Well, here’s the wrapup. Finally, I’ll stop talking about NaNoWriMo. Aren’t you happy?

Final tally: 25,068 words in 3 chapters (plus a couple of paragraphs), spanning 42 pages. (I got very little done these final three days as far as actual writing; I kind of stalled out. But I did do development work, at least, which is better than nothing. And I’m happy with just having hit 25K.) I could still write more today, but I probably won’t.

My initial gut feeling as I’ve been going along is that what I’ve written this month is not usable as-is in any way, shape or form. It needs some serious editing in a lot of ways. Some of the characters need tweaking, the plot needs plotted better (which is, after all, what comes of writing as I go instead of having a plan), I need to work on descriptiveness and pacing and exposition, and polish up some of the dialog. Just for a start.

So am I willing to show the resulting partial manuscript to anyone, including Jen who I said I’d send it to? I don’t know. It’s actually not an issue of this particular story being so close and dear to me that I have trouble sharing it, which was my initial fear. It’s just that… It sucks. It sucks royally in a lot of ways, and I know it does. I already know that it’s going to have to go through major revisions before it’s any good. And it doesn’t even really get to my favorite bits of the story, which are a good half-way through the book and then also at the end. I have trouble sending something I know all this about to people and saying, “See, here’s a sample of my writing.”

I do feel like I’d like to continue to actually work on this for a while now. This is going to mean editing, revising, and taking what I’ve got and developing more from it, of course, in addition to hopefully writing new material. I thought one interesting way to explore the story would be to do some journal entries from characters’ points of view, so I asked Tim to set up another blog for me. He very politely refrained from responding, “You–what? What do you mean, another blog? What the hell do you need four blogs for??” and set it up for me. I’ve also put a lot of development notes there to have them all in one place. We’ll see how this goes. I’ve tried stuff like this before, and it fizzled out, but I’ve never tried it when I was just off the NaNo writing kick.

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I was going to roll this into my final NaNo thoughts here in a few days, but as I read more and more, the bits about McKinley got longer and longer, and I decided they needed their own entry.

Robin McKinley… I can’t say “she’s one of my favorite authors” because I haven’t read enough of her body of work to say that. But I think I just about wore out the school’s copy of Beauty sometime around eighth grade, stopping short of that only when I got my own copy and started to wear it out. And now I’m reading it to Natalie at bedtime. (I’ll admit it’s a little beyond her reading level, but she’ll get there eventually. )

Earlier today, I went looking for the publication date of Beauty (which turned out to be 1978; I never knew it was older than I am!) and landed on McKinley’s site, and out of curiosity clicked into her FAQ. It’s really interesting reading, friendly and open and though she humbly denies it, even inspiring for those of us who fancy we might one day have the talent to write novels. Inspiring, both in terms of advice and in terms of “hey, I know that feeling”. It’s really heartening to look at these responses and realize that someone whose books have been so successful has the same damned problems I do sometimes. For example:

One of the biggest, if not the biggest, obstacle to becoming a writer …is learning to live with the fact that the wonderful story in your head is never as good as what you’re going to manage to get down on paper.

Which is in fact one of my two eternal problems with Alex’s story, although NaNo has helped me feel like I’ve at least got a toehold on getting over that obstacle by simply forcing me to write, write, write without stopping to think about whether it’s as good or not. And:

When I was first writing stories, when I was a kid and through my teens, my great problem (the one that I knew of anyway) was that I could think of terrific beginnings and terrific endings (I believed) but never any middles to stick them together.

Which is only a slight variation on my other eternal problem with Alex: a beginning, a middle, and an end, but nothing between the beginning and the middle, or between the middle and the end.

Anyway. Definitely worth a read-through.

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OK, this is the gift card I want for Christmas:
Giving Tree GiveCard

“The Giving Tree GiveCardTM is a prepaid MasterCard® gift card designed for people like you, who want to make a difference. What makes the GiveCardTM special is that 10% of the value of each card is donated to a charity of the recipient’s choice, and the other 90% is used like cash anywhere MasterCard® debit cards are accepted. “

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Today’s thought, from the week 4 pep talk:

“I know, writing every day is challenging. But it is also incredibly easy. When you write every day, you are always in the story. There is never a period of reconnecting with your characters, of trying to remember what mood you were attempting to create the last time you worked. And by working every day, you engage your subconscious in a way that simply isn’t possible when you keep a more whimsical schedule. There is no need to summon the muse because there is no time for the fickle little strumpet to go anywhere.”
–Deanna Raybourn

Hee.

It is evident at this point that I am not going to “win” at all, not even close. I try to avoid thinking of it like that, though. I have to keep reminding myself that I never expected, realistically, to be able to fit 1667 words per day into a schedule that is too busy already. I certainly never expected to be able to tell Alex’s entire tale, which spans twenty-five years and most of her life, in one month. Let alone in 50,000 words. Achieving the stated goals of NaNo was not, actually, my own goal; my own goal was simply to write, and to give my story a good kick in the pants to get it unstuck from the rut it’s been in. By that measure, I have succeeded.

It’s also becoming obvious to me that little if any of what I’m writing now will survive to whatever final draft there may someday be. It needs serious editing before it’s presentable, and possibly something as drastic as a rewrite. But, again, a final draft was not the goal. What I’ve uncovered gives me some puzzle pieces to play with and extrapolate from, and that’s more important than getting every word or even every page or chapter perfect right off.

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I made 20,000 words! Yay! (“Only” 11 days behind, too.) And made it through writing the ceremony somewhat reasonably, for a first unedited draft I mean, I think. Though the feast afterward could use some work. I need to do a little more research on such things than just Googling “medieval feast” and looking at three of the results before I brush that up, though, I think. Next is the par-tay, and then… and then…

Well, and then I don’t know where I’m going anymore, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it I guess.

At 1695 words, I’m technically five short of my personal goal of 1700/day, but I’m above the “official” goal of 1667/day and I have a few to spare from writing more than usual on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, so I’m not too worried about it.

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(What is a tisane? Herbal tea. Which, as it contains no tea leaves, isn’t properly “tea” at all; it’s a tisane or an infusion.)

Chocolate and Zucchini is one of those random “Google Reader put this in when I added the ‘food’ category to my feed list” blogs that I sometimes read and sometimes just mark the entries “read” without bothering, because I have way too many feeds in my list and it’s hard to keep up with them all. Today’s entry is about blending your own herbal tea. I highly recommend reading it.

Clotilde says, “I have found that, just like vitamins can be added back to nutrient-stripped processed foods, the fun can be added back to the tisane by the simple process of mixing your own blend — think of it as designing your own fragrance, yes?” Yes. I can say little more than she does on the subject of the benefits of blending your own herbal tea, so I’ll just leave that to her. I thought I’d post my own standard blends and a few assorted tips about ingredients and brewing, though. I feel like I might have blogged this before, but it’s a subject that’s worth coming back to.

I have two standard blends, which vary according to mood and what’s on hand. My daytime blend is approximately 2 parts mint, 1 part dried ginger pieces, and 1 part broken-up cinnamon sticks. Tim and I each have a big tin of this for use at work, and I think it might have cost us $3 to put each tin together. Probably not even that. My bedtime blend is mint, lavendar and chammomile in approximately equal parts, sometimes with a tiny bit of ginger thrown in. I keep tins of each herb handy, stuck to the side of our fridge by the teapot with magnets, and custom-blend the infusion any night we’re in the mood for it.

I get my ingredients in bulk at the local co-op/health food store, but you can probably find many of them in your local megamart as well if you need to. They aren’t likely to be as fresh, they may be more expensive, and your selection may be more limited, but it’s certainly worth taking a look. Other things I’ve used for herbal tea blends in the past include cloves, whole cardamom pods, peppercorns, tangerine peel (I simply saved the peel from a tangerine I was eating and let it sit out to dry), hibiscus petals, jasmine flowers, lemongrass–whatever looked tasty. Use your imagination. Go for leafy herbs and spices that are whole or in chunks, though; ground will probably just make a mess.

I think brewing loose tea, whether herbal or otherwise, sounds intimidating to a lot of people here in America where we’re used to our tea coming in nice neat pre-measured easy-to-handle bags. It really doesn’t have to be, though. Just get yourself a teapot (or, really, use whatever you’ve got around that will hold hot water) and put some water on to boil. Most guidelines call for a teaspoon–that’s the teaspoon in your silverware drawer, not a measuring teaspoon–of tea for every cup you want to brew.* Put the tea into your teapot first, and when the water’s boiling** pour it over the tea. Let it steep, usually about 3-5 minutes, and then enjoy in your favorite teacup. (Pour through a fine-mesh strainer if you don’t like bits in your tea, but I often don’t bother.) See, that’s pretty easy, not complicated at all.

Enjoy!

*=I’ve found that for black and green teas, you can use a lot less than a teaspoon per cup. I usually throw in a good big healthy pinch for 16 oz of water.

**=If you’re brewing green tea, you’ll want to take the water off just before boiling for best results. If you want to get technical, 185 F is a good temperature, but basically, just take it off when you can hear it almost boiling but it’s not quite there.

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You poor sweet innocent thing
dry your eyes and testify
and oh you love to hate me don’t you, honey?
I’m your sacrifice
–“Sweet Sacrifice”

I’m frightened by what I see
But somehow I know that there’s much more to come
Immobilized by my fear
And soon to be blinded by tears
I can stop the pain if I will it all away
If I will it all away

Don’t turn away
Don’t try to hide
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t turn out the light
–“Whisper”

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My “points” balance for my diet has been reset to zero. Actually, I’m just doing away with it entirely.

The simple fact of the matter is, no matter how I try to justify it, I haven’t been sticking to the diet. Hell, these past few days I haven’t even been tracking what I eat, haven’t even been trying to stick to it. I keep cheating, or ignoring it and eating whatever without worrying about it. Even without the three-strikes-loses-all approach set out at the beginning of this, I’ve just completely lost the whole diet thing. Which would explain, wouldn’t it, why I’m not losing any weight. So… no diet, no points, no reward.

My first reaction on realizing this was to think I just needed to figure out a way to motivate myself better, or a better dieting strategy or something. After having a long talk with Tim about it, though, I think perhaps I’m looking at the wrong problem. The problem is not my lack of self-control. That’s the effect; I need to find the cause.

Cause is easy enough, too, but I’m not sure the most obvious cause goes deep enough. I have a hard time with self-control over food because I’m tired and stressy. Okay. Why am I tired and stressy, and what can I do about it? (I mean, yes, there’s Natalie. But she actually doesn’t deprive me of sleep nearly as much as she used to, and she’s such a good baby that I don’t often feel all that stressed over her unless she’s sick or something. And even if she is contributing to it, I can’t change that, so I need to learn to cope with it instead.)

So, actually, you know what? Screw the diet. No, I don’t mean that permanently, of course. I will go back to it. Losing that weight is an important goal to me. But I think that my focus has to change, temporarily. Let me say that again: temporarily. I have to figure out what’s going on and how to deal with it. Once I’m back on an even keel, then I can get back to the weight loss. Over the next few days I’m going to just focus on being aware of my emotional state, my stress levels and energy levels, how much rest and relaxation I’m actually getting, what affects all that and how I respond to it. And actually my appetite, which really has swung both directions (it’s just that the calories lost in the down doesn’t offset the calories added by the up). Not changing anything, just observing and trying to figure out a pattern. And then we’ll go from there.

On the bright side, I’ve written over 2000 words today. I wasn’t going to stop yet either, being in the middle of a relatively well-planned-out scene, but I got sidetracked…

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Yesterday was another effortless block of text–but no mere 1,700 words this time. I wrote the day’s quota early on, and then came back to it later and wrote another day’s worth (and then some) for a total of 3,835 words in one day. (I’m at 16,557 words total now.) I might have done more, but I got sidetracked a little. I don’t count this as catching up, though, so much as building up extra to cover the days this week that I know I will fail to write because of holiday and weekend activity.

I am amazed at how easily and quickly this section is going, but it’s mostly because I know approximately what’s happening here and have known for years. I’ve just never taken the time to write it down and nail down the details. Now that I’m doing that, it’s going quickly because I’m not having to do as much to come up with where the heck the story’s going anyway. Some, still, but not as much.

Now… It still isn’t exactly high-quality writing. But, again, it’s something and something is usually better than nothing.

The thing that’s bugging me now is, I keep coming across bits and pieces of plot elements that I suddenly recognize from somewhere else, often something I haven’t read (or seen; sometimes it’s a movie) in ages, if at all. I can hardly turn around for tripping over them lately. It’s a little disheartening, sometimes, to see everything else mirrored (and poorly at that) in my own work and wonder if there’s anything original in it at all. I suppose, though, there’s that old saw about nothing being original, and in the end the best I can hope for is to arrange all the flotsam that’s apparently drifting around unconnected in my mind in a way that becomes original for the execution itself, or at least seems so.

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I think I know what part of my problem with writing this is. It’s that when I’m going through these scenes in my head, I’m not hearing them like a storybook being read. I’m seeing them like a movie. Except it’s not like sitting down and watching a new movie, either. It’s more like that movie you’ve seen ten thousand times and therefore don’t need to actually see what’s onscreen or even hear all of the soundtrack to know what’s going on, so you put it on while you’re cleaning up or washing the dishes or something. And you mostly hear the dialog, and you catch a glimpse of the television screen now and again, but you miss little bits too. But that’s OK because you know what’s going on, so you can sort of fill in the general sense of it without seeing every single second of it.

That makes it kind of hard to write. I start writing down what’s in my head, and I wind up with just the dialog, and having to bridge gaps in that even. This is why it falls so short on paper; because I have the sense of the scope and the personalities and the tragedy and the passion and all that in my head, but it’s not coming out on paper. And it doesn’t come out on paper because I just have the sense of it in my head, and not the words or images to describe it.

Well, I know where I’m going wrong. Now can I fix it?

On another note, I didn’t break off and write a different scene yesterday like I’d been talking about doing. It’s been like this for several days now: I think I’ve got no idea what to do next, and then I start writing and… it goes somewhere. In the case of yesterday, it went 1,711 words almost before I knew it. Go figure. And today should go quickly, too, because today I think I’m going to hit the confirmation ceremony and I have an outline of how that’s going to go now. (Gasp.) There’s a lot of work that will have to be done before any of this is fit for… anything, really… but it’s going somewhere. That’s a start. Or so I keep telling myself.

Are y’all sick of hearing about NaNo yet?

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