Sophomore Slacker

Your humble author has now lived through the dreaded sophomore slump, not only in word count, but in pace. The writing is going too slowly and the story is moving too slowly. Arrgh! We'll see if 50K is still do-able. At minimum it's quite a stretch now.

Word count after 21 days: 21,887

Novel Excerpt, Chapter 2

From Drunkard's Leap, Chapter 2. Lena has had an unsettling encounter in a bar that took the pleasure out of last night. Today, she has to go to work.

This time of year, on the mornings when I woke alone at 6:30, the light was crisp, inviting me into the unfolding day. Not today. I felt roughed up, dirty in yesterday’s clothes, hung over, befuddled, cranky and unsatisfied. A hot shower improved my outlook a couple of degrees, enough so I would only commit mayhem on the streets, not manslaughter. Breakfast moved me a few steps closer to human. In my clean work outfit, I might pass for relatively harmless.

I walked the blocks to the train station briskly. No Warden came in sight, nor any train, so I ducked in to the coffee outlet to grab a go-cup. I clipped on my pass, barely slowed for the turnstile, and reached the platform just as a train pulled in half-empty. I grabbed the scenic seat and thought about all the opportunities I’d had to turn last night into something different. But no great ideas came to mind. Thoughts of awesomeness, briefly glimpsed, were creeping up, so instead I paid attention to the grandeur outside. Mt. Hood and the plume of its growing neighbor were steady on the horizon as the nearby scenery flew by. By the time the train reached Beaverton, the coffee and the view had dissipated much of my funk.

Something from last night must have showed on my face, though, because Stan the Man pulled me over after the morning stand-up. “Lena,” he said, “do you want to invoke the contract?”

“Etiquette by night, contract by day,” I replied. “Actually, I’m trying to figure out who broke etiquette last night. This morning I wasn’t the Lena you know, but it’s okay now. But let the contract be for now.”

“Well, nevertheless, I’m assigning you the girly leather stuff today so you won’t break anything.”

I started to protest, but thought better of it. Stan the Man had a nose for my moods, not to mention everybody else’s, so I’d use the assignment to come back to my normal, charming self at my own speed.

I said, “Okay, Stan, you’re the boss-man.”

He grinned and took my assignment sheet, handing me a new one. For all the claims of general uprightness in today’s society, I knew better. Those kinky mail-order catalogs were barely touched by the Watch and Ward; their wrappers just got a more opaque white when the upright crowd was in charge. The orders came to people like me. Inside what looked like a big truck terminal, we did “order fulfillment” for any number of outfits. We were the back end of the slick catalog operation; whatever the return address, the goods all shipped out from Beaverton.

Today I got Cowboy Intimates orders. All the items were unbreakable – thanks, Stan – though definitely not my kind of fashion. I cruised the aisles at 10 over quota, loading travel bins with leather garter belts, rawhide-trimmed corsets, lace-trimmed chaps and less obvious useful gear. Some sort of weird harness with a pommel seemed to be a favorite today. I lost myself in the rhythm of work. It was easy to fill a bin, bring it to the drop, pull the next order sheet, work out the best route in my head, fill a bin, and repeat. At this rate I would push 20 over quota, enough that Stan would make me relax the rhythm.

But the steady pace helped burn off all the residue of last night, and by noon I was only 18 over. After lunch I felt almost relaxed. Another hour of steady stock-picking reduced the Cowboy queue to its last few orders. I plotted my next run to veer off toward Stan’s post so he could get a fill-in assignment ready for the last couple hours of the day.

Oh, No, Get Me Rewrite!

Your Brico has sinned. He has broken at least two of his own commandments: don't edit if it's scrolled off the screen; and don't tweak until December.

Namely, at a key point in Chapter 4, the main character, Lena, accomplishes something important to her future. Her examiner, so to speak, rushes over to hug her for being so quick to catch on, and Lena feels aroused by the other woman. Except Lena has already demonstrated she's very much into men. Two days and two chapters later, it stuck out as false, just like a second thumb on YT's hand.

So, what to do? Remain true to the ideal of low expectations? Or sleep at night without wrong things running through Brico's aging head. Heh. I wimped out.

Ten minutes of word surgery makes Lena accept the hug, then flash on her latest man embracing her with lust in his heart, then pulling back to the realization it's a woman, a near-stranger, hugging her. Much better. That is, the general level of the writing meets YT's low expectations, but the sore thumb no longer throbs. YT will now repent at leisure.

Did your humble author not mention that the act of teleporting is only possible when the perpetrator has been drinking, and that completing the act fills the perpetrator with an impossible mix of awe and lust? So they do and it does, and this scene is along the lines of "the first hit is free, honey."

Word count after 9 days: 16, 449

NaNos at the Kickoff

Sunday, October 30, was the kickoff party for Detroit area NaNo novelists. We walked in - we being Tiffany, Gary, Kim and your Brico - to Woody's here in Royal Oak not knowing what to expect. Well, noveling must be a big deal this year because there were 32, count 'em, 32 people sitting at a long table talking, gesticulating, laughing, and most of all, enthusiastically anticipating. That's at least three times as many as attended the kickoff last year.

YT felt like an old man amongst a crowd heavily salted with college students. No matter. Plenty of familiar faces showed up, including Amy, penultimate Municipal Liason and veteran WriMo, and the redoubtable MontiLee, more determined than ever to finish. Last year was a roundtable conversation among newfound friends; this year was a party.

Looks like the Brico will be keeping company with a lively bunch.

Word count after 3 days: 3,855

Noveling Month Starts

Well, YT stayed up late and wrote his first sentence, the one he'd been itching to set down for at least two weeks. "Two guys walked into a bar." Or something like that.

One thing led to another, so a few more sentences got written, until your Brico's eyelids were drooping. So, off to bed, off to work, and after supper, back to the novel. By the end of the evening, the Brico lids were rather leaden, but the first day yielded 1,869 words and all but a few paragraphs of the first chapter.

All right! We're off and running!

Countdown: 7 days until the start

So. In the week since his last pre-novel posting, YT has written several pages of notes fleshing out the SF novel he intends to write. Your friendly Brico would much rather be writing the novel itself. New this year, a vague outline of a plot with some ideas about pacing. Wow, take that, reader C.! A plot! There are also various notes about characters, world-building, motivation and clever lines.

The main character, Lena, was and will be misled by curiosity. One trick this year will be emphasizing that trait as an underlying reason for Lena's actions. It strikes the Bricoleur just now that one theme that demands inclusion in the novel is the role of free will versus compulsion, whether the compulsion be external rules or internal desire. Curiosity, of course, is on the side of free will.

YT filled out a character sheet for Lena, a multipage questionnaire found through the Helpful Orgs and Sites forum at NaNoWriMo.org. Doing this exercise revealed, first, how Lena wasn't going to fit into anyone else's preconceived notions of her. Second, thinking about different external facets of the character shed some light on her internal dynamics. YT does not advocate slavishly following this method or filling out that form, but doing this kind of exercise fleshes out the character. Now, if she would only start speaking in her own voice...

In the real world, just yesterday YT had oral surgery. It was either that or lose a tooth, not a hard decision. Now, 24 hours later, this man of the world is reduced to eating macaroni and cheese, and floating on pain pills. Floating is the word, all right. YT is enjoying a bout of chemically-assisted free association. Driving is definitely out of the question today.

So it's off with the notebook to fill a couple of pages with the connections that are floating into view, in the hopes some will still make sense a few days from now. The author hopes this feeling will also suggest something about the moods of his characters after they exercise their special talent. Every experience is grist for the novel-making mill. Everything!

Comment spam: Ugh...

Since returning to the blogosphere after a break of many months, one surprise was "comment spam," anonymous comments tacked onto a post that advertise some get-rich-quick blog. The careful reader will notice some energetic policing going on here in Free Range Novelist. Getting totally unrelated comments, then taking the time to remove them, is annoying... Ugh.

Your Brico has no intention of removing or even filtering legitimate replies, so long as they meet some modest standard of civility, so we'll see if cleaning up bl-spam (sblam??) after the fact is good enough. Bet some junk comment gets tacked onto this post within minutes of its publication, though.

2005 Novel Title

This year's novel will be called Drunkard's Leap. As mentioned a couple of entries back, it is a science fiction adventure.

In slightly more detail, the main character learns a trick, as do the people around her, that lets mankind take a shortcut from the Moon to settling Mars and a handful of asteroids. With the power she learns comes... well, actually, limitations and reaction, and finally a few things done right. Stay tuned for snippets starting in a couple of weeks.

Obligatory Political Musing

Since there's no election this year, YT supposes it can't be a political rant. Looks like the "values" crowd has overreached, so any digs at them in the novel might soon be passe. Looks like a lot of the crowd in power has overreached, and have been caught up short by a couple of the reasons Americans traditionally prefer clean, competent government.

Now the triangle trade of corporate cash for lopsided majorities for favors to cronies is coming unraveled. The ol' Brico predicts one of three things will happen in the next half year.

1. Massive indifference by the public.
2. Gov't officials going to jail in Reaganesque numbers.
3. Greek tragedy.

Or maybe the country is already working its way down the list, item by item. In any event, with a quiet November coming up, except for Mayor and City Council in Detroit, there will not be the distractions from noveling like last year's.

Thinking back over the last three years, though, and all the people who've had the public ear, YT finds it easy to tweak their extremism lightly to form a societal backdrop for Drunkard's Leap.

Countdown: 18 days until the start

This year your sophomore novelista has decided to get somewhat more organized. So, no more deciding what we're gonna write today just as the laptop is booting up. No, this year There Will Be Preparation. So far it's paid off.

To wit, the first idea to take root in YT's active imagination was a travel novel: five California techies go on a wild holiday trip. Okay, each of the five men was taking shape in profiles in the notebook, the six women they meet were starting to emerge from the dazzling sunlight, and each act had a name. Five men, six women, must be a plot twist in there. Then YT realized that he's never been to Mardi Gras, Carnival, or Spring Break, doesn't know the requisite foreign language, and would have to study really, really hard to give the culture clash any plausibility. Sounds like too much work for NaNoWriMo, frankly.

So, out came the list of 20 plot ideas. It should be easy to choose some one-liner to hang a novel on. Then that old devil imagination got going again and suggested a plot that combines threads from several. Starting two days ago, out poured the details: a science fiction adventure, sort of an anti-time-travel novel, where the protagonist gets plucked from a party-party lifestyle, takes risks and rewards stiff discipline with stiff drinks. Or perhaps that last bit goes the other way around.

YT now has three pages of notes on plot developments, pacing, culture and some good questions to ask about the pocket world he's created. There's still time to let the characters start speaking for themselves. Let's see where this one goes.

Some plot ideas to avoid

Here are a few plot ideas that won't get used for NaNoWriMo, at least not by YT.

Everything's a romance novel these days. The latest twist: time travel romances! These plots came to mind.

• A man can travel through time, but only if he is naked. When he arrives at a new when and where, he must find his pack full of supplies that travels separately.
• A man meets a woman who he makes happy. He finds out her mother was made miserable by a mysterious stranger. He travels back in time and finds the story repeats itself earlier and earlier in time. Finally he gives a miserable woman lasting happiness, but realizes he is the one who made all the other women, her descendants, miserable. He must decide whether to erase the misery of later generations, but at the cost of the one woman's happiness.
• Seven of Nine (of Star Trek) returns to the early 21st century to bond with Martha Stewart.

Okay. Not cheesy enough for you? Let's sink lower into the depths of utter... uh, creativity.

• A woman thinks that by emulating Seven of Nine's rigid personality, she can become friends with Martha Stewart.
• A fan fiction writer gets hired to work on the television show he idolizes.
• A man wakes up one day to discover and old flame has moved in next door. She insists on being part of his life, but he is never sure about which part.

These were inspired by the Query Letters I Love blog, with a tip o' the hat to Penda for linking to it from her Diner.

More Recap - Thoughts one day after the 2004 finish

Here is what YT wrote on December 1, the day after the end of NaNoWriMo.

Oy. Writing partners like Ms. Tiff plug away at a steady pace and finish early. YT lets the old, bad habits back out and goes for the sprint at the end. Here are some thoughts not quite 24 hours after passing the magic 50,000 word threshold.

Immediate conclusions:

1. Write every day. Seriously. The steady pace of the first two weeks, if kept up, would have surely led to a better novel. The sprint at the end led to much sloppiness.
   
2. A little planning beats no planning at all. Spending five or ten minutes sketching out notes for a scene made writing it so much easier, time after time. Even a few lines on a 3x5 card helps keep up forward momentum during the writing session.
   
3. Never write a sex scene on deadline. This requires a delicate touch, lest the writing get too mechanical or too elliptical. Writing about sex at breakneck speed just washes away all imagination in a torrent of words.

On 188 printed pages, the draft as a whole reads like... a rush draft. Or as one WriMo put it, a thick pile of sludge. YT is resisting the temptation to edit Right Now. The shape of the novel will still be there in a couple of weeks. On the Day After WriMo, catching up on sleep is sooo much a better choice.

Later, YT rambled on, saying along the way:

On the other hand, there's a draft of about two thirds of a novel sitting in an inch-thick pile over on the table. That's about two thirds of a novel more than YT had in hand a month ago.


And with those observations, we leave memories of 2004 behind.

2004 NaNoWriMo Recap

Let's back up to mid-summer 2004. YT found out about National Novel Writing Month while surfing the 'Net for something else entirely. In his advancing old age, the Bricoleur was less and less concerned about what other people thought, and eager to play outside his comfort zone. Thus was born a grand experiment: to see whether he could write a story at novel length.

Well... Perhaps it wasn't so grand, but it was only for a month, and it sounded like a hoot. It helped that friend Tiff also volunteered to become a WriMo, and, later, that the others who turned out to the Detroit-area writing nights were a fascinating bunch. Picking a handle wasn't hard. The novel must necessarily be a great bricolage, so the Bricoleur was born.

YT started off with an idea. Let's really get outside the comfort zone: let this fifty-something married man write a romance novel. It started with a couple of names, Cassandra Kostrzewa and Ryan Delany, on a note card. Then came the setup: her best friend would hook up with his roommate, Cass and Ryan would get thrown together, and would puzzle out their attraction as smart, single professionals in present-day Chicago.

Then YT panicked. It wasn't midlife crisis, exactly, so much as the fear YT had reached too far out of the comfort zone. A quick read of Chris Baty's book, No Plot, No Problem, proved both calming and encouraging. And then we were off to the races!

Things went pretty well for a while. The panoramic lack of preparation proved little hindrance to cranking out lots of words. The novel just naturally had to be called Too Lucky This Week. YT noticed his own shortcomings and blogged, after 1 week:

Rule #1: Dive Right In. Forward motion is what's important. You can pretty it up in December.

But the habits of programming are too far ingrained by middle age. The Inner Editor lives in the right brain, and acts up when the left brain grabs hold of the reins. Hence Rule #2 seems a worthwhile appeasement.

Rule #2: Fix it right after you type it. If it's scrolled off screen, it's off limits.

To make a long story short, after a meandering start, the characters started speaking in their own voices and doing what they were destined to do. YT was just the scribe. A few notes scribbled before each writing session blossomed into complete chapters. Then the Real World intruded, YT slacked off writing, and fell far behind the pace. Only a marathon session, literally at the last minute, got the Brico into the winner's circle.

Too Lucky This Week clocked in at 51,110 words, 188 double-spaced manuscript pages, and about two thirds of a complete novel. In it were some scenes this first-time novelist was proud of, a few that made him cringe, and surprisingly good writing throughout. The shoe shopping scene made the Brico famous in certain (small) circles. The Friday night roundtable at the neighborhood bar sounded right for good friends relaxing. So, the experiment was a success.

YT promised to leave the MS alone in December. December stretched into whole seasons without further writing. Well, let's face it. Too Lucky lacked a steady pace, a tight plot, a smooth shape. YT knew around February it would never go any further. But the rewards of writing convinced YT it was worth doing again. So, here we are, nearing the starting line again. Stay tuned.

Some Housekeeping...

Since this blog is intended to chronicle a NaNoWriMo novel in progress, YT has decided to purge the 2004 postings by the time November 1, 2005, rolls around. Last year's novel excerpts don't fit the mood of this year's novel. YT is sure his readers, all three of them, aren't interested in rereading his gripes about elections and employment. Some of the key 2004 entries will be updated for the new year, though.

Update: October 11. YT has left two 2004 chapters up. Otherwise the purge is complete.

(Re) Introduction

Kicking off Year Two of the blog... Here's the very first posting, updated for 2005.

This is the National Novel Writing Month weblog of Wes the Bricoleur. Or, for short, NaNoWriMo and YT (yours truly). The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. That's it! 1,667 words a day, every day, quality not even a consideration. Free Range Novelist chronicles my experiences during November, 2005. It will center on day-by-day writing plus some excerpts from my novel-in-progress. Maybe 10% of postings will ramble off into other topics.

Why a blog on top of daily pages of novel to write? This is a way to let some "I-ness" out in the midst of so much "they-ness" writing in the characters' voices. If my Inner Editor gets too restless pacing in its month-long cage, it can exercise on a very short leash here.

Here are my rules for November: this blog is a place for honest observation and reflection. Like, or don't like what YT writes? Feel free to comment, all opinions are welcome. But I simply will not be bothered to get into flaming or catfights. I'll write about other WriMos here, and in return expect to be fair game.

The original charter of Free Range Novelist was only a handful of words different from this, so I'll just keep going in the original spirit, but one year wiser in the ways of the WriMo.

So. Here we go... enjoy November!

What happened next...

That was December (last post). This is August. So what has happened to the novel since? Well, let's go back through the steps.

1. Go to the TGIO party Sunday night.

Did that. Sigh, only three of us showed, but had a good chat nevertheless.

2. Loan the manuscript copy out to friends who've asked to read it. This will get YT into the recommended getting-some-distance period.

Did that, too. Loaned the manuscript out to C., who was amazed at the length but little else. Then YT exchanged hostages with Miss Tiff, after which both novels languished. (The arrival of Tiff and Geoff's baby boy may have contributed.)

Then the choices are:
3a. Write the obvious next chapter.
3b. Spend time working out the plot and story arc, resume after Xmas.
3c. Walk away for a few weeks.

Choice (c), then never came back.

4. Regardless of the choice in (3) above, practice saying "Why, yes, in my first novel I ..." in appropriate social situations.

Absolutely did that. YT didn't even have to strain to hard to find those appropriate situations.

...And then YT realized just how far beyond redemption Too Lucky This Week really was. But there were good side effects. Writing in general has gotten easier. YT has learned to trust the forc^^^^ flow a lot more. The words come out looking pretty good without all the agonizing beforehand, and if it's not right, well, it can always be fixed.

There's a saying that goes: an investor takes his choices much more seriously when it's his own money he's playing with. YT thinks the same goes for writing. It's your own words flowing onto that blank screen, and you run up against your own limitations a lot faster than a non-writer might think. Perhaps that is the big reward of WriMo month: learning one's own limitations. Of course, the fun of NaNoWriMo is very much in blithely ignoring them.