Copywrite

Don’t get me wrong: Fantasy novels are hard. And just because Tolkien, essentially, stole the German national folk tale, twisted it 30 degrees and added some of his own filips doesn’t mean he didn’t work hard. But I have to wonder if he thought about things like this:

• Do these people have the fork?
• In a society where there is no “one true God,” what does someone say when they stub their toe or break a dish? (Quite a bit of our vulgarity is God based if you really think about it; after all, you can’t say “damn it!” because damnation implies hell and hell is a Judeo-Christian construct.)
• Do they have glass? And if not, what do they put in their windows?
• Is it rude to leave your characters mid-grope to go have dinner? (I know Tolkien never had to think about that one).

All that said, it’s going very well. More on that later. We now return you to the promised silence

<insert sound of crickets chirping>

It’s week two of NaNo and I’ve passed through the first installment of “I hate myself. This book is boring as hell. What made me think I could do this?” into “I’d rather be writing, if it’s all the same to you.”

I’ve got characters poised, plot ready to happen. Evil ready to be revealed, conflict about to happen…and I. have. to. be. at. work.

This whole not being born independently wealthy thing is a real drag.

It’s a NaNo writer’s trick: get stuck, spell check and count your words. Hey, it’s better than playing solitare for “just a little bit” and realizing three hours later you’re still 1,800 words from making word count for the day.

The update is: so far, so good. Chapter 2, here we come.

Word count as I procrastinate by writing this entry: 1,424

October 31st and I’m terrified. Not because it promises to be a warm Halloween night and this is the first year in eight years we’ve decided against giving out candy (OK, I decided. The Girlfriend has to study and I don’t feel like answering the door by myself all night).

No, I’m terrified because I don’t know if I can do another novel. I went like a rocket for a couple of weeks, scenes and plot elements and characters coming bang! bang! bang! one after another. I must have used up 40 index cards on scenes and character descriptions.

And now…nothing.

It’s a little bit like being in the eye of a hurricane: deathly quiet yet full of energy, the hair on the back of your neck standing up.

I still don’t have a title for my book, not even a working title, so I need to think about that today as I roam around the city on my random day off.

With only five days left in October my characters seem to have deserted me. I’m not worried, though. I’m up to my ass in index cards with scence and character names and questions to remind me of things. I did the scene “sequencing” this morning: I put them in the order they’ll occur in the story’s flow which is, mind you, not the same order in which I wrote them down.

Now I’ve got to do character sketch cards. Basically, I take each major character and write a series of cards for him or her that tells me all kinds of stuff from the physical (height, weight, hair color, eye color, sex) to the emotional (what type of sense of humor does this person have? what is this person’s outlook on life? her sense of morality? sexual orientation? religious beliefs?) and on through to relationships with and perception by the other characters (this person is seen as reliable and trustworthy; that one is a lot of fun, but don’t count on him).

And then, on Tuesday, I write. While there may be some blog entries during November (probably movie reviews; I confess to being a movie junkie), there may not be much. I’ve already decided this year not to do a blog for this novel. Too much risk for virtually no feedback.

We’ll know more later.