Why I Write, NaNoWriMo

Yesterday, the good people at the OLL (that’s the Office of Letters and Light, for those of you who don’t frequent NaNoWriMo.org) posed a question on their blog. I would have answered it then, but I had already drawn that ridiculous Titanic plot mountain in paintbrush and I was pretty determined to use it.

The OLL asked why we write. I could give about a thousand very true answers to this question. “Why do you write?” Because I have an overactive imagination. Because I love to read. Because, as I suspect is true of most writers, I like the feeling that I’m kind of like god when I create something complex or interesting. Because I’m naturally pretty good at it, which made it more appealing than calculus. Because I’m terrified of dying and leaving behind nothing and words seems like something that might last.

It’s nice having friends who are just as sick and stupid as you are (Or, “Thank you, Tawny”)

My friend Tawny and I have a lot in common. We have almost the exact same sense of humor, which is pretty impressive, considering how weird it is. Take the time I was explaining how I came to nickname my sister’s friend Matt “Jemile,” for example. Most people respond to this story with slightly confused laughter. Here’s how Tawny responded:

Because Tawny and I are both the kinds of people who, when faced with someone who resembles both Jack Black and Emile Hirsch, see no other reasonable response to the situation than to dub that person “Jemile.”

Tawny and I are writing a script together (outside of Script Frenzy) and we’ve also found, over the past several months of working together, that we have the same response to writer’s block. We make weird faces and spew nonsense words. I don’t think this really eases the frustration for either of us. I’m not sure why we do it.

Tawny and I are so similar, in fact, we even seem to get sick together. We had a meeting scheduled last Sunday, for which I was not at all excited, having suddenly and inexplicably fallen ill. When I got a text from Tawny saying she was very sick but determined to make it anyway, we rejoiced in our mutual illness (neither of us had to feel guilty for being the sick wuss who canceled the meeting) and postponed.

We both would have thought that almost a week later we would be better, but we both would have been wrong. So when Friday rolled around and we had a semi-important meeting with an old professor to attend, we both decided that it must not be rescheduled and hauled ourselves north for the occasion. I guess we probably thought we were being very mature and responsible and brave, not to let a little thing like being sick keep us away from the meeting (after all, we had both gone to work sick and dealt with the concerned glances and comments of co-workers). In reality, we realized when we caught a glance of our reflections after the meeting (during a CVS run for a thermometer on my part and liquid Tylenol on hers), we didn’t look very mature or responsible or brave. We looked more beaten, run over and barely alive.

Oh wait, did I mention it was kind of rainy when we walked home?

We’re such dedicated idiots.

What I accomplished today
Another scene written and gaining ground on where I should be. A plot seems to be developing. It’s good stuff.

Is being sick all the time my body’s way of forcing me to slow down?

For most of my life, I’ve been a pretty healthy person. I was hospitalized when I was two with a rare heart disease you’ve probably only heard of because it’s been discussed and dismissed as a diagnosis on House a couple of times. But it was caught early and I’m completely fine now. I have asthma, but it’s pretty mild and the worst thing that’s ever come of it has been more bouts of pneumonia than most people deal with. Even though my diet leaves much to be desired, nutritionally speaking, every doctor my mom ever forced to run blood work to make sure I wasn’t malnutritioned like those “for the cost of a cup of coffee” kids has certified me perfectly healthy. I had almost-perfect attendance for most of middle and high school (the few days of school I did miss between 7th and 12th grades were for things like funerals and college visits, not illness). I haven’t even thrown up in more than a decade.

So why, after such a glowing track record in my youth, have I fallen ill basically once per month since November? Thinking back on this blog, it occurred to me that anyone who didn’t actually know me would probably start to wonder if I wasn’t a little like Colin Craven (except you probably wouldn’t actually wonder in that exact example, since Colin Craven is the practically invalid cousin in The Secret Garden and even if you’re going, “Oh yeah…” now that I’ve explained who he is, you probably don’t remember his name because, in all likelihood, you grew up like a normal person and rightly forgot such things to make way for grown up knowledge. I did not and I’m not convinced this isn’t why I never could learn calculus).

I couldn’t blame you if you thought that. Let’s look back at some of the highlights of my health the past six months:

And now, I fear, I am sick yet again. This time it’s a coughing, possibly feverish (I can’t say for sure as my thermometer appears to be broken, based on its insistence that my body temperature is 94 degrees and the fact that I’m not going into shock from hypothermia), congested, dizzy, inordinately tired kind of sick. Nothing compares to the strep experience of November. It’s not quite as bad as the weekend of incredi-flu pain in January and at least my head isn’t splitting open with a migraine, but I’m finally worrying a little about the overall picture being presented here. Is my body’s only defense against my refusal to sleep and take care of myself to get sick periodically (because I sleep unnatural amounts when sick)? And if so, what does it say about me that my response to this sickness has been, “Whatever, you just have to play through. Can’t let it get you down!” I basically “play through” until one night I doze off on my couch and don’t wake up for 14 hours. Are there any doctors or pre-med kids in my readership? I realize this isn’t healthy, but, you know, is it like really unhealthy? Like die younger unhealthy? Or just have a sleepier and coughier, but basically just as long and productive unhealthy?

Anyone?

What I accomplished today
Today turned out to be one of those body shut down days, so my accomplishments were limited to the writing I got done on the train in the morning (2-3 pages) and then watching some Big Bang Theory DVDs before I passed out for several hours and missed my workout. I hate being sick.

Comic relief is important in screenplays, right?

What I accomplished today
Writing an action movie has been completely new ground for me. The movie is turning out to be more thinky action/comedy than blockbuster explosions (I’m a character-driven writer, it was bound to happen), but I’m really happy with the way things are shaping up. I’ve introduced most of my main characters now (which should show you how behind I still am, since in theory I should be about 40 pages/minutes into the film now – We should have met everyone, but I’m not 40 pages in and we haven’t. Playing catch up is a bitch) and I’ve started to tease out some of the relationships and interactions that my characters have. For instance, I know who my straight man is (a jewel expert), I know who my true comic relief is (a hipster tech guy), I know who my sarcastic quips are coming from (my lead and his daughter, mostly). My final main character, a young safecracker, isn’t so fleshed out yet. Since she’s going to be young, I’m hesitant to make her too wise-cracking or street smart or vulgar – I’m not out to recreate Hit Girl. But at the same time, I want her to be endearing and memorable in her own unique, special (cue the “awwws”) way. That’s going to take a little more thinking. Luckily I have great, fun scenes between the badass jewel expert and hipster techie to write in the meantime.

My other big task is trying to cast the characters in my head, so I can hear a specific voice deliver the lines as I’m writing. Imagining my lead as Nathan Fillion has really brought the character to life for me. The tech guy immediately formulated as a cross of the following actors:

Never mind the giant Jim Parsons – I’m just feeling too lazy to open Photoshop and resize at the moment. I’m sure one of these will emerge as the definitive voice of the character eventually. I’ll let you know when that happens. As for my jewel expert, I kind of picture him as that big guy from Disney’s Atlantis (I do this sometimes – picture some characters as cartoons and others as real people. I did this with the Harry Potter books – Hermione was always a cartoon character, and never the one from the actual book covers, even when most other characters were not. It’s weird, I know).

Except instead of the semi-goofy Disney version, more like that sexy DeviantArt version, but you know, with more clothes and less penis prominence. No, really.

I’m still trying to cast my lead’s daughter. Updates on her celebrity (or animated) counterpart soon. I hope.

The Great Cupcake Quest

Once upon a time, in a horrible city with a perpetual north east wind, lived two brave knights – Sir Kayleigh and Sir Liz. The brave and valiant knights spent their days locked up in a high tower where there were regrettably few cupcakes.

The knights loved cupcakes and spent their days tracking the elusive cupcake cart with the help of the great tracking bird – the Twitter. But alas the majestic Twitter rarely returned with good news – the cart was always far from their tower.

This frustrated the knights because their tower was in a busy square where much travel occurred. The cupcakes sellers would surely make a large bounty near their tower and yet, the cupcakes never came. Until one day, when fate changed.

And so the knights resolved to set out on their quest. First they broke out of the cave like cell in their tower. They were pretty stealthy.

Next, they had to fight Lunch Zombies. It was an epic battle, but the knights prevailed.

They bested the wheeled beasts who move out of turn.

And finally, after much strife, they reached their sugary nirvana: A mobile truck that delivers cupcakes and joy across the land. And there was much rejoicing.

What I accomplished today
Today was a kind of outlining, scene planning day. My first two scenes (the product of my week of painfully unproductive nothingness) are really mostly just my main character sitting around talking to people, establishing relationships. This is valuable, and if I were writing a short story or a novel, maybe it would work, but I need to pull back and find ways to infuse some action into my action movie.

The planned opening sequence, which will show a previously executed robbery, will start things out on a high note, but I got stuck writing out the details and basically left it as a TK (a journalism crutch that roughly translates to “fuck it, I’ll figure it out later”). For my next few scenes, the ones that will hopefully introduce the rest of the heist team, I would like to do so in the middle of some action. Scene three, I believe, will take place in the middle of a small scam that will (at least hopefully) reveal a little insight into the main character (have to make him all complex and interesting and what have you, right?) as well as illustrate skills of the team that will come into play in the big heist later in the film.

I’ll give a page count update Saturday or Sunday, depending on how embarrassingly unproductive I am tomorrow.

Hey, Celtx, thanks for doing all of that boring formatting for me

Just a quick progress report:

• I’m actually writing. It took a week, but I’m totally doing it. I wrote about seven pages today, which is double the daily recommended minimum, but still puts me way behind schedule.
• I’ve discovered some new features of Celtx, the free scriptwriting software I’ve been using (it’s a big help with formatting, which is pretty strict in screenwriting, for those of you who aren’t film nerds or aspiring Best Screenplay winners). For instance, there are character pages that are created automatically each time I use a new character name for dialogue and these have slots for all of the basic, but vital information for characters (age, physical description, motivations, etc.). It’s pretty great. If you’re participating in Script Frenzy (or just writing a screenplay), I highly suggest you try the program.
• I’ve been trying to cast my movie in my head, to get a better feel for the characters and to have a voice to “hear” the dialogue in, but so far no good. What actor in his 40s would cast as the leader of a gang of thieves? I keep cycling through very obvious or boring celebrities.

Friday night will hopefully be a good catch up night for me. The goal will be to write at least 10 pages tomorrow. God, what I wouldn’t give for an outline.

Why should I even want to rob a bank?

The hardest part of planning this fake bank robbery for my Script Frenzy project has definitely been deciding on a motivation for my robbers. The way my mind works, I can think of lots of ways to potentially rob a bank, but very few reasons why one would want to bother. Today, as I was trying to decide on my plot and whatnot, I decided to approach it as if I were the bank robber, in a desperate attempt for inspiration. For a long time, I was stuck and kept fixating on elaborate schemes involving the bank being robbed without the bandits ever entering the branch. It wasn’t at all productive, however.

To get past this hump, I attempted to think of reasons one might rob a bank for other people or for the greater good. How could I change the world if I robbed a bank? My modern day Robin Hood ideas were boring at best.

Besides, I don’t want socially conscious boring do-gooder bank robbers. If I’m going to write a heist, I want my guys to be at least kind of badass. Unfortunately, sticking with my own potential motivations for robbing a bank didn’t exactly fit the badass bill.

What I accomplished today
Once I finally stopped trying to insert myself into the motivation part of the planning process, I was actually able to come up with something semi-unique (I hope – a little more research to be sure I’m not accidentally plagiarizing). Where inserting myself into the planning process came in the most handy was in planning out the basics of the heist – thank you, summer job at that bank that one time.

I also managed to map out some very painfully basic characters (I think my heist team will consist of five members, one of whom won’t be present at the actual robbery) and I know that my story will probably take place in current day (I struggled a lot with the possibility of writing something a little more period). I’m getting a really slow start with the actual writing (I should be like 13 or so pages in by now), so I’m going to have to write more than the minimum recommended per day for a while to make up time. Tomorrow I’ll give you a page count update (my goal is five – the recommended minimum is three and one third per day) and maybe a character sketch or something. Blogging about a script-in-progress is tough, since I’m hesitant to write about the plot. Is there anything less giving-the-whole-story-away that people would be interested in reading about the drafting process?

Reasons I want to be a writer

When I grow up, I want to be a writer.

Sure, I’m kind of technically grown up now and yeah, so I am kind of technically a writer. Journalism is great and everything, but as much I love talking to people and telling real stories, I think I’ll always love making shit up more. I want to write novels and short stories and screenplays and essays. Pretty much everything that’s not poetry, except maybe the occasional humorous haiku.

I’ve known I wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. When I used to play with Barbie dolls, I broke them up into families and wrote character bios from them and then wrote short stories about the games I played with them. I have notebooks full of Chapter Ones I wrote when I was eight years old. I was that obnoxious kid in elementary school who always wrote two times the maximum page limit for creative writing assignments.

Here are five reasons, maybe not even the top five, in no particular order, that explain at least part of why I yearn to someday be a real writer.

1. It allows me to play God
I love creating things. It’s probably a complex or a disorder, so thank god I have writing as an outlet or I might legitimately try to take over the world. One of my favorite things about writing is creating characters. I don’t want to brag or anything, but I think if God needed to take a vacation, I could probably fill in on the “making people” front for a while. It would be a pretty interesting generation.

2. Encouraging literacy
I mostly want to write for children and young adults. I want to write things that young people will be excited about reading. This is the part where you stop taking me seriously and go “aww look at the cute naive girl,” but it’s what I want.

3. I can plan the perfect heist without going to jail or having to do all of that hard bank robbing work
So I might mostly want to write for children and young adults, but I also want to write a really excellent bank heist. This applies to crimes across the board, if I ever have the urge to prove I can plan them perfectly, but right now bank robbery tops the list.

4. I can pretend to know science
So there is that whole crime writing urge that’s hit me recently, but for the most part, I’m a science fiction and fantasy writer. That’s what most of my writing boils down to: SciFi and Fantasy for the 8-14 age range. Am I a product of the Harry Potter generation or what?

The point is, I know nothing about science and I’m fascinated by literally every person I meet who does. I just want to sit and make them tutor me, one-on-one, on the mysteries of the universe. I would love few things more than to wake up with an innate understanding of chemistry and physics, but it doesn’t look that’s ever going to happen so I just fake it in writing. You can’t be wrong about science that only exists in your own head.

5. I’m probably funnier on paper anyway
I like to think that I’m a pretty funny person and that I have this really magnetic personality, but I’m realistic enough to know that I pretty much always express myself better in writing than I can by speaking or actually being with people. I like being able to edit and that’s really difficult to do in face-to-face conversation. So if I want to go down in history as the witty and charming individual I believe myself to be, I pretty much need to get something published.

What I accomplished today
Today was pretty good on the mixology front. I finished the section on sours, which are mostly girly drinks. I would have expected, going in, to have a lot of old man drinks for the curmudgeons of society – the people who want a drink as bitter as their own souls. Instead, they turn out to be a lot of fruity, pool side selections that I can’t imagine I’ll be making often unless I move to Panama City Beach and get a job at a Tiki Bar.

Next up: Martinis and Highballs.