Kicker

“The best man is nearly done with giving his toast, and I'm getting ready to pelt him with Jordan almonds.”

December 1, 2003

Well, it's over. I wrote a novel in one month.

11/01

With those words, written just after the stroke of midnight, my novel begins. Now that I look at it, I'm aware that it's not clear if he's eating toast or giving a toast. I meant to say he was giving the toast, but this ambiguity gives me something to edit and correct in December.

I managed close to two thousand words on the first day, but am unhappy with many of them and frightened. As I'd feared, putting words on paper hasn't been too difficult, but I'm not yet interested in my story and it looks as if I'll be forcing things along.

Here's the page that chronicles October's prep work and thinking, most of which I expect to ignore once I get into the story.

11/03

The founder of NaNoWriMo speaks of painting in broad brush marks, pasting in ideas. Since I don't write from an outline and pretty much figure out the story (or not) as I go along, I have my own particular take on that expression. I've set my first chapter at a wedding reception, and I knew going in that the bride's sister would show up late and cause a scene. Well, she didn't really cause a scene, but I tried moving her outside to talk, brought in the wedding photographer and had some pictures taken, and poked my writerly brush at some of the others in attendance. What I was doing was hoping to see if any of that interested me enough to write about it.

I got a little purchase with the couple sitting next to my main, narrating, character. The guy (usher boy) is ignoring his date (Nelva) to hit on the bride's sister. The main character (Chester) is encouraging this so he can pick up on Nelva.

Early this morning I was thinking Nelva may kill herself, but I'm not sure I want that in my novel.

11/04

Chapter 1 is done, and chapter 2 has been started (you may notice a trend developing). Although killing Nelva may give me some interesting plot ideas, I think Chester wants to have a relationship with her. Since I've cleverly moved her to the sidelines (he has no way of contacting her), I have some time to think about it. This “time” may be no more than an hour's writing, or it could be weeks.

Chapter 2 is very short, so it's done already, too! If the novel started off funny, it got a bit sentimental here. I had to do some exposition / backstory stuff and may have manhandled the whole thing. We get a glimpse of Lotty and Chester's naked feet, though, so that should thrill the fetishists. I've now got Chester working, but don't have any description of his home other than it's an apartment that has a pool and hot tub.

11/05

Stuck again, but maybe not really.

I expect to begin Chapter 3 today and, to get things going, will do it from Lotty's POV. I don't know what Chester's gonna do short term, but I need to keep writing to keep my wordcount up and to see if I can get some sort of plot type thing going. So, I'll jump into Charlotte's head to see what's up with her. I expect to get into her modeling life, maybe intro her agent (but is that too many characters?), and begin leading up to her ring girl job.

Then, last night, it hit me: I don't have any conflict yet.

Okay, Chester and Lotty have realized that the closeness they'd shared all their lives has now been severed, that they are no longer “three.” I may have been too subtle with that, but it's out there. They want to correct that imbalance, but I see that as being the second goal. I heard that characters should have two goals, one obvious and physical and another psychological one. I believe the second one may not even be evident to the character.

Both Chester and Lotty need to have a goal. The lack of this has bothered me all through October and I felt at one time I had something nailed. Now, not so much.

I'm hoping that writing from Lotty's POV will give me her goal. Maybe Chester's can be tracking Nelva down.

11/06

Finished Charlotte's chapter today. In the immortal words of somebody famous, “Oh, my.”

Okay, I gots me plenty to do during NaNoEdMo and by “plenty” I mean “plenty.” I got the plot parts fleshed out, a little, but it's still more Chris' broad strokes than anything else. The thing I realized after doing the first part yesterday was that I think I'll have to re-write the whole chapter. One of the keys to doing multiple POV is making sure that the different points of view sound different. Yeah, I know, these two are related, but they shouldn't both sound so much alike (and as much like me). I think if I stuck with a single POV it wouldn't be as obvious that my writing skills don't yet measure up. I also think that every sentence should sound like the character saying it. As it stands now, I think Chapter 3 could be easily renamed “Chester with boobs.”

OTOH, we found out about Lotty's job and set the stage for her ring girl gig. She's a much more interesting character than Chester is. Oh, and she had her underwear stolen from the laundry and Chester's having a party.

11/08

The party has been written -- and Chapter 4 completed -- but I'm not sure what it has to do with the story. I still have the vague notion of what this story's supposed to be about (Chester's decision) sitting out there, but I'm not making any progress toward it. The thing is, for that to begin I have to bring Charlene and Vince back from their honeymoon. I guess I could leap forward another week without too much trouble, but I want to touch on Charlotte's not telling Chester about the theft (to show her growing apart and independent) and maybe on Chester's search for Nelva. Maybe she could be part of the Conspiracy Theory crowd, too...hold on...I'm thinking...there can be some sort of CT convention that Lotty works. Chester goes there to watch over her or something, and runs into Nelva.

...plot forming...

11/12

It's been awhile.

The novel is coming along even if the story isn't. I had a realization last night, one that was only ten days overdue: the problem this year is that I'm not enjoying the writing. That is why the story and everything is so flat. I'm not sure I can fake or force excitement and interest, but I'm going to try. I need to enjoy the writing process, not try to hurry through it. Y'know, it's one of those “journey, not the destination” things.

In the meantime, I've finished Chapter 5 and Chapter 6. Neither one of them advance the plot, which hasn't even surfaced yet, but they have value in adding to my wordcount. I guess I could excuse them, also, by talking about them “exposing the characters,” but not with a straight face. The good news is that with my new-found dedication (hah!) things will begin to happen!

11/14

I did it! Yesterday, somewhere around the 22,000 mark I wrote a paragraph or two that actually felt like writing! I don't know if they're particularly good, but it was a pleasant change from the flat “telling” that I'd written up to that point. I don't know if I can recapture that magic, but it was as if an old, familiar friend walked into the room.

Yesterday, on campus, I hammered Chapter 7 out. In it, and I hadn't realized this was going to happen, Chester and Lotty's long-time friend Sheila become attracted to each other. Tons of exposition, very little wit, and my plot which has yet to be broached now has this extra romantic element. I'm just drawing cards here, but I think I'll begin playing them later today.

11/17

Things have been proceeding well as far as wordcount is concerned. Over the weekend I met with some other writers and broke my AlphaSmart. I've managed to get it from having a few sticky keys, which annoyed me, to having different keys which don't work at all. This, sadly, is typical for my attempts to fix things.

The novel, on the other hand, has dipped the proverbial toe into the rich waters of plot. Chapter 8, a very short one, reminds the reader that Chester can't complete his goal without help but gives me the elements to make that happen. Chapter 9 gets everyone together so that I can (finally) start the story.

Then, in Chapter 10, it happens! My gradiose plans for the novel can begin coming into play! My thought's been that Chester will suffer an identity crisis when his sisters outgrow their need to have him as a proctector. The story will be his loss of that role. To accomplish that noble idea, Charlene will find what she needs in her husband, Vince, and Lotty will ... well, she won't need Chester any more, either. Vince will become a conspiracy theorist and Charlene will join him. Lotty, maybe, will, too. Chester will be given the opportunity to go along with them against his values, or to break with his sisters and destroy the threesome.

11/19

Things are happening now, even in the story! I've completed Chapter 11, one of those “setting the scenes” things that add to the wordcount without adding to the story, and Chapter 12, which is all about story. Mostly. I guess.

Now my dread takes on a new guise. I have eighteen thousand words to go before I complete this, and I have a nagging suspicion it will take more than that. I'm afraid of ending up with another disaster, like last year's effort. I'm not worried about doing the necessary writing, not yet, but I'm scared that the climax will be, well, not very climatic. I can run the characters through the things that will get to them to the climax, but I'm not sure that it won't be flat. I need to build up to the “big moment,” and I wonder if the remaining words will be enough to let me do that.

Pacing. That's the thing I need to work on!

11/24

A lot's happened, but not so much on the page, written down. I see, once again, that I'm a very slow learner. This novel, ostensibly the story of a fraternal triplet to a pair of identical twin sisters and his long, dark night of the soul when he realizes that without the role of their protector he is lost probably won't be written this month. It was supposed to be his story, but a couple things happened. The most obvious, now, is that when you write something from alternating POVs it becomes more than one person's story. This, in hindsight, is obvious.

I've been writing half the book from his POV and half from one of his sister's. A bolt of lightning has hit me and I see that the chapters from her POV are her story. This, incredibly, was news to me. It doesn't hurt the book , but it makes the title misleading. I could, but won't, call it ironic.

Another thing has reared its ugly head. I've gotten into the plot now and, with one week left to write, I have a huge hill to climb. I've reached the part of the book where I need to describe Chester's loss of his role and his motivation. What I have in my mind, and this hasn't become any more clear since October, is “a series of events show him growing unhappily distant from his sisters.” The thing is, I still have no idea what that series of events will consist of.

Chester's chapters are, often, the more fun to write. He might be the more interesting character, but Lotty has the more interesting life.

I got Chester in a pickle in Chapter 13 when he slept with Lotty's best friend. I don't know about real life, but she's unhappy about him doing that. In Chapter 14 I try to make her difficulty with it believable and in Chapter 15 I bring back his first affair. My thought was that he'd go after her and dump his sister's friend, just to begin that whole separating and distancing thing when his sister gets pissed about his hurting her friend.

11/27

I've become convinced there are two important elements in writing a story. I don't think one of them is the more important, but I'm not sure about that. The first thing is story. What happens has to be engaging, Equally important, I think, is language. How the story is presented, how it's written, is one of the things that separates amateur work from that of the professionals. A great story won't be a good book just because the idea, the plot, the pacing are good. Those things, by themselves, won't make a good read. But no matter how well the story is phrased and presented, it won't be a good book unless the story is interesting.

I mention that because it's clear to me that right now all I'm doing is getting the story down. I haven't been making much use of language. I don't usually write a first draft with wonderful metaphors and similes, those things that make reading enjoyable, and I think that's one of the reasons Kicker feels so flat right now. It is flat now.

I'm unsure if I'll have the time or the ability to do what I want with the story in the few days I've got left. Chapter 16 came out differently than I expected. Chester's earlier love interest, Nelva, wanted nothing to do with him so he made up with Sheila. Then, in Chapter 17, I had to get deeper into how his affair with her best friend influenced Chester and Lotty's relationship.

I only have a few days left to bring up Chester's whole “loss of identity” thing. Right now it doesn't feel as driving at it did earlier and I don't think I'll have time to make it happen. Also, if Chester's starting a new love affair, I doubt that he'll be mourning the loss of his role as his sisters' protector. Maybe some sort of transference thing will happen, with him having to take on protecting Sheila, and maybe that will remind him of what he had with his sisters. The one thing that I have managed to get on the page is Lotty's separating from him.

11/29

I made it past the 50,000 word threshold, but the novel isn't completed yet. I don't know if I'm 2/3 or ¾ of the way finished, but I can quickly (and flatly) wrap this up if I want to get the winner's certificate. I remember last year feeling I cheated by having enough words but not haven written a novel. This year I can finish a bad novel, one without any emotional rise and fall, and then spend part of December trying to build up to the climax. I can put the climax in now, but it won't carry much weight.

11/30

I just finished, and just got my winner's icon and all that jazz. It's sad in a way, not having Lotty and Chester to play with any more. Maybe in a month or so I can pick it back up and work on it. I know there's lots to do. Typically, like most amateur novels, the story doesn't get going until many pages into it, so I can probably safely start the novel around Chapter 6 or so.

The serious flaws I'm aware of are two chapters that are nothing but dialogue, an equal number of them that are telling the whole story (I had to rush to get the story completed). Lotty becomes quite bitchy later on, but I still love her. She's not a bad person, just doing bad things.

I hope to update the rest of this stuff soon, maybe later today.