NaNoWriMonthing

Yep. Two days have gone and what do I have to show for it?!

Well, my schedule for one:
07.30-08, 0.5h - Meditation
08-09, 1h - Food + Wizard Knight
09-10.30, 1.5h - Lands Of Mist
10.30-11, 0.5h - Chat
11-12, 1h - Lands Of Mist + Emails
12-13, 1h - Lands Of Mist + The Hate Bearers
13-22, 9h - WORK
22-23, 1h - Food + Lands Of Mist

I was really with a good momentum on tuesday. I think it was one of those days that I would've just kept on writing. Not one of those where words just seem to pour and you write 5000 words practically non-stop, but one of those where you pause in between paragraphs and lines, just for a few seconds or a couple of minutes to try and envision where the story was gonna go next and it felt I could just keep on doing it. These days can be a bit frustrating initially, when you just want to write everything in one go, in a powerful torrent of words. But these days in fact enable to write more carefully, with more attention to what you are doing. we become conscious of the passing of time and all the little decisions and moments of awareness that add up to where the story is going.

I did chat quite a bit throughout part of the day with a couple of friends: life, contrary to what you might think, is not NaNoWriMo based. In fact, it seems to continue pretty well without it.

On my way to work I had a couple of ideas for last year's NaNoWriMo. What can I say, that's how the mind works... I also had an idea for the Hate Bearers. So, after the usual initial chaos of information after getting to work, I did manage to jot all I could remember down. It wasn't as clear and sharp and smooth as when you're cycling and everything just flows out in your mind so naturally (beware of traffic!) but it was good enough. At least the ideas and some of the twists in the dialogue were noted. It can all be refined and worked out at a later stage - revision!

I got home feeling really knackered. After some initial moments of questions and chitchat with my flatmates I was able to reach the relative safety of my room and engage with the age old process of eating spring rolls.
(yes, I know you thought I was going to say writing... I still have a few tricks up my sleeve - even if usually I wear t-shirts: just shows you how really skilled I am...)

After my belly was full (and full is the word) I began typing away at Lands Of Mists.

Soon after I was asleep.
Lights on.
As usual.
Music on.
Not as usual.

Peace!

Word Wounds

It's the 20th of November.
I should be with 40 000 words on each of the books.
I'm with 38 000 and something on Nume and 31 000 on The Lost Years.
I can't seem to dodge that 11 000 backlog...
In any case, tomorrow I will be working but coming home early and sunday I'm gonna plough through the dictionary like a fever running wild...

But things are looking good. Preston Nume has managed to survive yet another trial (though he's got a few scars to show for it) but, even though he's getting ready for the next lot (he knew as soon as he got on that island that they had it in for him) he's not really expecting what's gonna hit him next...

Meanwhile in Egypt, Jesus and his two companions are finding out some of the awful and beautiful truths in the former land of the Pharaohs.

I've been tempted to just focus on one of the books, finish it off and then come back and finish the other one but... i feel that there's something to gain from moving from one story to the other. What I've been doing is more or less writing out all the sequences that I had planned out. When I hit a point where I don't really know how to move forward, I jump on the other wagon and see what I can do there.

But this has been a very different NaNoWriMo. Not just because of writing two books in parallel, or doing some research for them, but mainly because i have been writing the chapters in more or less the order they'll stay for the final version.
(I say this now...)
(who knows what's gonna happen when revision happens...)

Anyway, just a quick update.
And I've just realised that I haven't updated my NaNoWriMo webpage since the first day... shame...

Thanks for staying tuned...
(and happy writings for all of you!)

Peace

NaNoWriMo...ing

Well, the great word race has started!
As in previous years I started just after midnight, in the first few hours of the 1st of November.

I'm writing two books this year. One about the "missing" years of Jesus life and another about a killer on a (almost) deserted island. The Lost Years and It's Not Too Dark Here, respectively.

They're both being written in English and, believe it or not, I feel that the two somehow mirror each other...

Not to say that the plot is the same (far from it), but there are definitely lost of elements in common. Human misunderstanding being a major one.

The killer story had been brewing in my mind since last November and I had a chance to plot it out in broad terms. It's just one of those stories where, at eash step of the way, you can just feel it's incredible potential. And I'm hoping that it will be challenging (and sometimes chilling...) one.
A part of me is trying to keep away from gore and extreme violence but, I do think some good measure of it will be needed in order for me to be able to drive the point forward.
I'm just at the beginning of this story. Only 6000 words into it, but it's picking up speed and there's a feeling of something alien present underneath what's happening. This is what I want to aim most of all. The world has its ways and ideas but, sometimes, there are those that are truly outcasts. Because they way they see the world is entirely different from ours. Well, at least on some very fundamental ways it is.

This is why I say that this story is a mirrored image of The Lost Years. They focus on the same themes but from different viewpoints.

In fact The Lost Years is nothing but a continuation of Morto. And, to a certain extent, also a mirror of that story. But that's a tale for another day...

I was a bit afraid of doing two books in one go but since I couldn't decide which and both were so incredibly appealing I decided to take the long route...

For the first time since I started NaNoWriMo (and actually finished at least the first draft of a book) I've never felt so much in control with this whole thing about writing a novel. It feels doable. It feels almost easy. I struggle here and there but I know at every step of the way that any obstacle is not unsurmountable. And I know it not only in my head but also from past experience.

As before, the project that I was more afraid to start - The Lost Years - is the one that's been the easiest to write. I must've put s much energy into it, in trying to work out some of the details and problems I could foresse, that it has been such a pleasant and enjoyable experience to write.

This week for instance, on tuesday, I spent the whole day at home, reading stuff and writing. It was long day, some 12 or 15 hours spent around this book and only 8 or 9000 words to show for it, but it was such a smooth and consistent ride. It felt really good.

Nume (that's the other name I give to It's Not Too Dark Here) has been a different matter. I feel I haven't resolved some of the important parts of the story quite clearly yet and so I'm always giving myself preference to write The Lost Years.
Aside from that Nume is also a more descriptive book than The Lost Years, which is more dialogue based. Something that I'm loving as well!

In both books we have quite few flashbacks showing us a bit better the conditions that brought these characters to the present moment in the story.

So far Nume is a bit behind schedule but The Lost Years is more or less on track. Days at work have been long and busy and at home there has also been quite a few things needing sorting out. So, writing has been minimal for the last two or three days. Which, in NaNoTime is a lot!!
I'm going to have to catch up tomorrow and tonight and next week when I have my friday to sunday days off work.

I won't give you the sinopsis of each of the chapters already written for now, but I will do so at a later stage. I wanted to post a daily update on this but I just don't seem to have the time.

Let's just hope that I keep the focus!

Peace.

Inside a Car the World Melts

This is what happens inside the first chapter that I was working on today. A boy and a girl, inside a car, facing the sea, in a cold january night. Politics, fueled by isolation and intimacy turn into sensual overflow.

The second chapter of today dealt with another of the main character's friends. Here it's the mood enhancers and the momentum of going for a night out that carries a dialogue of quasi stream of consciousness throughout.
But there's also a girl with golden grey eyes.
Very much in need of affection.
Just like the boy.

There was a chapter in between these two but its content actually did not belong to this section and so I transferred it to the section dubbed Amigos (or Friends)

The final chapter was actually broken in two. The first part also belongs to the Friends section. I reworked it so that it could be easily included there and more or less re-wrote the other part so that it fits inside this section: Campa (or Grave)

I also read another comic. Scalped vol. 1 Indian Country. By Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra. Quite enjoyed it even though I wasn't really in the mood for a gritty crime story... I also wrote a review for it. Also to be published on the GNRG webpage at some point in the future.

I wrote a couple of posts but one is still on draft mode. It's good to pursue one's intuitions and best intentions but, sometimes, they don't seem to take us anywhere after we jump on them...

I also wrote a first draft for another short story for the New Scientist competition. I called this one Legacy. I really like it. It's told from a time far in the future, looking back at the remnants of the 22nd century. In my head this story was amazingly powerful and clear but, as soon as I started typing it, that feeling seemed to dissolve... I guess that's just how it goes sometimes...
or somedays...
In any case, I hope i will be able to look to it more objectively tomorrow or in a couple of days. This might be a good candidate to be sent...

I had the idea last night, while in bed. I lied there, musing if I should get up and write it down or if I could just see it clearly enough to be able to write it the next day.
Eventually I fell asleep...
But since I managed to remember it today that kind of graduates it to the kind of stories that hook me from the beginning. And those are usually the best.

I also read a bit of a book that I'm using to do research for a potential project to this years NaNoWriMo, in November.
Basically there are two ideas floating about.
One is to be written in English and I don't think I'll have to do any research to write it (though I could afterwards, if only to make some aspects a bit more plausible). I've already planned quite a few scenes for it and there's even a sketch of a structure for it.
I'm calling it NUME for the time being.

The other is to be written in Portuguese and there's quite a bit of research needed. So I was thinking of reading those books during NaNoWriMo and, hopefully, write the two books.
It may sound ambitious but I think that it is possible.
I don't want them to be very long. And, in actual fact, the two books are kind of the mirror image of the other.
At least in my head it makes sense for the two to go together...

The second one is called OS ANOS PERDIDOS (The Lost Years)

And, for now, I won't say anything else about them!

peace.