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.

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.

Other than both being writers, my friend John and I are very different. While I waffle back and forth and treat my writing like a hobby which I fit in around other commitments, John is a full-time writer, working on book one of a five-book epic, and currently living off the wages his girlfriend makes. He also has a lot of different ideas about process, ideas to be pursued, structure, editing, craft, plot, etc. So when we get onto writing talk there is invariably some very opinionated discussion.

I was talking with him last night about our respective books-in-progress and we got to the subject of endings, specifically morals/messages in the conclusion. John once told me he always wrote with a moral in mind. "Otherwise, what's the point?" he said. We were both taking a children's writing class, and I was writing a very fun piece about pirates with no discernable moral whatsoever, and possibly no point other than an adventure. But for whatever reason, I've sort of switched my tactics and I approached both my NaNo novels with a premise in mind that was, at least in the beginning, stronger and more solid than the plot. And while I can't say they strictly give morals, they do point to a way of thinking. Switch's main theme is seizing control of your own life and making it into what you want it to be. This year's one is about family: the physical and habitual traits that make a unit and what makes it work. In both of them, there's other stuff going on, but there was a main idea pushing me in the right direction. Sort of like an essay point made through plot.

In keeping with this new[er] way I'm working, and his prior statement about morals being the entire point, I asked him what his premise or moral was for the epic. It was a weird conversation because I think we were talking at cross purposes. He said there were too many to count, and lots of his opinions and different world views, and things he claimed could not be resolved. "People believe what they want to believe. It's all philosophical debate." I argue that it's the writer's job, as they plot out the story, to make a case for the one point of view they believe. "Your characters may never agree on it or have an aha moment, and some of your readers might not agree, but event A, B, and C are going to show cause and effect, and your effects and outcomes show your opinions."

Here's where things got convoluted. "Julie, honestly, you can't think of everything as a structure. You always have, ever since I've known you. All I care about is the story and character building. When things fit into a structure, it's pure accident. I mean, A might effect B, or it might not, either way, the reader is left to think." I ignored the structure jibe and after we discussed it further for a while, I rephrased my question. "When your reader gets to the end of the last book and puts it down, what is the most important thing they are going to be left thinking about?" He said he's writing high fantasy, so it's not supposed to have a "Fight Club" ending.

Now, I know the type of stories I'm working on now aren't the be all and end all of styles. And there is a place for the Fight Club stories and the adventure stories and everything in between. But even if the conclusion is only "good triumphs over evil," surely there has to be SOME endpoint?

I have failed at NaNoWriMo 2005, but I did write a flash fiction story today that I really like.

My last night of class was fun. I am a little sad there are no more classes, but I am going to try to write a flash story every once in a while so I don't get "rusty." I think it will be good for me - they're so short, editing isn't scary in and of itself, so I think it's good for practicing style and format and plotting.

Maybe I'll start sending them out in the spring. Who knows?

I feel like a great weight has been lifted off me now that my class is over and the NaNoWriMo deadline is only a few hours away. It's a relief. Freedom!

I think I'm going to go read now.

I think someone needs to die or almost die to spice up the danger element in my plot (now that I have a plot). But since it can't be the main character, I have to figure out why someone else would get attacked instead. Accident? Hmm...

I topped the 20k mark but have been petering out on the overall word count gains this weekend. I came to a point where I realized that while it was possible for me to finish it was not worth the loss of family time due to holing myself up with a computer. However, I am really happy with the stuff coming out of me on this NaNo and I do intend to finish it. Just not by November 30th.

Today I am going to be working on another flash fiction. Hopefully this one won't be sappy like the other two. My prompt is to use a set of words: orange, jump, wet, and briefcase. (At the end of class he had each of us say a random word off the top of our heads.) My previous prompt was "On her birthday he gave her twenty-five Hershey kisses, one for each year of her life," and before that it was Romeo and Juliet.

I don't think I will ever take a writing class and do NaNo at the same time again. I don't feel like I put adequate time into the class, and since I'm not a full-time student anymore it's really only what I make of it (ie, not just some hoops to jump through - it's all for me).

The same teacher is offering a class on manuscript preparation and marketing for publication in January or February. I don't think I'll take it, though; I've got the basics of those skills, I just need to actually implement them. Much the same could be said about the class I'm taking now, however, because I know how to write and I know how a good story should be structured - I just need to do it more. Practice.

Words today: 1987
Words total: 18,025/50,000
Reason for Stopping: I am tired and my wrist hurts from typing and my brother is home.
Mood: Tired. Happy.
Notes: Oh my gosh! I found my plot tonight. Yay! Only 30 pages in...

I am totally ashamed that I did not write last night. I also wanted to get more done today. But it's not going to happen.