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've been working on my flash fiction class homework, picking at it here and there between times. Last week the prompt was Romeo and Juliet, so I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do and reading scenes from the play before whipping out my story. This time I have a different prompt, a sentence, and I've started three different attempts at a story. The problem with these shorties is that since it's always less than 500 words, it feels like nothing to throw them away. So I keep writing as I come up with different ideas and discard the last, and I have three incomplete stories now, all written in the last 24 hours. Class is tomorrow. I need to pick one and just complete it and edit the snot out of it. But I keep getting snagged.

I'm bad at plotting. I just write until I do something wrong, and then it feels really wrong, and I need to add something to the beginning and cut something else, only what I don't know, etc. And then it leads me to a tangent and mostly unrelated idea, which doesn't fix the problem but only creates its own new ones.

Why can't I finish anything? Why do I spend so much time on the preparation for a 500 word story?

My brain is rather dead, but I most definitely need to pick one of my ideas and work on it tonight.

I suck at NaNo this year. I find the prep and mindset for this class to be in total opposition to NaNo philosophy. They do not mix well. Of course, nothing seems to be mixing well lately. I'm up in the air. I think I might be remaking myself again. Most of it is not too bad. I'd like to include a little follow-through, though. And no car accidents.

I'm rambling. So badly. This is horrible for my writing plans tonight. I am going to type the last one up and stare at it for a while.

When I was younger I preferred science fiction over fantasy, and I am not sure specifically when that changed or why. It might have had something to do with taking science classes I disliked -- Chemistry was boring and sometimes too abstract for me, and Physics was awesome in principle but I hated the math. Teach me how the world works! Show me what applications there are for what humans have learned and where we're going and what we're ruined in the quest for science.

That's a rant for a different time, though. What I wanted to get at was that in my own writing I've mostly avoided science fiction, not because I hate it, but because I am severely lacking in the research foundation. I've started a handful of stories in that genre and kept them on the permanant backburner after only a few pages. I don't mind research, but I have a hard time balancing the need for research with the need to actually sit and write, and when I come to a detail I don't know anything about I am paralyzed because I am afraid to write it wrong. This is why I've found writing about places in my head to be much more freeing - I can only contradict myself, and everything is as mutable as I need it to be.

Still, right now at work I am reading a book on policy statements of biomedical organizations, and although the book itself is nothing but a list of policy titles, it reads like a list of hot topics of scientific medicine and medical research. I am so curious about some of these topics. I want to read about them, and because of the way my mind works, I want to take notes so I can write about them, too. I wonder if this is where NaNoWriMo will take me this year?

I am going to try joining this community in an attempt to get myself moving again:
writemore.

Hopefully it will help. That means, though, that I have to get my notecards done this week so that I have something to work off of.

I did another ten on Friday night while I was waiting for Justin to get here. My brain does have a nasty habit of pretty much shutting off after 9pm since I've been on this regular daytime work schedule, but I don't think the ideas I came up with were too bad. I actually had a great one that I am hoping I can pull off. I might be able to get some of the characters to meet accidentally before the conflict between them arises.

I am hoping to get some more ideas down about the things that are going on to the other characters. I want to keep my focus without letting the other characters become flat. They are all up to something, and I want to try to get a grasp of what that might be. I think that will really help me on some of the dialogue scenes that got really bogged down with exposition.

I decided to do the notecards afterall.

What was happening was that I was making lists on sheets of copier paper, and when I got about a third to a half way down the page I would realize that I had missed something, or that I was ignoring what was happening "meanwhile, back at the ranch..." I was too focused on action and reaction for the single plot line. These mistakes or things left out made me want to start all over again.

The cards feel so freeing to me. If I forget something, all I have to do is insert it. Although I don't know what I want to happen in all cases (I need a subplot for the village, for example) all I have to do is remove the card later if I don't like it. I didn't realize how hung up I was on the order and organization until I felt this relief.

I started my cards last night when I got home from work, and I picked at a few more tonight. I have 20-30 done so far. They mostly say short phrases like "stowaway" or "Galway and Brahm argue;" the longest one is three lines. On the back of one or two I put a few sentences for how the scene might start off. I will continue do this as I come up with more scenes that don't exist yet.

When I have got a majority of the note cards for all the plot threads I plan to spread them out on my floor and put them in order.

Because this feels like work, and because I've done three pages of notes and a stack of cards, I gave myself credit for another thoursand words on my score sheet. It feels like progress, not a cop out.

It's interesting to me that since I gave myself permission to work on anything I wanted, my thoughts have been 90% on this novel. (The other 10% has been on Phineus, Goodbye, and Black Feather.) I wonder if the "permission" is another issue that I haven't fully acknowledged yet?

My friend John says that unless I believe my current project is utterly irredeemable trash, I should keep at it until it is complete.

Me, I kind of wish it were time for another round of NaNoWriMo so I could throw myself headlong into something fresh. There is nothing horribly wrong with my story -- except that I already know what happens.

I wonder if it might be the weather. I have been watching things sprout and grow; the trees have opened up their leaves completely, and the grass is green, soft, and barefoot compatible. I feel kind of fresh and green myself.

So, boyfriends are the most wonderful and loving distractions I've found yet, but my lovely distraction is going to disappear for four weeks at the end of this month. If I refuse to mope about it, I can get a lot done. Should it be an editing month, or is it time for me to have my own private NaNoWriMo? I'll have to think on it.

So, I started doing some different things to try to get myself back on track and back in the mood without sitting down and glaring at the computer (and then checking my e-mail and livejournal a bajillion times before deciding my room needed to be cleaned, etc. and then it just happened to be time for bed...).

I did not want to write it down because it might sound stupid and I wasn't really sure when I began whether I could justify it as an exercise or if it was just more procrastination.

Well, I found a book at the book sale I went to last week that I had seen someone order when I used to work in Waldens, and I got it. It's called The Artist's Way and it is supposed to help develop creativity in any kind of artsy field: writing, drawing, acting, painting, etc.

I am in chapter one, but so far it suggests that you do two things: (1) Write three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing every morning, no matter how bad it is or how tired you are. The idea behind that is to get all the crap and worries out of your head before you get to the creative stuff. Sometimes it will give you an idea directly, sometimes you will just write crap. (2) Take minimum two hours every week to do something that will feed your creativity. (Read, visit art museum, etc.)

I did the "morning pages" three days last week, but never in the early morning, because I can't motivate myself to get up earlier before work. I skipped over the weekend, but last night I started again. I wrote three sentences before I had a massive breakthrough on my story: A big Aha! moment; a way I could rearrange what I already had written so that it would have more power and be more dynamic, cut out the doldrums in the mid third of my plot, and redirect me towards an ending.

I am feeling very hopeful about it because for once it is not a "well, I suppose this could happen instead if that would make it more interesting..." that will lead me off in a completely different direction. I feel like I am actually prepared to work with what I have now. I know what needs to happen.

I haven't had time to work on it yet. Last night was the school board meeting, and my epiphany came after that. Tonight was fire class. But this weekend is a long one, and I am staying home and doing nothing of consequence. I will have to get to work! Perhaps I can smooth out my first half of the book and get some feedback on it. This idea doesn't solve all of my problems but it gives me a good idea of where to start. Hopefully with the beginning in line, the end will seem more logical.