NoJoMo’s Prelude

I’ve been around OD longer than NoJoMo, and even unofficially tried it a few times.  But this year, I’ve got the icon and I actually signed up.  I would love, love, love to have the guts to one day do NaNoWriMo, except that I suck as a writer.  I usually have no idea where to go with my characters.  They seem to take on a life of their own and then I feel I have no way to finish the story.  I think a part of that is why I hate neatly, tied happy endings.  My favorite ending of a book is from William Goldman’s The Princess Bride.  The guy gets the girl and they escape the villian, but then the horse throws a shoe and the guy relapses and basically life isn’t perfect.  One part of their adventure was over, but life’s not simple.  Things don’t just end.  I love those endings, because then I feel that the characters are out there somewhere, still living their lives.  They are as real as you or I. Anyways, that’s always been one of my problems with writing a story/novel/book/etc.  The ending, the finishing.  Because to me, a good book is never really finished.  There could always been another one after it.  The story goes on beyond the pages.

My other problem is the distraction factor.  I begin with characters and a concept and start laying out the plot, even write out parts of it.  But then life gets in the way.  I miss a day, than another.  Then I start thinking about other things I need to do and all of a sudden I’ve lost my connection with those characters.  I no longer really care about them or what happens to them.  I move on to other things and by the timeI get back, I’ve forgotten where I was going with a particular idea.  So my folder is filled with a lot of unfinished ideas.

I’m also insecure.  I don’t think any of those ideas are any good.  I’ve been told to pull out one of those stories and just work through it.  Finish it off.  But a lot of them are overly dramatic and a bit fantastical.  Think soap opera, multiple it by about 20 and then you start to get the idea.  I find writing them cathardic, as most of them play out a fantasty for me.  But I take the fantasy to the extreme, to purposely get it out of my system.  For example, I take a crush and fantasize what our relationship would be like.  If one of the earlier problems don’t catch up with me, I begin to realize that the character I’ve created is nothing like the real person I was crushing on.  I lose interest, and into the file it goes.

Even with all those things, I still would love to tackle NaNoWriMo someday.  I think the discipline of writing everyday would help keep my interest and hopefully pull the story full circle, even if the writing sucks.  One day, I will attempt it.  I’m determined.  But as a warm-up, I’m doing NoJoMo.  Officially.  I’ve tried doing it in the past, as its come up on OD, but never officially.  Its just been mostly in my head.  I’ve also tried one other occassions to write everyday, but that doesn’t always work either.  I think the limit of one month of an entry a day is good.  There’s an end in sight.  Its not so indefinite.  I can accomplish this, whereas saying I’ll writing everyday for the rest of my life is setting me up to fail.

Past of this little prelude is that I don’t have a lot to talk about.  At least not that I’ve already told my mom, my roommate, my best friend, my professor, my other friends, my ex, my section….  By the time evening comes around to write about it, I’m just tired of talking about it.  So I don’t write.  Which is good!  I mean, it means I have friends and social interaction on a daily basis.  I don’t feel the need to talk to a computer screen.  But I do like writing and I do like journaling.  Its been something I’ve done since I graduated high school and it really has served me well.  If nothing else, its a good way to remember how far I’ve come, how much I’ve accomplished.  I am not the same person I was just about of high school.  When I need that reminder, I can turn to these pages and remember that.  And maybe one day, my grandkids will read my journals and get some insight into themselves.  Or at least get a laugh.

Alright – back to the point.  During this little exercise of NoJoMo, I might have days where nothing really happens.  Or nothing that I feel compelled to write about.  So I may try my hand at some fiction stuff.  I started writing a fictional storyline I called SORP (Story of Random Proportions) a while ago.  I’ve removed most of that first attempt because, well I didn’t like it.  I started a newer storyline, which I think has a better chance for success.

My committment to NoJoMo is to write in my journal everyday.  Somedays there will be a real entry about actual life.  But other days I might just work on SORP.  In some respects, they may ending up being nearly the same thing anyways.