ieva melgalve » NaNoWriMo 2009

nanowrimo won!

ieva — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:06:02 +0000

Woohoo–subject!
After the long and procrastinatory arrival at the ending, I am now there, @50 K and some, and with a good ending too. It’s certainly a “serialized something” format since the end, while wraps up the main problems faced in the novel(-ette) creates a cliffhanger even worse.

Before I slink off to vegetative state, here’s a reminder of what I have to do:
- Translate Siren’s Song to Latvian (this week)
- Start editing Vega (with the help of HTRYN course)
- Write a new short story this week
- Nibble at the next novel’s worldbuilding&characters (I have a bunch of working theories on that and I will bore you with the details)

So, well, stay tuned!

An Update On Everything

ieva — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:04:16 +0000

I’ve been neglecting this blog for a while.
First, NaNoWriMo. Some days, I didn’t have enough words to write a letter, much less a blog entry. When I did, I rather wrote a letter. The good news is that I got my words done on a steady pace, and I’ll get the 50K by the end of November.
Then, some days, I thought that I was a non-writer who just can’t get her words straight or her thoughts across. That there was some trick to writing, something really obvious that everybody else knew and didn’t even think it would be worth saying, and I didn’t know it and because of that, I failed.
Just when I’d become convinced that was the case, I got my first acceptance for a story in English. The best part about that is that they want a Latvian version of the story too–for me, this means a lot, as I still think of myself as a Latvian writer who’s sidetracked by the bigger, bolder English-speaking market.
And a couple of days later, when I was obsessed by the thought that I won’t have an idea for anything new after I finish NaNo novel, I got struck by inspiration. But that’s a story for another post.

back on track

ieva — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:41:37 +0000

The change in setting helped a lot. I was stuck in my pre-defined place, with my pre-defined characters and while I liked them and there was a lot to explore, I somehow just couldn’t get myself interested.
That makes me think of outlining for future works. There are two versions I can do: to see outline as the “crappy first idea” that just has to go, as it always has to, or to change the outlining process from “and then: …” to “here’s a problem: …” (Especially since the things that I’d defined as problems, not events, survived, while the events didn’t.)

tiny makeover

ieva — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:45:07 +0000

Change the hairstyle (something, by the way, Urchin did in my novel).
Or change the setting and even character cast of the novel (which is what I just did).
Or change the wordpress theme for something that you’re not sure you like but it’s different.

Anything but dwell on the “I’m never gonna do this right” feeling.

holding back

ieva — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:21:57 +0000

My strategy on beginnings vs middles is like this:
(and a word of caution here, it doesn’t give for the best structure or story arc or whatever, but it does make writing interesting throughout the novel)
on beginnings, I hold back as much as I can, giving the minimum of what I know to readers and my characters. I lure them in, I let them reveal themselves in what they think are normal, everyday situations when they’re really not; I listen to their voices, I let them tell who they are, I give them a last-moment opportunity to become something more than they were scheduled for me.
Then, when things get a bit boring, I hurl everything I remember I had on them, I bomb them with information, disasters, problems, horrible dreams, and all-the-things-I-thought-sequel-should-cover. I believe firmly that you never can run out of disasters, not when you get in the spree. That’s the middles.
Oh, and then there’s endings when I carefully pick up the threads and tie them, careful as not to mess them up by brutality OR by being too respectful of the novel world as it is now.
But I have a long time till the ending.

a guide to literary terrorism

ieva — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:59:13 +0000

Yesterday, I was so sick of my novel that at one point I arrived to the conclusion that I don’t like it, I don’t love the theme, I am sick of my characters, I’m not interested in the setting, and what I’d rather do is to blow everything up and end the story in mayhem, failing NaNo 35000 words short.
That idea cheered me up enough to keep thinking about the novel.
Five minutes later, a following inner dialog (and one of the cases where I was desperate enough to call upon my Muse):
- OK. What’s the matter with my writing? Why don’t I write that novel?
- I want to blow stuff up.
(sigh.) – All right, you’ll get to blow stuff up. That hospital, for instance. I played with the thought.
- Great, I’ll blow stuff up!
- But later. Now, we have to write some scenes leading to that.
(sulks.) – Whyyyy?
- Because. Well, I have a character who could blow the hospital up right now, but we can’t do that because Urchin won’t get her pills then. She needs her pills, she just doesn’t know it yet.
- So, you say, no pills?
- Yea. And then, I really don’t know what she’ll do. I mean she could die without them. It’s a time-bomb.
(mumbles.) – What she’d do… What could she do…. Maybe…?

And there I was, writing again. I am still in transitional scenes but now these are to set the bombs up.
Also: you’re not there to help the protagonist. You’re there to give trouble to the protagonist.

Also, a lesson of this morning: setting alarm an hour earlier means waking up half an hour later than I usually do. Argh!

writing and dentistry

ieva — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:03:40 +0000

I guess I’ve bored/sickened my dear readers with this theme, but until I get my teeth fixed there’s no escapement.
Today, I learned that writing zealously before the dentist’s appointment is great; I could open my eyes, stare at her and think “probably this is how Urchin saw the surgeon”, and when she hit a raw place somewhere and murmured gently “this is not the worst thing in the world”, I mentally responded with “uh-uh, I know, having an alien slug implanted in your brain probably would feel worse than this”.
I’m sort of glad I had my mouth full and couldn’t say that out loud.

Also, I had a most bizarre dream involving a wheelchair-riding villain and some alien yuck that makes the skin on your face dissolve. Of course, that went right into the novel.

Right now, I have 15K words and am sort of on track. I’ll shoot for 50 K instead of more though.

the first week of NaNo

ieva — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:46:06 +0000

OK, here’s what every day taught me.
Monday. Writing Helps To Improve Wordcount.
Tuesday. I should’ve used that trip to the dentist to write instead of obsess about what she’s going to do to me. What’s two root canals compared to not having your words done by evening? (Also, it *is* tecnically possible to write at home.)
Wednesday. Root canal + pressure change = evil
Thursday. Cookies + muffins = evil
Friday. A party with five shrieking laughing kids? Well, not as evil as it could’ve been (without the kids, we would have gotten totally plastered, and that would have been a bad thing for many reasons).
Saturday. Writing in a car? A recipe for nausea. Writing at a party? Yea, right (I talked about my novel way more than I wrote). Writing at 2 AM? Well, I had to keep my husand awake then, while he was driving us through the blizzard.
Sunday. Family trumps writing. Really, I don’t regret that I didn’t have any words then. Besides, I think I’d hit a dry spell in my writing, basically because I’m not in love with what I’m writing any more.

Today, I think that I’ll lead the current story thread I’m weaving to its conclusion way sooner than I thought I would, and then I’ll make a scary jump to a new level.

cookies&muffins

ieva — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:49:10 +0000

Subj. disrupted my writing yesterday: 1400+ words done when I should’ve had 2500 or so. Considering that today won’t be much gentler on me (I have a small party with a potential to go wild at home), I’ll really have to work…but when? Tomorrow when I’ll go with my family to the country and “will be able to write the whole day” (my husband said it completely seriously. I, however, see that the quotation marks are in place).
Ahh well, thinking forward just makes me want to quit. Writing instead of thinking and obsessing makes me write more words. Guess which one is preferred.

low pressure

ieva — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:13:08 +0000

I’m one of those people whose performance drastically alters whenever the air pressure changes. Last night, it started snowing – something I could have expected since yesterday, I didn’t even reach 700 words.
But that whas what I’ve been expecting. As long as I keep up with my best wordcounts, I’ll be fine.