When I started NaNoWriMo ten days ago I was fully enthused by and committed to the project and stared rattling off my opus. It was ( note WAS) about a woman who is confined to a psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt and the relationships she forms while there - particularly with one poor woman, christened 'Maddser' by the other patients. I thought I had the whole novel plotted, was happy with my two main characters and promised myself that this would be it. The novel that would finally be published.
However.
A tangent grew into another character. A young female teenager who was a participant in X Factor and ended up in the psychiatric hospital. This young woman fascinated me and I started to explore her back story. I met her mother, her grandmother, her childhood friend, the people in her neighbourhood, her school. The local newsman who became obsessed with her and her quest for fame. Her agent, manager, the judges on the show, the other contestants. Of course I can't call it X Factor as I'm quite sure the title is copyrighted so I'm calling it ? Factor as I wait for it to title itself. You all realise of course that this initial part of the process has absolutely nothing to do with me. It is only in the edits, all 10 to 12 of them, that my skills are called for. I just sit here, giving myself tennis elbow and carpal tunnel syndrome while my characters tell their tales. Then I have to knit all those tales together in a manner that will grip a reader.
So Maddser and my depressed first heroine have been thrown to one side and I am now writing this X Factor contestant's story. It's bloody fascinating, even though I never watch the show I would have to have been confined on a desert island with no access to any media to be unaware of the phenomenon that is this television programme. I suppose what fascinates me is the drive that must be part of the psyche of anyone who would put themselves up week after week for rejection. Jesus. At least politicians only have to do it every four years and most of the rest us can rely on an interview at a max of one a year in order to keep out chosen jobs.
My character is fragile like us all as are her family. What impact could something like this have on ordinary lives? At the moment the book is meandering all over the place ( much like my heroine's troubled mind) but I am actually enjoying the process.
Maddser will have to wait to be released from her incarceration ( unless someone wants 8,000 words on the subject!) until I let this young lady either win, or lose.
Showing posts with label NaNoWriMo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NaNoWriMo. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
And we're off...
NaNoWriMo and me fingers are blistered from rattling out words already. NaNoWriMo for those of you not in the know is National Novel Writing Month. A couple of students in the States (where else!) started it some years back and you sign up for it and attempt to churn out the bones of a book in a month. So there’ll be no blogging, surfing or Facebooking from me for a while.
November is a great month for it. The clocks have changed, the dark and dismal evenings are in and if you have access to a computer and can carve out a few hours for yourself most days the target of fifty odd thousand words in the month is attainable. Of course a lot of what you write is tripe ( or mine is) and will never last edits. But it is a great way of kickstarting that novel you knew you always had in you.
The bulk of the first draft of my first novel was written during NaNoWriMo 2007, I didn’t sign up last year as I was committed to ghostwriting a book and although I started in 2008 I fell off at the first hurdle!
The commitment to put your behind on a chair and write for a few hours does pay off. I felt a great sense of achievement that first year and went on to finish the novel and polish it up and send it off. It died there but I did it, I wrote a book. Maybe this year’s attempt will pay off. I think this novel may be better as I have two under my belt at this stage and understand narrative flow a little better. I’ll be churning it out anyway and it may join other stuff under the bed or it may not.
If you never write it it’ll never be published so it’s worth a try.
November is a great month for it. The clocks have changed, the dark and dismal evenings are in and if you have access to a computer and can carve out a few hours for yourself most days the target of fifty odd thousand words in the month is attainable. Of course a lot of what you write is tripe ( or mine is) and will never last edits. But it is a great way of kickstarting that novel you knew you always had in you.
The bulk of the first draft of my first novel was written during NaNoWriMo 2007, I didn’t sign up last year as I was committed to ghostwriting a book and although I started in 2008 I fell off at the first hurdle!
The commitment to put your behind on a chair and write for a few hours does pay off. I felt a great sense of achievement that first year and went on to finish the novel and polish it up and send it off. It died there but I did it, I wrote a book. Maybe this year’s attempt will pay off. I think this novel may be better as I have two under my belt at this stage and understand narrative flow a little better. I’ll be churning it out anyway and it may join other stuff under the bed or it may not.
If you never write it it’ll never be published so it’s worth a try.
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