The AsCast Jar

Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

So, you all pretty much know what NaNoWriMo is. It’s been a hot topic at the forum. I did it, just ‘cause I thought, “Hey, this will be fun! They’re telling me to write crap and it will turn to gold. I can write crap!” I even read “No Plot? No Problem!” before I started. (Talk about dedication!)

Now it’s over. I succeeded with 61,172 words. Flying colors and all that. Woot.

People have asked to read my story. Their brains, souls, and livers should be grateful that I’ve declined. I don’t want to see that trashbag again.

But enough about that. In the spirit of Not Forgetting Lessons Learned and Passing on Tastywisdom, here is what I learned this month:

1. Writing 50K words a month is flipping easy. I mean, come on: There are no standards. They are telling us to write BS. So what if you wax poetic for 3K words about how painful your hangnail is? It’s valid. Easy beans. It’s easy to pull shit out of your butt. [Erm, sorry for that pleasing image…]
2. I write 50K words a month anyway. Because I was paying attention to word count, I paid attention to how much I write for fan fiction and my original work as well. I easily 50K words a month without NaNoWriMo. And better yet, it’s not shit! [I hope.]
3. If you plan to write crap, crap will come. The problem with going into something with the idea that you’re going to write crap is…you’re going to write crap. When I visualize my stories in my head before I write them, I consider them Divine Inspiration. When they are written, they fall short of the heavenly vision in my head. I always fall short of what I aim for. It happens. So what I need to do is not plan to write crap and hope that Divine Inspiration will emerge, but plan Divine Inspiration and hope that it doesn’t come out as crap.
4. I cannot finish a self-contained plot in 50K words. Not even close. This may not come as a surprise to anyone who has read my stories!
5. I need to know my characters before I start. Otherwise I flounder, they flounder, we all flounder. Then drown in mediocre, horribly inconsistent behavior. I need to know my characters. I mean, REALLY know them. In the Biblical sense. Sure, they might surprise me from time to time, but I shouldn’t be surprised when one becomes an alcoholic. [You’d think I’d know the signs by now.]
6. I need a detailed outline. If you don’t know where you’re going and how to get there, it’s hard to get there, right? Duh.
7. I have to, like, like my plot. I chose a stupid plot bunny and chose to run with it. It was dumb. I knew it was dumb. But I did it anyway. And, surprise, it’s still as dumb now as it was a month ago. Go figure.

I recommend NaNoWriMo, even if it’s just for the sake of coming up with Genius Gems of Truth like I offered above. It was fun, mostly. And you learn about yourself, although the lessons might be fairly obvious.

I don’t know if I’ll do it again, but it was worth it. And not even, like, hard.

[If anyone has Wisdom they would like to share about their NaNo experiences, feel free to share in the comments.]

For a podcast about Narnia fan fiction, we sure don’t write about writing too much! So here’s a little bit of what’s going on in my little head.

[Nightmare Spoilers Ahead!]

A long overnight bus ride from Chicago to Minneapolis gives a sleepless person a lot of time to think. That sleepless person being me, I was naturally thinking about fan fiction. And I have come to a decision.

You see, I have been in a stalemate with myself for the past couple of weeks, ever since I got my Big Awesome Idea about where to go with Nightmare. I have covered topics from adultery and child rape in HKDS to killing beloved canon characters in COTC. I covered abortion in His Fool. So I’m not afraid of most topics. But there were some parts of my characters that I wanted to bring out in Nightmare that I have been frankly scared of touching.

Why?

Because this is Narnia. We can joke about how hot Peter is and hook him up with dazzling women with lavender eyeballs, but some things are still untouchable because this is a very conservative fandom.

So my dilemma has been deciding whether I want to go there. Whether I am willing to alienate many of my readers. Because I am quite, quite sure that I will.

Outing major OCs as having same-sex attraction—and revealing a long-term relationship—will not make me many friends in the Narnia community. Ripping the Pevensies to shreds worse than I ever have will make people question my mental stability (which may be a good thing to do, but that’s another topic for another time! ). Having a character commit suicide won’t help either.

I can already see the condemning reviews in my head, saying that I have finally gone too far in my manipulation of Innocent Narnia.

But what I decided on the bus in my sleep-deprived state was that I don’t care. Of course, I do care what people think. But this is my story. This is where I was going from the beginning with The Secret Chronicles of Narnia, even if I didn’t know how I was going to get there. So I am going to do whatever the heck I want with my last Narnia fan fiction and take whatever criticism and infamy results.

Let drama beyond imagination ensue. Or end Su. Either works.

I have always said, “Go out with a bang!” That didn’t turn out so well when I said that about graduating from college (*ahem* pole-dancing in front of whole class after senior banquet *ahem*), but what have I got to lose in writing fan fiction?

Exactly!

Nothing.

To infinity infamy and beyond!