After NaNoWriMo

So November and the National International Novel Writing Month is finished. My 50,000 words are sitting smugly on the computer and I'm in a writing lull, catching my breath and blinking alot. 

Christmas is here, the holidays are here, we're busy not-getting-done-the-long-to-do-list I write each year for my Beloved's university holidays and I'm staring around rather blankly wondering what next. Of course there's the to-do list, but my Beloved and I are rather at odds about the-to-do-list. And I can see his point. 

After the madness that was November we're both in collapse mode and only just rising from (figuratively speaking) shuddering heaps on the floor. 

Seriously, what was I thinking trying to do NaNo in the months of the major exams of my Beloved's med course, while we were both sick, with one car out of action, the garden looking like something from a horror movie with one shed roof and a few massive branches knocked out with the big winds recently, another shed roof collapsed after the Sprocket decided to dance upon it, and weeds taller than Poppet. And the house not much better. 

Hmm. Maybe that's what I was thinking with Nano. Not thinking about it. Instead trying for something achievable. With a tangible end. And time pretending to be on top of everything in civilised cafes. 

Amongst all the disasters it's comforting to know that the bones of a brand new novel are sitting waiting to be finished. Of course, the fifty-thousand completed words only turned out to be about fifteen chapters out of twenty-six. Despite three assassination attempts, actually, no, four,  a couple of life-changing revelations and a sea-journey into the past, I'm only beginning to get to the really fun bits. 

I'll hopefully get the last forty-thousand words written over the next few months, put the whole thing aside for six months, ruthlessly cut ten to twenty thousand words and then put the whole thing up on the online writers site, Scribophile for critiquing. Which will take maybe another two months to earn the karma and then make the suggested changes. 

Writing is a long, slow, process. 

By the time the first draft of the book I've just been working on - momentarily titled Green Dragon Waking -  is finished, I hope to have completed the first fifty thousand words of the next two novels in the series. (And yes, most of my giddy spine-tingles at the moment are reserved for those stories. The New, Improved, All Kinds of Wonderful.) 

But see- look - my certificate! (This years certificate was a bit disappointed, the seem to have decided upon an overly pixelated look I'm not a fan of, but hey, it's still a cute little piece of digital paper to say I did it!)  

Back on (the NaNo) Track

I'm finely back on track.
Nearly half-way through November and I'm finally settling into writing mode to finish my fifty thousand words by the end of the month.
If you'd asked me yesterday I would have said there was no way in the world I could possibly finish the fifty thousand words in time. Today, it all seems possible.
Have I mentioned before that cafe's are wonderful things? I might have?
Let me re-mention it. Cafes are wonderful things. In fact, I might go further and say that cafes - away from all the distractions of home - the washing to do, the floor to mop, the dishes - are a writer's best friend. Or maybe a working mum's best friend. Today after the Kindy drop my Beloved and I both went to the University, me to sit in the cafe (with a coffee, a real, live -okay, not so live, coffee, yay for second trimester!) and write, him to work in the library with his study group. It's oddly companionable to know that we're both frantically working in the same building, although my Beloved obviously has far more at stake.
Anyway, in the cafe, away from distractions, I've managed to put six thousand words under my belt and double my word count.
The cute little Nano graph that tells you how you're going is still looking very behind, but I now only need to write a little over two thousand words a day to catch up. I can do that.
The most annoying thing is the words I wrote pre- Nano, when I was prepping. I wrote about four thousand words before Nano started, just outlining what happens in each chapter, so the story doesn't become too derailed. Now every time I do a word count (roughly every five hundred words, ahem) I have to minus those 4,970 words. It only takes a few seconds, but it's irritating, and the first figure looks smug and respectable and then I minus the 4,970 words and it looks so much less smug and respectable.
But I'm finally back on track. The words are flowing. Those hard, stuttering first chapters are over and I firmly believe (touch wood) that it's all go-go-go from here. The adrenaline is back.
My Beloved has told me I need to write, not least because I am a far nicer person when I am writing. I tend to believe him. And now the story has me firmly in it's grip it's all smiles (and coffee) from here.
Ahem. I hope.  

Family Games - Mah Jong

Unique Wonders - My Beloved won with this hand shortly after I taught him to play, back when we were still living in the Solomon Islands. In all my (um, thirty) years playing he's the only one who has got this hand. He was very proud. 

I think most families have games they always come back to - with us, it's Mah Jong.

In the late 1940's my Great Aunt and her family went to China, where they lived for four years, only returning to Australia when the Communists took over (the boat they left on was shelled). She returned with a Mah Jong set. While my Great Grandmother also left a Mah Jong set (which was possibly older, I'm not sure) it was Great Aunt Jean's set that we played with throughout my childhood. Every time we went down to the beach house, out would come the Mah Jong.

Mah Jong is a lovely, tactile game to play. There's the gentle clack of the tiles as you shuffle, the making of the four walls, the dealing of the hand. First to east, second to south, third to west, fourth to north, and then again, and then again, then first and third to East and one each in order around the table. Tiles are sorted and flower tiles are retrieved from the Flower Wall.

The tiles are solid, cool, the suits and honours engraved in them. 

I think I began playing at three or four, pretty much as soon as I could recognise numbers. I still remember the excitement of playing with the big people, the dark surrounding the small shack, the sound of the sea, the click of the tiles and the great anticipation of what the tiles would bring. 

Mah Jong is very much like Gin Rummy to play. (A fact I discovered on one of the hop-on-hop-off buses going across Eastern Europe. A nice New Zealander taught me to play Gin Rummy - then stopped speaking to me when I won the first four games ...) There are three suits - bamboos, characters and circles and then the 'extras.' The aim is to get four sets of three and a pair, but then there are the fancy hands... the Unique Wonders, the Heavenly Twins, the One to Nine... 

As a child I thought the pinnacle of happiness was to win with an All Green Hand. This would be a hand of two, four, six and eight bamboo, with a pung (or better a kong) of my beloved Green Dragons thrown in for good measure... and if I managed to get a bouquet or a pair of flowers ... all the better. Of course, a one-to-nine is always a lot of fun, as there's the tension of having to pick all the tiles up from your hand, rather than the board, and the dread that a tile will go 'dead' before you get it.

Most places I've gone around the world I've brought a Mah Jong set. Not a lovely old, aged bone or ivory one, but a cheap plastic one, and taught the people around me how to play.

Thus it was that shortly after we started going out my Beloved and I moved into a share house on the shoreline in Honiara, the Solomon Islands and, pretty much simultaneously, I taught him how to play Mah Jong. The house was (is) still, pretty much my dream house. It was all exposed wood and polished  boards, a tree grew through the verandah, the rambling garden was full of basil and chilli, aubergine and tropical flowers, the trees along the sea-line had hammocks to loll in and look out at the-island-that-made-me-sick and the canoes easing by, and there was a leaf house.

When we voted on what to call it, I obviously opted for Green Dragon House. Most people scoffed, but that's what we ended up calling it, Green Dragon House, White River, Solomon Islands. While poker was the main game, Mah Jong came a close second.

Now, the next book I'm writing has a Green Dragon House (indeed a River Valley resting on the top of a sleeping Green Dragon) and a magical Mah Jong set. I am looking forward to ordering the Winds and Dragons about, although of course, my first love is reserved for the Green Dragon.
I'm looking forward to describing the clack of the tiles, the building of the wall, the families coming together.

I got my Mah Jong set out recently when my sister-in-law came to visit, and taught her how to play. While my kids only showed marginal interest in the game, my Sprocket was very good at putting it away, and matching all the tiles together. (Seriously, I even like putting the tiles away - there's something about looking at a tray of Flowers, Winds and Dragons, all neatly ordered, that is intensely satisfying, and even the Characters, en masse, look very orderly. The rest of the house may be a disaster but the Mah Jong set? A thing of beauty.

Maybe not this year, but soon, hopefully next year, the kids will become the next generation to play. I can't wait. 

Decisions, Decisions

It is often difficult, when one novel is finished, or at least in the editing stages, to work out which novel to start on next. There are generally two or three, or three or four, floating around in embryo, all with decent claims.
With Nano starting in a few weeks I had to nuckle down and make a decision. 
I had thought to use my Nano time to complete the novel that I half finished in Camp Nano in July. With 50,000 words done and the manuscript half complete, it seemed only sensible to finish the thing off. 
But no. That one, Fosterling, is too weighty, requiring too much research and (yes, I'm craven) too much emotional involvement. I will finish it ... soon. Maybe next years Nano? For this year, I want (need) to work on something light, and easy, frothy and fun. I had two possibilities: the third in my Emporium Sisters' series, about serious Caro and her tea shop, or a one off, steam-punk, flapperesque, apocalyptic novel set in an ancient library and the search for magical Golden Book that can Save the Known World. With zeppelin-pirates and a mechanical tiger familiar. 
I, of course, opted for the easy book.
I'll be working on Caro's story. The world is known (at least to me) the research is minimal, and it's the story that I presently spend my not-quite-waking-not-quite-sleeping-hours plotting out. I'm having fun with it. There's a fantastical green river delta floating on the back of a sleeping green dragon, a magical mah-jong set, a true-dreaming jade bowl, and a love story betweeen a (carnivorous) and slightly wild were-wolf, were-cat cross and an OCD vegan. 
So far I've plotted up to Chapter Fourteen on scrivener - only another eleven chapters and I'll be ready to start seriously writing. 
I think, I could be wrong, but I think the kids and I will get out the paints tomorrow and do some painting in the garden as its supposed to be a beautiful dragon. While my Poppet paints princesses and my Sprocket paints worms and robots, I intend to paint the Green Dragon Delta and the Kittubs' Fort. I suspect it will be messy. (Just a warning, Beloved. Expect to return to a house covered in green hand prints ... ) 

Preparing for Nano

So it's October again, which means I'm beginning the countdown to National Novel Writing Month (International Novel Writing Month to be precise) in November, and beginning to prepare.

For those of you who haven't come across it - NaNoWriMo is when a whole heap of people sit down to write a novel, or part thereof, in a month. Fifty-thousand words is the official target, and if you make it to the fifty-thousand you get a cute little banner and certificate, the smug satisfaction that you've done it and fifty-thousand words humming contentedly at you from your computer.

This year I've also done two 'Camp NaNos'. The Camps have the same aim, a novel (or fifty thousand words) in a month, but lack many of the perks, although the campfire graphics are nice. The cabins never really worked for me and they just lacked that vibe. Obviously, I'm happy to have the bulk of those stories done, but the Camps were really just tasters for the main event of the year. The original, The best. NaNoWriMo.

I'm looking forward to the city meetups (people like me! wow! be still my heart). I'm looking forward to seeing all my buddies' word counts steadily rising and spurring me on. I'm looking forward to the pep talks by famous authors pinging into my inbox. Really, you're writing to me? You shouldn't have.

I'm looking forward to the deadline.

The online writers' group, Scribophile, that I am part of and love dearly, has a whole forum* which I have read (okay, skimmed; it's presently up to twenty-two fraught pages) with delight, about the evils and perils of NaNoWriMo. Basically, it's seen as a mechanism by which millions upon millions of semi-related words are dredged into the world and either released, unedited, onto an innocent audience, or destined to obscurity in a thousand dusty hard-drives.

And, yes, the posters are a hundred percent right. I'm sure a lot of the manuscripts will end up doing exactly that. But even if only a small proportion of the books produced get published (successfully, in fully edited formats) thousands of people have had fun. We've played with word and story and juggled ideas and met up with other people doing the same thing, not just in our home city or state, but online across the globe. That's gotta bring a tingle of joy to the most hardened spine? Doesn't it?

And o the joy of the deadline. The wonder of really-needing-to-get-this-done, putting off inessentials until the end of the month, to focus with whole-hearted-determination on The Story.

So I'm preparing now. Past NaNo months have painfully taught me that planning and research should be done before the month starts. Getting halfway through a month and realising you need to read a couple of dozen academic books on Edinburgh in 1801, and probably have a go at getting through the complete works of Sir Walter Scott, is lowering.

The story I've chosen to write for this November's NaNo is a fantasy based on a completely imagined world, so I don't need to do much research. I hope. But I do need to flesh out my antagonist (always my weak spot), and draw a detailed map of the Green Dragon River Delta. And maybe the plans for the Lair of the Kittubs. Okay, definitely, damn it.

I'm busy writing a quick outline of each chapter into the writing program Scrivener, and hoping that I won't have to read (too many) histories of Ancient China. And that the hankering I have to start reading about the Ottoman Empire doesn't mean anything. (Please, pretty please, don't let it mean anything!)

I'm enjoying seeing the structure coming together into something solid and strong. I'm aiming for 75,000 words all up for my novel, so twenty-five chapters (Scribophile prefers people to post their work at or under 3,000 words and I have fallen into line). Already I can see the story coming alive, as previously blurred sections clarify. Here is where I need the first assassination attempt. Here is where the major reveal takes place. Here.

My story calls. I'm away. I worked out a new chapter last night in the moments between waking and sleeping, and I want to get it down before it goes.


Is anyone else doing NaNoWriMo this year? Or considering it?
Have you started preparing yet, and if so, what are your preparations?



*Many of the writing forums on Scribophile afford me hours of entertainment. Who would have thought people could get quite so vitriolic about adverbs or semi-colons? It's refreshing to see people so passionately engaged with words and grammar.