Go-Go SuperMonkey Laundry Dance Party!!!

So unlike last year (but like this summer) I’m not writing weird sprints to pad my word count. It’s all story all the time.

Maybe I should change that.

Finally left Paris. almost in Orleans.

From the NaNoWriMo pep talk from Chris Cleave:

A novel is a living thing and it resists containment within the structures we erect for it. Even worse, the novel has intelligence and it will inevitably turn against its creator. Think of it like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park. The problem is that a good character in a novel will reach a point of maturity where he or she is not necessarily biddable.

What always keeps me going at certain points is when I myself no longer am sure what happens next. When the characters start to tell me things.

I used to love when this would happen when I was acting, on rare occasions. Like I would feel that sometimes, I would raise them, create them, materialize them, separate from me and the page and even the fusion of me and the page until there was almost this third thing, this ghost, that haunted the both of us. This universal character that existed apart from the two things that had made it flesh.

This is what I love most about the drafting process, that almost Dr. Frankenstein feeling of something lifted from disparate parts to a life of its own.

Except hopefully without the villagers, small child killing, and especially without the bolts. They just look painful.

Almost got him out of Paris, finally. Some fun and interesting things starting to happen again.

I was starting to dislike some of these people.

haven’t quite felt the need to post as often as I have in the past, and it may be because, well, I have more of an idea what i”m doing.

That is: I know why things are going the way they are.

once I hit editing phase I’ll have to post constantly however. I have no idea what i”m doing there.

day eleven total: 15410ish. Will update when nano site comes back online.

And see, I thought I’d posted something on Friday. Huh.
Still haven’t left Paris. Who knew Paris would be so difficult to write?
I’d love to leave Paris and get back to New Jersey today. If I can get him home and into OSS training, that would be great.

4579 words today which isn’t bad at all. Wasn’t too hard either; not with writing in sessions.

Hoping I can get some details to add in as well, but the first three chapters are down at least. I need things that will happen in Istanbul, which is tough since it’s really just supposed to be a desk job.

So now it starts to flow again. Even scenes I couldn’t write before and just skipped are going smoothly.

Today’s target is 16666 words. I am unlikely to hit that, but I should make another 1k words today.

Tomorrow will likely be handwritten so I will see how far I can get with that. That’s often enjoyable but slow.

The next sticking point will likely be Istanbul around 30-35k words. Not looking forward to that.

Sweet merciful crap, but it’s been painful. Still, FINALLY I’m out of 1939, and to May 1940. Tomorrow the Battle for France begins.

Here are some things I did to combat the writer’s block I’ve had for the past few days.
-asked most of my friends with art training about their school experiences;
-Nichole told me to give him block, which helped
-running,
-watched lots of tv
-ate donuts
-long walks
-wrote about 5-600 words in French.
It seems like writing in French helps whenever there is a stoppage in, you know, the French bits. Duh. Kind of makes sense doesn’t it?

He also wrote a long letter about how nothing he did was right and that he was homesick. I felt the first one; remembered the second from my own experiences in France. No matter how much I loved it, still….