Katherine Mankiller

Showing Its Origins

I'm running the NaNovel through critique group right now, and even though I made several passes through it and tried to flesh it out, it's still kind of rushed. It used to feel very much like... if you've ever heard Jaws, the screenreading software for the visually impaired, it used to feel like that. It's not so bad now, but it's still...

Well, you can still tell it's a NaNovel: "Can't stop, will lose momentum. Can't stop, must finish wordcount. Can't stop, clowns will eat me. Clowns will eat me!"

Anyway, my crit group is most awesome. Now I just need more time to rewrite!

It's almost NaNoEdMo, but...

NaNoEdMo starts in two days. So why am I excited about Script Frenzy instead? I used to love editing and agonize over first drafts. I think NaNoWriMo cured me of the agonizing, so maybe that's part of it.

I have no idea what I'm going to do for Script Frenzy, by the way. It'll probably be genre so I can inflict it on Critters, but other than that... I suppose I have until June to figure it out. I'll poke around my idea file and see if anything comes up, too.

NaNoEdMo will be cool. Fifty hours of editing in a month! I'm still not sure whether I'll admit to this novel in public or not, though. I haven't read it since November. I wanted to get some distance first.

Yes, I'm editing the NaNoWriMo novel. I expect it to grow in revisions.

Flash fic update, and history.

My online critique group is oddly silent about my under 500 word flash fic. Perhaps they're struck dumb by its brilliance. Or its badness. Heh.

For NaNoWriMo this year, I'm considering going Greek. I have an idea I've been kicking around for years--2001 at least, but the basic idea came from my classical literature class in 1988 or so, from feminist interpretations of the Iliad and Oresteion. The interesting thing is that "The Last Wasicu" is also strongly rooted in history, and I also have another idea based on Roman religion that I'm kicking around. It seems to be a trend, in other words. Hmm.

New Year's Resolutions

Yes, it's the obligatory New Year's resolutions post! I'm sure you can hardly wash. Yay!

• Write more. I did poorly with the short story deadlines, but maybe they were too short. One short story a month, excepting March, June, and November, which I'm going to set aside for other writing.
• NaNoEdMo. It looks like the site is dead, Jim. That doesn't mean I can't set aside March for editing my NaNoWriMo novel.
• Script Frenzy! Rather than try to write a script for the Austin Film Festival, I'll do NaNoWriMo's new screenwriting challenge. That'll give me time to edit properly. I mean, I sent Double Feature off to Austin while it was still lying around the Critters queue. That's no good.
• NaNoWriMo. I probably want to do that again next year.
• I also want to finish Lizardfic and Hurricane Maria.

In other news, I just tossed a story into the Critters queue. A sample:

The Wasicu cities still exist, rising up out of the turf. When the buffalo herds run across the plain, the towers shake and glass falls out of them.

Kicking Horse walks between the towers. He knows that under the soft, tall grass lie the bones of Wasicu. He's not afraid of ghosts--helpful ancestors teach the children to hunt and fish, gather herbs, speak their own language--but the evil dead are another thing. Some of these Wasicu were women and children, but some of them were bad men. He wouldn't come at all if he weren't looking for Snow Deer.

Oh, yeah. And continue to shrink. (35 pounds so far; go me!)

I win at life!

I think it needs to expand out, like an accordian. Later.

I reread part of the beginning. It's better than I remembered. It's... funny. I'm still a couple of rewrites from the decision of whether I want to 'fess up to it in public, but...

I wrote a novel. In a month.

NaNoWriMo

42,093 / 50,000 : 84.2%

I have NaNoWriMo fatigue. I'm ready for this to be over. The question is whether I want to try to marathon extra words or just slow and steady finish the last 8,000 words over the next four days.

We'll see how I feel tomorrow, but I might be able to crank out some extra.

NaNoWriMo Update

I'm at 33,717 words, but I also have a sick kitty. She's our current Queen Kitty, and the other cats are worried.

I completely blew off yesterday, and am having trouble talking myself into doing it today. I've been trying to do 2,000 words a day; maybe I can manage 1,000 tonight.

I used up my outline in the first week. D'oh! I'm starting to think I just suck at outlining.

NaNoWriMo--Get it all down!

NaNoWriMo proceeds apace. Thus far the story is coming out quick and sketchy, like a gesture drawing. It's like my muse feels rushed and is telling the story as fast as she can, and I have to hurry to get down a bare skeleton of mostly dialog just to keep up. I allowed myself a brief pad session, but no. It didn't feel right. Forward motion. Forward.

I'm also afraid of running out of story before 50,000 words at this point, but since what I'm getting down is so sparse I suppose I can go back and add more to the middle if I get to the "end" too soon. I mean, either way I'm going to have to rewrite. It's also going to be much, much longer than 50,000 words after I rewrite.

I'm looking forward to the rewrite. I generally prefer rewrites to drafting. Not now, though. I have to get it down.

Outlining.

I'm outlining like the guy with the chalk at a kool-aid party.

I'm anxious about the NaNoWriMo thing and want to be prepared. I mean, really, really, hard-core serious prepared.

Right now I'm doing the infamous snowflake that They [TM] tout on the NaNoWriMo forums. It seems useful so far, but the month is still young and I still have time to use even more outline templates I find online. ;)

Got any URLs with outlining advice for the completely hopeless? I don't outline my short fiction, so it's a completely undeveloped skill.

NaNoWriMo.

I'm planning to do NaNoWriMo this year, and thus far I really think it's going to help. I'm trying to outline extensively, and I tried to plug Lizardfic the novel into an outline template I found online and there were questions there I couldn't answer. That might explain why there's no writing going on.

More outlines. More, more more. There must be many more if I'm expecting to write 1667 words a day. At the end, I expect to be much, much better at outlines.

No, I'm not going to NaNo Lizardfic. That would be cheating. I'm writing something silly that will either be hilarious or awful, and if it's bad enough I may never admit to it in public. That's not the point, though. The point is overcoming the inner censor, learning how to outline, and having fun.

After NaNoWriMo, I may be doing NaNoFiMo. We'll see.

Because I'm insane...

I'm considering NaNoWriMo again. I'm even trying to come up with a suitable crack plot that will lend itself to the crazy pace. I don't know. I just sounds fun.

Remind me I said that in November and point and laugh.

But seriously. I haven't 100% decided, but my talking about it here and coming up with crack plots sounds like I might do it. We'll see.

On second thought...

...I don't think NaNoWriMo is what I'm looking for with Lizardfic the novel. NaNoWriMo still might be fun, but... not for Lizardfic.

Which means that I need to come up with an outline, and a daily wordcount goal. Otherwise it'll sit around my hard drive doing nothing.

I think my other "story" in progress is also a novel.

This might sound odd, but I'm slightly disgruntled that both my current ideas are novels. It's a lot easier to throw short fiction into a slush pile. I can think of three places off the top of my head that take novel slush. If those don't pan out, well, it'll be agent-seeking time.

In other news, my script is done. *throws confetti*

Yikes.

I may be writing a novel.

I received some crits for lizardfic today, and one of the critiquers agrees with Brian that the story might work better at novel-length. I suspect they may be right.

Of course, I don't have time right now. I need to finish this script. But after, I need to plan this one out. I'm considering doing it during NaNoWriMo, for the support. Which makes me wonder if they're doing NaNoFiMo again this year.

Speaking of the script, it's still going slow. And that's what I should be working on now.