The Confabulator Cafe

Author: apoland

  • Zero Days & Momentum

    Yesterday was my first zero word day of NaNo 2012.

    These days exist. In some years more than others — like in Camp NaNo August, when I would go a week at a time without working on my novel. Sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes you just need to lay on the ground and scrub your grout with a toothbrush and baking soda — because there’s nothing creative about it, and holy shit, did you know that your grout isn’t black?

    That Grout!
    This grout has been my life for a week.

    But that’s not in the spirit of NaNo. There a lot of goals for NaNoWriMo, and for me the biggest one is that I write every day. For the rest of the year, I write in spurts. I might spend a month on a project, and then write nothing creative for a month or two. I might start something small and silly, then file it away and forget it exists. (John Watson & Donna Noble broship fic, I’m looking at you)

    During NaNo, I shine. I don’t necessarily thrive under pressure, and like I said last week, the words aren’t always good, but they’re all mine. So when I have days like yesterday, when I’m stressed about my real life and wondering what I’m doing with this whole writing thing, it’s easy to just sort of… stop.

    I can’t take yesterday back. What I can do is write today. I can write tomorrow. I can regain my momentum, and remind myself not to take NaNoWriMo as a whole — Who writes 50,000 words in a month‽ Crazy people, that’s who! — but a day at a time.

  • Sometimes, Words Suck

    This NaNo has been off to a weird — but strong — start.

    First off, our region had four write-ins in four days, two of them on the first. So we were hammering out the words there for a while. It’s probably the strongest I’ve ever started. (Because I’m telling you, people — community!)

    But there were a handful of factors that slowed me down come Monday. Way back in April I signed up for a big bang challenge, and that was due on the fifth. I did almost nothing NaNo related on Monday — just one sprint — which means I had plenty of time to sit around and panic. This novel sucks. This isn’t what I envisioned. I’m never going to be able to write a coherent novel. There’s no plot in this. SOMEONE GET ME OUT OF HERE.

    In addition to all this, I started rereading my NaNo novel from last year in my down time, like before I go to sleep or when it takes the child an hour to go to sleep. In the last 20 pages of the novel, in the middle of what is supposed to be a tense moment, I found a line that made all the panic better:

    Maybe this novel is awful, Ashley, dear god — why are we supposed to even like this character? Moving on.

    Ladies and gentlemen, not all NaNo words are good words. Sometimes, they’re just the words you need to keep going.

    My first 10,000 words of this story are not good words, though most of them were necessary. There’s a lot of exposition. A lot of character exploration and setting exploration — things I needed before I could get into the meat of my story, which is supposed to be more of an action piece. (Full of UST, because this is who I am.) Most of those words are going to be thrown away come time to edit.

    I’m writing this post Thursday night, before I’ve actually begun to work on my novel for the night. (The chatroom is sprinting RIGHT NOW and I’m like, “Hmm, no, I don’t think so.”) My word count is sitting at 15,802, and I have a plot now. While watching movies at my nemesis’ apartment Wednesday night, I finally figured out some of the trickier problems I was facing, and I actually got to writing the action of the novel.

    Things started happening. It just took 10 or 13 thousand bad words to get there first.

  • Stick With What Works

    NaNoWriMo Sidebar
    GAZE UPON THE FAILURE

    Okay, that title is completely a lie — but after taking a genre risk over the summer, I wanted to get back to something I feel relatively comfortable writing: hello, sci-fi.

    My first NaNoWriMo victory was a sci-fi story. In the years previous I had tried out early-20s ennui, romance, mystery, and urban fantasy. And my results were:

    • Ennui (2005): I wrote about 1500 words on day one before I got bored with myself.
    • Urban Fantasy (2006): This was my best failure, at around 27,000 words. It was a vampire story set in Alaska; there were underground facilities and hierarchies and if I ever find those notes, I might take a stab at it again. But I eventually lost the plot, and when we had some family issues, the novel died. (Edit: I just found out that I apparently still have these files. Three of them.)
    • WTF? (2007): I don’t even remember this novel; I just found the file and discovered my years/genres were off. I at least know I wrote it, because I can hear myself in the words. I’m about to go read this. (I think it may have been a thriller/body horror? There are clearly scientists, orphanages, and conspiracies. I had just turned 21 in 2007 — I drank a lot. I blame that for this lack of memory.) (more…)

  • Those Who Aren’t Missing

    “It’s weird, right?” my older brother says as we watch the muscled men set up the tents over on the fairgrounds. “I mean, I don’t remember the last time I heard of a circus in a big city, let alone a little shithole like this.”

    “Hush!” I snap, enthralled with the way they hitch the poles and raise the faded, striped fabric. Horses whinny from inside rusted trailers, and I would bet every quarter in my piggy bank that there was a lion around here somewhere. Someone may as well have pulled the circus from my dreams, from the faded photographs I copied with the library’s machine.

    With my arms over the edge of our fence and my feet braced in a hole in the wood, I look around for Mama. She’s still inside, on the phone, with her back turned to us. I steel my resolve and say, “It’s not a — a shithole. It’s our home.”

    Zane pats my shoulder and smirks like he always does when he thinks he’s right. “Give it two more years, squirt. You’ll be calling it worse when you realize how boring it is.”

    “It’s not boring,” I say. “We have a circus.”
    (more…)

  • The Plot is Both Easy & Hard

    Where should I start? When does it end?

    Boom. There’s the hardest part about telling a story for me. It’s by no means the only thing I find difficult about the job, but it’s incredibly difficult to look at the tangle of a plot and find the right place to start. Too soon, and it’s impossible to get sucked into the story. Too late, and the reader flounders for a hold on the story.

    Then there’s wrapping it all up. Not every subplot can be tied up in a bow, but there needs to be a feel of completion. It can’t be too abrupt, but you don’t want to end the story four times. You also don’t want to drag the story out too long. If the antagonist has been defeated, the couple reunited, then the story can’t go on for another 100 pages just because you like the world.

    If we’re going for the easiest, its when the story just moves. There are highs and lows in the process, but there’s definitely a middle point when I’m just flying on the whole thing. I’m in love with the process at this point, when plot points are hooking together and  characters are exploding formed and expressive on the page. It’s the artsy part of writing.

    There’s minutiae of writing that can be difficult. Finding the time is a pain. Pushing through the parts that don’t flow sucks. Sometimes the story gets boring. Sometimes the story is wholly useless.

    But the plot. Managing the plot is both the hardest and the easiest part of being a writer.

  • Everything In Its Place

    Full name and designation, please.
    Former Civil Security Special Agent Benjamin Delaney Hardin, ID 90581.

    How has civilian life been treating you, Benjamin?
    I imagine it would be a lot nicer outside a cell, but beggars can’t be choosers, can they? Not when my other options are death or — ah, a rather forceful debriefing. I’ve had enough force since the incident. Thanks.

    Have the guards been unkind?
    Not all force is violent, darling. It’s nice seeing you again — is this our third visit, or our fourth? Are you still enjoying that shiny new promotion? Is there going to be version five in your future?

    We’re not here to talk about me, Benjamin. We’re here to talk about you.
    Of course we are. What does the government want to know now? Everything about my life is in those files — I’ve been nothing but forthcoming since I registered for IHA citizenship.

    (more…)

  • All Creative Types Need My Husband

    I come from creative stock. Every side of the family — from the ones I share genetics with and the ones claimed through love — has crafters and artists and a handful of writers. And they’re all supportive. They think its cool that I can make half-an-income writing and raising the child. They look forward to seeing me succeed in publishing a novel.

    However, this is an ode my husband, who I have stolen from all other creative types who need so earnest and supportive a cheerleader. (Nyah-nyah!)

    I was one of those crazy chicks who made it known way, way too soon in the relationship that I wanted to be the mom who works at home and writes. After several years of trying to scare each other off with our assorted dysfunctions and issues, we had a baby and got married instead.

    Best decision I’ve ever made. I assume he feels the same way.
    (more…)

  • Pigtails & Bows (Flash Fiction)

    Look, I’m not a bad guy. I’m not the first hot shot to come through these halls. Bernard isn’t the first dude who ever got roughed up because he had a D&D book in his bag. It’s just the rules, you know?

    I actually like Bernard, in an indistinct sort of way. I don’t know him. He’s shaped sort of like a green bean — skinny and curved into a protective hunch — but you can tell he’s pissed off and passionate behind the eyes. No one else in our school has perfected the cold disdain he has when he talks, and he just talks himself right into my fist week after week. I wish he would quit it already.

    Bernard can’t throw a punch. He tries — man, you can tell he really wants to hurt me back — but his form is all wrong and he has shitty follow-through. Sometimes, I just want to stop mid-fight and give him some instructions. I almost did once, but I really didn’t want to embarrass the dude anymore.

    So I play it up. I hit the ground harder then necessary, ham my way through a couple hits. Whatever. He gets bloodied by the end of the fight and I get to crow around like I own his ass. My teammates jeer and shout like we’re gladiators or something.

    You gotta understand, Bernard has been Carson’s target of choice for as long as I’ve lived here, ever since my parents bought a house on the hill when I was in fourth grade. I have no idea what the story is — it’s one of those old cliches that goes something like we were kids and when we hit middle school — but because I’m the Big Guy On Campus, it’s my job to do the actual dirty work, while Carson yells encouragingly from a safe distance. (more…)

  • A Little (Orange) Notebook

    I’ve never been worried about running out of ideas, though I do worry about losing them. Like a lot of writers, I keep a little notebook for jotting down ideas. (And like most other things I own, I frequently lose this notebook.)

    Honestly, this notebook tells me more about my own state of mind when I had an idea, versus the idea itself. Mos ideas in there are just little notes; they might form a character later or a single scene in a larger work. The ideas usually stem from something that happened to me, or something I saw, and lets face it — if real life were all that fascinating and exciting all the time, we wouldn’t be so in love with fiction.

    (more…)

  • Easy: Keep the Cast Small

    Ha!

    Ahem.

    Okay, so, I’m not the person to ask about managing large casts of characters — I’m shit with large casts of characters. Frankly, I get exhausted reading about a large cast of characters.

    I might give you six or eight named characters who influence the story, but really, the story is only about two or three of them. Or, one or two sets of them; I love writing about relationships and interaction, be it between brothers or enemies.

    (more…)