On writing

So yes, November is here. Three days in to the NaNoWriMo. So far, so good. I'm writing. No idea if it's any good, but I'm writing. It's been years. I miss my English classes in high school, where the poetry vibes and short story ideas never seemed to run dry.

I have no shortage of ideas, that much remains the same. There are at least 2 partial novels tumbling around in there right now. I just wish I could crack open my skull and pour the word out onto the pages. When I sit down to write, things lose context. I ramble, lose threads, get hopelessly tangled. Just stuck on description. Forget the gist.

When I started writing on Monday, I got about 800 words in and hated it. The plot is weak, but I knew where I want it to go. But there's no point to it. I couldn't figure out how to make it all matter. Plus, it was coming out like I was a simpering idiot. So I gave up and turned to another idea I've been thinking about for a few YEARS now. Rather quickly, I had 1800 words. Fantastic! 100 words over my self-imposed daily limit! Go me!

Sitting down to write after the boys were in bed last night, I discovered that 600 words were gone. Erased. Eaten by the computer. WTF? Did I get so used to the auto-save feature from blogging that I actually didn't save it? But then, who closed the file? Who selected "no" when asked if they wanted to save the changes? Couldn't have been me. I may have been drinking more and sleeping less and eating boatloads more sugar than usual, but you'd think that would have been a clue. Right? RIGHT?

Do I blame the boys? My mother, who was visiting and watching them for the day? The cats?

Ugh. I so wanted to give up then and there. I couldn't stand the idea of re-writing those measly 600 words. But Jay encouraged me, cheered me on, and I did it. And you know what - I like the direction the story then went in even better now!

I'm having a hard time with character names and the setting. I'm trying to blend what I know and what's familiar with fiction. How can you write about a sadistic child killer when it's set in your own neighbourhood? How can you write steamy sex scenes when your mother - or mother-in-law - or the daycare teacher might someday read it? I've always been hung up on what people think of me. If they're talking about me. Yes, I'm paranoid.

I'm not well traveled.  I can't just make facts up. I'm going for authenticity here, and that means I have to use places that I know in a fictitious manner. What an unexpected concern.


In boy news, I took them to a walking path yesterday afternoon, since they were both climbing the walls. In hindsight, they were also super defiant, so freedom may not have been a good choice, but they needed a good run.

They found an awesome climbing tree. We played for a while and then I tried to entice them home with promises of tea and cookies. Well, that didn't go over well. They ran in different directions, laughing manically and shouting that they were going to run away and hide. Which they did. Since we were close to a very busy street at rush hour, this was alarming. I did manage to round them up, like herding cats - I'd get one and the other would disappear -  and Felix spent the walk home riding on my shoulders (my arms went numb) and I had a death grip on Elliot's arm. And we didn't have tea or cookies. Boo.

Before the mayhem, I did manage to snap some fun pics with my phone!