The Post Wrimo Blues??!

What's that?!
At least this year I didn't feel them. In fact, I don't think I ever did feel them... I think I always go through the highs and lows during the writing process rather than afterwards...

I any case, this year's nanowrimo is over and i more or less managed to fulfill my objectives. It's Not Too Dark Here stopped at 56 198 and The Lost Years ended at 60 129 (at ten minutes to midnight on the 30th of November...)

I was really behind my schedule when I got to portugal on the 26th. But then I spent a few good days at a very good friend's house typing away and avoiding most of the grey weather and rain that struck Lisbon.

I'm very happy to the way It's Not Too Dark Here turned out. I think this was the first time I had quite a clear idea of where the book was heading from the beginning and that really helped along the way. If you have the direction it's always easier to stay on course...
What I loved was the way the story kept changing as I wrote it. I knew there had to be a major clash between this strange anti-hero and the forces of the outside world but the way I had initially planned it was almost entirely discarded.
writing is an odd thing because it feels to me like a mix of being in the flow but also deciding where it will go next. I simply try to be in the flow and, when I'm not, that's when I start deciding about plot, characters and so forth. Maybe this will change in the future but, for now, this is the way I feel more comfortable with.
one of the good things that I enjoyed watching as I wrote was this character I had based on a friend of mine.
We had had a good long chat in september and, after telling her of my ideas for November, she said I should write her into the story. I took the bait right there and then and my mind automatically started browsing for possibilities. Very rapidly I thought of what I wanted her to represent in the book - which was (and still is) her core attitude towards life and something that i needed in the book. But i now had a character to insert somewhere in the story that I hadn't envisioned from the onset.
She was going to be the voice of consciousness. The voice throughout the story that every so often reminds us that the setting is utterly insane and that, despite that fact, everything is still pushing forward at incredible speed. She is the observer of the lunacy of it all. She is one of the bridges between intentions, story and readers.

I did a first attempt to place her in the story. I wanted her to be there more or less from the onset you see.
but that didn't work out. I wrote a couple of scenes but they felt too forced and not really going anywhere. It felt as if she shouldn't be there.
So i dropped it.
I forgot all about i, actually.
But then the story kept evolving. And, after a particular important climax, she just came back into the game for a few very important scenes.

With The Lost Years the story was a bit different. I quickly realised that this book was going to be more than what I have initially envisioned and that I needed a lot more time to bring it to blossom. So, I decided to forget somewhat the research aspect of it (I didn't have the time or internet when I was in portugal) and focus on the drama.
But, even so, this was a story full of surprises. The characters really grew on me and I think that even if you were to read it now, they would grow on you as well. I think there's a deep sense of humanity through it all. But, to be quite honest, it felt as if there was still much to be said. This story is one that I keep having ideas about, getting clearer and clearer every time I think about it. It's a place where i feel comfortable being and I believe it's an important story to be told in this way.
I thought a lot about Nietzsche's Anti-Christ (that I read many years ago) and the vision of a more human Jesus (in his case, in defiance of more "orthodox" christianity). In a way I think the purpose of this book is to reconcile what seems to me to be misinterpretations of both orthodox christianity and philosophy towards Jesus's message.
And that's why I need a bit more time to read through both the bible (a new version that a friend of mine bought which is based upon the "original" texts rather than the string of translations) and some more material (which includes Nietzsche's final work).
I don't know why but I just feel an incredible potential with this book. I know it has been done before (and most surely it will be done again in the future), but I feel that it is important and that it needs to be said. I don't know why, but there is really a calling for this one.
And the strange thing is that, even though I consider Jesus a pretty interesting character, I am much more fascinated by many other historical figures.
In any case, I do not want to turn it into an essay debating the pros and cons of two viewpoints. Rather, I wish to integrate seamlessly into the narrative some answers to much of the debate still going on about this greatly misinterpreted historical figure. I believe that if Jesus was alive today he would probably disagree with much that is being said in his name. The book tries to convey this idea more clearly through dramatic exploration of particular scenarios but also allow us to more clearly see Jesus as both a man of his time but also ahead of his time. The keywords here being his incredible adaptability and compassion.

Still, I have stopped thinking reasons for this and instead simply accepted the way things are currently in my heart and mind...

If you are interested in knowing a bit more about this just go to wikipedia and search for Essenes or, even better, go to this website:

http://www.thenazareneway.com/

there you'll have a plethora of information and this will easily help you get a better idea of where this book is headed. Connect this with Buddhism (which is the root of the Essene teachings) and you pretty much get it.
So, the idea is simple. To recreate Jesus's journeys, both inside and throughout the world. Hopefully the beauty of his teachings will become closer to all those that read it. To me, much more important than the divine (physical) birth of Jesus (and we're all divine anyway so there's really no need to differentiate...) is that other birth, the opening into full divinity inside his heart. I simply wish that that journey will help us recognise that aspect of ourselves. And awaken us to it.

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

Wordy Weekends

Well, last thursday night, when I arrived home I looked at my word count.
it was something like 12 000 for one book and 18 000 for the other.

Then I thought
On sunday i should be on 30 000 on both.

And that means...

I've got to write 18 000 on one and 12 000 on the other... roughly...

In three days.

Which means 10 000 a day.
(a healthy diet)

Well, I'm now more or less on 27 500 on both.
Short of my objective but definitely much closer to what I needed doing!

And let me tell you, I struggled this weekend. I struggled because I wanted to watch films and relax and read and read stuff that could be quite important for the book (and i did do a bit of all these things, just not as much as I'd like to...) but I managed to stay more or less on track (yes, there were guitar playing sessions that lasted for more than an hour to chill and collect my ideas...) and do the deed.

And once again I discover that "this stupid idea I had for a book that is now so obviously proven doesn't work" (that was my down moment on saturday... a few hours actually) is somewhat wrong...

The Lost Years was more or less on track by friday/easrly hours saturday, so I spent the rest of the weekend focussing on It's Not Too Dark Here. After a while I knew pretty damn well which scenes I needed to write but I'd lost the will power to do them. It seemed pretty pointless.
I decided to call it a day on 23 or 24 000. I'd done my best, that was it.
Then I decided to just write the synopsis for what I need to write today (still). It was a scene where the main character comes face to face with a wild tiger (and yes, there are no wild tigers naturally on that island so some very naughty character must've brought it in...).
And there was going to be a clash there...
(this is a thriller after all... what better than tigers on desert island preying on unarmed men?!)
I just didn't know how they'd meet.
I was tired.
I didn't want to write anymore.
I wanted to sleep.
(bad!)
But the images about what was going to happen after they'd met were so vivid that I started writing them down.

I thought I didn't have enough stuff for the book.
And I might just have more than enough now...
And a few thousand words more for my word count that day. I wrote for another hour or two hours. I can't remember. I was in that mood where everything just flows. If I'd been more awake I'd continued to write until I'd run out of inspiration.
Unfortunately, these things only seem to happen when it's already 1.30 in the morning and I'm about to call it quits.
(I'm sure there's a pattern in there somewhere...)

This morning I wrote a bit more tying up loose ends. And I still have a bit more to do today when I get home.

But the most important part was that, a chapter that I thought was going to be quick turned out to be long but extremely exciting to write (and, I think, to read as well). A chapter that I thought was going to be dull and predictable, turned out to be almost central to the whole book. For me it turned it's direction around. And managed to do something that I'd wanted from the onset. Which is to make this character respected in some way by the audience. Make him human.
I think this chapter takes the bonding between reader and character to a different level. For the first time we see this aspect in Preston Nume. And it took me by surprise. But it made sense so I tried not to change it much.

I'll admit that, instinctively, a different outcome was present but, that's one of the pleasures of writing, you CAN turn things around and twist the story to your particular wishes.

In terms of The Lost Years, I'm on the doorstep of the Egyptian phase. I've been reading some stuff about Hermes Trismegistus (that existed a couple of millennia before Jesus - so he won't be a character, if that's what you're thinking...) and about the Egyptian Pantheon of gods.

And this is another of those chapters that I don't have the faintest idea how I'm gonna write it...

In an ideal world I'd spend a couple of decades reading books and learning Egyptian mythology and THEN write this chapter.

Because I live on Earth, Europe, UK, London, it has to be more like some Wikipedia on the diagonal side of perception, mix that with my very own and true to life experiences and ideas and start typing!

But seriously, this book isn't really about historical accuracy (though I have amazed myself at how much of that actually is there so far), it's much more about the spiritual journey of this man that was to become one of our most powerful myths.
Obviously it is a metaphor for any journey of this type. That's my objective. I want people to identify as much with the character as with the journey itself.
The fact that we have Egyptian mythology, Greek philosophy, Assirian mysticism, Hinduism and Buddhism (these are the next chapters, in that order) is merely to frame this with a sense of completion and UNIFICATION between all these different view points.

So I'm not interested in Egyptian mythology per se, but really more in the aspects it mirrors that day and age. It becomes a vehicle to create a better sense of time and place, of the obstacles that would be those living in those days and their own journeys.

In any case the penultimate chapter will be one of the most important (and one that I am incredibly eager to start writing... but it makes sense that I wait so that I can put all the previous chapters in perspective throughout that one...) of the whole book. This is where the journey achieves a first sense of completion, of roundness. Of true purpose and meaning.
It represents our true awakening.
Where the masks have fallen beyond return.
It represents the beginning of what many call the Christ Consciousness.

So, I'm sure it will be an interesting one...
(even though I still don't know very well what I'm gonna write when I get there... then again, what else is new?!)

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.

The Last Few Days

The last few days (I tricked you didn't I?! You thought that the title was the title of something I'd been writing but you were wrong, right?) I have spent typing up some more stuff on Morto. I finalised the revision of the penultimate section of the book and have also prepared the writing of the last one.

I have also bought a cinema projector and have been watching some Battlestar Galactica episodes... the new series, obviously...

And even before I started watching I had already started plotting a whole new series...

I don't know why I do these things, but the fact is that the ideas started surfacing and I just went along for the ride...

Well, I do know why I do these things. I do them because they are related to themes that I'm very hooked on. Artificial Inteligence. Consciousness. Epic feel. Messianic Complex. You name it. It's probably there...

I have also been writing stuff down for The Lost Years.

On sunday, on my way to see my cousins in Billericay, I had quite a few ideas about this story. Some that I had had the previous day or two but that I had still not had time to note down. However my TI Voyage 200 (the granny of those palms or whatever they're called these days...) had no battery and so I had to keep them thoughts rolling around in my head...

I only wrote them that night but still, there were some pretty interesting ideas there that I'm hoping I will be able to explore. And that will make sense to those reading them. There's just so many books I'd love to write!

(and I know that this is an attachment... I'm just not too worried about it because I also know how to get rid of it if it gets to dangerous levels...)

Anyway, that's it for now!

I think I'm gonna write another post somewhere else... I'm in the mood it seems...

Peace