from the inside of each wrist to the outside of each elbow. I'm popping lots of Aleve but wish I had some Advil as it works better for me. But...I'm in a writing competition; I don't have time to shop for non-essential items. If it's not toilet paper or dark chocolate, I'm not stopping to buy it!

I'm happy with the direction my book is taking me, although I must admit I'm really surprised that I haven't gone back to the outline and storyboard I spent so many hours creating in mid-October so I'd be able to breeze through this month-long writing frenzy madness. Here's the kicker. In addition to telling this story through the voice of a dead man, I feel a real twist (dead guys aren't enough?) coming up in my story and I don't have a clue what it is, who it affects, what it will do to my story - I just know it's coming.

It's incredibly strange and at the same time makes perfect sense that I have to give up control of this story to get that which I want: a finished novel. You know, National Novel Writing Month, for me, is more than just finishing a novel, although that's a hugh part of it. It's also about overcoming self-imposed boundaries, stepping out of the corner in which I've painted myself. In these first few days, I've taken a child-sized hopscotch jump or two but now, I feel like I'm warmed up for the hurdles. I'm ready to jump in with both feet, to go the distance and win the MAJOR PRIZE AWARD: bragging rights! That's right, folks, my prize will be able to point to a finished product and say, "That, dear readers, is my book."

My Book. What wonderful music those words make to my ear. Words! Yikes! I've got thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of wonderful, warm, witty, stupid, forced, sensitive, sensual, angry, bitter, ill-chosen but all perfectly spelled words to go!

"The only thing that can possibly keep you from going after your dream is the person standing in your shoes, wearing your clothes, and thinking your negative thoughts" - Les Brown

Too Busy!!!!

It seems all I did today was stare at Outlook, trying to schedule meetings that invariably were good for my boss but not for anyone else. Crazy day. Oh - and I planned with my sister, brother, and mother our family's Thanksgiving menu. I'll catch up with my blog tomorrow, dear readers. I'm on my way home now to work on "School of Hard Rocks."

Old Man River

Ah gits weary
An' sick of tryin'
Ah'm tired of livin'
An' skeered of dyin'
But ol' man river
He jes'keeps rolling' along.

Love My Dead Guy

Four Thousand Six Hundred and Fifty Three Words yesterday, dear readers. My total word count was much higher until I started the dreaded editing yesterday evening. I deleted a whole page of dialog, my weakest point, because it didn’t ring true. To tell you the truth, Calvin, my dead guy, sounded like me, sitting around talking to my gal pals on a lazy Sunday afternoon. So I had to ‘man up’ and fix his story. Calvin is the narrator and he’s a bossy dude; he’s a lot like my G-ma Lucy was, except in male form. I did ask myself several times yesterday who was writing this book? Was it me or Calvin and the answer was clear as a bell: Calvin. I don’t have a single clue where my book is going or even who all the characters are but Calvin sure does. Calvin knows who did it and who saw what and why they did what they did. So, I’m going to let him have his head today; I, Cathy-the-writer, am choosing to get out of my dead dude's way. I will push aside my writer brain’s desire for a story-driven plot and let Calvin lead the charge in a character-driven plot.


Four Thousand Six Hundred and Fifty Three Words. Isn’t that impressive written out in its entirety? It certainly is to me! My word count may not be as high as others but then again, I am writing a book from scratch. And by scratch, I mean just that. Nothing is as I had planned when I was preparing for NaNo. All my formerly nice and tidy plotting efforts went out the window when I sat down to type. Calvin promptly jumped up and OMG – I’m having a revelation here. Calvin has the same voice as the Beetlejuice guy. That’s why he sounds so familiar as he’s telling his story through my fingers. Oh, Calvin’s nothing like that ghost. My dead guy is, sorry…was, 88 years old and was a stocky, bow-legged horse rancher his whole life. Highly moral, very family oriented, personally organized, and definitely a ‘take action’ kind of guy until the moment he died (and obviously even afterward LOL). However, this is not a ghost story, per se. There are no floating apparitions or mysteriously slamming doors. There are no woo-woo moments ~ wait, that's Cathy-the-writer talking. I don't think there will be any ghosty stuff but then again, Calvin's going to do what he wants regardless of what I want (isn't that just like a man?). I (again, Cathy-the-writer' POV) think Calvin is a man telling his tale to highlight the redemption of someone else. Hmmm, now where did that just come from? I’m learning so much about my writing persona ~ I write much better as someone else, as a character. Calvin is a natural born storyteller, much like the cowboys of old, so I will shamelessly use his voice, his point of view, to achieve my goal of writing a novel.


Four Thousand Six Hundred and Fifty Three Words. I’m very pleased that Calvin got me off to such a good start. Just two days ago, I had a goal to meet: 50,000 words by the last day of November. Now, I have a story to tell. I'm not sure that 50,000 words is enough.

I'm off!!!! 1,923 Words

1,923 Words as of 1:36am (haven’t set my clock back yet)

Oh, the life of a writer! I spent over a month making 3x5 cards and very carefully developing my characters, when they would appear, how they would look and act, and when they would be doing what particular action; I was so very organized and ready for this month long writing frenzy. Then came midnight and a funny thing happened on the way to the finish line.

My book, my storyline, even my characters took on a totally different persona! Chapter One was totally led by my dead guy but I had intended him to just be a bit player. Oh no, he insists on being the narrator and I can’t seem to shut him up so I’m giving him his voice. He’s awfully pushy to be a victim. To add to my surprise, my very clever thoughts on the direction my original opening paragraph would take ended up starting Chapter Two! Calvin (my dead guy) took over from the moment I sat down at my computer at the stroke of midnight.

Ay-yi-yi! Even though I could have typed for another two hours, I really have to let this entirely different story sink in. I have to sort out the new characters in my head. I wrote of Margot Rhodes and know she’s going to be important but I sure haven’t yet figured out just how her character is going to play out. I guess like Dead Calvin, she’ll let me know. So far in the picture is an 11 year old boy named Joey, Joey’s single working mother Carol and out-of-the picture coke-head father Dennis, Joey’s great grandfather (Calvin), a Park Ranger (Taylor Williams), a park employee (Cody James), a gemologist (Jasper James), and Margot Rhodes (role unknown – she just works at the park for now).

Needless to say, I’m really excited to pick this up again in the morning (I have to sleep now for a few hours).

I’m actually doing it. I’m writing a novel in 30 days!!! I'm sure my 1,923 words is not much to more accomplished writers but I'm very happy with my word count. I'm over my daily average so that's a good thing. Four or five days of being over my average word count will come in handy when my brain goes dead and I can't even find a word in a book. That was as clear as mud but I hope you get the general idea. OK, here's your sign: I was talking about saving words to bank against writer's block.

So, go me! Ooops - I better be careful. I may end up breaking my arm patting myself on the back.

Faith is to believe what we do not see;
And the reward of this faith
Is to see what we believe.
St. Augustine