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.

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.

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 found this in response to a question about whether to outline, and here is what a person named wondersheep posted.

I can tell you in five seconds if you should do an outline or not, just by your answer to this simple question:

Did you ever use those notes you took in school to study for tests:

If your answer is:

a) YES! OMG! ALL THE TIME! I even color coded them! -- write a detailed outline in October.

b) Well, most of the time I at least looked them over before a test -- scribble down some notes as they come to you in October.

c) What the hell? Are you kidding? -- make some notes in November as you go along.

Heh, I actually find this really helpful! I'm a B person myself, so I always waffle on whether I need one or not. So perhaps it will help one of you, too.

I guess that means I should sketch out an outline for something in the next few weeks... hmm.

It seems to happen every so often that I will be going along smoothly and then WHAM, I don't want to write anymore. I spend more time feeling guilty that I am not writing than actually attempting to write. I stress out. I stew. I pick at things for a while longer, then I stop altogether. I think about it still but don't do anything. Time lapses. Then I miss it. I start to feel like some part of me fell off. I go looking for it. I find pieces of it and struggle to put a habit back together so that I'll be whole again. I manage it and have some really productive time before I start the cycle over again.

I am self-analyzing, so that might not be entirely accurate. But I do know I pass in and out of periods where I have trouble writing, and I think I am in the beginning of one now. I'm low on sleep this week but don't fall asleep quickly at night. I'll have been away from home three weekends this month, and although I love the traveling and the things I've seen and done, it's hard for me to squeeze the writing in during the week so that I feel like I'm keeping up.

I'm kind of venting right now, thinking out loud and keeping a record of it. Trying to decide if there is a good solution here. I haven't been cutting myself much slack in the guilt department because I am afraid that I'll stop for months again if given the chance. But I'm not even sure what my goal is: hobby? publication? skill development? building toward possible part-time or full-time job?

I'm thinking about finishing out this month with my writemore goal of 4000 words a week and then either cutting my goal down drastically (maybe 1500 words?) or just giving myself the month off for October. This month it has been increasingly difficult to get many words out as pure fiction or craft, and so I've been pouring out extra odds and ends to supplement myself toward my goal - essays, articles, and rants, mostly. I've also been doing 15 minute writing exercises and scenes, just to pad out an extra 500 words here and there. There's nothing particularly wrong with that, but I'd like to be working on stories that are going places instead. I'd also really like to be able to put some time into planning and restarting my NaNo revisions from last year and the joint story with Justin, and I want to be able to fiddle with both at a nice liesurely pace.

I was totally looking forward to doing NaNoWriMo again this year, and now I am not sure if I want to do it at all. I think I need to switch modes and do some editing, rewriting, and planning for a little while. I need a break from counting words.

I have two weeks of vacation left at work and I am thinking of taking a week toward the end of November, especially if I do decide to do NaNo. A month off from the word-counting and an extra week without the old 9 to 5 makes it seem a lot more feasible. I'll decide closer to if I really want to do it or if the other projects I have on my plate are enough.