First day of National Novel Writing Month 2010

So I reached 8,018 words before midnight of November 1. I’d wanted to get to 10k, but I didn’t quite make it. I’ve been averaging about 400 words in the ten-minute sprints, and 600-800 in the 20 minute sprints.

But I’ve been spending far too much time trying to get the poor NaNo forums to stop wheezing under the load, and appear on my screen already.

Still, I’ve never, in the previous three years, written this much on the first day. I always start right at 12:00am the first, but only get about a thousand words—sometimes fewer. I’m still gunning to get to 50k by midnight on Friday. Yes, I know I’m insane. Helping #nanowrimo trend on Twitter probably won’t be conducive to that, but it’s so addicting to hype it up with fellow writers!

I’ve got my basic needs to hand: cold water with lemon juice, white wine, candy corn pumpkins, Burt’s Bees lip balm, eye drops, postcard of Oscar Wilde in a bitchin’ cape. My external hard drive (for backups—DO IT NOW) is also nearby. Eurythmics on the headphones, awesome rainbow writing gloves on my hands, glowstick bracelet on my wrist, NaNoWriMo 2009 noveling machine shirt on.

I’m good for another few thousand before I pass out, I think. All in all, a fine first day.

Where I started working.

photo originally uploaded by the catalyst….

Another place where I worked on my novel this year:

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!

Scrivener 2.0

The Fingerless Gloves Debate

Who writes with them?

And if you didn’t raise your glove-covered hand, what are you waiting for?

On the NaNoWriMo forums, there have been a couple of threads focusing on writing gloves. Some people get it, some people don’t: it’s all about feeling like a badass, like a genius in a garret pounding out the next Greatest Novel Ever. Oh, and keeping warm too, if that’s your thing.

I posted a photo of my previous three years’ gloves. And after running up one side of the internet and down the other, I finally found the perfect 2010 fingerless writing gauntlets. They’re a custom job from an etsy seller named mirabeans, based on longer gloves of the same fabric she had in her store. Here’s a photo of them from her site:

Beautiful, huh?

When they arrive, I’ll replace this photo with one of my own. In the meantime, head over there and look at her other gloves and bags. She’s really nice!

Thanks, Keith

Aside from being hotsmart, Olbermann’s a good man. Wearing a purple tie on Spirit Day is just another way he’s shown himself to be on the right side of causes that matter.

Happy birthday, Mr. Muse!

“Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.”