Since I was having such a hard time with the last chapter of AIWD, I was longing for something new and different to write, to get me out of the funk. Something easy, or something that came to me easier, instead of struggling over every word and trying to make them string together and make perfect sense. And then….

Same Time Next Week… the bane of my existence… my unfinished 2009 NaNoWriMo… the story that was not going to be finished… started talking to me. It started telling me where I could back the story up to and where I could lop off the diseased portion and where I could take the story from the new jumping off point. I’ve been rearranging the last two days and tonight actually added new words. And got to a point tonight that makes me excited to jump in tomorrow. DRAMZ, ya’ll!

Ugh. So excited. And so happy that ideas are flowing, and that I’m not struggling. I just needed to focus on something different, and this story is much looser with language and sexuality so I can uh… let some things flow. LOL. I guess I just need the release and every once in while I need to pull myself out of AIWD and do something else. Since I can’t quite get started on that Criminal Minds fanfic. HA!

But seriously, it’s still rolling around in my brain. *smacks self* Stop it!

My only issue is how to post the new version at the archive because I already have great feedback on what’s there and some of that gets replaced. I’m hoping it will be alright to close the old version and re-upload the same story but a Redux version. So many things are moved around and added that it’d be hard to go in and edit the old chapters. And then the feedback wouldn’t make any sense.

But I think I want to finish it, before I even start to thinking about that…..but it’s nice to think about.

I wish I could capture some of this momentum to fix and finish Same Time Next Week. *looks at it* *looks away* *sighs*

Baby steps.

Coming up on AIWD are a few chapters I’ve been thinking about for a long time but I really have no plans as far as how to execute them. I don’t want to put a lot of time and space between updates though. Hopefully tomorrow night I can sit down with my outline and put some ideas together.

Taking the rest of the night off!

Song she sang to me
Song she brang to me
Words that rang in me
Rhyme that sprang from me
Warmed the night
And what was right
Became me

You are the sun
I am the moon
You are the words
I am the tune
Play me

Last week, I had some “genius” idea to incorporate a drving game into my next chapter. Mainly because my characters are on a road trip and there’s really no way to make driving interesting. It’s 99% dialog. What do people talk about, on road trips? Stuff. Stupid stuff. And they play car games to pass the time.

If you’ve ever seen the show Whose Line Is It Anyway (American remake of the British version), you’ve seen this game in action. It’s call Song Titles and you basically have to have a conversation ONLY in song titles. It’s HILARIOUS. Both on TV and in my story. I thought it turned out well. And it took up some story real estate. It also provided a point to keep coming back to. Past the actual game, my male main character would shout out song titles where appropriate in later conversations.

This is one of the most amazing things about writing… I’ve never said I’m writing a classic, here. I mean, it’s fan fiction, a glorified celebrity fantasy and so in and of itself not realistic or anything. But it’s my practice, and I really enjoy it. My favorite part of writing is when I am type type typing away and something just… happens. It’s like my fingers know the story and I am just watching it play out.

At some point in my recount of a day in San Antonio, I decided my male MC needed sunglasses. He’s a cheapskate’s cheapskate, though. A bit of a miser in that he doesn’t really spend money unnecessarily. He wants the shades. They’re great shades. Female MC wants him to get them, to treat himself. He won’t do it. She buys them for him and gives them to him, rather casually and unceremoniously- such is the nature of their relationship.  He looks down at them, and…. this comes out of nowhere, from my fingers to the page, asks,

“Guess what song I’m thinking of right now?”

I rolled by eyes and turned on my heel, headed toward the food vendors. “No.”

“Come on,” he whined, following me. “It was your game. Your idea. Guess.”

“I already know, cheese ball.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“Say it!”

I  turned around, pulled the shades off of his face and hung them back on his shirt. “Sunglasses at Night. And I’m never playing games with you ever again.”

I didn’t plan that. It just happened. I love that, when the story writes itself.

Ahh. Amazing.

I’ve got to get to work on Ch 44. The home stretch. Not the last chapter, but the last roadtrip chapter. It’s been such a fun journey. Then I have to plan “Christmas”…. believe it or not, we’re still climbing to the climax. Gonna be INTERESTING. And I have an emotional, sweet, passionate ending in mind. Can’t wait!

Till then… pen in hand,

I need to back the story up.  I’ve solved my problem too early and I’ve run out of enough conflict to keep the story running. So, I need to add more ‘story’…. I always get into trouble when I get lazy and try to skip story… and bring both conflicts in the story to a more reasonable conclusion. And I need to bring my main characters back to a certain point, which will be significant to the story.

Amazing. Uhm. I have no idea when I am going to dig into it and fix it. But. Yes.

I’m having an issue with another story in that I am horribly stuck but I want to finish the story so badly. I’m unable to go back and figure out what’s not working, though. It’s just…boring and I can’t figure out how to extend it or rewrite it or… SIGH. It’s been sitting for quite some time. It’s actually my 2009 NaNo piece. I’d sure love to call that thing done before NaNo 2010 starts. :|

Gee.. I gotta make everything so hard.

I am thinking of revamping Calm Waves and Smooth Moon. Giving it a new title and a little more story and submitting it to a short story archive. Have to check to see if it has to have not appeared elsewhere first, since I put everything in my personal archive.

After that, I’ll get some prompts and get to writing something new as well as plan out the next chapter of All I Wanna Do… I also want to have something submitted to The Glimmer Train by the end of March. I could aim for the end of February but that’s not a lot of time to produce a quality piece.

Going to do it. HAVE to.

Pen in Hand,

What slows me down, sometimes, is resarch. Research is King and I like to do a lot of it. This chapter found our main characters driving through Tennessee, from Kingsport through Gatlinburg/ Pigeon Forge. Among other storylines, they take a trip to the Pigeon Forge Elvis Museum. And, wow. Just watching the video alone at elvismuseums.com gave me ideas for how to incorporate some fun into the story. Funny thing is that one of my reviews mentioned that they’d been to that very museum. I love when art imitates life… or whatever that saying is.

From there they drove on to New Orleans, destination French Quarter. I’ve never been to N.O. but I’m dying to go someday. If I do, I must stay at the Maison Dupuy Luxury Hotel, just based on the pictures. I love hotels! The most fun in writing this story has been picking out the destinations and trying to weave a description into the story line.

Hoping to get started on a new chapter this week… I don’t want to take a lot of down time and get out of rhythm. Have been doing a lot of blogging and reading of blogs, gathering inspirations here and there. I need some literary inspiration, though, so I’m hoping to get back to my lunch time reading habit this week.

Speaking of inspiration, I am going to be following along on WriteMeg’s Two Girls Read Shakespeare. I’m ashamed to say, as a writer, that I’ve never read much Shakespeare. Amazingly, it wasn’t required in my English classes, even the College Prep ones, and past Romeo and Juliet, I never read any. I studied Communication at University– had I stuck with English as a major I likely would have read my share. So, now I’ve got to make up for it and I’m looking forward to being analytical and discussing literature. Almost makes me want to go back to school.

Almost.

Pen in Hand,

I wrote!

The heavens parted and words came forth! I wrote!

Praise be to William Shakespeare and Strunk & White, I wrote! Lol.

Have to make a big deal of it, because it’s been so long since words flowed. Crossing my fingers that I can keep up the momentum through the end of the chapter.

Yesterday on my personal blog I was reminded of a weekly story that used to post on Redbook.com I think, every Friday. It was called the Story of V, and I was completely addicted to it. It was more soap opera than literary offering, but I was into it. I’ve come to think of my epic fiction piece as like that story, just a weekly installment of decadent fantasy. And I’d like to be able to offer an update that regularly– not perfect but good enough to read, just to get it out of me. Not worrying about making it sound like a novel, just write and have fun. Fix it in post, lol.

We’ll see. Still working toward short stories, drabbles, writing exercises. TIME! I need more of it. There is a new prompt at Promptedtowrite. We’ll see if I can focus on something long enough to get something out.

Guh. Gonna be late for work. Shower is runninnnnnnnnnng.

Pen in hand,

Over the weekend I crossed over the 50,000 word mark., First, YAY. Second, Okay, but I still have a ginourmous amount of desert to cross because my story isn’t finished. And Im getting tired. And my writing is getting lazy and uninteresting and I am burning out.

Hence, a break for a few days. Not too long, or I won’t go back to it. I do want to finish it.

And then never look at it again, HAHAHAHA. I’m so not kidding.

Actually I am, but GAH. I see why people think NaNoWriMo is so hard.

I think the plot is coming along, okay. Now that I have a good chunk of it in, I need to make sure I am keeping copious notes on what I say and how I explain things. Little details keep contradicting themselves and later I think ‘Oh NO, back in Ch 3 I said the shoes were GREEN and then in CH 10 I referenced BLUE shoes, CRAP!’.

Guh. Well. Month half over. Gotta finish gotta finish gotta finish. Back at it tomorrah.

Ciao, good friends. Anyone else on the NaNo Train?

I’m still working through the major story lines— I like to just dive in and let the details set themselves up and work themselves out. Every few chapters or 5,000 words or so, I do some fact checking and make sure certain details stay true, then plan out a little further, then write some more and plan out a little further. It’s going well, so far. I feel like when I plan out the entire thing, I lose my zest for the story and I feel like I’ve written it already. That’s no fun.

So far? World building and story writing and writing something new in  a big damn hurry is a lot of fun. Everyday I post my word count over at the Nanowrimo site and I feel really proud of myself, and I’m so in love with the story. It’s been such a nice break from the story I’ve been writing for uhmmmmmm almost a year. Wow. Need that one to end, and soon.

But now, Mama is tired, and have already put away the piece for the night. I’m off to sleep, perchance to dream, while visions of plotlines and realistic, believable dialogue and story arcs and stylebooks and well rounded characters dance in my head!