4,889!

I'm over quota! Yay!

Getting on track?

For now, at least...I've switched back to the slushie novel. I started all over. I'm to 1071 words on that one now. I think if anyone picked up this chapter, they'd probably fall asleep reading it, but at least I'm getting something going. We shall see how it works. And I may just have to buy a Slurpee for research. ;-)

Ack

The first day of NaNo didn't go well for me. I stayed up that first night past midnight & wrote 718 words, thinking that was a decent start and I'd write 1000 more words later in the day. Only it never happened. I never got back to it, and still haven't, and am kind of paralyzed with fear about it. Which is ridiculous! I mean, who really cares how great it is? The problem is that I really care about this story & don't want to screw it up, but I'm trying to remind myself it's a first draft. It may end up just being the basis for an outline of the story, for the second draft, and none of what I write has to stay in the final version, but I'm so bad at large-scale revisions, that really scares me! But I know if I don't push through and write some more soon, this whole thing may be a bust. And meanwhile, it's freaking me out to read how well other people are doing! Some people in my writing groups have written 3,000 or even 6,000 words already.

For that matter, I checked my 2002 NaNo blog & freaked myself out. At around this time on Nov. 2 that year, I already had over 6,000 words. Two hours later, I had 7,248, and by 4:20 in the afternoon, I was up to 10,446 words!!! On the second day of NaNo! This time, I'm not even sure I'll write one more word by 4:20 pm today. Sigh.

Also, I know someone who reads submissions for a small children's press, and she blogged today that she wished people would write more light, fun novels, instead of depressing ones. Note that I just changed from my silly "I want a slushie and maybe a boyfriend while I'm at it" idea to my "suicide and broken friendships" idea. Err...huh. And it is hard to write this, knowing that I don't even have a happy ending in mind for it. So I have to think a little more about what to write before I plunge back into it!

Hmmmm

So, NaNo started. And I started. And all I can say about my progress so far is "hmmmm." My posted word count is 718 so far. But first, I wrote 186 words on my slushie novel idea--a 115-word false start followed by a 71-word false start. I hated both, and realized the narrator had no voice yet & I didn't care what she had to say. Not that I think it's a bad idea. I still want to write it, & I have some fun ideas for it. But it doesn't seem likely to get me off to a quick start now.

So I switched to idea #2, the sister story. The problem with this one is, I wrote a few pages on it several years ago. I was going to toss out the old pages and start from scratch for NaNo, but unfortunately I still like them. While I know I could fit them back in somehow in December, once NaNo is over, I had a hard time figuring out how to start without them. Or rather, I had trouble getting back into the narrator's voice without using any of those words. I decided to try my other idea before bothering to start that one over.

Finally, I tried idea #3, my suicide novel. This is the one I originally had in mind for NaNo anyway. I also have some old notes for that one, but they were random anyway and I started over. I wrote 718 words before stopping for the night. They aren't 718 good words. Some are good, but most seem like they're just placeholders for whatever I might want to say there later. Some probably need to go later in the book, not at the very beginning. I don't have a good sense of how the timeline of the book should work, and what should go where. But still, something seemed to be clicking, just a little, so for now I'm going with that one. Though I've already run into plot problems! I even had to do some online research, which just made the plot problems worse. And, I'm again going to have to figure out how or where to incorporate my old notes without using any old text. Not that I had that much.

One observation: I must really like to write little poems. Because both my attempts at writing included rhymes. I expected to incorporate some previously written poems into my suicide book sometime (after NaNo is over), but didn't expect to write many new ones along the way. I didn't exactly write a poem, but did write an excerpt from a song the narrator supposedly wrote, and in my attempt to write the slushie book, I wrote part of a jingle from the slushie ad!

And one sign of my NaNo insanity: I still think that before I continue, I'll try to start a fresh version of idea #2. I want to make sure it doesn't flow out better before I commit to idea #3. Though one very crazy part of me is still whispering in my head, "Maybe I can write two novel drafts this month!" Yeah...that's about as likely as my not eating any leftover Halloween candy tomorrow. Ha!

My calendar must be wrong

Less than 1 day until NaNo starts?! Say it ain't so! I don't even have a plot!!!!

The desire for a slushie--or at least a plot

Sunday night was the Austin NaNoWriMo kick-off meeting. I'd wanted to go but hadn't intended to, because I haven't been feeling well all week, I was nervous about driving at night to a place pretty far away with very limited parking, and I knew our car was on the fritz. But, since our car died completely earlier in the day, I found myself with a reliable rental car, and when I also learned another business had offered their parking lot, I decided to brave it. I'm glad I went. 47 people showed up! We got fun goodie bags containing things like candy, a NaNo writer tattoo, an "Austin Penguins" pen and an "Ask Me About My Novel" pin, a "Warning: Crazed Novelist Working" sticker, a little notebook, a pen, etc. They also had nice door prizes, none of which I won, and snacks. Part of it was informal, but much was listening to information & announcements, introducing ourselves to the group, etc. I talked to a few people one-on-one, and found them enjoyable company (though I'm not sure they didn't think I was crazy! I think I was nervous & rambling. Or maybe I am just crazy...but writers are not exactly known for their normality, so, so be it!).

Meanwhile, as I keep blogging about, I've been debating all month between two serious YA novel ideas. Then Saturday night, I had this crazy, non-serious idea, which might be easier or more fun to write. Often in my writing, it isn't really clear what my characters want, and they sit around thinking or talking much more than they take action. My husband also mentioned at IHOP on Friday night, where I ordered a soda I didn't really want or drink, that most people don't share my fear of ever being without a soda.... And I'd also started reading E. Lockhart's YA novel The Boy Book on Friday, and had the narrator's fun, fairly fast-paced voice in mind. All of that helped me think of an idea about a girl who wants nothing more than a drink. A particular drink that isn't available just everywhere--I was thinking it would probably be a slushie. What she wants would be silly but very clear, and the whole novel would be about her trying her best to get the slushie but being distracted at every turn by wacky adventures involving friends, her crush, & who knows what or who else. I thought it might be fun to do something like that for NaNo, and it might not get bogged down as easily as something serious. But the other 2 ideas are for novels I've really wanted to write for a long time, so I don't know if it makes sense to put them both off again, and just end up with something that might feel like fluff.

So I've got to think about it some more, but meanwhile, I looked up slushies online and found this: http://www.tv.com/megas-xlr/all-i-wanted-was-a-slushie/episode/328901/summary.html . Someone has already made a TV show about the pursuit of a slushie and the wackiness that might ensue! Ack. I knew it wasn't an original starting point (and I'm also familiar with the Suicidal Tendencies song that inspired the title of that TV episode, except with a Pepsi), but still...I didn't know it had been done with a slushie, of all things. It was something I could relate to myself. After all, I drove all over town this summer looking for a Coke Slurpee, and in July my van was totaled while I was turning into a 7-11 parking lot, in pursuit of a Slurpee it turned out they didn't even have. But I have also driven 90 miles for a burrito, and often daydreamed about going all the way from Florida to Texas for a burrito, so I've considered making it a burrito, but I thought making it a food item might seem derivative of the movie Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (which I haven't seen, because the specifics I read about it sounded stupid, but I obviously liked the idea suggested by the title). I've also considered making it some kind of offbeat soda (like Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray celery soda). But now I think the whole idea may be too unoriginal to pursue. Not to mention goofy!

So what'll I write? We'll see. I fear I'll end up writing 500+ words on all 3 stories before I can decide which one to pursue. Though my husband says that if I do that, I should leave in the parts from the other stories, as stories my characters are telling or writing! I doubt I really need to pad my word count, though, since I'm clearly wordy enough as it is.