explanation

Let me explain a little about what I mean about unexpected things happening. I mean, that sounds stupid, because I’m the one at the keyboard, typing stuff, and it’s not like something possesses me and writes stuff for me while I’m unconscious. Heh.

Here is one example. I have several pretty big supporting characters. I wrote about them independently, not ever having planned for them to meet up or anything. They were both linked directly to the main characters for specific plot-driven purposes. Going over their individual scenes, I realized I had portrayed them as somewhat lonely, although this loneliness is manifested in entirely different ways for the two people, and wondered if there was going to be room in the subplots for either of them to meet someone or another. The more I thought about the characters, the more I realized that the two are in fact quite compatible with each other. When I realized it, it wasn’t a matter of trying to hook up random people until I found a set with the least resistance, but that the personalities were such a good complement that it would be unnatural for them not to hit it off, should they ever meet up in a scene. So all I have to do is have them meet up at some point, and it should naturally progress from there.

realizations

My public voice over email now sounds like a giddy teenager. I think this comes from years of having to be overly cordial to people at work and at school for fear of offending them when I use what used to be my “regular” tone. Now, I use it by default all the time. It kind of grates on my nerves.

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I am back to capitalization because the bulk of my writing during the day is on my novel, and when I blog, it is now a conscious effort to go back and edit to small case. It seems that just a week into the project, I have effectively killed off my Inner Editor to the degree that I can spew writing without caring on the first try.

I’ve been so busy blogging about my wordcount progress that I really haven’t said much about the process itself. I’ve found that it’s true what they say; your plot will surprise you. Without having a fully fleshed out plot, I am constantly surprised by the way scenes are turning out — not to say that they are of a higher quality than I expected, because they are not. It’s more that things that I don’t expect to happen do happen, and in ways that fairly neatly ties in things I had written earlier.

I used to obsess about the perfection of each sentence when writing “creatively”, and couldn’t go on until each sentence said exactly what I wanted with exactly the right tone. But now, I have found the freedom to write what I want now, get enough of the idea across that at least I will understand it upon re-read, and trust myself to be able to go back and replace some of the crap with better prose.

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I am getting back reports via a mailing list about how well my high school’s 10 year reunion went. I am extremely jealous to have missed it. It sounds like it went better than most people could have imagined. Instead of people milling about with the same set of people they knew well in high school or with the people they came with, they mingled with all sorts of people and had a great time catching up. It sounds like the organizers did a great job. I really want to go to the next reunion. I was surprised by how many people had kids. Some were pretty big too! 🙂 Some looked exactly like their father/mother. It was amazing.

fifteenated

NaNoWriMo Progress. Just broke the 15K barrier, but today had a lot of padding, I have to admit.

I felt pretty awful today. Worked from home, but I think I might have to look over what I did today to see if I have to count it as a PTO instead of a day at home. Bleh. Seppo has been really great while I’ve been feeling bad. It started over the weekend and crested, I hope, today.