In four days, I have to start writing a novel of 50,000 words. As of yet, I have close to no idea of what it will be about. Spontaniety and such is all well and good, but it's impossible to start on page one with no characters, setting, plot, theme. So this, my first blog entry, will be a brainstorming session.

Aeryn mentioned to me that maybe I should use the scraps of a language that Dite and we were working on, ages ago. It was called A, and it had its own writing system, and collection of sounds. It was meant to be as unarbitrary as possible; there were five pure vowels and the symbols for them were based on the shape of a person's mouth as they made the sounds, and everything was categorized. Each sound in the language stood for something, each vowel each diphthong each constanant-vowel combination was a category, and every word would have been based on that in the end. The more specific a concept, the longer the word. The shortest and purest word stood for divinity, the world, the sacred. A. It looked more like O in our orthography. The other thing about the language was that there were no parts of speech. Every word stood for an idea that could be expressable as a noun, a verb, an adjective, etc. There were suffixes and and prefixes to mark out the territory of an intelligible sentence, but now I wonder if even that was necessary. It was an ambitious project, but I don't know that I could write a novel based on it in any way. It simply needs too much work to be useable, no matter what Aeryn says. And I have no time.

It is good to be out, to feel words like pearls under my fingertips. I don't type as fast as many of our fronts; my time was a time of pen and ink, or rather graphite, of smooth sheets of lined notebook paper, of journals with flowery covers, of candle-lit ideals and Victorian romance. Yes, we became who we were with the help of our heroine, Maud (LM Montgomery.) But it was much more than the worship of one author.

I can adapt. I am Julian-like in my prowess; I mold myself to any passing emotion, using it for my own purposes. When we moved on, gradually, passing through from one point: all that was Victorian and natural, flowery, gardens, archaisms, to another: the subtle darkness of a tormented teenage lesbian, no stranger to loneliness, cutting, even madness. In between there were boarding schools where young lesbians timidly sought each other out admist beautiful scenery, fear of headmistresses, and they had more and more angst. I am equipped to write this, and even now I am warming up, remembering myself, playing in my puddle of words. The best thing about this project is it doesn't have to be good, or economical. In fact, the more words flung about, wasted, the better. 50,000 is what it's got to come to.

They say, and let me keep it here for ease of reference: "Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

"Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down."

But before I can do even that, I need a pearl, a nugget, a seed, just something to start with. I need characters, I need direction, I need to brainstorm.

Obviously I've thought of doing it about someone multiple. It's important to write about what interests us, what is close to home, etc. But that doesn't narrow the options much. I'm interested in fantasy; it's a genre I've never been able to do much, if any, writing in, but one we read far and away above any other type of writing. For a long time, there's been the idea of the sort of autobiography that many multiples churn out, with a twist: it's written from the inside, as a fantasy novel.

And yet, the person outside matters. And this work of fiction can borrow from out experience, but we learned a long time ago that we know far too little to write an autobiography, even a fictionalized one, and it's not that wonderful of an idea anyhow.

If we focus solely on the inside, some issues that would help with the writing would be ignored. We have difficulty dealing with the world, and difference: difficulty and difference are good chunks of conflict, a veritable gold mine, etc. We cut, we argue about what to do with the body, we have flashbacks at work, we are mired in sloggy boggy depression, we attempt suicide, we have sex, we argue about sex, we seek sex, we seek violence, we lose our ability to do math when e takes a little vacation, and on and on. said gold mine.

but while there is conflict there, plot is hard to come by. an internal fantasy world is rich with plots, rich with meaning, fraught with symbolism and magic and the power of thought and grand plans and purposes and events.

so it seems clear that we should write a book about a multiple that deals both with worlds external and internal. then we worry about how like us that multiple is.

it might be more interesting if we don't write about someone who is just lounging around on disability, trying to fill the day with video games, getting more and more depressed. it can be done, and prozac highway was such a good book, but it might be more interesting to have events, externally. maybe the multiple could be in the hospital. maybe they could be in school. maybe both, starting at one and transitioning to the other.

but while it's important to write what we know, we're getting into too much of a life story here. i don't know. we could write about a crappy job, we've had those too, but that's kind of dumb.

(i just realized that i got sufficiently into brainstorm mode that i stopped capitalizing. odd. i have to remember to use good grammar and capitalization in the book, unless it's on purpose for effect that i don't.)

actually i'm partly attracted to someone being in a mental hospital because of a suicide attempt or something like that, and focus on the inside. days go by so slowly, and oh we could have much to say about the awful awful hospital, i think a bad one like dominican would be much better than a good one like del amo, plus the sympathetic therapist thing is overdone. (it would be something that is outside our experience, which would ease the sense that we're doing a life story, but it is overdone. also, what's wrong with staying entirely within our experience? our life fictionalized enough so that the words could flow and the plot tie together might be the best, after all.)

so what have we got? a multiple is a student, in high school, in college, something. high school might be interesting, we could get a lot of aggression out towards mother, classmates, so many hostile influences. a high school student who is a multiple, yes we can go with the stupid trauma background but it isn't the focus.

oh it's getting exciting! i'm seeing a shape!

then something happens, the multiple is no longer able to keep it together, and they are sent to (da da da) Local Psych Ward no. 52. as a minor, the people there would have to also be minors, and we haven't had that experience. they could be just over 18 and a senior in high school... but over-18 and in school we never experienced either. i like the element of youth, someone who if they only could would hightail it out of there, school or no school.

anyway, this thing is woven together with the internal story. the fantasy the saga etc. and somehow, the Quest should get resolved in a way that resolves the outside too. (but not too neatly.) but there's a lot of potential there.

there would be a fronter-type, but it might be interesting to make them be not so clueless. clueless fronter type's been so done. but they shouldn't be too clue-ful either, because them finding things out can be very important.

but what's the balance between clueless and clueful? i had a thought a second ago. they would be seen as schitzo maybe, except then they'd be given drugs and that's something we know little about. although we did have that month, we could draw on that, that's true. but we've never been given heavy psych drugs with they would if they were hallucinating and stuff, or so the Outsiders thought.

they live with their mother, they are isolated and alone, i keep thinking maybe the time they spend inside they could think of as their rich fantasy life. i don't know. they live with their mother, have no friends, that is just common sense. they cut, secretly, no one knows.

i have to think of something interesting to do with what gets them sent to the hospital. it should be early on in the book too. chapter three or four. something like that.

they are drowning in their school. barely there, notebooks covered with doodles they don't understand, isolation, decent grades, perhaps despite the fact that they don't know shit about their classes. home is a blur they spend in their room. they stare into space a lot (times when no one is out?) they deal with home quietly because they've learned to, but they're NOT the gullible hardworking fronter we were. they don't assume their mother is right.

possible get-sent-to-hospital scenarios:
suicide attempt
little comes out somewhere public, or someone like that
the line between inside and outside gets too blurred
continuity director takes a vacation

there's a lot of that for just half of the book. man. i mean like, i was thinking they could have these things slowly happen, like first we establish their life, the fact that stuff gets done even when they don't do it, and then a big project isn't turned in, and then some sort of public upset. it could be all of those things together, leading to one big dramatic mess. we'll see.

it's the inside story that's not cementing good enough for me. i have to think about that part of it now.

the fronter type has a fantasy life, they think. they don't analyze about whether it's real or fake, they just drift into it when life gets too hard.

now fantasy books often have worlds that have been slowly getting worse, or suddenly get worse, are in danger of immenent disaster because of some worsening threat. the degeneration of the Outside world would have to be based on some kind of worsening. but in our own life... it's entropy i guess, things just were bad already. they get worse because they are uncovered?

coz i can see if like they have this quiet internal life and then they realize they're a prisoner. but if getting out of prison was their thing they needed to do at the end to make things better, then why were things degenerating?

maybe getting out of prison is what starts the degeneration. maybe challenging those restrictive walls causes the fallout. our hero won't take shit, when they realize they're fucking locked in they're not going to fucking stand for it.

a teenager of the 90s. i think i should admit, it's a girl. i can't write a boy really.

who is locked in with her? what happens? i don't know. she can't have the very very rich fantasy life if she's a prisoner. maybe she's not necessarily. maybe she discovers some intrigue and challenges it.

it could be a city. that would be a change. it wouldn't be so traditionally fantasy though. our land of pine forest, it's kind of empty.

i think at some point her mother should realize what's going on and try to foil everything. maybe. i don't know.

i need a better fantasy. i need a better internal world. maybe A could fit in. maybe it shouldn't be so straightforward. i don't fucking know. it can't be that innovative because it's such a secondary plot, or not secondary but the whole point is the way it's tied to another world.

what about sci fi internally? computer metaphors and all of that. inside her head it is a city. glass and light, computers, junkies, dazzlement.

scenery should be stunning: it's part of why she goes there. she has always wandered in this city, but she is lonely there too? she meets people, but never for more than an afternoon. she never really understands, but she never tried.

so in the beginning she should be in school or something and establish some of the conflict of her external world, and then fade to daydream. she's wandering in the city like she does, and establish that she does it. maybe she should have a characteristic encounter. maybe there should be sex.

i'm tired. i will think about this more later.

It's not often that I write a site designed for privacy. It will be viewed eventually, or opened for viewing, but not for over a month. So I can write meaningful entries without having the design be perfect. But I would like to have the site working. It's complicated. At least to me it is. Others enjoy this sort of thing, but even with the best it is a difficult thing to understand, Moveable Type. Anyhow.

I told Aeryn about my plot and the problems I was having trying to think of things, and she got really anxious and seemed angry at me. She said we could talk about it later. I forgot how touchy they can be about giving ideas and opinions. I'll have to remember to lay off.

I'm not used to being out. This month will be interesting for more than one reason.