NaNoWriMo Eve: I love my plot!

In less than one day, folks in the Eastern time zone of the U.S. will begin 2010 National Novel Writing Month. I’m ready, are you?

My plot kicks ass this year. It took long enough to come to me—I spent most of this past year, since last November, coming down off the high of finishing my trilogy, and circling around the fact that I had no clue what came next. It didn’t worry me. I had a couple of ideas that I knew I could fall back on. But something told me it wasn’t the right year for those projects. Then one afternoon, I fell asleep on the loveseat in my art studio, and had the most wonderful dream. Upon waking up, I somehow knew it should be my NaNoWriMo novel. So I wrote it down in my trusty Moleskine.

How do we have these intuitions? How did I know that particular dream, out of all the dreams I’ve had, would make such a good novel? It was only a few disconnected, surreal images and scenes. Over the course of October, though, they’ve expanded from rich little seeds to a sprawling, hilarious, edgy space epic.

I have only known these characters for a little over a month. But I love them as much as I loved anyone in my trilogy, and those characters had been in my head for over a decade.

I’m also more excited about this book, and consequently about this NaNoWriMo. I feel less hesitant and uncertain than I did with all three books of the trilogy. I felt, writing those, that I had to live up to the story I wanted to tell. I had to do right by it, to make sure it said what those characters wanted to say. I was an awed transcriptionist. This time around, with Mouse Wars, I feel like the characters are extending me a hand and inviting me along on an adventure with them. I’m one of them, not their diligent secretary.

The story itself is also more lighthearted. Mind you, it deals with just as many intense themes as the last one did, if not more. Fascism, corporate takeover of government, bioengineering, family betrayal, bigotry. But the MC’s a supremely confident person, and imbues the story with a pervasive “sex, drugs, rock & roll” attitude. He’s fun.

By contrast, Theta, my last MC, was ironic and thoughtful. The adventures she went on were mostly accidents. Things happened to her; and over the course of the trilogy, you can see her character growth by her changing reactions to them, and her experiments in making things happen herself. She was a watcher, an accidental catalyst, and a quiet magnet attracting more interesting characters into her orbit.

Both MC’s, both stories, are bliss to write. They’re just a different type of bliss. The joy of finally getting on paper a novel that’s been in me for years, full of characters I’ve loved since they came to me in high school; versus the excitement of unleashing a completely new thing in my mind, and not knowing where its stranger-characters will be taking me.

Clock, please speed up. Midnight tonight can’t come fast enough!

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