Don't Forget NaNoWriMo--or Find Your Goal

Although I'm going through a BUNCH of unplanned stuff this year, I am also planning on participating in National Novel Writing Month (November 1-30)! And you should too!

Even if you don't write novels, sign up for it. It's FREE, and you can use the e-mails and inspirational articles from the Office of Letters and Light to use for any of your efforts--from painting to music to drawing to reading to weight loss to pretty much any goal for anything you have in mind. Just sign up, and everything comes to your e-mail… and it's more helpful than you might realize.

I have found it hard to keep going without goals, without a plan for the day, for the week, for the month, for the year. Without goals, I am unsure what to do next. With goals, I have specific tasks automatically ahead for me.

Remember, too, that we are 2 1/2 months away from the new year. Why wait until January 1 to set a goal? Why not begin that resolution soon?

My resolutions (BEFORE January 1):

1. Finish my mermaid novel.
2. Lose the weight I've needed to lose for more than a year.
3. Find a happy place with Richard's cancer treatments.
4. Sew several costumes (three planned so far--Elsa from Frozen, Queen Elizabeth I, Antebellum dress)

Not a lot, but one of these would probably keep me busy. What are YOUR resolutions before January 1?

The Persistent Voice

I have three hours of Zumba today. I have to lug kids everywhere, shake, shake, shake all over the place to earn my income, dash to the store, do dishes, cook, tend to the house, get papers signed and faxed, and the list goes on.

Why am I still happy? Why do I have a cheesy grin on my face here, at the very start of the day, when no item has yet been crossed off? Because I also have a book waiting for me, the end of a novel I've been happily editing, a few good ideas to flesh it out, to make the climax nail-biting.

And I know, once I'm showered, once I've cleaned and fed everybody, that I'm sitting down here, at my beloved Mac, and working on it. That is the most beautiful thought I can imagine at this point.

More about that later. For now, it's off to make the kids' lunches!

I NEED a Ghostly Title!!!

If you haven't spoken up lately, I really need your help today.

With my first novel already entered in the ABNA contest, I'm working on revisions of Novel #3. My biggest problem, though, is my title is absolutely terrible. Title suckage is a consistent problem for me, for my titles are either far too long and convoluted (I must have learned this from my research paper writing days) or are simplistic and completely unimaginative.

Here's the story's premise: A sixteen-year-old girl, who has been in and out of foster homes most of her life (mom lost military husband and turned to drugs for solace), moves into a house on Puget Sound with her mom and new stepfather. The house is a bargain, but it's also haunted, and mom and stepdad have issues from the very beginning. Finally, stepdad leaves for good--only mom does, too, since she disappears like she has so many times before. The daughter Emme doesn't want to go back into foster care, so she tries to make it on her own in the little house, keeping her mom's absence from her stepdad and social workers. But the house she's living in is haunted, as she's reminded of almost daily.

This is an actual picture of a ghost among some tall grasses. Source: Ghoststudy.com. If you like ghosts, you should really check out this site. LOADS of great pictures! 

The ghost at first terrifies her, but soon she gets used to him, even learning his name ("Charley"). He finds ways of communicating with her, and even helps her get a job and keep the house, etc. Beneficial ghost. I don't want to go into all the other details (don't want to spoil it for anybody), but I have the most horrifically craptacular title on the face of the planet right now, and I need a better one. Come to think of it, any title would be a better one! Let me illustrate:

Just Me and Charley

Yup, that's the title. Pathetic, yes, but at least I already know this! I really want something to reflect the ghostliness, Puget Sound, the foster kid trying to make it on her own, etc. Have pity on me and help me out, all you creative people!

Oooh, how about Ghost on the Water? It's better, but, like I said, any title would be better. Can you help me? Please?

While you're at it, got any creepy-ish music to suggest I listen to while I revise? I love to revise accompanied by appropriate music.

Finding One's Muse

While living in Kansas, I participated several times in a 24-Hour Play Festival, the equivalent of a short-term writing sprint. People signed up for various activities--tech, acting, directing (6), and writing (6). I did tech once, but the other times I wrote one of the plays.

The premise is simple: At 8 p.m., all of the participants come to the theatre with one costume and one prop. The participants get up one by one and present their items, and the actors also tell anything they can do--accents, sword fighting, double-jointedness, etc.

Once that is done, the actors, techies, and directors go home to bed, while the playwrights "draft" their actors for their play (usually they end up with 4-5 actors). Using their group of actors, along with the costumes and props brought in that night, the playwrights have from about midnight to 6 a.m. to write a ten-minute play. They have a few readers who stay up with them to read and offer feedback (so that the plays are at least a bit revised and polished before 6 a.m.), and then they head home to sleep all day.

Copies of the plays are made, and by 7 a.m. the directors come, read all the plays, and then fight over who gets to direct each one. At 8 the actors and techies show up, and from that point until an 8 p.m. performance, they rehearse the play, find costumes, learn lines, and prepare for a full production of each play.

Pretty fun stuff!! Exhausting, but fun. It's also a learning experience, and it helped me realize how much I depend on PEOPLE for my inspiration. I never had a clue what my play would be until after my actors were cast. Sometimes a prop gave me a little something, but it was usually the actors themselves. No, it was ALWAYS the actors.

And I have muses in real life, too. One woman in particular in Kansas ended up in several of my plays--she was the perfect protagonist--vulnerable, kind, intelligent, sensitive. She was also an actor, and a good one, so she often ended up in the very role designed for her. She was Othello's wife in my play Desdemona, and was absolutely perfect for it.

Now I have another muse here in Georgia, a 72-year-old teenager who has more energy in a single strand of hair than most people accumulate in a year. I've already written a play with her in mind, and I will likely write more. Then again, most characters in my plays and novels are melded images of a dozen different people, some from decades ago. And they all have just a touch of me, as well (even the villains).

So, who is your muse? What or who inspires you to do the work you do? Who shapes your world?

You Never Know

Funny, but I've gone weeks without writing (except in the blog).

At one point, I swore I wouldn't write in the blog until I wrote on my novel.

Didn't work.

Then I rushed to get all the house stuff done so that I'd have no more excuses. But houses, well, they tend to keep coming up with maintenance issues, and this house is no exception. I still don't have new countertops, and the dining room, writing room, and breakfast nook lights still need replacing...

Didn't work.

And then, like a miracle, I woke this morning at 4:45 a.m. I could feel sleep had left me, but an idea had not. I came down the stairs to my computer, opened it, started writing...

A few hours and 19 pages later, I had half a play. Script Frenzy is this month, with the goal, I think, being to write a play of 90-100 pages. At this pace I'll be done in five days.

Something must have worked. I only wonder what it was.

Makes me also wonder what tomorrow morning will bring. I just hope I'm ready for it.

The Drawing Board

This photo, taken by Alec Hendrix in 2007, shows Coffeyville, KS after a terrifying flood. Some died, and many lost their homes to the flooding.

It is also the inspiration for my second novel, which I am now, after a year of working on other projects, revising. Writing the novel accomplished a few things. It started me thinking about a lot of religious and spiritual elements in my life. It got me to the top 100 entries in the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Contest. It even helped me work on some family issues.

Looking back over it, I'm grateful that it got me this far, but I also see that it isn't going to get me any farther. In fact, it's pretty much crap.

And I don't mean that in a nice, pseudo-humble sort of way. It sucks. It's overall plot is more than far-fetched, its detail and characters lacking, its ending far from meaningful. Besides a few kernels of brightness shining, like sunlight on water at sunset, it's pretty much muddy ooze.

Fortunately, I had one reader who told me so. And I also had the wisdom to let the thing sit longer than overnight--I waited a YEAR to come back to it--so that I could come back with renewed perspective and shred and reshape the novel into what it is supposed to be.

I'm off to work on my piece of crap. Perhaps, if I can replace the rotting wood and moldy drywall, I can get the structure of it back into shape. I pretty much have a blank slate, so I'll move walls, tear down a few useless rooms, add a bathroom, finish the attic properly, and put a playset in the backyard. I'll wait on the painting, shutters, and landscaping until the last, when the plan is exactly what it needs to be.

Here's hoping you have the guts to shred your own masterpieces... to carve them into their true form...

Cheers! (Now get to work!)

Awakening

Funny how my children's sleeping

Wakes me with a snicker

I slip along the hallway to my

Laptop

Waiting

It for me, and I for it

Hours before the sun will rise

My fingers

Long dormant

Curled into my pillow

Itch to press the keys

To get moving

My mind

Buzzing with dreams

And mischief

Longs to blend them both

Together

While all the world sleeps

And keeps me

Awake.

Missing You

Tohru Honda smiles from the TV screen

And I think of you

Grinning at the pages of manga with me

Sharing stories and dreams and fantasies

The nights we spent thinking up stupid nursery rhyme versions

Of Fuzzy Wuzzy and Jack be Nimble

I remember them all

Giggling in bed well past bedtime

We don't agree on anything

But never disagree

For our souls connect at the bellybutton

And they always will

No matter the distance

No matter the time between phone calls

No matter the restraints our lives place upon us

The trials, the pain, the sweat, the sadness

I know you are always near

That I can reach you

That you always make sure

I am never alone

Thank you

The Day to Be Alive

It's a great day to be alive

The still shining when I close my eyes

There's some hard times in the neighborhood

But why can't every day be just this good.

--Travis Tritt

Don't bounce out of bed

The day isn't going to smack you

If you snuggle into sheets

And sleep a little longer

But this new day awaits you

With a grin

Hopeful

Like you felt the night of prom, all dressed up

Or the first day of a new job

The opening credits of a new film

Ready

The skills spread around you

Inside you

Your own private toolbox

Of talent, inspiration,

Needing only effort of one

Waiting

For you alone

To make the day something destined

Something greater

Deeper

More satisfying

Than it would have been without you

So get up

Pull off the covers

Pull on some clothes (or not!)

Greet the day with your own sly grin

Shake hands with it, like a sister

A partner

Make it what it could be

Not just the stuff of dreams.

Sources of Inspiration

Like most writers, I am never short on ideas. I do not sit at the computer, day after day, wondering what I want to write. Instead, like most writers I know, I have EIGHTEEN projects in the works (or mumbling to me at night), waiting for me to get my rear in gear, so to speak, and get back to working on them.

These projects have minds of their own, and perhaps I'll blog about these demented minds some day, but each one also comes from a particular source of information.

My first novel came from a dream, a recurring nightmare I had as a teenager. In fact, the dream came to me over the years, and has only ceased since I wrote the first draft of the novel. I dreamed I was a man (and I often dream I am male, for some reason), and a bunch of shadow men were chasing me through a cemetery. I found a white grave marker, a lying statue rather like those placed atop the wealthy dead in Europe for centuries, and the men surrounded me, stabbing me. Sometimes I was the statue, a girl, and I could sense the danger, feel the blood dripping on me, etc. Very frightening.

It became the climax to my first novel.

My second book was inspired by pictures a friend sent me of floods in SE Kansas, a place from which I had recently moved. The town just south of Independence had flooded completely, even leaking oil from its refinery, and the arial pictures she sent me sparked a question about a second flood of biblical proportions.

I told this story through the eyes of a 14-year-old girl, third child of Noah, an Oklahoma farmer.

My third novel came from a particular ghost I researched--Charley, a man who had died in a house fire--but I moved his location to Seattle, changed his age, and created a whole story around him.

My fourth novel idea? Well, it came from a student paper--and art analysis of a painting of a mermaid, shown here.

The research the student had done regarding mermaid history and major stories was fascinating, and I was inspired to create a novel using what I knew (or could find out) about mermaids, sylphs, and other mythical creatures. I hope to start this novel soon.

So, what is your own inspiration? What spark inspires your writing? I'd love to know

Get Your Own Blue Castle

I am somehow catching up with everything. I can't believe it! My online classes are in order, discussions are posted, all papers are graded, everything is ready for the upcoming weeks, all e-mails responded to... it has been a very productive last couple of days.

Okay, so I haven't made a single edit to my play, and I need to do that. Miryam, the director of my staged reading coming up in a little over a week, is going to kill me if I don't get the revisions done (and I have no desire to die, by the way). But I now feel inspired to get my play done, soon... as soon as I finish a book.

Just since last night I've been reading a truly lovely book. It is L.M. Montgomery's lesser known book The Blue Castle. And I like it so much I'm already almost finished with it. In fact, I like it so much that once I'm done I might very well start at the beginning and read it all through again (once I've added pieces to my play and made Miryam happy).

Had I found it when I read all the other books by the same wonderful author--most famous for her Anne of Green Gables series--I might have moved out of my parents' house several years earlier. Honestly, I kick myself that I missed it then, for now it's like a kindred spirit coming out of the pages, reminding me about what I left behind all those years ago, reminding me why I am now so happy, and why, then, when I was still at home, I was so miserable.

Thank God I left. And thank God for L.M. Montgomery, who wrote this fabulous book to show how happy we are when we act to make ourselves happy, and not just in fear of what others will think. I feel like ordering 20 copies of it and giving it out to all of my friends.

Perhaps, when I order one book, I'll just get three copies... one to keep, one to lend out, and one to send out to anybody interested. The book may only speak to women out there--male readers are notoriously priggish about reading books with female protagonists living in the feminine world--but it speaks to me on more levels than I can possibly tell you.

Anyone interested?