I started doing Nanowrimo back in middle school, but my participation started to peter out in college-- there were a lot of years where I'd start, maybe write a couple thousand words, and then let it go because I had so many other things on my plate.
But I decided to give it a try this year. Probably a silly thing to do, because I am about as busy as I've ever been in my life, teaching orchestra classes 8 times a week and attempting to run my music therapy business. (which, quick note, is doing surprisingly well; I started working with another dementia facility this month) Despite my busy schedule, I decided it was worth making this a priority for the sake of my mental health: I love to write fiction, and with so much on my plate I decided I need to make time to do something just for me, something that makes me happy. And as far as that goes, I think this has been the right choice.
So I'm writing a truly horrendous rough draft of a novel about a werewolf detective solving mysteries based around fairytale retellings. It's a great time. And I've got two mini stories to share on the subject.
The first is one of those cool things the Nanowrimo organizers do: they get a bunch of graphic design artists together, have them pick (through a somewhat mysterious process) 30 in-progress novels, and each day of the month an artist will make a sample cover for someone's novel. To my surprise, I actually got picked for Day 8: a designer named Kevin Perry designed this cover for my story.
And there was much screaming.
Anyway, you can read more about that whole thing here if you're interested.
In more "weird funny stuff that you usually see in this blog when it's not bad selfies in different costumes", here's a little writing adventure I had.
One night when I was working on this book, I was really struggling to keep my eyes open. But I was determined to stay at my keyboard until I hit my word goal, so I kept writing. When I went to bed, I was pretty sure I'd written about my detective character tracking down a couple of missing kids. What I found when I opened my laptop up in the morning, however... well, take a look and see if you can figure out where things started to go terribly, terribly wrong.
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I’m not sure about this,” I warned him, “But I think they might have gotten into an ice cream truck.”
“What are you supposed to be, psychic?” Gladstone asked in his nasal voice.
“Yes,” I growled, “I can see a broken nose in your future.” He was starting to really irritate me.
“OK, calm down, both of you,” Hunter said, sounding like a long suffering father with a pair of squabbling kids. “Gladstone, why don’t you take a walk about, ask about the ice cream truck, see if anyone remembers one coming by. Red, see if you can find us anything else.”
I nodded and crouched back down to where I could catch any smells in the asphalt but OK, I’ll admit it, I’m barely keeping my eyes open and I’m stuck. I don’t even know for sure that her sense of smell would make it something brain english. Um. OK, I don’t know what happens next. OK, yes I do, we cut away to the kids for a little bit. I don’t know how to make the narrator shift but i’s the best thing. We can see what captivity is like for our kids, get some insight into their personalities and. I’m so tired right now I can’t even think in a straight line.
OK, so the kids went out for ice cream and got kidnapped instead. Not a great conversation starter.
So what is the next tstop? Bain too tired to look at or see or something. And I kind of what to write fanfiction about the last episode of Warehouse 13. And I am feeling so hungry and so tired that I can't even tactic tac Tired braille, can’t inglish. Brain can’t keep up with anything, I need to get to sleep. But I’m so close, let me try to finish this. Let’s not try out each other’s medicines, that usually doesn’t end well. I don’t care, I just want to finish this and get some sleep.
`IIt was going so well, too.” OK, brain, elt’s the stretch program. There can only be one something doing stuff that
I feel like I keep losing my cursor.
OK, what’s the climax here? I think the old lady has a few kids hiding in her basement. So tired. Brain tired. Crickets in shoe box for cricket farming. I don’t know why but I feel compelled to type a lot of nonsense words. It makes me sound psychic but I’m just doin good guesses. Butterflies are awfully flighty. I am so sick of the aches in my legs from restless leg syndrome, is there a medicine I can take or a good home remedy for it? My brain is just so very tired. And increasingly incoherent.
OK, there’s not so many words left before I can get to bed. Let me just try to focus long enough to finish chapter five. YEs, this is blatant word count padding but I’m just trying to write every day; tomorrow will be better.
A little more coherent now. Let’s think this through a little. Red comes to find the missing kids, but they aren’t there to brain brain brain. Look at the horizon, ask for three books instead of four. Legs hurt all the time. Two fou ix eight. Can I go to bed now?
________________________________________________________________So, yeah. There's a little insight into my subconscious, I guess. And a lesson to me to make sure I'm getting enough sleep.
