Riba Rambles:
MORE Musings of a Mental Magpie

I don't want to spoil the Buffy finale for people who haven't seen it yet, but I do want to write about it. And I'm sure that this won't be the last time I'll want to talk about things that don't quite belong in the regular journal. So, this page will serve as an addendum to my regular journal. Occasionally, journal entries will link here for extended commentary.

Table of contents:

2003:

• Halloween NaNoWriMo Tarot (October 31, 2003)
• NaNoWriMo Post-Mortem (December 1, 2003)

Friday, October 31, 2003

Halloween NaNoWriMo Tarot

Just for the heck of it, since it's Halloween and the ambitious month-long NaNoWriMo starts at midnight, I thought I'd read the Tarot for myself and see what insights it gives me into my NaNoWriMo plans.

I was thinking about NaNoWriMo while shuffling, but tried to keep the question open, either for insight into how the writing process would go OR for internal story issues. I was curious to see what subconscious triggers the cards might provoke.

So, using Robin Wood's modified Celtic Cross, here's what played out:

Here's my interpretation (although I'd welcome comments from more experienced Tarot readers):

1. Generosity. This spoke to me of what I'm doing with this writing project. I'm not trying to write to sell, but planning on giving this story away to the world, by posting it to free sites for anyone to read. When I flipped over the card, I got a sense that my very act of storytelling was altruistic.
2. Happily ever after. Well, that's certainly how I'd like the story to end. My question is whether or not I can write all that middle stuff so I can reach that perfect fairy tale ending I have in mind.
3. Don't quite get this one. Oddly enough, when I looked up the quickie definition in Robin Wood's little white book, "A mature man, responsible, reliable, utilitarian. A person who will help the seeker. Honorable. Solid." my first thought was of Ian. Which is, in fact, a really interesting development. Because a few months ago, I don't know that I would've seen Ian quite in this light. But since he got the bartending job, he's been really together and productive and all those things the pamphlet describes. But how could he be my block? Is his newfound responsibility (and busier schedule) going to put more demands upon me, preventing me from writing? I don't know.
   An alternate interpretation occurs to me after looking at this description of the card. That speaks to me about my own meticulousness and pickiness in writing. The fact that the first scene I have to write is one that I've got at least four scratched out copies of in my notebooks because none of them hit the right tone. The fact that I've decided to write out the story in a linear fashion, which means having to deal with lots of boring busywork and transitions, rather than jumping straight to the scenes that are bursting out of my head to be written. I know this is going to make the project more of a slog, but hopefully it will result in a more coherent tale with less need for rewriting.
4. I've got a lot of energy? I often have trouble with court cards. I suppose it just refers to some of the inspiration that's been driving me to write this story.
5. Again, wasn't entirely certain about this one. Will my writing do justice to the story in my head? I don't know. The web description of the spread suggests that if Card 4 refers to a time in the past, then this will be an equivalent distance in the future. This story really came to me early last spring, around the time of Arisia (January). Could that mean that I won't finish the story for another nine months?
6. Again, I don't get it. Had the card been reversed, I could understand, because I've been stuck in stasis on this story for ages. But this refers to a major transition. Offhand, I can think of two since I started the story: school and work. But neither of those seem terribly relevant to this question. Puzzled.
7. And still more confusion. Again, the only meanings I can find deal with my relationship with Ian, which (although it would be highly desirable) has nothing to do with NaNoWriMo.
8. Now, this one I can relate to! As I've already said, I've been paralyzed with regards to this story for ages. And I am afraid that I won't be able to do it justice with my words.
9. Again comprehensible. I feel stuck in a rigid status quo. That's partly tied to my paralysis regarding the story, but also somewhat tied into my feelings about work and finances and all the other necessary mundanities that are tying me down in the way of my self-expression.
10. This one struck me as interesting. While working on the storyline, I mapped the four suits of the Tarot to the four Houses in Hogwarts. Cups, and water, mapped to Slytherin. And the dramatic conclusion of the story involves contention among some of the most prominent Slytherins in Rowling's books. King of Cups could refer to Salazar Slytherin himself, which could be my hopes for being able to reach and tell the end of the story. So that was my gut reaction to the card.
11. Unfortunately, after that high note, the final outcome didn't leave me with such positive feelings. I felt like this was telling me that I wouldn't succeed; that after a large struggle, I'd still be standing there with an unfinished story that I grok inside but simply can't tell. Some descriptions put a positive spin on the card, showing him bloodied but unbowed. But I just don't see the optimism when looking at that as my final outcome.

And so, that's how I see it. It's not going to change anything that I would otherwise do with NaNoWriMo, but it's interesting to see where my mind and moods are.

After writing out all this, I did another reading for my personal situation over the rest of the year (all two months of it). I still need time to process that and don't really feel like making it public at this time.

As usual, when I post these readings, if you see other possible meanings to the cards or spread than I have, I welcome your comments and insight.

Monday December 1, 2003

NaNoWriMo Post-Mortem

As some of you may have noticed, I did not "win" at NaNoWriMo. November 17th, the last day I did any actual writing, my wordcount was at 22,434, or 44%. I could have gamed the system and gotten a nifty winner's icon/certificate, by writing 28000 repetitions of "badger badger badger" or the like, but it wasn't worth it.

To be fair, I just checked my journal and have written at least 25,000 words here over the month. Add in my contributions to Usenet and other blogs like Amptoons, and I probably exceeded the required wordcount for the month. The problem is, only 22,434 of them were in the story I was trying to write.

So, I didn't get whatever the winners got, including the right to call myself a NaNoWriMo winner. C'est la vie. ("Lahvee!") However, I did learn a fair bit about myself in the process, much of which is actually somewhat difficult to blog about.

So what went wrong? Why'd I stop?

• A major part of the school year portion of the story takes place in Defense Against the Dark Arts class, which, I had decided, would revolve around strategy and tactics. This would give Draco confidence and skills needed for the dramatic conclusion. I envisioned the class involving roleplaying-like exercises. The wizarding equivalent of "Okay: here are your resources, here's what you know about the enemy; how would you take/defend this island?" [Again, this was largely inspired by certain elements from Tamora Pierce's Tortall series.]
  And when I wrote the first such scene I hit a roadblock. If I was going to use these lessons in the story, I needed to come up with effective examples. And it was time-consuming to wonder (and investigate) whether I could adapt particular historical events, or to come up with plausible fictional examples... It was both a distraction and a necessity. And this was where and why I proposed taking the rest of the story private.
• Then I hit my next stumbling block. Big nebulous list of scenes that need to happen before the dramatic conclusion (which I do have pretty minutely mapped out) and difficulty figuring out the order. Events in the summer months were pretty well mapped out, and that all took place within four weeks. And the first week of classes was also pretty clear about which events needed detailed scenes, and which could be breezed past in a sentence or less.
  But the school year lasts sixteen weeks, which gives a lot more room for events to slide around. Should B happen before or after 2? If B then 2, it may make Draco seem like a weaker character, because it would imply that B led to 2, rather than him taking the initiative on his own. If 2 then B, then the lessons in B may seem redundant or less important. And how many scenes with Y are necessary to make things flow or get the point across without feeling either too slow or abrupt?
• Then, more interesting things came along in RL that I wanted to write and research about. Things that felt more important than NaNoWriMo. The last words I added to the story were Nov. 17th. On Nov. 18th, the SJC ruled on same-sex marriage.
• Finally, once I fell behind and it became clear that I wouldn't complete 50,000 words before the month's end, I'll confess that some of the heart went out of me. I filled a steno pad with several columns of scenes that need to be written, trying to figure out which would be easiest to write out of order, but never got any more of them down.

What worked? What did I learn?

• With certain exceptions, high and low, I seem to average slightly under 500 words per hour. Not a bad pace, IMO. But it means having sufficient hours in the day to write, plus time for research and some of the other scutwork which I didn't bother to time.
• I'm not good at writing without editing. I can generally write ahead without going back to earlier scenes, but I'm a real stickler for getting certain lines or descriptions right. As the month went on, I became willing to do things like "introductions tbd" to move ahead with the dialog, but when I'm trying to establish relationships, I can't rush -- I need to finesse things.
• That said, relationships are hard to write. It's a delicate balance to keep -- one night I'm panicking because they're in a murderous rage at one another, and I have to find ways to tone things down. A few days later, I'm having problems because they're too chummy, which ruins some of the dramatic tension and I have to find ways to increase their animosity. It feels very fragile, like walking a tightrope, trying to keep relations guarded without falling off either extreme. One worrisome aspect is that many of my story ideas fall along these lines -- character driven pieces where I see a way for two people to bond, when they otherwise wouldn't like one another.
• Aside from that, I'm actually rather pleased with what I did manage to write. Not the whole story by any means, but I made a healthy dent. And I'm quite proud of some of the wordings and turns of phrase I came up with.
• It's harder to write about what went right than what went wrong. Much of it is internal and hard to verbalize. But since this was for my benefit, I think I can leave it at that.

What's next?

I still want to write and finish the darned thing. It's very frustrating, I know what has to happen, but downloading it from my brain to paper keeps getting hung up. I am further than I was before, but it's still not finished.

I know I've got readers who are hanging by the unfinished story, and I don't like leaving folks like that. [If anyone's really desperate, I might be able to polish up my outline so you have the abbreviated account of what happens next.] On the other hand, there are other household and personal tasks that I've deferred for November that I really need to catch up on. And I'm aware that the presidential primaries start in early spring -- an added political distraction. So, in some respects that gives me a goal of mid-January -- before the Iowa/New Hampshire primaries and before Arisia.

Several things need to happen:

• throw all the scenes from my nebulous list onto my calendar/timeline to give them some structure
• come up with some strategy/tactics lessons for DADA
• write the scenes
• write up the dramatic conclusion

I could actually do those in almost any order. I could write the scenes thematically (by course) and later put them in chronological order. The conclusion is crystal clear in my mind and with a sufficient block of time I can write it all down right now. Either case would mean going back and tweaking them after completing earlier setup.

So my first step is deciding in which order to tackle the other four tasks. [Suggestions from other writers welcome!] Second is to come up with some tangible goals for myself. Whether it's "work out 2 DADA lessons a day until I have six" or write X-many words per day, I need some structure to get things done. And then, I go ahead and do it.

NaNoWriMo statistics:

To write 50,000 words in 30 days would requre 1,666 words per day. My goal had been to write 2,000 words per day with Wednesdays off for Angel and Smallville, which would've totalled 52,000 words or allowed for a little more slack.

Day	Total Word Count	Writing Time	# Words Written	Words/Hour
Nov. 1	1410	2.00	924	462
Nov. 2	2874	2.88	1,464	507
Nov. 3	4228	2.72	1,354	498
Nov. 4	6068	3.70	1,840	497
Nov. 5	6473	0.86	405	471
Nov. 6	7363	1.82	890	489
Nov. 7	8624	2.33	1,261	540
Nov. 8	9688	2.15	1,064	494
Nov. 9	9894	0.40	206	515
Nov. 10	13,226	4.35	3,332	765
Nov. 11	13,892	0.25	666	2,664
Nov. 12	15,202	1.35	1,310	970
Nov. 13	15,202
Nov. 14	15,202
Nov. 15	17,571	3.63	2,369	652
Nov. 16	19,300	2.05	1,729	843
Nov. 17	22,434	0.70	3,134	4,477

Will I attempt NaNoWriMo again next year?

Unless a story particularly grabs me, I tend to doubt it. Although I really do work best with external goals to push against, I don't think NaNoWriMo's quite the right platform for me. I also see several reasons why next year's participation is particularly unlikely:

• I'd need another story that (a) I feel so passionately about and (b) I can work out ahead of time in as much detail as I had the first half of this story. I had the ideas for this story in early January, and had many months to untangle most of the knots and straighten things out. So I'd need to have another inspirational
• The presidential elections in early November will make blogging a far more attractive outlet for my writing
• Hopefully, this time next year I won't still be working tech support, but will have a job that actually keeps me more engaged. We shall see.

I suspect after I finish this, I may try to dip my toe into drabble writing and shorter works (probably continuing in a fannish/fanfic vein) or something more serialistic, rather than another novel. But I don't know that it's fair or reasonable of me to distract myself with other story ideas while I still really want to complete this one.

Shortly before NaNoWriMo began, I gave myself a Tarot reading on how it would turn out. The last card, meaning "the final outcome" was the Nine of Wands (image). I certainly feel battered and bruised from my efforts, but I'm still standing and wanting to proceed. I'm somehow reminded of Stitch's comments about family: "It's little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good." Let's see whether I'm capable of improving upon it.

More to come...

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