NaNoWriMo Day 7: Character Development and Time Shift

SOUNDTRACK (IN PROGRESSION): Highway to Hell, (AC/DC), The Offspring Greatest Hits (except Why Don’t You Get a Job – don’t like it), Burning Inside (Ministry, The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste), Jesus Built My Hot Rod (Ministry, Psalm 69), Hollywood Babylon, Vampira, London Dungeon (Misfits, Collection), Pretty On The Inside and Live Through This (Hole), Questions (INXS, Welcome To Wherever You Are), Psycho Killer (Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense Special Edition), Serenade (Steve Miller Band, Fly Like An Eagle 30th Anniversary Special Limited Edition), Living in the U.S.A. (Sailor, Steve Miller Band), Middle of the Road and Thumbelina (The Pretenders, Learning to Crawl: Remastered Bonus Track Version), a U2 Set – Desire, Bullet the Blue Sky (Rattle and Hum), and Elevation (2005 Live from Milan), Violent Femmes (Violent Femmes).

We begin with a message from NaNoWriMo central:

I hope you’re all getting on towards 11,666 words! Tonight at midnight marks the end of Week One.

Happy writing to all, and to all a good weekend.

Lindsey

I’m not even close: 2,842 -11,666 = – 8842

Well, let’s update our total and see what the progress chart says (tick, tock, tick, tock …)

Considering my current pace, 2050 words per day are needed to make the 50,000 word goal. Today’s word total is 1,504 an increase of 479 words over yesterday. If I can manage to write 546 more words a day, that’s only 67 more words than today, I’ll achieve the 2050 word goal.

I began this good day of writing at 14:40 (2:40 p.m). Ruby’s personality is developing: she is intelligent, quick-tempered, and an off and on friend of Trills since childhood. He’s angry with her: don’t know why yet.

Time and personality are today’s themes. The story left-off yesterday with Ruby walking across the street to investigate the strange sight of a person sticking their head out of the window in the rain with no intention of moving from that position. At that moment both Ruby and Trill were teenagers. Phillip Pullam said that for him page 70 is where all the contradictions in his novels are revealed. For this novel, page 9 is where the time shift begins. When Ruby arrived at Trill’s house, stood under the window and yelled up at him, “Hey. What are you doing that for,” both she and Trill morphed into their twenties. The parents, downstairs with Bounder, vanished and Trill now lived alone in his childhood home; perhaps his parents died or retired and moved to a sunny climate. Oh the fun and adventure of free writing. I’m happy with this development because Trill and Ruby are much more interesting. The Sweets Lady didn’t make an appearance. Bounder is a red Greyhound.

NaNoWriMo Days 4,5 & 6: Victory and Progress

SOUNDTRACK: President Barack Hussein Obama’s Victory Speech at Grant Park and BestRadio (iTunes), Live from France!

6 November day total: 1025

On 4 November all of my thoughts and hopes were on the Election in the United States. The big date, important to many people across the world. I cried with joy and relief: President Barack Hussein Obama – a dream realized. Champagne – I drank glass after glass and the next morning, no hangover. I hardly thought about NaNoWriMo. I spent the day in contemplation as well as reading and listening to news and opinions from around the world. I emailed friends. I thank and send love to everyone who voted for Barack Obama. But there is no time to rest – we still have a lot of work to do.

Back to NaNoWriMo: Day 6 and I am so pleased – I wrote 1,025 words today. There is a new character and her name is Ruby. She lives in a cave (or cabin, haven’t decided yet) in the hills above the village. Today the story began with the Sweets Lady, her thoughts came through as soon I placed my fingers on the keyboard. She has a store now and Trill works her old cart. He has an ambition – to become a Master Confectioner & Chocolatier. His inspiration is Jacques Torres. Perhaps Trill’s ambition will expand to cakes and pastries.

I don’t know who Ruby is yet – but I think she will be an interesting girl, whether friend or foe.

What I’ve learned so far: that I can’t talk myself into relaxing in order to write. I really don’t know what helps me to or prevents me from writing. Some say – write no matter what. I’ve never been able to do that. If I can’t connect, if I don’t feel the characters in me and hear their voices; if I can’t close my eyes and imagine the scene, it’s no good. I feel these characters and place now, formed in my imagination.

The Week One inspirational email came from Phillip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials. He wrote that page 70 is the hardest, that for him the task of finishing a novel becomes overwhelming at that point. But if one can write 70 pages, then 71 can’t be that hard. And you keep on going, doing as many pages as you can a day (for him 3), et voila, 100 pages without realizing.

if you do love reading, if you cannot imagine going on a journey without a book in your pocket or your bag, if you fret and fidget and become uncomfortable if you’re kept away from your reading for too long, if your worst nightmare is to be marooned on a desert island without a book—then take heart: there are plenty of us like you. And if you tell a story that really engages you, we are all potential readers [of your novel].

Good luck!

Philip Pullman

I’m looking forward to next week’s inspirational email. At Phillip’s website there is a link to a fantastic email interview he did with Peter T. Chattaway, the Christian film critic at FilmChat blog about The Gold Compass movie (upcoming at the time) and the His Dark Materials Trilogy: Materialism, Christianity, Atheism, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkein.