Distance, where I’ve been, and getting personal

03 May 2013 5 Comments

by PartlyPixie in The Novel, unsticking Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Shadows at the tide pools.

Forgive me for rambling, I'm rusty at this.

I've been away. Away from the blog, away from home, from myself, even from writing.

I needed a vacation.

Irowboat's birthday is in April, and we decided to celebrate with a road trip in my new car to California – traveling to San Francisco and down the coast to Los Angeles, finally ending in San Diego for a few nights before heading home. It was a chance to see friends (including a visit with the fabulous people of The Office of Letters and Light), to eat marvelous food, stare at gorgeous coastlines, and to research some locations for The Novel.

We had an amazing time. There were long walks, speakeasies, The Golden Gate Bridge, winding roads with no cell phone reception, tide pools, ghosts in hotels, caves used by smugglers and pirates of yesteryear, beaches at sunset, books by Douglas Adams on the car stereo, time with each other. And, of course, amazing friends, new, old, and in-between.

There was a day spent glued to television and twitter when bombs went off in Boston, the surreal contrast of our Great Vacation against the horror and fear of the news.

There was an impromptu stop at Monterey Bay Aquarium, hunts for clam chowder on the coast, adventure.

I barely wrote a word.

It gave me distance, this trip. It gave me time in air thick with history and wonder, time in the places my characters know and love and remember. Time away from myself and who I'm used to being.

That distance gave me the chance for all this writing, all this dreaming to change me, and I've returned different. I'm new, born into myself from the new reality of writing, wanting to write, afraid and excited by all I have to learn.

I can't help but think back to last year at this time. I was frightened, troubled that I might not make it. My insecurities lashed at me like tide on sharp rocks, catching me up in waves I thought might drown me. I knew I would never be the same – I could feel it as I wrote myself real. I've been feeling the changes in me, feeling the strain between who I was and who I am yet to be.

This trip, this distance from my everyday, has broken the bond with the past. I'm floating free. I don't know how to do anything anymore, not like I used to. I don't remember how to blog or to write, I have piles of emails to reply to and comments to answer and things I want to write and share here and elsewhere. And a novel to do.

I don't know where to begin. Not even a little. So I begin here, with you.

What is clear to me is that I'm ready to more myself. Here, elsewhere, anywhere. I can feel it, the desire to hold things back. I've given in too often, and fallen silent instead of saying what I wanted to say. But the time for that is over.

Now it's time to get more real, and more serious. Time to do What I Never Thought I Would.

I'm ready for this, whatever this is. I'm ready.

 

I’ve Been Up To Something…

08 Apr 2013 3 Comments

by PartlyPixie in Camp NaNoWriMo, The Novel Tags: , , , , , ,

I haven't been around the blog as much as I like lately.

It's because I've been up to things… Several to be specific, but one thing in particular. And I'm excited, and a little bit frightened. And that usually is the best combination.

As I've mentioned a few times, I'm working on one of last year's novels, slated to be self-published around November/Devember (and a lot of you are getting copies thanks to your contributions to my causes).

This novel has taken a lot of research, and along the way I have been collecting snippets and ideas for back story and history of my characters, things that don't need to be in the novel, but are in my head all the same.

And so, I have launched a blog for the prequel of The Novel, and I am using the momentum of Camp NaNoWriMo to get it written (edits take a little longer).

The story is about vampires, about what we become to survive, about love that lasts through changes and separations, about friendship. And it all centers around a girl, found in Ireland, with a destiny to become one of the most feared beings the vampire world has ever known.

Here is my first entry. The rest can be found at cultofthesun.wordpress.com if you want to follow along.

Ireland, 1904

If only she had forever to live, if only she had more than seventeen years to become brave, she might have found the courage.

But she killed him anyway, the vampire.

The stake, carved for her from the rung of a baby's crib, did not go in smoothly the way she hoped. She knelt at his sleeping side, and her arms shook when she raised it above his death-still chest and plunged down at his heart.

His eyes opened, bright with shock, and he scratched at her; his nails dug long channels into the pale terrain of her flesh, across her chest and down her arm, and red bloomed, further staining the torn silk of her gown and mingling with the pooling black blood of the vampire. The scratches burned like when she backed up against her mother's oven, hot with breaking bread.

She did not scream. And she did not stop.

He clutched at her, bucking and writhing, noises coming from his blood-drenched throat. She closed her eyes and pushed harder against the stake, thinking about butchering lambs in the frost, how they made sad, small sounds and steam rose from the blood, caught in troughs for the season's offerings. She felt his ribs break and give way, like branches under heavy boots. His heart did not resist, and when she penetrated it at last, his body shivered and went limp.

She moved away from the bed slowly, wary of him rising again. Distantly, she knew that her bones ached, that her blood ran hot along her skin, that her lip was split and swelling, and worse things had happened–things she could not think on–but she couldn't feel any of it. She sat as far from the bed as she could, back against the wall, fingered the cold shackle around her ankle, and waited for morning.

 

Camp NaNoWriMo. Are you in?

03 Apr 2013 12 Comments

by PartlyPixie in Camp NaNoWriMo Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Obligatory crocus spring image

Happy spring!

Before I get too deep in my own thoughts, go sign up for Camp NaNoWriMo. I'll wait.

Yes, you do have time. Camp lets you set your own word count goal, so no excuses. Go sign up.

Because, writers, it's time to bloom again.

It's been a long winter, and now the world is creaking out of hibernation, and I, too, am stretching myself out into the sun after composting the last of winter's lessons into my flesh.

It doesn't matter what we have done before, what last year did or did not hold for our writing.

Accomplishment or failure, we can begin again, with no regard for the past. We can creak our rusted fingers into typing shape, wrench our minds from anxiety of swim suits and middle squishiness, and focus on what matters to us.

The page, the story, the word, the chat rooms, the creativity.

Time to bloom, time to let the words sprout from the gray covering of the old life. Time to write, and write with the joyous abandon of not caring about anything else than how many words an fit into thirty days (or 27 of you start today, like I am).

Camp NaNoWriMo. Are you in? I am.

 

Month Twelve Reflections: Write What You Write

11 Dec 2012 6 Comments

by PartlyPixie in 12 Month Reflections, December, unsticking, Writing Tools Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We hear about how zombies are over and how fairy tales are in, we hear about agents and we worry about if we can one day sell the thing we have scarcely typed five paragraphs of.

We ought never end a sentence with the word of. Or to. Or with.

We think we should write science fiction because smart people do that, or we should give up on literary fiction because vampires are where the money is (even though some writing magazine just told us the vampire craze is dead – haha dead, get it?), and what if that isn't where the money is and everyone is still stuck on serial killers and zombies after all?

But young adult is where the real market is, right? We should take a class on that, we should join a writing forum, we should have a writing group, except writing groups are bad for originality, or is that reading?

We should not read while we write because it will influence us, or was that we should read as much as we can while we write so we stay fresh?

We should never write cliches, we should only write things that have not been done, we should give up and write whatever, we should cut our teeth on fan fic and not worry about all that pesky character development. Maybe we should skip the publisher for that novel we haven't written yet and go straight to kickstarter, and maybe if we just read the latest magazine article on “5 Sure-Fire Ways to END Writer's Block NOW!” we can finally get started…

Stop

Just stop for a minute.

We are all here because we are writers, we want to be writers, or artists, or creatives. We have a need to express things that are within us, sometimes buried deep from years of shoulds and should nots, or just beneath the surface and waiting to be discovered.

Sometimes they lay like seashells in the sand and beg us to pick them up and hold them, smooth and cold like porcelain, to our ears, and listen.

We will never get to what is inside by reaching for what is outside. We will never be fulfilled as writers, never find that peace we write to seek, if we listen only to the bustle of the world going by, and not the seashell in our hands.

We must write what we write. We must come to the page, the canvas, the world as we are, and no one else. We must dive into our obsessions and burn through them, write into them, explore every unflattering angle and beautiful crevice of the things we cannot stop thinking about.

Whether it is cliche or obscure, if we do it honestly, we will offer the world what we are here to offer. And when we let go and admit to who we really are, the art is a little freer to make, the blocks not so blocked, the time not so long before we can feel the idea giving way and letting us slide into the heart of things.

And if the waves come and take a seashell away, wipe out what brilliant idea we had, it is easier to find another one just as brilliant, just as fine, because we know what to look for.

It does not always come easy.

When I began this year, I thought I was a science fiction writer. I had dabbled with all sorts of things, from some hard boiled crime to short stories dealing with Christian mythology, and of course, my beloved science fiction I thought I was meant to do.

I thought I knew what I wrote.

But what poured out was not expected: vampires, immortals, fairy tales and black magic, a tower that only stands because of the blood poured at it's feet, enchanted swords, underground owl men who tell your fortune in the bones of their pellets, exiled fairies, greek myths and conspiracies, and even more vampires.

I clung on for dear life as I wrote on and on, things I never dreamed I could imagine, anyone could imagine.

I can see the struggle in my early drafts, the fighting with myself, trying to steer the story to normal, all thrown out when the word count was too low, and I had to face myself as I am. I started many months with the hopes that maybe this time I would find sanity, the previous bloodbath of a novel was a fluke, but I was wrong.

I know better now, and I am a better writer. I look forward to what darkness lays before me, what evil deeds will await, what fairy tale I can twist.

I write what I write, it's just easier that way.

Write what you write, live as you live, let the rules that work for you find you.

And spend that money you save on writing magazines on a good pen, or some chocolate, or wine. Whatever makes you happy.

 

NaNoWriMo 2012 Complete!

01 Dec 2012 4 Comments

by PartlyPixie in NaNoWriMo Tags: , , , ,

Achievement Unlocked

Tonight, I drink. Tomorrow, I will blog.

 

Eleven Down, One (two) To Go! With rambling.

26 Nov 2012 5 Comments

by PartlyPixie in NaNoWriMo, October Tags: , , , , , ,

Last night I finished the first of my two novels for this November. It flowed easily, as many of the projects I care the least about do.

But that is a good deal of the point NaNoWriMo teaches us, to let go and realize that somehow we find the end anyway, and the less we hold on to what we thought we we doing, the better the result.

It is hard to believe how little I have blogged this month. I miss it. I honestly wish I had more going on in my head, but between my transformative trip to San Francisco for A Night of Writing Dangerously – I promise, I'll tell you all about it – and writing two novels this month, I am bone dry for other things to say, at least things you haven't heard me say before.

I tell myself I am setting a good example; that I am writing and not letting anything else stop me despite how much I want to blog instead of meet my word quota.

Writing two novels is both easier and harder than I expected it to be. It has been nice to switch between my two stories and to have that freedom of thought, not being locked in on one single train of plot line and characters.

But the actual switching between is getting to be a bit of a bitch, frankly. And so is the wear and tear on my body that I have not anticipated. Like my hands aching constantly and the relative inability to use my pointer fingers for anything but tapping the keys of my bluetooth keyboard (I prefer the touch screen keyboard, but my hands need the change).

Which is actually another reason for my lack of blog, though I always hate to admit when physical ailments prevent me from living up to my obligations.

Writing this much for a year starts to take its toll on a person after a while. Things like swollen joints, aching back, and yes, even a little weight gain because I cannot get the same amount of activity in my day when there are words to be written. It all adds up, but so do the words (576,000 right now!).

The pain, at least, is temporary, as is the brain cramp I am wrestling through in the transition from ending one novel and returning to the middle of another. It is a skill, one I am still working on.

But as always, I will finish.

And to all of you who are struggling along to get to the end this month:

You. Will. Finish.

I am right here with you, and I completely, totally, and unflinchingly believe in you. Yes, even you with only 10,000 words written. You can do it.

And then we will all drink heavily and ice our poor broken hands. Or is that just me.

 

 

 

 

NaNoWriMo Tips: Write in the Cracks

08 Nov 2012 7 Comments

by PartlyPixie in NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo Tips, unsticking Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Goodness, time is moving quickly.

Normally, I would be going at a good pace for a normal month, but at 13,000 words, I am behind. And I know from some of your wonderful messages, that many are feeling the same. Last month was busy, and now I am in the process of very, very slowly catching up. And of course, it is not happening as quickly as I wanted.

But in this rush and stress to keep the words moving in the upward count, I am seeing the opportunities I'm missing to write.

We learn in these early days, as we either soar or we fall behind, to see all the cracks where writing could fit in. We look back over the day and notice that fifteen minutes we spent surfing Facebook in the morning, that extra errand we ran on the way home that someone else could have done, that hour we spent waiting for dinner to finish cooking.

Writing can fit in-between the moments in life. That is part of the NaNoWriMo lesson, that it can happen in ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, in the places we could be doing other things.

Or job is to see where writing can fit, and then do it without hesitation. Hesitation wastes time.

It may not always go smoothly, I know. Nothing feels as good as a long chunk of time to write deep into our story and to really stretch our legs. Writing in blips makes things choppy, it can be hard to figure out where we left off. I also know that it is hard to get in only one hundred or five hundred words at a time, it feels like not enough.

But they add up. And so does that awareness that writing can happen in the cracks between the events of the day. The story will grow in small pieces, and we can still get some words done even when life has us scrambling.

As the story slowly grows, so do our muscles to assert writing into chunks of the day instead of cracks, we eventually develop the courage to make the other parts of the life spread apart with the roots we have planted.

We learn as we write whenever that we can also make life happen between writing, that as the need for words grows we make life happen in the cracks between writing.

Suddenly, as our focus shifts, life is a hassle and the words take over our words. We life with our stories living full color, while the real world fades to sepia tones. Even if we still have 30,000 words left to write in ten days, it becomes possible, if tiring, and we know we can because we know how to fit writing between the necessary parts of the day, and how to push the unnecessary tasks to the side. It will all be there when we are done.

But do not worry about that for now; start where you are.

Just write; whenever, wherever, however.

NaNoWriMo Tips: stage directions and other lessons from script writing

02 Nov 2012 12 Comments

by PartlyPixie in NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo Tips Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

(Why are you reading blogs? Go write! )

If anyone knows where this came from, let me know.

When I was younger, I spent a lot of my time (13 years) involved with all things theater. Acting in, writing, and directing plays all taught me a lot about storytelling, and about writing.

Playwriting and screenwriting is writing distilled down to an impressive science; instead of a whole block of text to connect with our audience, all there is is dialogue and action. Everything about a script is meant to give as much information possible in as little space needed, and while that seems like the opposite of NaNoWriMo, the last thing we want to waste is time fumbling with what we have already written, searching for what we already said.

I've noticed this year that a lot of the habits I developed as a playwright (yes the wright is where I got my NaNo username) have helped me immensely in my noveling, helping me to pad my word count, keep characters straight, and probably to smooth out the editing process in the future.

Here are some of them:

  • Leave yourself stage notes. You know that scene where we achingly work so hard at crafting the signs of subtle frustration in our main character? Chances are that on re-reading, we will have been too subtle and we won't remember what was going on. Take a cue from scripts, and leave yourself notes like (Mark is angry) and (she's holding the dagger), so as directors we can keep track of the action and not let it get muddled in our word-spewing haze.
  • Tell, don't show. I know, this is like breaking the first commandment, but there are times when we just don't want to deal with a scene, or we suddenly have lost track of what we are writing. When a play is a little confusing, one character usually sits and explains it all to help the audience out. To get past something we don't want to spend time on, nothing works like a quick bit of telling. Let a character have a flashback, dream sequence, monologue, or step out as a narrator and just blurt out a big bunch of story.; anything just to get the plot moving again.
  • Name extra characters simply. Not all characters need real names. While naming main characters can be one of the more enjoyable parts of noveling, naming an entire cast is exhausting and impossible to keep track of. Unless a name is required, most plays and movies will have extra players named their function, like “party guy” or “suitor seven.” This saves precious time trying to remember what we named someone, and also adds to our word count a little. And as a bonus, when we go back to edit, we know exactly who everyone is instead of running into something like the banquet scenes in Game of Thrones (I actually used action figures with post-its to get through reading those).
  • Cast of characters. At the top of each script is a section describing each main character: age, description, disposition. A lot of up keep a character bible of some kind, but I prefer this quick sketch just to keep referring to in case I can't remember if my main character is a ginger or brunette, or what accent someone speaks with. We can add small details as we go, but it isn't as rigid or as cumbersome as a full biography (though if you're really stuck for words, biographies are fair game for extra word count).
  • Create a morgue. My script writing teacher always told us to never throw out dialogue. Instead, he gave us a notebook with a headstone on the cover, and instead of throwing out stuff, we glued it in there for later resurrection. Every time you write something you don't like, just cut and paste it onto another document, or just move it to the bottom of the screen under a MORGUE heading. And count them. Keep all of the words you write, even if you change stories or write something you do not use. This isn't writing 50,000 words of coherent plot, this about writing 50,000 words. Put the cut ones in the morgue, and maybe they will get to live again one day.

I hope some or all of these help. Please do not hesitate to message me with any problems, sticky situations, or panic attacks. I want everyone to finish NaNoWriMo, and I'll do whatever I can to get us all there.

 

That's it for today. We have novels to get to!

 

 

 

Ten Down, Three to Go! With other thoughts.

01 Nov 2012 2 Comments

by PartlyPixie in NaNoWriMo Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

October was a wild ride, and this ending feels hard won. There was the loss of irowboat's cat Felix, the win of the NaNoWriMo post, the daily life in-betweens of it all, and working in the words wherever they fit. The anticipation of November has hung on us all heavily, and today it is here.

I spent Halloween dressed as a writer, with a patched-elbowed sweater, hair tied up messily, and the telltale squint of one who has been putting words in strings for hours. I held the bowl of candy for trick-or-treaters with whichever hand didn't have my coffee mug, and I believe I wished more kids a Merry Christmas than Happy Halloween.

In the bleary and achingly wee hours, I finished my tenth novel. 500,000 words. And celebrated with three hours of sleep; the deepest I have had in a long time.

And now it is time to start again. This time, the first of two novels for the month: one for NaNoWriMo, one to satisfy my goal for the year.

It is hard to believe that I have come nearly full circle now, that I am less than a month away from when I first got the idea for this project. It seems like only a few months ago that I sat here where I am now, and I looked up and proclaimed to my visiting friend, who sat writing beside me, that I wanted to write a novel a month for a year.

Irowboat gives me awesome shirts.

Now I can write.

He, of course, told me it was a terrible idea. Maybe he forgot that I live to break rules and to chase down terrible ideas.

It was my 1-UP, a new life.

And my beginning happened then, in that instant. I have not been the same since. I wish I knew where it was all going to lead, what adventure I'm in the middle of finding.

But I'm still in the middle of my story. And if there is anything I have found out for sure, it is that we never know what story we are writing until we are at the end.

Only three more novels to go. Three novels, and one night writing dangerously, thanks to the amazing and heartwarming donations I received. I cannot thank you all enough.

Keep your eyes out for more NaNoWriMo tips. Coming to a blog near you.

Now, hand me some more coffee. I have a novel to start!

 

Photo credit: irowboat

 

NaNoWriMo Prep: Disconnect Your Speedometer

15 Oct 2012 2 Comments

by PartlyPixie in NaNoWriMo, October Tags: , , , , ,

No, not literally.

This summer, we had a massive heat wave here in Salt Lake, and a curious thing happened after driving around in 102° F heat for a week solid. My speedometer stopped working.

But it didn't stop dead, laying at the bottom of the dial like a sunken boat. Instead, it hovered at twenty miles per hour, the needle staying completely steady no matter how fast I went. Unless, that is, I went below twenty miles per hour, and then it began flailing wildly back and forth until I either came to a dead stop or drove faster (either of which would return the needle to 20mph).

Luckily, I only drive manual cars, so I had some cues about my speed, and I never got pulled over (imagine that exchange!), but I never pass up an opportunity to learn something about life, writing, and everything wherever I can. And learn I did.

I stopped paying attention to how fast I was going, and started paying attention to other drivers and the road, and when I knew I needed to be places. The only feedback I had was the gearbox, the road flying past, and the dancing needle when I slowed down below 20mph. And I did what I had to to arrive at my destination when I needed to be there, never knowing how fast I went between the start and end of my journey.

It was freeing, frightening, and instructive. And now I do my best to ignore the speedometer – fixed with the cold weather – and to pay more attention to my surroundings and just getting where I am going.

I have noticed a lot of my fellow writers planning their daily word counts, planning their plots, planning their everything in preparation for November.

The logic seems good: to reach 50,000 words, all we need to do is write an average of 1,667 words each day. And while this seems to be a reasonable, steady pace, I have yet to meet any piece of writing that is either steady or reasonable. Why should we expect the process to be anything but chaotic?

Stop worrying about speed and planning. Break the damn speedometer, and pay attention to the terrain instead.

All novels and stories have their own biorhythm, their own unique terrain; some corners need to be navigated slowly, other bits are long straightaways where we can really test how fast the old girl can go. Sometimes we are running late and need to speed, other times the road is crowded and dangerous and we must slow down and make creeping but steady progress toward the goal, the end.

We don't need to worry so much. The only plan needed is this: start at the beginning, work steadily to the end, and finish on time. Speed up, slow down, climb hills, and take detours (the best part). It may take some of us longer than others, but the distance driven is the same for all.

Enjoy the journey. Relax. And write.

 

Also? Never backtrack! The backspace key is for when the cat or the kids “help” with typing. This road is one way only—forward.

 

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