Updates

Hey there, those of you who are reading this. It's been a little while since I posted anything. School, NaNo, the usual distractions. 

I am only three days behind on NaNo due to more school related writing I had to do. So not that bad. It'll be easy to double up over Thanksgiving break. 

Today I wanted to write about something specific and not related to NaNo at all, though. I don't know about the rest of you but sometimes, I get something in my head and I can't let it go. Not just like I think about it and obsess about it but like I can't let it go on in my head so I have to say it out loud, either to someone or by writing it down.

I'm of the belief that this is a particularly writer-ly trait but correct me if I'm wrong. Because it feels like when I have a scene in my head that I simply have to get out because it is driving me mad. Only this is different because it's about my life and I can't just let it sit.

The problem with it being real life is that I have no control over how the other characters react. I don't know what they're thinking. I just know what I'm thinking and what I think they're thinking (that was a lot of thinking for one sentence). And I don't want to say it and have anyone look at me like I've lost my marbles. 

So do I write it down? Maybe. But it's much harder to admit uncertainty/doubt/worry/guilt when it's mine than when it's a character. But do I say it?

I haven't come up with an answer, so I guess I'll do more of that thinking thing. I've heard it works. Usually.

Four Days Left

NaNo WriMo is almost here and my big goal for today is to figure out how my story should end so I can finish up my outline for it. It's called Out of the Ashes. I wrote the first two of this trilogy the past two Novembers. This is the last one and it's going to be the best. How do I know that without having written a single word of it?

Easy. I am a better writer now than I was last year. I wrote The Stupid Book, which taught me a lot. Every story does, of course, but I learned a lot this summer. Besides, Ashes is the finale. The dramatic ending to the story of two sisters. *does excited squealing happy dance. It involves a lot of hand flailing.*

My friends, I am sorry in advance. The unique madness that comes from writing in a mad dash amid school and not being a hermit can be frightening. Especially towards the end of NaNo, when I inevitably fall behind and end up writing in a mad dash to finish before November 30. I temporarily lose the ability to think things all the way through before I say them. While it can be funny, it can also be mean. So I am sorry.

But it is a wonderful feeling, to be consumed by a story. I am never happier than when I am writing and it is going well.

Still, living with a writer who is in the midst of writing can be a challenge. Give us our space, lend a half-attentive ear when we need to vent and when we try to avoid the writing, tell us to stop being stupid and go write. Seriously.

Because the only thing harder than NaNo is not getting to 50,000 words. Trust me.

Dragonslayer

Let's talk about dragons. Yes, the great beasts that show up to wreak havoc on unsuspecting villages and kidnap damsels and end up getting slayed by the knight in shining armor.

I myself have a childish love of dragons. The basis for starting The Stupid Book was I wanted to write a story without cliched dragons in it. Whether or not I succeeded in that is for my hopeful future readers to decide. But my dragons are cool.

Actually, today I am more interested in the metaphoric dragons. The dragon that needs to be slayed by the knight or the peasant farmer, depending on your view of yourself.

See, we all have dragons. A project at work, a really frickin' busy day, an essay on the Puritans (yes it is as bad as it sounds), some class called Differential Equations, or midterms. (Can you tell school's been dominating my brain recently?) You get the idea. Metaphoric dragons are the things that are difficult and require time and energy to get through. Usually, it isn't fun.

National Novel Writing Month is starting in fifteen days. Writing 50,000 words in 30 days used to scare me. Then I wrote The Stupid Book over the summer and thought I was better than that. But November is different. November has school. And essays. And studying. And a set amount of time I am required to do things other than write. So I am beginning to realize that 50,000 words in 30 days is still a lot. Enough to be considered a dragon.

But I love dragons. I have not written a story that makes dragons the villains. So I am looking at NaNo in that respect. I don't have to slay the dragon.

I have to tame it.

This is the NaNo website, if you're interested: www.nanowrimo.org

And here are dragon pictures

.

http://dragonkatet.wordpress.com/
http://amxgraphics.com/Dragons/Black.html

Just a Poem

I thought I might share something that I've written, instead of just writing about writing. So, below is a poem I wrote last night and revised today. It's still not finished but now at least I don't feel like I'm leading you on.

Anyway.

"Here"

Let's sit here, then,
under the blotted sun
clouds gathering behind
the old battleground

Let's sit here, then,
as the air rises and falls
ruffling your hair,
tangling mine

Let's sit here, then,
where the northern road
crosses the southern river
and a leaf dances in the rain

Let's sit here, then,
and let the rain and
the clouds and the wind
stay in between.

Strength and Heroines

For a long goddamn time, women did not get their due in life or in literature. Damsels in distress abounded. Oppression was (and still is today to varying degrees) a real problem.

In the past few years, there have been quite a few stories that have heroines who do more than fall in love with the hero and get themselves into trouble. Which, don't get me wrong, is a great thing. The Hunger Games, Divergent, Game of Thrones, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are just a few. Each of these has a female character who plays a major role and breaks the damsel in distress stereotype. They are strong female characters.

But it seems to me (that means this is MY OPINION which I am entitled to just as you are entitled to yours) that this is not the best way to describe female characters.

What makes a character strong? Do I mean 'strong' as in physically, mentally, emotionally, or written well? 

Good characters, again in my opinion, do not necessarily have to be 'strong' in any way except that they are written well. When it comes to female characters especially, it is difficult to have them fail at anything (physically, mentally, emotionally) because then the writer runs the risk of having them appear 'weak'. And that is not something people are in the mood to accept about a female character right now.

Real people aren't always 'strong'. They aren't able to continuously defy expectations with their physical strength. They don't always have the answer right away. They break down and cry when terrible things happen.

Before a character is strong, they should be believable. We should be able to look at them, imagine them, and relate to them. We should root for them even when they fail, we should cry when they cry. We should feel for them before we admire them for their strength.

My character does not have her shit together. She's seventeen. What seventeen year old actually has their shit together? How many adults really have their shit together? 

She's smart but she has to think and she makes mistakes. Lord, does she make mistakes. She has a heart that can be and has been and will be broken. She will fall down and she will fail and I am not afraid for her. 

I will also not describe her as being strong. She is brave and she is selfish and she is afraid and she is selfless and she is generous and she is uncertain of herself. Tell me if you haven't been every one of those things. 

Her strength is not the absence of weakness and the darker places in her heart but rather her ability to keep in the lighter places in spite of the darkness.

Backwards

There was a time when the thought of completely restarting a story would have made me cry and give up. It is kind of sad to know I've written twenty pages and probably won't use any of them. But the story has changed.

So I am choosing to look at it as a rather long character development that I did backwards. By backwards, I mean that I wrote about who my character would be after the events of the story it turns out I am going to write. 

Fascinating, I know. But it can be useful to imagine who you want a character to be years after the story ends because it can tell you how they are in the story and how they need to change. And stories are about the opportunity to change or to take action. Even if they choose not to act, the character can't be the same at the beginning as they are at the end. 

My character (and this is very secret writer thinking) will be calm, collected and in control seven years after the end of the main story. So for her to be able to become that, she stars off as uncertain and a little afraid. 

Some of you are probably wondering why on earth I've named two traits that could bring to mind weakness (and if you hadn't, I just handed it to you on a silver platter). 'Strong female characters' are very popular right now and I think my character is amazing. I have very firm ideas about the nature of strength and characters in general, so I plan on addressing this in a blog all its own.

Okay, enough for now. I am very sure this is only interesting to me and other writers. 

I Don't Believe in Soul Mates

I don't believe in soul mates. 

Imagine that there was really only one other person on the planet for you. There are roughly seven billion people alive today. Most of us prefer one gender over the other, so that leaves 3.5 billion people we could be attracted to. And that's just of the people who are alive. What if your soul mate died a year ago and  you never met them? Or what if you or your soul mate can't ever afford to leave the country you were born in and so you never meet each other because of that? 

And how do you know if someone is your soul mate? Popular TV, movies, even some books, would have us believe that first love is the be all end all of existence. Usually it's not. But say you marry someone and then find your soul mate. Does that negate the love you feel towards the person you married? I hope not. 

The problem I have with the concept of soul mates is that it implies there is one way and only one way to find someone you can love and commit to and go through life with. 

I loved writing The Stupid Book. I loved my two main characters, I loved the world I got to build for them. I did. But last week, I stopped working on it because a new story with a new character popped into my head. And I couldn't ignore her. 

I don't know if I will ever circle back and try to get The Stupid Book published. But I love it and it taught me something about writing and about myself. I don't know if this new story will become a book at all, let alone one I feel ready to publish. 

I hope I write more than one story worth publishing but I know I'd be lucky to publish one. Maybe this new story is the story, the one I want to give the rest of the world a chance to read. I don't know. 

I do know that even if it is, it won't be the last book I write, let alone the last story I love. But I love it already, like I love The Stupid Book, like I love my Butterflies stories, like I love my Elemental stories 

Like I said, I don't believe in soul mates. Not even when it comes to books.