NaNoWriMo

For those of you not yet fluent in abbreviation, November is also known as “National Novel Writer’s Month”. There are groups that meet in cities and towns all over the country, encouraging each other to meet word counts and deadlines designed to finish a novel in one month.

Now, I realize how crazy this must sound to anyone who isn’t a serious writer. It sounds crazy to a lot of people who are! But it’s a great way to find support and accountability, and it’s just the rough draft we’re going for (I think). I’ve heard rumors that there are “winners” of “NaNo” who get their novels published….

Obviously I haven’t looked into it very well. The social aspect of it was enough to keep me at bay, and the prospect of maybe getting published if I can get my novel finished wasn’t enough to motivate me to write (go ahead, cry, I won’t judge; it’s a painful truth for me as well).

However, I am now finished with the whole first section of Coming Home (although I’m undecided on whether the finished product will be divided into sections), which contains the first nine chapters. I’ve also written chapters ten and eleven, and four others later in the story, so my focus now is sort of on twelve.

I say sort of because I could just as easily write the last chapter next, and work my way backwards; or start on chapter 21 and jump around. I have them all outlined or summarized or some combination of the two; let’s just say I know what I want to happen in each one, I just have to write them.

There it is my friends, the bald truth: I just have to write. It sounds like such a simple, matter of fact notion. And yet….I’ve got nothing. I wrote chapter eleven on October 13th. I looked at the calendar and realized there were 11 full weeks (plus a few extra days) left in 2012, and I had 21 chapters left to write. That meant if I could average two chapters a week, Coming Home would be finished before 2013. A reasonable goal, to be honest; so how many chapters have I written in the last month? None. Zero. Although last night I wrote most of chapter twelve (it helped that half of it was already written and intended for something else that I scrapped). Still. Something is wrong with this picture people!!

Is it still possible for me to finish it by the end of the year? Absolutely. I just need to write. And I will. Keep checking back friends, watch the miracle unfold.

Ten x Ten = 100

When this is published to my blog, it will be the 100th post of Random Rambles. That seems to be quite a milestone in most areas of life, so I wanted to write about something special in honor of it. I wish it could be the announcement that my novel is finally finished….but only 15 of the 36 chapters have been written to date.

A few suggestions were offered, including making a list of 100 things. I love lists! However, it’s more difficult to ramble when writing a list, and there are so many wonderful things to list I couldn’t narrow it down to just one topic. (I will admit the idea of making a list of 100 things to make a list about was seriously considered.)

Another idea was to ramble on about the number 100 itself, which was also seriously considered, as there are many fun and interesting things about the number 100 that I could talk about. But it just didn’t seem “special” enough, you know? A few more ideas were writing it in 100 words (but you wouldn’t know unless I told you, and I’d still need a topic), or 100 lines (which would be so long no one would finish reading it; we’re only on line 14 here).

So I continued to roll the idea around in my head, as well as asking friends for input, and I finally decided that I definitely want to talk about my novel, since I really, really, really, really want to finish it before the end of 2012 (or the end of the world, whichever comes first! hahahaha). I considered posting the first 100 words, but the second paragraph ends on word #97, and the next three lead you to believe something that isn’t true (how’s that for intrigue?) Since I haven’t finished the last chapter yet, I can’t include the last 100 words either....(plus that would just be cruel for all of us purists who like to wait until we get to the end to know what happens).

FINALLY I got the idea to use the first ten words from the first ten chapters, so there are 100 words total:
The first thing I learned at Faded Elegance was that
“Surprise!” I opened the front door and took a deep
The next morning I woke up early, and decided to
The second thing I learned at Faded Elegance is that
I pulled into the Zip’s parking lot and checked my
“How was your date with Blaize?” Connor and I were
The third thing I learned at Faded Elegance is that
I stepped into the September Valley Starbucks and smiled. Connor
The next morning I slept in and my family
“Are you nervous?” “Never,” I smiled. Connor opened the car

So there you have it. A fun and interesting way to celebrate 100 posts. Here’s to 100 more (and the long awaited completion of Coming Home)….

I Am A Writer

We’ve all had those moments, when you’re reading a book or watching a movie, and it hits you – “it,” an emotional response, you laugh out loud or you start crying and can’t stop. Because it spoke to you on some deep level. We always carry that place with us; but it takes something special to remind us it’s there.

I want that. I want people to have those moments when they read my story. I want them to laugh at the craziness of Jordan. I want them to jump up and down and do a happy dance when the two (I won’t say which two) finally kiss. When someone dies I want them to cry. I want to reach that place in my readers.

And when they walk away from it, when they close the book for the last time and the story is over, I want them to feel a sense of satisfaction, completion, hope. I want them to know that they were part of something bigger than themselves, something that changed them, even just a little bit.

You see, I don’t write about aliens or monsters, I don’t write about worlds that will never exist. I don’t know how. All I know is what I see around me, this reality that I live every day. And that’s what I write about. I take pieces of myself and mix them with pieces of who I want to be.

I don’t write because I have a story to tell. I write because I feel like I’m suffocating when I don’t. I write because God gave me a special gift and not using it would be a great dishonor to all that He is to me. I write because I have to. I don’t know if I’m any good. I don’t know if anyone will ever read my book. But I’m writing it.

Coming Home

I’m a writer. I wrote and illustrated my first story in first grade, at Emmanuel Lutheran Daycare (no, I’m not Lutheran, I’m Baptist, that’s just where the daycare was). It was eight pages long, each page held one or two sentences, about a girl who had a dragon for a best friend. They went for a walk, it rained, they hid in a cave. It ended with a rainbow.

I've advanced quite a lot since then. Currently I’m working on more pieces than I can count, but focusing my attention on one in particular. It’s a novel. I wrote the first pseudo-outline summary for it about ten years ago, the summer I left University, before I moved out of Seattle. I was living in a five bedroom house with six other people and looking for a job, so I spent a great deal of time writing at small coffee shops. The original version was titled “The Guest.”

Well, I ended up getting hired into AmeriCorps (that’s a post for another day, I’m afraid), and over the next few months while I worked as an elementary school reading tutor this novel changed shape. Several times. It would take me far too long to explain how the evolution occurred; there are small bits of the original idea still embedded in what it transformed into, but they are so specific to my own life that no one would ever know. Unless I told them. Which I'm not going to now. It’s a long story.

So now the novel is titled “Coming Home.” At this point in my blog post I should have a prepared paragraph to lay out for you, describing this novel in a way that would hook you – basically what you would read on the back of the book – but I haven’t been able to explain it to my liking in just a few words. Basically, and this might sound awfully boring, it’s about a girl who returns to her past in search of a future, and learns to live in the present. How’s that for a hook??

The setting is my hometown (Cheney, WA) though the name has been changed to something far more interesting (September Valley). The characters are loosely based on people I know, but are more constructed of how I wish people could be. The main character has a lot of me in her. It features a large family and the beginning of a love story (all with Christian values, nothing explicit). That’s a subplot, really, woven throughout the story of a girl who learns how to come “home.”

At this moment, I have completed twelve of the (somewhere over) thirty chapters I’ve pseudo-outlined. Not the first twelve, but twelve total. I believe the first six are done, and then it jumps around a little. I will on occasion post updates on this novel, or questions, or snippets (mainly because I think snippets is a fun word!), so this post serves as my introduction to those future posts. And one day when I’m published you can say, “Hey, I used to read her blog when….”