Stats

In Jo's little world:

5 Days

10 Chapters

15,931 Words

In Fort Hood, Texas where I lived from 1969 to 1972:

13 Dead

30 Wounded

I am proud of the first stats and horrified by the second.

There are no words or chapters or days . . .

Peace,

Jo Taylor

NaNoWriMo (Again)

Yes, I know, boring title. I can't manage anything pithy right now.

Sarcastic, maybe, but not pithy. I believe there is a difference.

It is 7 pm or so and I have been writing all day. I got stuck for a few hours about getting from here to there but I think I solved my problem. My total word count is now 12,611.

As a very sweet and thoughtful reward, my son brushed my hair for twenty minutes. I think I hear angels singing.

Peace,

Jo Taylor

NaNoWriMo Progress, Day 3

The National Novel Writing Month has begun and so far, so good. I've prepped the family (that I will be busy writing), cleared my calendar (not really, I'm working 15 days this month instead of my usual 10), and set a schedule (not really on that one either).

So, what have I done, you ask?

Written 10,064 words so far, that's what! It is amazing what thinking about a story for 3 or 4 months and not being able to write it will do to you. Word spillage all over. Not that it is necessarily readable, mind you.

Notice that the title of this post is blah, blah, blah, Day 3. Do not look for a Day 1 or Day 2 as they do not exist. I skipped blogging those days. Oh, horrors.

My brain is pretty much fried as far as anything intelligent to blog about after sitting at the keyboard all day. But, I wanted to congratulate all my writer friends for their progress so far, encourage them to keep it up (or step it up), and offer a toast for the next 27 days . . . may they be filled with coherent words!

Peace,

Jo Taylor

New Character

Well, I'm leaving Margaret and Honey behind for a while. Just there, sitting on the shelf. They haven't misbehaved or anything, but it is time to get ready for NaNoWriMo. It starts November 1st and requires a novel from scratch.

This novel is called Road Clothes. I have the general idea, and the main character name and sketch, but other than that, her story will flow onto the page starting in November. Not a moment sooner. The idea for this particular story has a simple and interesting genesis.

I have always been fascinated by things I see by the road. Perhaps this is because we drove, A LOT, when I was a young Army Brat. Daddy didn't like to fly, so we drove everywhere. Texas to California, to Texas, to Kansas, to Maryland, to California. And of course all the places around there in between the big moves. I think it is why I got interested in medicine and working ambulance. Road kill, skid marks. I got car sick very easily, so there was no reading while Daddy drove, or the big black trash bag would sit with me for the rest of the journey. So, I looked around.

I would see signs, or names, or stuff on the road and make up stories about how they got there or what they meant. Nothing stellar, or even anything I really remember, but I did it to amuse myself. Somehow or other, I never stopped making up the stories. If I'm driving my car and I see skid marks, I try to think of what happened and all sorts of dialog that may have been overheard if I was a little fly in the flying car.

Anyway. One day just recently, my son and I saw a jacket in the roadway. Road clothes. Haven't you ever wondered who they belonged to and why they were in the middle of the freeway, expressway, country lane, or highway? Well, I have. I guess my son has too, because he turned to me and said, "Mom, why do you think that jacket is in the road?"

I whooped loudly and he cringed at my inappropriate response, but I had just gotten a great idea for a story! Son, what if we stopped to pick it up, and there was an arm in it?

A slow but satisfied grin spread across his sweet face. "That would be AWESOME!" Just the reaction I'm looking for about a story.

Peace,

Jo Taylor

My Characters Wake Me Up in the Middle of the Night

I went to bed early and everything. Finished watching NCIS, turned the TV off, and walked into my room and fell fast asleep (well, okay, I took a shower and brushed my teeth, even changed into my jammies). Then I woke up at 2 am. WIDE AWAKE.

Now, where I live there are earthquakes a lot, so I looked on the internet - no earthquake. The dog was sleeping in the living room, so it wasn't her. I went back to bed and realized what had awakened me was one of my characters for my NaNo novel talking to me while I was sleeping.

I can see her. Her name is Cassidy Edmond. She was going through this whole song and dance about how I needed to remember this and add that. The rules for NaNoWriMo are to write a novel in 30 days. Actually, the history of the project can be found here:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/history

As far as I can tell, thinking about the story, maybe even a little outlining is within the rules. Not that they have very strict rules about anything. Anyway. I've definitely been thinking about it and I have the story idea and most of the plot lines worked out in my head. The characters are coming to life, evidently to the point where they feel free to bug me. So far there is the main protagonist, Cassidy, and a boyfriend I have yet to name. It is a bit of a crime-mystery so the police will factor in at some point.

I tend to think of names first, giving them just the right tone for what I want the character to express. Then how they dress, mannerisms, life traumas, et cetera. I'm not sure how much I'm going to pre-characterize or if I'll just let them develop as I go. That will depend on how much time I have prior to November and how organized I can get.

I want to be the kind of writer who creates characters that are living, believable beings. I think the fact that they, in their infancy, wake me up at night is a very good sign. Makes me sleepy the next day though.

Peace,

Jo Taylor

NaNoWriMo

I'm going to participate this year, in November, in National Novel Writing Month. It will be a first for me, but not the first novel. I have two current novels in progress. One is at 48,000 words and the other is at 16,000. The rules of the game are that you start from scratch and finish 50,000 in the month of November.

If you do the math, it is a very neat 1666.66 words per day. Take into account the holiday (Thanksgiving - at which I will eat so much that I could not possibly write a word all day), and a day or two for organizing, outlining, regrouping, etc., and you come up with a general 2,000 words per day. Or at least, I do.

For those of you who do not write, 2,000 words a day probably sounds like torture. It's really not that bad. It is admittedly first draft stuff and it is meant to just get the words out, then revise later. For comparison, my previous blog post from yesterday came in at a cool 470 words and I wrote it in 10 or 15 minutes. Granted, a novel will take time not just to physically write the prose, but also time to think about it, flesh out plot points, and develop characters.

I think it is an interesting endeavor. I will at least learn something about my process of writing. Hope some of you might join me.

Peace,

Jo Taylor

Central Coast Writers' Conference

I went to my very first writing conference on Friday and Saturday at Cuesta College which is near my home. A big plus for being close by, and I went to school there for my nursing degree. I didn't know anyone, but I met lots of nice folks and actually learned something. I tend to be optimistic, so even if something was not stellar, I was easily able to overlook it because most of the offerings were better than I hoped.

I got tons of insight in the dialog workshop by Kirsten Menger-Anderson who wrote a fabulous collection of short stories called Doctor Olaf Van Schuler's Brain. More on that in another post (but I highly recommend it). Dialog kills me sometimes. I think it is critical to do it well, better than well. She had us do a short writing exercise, with dialog of course, and then asked a few to read theirs out loud. I discovered that I was a chicken.

I'm rarely a chicken, so dialog must still be the thing I think I do least well. Funny thing though, I didn't really think anyone who read theirs aloud was significantly better than mine. So, if I'm not intimidated, why the hesitation? Maybe because I'm new in the environment and don't want to come across like a know-it-all (at this point my Dad would spit his teeth across the room, because I never hesitated to be a know-it-all before), or perhaps I am still unsure of my place in this part of the writing world.

The other workshop that I found very valuable was Point of Narration vs Point of View taught by Charlotte Cook. She is a publisher and a writer and is exceedingly comfortable and capable in front of and interacting with an audience. She gave some tangible examples of what to consider when making the choices inherent in writing that transcended her immediate subject matter. Thank you Charlotte.

The other bright spot was hooking up with a few writers who plan on doing NaNoWriMo in November. NaNo stands for National Novel Writing Month (November) and the title plus .org will find you at a website that sponsors the "contest." I say "contest" with the quotes because you are in a contest with yourself to produce 50,000 words of a novel. If you do that, you win. It's going to be nice to have friends in the same wicked boat.

Tomorrow, I'll post my personal NaNo goals and tell you a little about the book I'm planning.

All I know is that I am glad I got my feet wet at a smaller conference. I discovered that I like them and that they are worthwhile. The folks that put it on did a lot of work, and they seemed rather likable. So, I recommend it.

Peace,

Jo Taylor