To NaNo, or not to NaNo, this is the question...

So last year, for the first time, I decided to try my hand at the whole NaNo thing... I had an idea, a drafted plot and even lots of inspiration I'd bought together.... and then life, or rather work, de-railed everything by throwing at me a couple of cases to do some drafting of legal documents on that involved historical child abuse.... and that was it, the muse shut down, because my mind could not write a fictional story (which on route to a happy ending did have some abuse in it) when I knew it was horribly real for some people.

Now, the time is fast approaching when I have to decide whether to try again.........I possibly should, because I need to get myself back into writing to build my own confidence with it.  Then again I possibly shouldn't given that my finals are on 16th November.... and I will have to revise.

I'd just about talked myself out of not bothering when I came across this picture...

which started giving me some thoughts and ideas, at which the dreaded bunny pricked up his ears and joined in.....

Then over the last couple of days the radio has kept playing me this song.... which seems to want to lend itself to the story ....

And when I looked closer at the lyrics gave me even more ideas ..... and now I am not sure whether to just give in (with as little grace as possible) and start plotting much more seriously .... and *gulp* a proper f/f story.... 

Sirens by Nell Bryden

Last night I dreamt I was floating with you
The river so deep and the sky perfect blue
If we leave behind the dust in the sky
From the sound of Sirens the city will rise
Hold your hand in mine, we’ll swim against the tide
From the sound of Sirens love will survive

And when your heart is on the run
When its chains have come undone
I will always be the one to carry you home

Streets lie so empty, the lost avenues
The lights of Saint Vincent are too much to lose
If we leave behind the dust in the sky
From the sound of Sirens the city will rise
Hold your hand in mine, we’ll swim against the tide
From the sound of Sirens love will survive

And when your heart is on the run
When its chains have come undone
I will always be the one to carry you home

If we leave behind the tears in our eyes
From the sound of Sirens the city will rise
Hold your hand in mine, we’ll swim against the tide
From the sound of Sirens love will survive

And when your heart is on the run
When its chains have come undone
I will always be the one to carry you home

When real life strikes back at fiction.....

One week and just shy of 8000 words into NaNo and I’ve hit a snag… well no, that’s like the understatement of the day… I’ve hit a bloody great roadblock of concrete, head on, whilst not wearing a seat belt……..

I’ve mentioned before that part of my job involves reading and working on things that, well, aren’t particularly pleasant.  So on Friday I picked up a new file I’d been allocated by The Boss and started to review it.  Turns out it involves the physical and sexual abuse of several young boys over a period of years by an authority figure that they should have been able to trust.

I know these files are difficult for me to deal with, but as part of my job they have to be done and my friends are great in helping to keep my thoughts all pink and fluffy (glitter optional).  So I managed over the weekend to continue to write, and then after working on the file all day yesterday I sat down at the lap top to continue, up came the story, I read back and that was it, nothing.  My mind just screamed at me that writing this was wrong.

Now, the thing is, I don’t usually write contemporary and I don’t do much in the way of planning out a story… that up to my characters to do as I type what they tell me.  I had an idea of where the story was going and part of it involves the escape from a D/s relationship which one of them had got into without understanding the implications of before finding himself to be trapped into something he didn’t want.  Whilst the relationship is in effect off screen, the retelling of some aspects and a rather violent escape weren’t… and this was the big sticking point. Having read the witness statements of the victims in the case I was working on I didn’t feel that I could fictionalise anything even remotely involving any form of abuse as it was all far to horribly real in my head (not helped by having a vivid visual imagination that can put pictures I really don’t want to see in my mind).

So I put the lap top away and picked up a book, then spent some time online trying to find some happy expressions of love and relationships which involve trust and more importantly adults.

This morning my head is a little clearer, though I have to face the file again today, but the sticking point remains.  I can’t write this.

I so wanted to actually complete NaNo this month, but I won’t with this story…  I think I shall stick to writing fantasy based things for a while and keep the realistic slightly further away.

Nano musings... the role of fan fic in my writing...

The day before NaNo kicks of and, unsurprisingly, I’ve been thinking more and more about writing, particularly my own… (no honestly, not to stem the rising feeling of “What am I thinking??”).

I’ve always scribbled for my own amusement, my mother a couple of months back was cleaning out the attic and found one of the earliest things I wrote (a time slip type murder story) when I was about 10 following a visit to a ruined castle.  It’s actually not that bad for a 10 year old.

I more or less stopped writing at the age of 14, thanks to an English teacher who was very dismissive of my work and consistently marked it two grades below where it should have been (In the end I had to have all of my coursework re-marked externally to prove that she was deliberately doing this).  This left me with a huge crisis of confidence over whether I could write which unfortunately persists today (And is probably the reason why despite having written, had proof read and edited, a novel which I am still not confident enough about to send out to an agent, despite the frequent nagging of my beta readers/guinea pigs – it’s not even due to a fear of rejection, that happens to everyone, but more because I can’t get my head round the fact that it might be good enough).

Anyway, roll forward to my days of spending more time on line and discovering the joys of bulletin boards and fan websites.  I started writing again in 2002, my first attempts at fan fiction… which were nearly all in the YA/Children’s genres (my original work tends to be YA/Fantasy).  Since then, fan fiction wise, I’ve written several short stories, some proper 100 word drabbles (which are harder than I thought), and with the help of an adopted plot bunny 2 full length finished pieces and 1 not quite finished… I’ve also written a couple of crossovers between authors and genres (fun but very hard to keep your head straight).  My fan fiction was posted on line and I had a lot of help, encouragement and support from the other site users which helped my confidence… or at least with the fan fiction (the only original work I’ve posted on line was a 300 word short shot story)

Even when I fan fic it’s tended to be developing a character after they’ve left the setting that the author portrayed them in or moving say the main setting of the book and some characters to the modern day and then adding a whole new set of characters.  I am not overly keen on putting my story into the middle of the author’s own words… (Really not big on the whole phenomenon of fill in stories by other authors or a new author continuing a series after the original author died)

One thing that I don’t think I will ever do again is to fan fic the work of a living author, particularly one who is still writing about the characters... I did this in the crossover I wrote and then panicked somewhat when another site user pointed out that this particular author frequently searched for fan fics and read them…..

It’s a combination of the fear of upsetting an author whose work I enjoy and the fact that I don’t think it’s particularly fair… I wouldn’t particularly like it if someone did it with character’s I’d spent the time nurturing to life and writing about (though this doesn’t stop me from having evil plot bunnies that plant ideas they shouldn’t… such as  - How does Rex the Hamster in the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich live so long? - I am sure Ranger has a secret Rex breeding project so he and Morelli can replace Rex each time he dies…… Or the more recent one about what happens if Zane & Ty from the Cut & Run books of Urban & Roux got seconded to NCIS….)

I am looking forward to starting NaNo tomorrow… and for the first time trying my hand at writing something not in the YA/Children’s Genre… I am not so sure that if I do finish, or even get part way through, what I write will ever see the light of day outside of my own computer.

NaNo preparations and plotting...

Having read back yesterday's rather needy and pathetically whining post I was tempted to delete it and pretend it hadn't happened... but, after thinking some more I decided, no in fact I should leave it... if nothing else, it will perhaps serve as a reminder that I have moved on the next time she phones!

OK, onwards and upwards.  Today has been one of indulgence on my part, I went for coffee and gossiping and then have spent the afternoon reading (finished A Bit of Rough by Laura Baumbach, and then someone re-tweeted a link to MLR's free read for today, which was Cheating Chance by James Buchanan... have now moved on to Roughousing (sequel to Bit of Rough) because I am a completest and my OCD tendencies kick in strongly at times like this and I will buy all books in a short series in one go, even if I've no idea if I'll like the books)

I have also been plotting for NaNo.  I think I am pretty much set on the contemporary M/M story... I have the main character's bio's outlined, I have pictures to represent them and I have relevant song lyrics and other inspirational things all ready to put up on the wall in the kitchen above my lap top tomorrow.

My plan is to write first thing in the morning before I go to work.  With the clocks going back tonight and the dogs not understanding the whole concept of an extra hour in bed I shall be up at silly o'clock for at least a week till they sort out their body clocks, I am guessing I can get at least a couple of hours in between walking them and having to get ready for work... providing I can avoid being distracted by the wonders of the interweb.

So that's it, all set, I think, I hope..... oh except one small thing... trying to work out whether to write first person from just one character's pov or whether to use third person and then I can have both points of view, and anyone else's whose passing for that matter.  I can and have written in both before, but in first person I have only ever written female characters and I wonder how difficult it will be to write a male character first person.. oh well, I've, oh 2 days left to work that one out!

Coundown to NanoWriMo.... planning

It will be November in just over a week (which reminds me, must buy my sister's birthday present) and the start of NaNo - 50,000 words of "novel" in a month... I signed up for this why?

Okay, so anyway, today I have been planning.  Whilst I have 2 stories on the go at present (part 2 of Guardians of Hope - YA fantasy(ish) and In Between - againYA, but contemporaryish) these have parts written so I can't use them.

I sifted through the voices in my head, asking if anyone had any strong desire to be heard during November (yep, that's as far as planning on a story gets - I write what I'm told... it works for me). Anyway they came through with three potentials to chose from.

- A contemporary M/M story for which my inspiration some of the lyrics from song Keep Yourself Warm by Frightened Rabbit. 

- A fantasy story involving a rare male Dryad who when reaching his majority and the obligation to bind with another refuses the spellcaster's daughter and is subsequently locked out of his tree and will die if he can't find a mate of his own choosing and get back into it.

- A re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood - involving an all to knowing grandmother, a lonely werewolf, an overbearing tree surgeon and a stroppy twink in a red hoody.


I have a few issues with all three so not sure - the first could prove difficult to write if my characters take me where they are indicating and could cause some triggering issues of domestic violence and eating disorders.  The second I am not sure where it's going at all, save for it's going to involve some fun world building.  As for the third I'm not sure if i can get to the word count and am struggling over setting (being in the UK I write in settings I'm familiar with if I am basing them in the real world - the UK has no wild wolves, big game is not freely roaming the countryside and hunting with dogs is illegal).


So whilst I stew over that I am going to turn my kitchen table round to face the wall and find some inspirational photographs, lyrics, maps etc to pin up on the wall above the lap top.