a novel idea

I mentioned last month that I was already working on my idea for this November's novel (for NaNoWriMo), plus a bit of ambivalence about even doing the contest-writing-thing. I had hoped to be posting here often about how it was going or not going or whatever was transpiring. But that hasn't happened.

I guess this implies that I'm not doing anything with the idea, but it doesn't. It's just that I am not very motivated to blog about it or anything else for that matter. Don't worry, though. In another few months, I'll be all excited about the blogosphere again. I go through this cycle all the time.

The update for today: I am still going to use my previously discussed idea - not that I discussed the idea exactly, but rather that I had discussed that I had one. It continues to evolve, and I may have just finished the projected story arc for one of the mains. Maybe not. I have about 10 pages of notes and one diagram. I may even be about ready to start my first spreadsheet...scratch that, I just checked and I've already created one.

The book is still firmly in the sf camp and I don't see that changing. I dont' think it's going to be a light fluffy book. It may be fluffy (I think a lot of what I write is fluffy) but it will be darker. Bad things will happen, and probably to good people. Such is the way of it.

Whenever I write something (I suspect most writers feel some form of this), I make decisions about what to include and what to leave out and those decisions are often based on parameters of things like "wwjkrd?" (what would J.K. Rowling do?), where you can substitute in J.R.R. Tolkein, Nick Hornby or Robert Jordan into the formulaic question. I personally think of this as the "PG" rule - what to include or disclude to get a PG rating. Well, I don't think like that. I enjoy the "PG" stories from the above authors and honestly don't think they would be improved one iota by the addition of sex and nudity, or more violence or profanity. But that doesn't hold for all stories. If I think that a character should say "fuck you, asshole!", that's what I should write, not "leave me alone, meany". I'm not trying to say that all my characters should cuss or be jerks, just the ones that would cuss and are jerks. If I can't be honest with myself and my own characters, how can I ever think that I will come across as honest to a reader? i don't like reading fake writing - it's contrived and forced - so I shouldn't think that others would like to read it either. I have to please myself if I'm ever going to please a reader. I am fully aware of the ramifications of what I've just said and how it [closely] echoes my life outside of writing.

So in conclusion, I'll write a novel for NaNoWriMo this year or I won't. I'll blog about the experience or I won't. And if I'm disappointed with my work, it is insane for me to hink that other will not also be disappointed. I am tired of being disappointed.

Onward and upward it is. :)