Today's Word

Today's word is : groundbreaking

Thanks for all the stories

Recently one of my favorite authors, Michael Crichton, died. if you've never read his work, you're likely still familiar with it & have probably seen at least one of the movies his books were turned into. Jurassic Park, Sphere, Timeline, Andromeda Strain, Eaters of the Dead(which became 13th Warrior on the big screen), Congo, Rising Sun, Disclosure, just to name a few. He was also involved in the movie Twister & the tv show E.R.

I first heard of him several years ago when he was on the Today Show one morning. There sat this polite, intelligent, well spoken man discussing a book he'd written about someone trying to bring dinosaurs to life & how they'd just began work towards making it a movie. I thought it was an intriguing possibility, ressurecting an extinct species & I set out to find the book. Like a lot of people do when trying out an author for the first time, I grabbed it not necessarily expecting loads. Sure, the premise sounded cool, but that didn't mean his style would be to my liking. Boy, was I wrong!

Since then, I've owned at least seven of his books, read one or two others & seen the bulk of his movies. He is, to my mind, a giant in fiction. And, the thing I loved about the books of his that I read was their tangibility. I'm a big sci fi fan, but this wasn't space ships or crazy aliens or ray guns, this was possible & that was what made them so thrilling...and sometime, so frightening. His stories were modern day science, things going on in labs today & just taken a step & a half beyond. They were plausible. Disturbingly so in some cases. They were filled with sharp characters & exciting action sequences & provided that perfect blend of science that wasn't someone talking clean over your head, nor someone talking down to you. It provided a life like premise to each scenario that offered you, the reader, a chance to decide whether you thought this or that char was right or wrong, whether possibility trumped right. It gave you a crisp, clean set up an then gave it just enough twist to make it fantastic.

The world needs more books like that. Thanks for the great reads.

And at the end of the day

Ok, it was sprint-a-thon day. Word sprints are when you & a group of friends pick a set time frame, write like mad, then break briefly & compare counts, talk about twists, problems & anything else about your story & then, you go again. My group tends to do 35/10 sprints. Today, I did eight. I'd never done word sprints before this year, but wow, from now on, I'm gonna! Nearly all my writing has been in sprints this year & today I started around 6k & am finishing the day at 11,798. Cha-ching! I'm gonna try to hit 20k by week's end. Wish me luck.

Along the way, I split the chars up into separate scenes, one pairing is totally antagonistic with each other, one's very friendly & the other has fallen prey to my first real pitfall...literally. Poor Coyote crashed through the ground & is current stranded, lol. Plus, for Gypsy, at some point the diner which is my main setting, is getting robbed. And what's more, it's getting robbed by a guy with an alligator tattoo, lol. Orginially she suggested
having somebody just up & heave an alligator through the window, lol. I gave it some thought, but I just couldn't figure out were somebody would get a gator in the middle of a city, much less how they'd get the thing around to heave it through a window, lol. But then again....maybe when the time comes, I'll get inspired.

Hope your novels are going well.

Power Writing

Ugh....LOL. I just finished the 5th of FIVE sprints today. Anybody that says writing isn't physically taxing obviously hasn't done it for long enough, lol. Still, I started today @ 6k & change & now, my word count is...*drum roll* 9903! There's another 5 sprint session tonight. Maybe I can get to 15k tonight?

Yeah...I probably can make it. Lol, I am so going for 20k before week's end!

Oh, in other news, A new char wandered into my story, lol. I think it's Coyote! Lol, he should keep things nice & interesting. Happy noveling!

An interlude for talking pep & tips

I know, I was just here, lol. But, in another window, I'm talking to one of my NaNo buddies & she's struggling, so I figured I would impart on you, dear reader, what I'm telling her.

Ok, and I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT REREAD. It's bad. It creates doubt. No book you ever read & loved came out of first draft looking like it does on the shelf in the store. Some days will whiz by, others are plodding, you just have to keep putting one word in front of the other. Set the font to match the background or type with the monitor off. Just get things set up, click it off & go. Then, next session, read back, and I'm serious here, no more than 2 sentences. Get things set up, click off the monitor & go. Just write, don't worry about what's there, just write. Understand that this is just a first draft & can be changed later & just write.

Creating anything can be beautiful & exhilarating, but just as often it's slow, arduous & plagues with nagging self doubt. DON'T GIVE UP! I've done this four time before & haven't made it to 50k....yet. I haven't hit it, and still I come back every year & I try. This year I am determined to do it. I don't care if I end up collapsing on my keyboard & typing the last 10,000 words with my nose! I'm hitting that 50. I'm hitting it & you're coming with me!

There are millions of people that never make anything in their life, never bother, don't so much as read a book let alone write one. The attempt is a leap of faith & an act of commitment. Enjoy it! Forget the inner editor or what needs tending to or the rest of the world, for just a little while! This is the very first time you'll ever be able to meet these extraordinary people & explore this whole new world with fresh eyes, the world YOU create. You are the only person on Earth that can tell this story the way you will, with your voice, your ideas. So tell it! Embrace the chaos, for it's a great ride!

WOOT!

I did three sprints this morning & wrote more than 2k new words! HUZZAH! Lol. Also, I'm so excited about this, my chars are actually starting to talk in their own voices! Yes, the story is still choppy, meandering & weird, but...new words!! WOOT!

So, I'm thinking of setting myself a pretty big challenge. I think I might set a target word count of 20k by the end of the week. Is that a lot? Yeah. Am I sure I can manage it? Lol, not even a little bit! Does the idea of having a 20k first week seem awesome & Herculean? Absolutely!!

Oh, and Dana? Radioactive yard junk?? I LOVE it! Lol, that could be a novel in & of itself, thanks!

Retribution

I have really, really annoying neighbors. Rude, loud, sauced, sloppy, antagonistic pack of vulgarians. Over the last couple years, the cops have been called by various people around the neighborhood about...oh, maybe 8-10 times. I know at least two people called the Health Dept. on them & the Fire Dept. has been here 3 times. No...no, four times. I, by no means, live in the Biltmore estate or anything, but their yard looks like someone took the bastard child of a flea market & city dump, took said child to the most rinky-dink carnival it could find, loaded the child up on elephant ears & onion rings, put them on the Scrambler a good half a dozen times & then took them to this yard t throw up. It's not pretty.

they have, on more occasions than I care to count, held curse filled screaming matches on the front lawn in the middle of the night. They sit & karaoke, badly even by karaoke standards, off their front porch. They play the stereo ALL HOURS of the day & night to a volume that runs through my entire house. They've set their own porch on fire at least twice(because, not only should you not drink & drive, you should not drink & grill either.)
They are seemingly not at all equipped with even the most basic grasp of decorum, the rights of others, or indeed the kindergarten concept of 'the inside voice'. They are, in short, a menace.

You may ask why I bring this up. It's because, I decided today, as I had headphones on & could still hear them banging things & yelling all afternoon, that they are going in the book. I'm not sure how & I'm not sure where, but they' going in the book & I shall have some truly dreadful fate befall them. Any suggestions for a suitably terrible end would be welcomed.

I didn't hit my count goal for the day, but I did add about 500 words, which is better than none at all, I suppose.

Oh, and the word for tomorrow is 'mutation'.