author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

[Author rereads previous post, shakes head in disgust] Well, that was maudlin. Less of that this time, I think.

Another 500 words today. Some stories, I feel like I'm dragging my characters kicking and screaming from minor crisis to minor crisis. It's not even that they're kicking and screaming; they're sorta sitting there on the ground, doing that "dead weight" thing they teach you to do in women's defense classes, and there's just staring at me balefully while I tug their uncooperative asses towards the next little hump in the story arc. Uphill.

Still, the hill I got to the top of was a good place to be. I'm not displeased with having climbed it. I'd estimate the rewritten chapter is about a third of the way through. It's a sort of three-act chapter, and we made it to the end of the first act, a confrontation that convinces Amy she'll have to leave Brian alone for now. The next act will follow her putting together her new life in Seattle, trying to land a job and figure out what else to do with herself--no trivial task, given that her entire reason for moving here is now agressively absenting itself from her life.

The bit of novel I'm entering is actually kind of dangerous. I figured I'd avoid turning Brian into a poor-pitiful-me whiner when I chose Amy's point of view. But she runs the risk of whining her way through the chapter, too. Poor pitiful me, my boyfriend wants nothing to do with me, I'm all alone miles from my family, I'm having trouble finding a job... Damn. My mother could tell you with some confidence that I've always had a tendency to write whiny narrators. I mean, narrators that could give Thomas Covenant a run for his money in the self-loathing and self-pitying races. Go on, ask her about "The View From The Levee" sometime. (I swear I'll redeem that story someday...)

I suspect the way to get a character out of its downward spiral into self-indulgent moping is to throw plot at it. Throw events at that character that force it out of its doldrums and into action. I'd already decided Amy would take her pity-fest for a walk down to Gasworks, and that she'd see Brian there in the middle of his own little wallow--if I look at that eavesdropping incident as an opportunity to throw plot at the narrator, I think it'll move along nicely.

In other news, John and I and some friends just got back from witnessing Johnny Depp's portrayal of Willie Wonka. What can I say but Oh YEAH. I think Roald Dahl would have been very proud.

Five thousand words. Ho ho ho. More like 800. But that's more than I tackled both yesterday and the day before combined, so, moving in the right direction, right?

Fact is, I got all distracted with web design. I created the web page that'll pull up blog entries over at the new site, fiddled with the structure and the style sheet, and made categories and manuscripts linkable. It's still butt ugly, OK, but then I haven't finished fiddling. And look! Linkable categories! Manuscripts that aren't all NaNoWriMo novels (because I write other stuff too)! Blog sorting that doesn't set weird cookies on your machine! Duuuuude!

Not, of course, that the screen shot above quite does the page itself justice (or quite does anything else besides take up a crapload of space in this blog entry), but then you can't see the real thing just yet. It's all hidden in a password protected directory, accessible only as follows...

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Niki's Weblog: Staging Area"
AuthUserFile "/yadda/yadda/yadda/passwordfile"
AuthGroupFile /yadda/yadda/yadda/groupfile
Require group Me

Back to the novel. OK. Maybe I've blogged about this bit before, but--this novel is set in a very specific locale, one that actually exists, for the most part. My characters all live in the boarding house I lived in for all but my first two quarter-years of college. They go to the same college I went to. They're living in the same city. Zoom back in: same cafeteria I worked at, same Gasworks Park I took walks to, same boarding house on 7th Ave.

They do say, write what you know. Often, I do. They say, write your memories. If you lived through childhood you have plenty material for all the fiction you can write in a lifetime. And I did, and I do.

They do not say, expect said memories to bite you in the ass when you begin to write about them.

I'm moving my characters around the memories of that house--Brian here, Todd there, Amy at the kitchen table--and then who comes down the stairs but that gal whose stoneware I broke in the oven (sorry) or that guy whose radio got stolen by that other guy who proceeded to expire in his bed while I was out of town, or maybe the two guys who moved in from the dorms and played White Wolf roleplaying games with me and two other friends all night long every other weekend. And because not all memories are pleasant, here comes L----o slinking around the corner with that smirk on his face, and there's the new landlord and his smarmy son who I swear was just pissing us all off deliberately in order to encourage us to move out so he could move his friends in, and that guy who kept coming back to dig through our mailbox after he stayed only two months rent-free and got kicked out for the rent-free part. And of course Russ in the novel, that needling twerp who recognizes no form of "that's enough" as long as he's still amused, he never wore any face but that of that guy he was conciously based on.

And because friendships don't always stay sweet, there's the role-playing game gang again only this time no one's talking to anyone anymore, and laughter that used to warm the heart now cuts to the bone without changing one audible note.

And because forgiveness happens, there's some of that gang again on the phone or at the IHOP when John and I drove up from Oregon on a visit. And there's the guy Russ is based on, who really wasn't all that bad all the time, blasting Enya out the window to compete with the noise of the party across the street, and him and I sitting on the awning over the front door and laughing at them all.

Damn. Nostalgia strikes again. Soundbytes aren't really representative samples, no more so here than on Fox News. The people briefly and non-identifyingly described above, they all really exist (except the dead guy, anymore), and none of them are as bad as some of those sadder or angrier paragraphs make them out to be (except L----o, whom John met once and dubbed "The Creep" because, well, he was). With just those parenthetical exceptions, I miss them all.

Well, not the landlord's kid. And not the digging through the mail guy. He was just... wrong. But mostly the rest of them... yeah.

I was going to end by naming one of them and begging him to email me, because, Gods bless his parents, his name is So Damn Common that Google avails me nothing, and the constant failure to find even the smallest lead is painful. But now I'm shy of it; naming even one name of that crew might make the rest identifiable, and who knows but that they wouldn't thank me for it. So. I'll end with some keywords, instead. Dude, you know who you are. Talk to me. It's been too long.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Also known as "garou." Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon. Algernon, from The Importance of Being Earnest. NiN and that comic about the cat-girl. Bangor, Maine. The Talking Heads: Remain In Light. Tori Amos on the Dew Drop Inn tour (happy birthday). And, of course, there's always "Well, I've been to France..." (And for anyone who still needs to be told Seattle and the University of Washington, y'all really haven't been paying attention, have you?)

I feel like I'm writing my high-school senior yearbook "dot-dots" all over again. Look what comes of mining college memories to write a novel about college students. They oughtta post warnings.

OK, we're now about 300 words into Chapter 7. Typed up about the same in a Notes file first, babbling away to myself about what was going to happen. I was still trying to figure out exactly what happens in this chapter, see. I knew how it would end, and I knew that it was Amy's turn to tell part of this story. But that was about it.

Then I hit the part of the Notes babble when I considered the question, "What has Brian been doing?"

He's been running.

Literally. In addition to running away, he's actually been running. To let off steam. Every time the violent instincts arise, he goes running until they subside. All he's doing is making himself too tired to act on his impulses... which, of course, better sets up the deadly outburst at the end of this chapter.

I figured he's also spending lots of time out of the house, most of it at the Suzallo-Allen Library (pre-law is a demanding degree, perfect for someone looking to drown himself in schoolwork), but some of it on the lake shore hoping to see his brother again and ask him what's happening. When he has to be home, he comes in by the back door by the laundry machines, and he locks himself in his room.

But it was the running that got the chapter started.

I saw him run past the house one morning, full speed uphill with no indication he'd ever stop. This was three weeks later, three weeks in which he'd never said a word. "I'm sorry. I love you." Those were the last things he'd said to me. Since then, nothing.

Well, OK, it actually says All Levels. I'm not exactly sure my level is included in that "all."

You know, after reading this section of manuscript--pages 190 through 217, if you must know--I feel like I should make it absolutely clear, before anyone else reads it, that this novel is not autobiographical in any way that counts. It has a few details supplied from my high school memories, but the actual character dynamics are all imaginary. Sasha's big sister is not my Mary Sue. Well, in some ways she's everyone's Mary Sue--she's the model from which Sasha's notebook begins taking shape--but she's got her flaws.

And, just to be absolutely clear, her Mom is not my Mom.

In the course of marking up the manuscript, I've been thinking about a sub-plot that stayed fairly unexplored during the thirty hectic days of NaNoWriMo 2002. A story arc that never got a chance to arc. Sasha's big sister was the victim of an extremely traumatic experience some three years ago, and her mother's role in the aftermath was not a supportive one. At the time that Sasha's story starts, her mother continues to consider the older girl guilty. Both women, for their own reasons, are concerned that Sasha might stumble into a similar ordeal.

That their concern colors the story, I already knew. But I had neglected to explore, until now, the possibilities of the mother and the older sister coming toward some sort of reconciliation. There won't be any big epiphany, but I want to at least sow some quiet seeds that might indicate future growth in that direction after Sasha's story ends.

The reason I'm protesting about my own Mom here should be pretty obvious. Seems the older I get and the more of the world I see, the more I appreciate my parents; I hadn't realized that imagining dysfunctional families for my novels would have the same effect.

Mom, I love you bunches. I really do. You're probably not reading this, and you'd probably have no idea what I was talking about if you were, but I gotta say it: Thanks for being absolutely nothing like Diane Edgar-Greyson.

(Oh. And in other news, I'm out of the woods as far as plot tangles are concerned. Nothing like getting right up to the climax of the book to make things easy again! I guess plot tangles mostly occur when the author doesn't really know how to get from the premise to the climax and, consequently, babbles a lot.)

Western society lives in a most incredible state of denial. The more I hear about schools wanting to ban books like The Giver and The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, the more I'm amazed at the sheer duplicity of it all. "We can't let teenagers read about sex like it was normal!" When of course not only is sex normal to humanity, it's exceedingly normal to adolescence. I mean, think about the hormonal storm that puberty unleashes in a teenager. If YA literature conspires to pretend sex doesn't exist--or to only acknowledge sex as That From Which Godly Folk Refrain--why are we surprised when kids don't know how to handle their urges and start hating themselves for having those urges?

It's just freakin' stupid, OK? That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

None of which helps me figure out how best to handle the main story arc of my novel, in which a love spell comes to fruition with frightening effectiveness. The "climax" of that problem occurs when the two main characters Very Nearly Do It, and if you can't put that in YA literature, where the heck do you put it, given that the characters are high-school students? How do you write about real live fourteen-year-olds with hormones and emotions and believable complexity and still escape the censure of your community?

You get one lie for free, because it's fiction. I've already used up my lie quota on the magic notebook. I'm not going to push my luck by pretending that teenagers Never, Ever Think About That.

I remember a phone conversation with my grandmother recently; she had just finished complaining about all the sex and violence in today's TV, all the nudes in today's artwork, all the sex in today's pop songs... and then she wants to know when she gets to read my book. "I don't think you'll like it much," I said.

Neil Gaiman: "I once said in an interview that I'd just about got used to the idea that my parents would probably be reading anything I wrote when I realised that my kids were now reading anything I wrote."

Whoo-boy, type-in's gonna be fun.

Yo. Novel's on hold for another few days, as other obligations require. Between one thing and another, I probably won't get back to it until this time next week. But I will get back to it. Oh yes.

Met up yesterday with the Greeley folks at the Borders Bookstore (in Greeley, of course), some of whom also didn't make their Jan 5 goals (but some of whom did, Gods bless 'em). Discovered that "that song with the states in alphabetical order" has an actual name ("Fifty Nifty United States") and was not in fact written by my grade school music director; it is actually quite widespread, like a successful virus, and I was not the only person at the Greeley meet-up who knew it. I was not even the person who brought it up. But I was not the person who forgot New Hampshire, thank you very much.

And then there was the point at which the conversation turned to State Farm's "like a good neighbor" jingle, to which it was revealed there is a whole song out there, written of course by Barry Manilow. We very nearly ended up singing Manilow's "Very Strange Medley" right there and then, which I fear would have got us kicked out on our collective ear.

We shall reconvene in Greeley on Feb 15. My hope for Jan 5 had been to complete a revision cycle; my new goal is to have the book ready to A) submit to WOTC, or B) start querying agents. Either way, I should be ready to hit NaNoEdMo proper and attempt the 50 hours thing with, I think, my 2002 manuscript.

One other thing came out of the trip to Greeley. Whilst driving up Diagonal Highway towards I-25 and using my laptop as an oversized MP3 player (wired into the car sound system via one of those cassette-tape sound converter thingies you can get at RadioShak), I remembered that I had this on my hard drive. *Bliss* If you wanna know more, go here.

Either stay up until two in the morning programming, or wake up at 6:30 to meet a writer friend at the coffee shop. Not both. These two options are mutually exclusive.

Go see this movie. Go see it right now this minute well OK tomorrow. It is pure sublimity in a 90 minute package. It is beautiful and sad and uplifting and full of a goodness that is in rare short supply.

My husband said he liked the movie very much, and would have liked it even better if the second half of it weren't so blurry.

When you go, bring with you half a box of tissue, and, if you have one at your disposal, bring also a small child to tell you that the movie's over you can stop crying now no really.

ML stands for Municipal Liaison. I got volunteered for this position when our previous ML, sgmoo, let us know that she'd be out of town for most of November (and indeed has not been heard from yet). She said, "I'm so glad vortexae has volunteered for the position; she'll do an excellent job." And I said, "I did what?" And she said, "That's the spirit!"

So I'm the Boulder ML this year. I get to try to organize write-ins and meet-ups, let folks know when said write-in and meet-ups are happening, and use my magical ML powers to do stuff like put these events on the calendar.

I also get to be the contact point for Fatty, the Goddess Of All NaNoWriMo Goodies. That means that when she is able to get those goodies together, I'm the one she's mailing 'em to and I get to distribute them to my Boulder-area NaNo buddies.

So today I got to start with that. I got to put on one of these classy little NaNoWriMo buttons, and I got to give one to Kandybar.

And then I left the Tea Spot for to catch a 205 back to my end of town, headphones trailing out of my bookbag and book in hand... and I left the Goodies Envelope behind.

It's OK! It's all right! I spoke to Mr. John Little, barista extraordinaire (and no relation to my husband - there are a lot of John Littles in this world), and it seems the envelope has already been discovered and turned in to the lost and found box.

(I think the conversation must have gone something like this: "Hey, I found this envelope here addressed to a Niki LeBoeuf-Little... do you know this person?" "Yeah... that's the very confused young lady that called me thinking she left her wallet here last week.")

So my husband has gone with a friend to Acqua Pazza, the Italian restaurant next door to the Tea Spot, for dinner, and has pledged to pick up the envelope and bring it home to me so I can continue distributing the NaNoWriMo Goodies. And tomorrow I should have better luck with holding onto them, 'cause the meet-up and write-in tomorrow evening is at my house. Nice and simple.

Now I just have to figure out what to cook us for dinner.

Lookit dat. Put a little extra wordage in today's novel-writing session. Almost 300 words extra. Unfortunately, the extra sprint got me where I don't know where to go next. Tomorrow is, as always, another day; maybe I'll have figured it out by then.

Diane has had her second adventure, in which she slips into the unicorn's role as healer and protector. She also learns about the unicorn's attraction to innocence when her road home takes her past her friend's house. She finds herself in the conflicted position of seeing her friend through a unicorn's eyes. There's a lot of tension there, and none of it is really resolved when her friend comes over the next day to tell her about his close encounter. She has to pretend to be all excited and stuff when in fact she's going oh, crap, please don't talk about it.

See, it's a superhero story. Superheroes often find themselves discussing themselves with close friends and romantic interests who don't know their secret identity. Black and Blue Magic is in that way a superhero story too. Harry's discomfort when his neighbor tells him that she saw an angel is kind of what I was going for in this scene, only for Diane the gut-writhing apprehension is twisted up a bit tighter and there's less comic relief. I don't know why there's so little comic relief going on here. Maybe I'm taking it too seriously. Maybe Diane hasn't yet escaped MarySuedom, and it's myself I'm taking too seriously.

(Here ends the self-searching psychoanalysis portion of today's blog entry. Next up: NanoGoofiness!)

It's just me and SlyCrow today doing the pot-luck write-in thing. I rewarmed last week's chili, which only gets better over time, and devilled me up some eggs 'cause we're behind in our household Royal Crest Dairy delivery consumption. SlyCrow brought some very nice cornbread. We thought maybe Multivitamim and Willow might show tonight, but as of yet there has been no sign. We're listening to the Blue Man Group audio CD and the sound of our own typing.

I'm thinking I should actively seek out people to write with more often, even after NaNo is over - there's a certain amount of peer-pressure energy that keeps me from Alt-Tabbing over to Skilljam or Insaniquarium (or some other time-waster video game). I mean, how can I slack off when there are other people in the room hard at work?

I got a call from hubby-o'-mine, saying that after his gaming session (Dungeons And Dragons I think they're playing tonight) he'll have to go right back to the office and I probably won't see him until 5:00 AM tomorrow. That probably means we're both going to be sleeping in. I'm on a Mon/Wed/Fri schedule at RRSR, so I'll be home all day tomorrow. I may just try out the "6,000 Word Jet-Pack" idea that Chris Baty writes about in the Week Three Pep Talk chapter of his book. It goes something like this:

Pick a day when you have nothing to do. Get up and do three 30-minute writing sessions in a row. Go do something else for awhile. Lather. Rinse. Repeat for a total of 3 cycles of 3 30-minute sessions each. For bonus points, do it again the next day. Lord your 12,000 word jump over all your local NaNo buddies.

Thus, in the next couple of blog entries you will either see some lording-it-over going on here, or else some coulda-shoulda-didn't whinging. Stay tuned to find out which one it'll be.

Oooh, suspenseful!