This isn’t finished yet, but I thought I’d post the opening paragraph of the prologue, just because I can. I’m at 46,076 and I have until midnight on Wednesday to write the rest. I think I’m going to make it, and I’m quite excited because this is my first NaNoWriMo, and also by my birthday (on Friday) I’ll have a first draft! (Minus a few names here and there because I was a little lazy.)
Read on for the opening of my novel.
Prologue: Just another day.
7:20am, Monday morning. The faint strains of Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the English Chamber Orchestra playing ‘Georgiana’ filled the bedroom. A hand emerged lazily from under the covers, felt around for the iPhone and dragged it into the depths of the bed. The music ceased a moment later and was replaced by a groan and a muttered, “I hate Mondays.”
Filed under personal nanowrimo prologue almost there!
For the current chapter I’m writing, I’m listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers to get me in the mindset. A liking for them is the only thing left behind from a ‘previous life’.
Filed under personal nanowrimo red hot chili peppers
yeahwriters:
George Orwell
Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:
(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.
(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.
(iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.
(iv) Political purpose. Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.
It can be seen how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time.
(Source: wordpainting)
Filed under george orwell very true writing
I am behind.
I blame Red and his enthusiasm last night for 1) the gym, 2) the pub, and 3) putting music on the jukebox and making us hang around for like 2 hours, waiting to hear it. Therefore, I got home, cooked dinner, went to the gym, came home, showered, went to the pub, and was designated driver, so I had to sit around and watch them play pool while Bon Jovi’s ‘It’s My Life’ played 12 TIMES.
A bit of a waste of an evening’s writing. Now I need to buckle down and write. Onward to 8,658 words!
Filed under nanowrimo personal almighty tallest red
A slight hiccup today with my NaNoWriMo word target. Not the target itself, but the words I used to reach it. I wrote the beginning of a chapter in the wrong place, so now I’ve had to plot out which chapters go where and shuffle them a little so my fragments are at least a little in the correct spot.
At least I’m exceeding the current target. That makes me feel pretty confident, but I’m sure I”l be changing my tune when it comes to rifling through my memories for the next few chapters.
Filed under personal nanowrimo
…So I wrote 1,668 before coming to a natural stop. Fairly amusing, just one over the word target for tonight. Now that I’ve started, though, I’m going to write whenever I can. I’m even going to take it to work on my USB drive and write during my breaks if I can. Much better than writing in a frenzy after I get home and am being distracted by Red.
Filed under personal nanowrimo
I am so close to tonight’s target and I’ve almost finished summing up the heroine. I can’t really tell anyone what my novel will be about, because I don’t want to spoil it and I will probably end up changing a lot of the backstory.
At the moment, it’s semi-autobiographical (at least the main character is, for the moment). Chris Baty suggested that, if you have never written a novel before, the best way to start is with something semi-autobiographical. So, the main character thinks like I do, just to get into the swing of things. I’ll probably end up changing her almost completely. Don’t want to borrow too much from real life for the next few drafts.
As E.L. Doctorow said, “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizopheria.” I wholeheartedly agree in this case, although this is only the first draft and a lot can change…
Filed under personal nanowrimo
“I’m going now,” she said, looking down at him lying in the middle of the bed. His eyes were screwed tightly shut, so he was unable to see the unsaid words written across her face - ‘and I’m not coming back’.
Filed under something that got stuck in my head snippet story fragment
