Merry Samhain and Blessed Be

It's October 31st, a day which comes with two feelings: 1) Hooray! It's finally here!! 2) Wait, how did it get here so fast? EEP! In other words, it means I'm both excited and terrified about the journey I'm getting ready to set out on.

Ironic that today is Samhain, a time of new beginnings as well. It's the Celtic new year, a time to shake off the old year, look back on who you are and have become, and prepare for the new challenges ahead. What's ironic about this holiday that occurs the same time every year? It shows up the day before the biggest, scariest challenge I've taken on in years. Writing 50,000 words is not a scary task. Daunting, definitely, but not so much scary. What's scary is conquering myself. I have a severe lack of belief in myself, something that always magnifies in incredible ways when you're starting off on a track leading you to something you've always dreamed of. I'm scared of shaking off the old me, but then again that's exactly what Samhain is about.

I went to the pre-kickoff party today. (The kickoff party is late at night and with work in the morning, it just wasn't the best idea for me.) It was refreshing to meet so many people in the area that I suddenly had so much in common with. We're a hodge-podge of randomness, regular people with irregular hobbies (for most of us it seemed that way anyway). I can't wait to spend more time with all of you at the write-ins and the TGIO party in December. More on those later.

Tomorrow begins the journey. Tomorrow I try to begin the path of conquering my fears of myself. Tomorrow I take the first steps in the direction of my dreams. Thank you for following me, for cheering me on. I need all of you, both now and all the way up to the very end. (And the end is not just the end of NaNoWriMo, the end is publication....then hopefully many more publications after the first!)

See you tomorrow.

2 hours 5 minutes and counting...

Yours Truly,
Mrs. C

I think I...well, no...wait...really? Hmm...

If I've learned anything recently it's that I have no idea what exactly it is that I want. I have general ideas: I want to get out of debt, I want to do NaNoWriMo, I want to stop feeling stressed at work by silly little things, I want to finally get my home "moved in". But the truth is I don't know the how or the why of any of that. Such is life I suppose, but I am a complete and total scatterbrain at times. What does this mean? It means I've changed my mind again. You should probably be used to it by now.

Do you remember that post earlier this month saying I wasn't going to do a word count? Well I've decided I will. It's too tempting. It will be my triumph or my downfall, but I've got to know! I'm still going to do a lot of long-hand writing, especially at write-ins, but I'll be doing my best to type it up each night and report with a word count. This sounds like very little sleep. I suppose I should rest up this weekend and prepare to re-adopt my high school lifestyle of sleeplessness.

What I DO know is that I want this week to hurry up. I'm ready to write!

4 days and counting...

Yours Truly,
Mrs. C

Like Waiting for Christmas

I'm very proud of myself, I actually did what I said I was going to this time! Last night I sat and worked on the outline. I typed up a few headlines for scenes I've always known about, then while I was sitting and staring at my page knowing I needed LOTS of filler and couldn't just write a few main scenes it all just started coming to me. Town names, people, histories... Certainly not everything, not even close, but far more than I'd imagined thus far and let me tell you, the feeling of excitment was like Christmas Eve and being six years old all over again. (I'm so looking forward to meeting our local group to be around people that understand the same feeling.)

But while we're waiting for NaNo to start, here are a few videos for your enjoyment. The first is barely over a minute and quite adorable. It also explains NaNo to people who have no idea what I'm talking about.

NaNoWriMo

Now for the second one. A song, brilliantly written. I haven't even done NaNo yet and I know it perfectly describes it already. Go listen!

The NaNoWriMo Song

Tell me what you think. =)

11 days and counting...

Yours Truly,
Mrs. C

"One Page Per Day"

A friend inadvertently introduced me to this website and I am now thrilled that he did.
http://www.onepageperday.com/

Here's a perfect example: In my last post I said I was going to start an outline. I was. It was already rolling around in my head, stirring up probablities when work and dishes and laundry and watching past episodes of Bones got in the way. So...it didn't happen. But then I heard about One Page Per Day. A website that simply asks, "What if you wrote one page per day?" What if? OH WOW, the possibilities there. So I didn't think about it, I just signed in. It now sends me a "gentle reminder" in my email letting me know there is a single blank page sitting there, waiting to be filled. No more, but no less either. And seeing as how NaNo is not here yet and I am technically not allowed to start writing til November 1st, what on earth do I fill up my one page with today? Why an outline of course. What else is there?

12 days and counting...

Yours Truly,
Mrs. C

Thinking Outside the Outlines

I never work with an outline, and as a result when I'm not writing a structured academic essay my writing tends to wander nomadically from place to place, sometimes with little to no explanation. (This, I'm told, is not good for readers!) So for NaNo I'm going to try an outline. Not one of those ferociously guarded boxed-in doctrines my professors always told me about. Those are the very bane of creativity and I shudder when those bulleted lists begin forming in my mind. No, not one of those. More of a...suggestion we'll call it. A list of places and major events in the order I know they occur. Simply a reminder of the direction the story is going, so that as I fill in all the blank spaces I'll remember the ultimate goals of the characters. I'm sure it will be altered time and time again, but especially if I'm going on this 50,000 word, one month long spree of insanity I best at least know what road I'm on, even if my map doesn't mark all of the roadside attractions along the way.

For my fellow creative writers out there, have you ever worked off on outline? What was your experience (for better or worse)?

18 days and counting...

Yours Truly,
Mrs. C

Dreams Point Me Home

Saturday night I was plagued with nightmares. All night. All bloody night. I may as well have stayed up watching horror movies and never went to sleep at all. But after last night I've begun to think my body and mind was cleansing itself and shaking out all the nasty skeletons it could find in the closet. (Or at least a very good lot of them.) Because last night I dreamt....my story. Not exactly in the way I mean to write it, but near enough that I knew the people even though I called them by different names, and I knew the places even though they weren't what my dream self expected, and I knew precisely what was going on, like I'd always been there, always lived there. I went home.

Paulo Coelho said today, "Don't forget to pay attention to the omens that are guiding you to your dreams." It seems the omens are my dreams right now, which works quite well for me. How else will I ever be with my characters?

My husband also told me a few days ago, "Just make sure you know how to get back out of the rabbit hole." It's so easy to say I will. But sometimes I just don't know...

21 days and counting...

Yours Truly,
Mrs. C

Old Friend, New Journey

I'm really starting to feel it, that bubbling geyser of excitement just begging to be let loose. In the meantime, I'm giving it a little pre-NaNo workout. Working on a poem at the moment. One I've been meaning to write for a long time and just now do I feel ready to write it. So much is happening "just now". Maybe I was supposed to wait for this all along? I wish I could harness this energy the way Captain Shakespeare harnesses lightning. If I figure out how, I'll let all of you know.

But even better, I've been talking more with an old friend lately. We used to bounce story ideas off each other and trade bits of writing all the way back in middle school. Times changed and we changed and we each took off in our own direction, but over the past couple of months we've been talking a bit more here and a bit more there. Skip to yesterday when I emailed her with a request. She's a graphic artist and I asked if she'd work on some sketches of characters in her spare time and she jumped on the idea. But what I think is even better than the artistic help she's providing, is the developmental help. Some things to me are as clear as if they were real and I was there. Some things I just never think about and I need to learn to think about if I'm going to write them. So I sent her two brief character synopses yesterday and she wrote back a few hours later with loads of questions. So many of them I'd never thought of! But now that they're out there, I'm forced to think about them. (This is a very very good thing.)

At last, everything seems to be coming together.

24 days and counting...

Yours Truly,
Mrs. C

All You Local Crazies

That's right. I've gotten dragged back into November's devilish plan of masochism. (Making me write til my fingers fall off.) I'd decided once again that it wasn't for me. That I was going to start working on writing again, but I was not going to NaNo. Not yet. Maybe next year. Think Again.

My local crazies (as I have lovingly begun to call the other people in my area taking on this adventure) have suddenly become a very active group. At least 2-3 write-ins scheduled per week, 2 kick-off parties, and who knows what else. How can I turn this down? The very thing I struggle with the most is motivation and now I have several people who will be getting together week after week for the sake of writing. I need somebody sitting next to me, doing the same thing I'm doing, who can beat me over the head with a notebook (the paper version, not the electronic) if they find me too distracted. I need this. Ask and ye shall receive.

So here we go again. I have made four promises to myself for this plan of insanity:
1) I will write long-hand the first time around. The computer offers me far too many distractions so I need to take it out of the equation. I sense a trip to stock up on spirals in the near future.
2) I will use the computer only to copy my work (for word count purposes), blogging, emails, and maybe the occasional facebook status update. I will otherwise be MIA from both internet and non-internet computer activities..
3) I will not word count until the final day has ended. I will try to keep up with transcribing from my long-hand to a word document -- this I will do when my brain is dead from actively writing new material -- but I will not look at the word count. Not for 30 days.
4) I will blog daily. Even if it's just a few sentences, I will blog about the day, about the journey. Since I will not be checking word count until December 1st, I will give you a rating from 1-5 on how the day went in regards to NaNo.
          1 = I wrote nothing new.
          2 = I wrote minimally. (Less than 5 pages)
          3 = I wrote averagely. (5 - 10 pages)
          4 = I wrote well. (10 - 15 pages)
          5 = I lived my writing.
Keep in mind those page estimates are long-hand. I will count a single page as both sides of the paper, not a single side. And no worries, I don't have large handwriting. I hope to average a 3 (that's why it's called average) but I know I'm probably going to start the month off with 1's and 2's. I'm out of habit and it's going to take some mind power and dedication on my part to get back into it.

So there you have it. I apparently enjoy mental pain and torture.

28 days and counting.

Yours Truly,
Mrs. C