My New Collaborator

So I was eating dinner with my son Benny last night — frozen French fries and cold rotisserie chicken, hey, I was tired — and he asked me to read my Stealth Novel to him.

I've mentioned little bits about the novel since starting it in November, mostly to explain why I was tapping on a laptop in the corner after work while he plays video games. I update him every so often, telling him how the main character fell down a well, another has escaped a bad guy and a third character thinks he's corn. (Seriously, he has to be dragged in from the cornfield every night, shouting “Don’t break me from my stalk untimely!”) Benny thinks it's all very weird and regularly asks for updates.

So I started reading it to him and now he's making suggestions. My bad guy has to take a Swamp Test and Benny is helping me decide what this will involve. (Apparently pfu pfu birds, alligators and piranhas are essential components.)

I fretted a little a bit about this, because, well, I like to fret. I didn't think it would be a problem for Benny, since I skim over the blood and creepiness and sex stuff. Plus, it's good for a kid to see people do creative things. But I worried that perhaps it would screw up the writing a little bit. I mean, when I started this novel, it wasn't aimed at the seven-year-old kid audience. Would I start censoring myself and ruin its spooky, politically involved and somewhat disturbing tone?

But then I wrote a long scene in the bad guy's tent that's so um ... unsuitable that the only part I can read to Benny is where the two characters left through a melting wall. So I think I'm okay there.

I still plan to include the Swamp Test, though.

Updated Word Count: 33,000 words. Yay yay!

March 8: 36,396 words. Yay!

Stealth Novel Reborn AGAIN

Like a long friendship or an old datacenter, my NaNoWriMo novel never dies. I abandoned it in mid-November, then revived it on Jan. 3. Now it's Jan. 24 and I've opened the document again, hitting the 28,000 word mark this morning. All my characters are on the move: by foot, by wagon, by royal cavalcade. Where are they going? Well, I'd be the last to know. But it's going to involve a Swamp Test. (Yeah, you read that right.)

I have a new computer now, a13-inch Mac Powerbook, and a nifty backpack to put it in. So I'm all set to take my writing on the road myself. So far I've been mostly using the computer to check Facebook and stream movies from Netflix, but I have bigger goals than reruns of The Tudors — really.

After all, according to my automated NaNoWriMo Report Card, it's only Nov. 17 and it says: "You've fallen a bit behind, but one or two more big pushes and you should be back in business." I've saved all my NaNo pep talks, and the first one says:

Don't forsake your kingdom if it starts to seem silly or pointless, or you have no idea what your next order ought to be. Any command will do! Your characters, the weather, the birds and whales, the flow of the rivers, the path of destiny, and every last plot element all bend to your whim.

So I am once more a creator of worlds -- or at least one deeply neurotic world. At my current pace, I should be finished with my NaNo novel by January 2012 — kidding! Actually Valentine's Day is my goal so I can reward myself with a big box of chocolate (in addition to any other candy I may receive — I'm looking at you, Killer Robot Husband. Think dark chocolate cremes.)

Stealth Novel Reborn

So here I am on this squeaky-shiny first workday of 2011. Every year I fall into my chair on Jan. 3 or so, and every year I stare into space and piddle around for an hour before I can focus.

I'm at my place of paid employment, of course, but a successful workday should involve some fiction/memoir writing as well. To that end, I resurrected my NanoWrimo novel, which had to be abandoned halfway through when my father-in-law passed away suddenly. It's a pretty ridiculous novel, predictable and shamelessly derivative, and yet once you take a group of characters to 26,000 words, it's hard to cast them aside. So I zipped into work early (7:45 a.m.!) and spent the first hour reacquainting myself with this strange pack of goofballs, who are bouncing around their hapless land like billiard balls.

In other writing excitement, I'm casing Apple computers these days. I've almost settled on a 15" MacBook Pro. My current laptop is seven years old and barely wheezing along. I think a new computer will help me realize my 2011 Writing Resolution, which is — um — to actually Write.