Say hello to my obsession with character development

It turns out that the only thing I can think to blog about is writing. I have no idea if it's interesting to read about, but it's fun. It's my blog and I'll ramble if I want to, right? Right.

If no one's caught on yet, I am a major geek for my fictional characters. Creating, developing, and then messing with them is my favorite part of writing. But a warning, here. If you don't want to know just how much of an obsessive freak I am, go back now.

NaNo total

NaNoWriMo 2011

Eve of November: Three character introductions, unexpected and fun dialogue, a suddenly stagnant protagonist, and a six-inches-of-mud-stuck plot. 4,644

Hit Me Like You Mean It:  Two unplotted fist fights, sexual tension between the wrong characters, pre-written dialogue taking on very different meanings, new character smell, research into motorcycles and some shady subjects, and finally drafting 90% of the beginning. 20,799

Total: 25,443

A few thousand short of my revised goal of 30k, but still an absolute success. Back on the writing track, ladies and gentlemen, thank god.

Next up: redrafting the opening, rewriting the first portion of the second part (the first thing I wrote, back in March 2010), then re-reading and fixing mad continuity errors. Oh yeah, and working in the character who has sudden prominence in a protagonist's life. After that, hopefully writing the third and final part.

I WILL HAVE A NOVEL SO HELP ME GOD. Even if I have no intent to publish it. 

The NaNo beast is hard to kill.

Here's a visual of 60k+ words from last year:

BTW, it's bragging time. Yes, I wrote all that. Yes, it's all one story, although not one plotline. I can has productivity!

Here's a visual of what I've written for NaNo stacked on top of 60k+ words:

That was my productivity deflating.

I've reached the conclusion that 30k words by the end of November would be pretty goddamned awesome. It's more than I've written in a year, probably.

One more NaNo picture delight:

She does this to me every time. I am powerless to stop her.

Also, my awesome girlfriend of awesomeness has been collaging stuff for our walls:

GUYS! I HAVE LINK ON MY WALLS. I'M ALMOST BADASS!

Also also, I love downloading pics from the camera and discovering adorable self-portraits of my adorable girlfriend of awesomeness.

That's all, really.

Running NaNoWriMo observations

As many of you know by now, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month, where the challenge is to write 50,000 words of a novel in November. It's hardcore, chops-proving stuff. And I don't have those chops. Not even close.

To show you what it's like, a handful of thoughts I had during the last few days of struggling to write:

I'm much better at writing angry gay men. (Yes, folks, you read that right. It's more natural for me to write about a pissed-off half-gay ex-gangster than a 25 year old woman who has a difficult family and works at a coffee shop. FML.)

I'm not even going to get halfway through this by the end of November.

I suck at description. Can I write an entire novel in dialogue?

Huh. I guess I really am a shameless romantic.

Jesus, Novie's a hypocrite.

Fuck this game! It's four in the morning grandma, you win! (I know that's weird.)

So it pretty much swings between wishful thinking, derision, and a slippery grasp on exactly how cynical my protagonist is.

Temptation to artificially inflate word count: Must. Be. Resisted.

Book review: Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman

I recently finished reading Ayelet Waldman's Bad Mother: a Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace. (It was a library book! On my Kindle! Technology these days.)  Now, besides being known as author Michael Chabon's wife, she's written mysteries, fiction, and contributed essays to collections. One of those essays has caused her a bit of infamy, but I'll get to that.

Infocamp impressions

Attending Infocamp Seattle today was an interesting experience, professionally and personally.

My first impression, as my fbook friends may have noticed, was that the University of Washington campus is BEAUTIFUL. I do not use those caps lightly. There were old brick buildings with stained glass windows, a water fountain, greenery wherever it could go, cobblestone walkways. I loved it.

The keynote speaker was amusing and appropriately quirky. He's a designer, but I saw many ways his approach could be applicable to libraries. Especially: "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not." How much theory are we, as library professionals, seeing right now? And how much practice?