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.
I worry about my little project, that it doesn't have enough life to sustain itself for thirty whole days. I lay in bed last night when I was supposed to be getting to sleep, worrying about it. The high school thing is maybe too old and tired for me. I always write boring things about schools. I don't want my story to limp ever; I want it to soar and dance and sparkle with lightning. I am having a lot of trouble fleshing out the internal part of the plot. The story is only interesting if that is very strong.
Aeryn scowled when I told her part of the plot I was thinking of, and claimed it didn't mean anything, but I'm worried. I can't quite love that aspect if she disapproves. I was really hoping for some good feedback and input and stuff, or even just enthusiasm on the parts that sounded good.
I also worry about the whole high school breakdown thing - it reminds me of a friend's life more than my own. And maybe she should be older, more mature. Maybe the whole high school breakdown is boring and dumb.
I just read the story we wrote, not too long ago. With the high-school multiple finding out about herself. It's awful, really terrible, but it's also too similar to what I'm thinking of doing now.
I think the whole thing should be in the hospital. Or at least it should start in the hospital, maybe flash back to how she got put in there. And I think she should be older.
I have to think of the characters and setting inside, maybe that would help me think of the events. Or maybe the events will come first. I keep drawing a blank.
There's the idea of a city, with the computer theme, the psionics and programs and stuff. But I haven't read all that much cyberpunk and I don't know where I could really go with that. There's the castle and forest and mist and stuff, the dungeon maybe and maybe the tribe of empaths who live on mist. That's harder for someone to fit in with, everyone has their place and lives are not so bustling or anonymous. The city idea is good for anonymity. It's also different. I just don't know how comfortable I would be in that. But hell, I'm not that much more comfortable in your standard fantasy either. I'm certainly not having big ideas.
So she's in a city. Like the City in the Sky can be the model. or the Endless City, but we know very little about that. I like the glass theme that the City in the Sky has. She is in the hospital, maybe chapter one can just be her outside in the hospital, in first person, she's looking back at the events that led her inside. And she's not a minor. She's a college student. But her mother will come down and visit, if we need her as a character. She's like us, except it's her first quarter of school, and she's fresh out of high school, which she barely finished although she graduated with honors. Or maybe it was the summer after high school. Or maybe it's her third quarter, hell I don't know. We'll assume she was in college, in the dorms, when the madness struck. I think first quarter. The being away from mother shakes things up.
She is in the hospital, thinking back a month, two weeks, some amount of time to when she got put in. Earlier probably. She's thinking back to starting college, first chapter can be all outside. She can talk about her daydream life, her fantasies, sometimes sexual in nature. The rhythm. She can talk about the darkness growing bigger and swallowing her for more of the time, she can talk about finding herself in situations she didn't know what to do with. She can talk about the being able to see but not control, like a car that didn't respond to the driver's input at all, but slid and slid on the ice without hardly a mind to the laws of physics.
And remember: it's OKAY to write badly! That's the whole Purpose!
I don't know what will happen inside, yet. I think the city idea might be a good one. But I know how I'll begin.
When brainstorming, I can't write well. It's impossible. I started this entry cleverly, then gave up and backspaced it. I need the chatty, self-referential tone on me in order to think.
I remember that we're starting in a hospital. She is going to start there, talk about her madness or her blackness or whatever you want to call it. A few things are going to happen at the hospital, maybe, to establish things. Maybe she should have just gotten there, be waiting for some sort of intake. Maybe not. She's at the hospital, a few outside things happen. And she slips into her fantasy life, out of boredom, out of tiredness, out of all of it.
She'll start somewhere familiar. She'll think, the nice thing about coming here is I don't have to be myself. I get so sick of that person I've become. I have freedom from all that here.
I'm seeing a fountain. A glass fountain in a well-kept city square, a fountain of blue glass, pale and water. Opaque navy center, to hide the pipes, but the bit that holds the falling water is a very subtle, very watery blue. She is watching the water move, letting it take her away.
She meets someone. Obviously this is the time for some sort of interesting opening interaction. Someone she hasn't met before, someone more direct and communicative than usual. Something like "So they've taken you." Referring to the outside. No? Maybe. I don't know. "Have you thought about your place here?"
I'm trying to see the scene to see if it gives me any ideas I hadn't thought of. Some sort of thread. Some sort of journey.
I could see people being upset with her or fucking with her inside life because "she" sent them to hospital. But I thought this should be more internal. Maybe that's her introduction to the reality of it all. Some Miss Shirley type or other being all, what is wrong with you? This is not acceptable!
So there's the adjustment period, when she realizes it's real. In the process, maybe she should realize that Something is Not Right. Maybe it should be something like, she's the Authorized Front and she realizes how fucked up that is. Some computery council that is running the Front. And no one else gets to do shit, because they know stuff. And she can't do it all alone.
Maybe that's dumb. I don't know.
So then there would be some sort of fight, some sort of quest, where she tries to upset things. I don't know. It's a start. Really, I'd like to just begin writing before I form it any more. I've got an okay start, and this novel is Supposed to be mediocre.
My girl needs a name, I think. Names come hard to me. Names I choose either smack of mediocrity forever, or are those wonderful accidents that years later still hold up. Tunneling was a good name, for our journal. Shiveringnaked was even a good name for the domain, the site in general. This book already has a title, and I don't know why I feel certain enough about it to even name the subdirectory after it. The Liquid.
When we were in high school, we were adamant Indigo Girls fans, and joined a mailing list devoted to other such fans. There we found out about many groups, and found out something else: our favorite artist at the time might have been Melissa Etheridge, but Indigo Girls fans liked what we liked. So we ordered a cd by Melissa Ferrick, based on recommendations.
Or maybe we asked for it for Christmas. I remember it was around Christmas that the words burned into me. The first listen was on random shuffle with everyone else's new music. Her voice struck me, and two days later I had listened to the cd maybe thirty, thirty-five times. I remember I was counting how many times in a row, with no other music, it would go. It was her best cd, and the words said something to me. I eventually settled on a favorite song, Heredity. It was like a prophecy for me, who had never been in relationships really. I'll quote the lyrics.
heredity
she took me to a secret place
not knowing that i had been there before
and i struggle with the memories
already lingering behind the door
deciding in an instant
not to bring it up
i slapped a smile on my face
blocked my tongue with my teeth
to keep it from falling out
and on the bed, well it came to her
all the reasons for getting away
yeah they poured out all over me
they poured out in anger and in rage
and she said well i don't know what it is
why we are falling apart
i only know that i am not happy
not when i know that you're breaking my heart
but i won't lay here and judge you
cause everybody goes through their stuff
but your stuff is drowning us
cause the liquid is killing her
it's washing her away
it's pulling her under a veil of white
and beneath the dead mermaids
all screaming out her name
they're screaming out her name
heredity, yeah yeah yeah...
so brought the conversation
you know that it all came back around
and the out of the one constant evil
that grew in small towns
and she said well why do you do it
why do you let yourself go
and i replied
i have no answer for a question with so many years to go
but the liquid is killing her
it's washing her away
it's pulling her under a veil of white
and beneath the dead mermaids
all screaming out her name
they're screaming out her name
heredity, yeah yeah yeah...
so she left me for a while
in the room that i had known before
and only now do i wonder about
that chances of a beginning and an ending on the same hotel floor
and then i think of her walking
alone in the dark
there were tears of surrender
and with a stomach full of knots
and she's thinking i should have said nothing
cause i'm not ready to let this love go
she thinks she spoke prematurely
she thinks that i don't know
that the liquid is killing her
it's washing her away
it's pulling her under a veil of white
and beneath the dead mermaids
all screaming out her name
they're screaming out her name
said the liquid is killing her
it's washing her away
it's pulling her under a veil of white
and beneath the dead mermaids
all screaming out her name
they're screaming out her name
heredity, yeah yeah yeah...
yeah yeah yeah...
I wrote a short story based on this song, and one of my interpretations. Of course, Melissa was talking about alcoholism, which I know now because I've heard her talk about it, now that she's sober. Heredity, because her father (at least him) before her knew the same struggle. "The liquid" in the song refers to the alcohol; that seems a reasonable assumption.
Alcohol is playing no part in this book, as far as I know. So why The Liquid? I remember listening to this song with tears of recognition and fear rolling down my face. I knew that every one of my relationships would end because I was too fucked-up. I told Dite, when I got together with her, about that fear, and she scoffed. But when I look at all the reasons why we split apart, I think the biggest was just that: my stuff was drowning her. We have learned since then that other people who are equally fucked up provide give and take, understanding, more peace.
But I guess in my head the liquid has always represented the stuff that drowns me, when I'm struggling with the black waves of my depression, my madness. The drowning metaphor has been one that's stuck, and the song is also stuck in me to represent my darkness. Even though my character doesn't have a relationship to wash away. She has those black waves licking over her head, and they are the liquid.
I can't figure out if it's good or cheesy, this title, but I'm happy with it. Titles that try to be too much never are, unless it's the book that holds them up and makes them famous.
So, my girl drowning in her Liquid. (I think there's more connotations behind the title that I haven't caught yet.) She is nameless. And I need a really good name, to write a whole book about her.
But names of people are harder. The names we've really connected with in the past have been taken in our own system, and we didn't know. Now that we know, there's no chance of that. If we used one of our own names, she'd be colored by us.
I'm over at this page that generated names based on US census data. It suggested Merilyn Herrlich for me, just now. Of course the last name should probably not be very foreign (German in this case) because I don't have the knowledge or desire to do a family with a lot of that sort of heritage. My family doesn't have much in the way of "heritage". Mostly it's English and Scottish and suchlike, but I can't think of any ways that's entered my life. As far as religion, our mother is pagan, grandmother is athiest, great-grand-generation is mormon, and I assume the mormons go back. But they don't go back that far, obviously; it's such a new religion. Didn't bring it over from another country. It's the American Religion (tm). And the only way my heritage is Mormon is that my mother goes out of her way to despise them, because she had to grow up with them, living in Utah. Anyway. Tangent. I do that.
Merilyn, let's spin the dice a few more times. Stefanie? So many names are unusable because I know people with that name, but if I have never known anyone with that name I might also avoid it, because it seems too rare or strange. Audrey? spin spin. Clara, Marianne, Rose, Alison, Sylvia, Lynne keeps coming up, that's nice but everyone who read it would think of Lynn in a system we know. Melissa, that's solid and common. Charlotte, Angela, Shannon, Tara, Valerie, names coming out of the walls. Ciara, Lissa, Leda, Gemma, Stella. So many names. Let's look at a site with meaning. Hm, Marianne means bitter. I wonder what else means bitter? Wow, Malia. I think ex girlfriends are not allowed. Also Mara, Marisha, all forms of Marilyn (oh, I guess that's what Merilyn is.... innnteresting.) Marlin is one. Marli, Marlo. Amorite means bitter AND a rebel. Anamari. Imrah - A rebel, waxing bitter, changing. wow. Marian. Meraioth, similar to Imrah. Lorna means alone. Deirdre means sad.
I'm leaning toward the Marianne/Marilyn series. I actually kind of like Merilyn, which was in the first random set we got. I like the meaning for Imrah, but it's not a very good name.
Aeryn pointed out that Merilyn sounds like Merlin, which I didn't even see. Darn it.
Amorite. Rather outlandish. Maybe I'm better off just picking one based on how it sounds...
I don't know, I don't know!
Maybe Dierdre. Aeryn likes that one. I don't know, it sounds too sad and slow and refined to me. I love the name, but i don't know if it's my character.
All right. Valerie. Perhaps we'll go with that. (After asking Aeryn her favorites.) How about Valerie Nesbitt?
It seems so final, to decide. But I have to decide sometime. Valerie means strength. (Nesbitt is apparently my great-grandmother's maiden name.) We'll just go with that. It's not life-or-death, after all.
Dani called us all in a panic yesterday because the NaNoWriMo project doesn't allow collaborative novels. "What are you going to do?" he squealed.
We didn't get it at first. "I don't understand," we said.
He tried another tack. "Who in your system is writing the novel?"
"Kate," said Claire, still without understanding what the fuss was.
"Darn it," Dani grumped, "I'm going to go call someone this news matters to."
Finally Claire grokked that he was assuming a multiple system would collaborate to write anything, and two or more people are not, by the rules, supposed to jointly write a novel. I told him to post in the forums about it, but I don't think he did. (Checking... nope. 0 posts by kaleidoscopehouse. Even we have posted... 5 times.)
But we're not collaborating, so the issue does not worry us. Is this strange behavior for such a multiple? Are we wasting the resources of our vast and complex brain? It feels good to be the sole author of this baby novel. (Um... this about-to-be-born novel?) There is a sense of ownership all mine, and it's been a long time since I had this kind of body time. My novel. My baby little novel. I feel a sense of kinship with Julian, who also steals emotions and situations to create his work solo. He dedicates his songs to the person he stole from. Who would I dedicate this work to? It has a grander scope than one song does.
I am out, I am me, I will get time. This body has changed so much, people have come and gone, situations change, but I am still me and words are still mine, and I don't care who else isn't; I'm staying up tonight and starting at midnight.
Unless, of course, I get tired.
I want to write now. I'm afraid this mood won't last. I'm afraid tomorrow will come and my fingers will stare blankly at me, wondering why I had such courage, such confidence in them. The month will be rocky and I can't believe that I'll actually do it. I plan to, though. I might even go to Scotts Valley for a scruzers write-a-thon, some Sunday. I'd have to be able to buy something to write on, first.
It's two hours until November. I was so resolved - I was going to stay up and write. But my eyes are droopy (it's only ten) and I am not a night person. I don't know how beautiful or coherent I can be, and honestly, I don't know why I would want to write at midnight.
So it's to bed with me. Tomorrow morning the madness begins.
I'm having a rough day for writing. I'm not sure where I want to go or what I want to say. I don't know much about the characters, except Valerie. I have vague ideas only.
I was talking about them to Aeryn while we waited for the bus, and she had some good ideas. Their novel is accidentally very similar to mine in the idea, but fundamentally there are a lot of differences. Anyway, they suggested doing a sort of character sketch of the Endless City, you know, political structure, government, all that. Something outside of my actual words.
Here's the vision I have so far: interspersed with action in the hospital (with flashbacks about getting there, life before, etc), she tangles with this prickly, perpetually amused, above-it-all person until she learns more about the Nature of the World. she realizes slowly that
(thought: "You can't realize a thing any other way than suddenly, I think. The seeds might be there, the truth you're not willing to look at, but looking it full in the face is something that happens in an instant. There's no slow progression; there is only not-knowing in the face of increasing odds.")
she realizes the nature of power in this place, well actually first she realizes that it's real, fairly quickly. that they know about the outside, they can act independently of her, even do things she can't do. even control her in ways. control the front. interact with the front. etc. so then she realizes that the power structure is not her idea of fair: a political sort of thing. and she goes on some Quest some Cynical Crusade to make things better. possibly when she starts going too far some Miss Shirley type even locks her away from the front. and stuff like that. i don't know how it ends.
i'm thinking the Endless City is ruled supposedly by a council, which listens to the public and pretends to fairness. but the miss shirley type is the only real person in this council, and she or he is a puppet of the Dark Organization. who oppresses the City how? i don't fucking know. my head hurts. each person each type of person has their own job, their own people they're allowed to interact with, their own amount of freedom. the prison is often arranged to look not like a prison, such as for Valerie.
wow, my head hurts suddenly. i will have to save the intensive thinking for later.
On a lighter note, I got a Sony Clie!!!!!!! It is so fantabulously fantabulous that I can't hardly believe it. It's such a new model that there's no fold-out keyboard for it, though. Hopefully they'll come out with one soon. 3rd quarter 2002, is what stowaway's site said. So. I wait.
We also got tons of halloween candy, but that's entry fodder for a different journal.
I download an open-source office suite called openOffice.org (I think they title is mainly so they can call it oOo), and I'm really happy, because I wasn't looking forward to the day when I'd have to install Word and such on this computer. The word-processing program is spiffy and fun, and seems to have a lot of funtionality.
I'm going to do my writing in there, because trying to write directly into Moveable Type was making all my segments be too short. I'm pretty pleased with the way things were going, although I am worried that writing too many things from Doran's point of view will give the reader too much information, too early.
I guess I was sort of going with the theory that the reader discovers the nature of the world on the same sort of timeline as Valerie. But that isn't how things are shaping up, and it's generating me too many words for me to complain. So I'm going to go with that; I like the freedom it gives me, it was hard to always be limited to Valerie's small knowledge and experiences and perspective. And I think Doran has a lot of potential to rebel. There's all kinds of directions this thing could go.
Today and yesterday we've been having a pretty hard time - unrelated to writing the novel, but this afternoon I realized that all of my frustration and angst were putting me right into Valerie's tired little shoes, and I think instead of writing in tunneling this month I'll be using a lot of our feelings to put into the book. It's all for a good cause.
I find myself wishing I could be more like Valerie - she seems so much stronger than most of us are here, so much more able to say fuck-you to the world.
I think writing in a word-processing document is allowing me to write with more quantity and less quality, less worrying, less editing. I think that's a good thing.
I wrote maybe 500 words yesterday - bad me! So today I have to charge ahead. I had therapy and voting yesterday and then Nymph was out for a long time. And then I went to bed. It's really kind of sad how the day just evaporated. We were having a lot of panic all day though. But we WILL finish on time. We must!
I like where the story is going, I think. I'm worried about the lack of characters, and because of all the going-crazy that's supposed to happen gradually, I need to make some serious time pass. I think I will have a long section in the hospital. Or something. I don't even know.
I'm worried that my story is trying to be too much, and I'll never write something pretty in a month. I read Dani's story so far and it's just so cute and cool, but mine is trying to be so ambitious. And it will fail, I am afraid.
Anyway, I don't want to waste too many words on the process entry, because I need to get some serious writing in! I'm going to set goals for myself today, and do nothing but write for a long time.
First I have to go make a photo entry though. Ah, how I love my new PDA.