Words on the Screen

NaNoWriMo: "You're just a bad boyfriend and a lousy literary lay."

2009-11-25T20:56:32Z

There's a really nice commentary about the negative side of the experience with NaNoWriMo phrased as a break-up letter over on the blog of a YA author I ~~stalk~~ follow. She's published three novels, and figured she'd give NaNoWriMo a try to write another in a short time span. The result? Crap.

The only really good thing about it is that it creates a daily writing habit. For people who always wanted to write and don't make or take the time, it's cool. The counterpoint is that it tells you quantity is better than quality. For people who won't start at all because their inner editor is crippling them, that's probably true.

I want to remember this for next year, in case I start thinking about NaNoWriMo again. I always like the idea of it, as a kick in the pants to get a lot written and bang out a draft. The first year, it was really good for me, because I was getting over the burnout I suffered from writing my honors thesis. It got me excited, it was reckless fun, and reminded me why I like writing. But the story itself, while it has some vague merit, is mostly crap. I am too ashamed to show it to anyone. And in the last five years, I've never gotten more than a few pages into a revision, despite multiple attempts. There's just too much wrong with it.

My NaNoWriMo 2005 was a lot more like Maggie's experience - I started writing, realized I liked where I was headed, but that I had to slow down in order to make it into the draft I wanted. I think I hit 22,000 words and stopped. My problem really is follow-through, but NaNoWriMo doesn't actually improve follow-through, because it doesn't mean that I get done, just that I hit an arbitrary goal of 50,000 words. I should, theoretically, be able to set a much more reasonable and meaningful goal, and not produce so much crap.

For December I'd like to finish that Crimson Courier story. Maybe in January I can tackle something else, just for me?

Progress

2009-11-20T16:00:00Z

The Courier short story has about 900 words now... I admit I haven't worked on it much lately, but I picked at it this morning. I've written about 300 more for the Crimson Courier summary, since I need to make sure I'm on the same page as the rest of the GMs with the mechanics and general history before I put too much more time into this story.

I'm going to do NaNoWriMo another month, I think. This has been a particularly bad month for stability or consistency in anything, much less writing.

Crimson Courier fic

2009-11-13T13:34:59Z

It's sort of like fanfiction, only for LARP.

We're working on a fluff text we call the World Book. It's mostly exposition about the different nations, but I envisioned it including lots of extra fillers, like art, photos, short stories, quotes, bits of IC letters, etc. So Wednesday Rick, Justin, and I were talking about the Crimson Couriers, this nifty pony express/secret society of mail carriers who have immunity from national interests because of the service they provide. It led to many what ifs, and I said something like, "this is why I wanted short stories in this book."

So, I'm writing one. Right now I've got about 500 keeper words, and an extra 200 crap that I've been cutting and pasting at the bottom, in case it's useful later. I already know how it ends, it's the beginning that keeps shifting on me. I figure it will be 1500-2000 words when I'm done.

Writing-wise, I realized that I haven't actually finished anything I've started in years. A shortie like this, with a static goal for publication, is probably a good project for me. Here's hoping.

Progress

2009-11-12T01:21:39Z

I hit 3,000 but stopped due to distractions. If I was a good little NaNo-er, I'd have worked a lot today, since it is a federal holiday and I had the day off. But it was really, really nice to relax instead.

Day 1

2009-11-02T00:27:33Z

Words today: 1,725
Words total: 1,725/50,000
Reason for Stopping: Tired, and Ann is here, and I want to hang out with her a bit tonight. Time for pajamas and girl talk?
Mood: Pleased.
Notes: None for now.
Future Plot Points:

2009 a lucky year?

2009-11-01T23:03:36Z

I decided to jump on the NaNo train. Maybe I'll do better this time around than I have the past several years... I think I need to try it for my mental health, anyway.

Sitting at 1,119/50,000 right now. A drop in the bucket.

Na na na...

2008-11-17T02:42:02Z

So, I spent most of October writing, and I liked what I was coming out with. I hit a good pattern of write, revise, write, edit, and I was happy. And when November hit, I waffled. I thought, yay, I am all warmed up and ready to launch into a new giant project!

And then I thought, oh no, what is going to happen to what I'm working on, and what is going to happen to my quality level if I drop the revise and edit part out of my work? Will I still be content with what I'm producing? Will I go off on tangents that I should have seen were wrong, if I'd let the work breathe a bit between stints?

Then I got the first encouragement letter from Chris Baty, and I decided that maybe, this year, my goals don't intersect with NaNoWriMo. That whole speech about the geodes that you cut open to see if you have something pretty or if you have crap, and you only know if you go for it? Uh, yeah... being able to say that I persevered to write 50k of crap is not going to make me proud right now. So I decided, no. It wasn't going to make me happy, it wasn't going to produce anything I would be proud of, and it was going to cause me a lot of undue stress.

So far I've kept November rolling like October, and I've been writing either every day or every other day. And yeah, it has (so far) all been stuff for Novitas, which doesn't belong to me and I can't publish anywhere but the internet. But I am happy with it, and I can feel the difference in my lifestyle now that I'm writing regularly again. I wake up with words on the brain. I write during breaks at work. I think about it on my commute. I steal emotions from music and bend them into points of view on the page. It's good, and satisfying, and the thing about the internet is that I get occasional feedback instead of writing in a void.

I have a few things left to wrap up for Novitas, and then I suspect it will shift into the background until we resume regular play in April or May. So I will try to start picking at a new project soon, something just for me, and we'll see how that goes.

Pep talk #1

2008-11-02T15:44:17Z

Dear Writer,

Howdy! NaNo Program Director Chris Baty here. Welcome to the 10th NaNoWriMo! It's great to have you on board.

I'll be sending you one of these emails each week from here until the end of the event. Between my emails, you'll also get two encouraging missives from our panel of celebrity author pep talkers. This week, you'll be hearing from Jonathan Stroud and Philip Pullman.

Okay. Enough chit-chat. It's time to talk geodes.

Geodes, for the geologically disinclined, look like normal rocks on the outside. But when you cut them open, they're filled with all sorts of wonders—bubbly layers of agate, sparkly crystals, elves.

As a kid, I was obsessed with geodes. The highlight of my year was a visit to Dick's Rock Shop in Fountain, Colorado. The owner of the store, Richard Stearns, had a crate of dirty, unremarkable, tennis-ball-sized rocks in his Geode Bin. You'd spend an hour hunting through them until you'd picked out the perfect dirty, unremarkable rock.

Richard would then fire up his slab saw and cut the thing in half for you. The machine screamed and spit water to cool the blade, and it was messy and slow. Most of the time, Richard would lose a finger in the process.

That's how I remember it anyway. The details are a little fuzzy after so many years.

When he was done, Richard would present you with both halves of your geode. They'd be wet, and sometimes you'd gaze down into a glittering concavity of purple or green. Other times, you'd cry because you'd stupidly picked one of the geodes where the all the crystals were caked with a calcified layer of elf spit.

As we head into NaNoWriMo, I'm reminded of the feeling I got standing in Dick's Rock Shop, watching as that year's mystery stone revealed whatever magic it possessed. After nine NaNoWriMo novels—most of which have trended more towards elf spit than gemstones—I still get an excited stomach-flutter at the start of November. I can't help but feel giddy as I ponder questions like: Will this be the best novel I've ever written? And, secretly: Will this be the best novel ever written in the history of humankind?

Because it really could be.

Then the writing starts, and by the second sentence, two new questions have occurred to me. Namely: What am I doing? And: Could this be the worst novel ever written in the history of humankind?

And you know what? It really could be. But that's fine. Trust me on this. Don't waste your time measuring the success of your NaNo novel by the sparkle of your prose or the rock-solid genius of your plot. The books we write in November won't start out like the novels we buy in bookstores. Because the novels we buy in bookstores didn't start out like bookstore-novels either.

Nope. They started out as way-less beautiful, way-more exciting things called first drafts. These are the dinged-up cousins to final drafts, and they're packed with crazy energy and laughable tangents and embarrassing instances where a main character's name shifts six times over the course of a single chapter.

Creating this reckless, romantic, and potential-filled beast is the first step in writing a great book. It's also a fantastic workout for your imagination, and monkey-barrels of fun. There's a catch, though. Getting through a first draft will require you leave perfectionism and self-criticism at the door. Fear not: We'll keep them both safe and return them to you in December.

But in November, you are beyond criticism. Because you are doing something that few people in the world have the guts to try—you're packing a huge creative challenge into an already-hectic life. You're juggling work and home; family and friends. With all of that going on, you've signed up for NaNoWriMo. Where you've spent the last few weeks hunting through the bin of possible novel ideas, trying to pick out the perfect one. Maybe you've got yours already. Or maybe you feel like you're not quite ready.

You're ready.

It's November 1, writer.

What say we fire up the ol' slab saw and find out what's in there?

Chris
NaNoWriMo

Stealing scenes

2008-10-31T03:24:48Z

Watching TV and movies with Justin, he often stops and says "I want this scene." He's picking out emotional and plot high points for Marius most often. I thought, well, what sort of scenes do I want for my story? That's what I tried to think about today.

I wrote some notes to myself about theme and scenes at lunch today. Nothing awesome like a real outline, but I almost never have a real outline, and hey, it's progress. It's still a pretty nebulous idea, but the mood of it stretches out before me now.

NaNo 2008

2008-10-29T18:40:42Z

I am seriously considering this again, and the only thing that makes me more hopeful than the last two years is that I've been having a lot of fun writing little bits and pieces of fiction over on the Novitas forums as an extension of LARP. It feels nice to be writing again, but weird, like rediscovering that younger version of myself who had more free time and possibly less friends, but certainly more opportunity and brain space to sit and write.

The problem with me is that I like to spread the writing out over hours. I'll write a scene, I'll check my e-mail, livejournal, and the forums, write another paragraph or two, play a game of solitaire, pick at the page some more, get a snack, make some tea, write again, and so on. It's a mode of being. It's the business that regularly kept me up until 3 or 4am during college when I was writing a paper. It's a part of the process for me.

However, it's not only inefficient, it's impractical while working full-time and having "shit to do." Who has time to putz to let creativity simmer when there are dishes and laundry and dinner to be made and Netflix and electrical problems and, and, and...

It also makes me a lousy human being to live with or interact with, and can be impossible while not living alone. It's an active choice to temporarily ignore the real humans in my life for the paper ones. The last few years I started NaNo, part of my commitment problem was that I decided that I didn't want to ignore the real people.

I need to find a happy medium between the two if I'm going to make it work this year. For that lesson, I'm willing to not finish, so long as I learn how to start the balancing act.

I don't have work today and Justin is at class, so my goal is to make some plot notes and get some characters designed so I have a place to jump off from.

Get ready?

2008-10-29T18:17:56Z

Dear National Novel Writing Month Author,

Hi there! NaNoWriMo Program Director Chris Baty here. Before we get rolling, I wanted to give you a quick guide to our upcoming five weeks of literary domination.

Here's the plan:

Tomorrow: Make sure you've set your time zone correctly (it's under User Settings). Some word-count features appear and disappear at midnight on November 1 and November 30, so dialing those in now will save you stress later. Join a local region, and find out when and where the first novel-writing get-togethers (called "write-ins") for your city or town will be held. Tune in to WrimoRadio, NaNoWriMo's podcast, and learn how you can be on the November 3 episode.

October 31: Get the first pep talk email. You'll receive about three of these a week—one from me and two from our panel of esteemed celebrity pep talkers—throughout November. Note: If you donate $50 or more today, you will receive six years of pep talks from me in a beautiful 80-page PDF, constituting about as much week-by-week NaNoWriMo advice and encouragement as any human being can handle without falling over.

November 1: At midnight, local time, start writing your book. You need to log 1667 words per day to stay on par. The site will be very slow for the first few days of the event, but with patience you can update your soaring word count in the box at the top of our site or on the "Edit Novel Info" page of your profile. Watch your stats graph fill. Send a link to your author profile to your friends so they can follow your progress. Revel in the majesty of your unfolding story. It's November 1! You are an unstoppable novel-writing machine!

November 2: Stop writing. Wonder if you should start over. Keep going. Feel better.

November 3: The first November episode of WrimoRadio goes up on the site, beaming out overcaffeinated messages of hope from Wrimos worldwide. We'll be podcasting every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from here until December.

November 8: As the first full week of writing comes to a close, you will be at 11,666 words. This is more fiction than most people write in their lifetimes, and you did it in a week. Go, you! This is also Municipal Liaison Appreciation Day, a raucous international holiday that celebrates NaNoWriMo's volunteer chapter-heads (the folks who organized the write-in you went to last week). Chocolate, flowers, and gifts of expensive electronics are appreciated.

November 13: Nothing really happens on November 13.

November 15: After the second week of writing, you will be at 25,000 words. This is the approximate length of such legendary works of fiction as Animal Farm, Death in Venice, and Gossip Girl: I Like it Like That. You're halfway to winning! Attend a Midway Party in your town, or come to San Francisco, where the Night of Writing Dangerously Write-a-thon will set records for group noveling and candy consumption.

November 16: The second half of NaNoWriMo dawns. Writerly confidence builds. Your book comes to life, and characters start doing interesting, unexpected things. Nice. Weird.

November 22: After the third full week of writing, you stand at 35,000 words, the NaNoWriMo milestone universally recognized as The Place Where Everything Gets Much, Much Easier.

November 25: Novel validation and winning begins, and Word-Count Progress Bars turn from blue to green (over 50K) to purple (over 50k and a verified winner!). Check our FAQs for details on uploading your manuscript and winning. For the first time ever, a very limited number of 2008 Winner t-shirts will appear in the store. These will make you smile.

November 27: American Wrimos celebrate the true meaning of Thanksgiving by gathering together with friends and family, wolfing down a huge meal as quickly as possible, and then ditching those friends and family to hide in the bathroom with a laptop.

November 30: By midnight, local time, we will all be the proud owners of 50,000-word novels that we could barely imagine on October 31. Plan to attend your local NaNoWriMo Thank God It's Over Party, where grins will abound, champagne will flow, fives will be highed, and wrists will be iced.

You did it. We all did it.

December 1: Sleep will fall heavily across NaNoLand, as 125,000 writers close the book on one crazy, oversized dream, and go off in search of the next.

We begin very soon, brave writer! I can't wait to get started!

nanowrimo_julie @ 2007-05-13T09:25:00

2007-05-13T13:30:17Z

I printed more stuff and read through a bunch of it at the laundromat on Thursday. No new writing, though.

I'm actually fairly pleased with this batch. I am much better at keeping quality up when working on short stuff, and these were all pretty good snippets and scenes and even a few poems. The biggest surprises were the ones I forgot I wrote.

I really like having this stuff in a binder.

nanowrimo_julie @ 2007-04-30T21:26:00

2007-05-01T01:33:28Z

I have an extra goal to throw in there:

Rescue my pre-2004 writing from Lotus Word Pro before I lose access to a computer than can support the software. I've already lost access to an already-installed and running version of it, since my dad's old computer is dead and I never reinstalled the program on mine when my computer was corrupted three years ago.

There was a long time where I hated Microsoft Word and refused to use it except in emergencies. Lotus was great, but its time is at an end. I have at least a hundred pages of material in the LWP format that I don't want to lose.

nanowrimo_julie @ 2007-04-30T20:06:00

2007-05-01T00:32:45Z

Fortune cookie says: Reflect on yourself before anyone can look down on you.

It fit my purpose as I bit into it before leaving the house tonight and headed for the library.

I did start in the library, but ended up in the campus center. The new monstrosity eery, vacuous, and smells vaguely antiseptic. It feels like it isn't actually open yet and shouldn't be entered except by official personel. But oh, it's quiet - not a soul talking on a cell phone - and there are booths on the second floor with cushy seats and clean tables.

I am reading through my existing fiction and getting ideas about what work needs to be done, where I am, what I suck at, and where my strengths are.

Tonight I read through all 22k from my failed 2005 NaNoWriMo. It goes all over the place, but there is some connecting thread that ties it together and feels like unfolding a puzzle. I want to believe that all these jumbled pieces are telling the same story. Pieces of it are inconsistent because I changed my mind as I wrote and didn't correct previous passages yet, but this allows me to see the ideas changing. It's interesting, and some passages I really enjoy. I am not sure where it's going yet, but I have a few ideas which I'm going to try to write down tonight before I call it quits.

I can tell that I was reading a big variety of stuff when I wrote for NaNo 2005, because the internal references and vocabulary pull to mind Haworth books I edited on crop science and genetics, psychology, and even a little purple prose.

My next to-do is to dig out my short stories from the digital purgatory I left them in and print them all out. I'll read through them and get a sense of what's up. The novels are a long-term project, but a short story that mostly just needs cleaning up - or that I could complete another draft of in a weekend - will help keep my momentum rolling. Theoretically my other big project and the next best place to work would be my thesis, but I am not sure I can tackle that one yet.

Pacing

2006-11-12T17:27:36Z

I am procrastinating writing on the story for NaNoWriMo, which is a bit of a flop at the moment.

The characters from my prologue, which were only meant to be support, are shifting to the centerstage and starting to go places, but I realized that I don't actually like them enough to keep them in the middle. And my pacing is really weird. And if I end the lopsided prologue and skip ahead, where do I pick up my main characters and which of the prologue people will still be alive?

I have been busy so far this month, but not entirely busy enough to justify my word count, which is 4k. Yeah. I am embarassed. Ashamed. I keep neglecting it. I keep having other things to do. I keep struggling with the scenes I do write because they aren't going right and I don't know how to fix it. I just feel like I am going nowhere because the pacing is so weird I can't tell if I am writing the beginning of this book or the end of an entirely separate book. I have trouble with pacing in general, but right now it is horrendous. I don't know if it is because I took such a big break or because I haven't planned out this book well or what. I suspect it's a combination.

For the first time in my life I am craving an outline. I need one. I almost sat down and wrote one on the night before NaNo started, but I had a bad excuse not to and I still went with it. So right now I just want to stop everything and do the outline. So I think I will, at the further expense of word count, because at least they won't be so much of a waste. And I know the NaNo advice is to turn off the inner editor and struggle onward with crap if you have to, but I just can't make myself agree right now.

I am close to throwing in the towel on this one and using an outline to fix my first (successful) NaNo instead. Today I am plot-mapping for a book and seeing how it is laid out. The one I've started is The Two Princesses of Bamarre. It's a YA so it should be a quick read, and the plot is very clean and straightforward. I'm taking notes. I need it, because I am drowning in weird bumpy plot flow. And when I am done mapping I will decide whether I want to outline this year's NaNo or crap it and pick up the old one. But I am not stopping working if I scrap it.

I feel like the bad student who hasn't done her reading and am suddenly sitting down to the test. Story is a mess of bullshit and last-minute cramming right now. I need to straighten myself out.

Whether it is all in my head or not, I figure it can't hurt to sit down and do some of this "homework."

nanowrimo_julie @ 2006-10-19T20:57:00

2006-10-20T01:26:07Z

For the last month I've been writing on break at work. Mostly ideas, some scenes, some journal stuff. I got into some fiction again today.

A lot of the summer was a wash, between new job and moving and everything else that became excuses. It was a nice break, though, because I didn't guilt trip myself about it much at all. I hardly even sat down in front of a computer for more than 15 minutes at a time. Right now I'm able to approach it like a hobby again instead of a chore that I am neglecting. I feel fresh. It's amazing how different it feels to approach the work now. But maybe I'm an optimist. At any rate, I am enjoying myself.

I'm writing on paper a lot. I'm looking into buying a laptop.

I'm trying NaNoWriMo again. I'm a little nervous about structuring and making a plot work. I feel kind of out of whack on pacing. I think NaNo will help me work that out because I have to write massive and quick and not stop for these kinds of concerns. It's worth a try.

nanowrimo_julie @ 2006-04-15T08:24:00

2006-04-15T12:31:02Z

I wrote a little over 1000 words yesterday. I feel pretty good about that.

Project: The sorcery war... uhm, sequel?
Words: 1045
Reason for Stopping: I was writing at work, during breaks and a little otherwise.
Mood: Content. The scene actually went really well, unlike the abortive one I tried last week. This one went somewhere and set up a plot hook I hadn't been expecting, but which will still tie into the rest of the story well.

nanowrimo_julie @ 2006-04-11T21:23:00

2006-04-12T01:27:04Z

Haven't been writing. I've taken a few spare moments and stared at a blank screen or piece of paper, but nothing comes out and I move on.

I did write a few paragraphs the other day, but I didn't like them, and they shouldn't count. With any luck I've already lost the piece of paper they were on.

Of printers and plot points

2006-03-16T00:28:05Z

I'm switching jobs shortly, so I thought I'd take advantage of the super deluxe industrial printer at work and print out my NaNo novel from 2005. I only got to 22k, but it still printed out to 75 pages double-spaced. I started rereading it, after not touching it at all since November, and it's actually not half bad if I do say so myself - although I already spotted an internal inconsistency in what little I read. It's easily fixed at this point, though.

On my way home in the car I totally figured out a plot thread that needs to go in the book. It's the motivation that sets the whole thing in motion. I'm pleased. Now I need to write the revelation down before I forget it.

I have some research books out from the library again - one on clippers and schooners for Switch, and one on human genetics for the NaNo 2005. I haven't touched any of the research yet... life is crazy at the moment. Don't know if/when I will before they have to go back. But I will try.

Haven't done any writing lately. Big-fat-zero words. Don't know if that will change soon or not. Not making any promises to myself at this time.

nanowrimo_julie @ 2006-02-15T21:58:00

2006-02-16T03:10:34Z

Read something interesting yesterday about plot. This experienced writer was reflecting on her first few novels, which were never sold, and she said they were just a bunch of events: this happened and then this happened and then that happened. But what she learned was that it was supposed to be this way: this happened, which made this happen, which of course caused this to happen. I think that's a distinction that is important.

I've been thinking about Switch again, and I'm striving to keep that in mind as I try to make my plot tighter. I have the advantage of knowing the gist of what's going to happen now, but I am hoping to make the ending crystalize as I tighten the plot.

Beginnings are so hard... I keep stalling when I try to start at the very beginning, so I think I need to start somewhere else - where things are more clear. We'll see how that goes. I want to do this next draft linearly as much as possible, but I have so much to rewrite and alter that it's not a straightforward job yet.

In the meantime, I've been going through the Writer's Market and thinking about where I'd like to send out some shorts I consider done or close to done. I'm finding that I am totally in the wrong mindset for it, but it's also something I need to try. Dare I set myself a goal of sending something out in March? Not sure yet.

nanowrimo_julie @ 2006-02-06T22:56:00

2006-02-07T03:58:02Z

Have imbibed way too much caffeine and feel like eyelids are spring-loaded. Only written about 500 words. Beginnings are hard. Also let myself be distracted by a good book that I wasn't intending to read tonight, then other responsibilities intervened.

My plan is to do more of the writing every night this week... I don't have to write a newspaper article at all, so it's a good time for it. I'll be posting here on the progress to keep me honest.

nanowrimo_julie @ 2006-02-06T18:07:00

2006-02-06T23:19:30Z

Am staying home tonight to write. I have cleaned off my desk of all miscellaneous crap and gathered the following:

printed manuscript
rewritten and new scene files on the computer
Webster's dictionary and thesaurus
soda and a snack
good music (Gladiator and Hero are on my playlist)
Worlds of Wonder

I'm hoping to get Chapters 1 and possibly 2 rewritten, which cover only about ten pages in the original draft. I've been thinking about the beginning a lot and it needs the most work because a lot is changing.

I feel like there are too many things to keep in mind all at once because I let this project get really scattered, but I have to start somewhere.

Books

2006-01-28T02:20:36Z

I'm spending the weekend at home, and I stopped at the library on my way home from work. All I got was three writing-related books: The Plot Thickens by Noah Lukeman, Worlds of Wonder by David Gerrold, and The 2006 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. I've flipped through the first two before, but I liked them both and could use some inspiration. The Writer's Market is so I can actually, you know, do something with the shorts I've finished. At least try to do something with them.

I've been keeping a paper journal lately, and I like it very much because it's tangible, but I haven't written anything of depth in it yet. I feel sort of stoppered, stuck tight: only trickling through right now. If my mind is a pond covered in scum, I'm just skimming the surface enough to tread water in it.

nanowrimo_julie @ 2006-01-07T21:14:00

2006-01-08T02:18:19Z

This is my desktop art at the moment. I think it's absolutely lovely and it puts me entirely in the mood for Switch. Lately that story has been kicking around in my head again and tonight I find myself really, really wanting to do something constructive for it - but I don't know where to start.

I think I am going to bust out the soundtrack I made and open a notebook. The computer's making me cold and nervous. I think if I open that 80-page file I'll get lost in it and not write. We'll see.

Research

2005-12-30T01:36:23Z

I forgot to mention a few things as I've been picking at them lately.

Firstly, research is my friend. I *love* pawing through books and websites for little things, though I tend to get too distracted at it and write less than read, and I am horrible at note-taking. It's been awhile since I've indulged, though; perhaps since college. Yipes if that's true, because it's been a year and a half since then. Anyway.

About two weeks ago I was researching character background stuff for LARP and got the beginnings of a story for that. It might take on a life of its own at this rate, but looking up the origin locality I picked for her on google has really yielded some interesting info and things I would never have guessed at. But that was only my first bit of research.

Today I went to the library and picked up some books on nature vs. nurture, particularly twin studies. I have to admit it, I am a sucker for long-lost twins, so I was really pleased to realize that my MC in NaNo 2005 had one. (Al is a product of designer genes, and a half-dozen years later another family decided they wanted one just like her. So she's essentially a twin, but her twin is several years younger...)

The books I've acquired are:

Twins and What They Tell Us About Who We Are by Lawrence Wright
Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior by Nancy L. Segal
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker

I've started the Wright book and I'm smack in the middle of an awful-yet-fascinating section about Nazi twin experiments in concentration camps. I am trying to be good and flag pages with interesting things on them so that I can photocopy pages for notes, but I am sorely tempted to write a story about Jewish twins under Mengele. Not that it would be a happy story: According to Wright, only 157 of approximately 3000 twins survived Mengele.

Lastly, I've picked up a copy of A Writer's Book of Days by Judy Reeves for 50 cents and it has been worth every penny (hah). It's mostly a feel-good book about writing, with passages of inspirational quotes and experiences that are each only two pages long, and writing prompts for every day of the year. I've written from two of the prompts so far, and though I don't know if I'd do all of them, I am definitely going to keep this handy for when I can't think of anything else to write about.