Dear Wal,
This time yesterday, I was on the edge of glory, with 49,500 words and counting. I really didn't think I would make it through that last 500 words, but I did. But by no means did I reach an end. Jason's story is so vast and complex now that an end looks a daunting 100 or 200 pages away from the 120 pages I've already written. It's incomprehensible to me that I've come up with that much story in the past...what, two years? It feels insane and impossible and ridiculous. Just like the story itself.
There isn't any common thread of plot throughout the 120 pages I've written, except Jason (no duh) and there are so many gaps. But that's the only way I could make it through NaNo. Every time I got bored, I went back and started on one of the many stories I planned but never wrote. They exists as parts of chapters in what I've officially christened as a legit book. Which is weird, because few things that I've written I would consider books. Most of them are short stories, collections of short stories or novellas. About 90% of them unfinished, of course.
The thing is, I've got to finish Jason's story (or at least get caught up to where I am in my head) but it's going to be a very long ride. But that's alright, because-for the most part-Jason is a happy guy. He isn't going to go on tormented tirades and wreck my plot, or drown in the little evils of too many subplots. He's also a superhero, and that makes everything easier. Things in superhero land don't have to make sense to the readers, they only have to make sense to the superheroes. Over thinking superhero stories (unless you're a GENIUS like Frank Miller or Allan Moore or Grant Morrison) is where you get into trouble.
Anyway, I'm rambling. A lot. Which is funny, because this is a rant. So, technically I should be ranting. Here I go with the over complicating things again.
What do I think about my astounding accomplishment?
It was actually slightly...I don't know, easy. Easier than last year, anyway. The biggest problem I had to grapple with was boredom. I was going crazy with boredom. My writing ADHD was like: BUT I CAME UP WITH THIS AWESOME IDEA FOR TOM'S STORY...and I was like: NO. ONLY. JASON. DANGIT. NO. MUST. KEEP. WRITING! Writing has become like a switch in my head, I turn it on and I may or may not be able to turn it off. Or direct it where I want it to go. It's like that puzzle with the three light bulbs in one room, and the three switches in the other. You're in the room with the switches, and you have to figure out which switch goes to which light bulb, but you can only go in the room with the light bulbs once and you can't see that room at all from where you are in the room with the switches. It's like that, only I don't get to go into the room with the bulbs at all. I flip a switch, and I haven't got a clue what bulb turns on.
Yay for complicated analogies.
What am I going to do now that NaNo is over? Why, exams! What else? All my classes end on December 14th. Finally. And then my sister is coming home for Christmas on the 17th. I'm excited. I haven't seen her in over a year. Christmas is going to be fun this year, because my aunts and my uncle and my brother and my niece are all coming as well as my sister and her boyfriend. It's going to be awesome.
Furthermore, what am I going to write?
I honestly have no idea.
And you know what? That's exciting. I'm leaving the promised land of winning NaNo, and venturing out into a new frontier better armed and more fit than ever. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
/endrant
P.S. I've never eaten a twinkie. They look nasty.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
40,000 Words And a Few Tips
Dear Wal,
I don't believe it. I almost can't believe it. It doesn't make any sense. How in the world did I end up here, with ninety pages of nothing but Jason before me on the screen? Just goes to show how much material I had sitting around in my head. I was afraid for a while after I hit 30,000 words that I was going to run out of material, but no end is yet in sight. Not that there ever could be an end to a story about a superhero. They just don't work like that. I'll probably end up giving one of those "And he fights on..." endings to Jason. Although, I couldn't think of a better way to do him justice than that.
This has been a very interesting experience, mostly because it's the first Nano where I haven't had to seriously struggle. It's like being in shape. Running four miles isn't so hard any more, and that stupid hellish hill isn't so painful. I mean, I've gotten into plot holes and I've dug my way out. Slowly, in some cases, but I made it out. And when the words didn't come, I just had to wait a little longer for them to come. Not days or weeks or anything like that, more like a few minutes. Writer's block has never really been a problem for me anyway, what was always the problem was that I got myself and my story into this huge snarly mess that no amount of industrial strength detangler could get me out of.
Even that has worked itself out. And that was a problem I never thought I would be able to kick. Granted, something awful might turn my story into crap in the next week (PLEASE NO D8) and prove me wrong on that count. But I doubt it. I've gotten to the point now where I'm not only committed, I've got a solid writing habit now. It's kind of an...amazing feeling. I'm winning. My crazy insane ridiculous writing and all of my crazy insane ridiculous characters are coming together to create something real-something that has weight to it (if I printed it out-I'm terrified of wasting that much paper, though).
I feel like a real writer now.
Not that I have any clue what that means, exactly.
Anyway, here are a few things that I've been doing to keep on going through this month of insanity:
1) Have a place. A spot where writing always happens. For me, it's this wonderful blue chair in my room, a Batman snuggie (yes, I have one of those) and a lava lamp. After a while, it becomes an automatic trigger. I sit down in the chair, I start thinking about writing.
2) Feel free to skip ahead or write things out of order. Jason's story has never been one that I think of in a linear way. It comes to me in episodes that are all out of order and disconnected, and then I have to figure out how to fit them all together in the right order. For instance, I started in the dark and stormy future-the epic final climax of my JLA arc, which is the final arc in everything I've come up with so far-and skipped back to writing about Catwoman and then back to the future and then back to Catwoman and then to Jason's origin. All out of order.
3) Turn off spell check. I know this sounds insane, and no self respecting college student would willingly do this. But I did, and it really helps. Those little wiggly lines get really annoying after a while, and they interrupt your flow of thought when you have to go back and fix them. (I'm terrified of turning spell check back on now. There are going to be little wiggly lines everywhere. Revision is not going to be a fun process.)
4) Immerse yourself in your genre. I've been reading comics, going on epic DC comics wiki safaris and playing DC universe online: absorbing as much superhero related media as I can. Not that I don't already do that...
5) Take a break. I don't mean stop writing. By no means stop writing. Just take your mind away from your novel for a while. I've been watching Doctor Who to get me thinking about something that isn't related to superheroes, and occasionally dabbling in a sci fi story I've been working on steadily since this summer.
6) Get some exercise. Go for a walk. Go feed your creatures if you have any. I've been running and working with my horses. It does wonders for getting all the junk out of your head.
/endrant
I don't believe it. I almost can't believe it. It doesn't make any sense. How in the world did I end up here, with ninety pages of nothing but Jason before me on the screen? Just goes to show how much material I had sitting around in my head. I was afraid for a while after I hit 30,000 words that I was going to run out of material, but no end is yet in sight. Not that there ever could be an end to a story about a superhero. They just don't work like that. I'll probably end up giving one of those "And he fights on..." endings to Jason. Although, I couldn't think of a better way to do him justice than that.
This has been a very interesting experience, mostly because it's the first Nano where I haven't had to seriously struggle. It's like being in shape. Running four miles isn't so hard any more, and that stupid hellish hill isn't so painful. I mean, I've gotten into plot holes and I've dug my way out. Slowly, in some cases, but I made it out. And when the words didn't come, I just had to wait a little longer for them to come. Not days or weeks or anything like that, more like a few minutes. Writer's block has never really been a problem for me anyway, what was always the problem was that I got myself and my story into this huge snarly mess that no amount of industrial strength detangler could get me out of.
Even that has worked itself out. And that was a problem I never thought I would be able to kick. Granted, something awful might turn my story into crap in the next week (PLEASE NO D8) and prove me wrong on that count. But I doubt it. I've gotten to the point now where I'm not only committed, I've got a solid writing habit now. It's kind of an...amazing feeling. I'm winning. My crazy insane ridiculous writing and all of my crazy insane ridiculous characters are coming together to create something real-something that has weight to it (if I printed it out-I'm terrified of wasting that much paper, though).
I feel like a real writer now.
Not that I have any clue what that means, exactly.
Anyway, here are a few things that I've been doing to keep on going through this month of insanity:
1) Have a place. A spot where writing always happens. For me, it's this wonderful blue chair in my room, a Batman snuggie (yes, I have one of those) and a lava lamp. After a while, it becomes an automatic trigger. I sit down in the chair, I start thinking about writing.
2) Feel free to skip ahead or write things out of order. Jason's story has never been one that I think of in a linear way. It comes to me in episodes that are all out of order and disconnected, and then I have to figure out how to fit them all together in the right order. For instance, I started in the dark and stormy future-the epic final climax of my JLA arc, which is the final arc in everything I've come up with so far-and skipped back to writing about Catwoman and then back to the future and then back to Catwoman and then to Jason's origin. All out of order.
3) Turn off spell check. I know this sounds insane, and no self respecting college student would willingly do this. But I did, and it really helps. Those little wiggly lines get really annoying after a while, and they interrupt your flow of thought when you have to go back and fix them. (I'm terrified of turning spell check back on now. There are going to be little wiggly lines everywhere. Revision is not going to be a fun process.)
4) Immerse yourself in your genre. I've been reading comics, going on epic DC comics wiki safaris and playing DC universe online: absorbing as much superhero related media as I can. Not that I don't already do that...
5) Take a break. I don't mean stop writing. By no means stop writing. Just take your mind away from your novel for a while. I've been watching Doctor Who to get me thinking about something that isn't related to superheroes, and occasionally dabbling in a sci fi story I've been working on steadily since this summer.
6) Get some exercise. Go for a walk. Go feed your creatures if you have any. I've been running and working with my horses. It does wonders for getting all the junk out of your head.
/endrant
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
20,000 Words and My Writing ADHD
Dear Wal,
I've made it to 20,000 words, and with considerably less trepidation than I thought. Somehow, knowing that I can actually make it to 50,000 words has made this year much less of a struggle than NaNo was last year. It's like cross country, I know that I can run faster than this, but I don't figure that out until the next season. Just wait, I'll jinx myself and I won't make it to 30,000, but at this point I see no reason why I won't make it all the way to 50,000. I may not get much sleep in the process, but I will CONQUER this. And schoolwork. And work. And Buzzy. And running. Somehow, all these things will come together at the end of the month and make something wonderful. Or terrible, depending on the circumstances.
The only reason I've made it this far is because of something I've come to call writing ADHD. When I get stuck on one story or tired of that story, I move on to a different one. The only way this is possible for me to do and still have a cohesive, novel-like entity is through my fanfiction. It consists of many smaller interlocking stories, not unlike a comic book series (which was the point, alala). Anyway, when I get tired of writing about future Jason going back in time with a prophecy of Armageddon I start writing about Tommy going on a quest for truth on the streets of Gotham, and when I get tired of that I start writing the hopelessly romantic (and tragic) love story of Jason and Selina.
I've been rewriting all of these stories, because I began then and never finished them in a fleet of notebooks (all of which happily live on my bookshelf), a few binders of random scraps, scattered word documents and a massive Celtx document of my failed attempt at turning this fanfiction into an actual comic book script (I'm the worst script writer on the planet). Going through all this various unconnected material, I realized how much of an idiot my younger self was. I didn't write any of the stories with Tom (he's the bad guy that escaped into his own original story) and I completely messed up the first installment of my Catwoman stories. I rewrote that particular story in various notebooks multiple times, trying to work out the kinks, but all the while the solution was right under my nose. I can't believe I didn't see it before. I guess it helps to take a step back and then go back and re-read what I've written.
The problem is, I'm quickly running out of material that I've planned. I'm having to venture deeper and deeper into the foggy territory of: "Well, this is the point of the story, and this is what generally happens. You see, this guy goes evil...because, well, I don't know. He just does. I'll come up with that later." Then, when I get to that point: "Oh, he could do this! But this would be so much more awesome! I think this would work better thought." I finally pick something, and everything crumbles into plot-hole induced chaos: "THAT WON'T WORK! I need to go back to my original idea. Wait...what was my original idea? Aaaag!"
It's this whole lovely process that I'm afraid of falling into again. I need to learn to plan things better, but that sort of thing takes months for me to do. It would be even longer for this fanfiction, because all the stories are out of order in my head. I can't decide where to put Tommy (Tommy Elliot, if anyone's read Hush-in my parallel universe he becomes the vigilante known as Falcon-my original creation-and helps Batman protect Gotham, because Robin is annoying). I'm having to fill in the huge void left by Tom, and two other characters who were detectives on Jim Gordon's squad when he was still a captain and not the commissioner.
In the midst of all this, I found something that surprised me. Instead of individual stories told separately in Jason's life along a timeline, which is what I originally intended, there's a link between them all-other than Jason himself-that I could use to make into one mega novel thing. A really long one, most likely longer that 50,000 words and possibly multiple books.
I've never had the material for that kind of length before.
And you know what sucks?
I will never be able to do anything with it, because all the characters I'm using are copyrighted.
I'll probably post this novel in smaller chapters on fanfiction.net or deviantArt or something, but it's still slightly disappointing. However, writing about all my favorite superheroes is just too much fun for that to bother me too much. NaNo will at least make a dent in this fanfiction. Maybe I'll even finish it, but I doubt that. I think this is just going to be a life-long endeavor. Or at least, it will be an endeavor as long as I'm still obsessed with superheroes.
/endrant
I've made it to 20,000 words, and with considerably less trepidation than I thought. Somehow, knowing that I can actually make it to 50,000 words has made this year much less of a struggle than NaNo was last year. It's like cross country, I know that I can run faster than this, but I don't figure that out until the next season. Just wait, I'll jinx myself and I won't make it to 30,000, but at this point I see no reason why I won't make it all the way to 50,000. I may not get much sleep in the process, but I will CONQUER this. And schoolwork. And work. And Buzzy. And running. Somehow, all these things will come together at the end of the month and make something wonderful. Or terrible, depending on the circumstances.
The only reason I've made it this far is because of something I've come to call writing ADHD. When I get stuck on one story or tired of that story, I move on to a different one. The only way this is possible for me to do and still have a cohesive, novel-like entity is through my fanfiction. It consists of many smaller interlocking stories, not unlike a comic book series (which was the point, alala). Anyway, when I get tired of writing about future Jason going back in time with a prophecy of Armageddon I start writing about Tommy going on a quest for truth on the streets of Gotham, and when I get tired of that I start writing the hopelessly romantic (and tragic) love story of Jason and Selina.
I've been rewriting all of these stories, because I began then and never finished them in a fleet of notebooks (all of which happily live on my bookshelf), a few binders of random scraps, scattered word documents and a massive Celtx document of my failed attempt at turning this fanfiction into an actual comic book script (I'm the worst script writer on the planet). Going through all this various unconnected material, I realized how much of an idiot my younger self was. I didn't write any of the stories with Tom (he's the bad guy that escaped into his own original story) and I completely messed up the first installment of my Catwoman stories. I rewrote that particular story in various notebooks multiple times, trying to work out the kinks, but all the while the solution was right under my nose. I can't believe I didn't see it before. I guess it helps to take a step back and then go back and re-read what I've written.
The problem is, I'm quickly running out of material that I've planned. I'm having to venture deeper and deeper into the foggy territory of: "Well, this is the point of the story, and this is what generally happens. You see, this guy goes evil...because, well, I don't know. He just does. I'll come up with that later." Then, when I get to that point: "Oh, he could do this! But this would be so much more awesome! I think this would work better thought." I finally pick something, and everything crumbles into plot-hole induced chaos: "THAT WON'T WORK! I need to go back to my original idea. Wait...what was my original idea? Aaaag!"
It's this whole lovely process that I'm afraid of falling into again. I need to learn to plan things better, but that sort of thing takes months for me to do. It would be even longer for this fanfiction, because all the stories are out of order in my head. I can't decide where to put Tommy (Tommy Elliot, if anyone's read Hush-in my parallel universe he becomes the vigilante known as Falcon-my original creation-and helps Batman protect Gotham, because Robin is annoying). I'm having to fill in the huge void left by Tom, and two other characters who were detectives on Jim Gordon's squad when he was still a captain and not the commissioner.
In the midst of all this, I found something that surprised me. Instead of individual stories told separately in Jason's life along a timeline, which is what I originally intended, there's a link between them all-other than Jason himself-that I could use to make into one mega novel thing. A really long one, most likely longer that 50,000 words and possibly multiple books.
I've never had the material for that kind of length before.
And you know what sucks?
I will never be able to do anything with it, because all the characters I'm using are copyrighted.
I'll probably post this novel in smaller chapters on fanfiction.net or deviantArt or something, but it's still slightly disappointing. However, writing about all my favorite superheroes is just too much fun for that to bother me too much. NaNo will at least make a dent in this fanfiction. Maybe I'll even finish it, but I doubt that. I think this is just going to be a life-long endeavor. Or at least, it will be an endeavor as long as I'm still obsessed with superheroes.
/endrant
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