Happy December!

Oh my goodness. So so adorable. Look at this felt garland I found at Anna Maria Horner's blog. There's a step-by-step, easy enough for a sewing eejit like meeself.

And here, what some other crafty person made of it:
I may try this, but honestly, I have so much reading to do in this final month of the Cybils reading period, I don't know if I have time to be doing so much blanket stitch! I have been making little garlands of felt pom-poms and beads, those are simple, just stringing things with a needle and thread. But I don't know if I have time for any "real" craft this year. Wah. But I can't complain about the reading and the luscious piles of books :-)

So, it's December. That means NaNoWriMo is over! And guess what. I *finished* the "Bad-Ass Sci-Fi Novel"! But I use the term *finished* verrrrry loosely. I mean, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, but whooo, is this baby rough. Like dry elbows rough. Not pretty. But. . . an accomplishment. 60,500 words of something. I kept a "secret journal" of my mental state during the process, what days were good, what were bad, and what I did to keep going, and I will edit that and post it here some time soonish.

I remembered, as I was nearing the end of this, that somewhere in the middle of the two and a half years it took me to finish Blackbringer that I did, in fact, force myself to write to an ending, any ending. I kind of forget that stage, because that version, and that ending, are so far from what the book ended up being. I've looked for that draft and can't find it, but here's what I remember: that it was vastly different from the book I ended up writing. Talon wasn't even in it!!! There was a boy character named Acorn instead, who I had to *un-create* later in favor of Talon (and once I did, the book took on a vitality that really propelled it forward); there was a long sequence where Magpie made a new skin for the Magruwen; there were irritating triplets named Trala, Lala, and Li traveling with Magpie and the crows. . . I mean, WTF? It was one of them whose hair Mags turned to worms, as Vesper didn't yet exist. But going through all that stuff that didn't work, was essential to finding the *real story.* It could be considered a "what doesn't work" draft, and every time something doesn't work, you're a little closer to finding what DOES. Like the great Thomas Edison quote: "I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

This all goes into my preparations for the talk I'm doing next week in Seattle on strategies for finishing your novel. There are many ways to do it, and the important thing is to not think it's supposed to be easy. If you don't give up, but keep trying different things, you'll finish. That simple. (Simple, but not *easy*.)

Ooh! Movie news! Did you love the book Water for Elephants? I did. I loved it. Well, the movie has been announced, and the director is to be Francis Lawrence, who directed Constantine and I Am Legend, both of which I loved. So: yay! I can't wait to hear who's cast. If you haven't read this book, do. It's about a young man who, after unexpectedly losing his parents on the eve of graduating from veterinary school (during the Great Depression), hops a train in despair. It turns out to be a circus train, and he gets hired on and quickly gets caught up in the excitement and brutality of life in a 1920s train circus. (The really big circuses could only get around by train.) And yeah, he falls in love -- with both a married woman and an elephant. The book is narrated in flashback by the man in his 90s, from a nursing home, and it is poignant and beautiful and totally fun and sad and lovely and page-turny. Wheeee! (On the NaNo homepage, they suggest that this was a NaNo novel. Is it true, I wonder?)

I also can't wait for the Time Traveler's Wife movie, starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, yeeah), and Coraline. Hmm. What else? I don't know. Oh! Jim and I went with our friend Chary last night to see Let the Right One In which is a FREEEEKY Swedish movie about a 12-year-old boy who befriends a 12-year-old girl. . . vampire. Oh MAN. Vampire love story? Kinda. But Twilight this is not. It is chilling, and it is totally unsentimental. Here's the trailer:

Okay. That's all. Happy December first!

Next strategy. . . or How to Conjure 3,800 Words

So, the other day I schemed to "re-inspire" myself on my NaNo book, which seemed to have hit a doldrums? I was going to brainstorm and come up with new ideas that would make the story exciting to me again? Yeah, well. That day, my word count was zero. Well, the "brainstorming" word count was probably 4000, but the actual writing, zero. And I didn't get all that re-inspired. So yesterday, I tried a different strategy, and yesterday it worked. Maybe it wouldn't work every day. Different writing days call for different strategies.

Yesterday, it was "Once upon a time."

That is, I stepped way back from the story, from any attempt at an intimate narrative style that is "inside the scene" with the characters, and instead of trying to "dramatize" the scene, I just "narrated" it. I actually started with "once upon a time" because those words set a certain tone. You know how fairy tales are not told intimately? Details are skimmed over, the tale is painted in very broad strokes? Like this: Snowdrop grew up and became more and more beautiful, so that when she was seven years old she was as beautiful as the day, and far surpassed the Queen. That sentence encompasses a lot of story, with no detail or emotion. We're on the outside, being told something by a storyteller. We're not in there with Snowdrop, experiencing her growing up and growing beautiful.

In the Dreamdark books, I strive to dramatize almost every scene of the story, rather than have an external narrative voice. The storytelling is coming from inside the scene rather than outside it. Does that makes sense? This kind of writing is challenging, especially in the early days of a project when people and places aren't "real" to me yet as the writer, as the people and places of "Bad-Ass Sci-Fi Novel" are not real yet. It's hard to really get inside a scene under those circumstances. It's like standing on the foundation of a house that hasn't been build yet, and trying to imagine you're in a house. At its worst, it can be like trying to walk up stairs that haven't been built yet. You know?

It's much easier to write a scene like it's a fairy tale and I'm the storyteller and I'm watching the events, not feeling compelled to capture emotional truth or great dialogue -- neither of those things are hallmarks of fairy tales, yeah? So that was my strategy yesterday, in an attempt to move forward several "seven-league boot strides" in the story. I backed way up and narrated events from a distance, trying to keep myself in the mind set of writing a fairy tale.

This is more or less a variation of an exercise in Not For Robots called "Bedtime Story" when you write as if you were telling a bedtime story to a beloved child. Things must keep happening, the story must keep unspooling; you don't stop and work on a sentence for an hour; you don't worry if your characters are talking to each other, you just tell what happens, and try to keep it interesting.

So that was what I tried to do yesterday, and I wrote just shy of 4000 words. There were plenty of places where I forgot and "zoomed in" and got in my characters' thoughts, and that's okay. When their thoughts stopped being interesting, I zoomed back out.

So there's a possible strategy for covering ground in a first draft. If you're stuck, try writing it like it's a fairy tale. Start with the words "Once upon a time." It doesn't matter if it is not a fairy tale ("Bad-Ass Sci-Fi Novel" certainly isn't), or if you are picking up writing in the middle of Chapter Seventeen. Just for the sake of getting events rolling, try it. It's a great way to make those seven-league boot strides over the wishy-washy middle of a first draft.

I don't know about you, but this idea of "narration" versus "dramatization" is a recent revelation to me. I mean, I was making the distinction in my writing before I could have explained the difference. It was a little comment in the margins of Lips Touch, from my editor Arthur Levine, that caused a lightbulb to go off. All he wrote there was something like, "Flesh this out; this moment is important enough to dramatize," and suddenly I got it! Lips Touch, by the way, has more of a combo narration/dramatization style than Dreamdark, which are more pure dramatization. I really enjoy both styles, and I am not at all sure what THIS book will be.

Does this make sense, this distinction? I want to come up with examples some time, and add a bit to Not For Robots to make it clearer.

Anyway, the point is: try everything and anything to keep your story moving forward. If one strategy isn't working, try something else. DO NOT GIVE UP.

A very quick book mention. Ghosts of Kerfol by Deborah Noyes, is a ghost story set in a Breton chateau, spanning four centuries and told in five vignettes across the ages. Inspired by Edith Wharton's ghost story "Kerfol," it begins with the tragic events in 1613 that *spawned* the ghosts, and then peers into various incidents of haunting that follow, with varyingly tragic consequences. A cool idea, and the writing is beautiful. Lines like this: I saw at once with grave alarm that his lashes were a bleached shade of copper, like snow where the hawk has hunted. . . and he turned and smiled at her, and the smile hurt like a fall on the ice. . . Also, this is a very quick read. Two hours, maybe. Cheers!

NaNo Week 2 + some movies + some books

Oh dear, nothing to say. Mind blank. Monday morning, and a new week of writing yawns. Yawns? Did I mean to say dawns? No, "yawn" was the word that came to mind, in the sense of gaping open. The whole boredom/fatigue association was unintentional, but possibly true.

I wrote a lot of words this first week of NaNo (21,592), but I haven't read any of them. Sort of afraid to look. This is giving me some insight into another author's "process" that I had heard about (can't remember who it was), and thought was INSANE. This author apparently would write an entire first draft and then DELETE it and start over. Madness, right? I mean. . . who would. . . who could do that? But I can kind of see it now. If it was a draft like this, totally muzzy and random and flat as a Coke that's been sitting in the sun all day, there might be ideas to keep, but not a lot of actual language. There may be some language I underline as I read this draft, some sentences I want to rescue and carry over into the next draft, but probably not A LOT. This draft is for finding the story, not finding the language. Totally new to me. I'm a language girl, and man can I while away the hours (and weeks. and months.) tinkering with sentences.

So, I'm still on board with NaNo. There have been more "snicks" but none of the true deliciousness of a good writing day, when a scene has come to life, a character finds his/her voice, and I want to high five myself. But the snicks are exciting, the piece fitting into place, pulling the story tighter and making it more meaningful. One of the main things is that I am always getting better ideas as I write, "cooler" ways to have things happen, and then I have to go back and rewrite and rewrite A LOT, and this way, I am giving the cooler ideas a chance to manifest before I've spent a bunch of time tinkering. It makes sense. On Not For Robots I've written about the "exploratory draft", and this is certainly that -- a scribbly map full of cross-outs, with swampy fingerprints and dead bugs stuck to it, and maybe even a little blood. No tears yet. I'll let you know if it devolves to that point.

Here's the thing: I am believing more and more that it is possible to "change channels" in your head. To take a new approach to achieving an elusive goal, accomplish things you didn't think you could. I have said many times that I could never write a fast, messy first draft, and I made myself believe it. But. . . really? There are lots of things I'm sure I cannot do, but is this really one of them? Doubtful.

For fun, some movie trailers. Australia, for some epic goodness with sweaty Hugh Jackman and smoochies:
Danny Boyle's new film, Slumdog Millionaire, which I can't wait to see:
New kid movie, The Secret of Moonacre, starring the adorable girl from The Golden Compass:

And, oh, a few more Cybils reads:
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. I have not felt this punched in the stomach and bruised by a book since I can remember, and I don't know what to do about it. The book is amazing, the writing, the emotional impact, the premise. But. . . it's a "feel bad" book, so I don't want to recommend it to anyone -- it would be like me punching them in the stomach. Oof. But. If you like it when books punch you in the stomach, then read this amazing book.

Dream Girl by Lauren Mechling. Adorable candy fun in a pink flowery cover, and a good antidote to the gut-punch of Knife. A little supernatural, but not much. This book is about Manhattan teens who are infinitely more real and funny and likeable than the Gossip Girl variety (the show; to be fair, I haven't read the books). There's just enough of a thrill of romance, but this is totally suitable for young teens. I would give it to my reluctant reader 13-year-old niece.

Same with Justine Larbalestier's How To Ditch Your Fairy. Great for younger teens, reluctant readers. The super-fun premise is that [some] people have invisible fairies dedicated to one specific thing, like a "clothes shopping fairy" that finds you great deals that all fit superbly, etc. The protag, Charlie, has a "parking fairy" that always finds good parking spaces. The thing is, she's 14 and doesn't drive and she really wants a better fairy, which she will never get unless she can ditch her current one. But how?

And lastly, Ottoline and the Yellow Cat, written and illustrated by Chris Riddell. WONDERFUL! This is for younger kids -- 2nd, 3rd grade? I'm not convinced it belongs in our category, but still loved it. Fully illustrated with the kind of whimsical art you want to look at again and again, there are diagrams and maps, postcards, lap dog mug shots, and more more more. A clever little girl who lives with a Norwegian bog creature while her parents travel the word collecting strange artifacts, Ottoline likes to snoop and solve mysteries. In this first volume, she's onto an unusual crime ring. . .

Artifacts, fossils, predators, corpses, lovers

Anybody else out there writing a book right now? Writing a book really fast? I am trying to. Well, not a book exactly. Let's not call it that. Too intimidating. It's a draft, that's all. For some reason I feel sheepish admitting I'm participating in NaNoWriMo -- maybe because I feel like I should be able to do this without tricks by now? Well. I'd begun writing this particular book some months ago, and immediately fell into my usual trap of tending the first chapter like it's a garden that needs constant care, rather than moving forward into the rest of the story. Anybody else do that? Work on that first chapter like it's the showcase of all your talent ever and must be perfectperfectperfect? Ugh. That gets so wearisome.

It got so wearisome the book was un-fun before it was really begun, and I'd been dreaming of this book, dying to sink my teeth into it for months, and then. . . bluhhhhh. So, I gave myself a play day to do some fun writing like back in the good old days of Sunday Scribblings when odd and wonderful little stories were hatching at my fingertips. And that day was the most fun I'd had writing in ages. It was GLEE. And I let it seduce me and I started working on that instead. And you'll never guess what happened.

Or, maybe you will.

As soon as "newt" stopped being an evasion and became instead my new work, it pretty instantly became hard and un-fun too. Fancy that. So, what to do? Fate intervened in the form of the blog conference, a trip to California, a visit from mother-in-law, final Silksinger revisions, and a new set of Laini's Ladies to design, and I didn't write much for weeks and when I was ready to go again, it was October 31 and NaNoWriMo was starting and I'd been toying with the idea noncommitally for a while. Some of my writing friends have been working all year on revisions of books they wrote first drafts of last NaNo, and they were such cheerleaders for it, it kind of got me thinking maybe even MY white-knuckled, uptight, persnickity writing brain could do this. If I try rillyrilly hard, and force myself not to treat this draft like some magical garden that needs constant loving care, but more like our actual yard, which we take absolute minimal care of in the form of a grudging once-a-year weeding and Jim's sporadic mowings. . . If I treat this draft like my yard and let it be totally frowzy, then maybe I can do it!

So, at the beginning of Day 7, how is it going? I am happy to report, 16,066 totally frowzy words, some in third person, some in first, some in present tense, some in past. A distressing lack of dialogue and characterization. Flat cardboard people, very little dramatic tension (though someone died on page two -- that was a shocker), little or no sense of place. . . and, what's that? . . . Snick snick snick! Snicks all over the place. People. [My friends.] The story is happening. You write to find the story, right? And I am finding it. The knee-high weeds in my manuscript are unveiling all manner of mysterious and wonderful things. Artifacts, fossils, predators, corpses, lovers. Wheeeee!

So I'm feeling pretty good! I know the persnickity me will catch up and assert herself and start hyperventilating over the mess and drastic badness, and I will try to deal with that and get through 24 more days of this. The pep talks help. This week we got emails from Jonathan Stroud and Philip Pullman, and both had gems in them. Like this, from Philip Pullman, who is one of my heroes anyway:

"The question authors get asked more than any other is "Where do you get your ideas from?" And we all find a way of answering which we hope isn't arrogant or discouraging. What I usually say is "I don't know where they come from, but I know where they come to: they come to my desk, and if I'm not there, they go away again." That's just another way of emphasising the importance of regular work."

Wonderful! Any other NaNo-ers? I want to add more Writing Buddies to my list, but I don't really know how to find people.

Speaking of wonderful, I have not yet mentioned that the candidate Jim and I did some phonebanking for WON -- Jeff Merkley is the new Senator-elect from Oregon. Woo hooooooo! He was on the Jim Lehrer show last night, which was way cool! Now, two progressive senators from Oregon, rather than one with televangelist hair who's always canceling out the other one's good votes! I'm thrilled by the voter turnout nation wide, thrilled with some of the states that went "blue," and unthrilled with a few things, namely: Michelle Bachmann, Prop 8, and Al Franken. Ach, Minnesota, you are responsible for 2 of 3 of my disappointments. Michelle Bachmann! For realsies???? Oh, and I guess I should add Alaska and Ted Stevens to the list, but that's more like incredulity than disappointment. I suppose I shouldn't even be incredulous. This is Palin-land, after all. Have you been hearing all the stuff coming out about Palin now? What a piece of work. Oh, and as for Al Franken: I still have hope. If memory serves, the Washington gubernatorial race in 04 came out for the Republican by a very narrow margin, and the Democrat, Christine Gregoire, won in the recount. So, fingers crossed for Al!
(Jim and Alexandra and me on election night)

And I am so excited to hear who Obama's cabinet appointments will be. Heard a wonderful rumor about RFK Jr for the EPA. Can you imagine? I feel giddy: an EPA chief who actually cares about protecting the environment? Could it BE?? It's a new world!