Wednesday 20 November 2013

Some Softness

Hi
At last.
Something soft and sweet has emerged. 
Where it has surfaced and the reasons why may not be so sweet ... but that it has arrived is fantastic.

I feel a sense of relief today as I write a character into a transitional period of his life. I can feel my writing trying to slow, to get the pace right...not an easy transition when the pace so far has been a little intense to say the least. And although I know I haven't quite nailed it...I'm glad to have got this bit of the story down.

I will return to wrap it with the tissue paper and soften the edges at a later date..

Anyway.... love is in the air... and that's all I'm saying :-)

Oh and the current Word Count is 31675 ... and to sweeten you up a ...

MINI SOFT SENTENCE EXCERPT 

He felt the softness of her thigh, the curve of her belly and  the warm and gentle cushion of her breasts as he  landed peacefully on the soft wind of her breath.

Awwhh...

See ya 
Dawn

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Welling up

Howdy

Well I don't know where to start today.

I am feeling a surge of story welling up inside me. I have a gutsy/nervy sense of where it's heading and what I need to do to get it there...but what that means in actual words on the page - NO IDEA!
I am absolutely loving just letting it pour itself out.

And it has poured into 30,455 words.
YEY! CRACKED THE BIG 3-0

I'm getting frustrated with having to go to work and be a normal everyday citizen. (Darn it.)

Given the choice I'd much rather just be a 'crazy-writing-bitch-psycho' ... so wrapped up in the story that the lines between reality and the page blur...and the only way out is to go further in.

Do I sound a tad obsessive or on the verge of such a state. Damn right! Just like the internal weirdness that a couple of my characters have developed; completely of their own accord.

Anyway today the story took another totally unexpected turn. Words and life purposes turned up, that I hadn't even anticipated.

Only 12 days to go and hopefully I will have hit my 50,000 word goal. I may not have reached the end of the novel...or... I may have. It really is that loose on this novel expedition.

For you  a little bit of weirdness -
A MINI WEIRD EXCERPT

She clutched her small back pack to her belly like it contained all the gold in the world. Indeed she believed it carried the golden thread to her future. She could feel it tugging her forward; teasing hope into her next step.

Saturday 16 November 2013

Jumped ahead


Hi.
Bugle call.
Drum roll.
Word count  28,666

I am not kidding! I am thrilled. Creeping toward the big three zero.

So in reflection. Its been a tricky couple of days. Some linking plots were short on words and sharp in content. But rather than mope around in despair I accepted that was that and jumped ahead.

I propelled into a future event that I know is going to happen. 

I know because I've been mulling it over for a while now. So I started playing with the back end of the novel.

So just as I thought I'd got into the swing of accelerating in a timeline driven linear progression the brakes came on.

I had to re-check the time-space map and go where the energy is/was. 

Or more precisely where the story was beckoning.  And then a U-turn back to the middle, where the abrupt short chapters now seem more fitting and a great platform to continue driving....

I'm intrigued how the story takes over. I ask "Ok. What are we going to do today?' And there's an almost instant response. Sometimes I baulk and think 'how can I write about that?' But I ve learned to trust whatever gets tapped out is whats meant to come; I can go back and fix up troubled spots later. For now its simply get the story out.

Todays treat....

A SUPER MINI SENTENCE EXCERPT

...together they, dissolved the tension of the seas skin and baptized their unease into a silent watery promise of a new tomorrow. 

Cheers 
D

Wednesday 13 November 2013

Sink or Swim

Howdy
Still doing it. Looking at my word count now and wondering how I can stretch this baby out.
Currently sitting on 22, 572 words..

WooHoo. Next goal 30,000.

(And then only 20,000 more to go. Its creeping up...I look to the future and wonder wow how am I going get there. But the story seems to have a way of unravelling itself in to strange and unexpected places.)

One of my characters has just spent 2 weeks living under a bridge on the edge of a city. 

I mean, COME ON! Where did that come from?

I woke up this morning, walked out onto the vernadah, looked at the trees, birds, sky, everything really and said out loud "How on earth am I going to move this character along to get to X and be doing X  by X."

I had no answer tonight but I had to get writing. Right?

So I :

  • Picked out a saying from a book "Sink or Swim"
  • Picked up a pen and poured some ink into 10 mins of stream of consciousness
  • Which transformed itself magically into a further 10 mins of freefall

And bang ... character has self-verbed into a satisfactory future AND
 a sturdy effort toward tonight's word count goal .

MAGIC. I tell ya!
;-)

If you're interested (to be read in the non-judging, non-editing tradition of free-fall) for you a ...

MINI EXCERPT

In class she is a tenacious and vigorous student devouring ink and stats. She caresses her books affectionately. Appreciates their sturdy mass and considers them the bricks that house her future.


In the library she is an avid researcher. She is obsessed with parallels that discuss her life when at the time she was a living ghost of the walls within. The great discourse that narrated her existence from the outside; yet failed to find her. She has liberated herself; and now she is the link that bridges the slippery valleys of that divide. 

Love
D x

Tuesday 12 November 2013

A twinge of fear

Howdy

Well I'm still doing it.  21, 492 words doing it!

I have felt a twinge of fear kick in the last couple of days.

The 'eeeeekkkk what on earth am I going to write about' fear?

Anyway it seems Week Two is notorious in NANO world for the fear to try and take a few shark bites out of the writers tank. A small pep talk from the awesome NaNoWriMo HQ Squad brought that to my attention and offered some kindly words to caress me to continue.

I'm trying some new ways to try and get into the writer space. 

It's a bit of a tough transition after a day of work and other domestic 'must-do's'....like food! Before dinner tonight I did a couple of pages just 'stream of consciousness'. And made a few  notes in my note book about possible mini-plots necessary to tie the PLOT up.

And now it's officially branded as today's very pleasant surprise.

It's actually quite fun coming up with some ideas so characters can arrive at a certain headspace and time and place for other interactions to happen.

It's not really something I've had to deal with before - not coming from a story telling or novel writing background; so a nice little insight now that may be useful to me in the future. Maybe my next NaNo; ha ha.

In the meantime if you're interested here's today's .....

MINI EXCERPT

...walking up the wooden steps across the road. The pink cotton sarong with big white hibiscus flowers loosely knotted at her waist fluttered with every step barely covering her thighs. Her hair rinsed back from her face lay flat wet and glistening  in the last linger of twilight. She was singing.

Love
D
.

Sunday 10 November 2013

Awkwardness accepted


...yesterday was a grind; but I had to write and write I did...

I couldn't even crack a 1000 words. I tried to beat myself up about it and soon realised that was also a waste of creative time and space. So I simply ACCEPTED the fact.

This morning before starting I decided I'd do some warming up. A bit of handwriting in my notebook to
 get me past any dragons waiting at the gate. It worked  wonders.

I was able to: 

  • check in with myself, 
  • mumble out some bullshit excuses in barely legible handwriting, 
  • slowly crank up the creative fire and 
  • set forth on my NaNoWriMo daily adventure with a clean pure wind in my sails. 


My novel effort traverses a decade of  the lives of several people; 
interwoven in ways they know not of.

As this is the FIRST TIME EVER for me at having a go at writing a novel I am torn between:

  •  bedding down too deeply into situation specific condensed time and place and 
  • weaving together the stories across distance of vaster time and space.

So I'm throwing in both. Tah Dah!
And they are emerging in interesting ways. 

It's the essence of those embedded moments that I need to explore to expose the depth and quirk of characters; but it's the across time that I need to expose the main theme that is emerging. (A theme that definitely was NOT PLANNED).

So today I felt like I could finish the story off with 3 or 4 paragraphs. They would loosely go something like this: She does this. Then he does that. Then they all meet.  And then this happens. The End.


And aha! BINGO!

I realised my sneaky little 'rush-to-the-goal post; get- the- job- done- as- quickly- as- you- can' writing dragon had nipped in under the drago-dar. 


Note to Dawn: SLOW DOWN. ENJOY THE PROCESS. DONT GET CAUGHT UP IN NANOWRIMO FEVER. KNOW YOURSELF.

I picked a word today to play with in my warm up (out of my Writing without a Parachute: The Art of Freefall book) I picked the word...
AWKWARDNESS.


I was feeling awkward, stuck. In fact as I started my NANO this morning it seems I was also resisting unpacking and instilling the awkwardness into a very awkward and unclear relationship in the story.

So today I got stuck in to that ...and realise that for my own sake I do have to offer more than 3 or 4 paragraphs to this story.
Today I wrote nearly 2,000 words in one hour and my current 



TOTAL WORD COUNT IS 18,800
(Yee-hah! :-))


TODAY'S AWKWARD MINI EXCERPT

Shaz wanted to ask if he was alright. She wanted to reach over and wipe his forehead with a tissue. She wanted to touch his forearm and reassure him. Most of all she wanted him to speak to her.


Her uncertainty piled emotion upon emotion. Her curiousity confused and confronted her more than his awkwardness. But she knew it was more than just her ridiculous desire to help him; even perhaps save him from his shyness and liberate him into the world. There was something much more intriguing about this man.



Saturday 9 November 2013

A quick update

BANG!
Slammed it. 16,000 words folks.
Yey. 

A slog today. A sketchy chapter that I'm defo going to have to go back to. I feel like the story is in there but it lacks atmosphere, or depth. It could be a connector. Anyway I've done it.

And a slight awakening of possibility today for one of my MCs. Just a glimpse of what could be.
Not saying anymore.
I'll post another excerpt tomorrow.
Until then ... I am going to flop on the big soft couch with my husband and reassure him that he is truly more important to me than 1500 words a day...(maybe some little breakaway ideas or mini plots will have time to ease up through my to relaxed mind muscles.
I'll keep a note pad handy ;-)

I'm on track, a little ahead in fact. Yey!
Another successful day.

Lv D

Friday 8 November 2013

How many words?

Hi
I was aiming to crack the big 15,000. Not quite there;

BUT a very healthy 14,495 words.
Hooly Dooly. I am happy with that.

TRUTH: I had a  bit of a battle tonight.

Really I should have just sat down and started to write afresh. But alas I decided to transcribe some of my handwritten notes that were quickly filigreed in the coffee shop this morning.

Nothing wrong with them but I have discovered that once I am transcribing Little Miss Editor wants to place her sticky-beak-pen in and then, well the flow stops, the back and forth, delete, check, re-read little devil with red pointy ears begins to shriek and point out where improvements could be made or attempted.


So a great discovery ... 
only transcribe when I have completely no other mojo or 
just as a hand warm up rather than an actual creative purge.


I sent Little Miss Editor  packing anyway. I told her that while I appreciated her ability she could  'Pee off'  back to her office out the back and wait until I called her. She was happy to do that.

But by then creative zap had withered a little, Friday night fatigue got comfy and the words a bit clunky. Still I got some frames put together. they can be revisited and decorated and hung with tasty detail a little later. (AFTER NOVEMBER ;-) )

I can't believe I've got this far. AMAZING. And because I've got this far
 I am MOTIVATED to keep on going. And tomorrow being
Saturday who knows what might HAPPEN (after the housework of course).

And I can confidently say that 'Housework' is not a procrastinator disguised in an old t-shirt, carrying a vacuum cleaner for protection. It gives me time to go inside my head and let flutters of poetic possibility coagulate or coalesce into whimsy and aha's and what-ifs.

So below, another unedited, free-flow paragraph/taster. But only if you're up for it.



TODAY'S TINY EXCERPT

When he saw her he felt that old tension creep back into his belly. That caged fucking animal that could not get out; that had to drop its tail and slink away from the bright of day. Women made him nervous. They just had to look you in the eye when they spoke. Had to ask so many fuckin’ stupid questions. And stare waiting for an answer or filling in the space if he wasn’t quick enough.

He felt that scarlet train seep up the wall of ribs and roar toward his chest; packed up his tools and walked back to the shed.

G'night
Lv D

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Carving through the wall

OK

Update time! Another 1700 words tonight. Yey :-)

Riding on the fast horse, got my 'come-on-girl-get-on-with-it' whip out tonight.
Intention was good. I even had an idea about the chapter I was going to work through. That went out of the window.

First sentence clumsy but I decided to carry on. Just kept tapping the qwerty. My fingers were beginning to warm up. And so was my excitement.

I could feel the awkwardness; like I wasn't letting it flow in the right direction.
I had to trust that I could let go of the reins and at some point the story would take over ..it did.
Its a good thing - Trust.

The outcome only a fragment of what I'd planned in terms of covering a section of story...BUT it really spaced out a gap for me. One that I knew was there but had no idea how (or when) I was going to build a bridge of words and/or worlds to span it.

I'm happy with the outcome. I'm surprised at the turn of events. One of  my main character's (MC) is beginning to freak me out. She is cooking on the inside.

So another sharing. Unedited word- flow free-fall style...it' will all get polished later. Read with care....

TODAYS LITTLE EXCERPT

Unknowingly and even innocently Shaz’s unidentifiable beast had stormed its fiery tongue into a leading National newspaper. She didn’t have to beg for editorial space, or send media releases into an un-answering abyss. She’d carved through an ‘ol’ boys school’ wall with-out even noticing the brickwork. Her naivety was both her sword and her shield. And her growing following, both for and against, became her job security. 


More to follow.
Love D

Tuesday 5 November 2013

Still running...whoops, writing

Howdy
Well, well, well
I've hit my first milestone and then kept on running.
I truly can''t believe it.

Its no secret I lack a writers commitment, which is compounded by a lack of objective writing goals.
(And I am seriously not a runner!)

BUT this NaNoWriMo totally crazy, mad, nutso goal of 50, 0000 words, no matter what, seems to be thawing the procrastinator ice cap.

Seriously!

Now that I've found out how to scramble my work and then upload my words for validation and watched the little graph go UP  UP UP I am...
...totally excited.


I've broken the 5,000 word (1st Milestone)' totally whipped it's skinny little arse :-)

 AND AND AND

 I've skidded past the 10,000 word (2nd milestone) still with tonnes of creative wind in my sails..

We're 5 days in - I'm keen to keep up the pace, turn up to the keyboard, let it roll.

And below a little sneak preview of a few words just for you...but only if you're remotely interested and as committed to reading without judging or editing or critiquing, which is exactly how I'm writing at the moment. (words first...works later).  :-)

TODAYS EXCERPT

He was there she could hear him fumbling with the old brass lock at the back door. And finally when the lock released she heard him falling in to the kitchen, the door banging on the small pantry at its back, the screech of metal  chair legs across the boards, a falling pot, a shout. Silence. Even the walls ceased to groan.


 Gwen pulled her blanket close, eyes wide, knees curled up tight; and reached to hold a spindly  bar on the cot beside her bed. The twins slept; sweet angel breath and curls of stale breast milk formed a halo in the darkness. 

More later. Bye for Now.

D

Sunday 3 November 2013

Ready Set Go!

Hi
I may have mentioned I've signed up for the NaNoWriMo challenge. Well I'm on my way. I did get off to a slow start mostly down to procrastination and a very busy week :-)

I'm still not sure that I'll reach the golden 50,000 words
but it's great to have something driving me forth.

I have a storyline (kind of). Though it's really just to get me started...who knows what plots and changes could happen once the penstress takes over. I'm not even a story teller or story writer. So it's a month of 'first times' for me

Its also a great way to link in with other writers all over the world
 from across genres, diverse ages and experience.

For me its a major challenge. Its the first time I've actually set myself a writing 'project' and a 'goal'.
Usually I just write for the pure hell or joy of it. I have absolutely no sense or idea of what genre, style, audience I write for. 'I write for me' is usually the best (but meek) answer I seem to be able to come up with.
I also don't write with the intention for sharing, competing or publishing.

However lately I'm feeling more like just getting out there. Not to achieve anything (I've certainly let go of that old dress) but more just to share.

So here I am just happily pumping away at the words; trying to set myself a reasonable daily target yet not bothered if I don't get there. Its a writers bliss :-)

I am largely free-falling so the story can unfold its own magic...here's a little sample from  the middle of a chapter that popped out of nowhere, in to the Western Australian Desert and then onto my lap-top this morning...

**********
She loved the open space, the giant curve of big blue sky, the seemingly endless horizon.
No limits to her flight and no end to her imagination. Her mind ran wild with possibilities of freedom, driving into an eternal sunset, chasing the magenta chalks that curved the western sky and arched into rippling purple skirts to the east at the end of each day.

But this morning driving out with these women she felt an urgent desire to run away and  hide.


"You alright sister?" Daisy asked smiling from cheek to cheek curving a row of missing teeth and surly grey whiskers on her top lip. 
“This is good one this one. This one make you a sister now. For sure.”

She tapped the cracked black steering wheel as the Troopie bounced and bucked over the hard corrugated track and deadly potholes.   

****************

More coming...stay tuned :-)

D