An Evening of Stardust with Neil Gaiman

Last night, my boyfriend and I went to see An Evening of Stardust with Neil Gaiman, as part of the Drue Heinz Lecture Series Special Events. We weren't able to get VIP tickets when they became available, but I was able to get some decent seats and bring my best friend along (who is 8 1/2 months pregnant). I ran into a few friends while there and we managed to get signed books before they were sold out.

Listening to Neil read his own works is... fantastic. Because you can hear what the characters sound like in his head, and that's a rare glimpse from an author (outside of book tours). Apparently this wasn't a book tour for the 15th Anniversary of Stardust. Apparently it was just us and Neil didn't know what to do. So he stood in front of us and talked about how the idea for the novel came about, and how he wrote it with a fountain pen in Tori Amos's bridge house, and how somehow a movie was made from it, and apparently that movie did amazingly well around the world except for America where the publishers didn't know how to market the story. So Neil told them to market it like The Princess Bride, and they looked at him like he was crazy.

He told us about his new Doctor Who episode, of which I shall say nothing else, and he read us a new section of his new novel. We were the first to hear the section, apparently. At one point, we all lost it because he was talking about electron decay and how the electrons were the smiley ones and the neutrons were frowning and so on. I can't wait to read it. Ocean at the End of the Lane, I think it's called. Laura, my best friend, later told me that Ava was dancing around only when Neil read from his books.

When it became time for a short Q&A, Mike bolted from the middle of our row, surged past everyone's legs and reached the nearest microphone first. He always wants to ask authors questions at these events. Sure enough, he was the last one. So he said hi, told Neil that he was interesting on TurnTable.fm and should return to the site, and then asked a question that boils down to: "The type of magic and adventure in your stories and pennydreadfuls don't exist in this world. How do we find it?" People had an "Awww..." reaction to it, and Neil launched into describing this bizarre workshop and carousel. He ended the answer by saying something like, "You have to make it for yourself and others. You have to go out and find it. It won't come to you." To which everyone started applauding.

Trust my boyfriend to make the question/answer of the night. And a few people tweeted about it, apparently, of which Neil retweeted this morning, and so did I.

How about that for a bit of magic.

NaNoWriMo late start and tactics

Today is my official first day attempting NaNoWriMo. Yes, it began a couple days ago. As some of you may have read in my apprehension post, I had some insurmountable obstacles with beginning on the first. Sometimes, real life responsibilities that propel a career are more important than writing in a story. As a writer, it is a compulsion to write in our stories, and as such t should be blasphemous to say that the real world gets in the way of writing, especially if novel writing is my career of choice. But copyediting for an award-winning magazine is a great resume builder and keeps me in the writing field. So, after a late night Thursday because of copyediting, and watching Wreck it Ralph after a hopelessly bad day at work yesterday, I'm ready to begin this novel.

Because of the word count I already have in the story, apparently I only need about 1,000 words to complete the word count max for today. With that said, I can do better.

There are a couple things people should try when attempting a challenge like this. These are things I've learned while writing my thesis.

1) Sketch

I'm not talking about jotting down notes in an outline, or just details and spots of dialogue. I'm talking about jotting down the scene itself. Get all the words out, all the dialogue and details and necessities for a proper scene. It's like a rough draft of a rough draft. When I get hit by my muse, I tend to write at least 500 words at one time. Often, I'm able to expand that. Bear in mind that one double-spaced page is 600 words.

2) Don't follow a set timeline

You don't have to write each scene as they occur. If you have an idea for a scene that comes later, then sketch it. Get it down on paper. Then, when you're able to fill in the gaps, you can alter that later scene as necessary. Yes, your story will change as you write it. Yes, that later scene could be drastically altered by the time you get to it, or it could be erased. But that doesn't matter. It allows you to get the idea out of your head so you can concentrate on other things.

3) Keep a pad of paper wherever you go.
Anything can spark an idea for your story. Anything, anywhere. Standing in line at the grocery store, in the bathroom, right before bed (when we're more likely to forget things the next morning), eating dinner, getting the mail. You can get little notepads and small pencils or foldable pens to carry in your pocket or bag. Keep a notebook beside your bed, on the floor or on a nightstand. Keep one on the dinner table and drop it to the floor when you eat (just remember to replace it when you're done). Keep one on an end table or coffee table. And, most importantly, keep one in the shower.

For those of you who don't know, there is such a thing as waterproof paper. Environmental geologists and other scientists use it all the time. It can be written on with a pencil underwater and won't smear or drip. Amazon.com sells a small pad that you can suction to your shower wall. It's called Aqua Notes (http://www.amazon.com/Aquanotes-Aqua-Notes-Waterproof-Notepad/dp/B003W09LTQ/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1351972217&sr=8-7&keywords=waterproof+paper). I cannot count how many times I've used it and then expanded what I had jotted down. This is for general ideas or dialogue that you need to get down before you forget it, especially when voice or word choice is specific.

So these are my beginning tactics for NaNoWriMo. Not sure how long they're going to work, but they worked extremely well for my thesis.

NaNoWriMo apprehension

I am not ready for tomorrow. For a number of reasons.

1) Because of not allowing myself to work on the novel project I selected for NaNo, I mentally shifted gears to a second story. I could just run with that story, but I already put the first in motion for the challenge. Time to shift gears again.

2) I have a full-time job. And yes, many, many people who partake in NaNo also have full-time jobs, but I fear that my writing job will sap me of all creativity for the story. Oh, how I miss the days when a story spoke to me and I had no choice but to write down ideas, dialogue, scenes, description, setting, etc.

I asked a coworker (who is also participating) if she was ready, and she wasn't. She has so much to do with Scare House (she's an actress who works/ed at a haunted house), getting her new apartment in order, work, etc. We're hoping that we'll get bursts of inspiration and double the required word count for a single night, just to catch up.

3) I am a copyediting intern for the Pittsburgh Quarterly. I've been involved with its editors since the spring and it's been great. I got to revamp and update its style guide with fellow editors, interns, and the official copy editors, but it was mostly my project. But go figure it decides to send out pages to be proofed for the upcoming winter issue during the few days around Halloween. So, I'm exhausted from work, only to come home and copyedit for hours. Sometimes I can't do it. Luckily, my editor is a very understanding, very kind lady who told me to do the best that I could, as much as I could. I've already caught many mistakes from cursory read-throughs... but the pages aren't nearly as red (yes, I use a red pen) as they normally are.

And so, I'm not ready for tomorrow. I want a few extra days to finish the copyediting. I want a few extra days of reorienting my mind to prepare for the right novel. I want a few extra nights to finish an H.P. Lovecraft novella, put the unfinished book away for next October, and start up Grimm's Fairy Tales (novel research). But nope, NaNo starts tomorrow whether or not I, or anyone else, am ready.

A simple treasure

I always quote a particular line from a movie. "It's the simple things in life you treasure." Galaxy Quest.

This evening was one of those treasures.

My boyfriend and I reheated some delicious leftover Chinese food, sat on the living room floor by the coffee table, sipped from a couple mugs of Oolong tea, and listened to poetry. A while back, he had bought Poet's Corner, which was composed by John Lithgow. It's a collection of Lithgow's favorite poems. The book comes with a CD that showcases certain poems from the collection, all read by popular actors and actresses--Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Billy Connolly, Jodie Foster, and a bunch of others, including Lithgow. It became a treat to recognize both the actors' voices and the poems. For a few, we exchanged tidbits of information, like how Lewis Carroll wrote the "Jabberwocky" because he wanted to show the fickleness of language and prove that people understand the intent of nonsense words.

Before putting in the CD, I didn't want to listen to it. I'd been reading all day and wanted to sit back and enjoy a favorite show or movie. But my boyfriend didn't feel like watching anything. He sometimes becomes "romantic" and wants to share poetry with me, and this, apparently, was one of those nights. And I have to admit, I was having fun halfway through the small amount we had listened to. It was nice to lounge around with a mug of hot tea on a lukewarm October Saturday, with no electronic distraction other than the sound of classic poetry.

Paper, paper everywhere; where it should be

I'm beginning to wonder if every writer should have clipboards of paper and a dangling pen or pencil hanging in every room of his or her abode.

Recently, I bought a small tablet of waterproof paper. Yes, it exists. Biologists and geologist use it when out in the field near streams and in inclement weather. You can use a pen or pencil, though a pencil works best (especially under water). Amazon.com has a small tear-away pad that you can suction to the wall of your shower. The pad comes with a small suction mount for a pencil, too.

That pad has come in handy. Most of the problems in my stories are resolved in the bathroom. I don't know what it is about that place. I solved conundrums often enough that it required a pad in the shower just so I could get the idea or dialogue or description down without using specific words or nuances. So last night, before getting ready for bed, I found myself listening to very specific dialogue between two characters. They belong to the novel my thesis started, which I haven't touched since August. The character voices were unique and particular. I wanted to begin writing the conversation, but the waterproof pad was out of reach and too small. And yet I couldn't shut my mind off, either, because more sections of the scene started appearing, along with details and actions.

I ended up striding into the living room, where my boyfriend and I were watching educational YouTube videos about the Maya calendar and what happens in a presidential election in the event of a tie, and ordered him to "Pause it. Pause it! Pause it, pause it!"

He finally did after I plopped onto the couch and grabbed a notebook and pencil. What followed was a 300-word sketch of dialogue and notes in the worst chicken scratch I've ever written. I type faster, usually, but couldn't spare the time to grab the laptop, log in, locate the document, locate the proper location in said document, and begin typing.

Thus, I realized that maybe it's a good idea to dangle a clipboard and pencil off the bathroom counter, and have a notebook on my nightstand instead of further away on my desk, and maybe one on my To Read shelf in the little hallway. There are white boards and notebooks located elsewhere throughout the apartment.

I told my best friend of this incident. She said she loves when inspiration strikes like that. It's as if the moment takes over you, as if you're living it alongside your characters. And you need to get the idea down on paper as fast as possible without any distraction registering in your mind. No one else's real-life conversation, no facts broadcast from the TV, no song lyrics, nothing. The entire world must pause until the idea is safely on paper, and only then (when the voices in your head quiet) can life resume.

The appeal of distractions

My friend recently posted on her blog about wanting a knitting project to end, how she's tired of it already despite loving to knit and having it be a release for her. A friend of hers commented on that post and said that she, too, becomes tired with a project and finds her eyes roving over other patterns and thinking of other projects she'd love to do instead.

And it made me realize (for the umpteenth time) that writing is no different. Many, many times throughout my college years, I've been assigned a writing project but wanted to do something else halfway through. Sometimes, I'm excited about that first project. Either it's an intriguing concept or it's a story that has been simmering on one of my backburners for years.

And yet, no matter how excited I am initially, I am bound to covet a different story while writing the first one. I don't know why this happens. Take my thesis, for example. That novel has been waiting patiently for about four or five years before I finally got to writing the first third of it for the thesis project. It was intriguing, it was exciting, it actually challenged me every day because it was written in a different style (first person, present tense) from a perspective I don't usually write (a male) and it had some severe handicaps (blindness, medieval-type era) that affected what I could mention. And yet, I kept having ideas for another novel, an easier one from a girl's perspective that is closer to YA than literary. My grandmother read the first half of the first chapter and loved it, and has been waiting for the rest of it ever since. I even won a small award on that little bit of story. I'd love to finish it for her before something happens. I'd love to get it published and place the finished book in her hands. And yet, I didn't choose it for my thesis.

And now that I'm considering NaNoWriMo, I have to limit myself on what stories I can work on. I chose to work on that YA story for Grandma during November, after I had managed to move beyond a particular scene and expand the story. I haven't been able to move past that point for at least two years. Yet the moment I finished my thesis, there was dialogue for the other story. But I can't work on it now because I have to save it for November. And what do I want to do? Work on it.

And what do I have in my head in the meantime? A third novel that I started about three or four years ago that everyone loved. It needs some drastic revisions, rewrites, and general plot and characterization overhauls, but it's still there... whispering... taunting... luring... I put that story's folder on Google Docs so I could get to it during down times at work. And how much do you want to bet that when November finally rolls around, I'll want to write in this third novel instead of the YA one.

Oy. Anyone else have this problem?

Gearing up for NaNoWriMo

This is the first year I intend to attempt National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for those who are not in the know.

NaNoWriMo is a personal challenge in which a person writes 50,000 words (about 175 pages) of a novel during the month of November. According to its website (http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/about/whatisnano) the challenge begins on November 1 and ends at 11:59:59 p.m. on November 30. The site states, "Valuing enthusiasm and perserverence over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved. Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly."

This means that writers just write a rough draft of a story. They don't have to revise or edit, just write everything out. The goal is to get a story on paper, and then post-November, we begin the revision process. Those who write the 50,000 words successfully can submit the story for "official verification," be placed in the winner's circle, and receive a winner's certificate and web badge.

Writers don't have to sign in to the site in order to participate; they can do it on their own as a personal challenge. And I'm wary about posting the story online in the official forum because it may count as self-publication and, after revision, a publishing company may be averse to "reprinting" it, if accepted.

I heard of this challenge years ago while I was a sophomore in college, or around then. And every year since, though I've had stories in mind, I've never been able to participate. School or work always got in the way. Fifty thousand words is quite an endeavor in itself when one is used to short stories, or when one hasn't ever finished a novel idea. It's more of an endeavor when you squash what should take months into just one month.

I gained a little perspective about this challenge this past year while I wrote my thesis. The story itself is about 160 pages and is the first third of a novel, at least. It is also only 43,155 words. It took me about six months of strenuous, almost debilitating writing. Graduate school does this in general; it punches you down and grinds you under its heel and then builds you into something better. You feel exhausted and depressed because you no longer feel as if you're cut out for that education, and that you're no longer a writer. And somehow in the end it works out.

This particularly happens during the thesis months. But I had amazing support from my thesis director and the other professors on my panel, of which I was able to choose with their permission. My director was incredibly patient with me--she knew that life often takes precedence, especially when it deals with job changes and moving--but pushed just enough to keep me writing and turning in the right amount of work on time.

And I plan to squash all of that into one month without that support. Except for my boyfriend. He loves the idea that I'll be writing a novel again (though he has yet to read my thesis). And I have a few friends who will also attempt the challenge for the first time. Still, I worry that I'll consider the challenge, and maybe begin it, but then drop it a week in. I have to stick to it, this time. Without the workshop environment from school, I'm not as compelled to write a story. It isn't a necessity anymore, just a hobby.

Maybe this challenge, if I stick to it, will turn writing into a necessity again. I have so many stories in my head, it would be nice to get them down on paper before I forget things.