The Aerie
Just back from my wife's family's annual birthday-o-rama. By some twisted coincidence, my wife's sister and their younger-by-four-years brother both share a birthday... as does that sister's daughter! In addition her spouse has a birthday later in the week. So while every year we gather about this time for their birthdays, this time was also the 40th birthdays of my sister in law and her husband.
As a special surprise, his sister who lives in Spain made the journey to help her brother celebrate his 40th... and as a surprise, so did their mother, who lives in Texas. So it was a complete surprise family reunion for my sister-in-law's husband. A very nice time, with lots of really good food provided by various attendees.
Otherwise life proceeds apace: I managed to get to a point in my University of Minnesota homework where I sent it off to my academic advisor to look it over. For the first time in six weeks or so I have a break from that task hanging over my head, which will pick up as soon as she looks it over (hopefully Monday) and sends back recommendations. Meanwhile I have a letter that my lawyer needs written, so I'll work on that and maybe some yard work tomorrow.
The other thing coming up will be this year's edition of National Novel Writing Month, the annual effort to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month. Last year I tried it and hit 35,000 words before my new contract employment jumped up and interrupted progress. This year both employment and schoolwork are a known constant going in, so hopefully I iwll be able to schedule the appropriate amount of writing time somehow.
My wife is one of the Twin Cities area Nanowrimo coordinator, so it's very difficult to avoid participation!
Last weekend she and her co-municipal-liaison (or ML) taught a workshop at The Loft, a noted local writer's organization, on how to participate in Nanowrimo. She barely slept the night before, so beset was she by nerves, but her reviews arrived today - along with a check - and they were rated very highly by their well-attended class. Hooray for her!
Now "the rules" of Nanowrimo state that you should begin writing day one with your mind a blank slate. I did that last year, with only the most general notions in mind, and while I got 35,000 words written, and I liked the 35,000 words I wrote, I ended up in the same place I've ended up before: with 1/2 of a novel and no idea how to tie everything together.
So this year I'm going to bend the rules slightly, and i'm going to plot out the novel in advance and then try to write to the plot. Not to cheat at Nanowrimo but to help myself write something that actually has a beginning, a middle, and an end to it. I'd like to get that done once in the hopes that I could go back to my two half-written novels with more confidence about how to tie their parts back together.
What I've discovered having written 2 X 1/2 = 1 novel is that writing a novel can be like a game of pool: it's easy enough to rack the balls and break them up, but to win the game you have to also put them into the holes. So far I am good at the break.
So I've got a little time tonight and a little time tomorrow, I'll start working on the plot for my Nanowrimo novel. Of course, I have to figure out which one I want to do. Unlike a lot of writers, I have absolutely no problem coming up with ideas - it's just a question of which idea I want to attempt. Right now I have two in mind - a comedy-horror about a Minneapolis vampire, or a slightly more serious murder mystery. A murder mystery might be a bit easier, since the plot is so straighforward.
We'll see!
Posted by Albatross at October 21, 2006 9:30 PM | TrackBack