NaNo Woes
Woe to me!!
I am still not sure what I am going to write about for NaNo next month. I keep coming up with ideas, only to realize that I've already seen that movie, or read that book or realized it was a crappy idea to start out with. I am not having any trouble with characters, that's the easy part. Characters, I can just write about people I know, change a few details and away we go. At the least, basing a character on somebody I know provides a template or skeleton to hang details, quirks and personality traits on. By the time the character is fleshed out, it resembles itself and not somebody I know. It's a good starting point, though and one I intend to keep on using.
Plots, on the other hand, those are a pain in the butt. I don't know how professional writers keep coming up with plots so their characters have something to do besides sit around and emote or act as props when Literary Authors show off their writing chops and forget to tell a story. Story, that's what I want to tell. If I tell it in a compelling fashion, so much the better. I'd rather tell a good story than write a literary masterpiece.
Two reasons, actually. One, stories are more fun for me. Both to read and to tell. Second, the pay is better. Okay, that's snarky and mean. And I really shouldn't break bad on Lit Writers. I have read a good deal of it that I have enjoyed. The Southern Review is a great place for solid writing, and fun reading. At the moment, I am feeling very frustrated as I am running out of days to come up with a plot. And if I don't have a plot, then I can't make any notes or anything at all to have an idea of what these characters I want to create will do.
The idea of a 50,000 word series of character sketches thrills me not at all. I don't even think it would be fun. Fun to write or fun to read. Of course, I haven't read much of anything I scrawled last year. I have given away a few copies and only heard back from three people. Nobody thought it was great (because it wasn't), and nobody thought it was horrible (even though it was raw, raw, raw...), but only three people read it. Two of them are even still speaking to me.
Yeah, last years novel was bad. But, when the goal is quantity and not quality, the odds of dreck are high and great writing is a long shot. Still, I'd like to write a decent story this year. I think last years story was a decent story, but I wrote it poorly. I wish I could pound out the purple prose like Walter Gibson could. He could spew out a 60,000 word Shadow novel in four days. Four days, if you can imagine that.
Four days of villains from the badlands on New Yorks seamy underbelly. Four days of The Shadow Knows and his mirthless laughter, four days of his standing in plain sight, hidden by the shadows and those gleaming 45's booming their justice because the Shadow Knows.
I wonder how he did it. Three hundred twenty-some Shadow novels and he wrote over two hundred eighty of them. I do wonder how he did it. I guess only the Shadow Knows.....mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....
I need some sleep and some ideas, in that order would be just fine with me.
I am still not sure what I am going to write about for NaNo next month. I keep coming up with ideas, only to realize that I've already seen that movie, or read that book or realized it was a crappy idea to start out with. I am not having any trouble with characters, that's the easy part. Characters, I can just write about people I know, change a few details and away we go. At the least, basing a character on somebody I know provides a template or skeleton to hang details, quirks and personality traits on. By the time the character is fleshed out, it resembles itself and not somebody I know. It's a good starting point, though and one I intend to keep on using.
Plots, on the other hand, those are a pain in the butt. I don't know how professional writers keep coming up with plots so their characters have something to do besides sit around and emote or act as props when Literary Authors show off their writing chops and forget to tell a story. Story, that's what I want to tell. If I tell it in a compelling fashion, so much the better. I'd rather tell a good story than write a literary masterpiece.
Two reasons, actually. One, stories are more fun for me. Both to read and to tell. Second, the pay is better. Okay, that's snarky and mean. And I really shouldn't break bad on Lit Writers. I have read a good deal of it that I have enjoyed. The Southern Review is a great place for solid writing, and fun reading. At the moment, I am feeling very frustrated as I am running out of days to come up with a plot. And if I don't have a plot, then I can't make any notes or anything at all to have an idea of what these characters I want to create will do.
The idea of a 50,000 word series of character sketches thrills me not at all. I don't even think it would be fun. Fun to write or fun to read. Of course, I haven't read much of anything I scrawled last year. I have given away a few copies and only heard back from three people. Nobody thought it was great (because it wasn't), and nobody thought it was horrible (even though it was raw, raw, raw...), but only three people read it. Two of them are even still speaking to me.
Yeah, last years novel was bad. But, when the goal is quantity and not quality, the odds of dreck are high and great writing is a long shot. Still, I'd like to write a decent story this year. I think last years story was a decent story, but I wrote it poorly. I wish I could pound out the purple prose like Walter Gibson could. He could spew out a 60,000 word Shadow novel in four days. Four days, if you can imagine that.
Four days of villains from the badlands on New Yorks seamy underbelly. Four days of The Shadow Knows and his mirthless laughter, four days of his standing in plain sight, hidden by the shadows and those gleaming 45's booming their justice because the Shadow Knows.
I wonder how he did it. Three hundred twenty-some Shadow novels and he wrote over two hundred eighty of them. I do wonder how he did it. I guess only the Shadow Knows.....mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....
I need some sleep and some ideas, in that order would be just fine with me.