November Moments

Less than a week into NaNo, I've made several discoveries. First, backing up one's unfinished novel on two computers and a hard drive does not completely ensure its safety. Accidentally writing an incomplete file over an updated one can cause word loss, panic, and rewrites. It so happened that I was writing a crucial and somewhat difficult scene that night - it comes from near the middle of the story, but I have never been one to write things in order and I had been thinking so hard about that one scene that I realized I needed to write it down before I forgot some of the splendid ideas I was having. Well, I was forced to write it twice, and fortunately I think I came pretty close to duplicating it the second time.

Second, I now suspect that the story I'm writing will end up being a lot longer than 50,000 words. I have a working outline that is slowly developing and filling in, and at a little over 20% of the NaNo word goal I haven't even begun to brush the surface of the plot yet. I'm sure a lot of the stuff I wrote this week will end up in the wastebasket by the final draft, but it's helping me warm up and gather some momentum before I hit the really important parts.

So, going up and down the scale from wondering why in the world I ever thought I could write to planning what the cover of my next book will look like, battling my Inner Editor (who insists on wasting time by constantly restructuring sentences and referring to a thesaurus), and trying to keep from being distracted by other forms of amusement such as the World Series and the Charlie McCarthy Show, I've put enough wordcount behind me to keep from biting my nails over the deadline. Tomorrow I can rake leaves with a clear conscience.

Oh, and one more thing - if you're writing anything set west of the Mississippi and having plot problems, I have one word for you - rustlers. Trust me, they come in handy every time.

Under Wyoming Skies

Since the setting for my novel is Wyoming, and I've never been there, it occurred to me that maybe I ought to get some idea of what it looks like so I could write a few hundred words of nice descriptive language to boost my wordcount. So I did a random Google Image Search, and...wow!

I want to go to Wyoming someday.

In spite of the fact that I adore mountains, I concentrated more on the plains and foothills aspect since that's what I had in mind for my story. But I tell you what, I'm beginning to understand the lure of the lone prairie.

YouTube Tuesday: Come Fly With Me

Dad and I listened to a lot of Sinatra on the radio on those long rides to rehearsal. Here's a great live performance of "Come Fly With Me," one of those classic swing numbers.

The Calm Before the Storm

Well, tomorrow the madness begins. It's going to be a bit of a challenge starting on a weekend, but I'll see what I can do. I've decided to set myself a goal of 5,000 words for the first day and see how close I come. I gauged a few of my pages from last year to get an idea of just how much that is and I'm pretty optimistic. And after that, who knows?

I'm trying to make up my mind whether or not to post excerpts on my blog from time to time. That is, assuming I write anything that I feel is good enough to post! My mom tells me I shouldn't put up original writings that I plan to publish someday without copywriting them, but I'm not entirely sure how to do that. For those of you who have copyright notices on your blogs - what does that involve? Does just putting the notice there take care of it or do you actually have to register a copyright?

There's one thing I'm doing with this story that surprised even me. I think I'm going to skip chapter titles and go with just plain numbers. I didn't plan it; that's just the way it worked out. Ordinarily I love chapter titles and find them to be one of the most entertaining parts of writing, but this time, for some reason I couldn't think of any good ones and I also thought the number style suited the story better. I'm not even 100% sure where the chapter breaks will be yet (except for one particular cliffhanger!); I'm just writing straight through and working on dividing it afterwards.

Who knows what'll happen to this blog in the meantime. I've scheduled a few things, and wordcount permitting I'll drop over here to procrastinate from time to time. So farewell till then, and to my fellow WriMos, good luck!

YouTube Tuesday: I've Got the World On A String (and more)

Dinah Shore, Julie Andrews and Chita Rivera perform a fun medley of songs on the Dinah Shore Show. I think this was from 1957 or '58, when Julie was in My Fair Lady and Chita was in West Side Story. Check out those circle skirts, will you!

Amusing oneself during quarantine

Well, it's all over with. The concert went beautifully, in spite of certain nerve-wracking experiences during the preparations for it. Having kept in good health and in one piece long enough to discharge my soloist duties satisfactorily, today I found myself at liberty to wake up with a sore throat, then fall on our stone driveway and take the skin off my knee, ripping my jeans to shreds in the process. No, I probably shouldn't have been running around outside with the beginnings of a sore throat. Yes, I'm writing this from an enforced quarantine in bed. Mom says that in a family of six something contagious can take six weeks to get totally out of the house once it starts going around, so we're trying to be sure it doesn't get any farther than it has already. I'm kind of hoping that it will be magically gone when I wake up tomorrow, so I won't have to eat any more of those awful-tasting but undoubtedly effective zinc lozenges.

Trying to keep entertained this afternoon, I found myself browsing through the list of New Items in the library catalogue. When I saw Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse I pounced. That's one of the Jeeves books I hadn't been able to locate up till this point. I had resolved to keep my literature light during November so as not to take up too much time that could be spent adding to the old wordcount - but Wodehouse is about as light as you can get, isn't it? I'll have to take back most of the pile of books that I've accumulated this past month - I should say these past few months, for I just haven't been able to let go of To Kill A Mockingbird. I wanted to keep it on hand at least long enough to finish writing a review of it on this blog, but unless I get that done in the next day or so I'll have to get along without it.

So I guess I'll wind up today by watching a bit of Monday Night Football and then marching myself off to bed at a reasonable hour. Monday Night Football and I have been strangers thus far in the season, with choir practice taking priority. Mom was laughing last night at how paradoxical I can be - singing Faure in formal concert dress early in the day and discussing football earnestly with Dad at night.

A very short one

I'm sort of writing this to keep myself awake. I'm thoroughly exhausted after getting up and out of the house early for a dress rehearsal. It went very well, though, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow! That means early to bed...

Seriously short of posts this week, but next week I'm going to try and finish up a few that have been begging for completion before NaNo begins.

Countdown

One week until my concert. I'm looking forward to it, of course, but I can't help just a tiny thrill of apprehension when I think of it. I learned a few weeks back that most of the other soloists at the performance are going to end up being professionals, since they were unable to fill all the spots with choir members. So that means that I'm one of only two from the choir. We're still getting a bit lost in the final movement of the C.P.E. Bach Magnificat, in spite of our having taken a cut that relieves us of four out of its thirty pages. (Yes, that's one movement that's thirty pages long!) I'm hoping it comes together a little bit better for us at tomorrow night's rehearsal. But the Faure Requiem is just beautiful, and most of it is very easy. I think if I had to pick a favorite movement it would be the Sanctus.

Two weeks until NaNoWriMo. I managed to get up the nerve to post my synopsis and homemade cover art on my profile. No turning back now! I'm rather proud of how the cover turned out, since I don't have PhotoShop and had to make do with Windows Picture Manager, Paint and a handy little online photo editor called LunaPic. I'd love to have some writing buddies if anyone else out there is doing NaNo, by the way.

Incidentally, I found my library card yesterday. It had been missing for months. I simply could not remember where I put it, though I was certain it must be in a pocket somewhere. After going through the pockets of practically every item of clothes I own, I gave up searching and resigned myself to the fact that it would just turn up on its own someday when I was least expecting it. After all, I use the library so much that I know the number by heart - I make all my requests through the online interlibrary catalogue, which requires you to login with your card number. It was getting slightly tiresome reciting the number for the library clerk to type in on every visit, though. I'd decided I was going to look into getting a new card, but if it meant changing my number I would stick to the memory system.

So yesterday I put on for the first time this year a winter coat which had been packed away in a bin all summer, and went out for some fresh air. It's been quite a bit colder around here for the past few days! I stuck my hands into my pockets to keep warm...and I felt something flat and thin in the inner pocket. I knew what it was right away.

A Brainstorm

I had a brainstorm this morning. I've been just a teeny, weeny little bit dissatisfied with the mystery angle of my NaNo novel's plotline. It just didn't seem mysterious enough. My mom almost always guesses correctly "who done it" when she reads Agatha Christie books, so I'm fairly certain I'll never be able to trick her. But I wanted to make it at least a little bit of a challenge! Looking at what I had so far I felt sure just about anybody could spot the criminal as soon as they knew there had been a crime committed. Then this morning a twist hit me. A plot twist, that is. I dropped what I was doing at once and rushed to write it down before it slipped away from me. I'm starting to feel a bit like Mrs. Oliver.

Of course, I can't say exactly what it was. By some strange chance I might get it published some day, and if you already knew the solution what would be the use of reading it?

And I've lost my fear of the cliche. After reading four Zane Grey novels I've discovered he's already forestalled me at every turn, so what's the use?

Bennington

Today we set off on one of our annual fall foliage rides through the country, which included a trip to Bennington in Vermont. We decided to let Dad's GPS navigate us up to the Bennington Monument by scenic back roads we'd never taken before - and it proceeded to lead us up a dead end. That's the first time it's ever given us the wrong directions!

But we know the area well enough to find it for ourselves after years of these trips. Here the Monument soars into the bluest of skies, beyond a flaming yellow tree. You wouldn't believe it, but on the other side of the tree was another just like it, green as could be. I think they were the same exact variety of tree, too.

The street beyond the Monument, lined by historic Colonial-style houses and colorful, aged maple trees, is always a treat to drive down. We stopped to take a quick tour of the beautiful Old First Church, including the ancient and picturesque graveyard, the burial place of poet Robert Frost.

I don't think this pictures does it justice. The lighting looks dimmer than it really was - I think I had my flash off and didn't realize it.