The Plan … Best Laid of Course

The plan is to retype \”Bleak\”, so I have a digital copy to edit in the future. The bigger part of this plan is to reacquaint myself with this 5 year old story to chose my main characters for the 2015 NaNoWriMo starting November 1st. Great idea, but November 1st is getting closer every day and I will not have enough time to outline or otherwise plot out this next novel.


\”Bleak\” is 12 chapters and about 160 pages long. I have typed up 32 pages thus far. I\’m beginning to realize I will not have enough time to retype this whole thing and have time to flesh out a new story. It\’s just not going to happen. I\’ll keep typing on this thing for now, but I\’ve got to work on the new story soon. I\’m drawn to two characters from \”Bleak\” already and pretty sure they will be the subject of my next NaNo. I love them as a couple and as individual characters. I think writing more about them will make \”Bleak\” stronger as well. They really deserve their own story. I can hear them whispering to me to tell you their story. It\’s a good one!

Well, that confirms it.

While retyping \”Bleak\”, I\’ll try to focus on this couple in the story and use what I already know about them to create a novel around them. I do have a day job, so I need to figure out when I\’ll put in time retyping and when I\’ll put in time organizing for NaNo.

I\’m enjoying retyping \”Bleak\” (other than the actual retyping – that sucks). I\’m reminded about the pieces I\’d forgotten. I still laugh where I laughed before. I\’m eager to get to a specific part in the story to see if I\’ll still cry. That scene had to be the hardest thing I\’ve ever written with the exception of a 30 page report about weather patterns a few year back. I think I cried over that one as well.

NaNoWriMo2015 is Coming!

If you\’ve read this blog, then you know I attempted to write a novel in the 2010 NaNoWriMo contest and won. I wrote a novel of just over 50,000 words titled \”Bleak.\” Since that time, I\’ve done little to further this wonderful novel. I still adore it and feel as passionately about the book as the day I completed the final page. So why haven\’t I done anything to bring it closer to seeing the light of day?


Well, what had happened was….. You know how \”they\” tell you to BACK UP YOUR FILES?! Well, I figured backing up the file on my thumb drive was good enough. *Sigh* The laptop I was using died a horrific death. The thumb drive became so depressed at the loss of its friend that it refused to work on any other PC, and it eventually left me. 

On a positive note, I do have a fully printed copy of the novel… a fully PRINTED copy. *more sighing* I am now laboriously re-typing this novel. Every word. Every. Awful. Word. That\’s right, awful. This novel was never edited from my initial fury of word sprints and late night story developments. I\’m trying to just get it back in digital form with the intent of editing later.

This brings me to NaNoWriMo 2015. I cannot, of course, just re-write \”Bleak\”, but I can create a new story using characters from the book. \”Bleak\” was always supposed to be a multi-book series. I thought I might write the next book, but I started to think my characters from \”Bleak\” need more backbone, more story… then it happened. I realized \”Bleak\” could quite possibly be the LAST book in the series, not the first!!!

Now as I re-type \”Bleak\” I am thinking about which characters I want to make the focus of this year\’s NaNoWriMo. I love them all. I want to write more about them all … but who shall it be?

Back to the Beginning

It\’s been 2 and 1/2 years since I posted here. It\’s been about that long since I\’ve reviewed my story. I finally pulled it out of storage. It looks the same: 150 pages of 50,000 words, chapters separated with clips, post-it notes of green and yellow peeking from the sides. I don\’t remember what the post-it notes were supposed to tell me, but there is a bigger problem.


I have the novel typed on pages. I do not have a saved digital copy. Yes, of course I backed up the file when I was writing. However, it\’s been years now. The laptop died. The thumb drive is lost. This leaves me with just one option: retyping the story. I must admit I do not want to do this. I just want this story to magically appear on my laptop so I can finally start with the revision. Anyone want to type it up for me? No? Fine.

I\’m going to try to use twitter to get these chapters done. There are only 12 chapters and 150 pages. I want to type it as is without revising, but I will taking notes about the story. I re-read the first chapter about a week ago. The 2 years away from the novel have given me the ability to see it with fresh eyes. I have questions and suggestions I couldn\’t see before.

Well.. I\’d better get started. Back to the beginning..

A Package with My Name on It

I recently watched an unauthorized biography of how Harry Potter came to be. I am sure there were embellishments throughout the movie but the core of the movie was simple.Writing was part of her life from the time she could pick up a crayon but it took a back seat to \”life\” and \”conformity\” that settles around us all. Eventually, she listened to the voices in her head, spewed out a book and left it again and again and again. Somewhere along the way she gained the courage to devote more time to the completion of the book, found an agent and they went on the hunt for a publisher… then it happened.


Whether it truly happened this way or not is irrelevant … she received a package with her name on it. Inside the package was Harry Potter and the Philosopher\’s Stone for her review and admiration. I wanted to rewind that part and watch it again and again. I want that for me. I want to open a package with my name on it. I want to see my book in print with a hard back cover. I want to flip through the pages and smell my book pages flip by my face… yep.. I wanna smell it! I want to hold it, embrace it.. hell, I\’d probably even hold it like a teddy bear when I slept.

A few posts back I think I mentioned a dream I was standing outside a book store and the worker inside was displaying books in the front window on a ladder. The ladder had books from the bottom to top based on ranking. In the biography, \”Jo\” watched as her book was placed in the window. I want that too. I want my book in the window.

I want it all.

November Waits

November waits in the shadows just 3 short months away. Why do I mention it? November brings me to one year since completing the draft of \”Bleak\” and it also brings me to another \”NaNoWriMo\” just waiting to take over my life. I\’m feeling the pressure to get this manuscript into shape. I\’m feeling the need to have at least a second or third or fourth draft underway before starting a new project. Am I writing this year for NaNo? Sure (that was weak). There\’s no reason I shouldn\’t write for NaNo this year. I have the same drama (or lack thereof) going on as last year.


NaNo requires that you begin a new piece of writing. This means I can\’t pull out \”Bleak\” and use this time for my rewrites. The plan would be to create the 2nd book of the series. Just how many books are in this series? I haven\’t a clue. The characters know. I can feel them getting antsy about it, too. I can hear them whispering, \”At this rate, we\’ll never get there.\”

So what\’s stalling me today? Well, this morning I worked for a while. Now I need to review school work and get an email out to the team about our last project. I also need to finish unpacking my boxes of beads and books. The project room needs help. I just don\’t feel like I can work in there until I have it back the way it was. Don\’t sigh and shake your head like that… I have enough characters doing that inside my own head as it is. Oh and the yard.. it\’s, well, it\’s a tad overgrown in places.

Time to get moving. Time to do all the things I need to do before I can sit down and do the things I want to do.

Missing

I miss my story. I miss the characters and their lives. I miss being wrapped up in the \”what ifs\” and \”what nows\” of every movement. I miss word counting and page numbering.

I feel like they\’ve taken on lives of their own and gone on without me. If I met them today, I\’d hardly know them. Would I recognize them? Not sure they\’d recognize me. I\’d like to think we would all come running together in slow motion, embrace and live happily ever after. I\’d like to think that anyway.

The story waits in a box. I packed it up with hopes of moving to a new home. I\’m not moving and the story still waits in a box. I hope it misses me too. I hope it remembers me when I find it again.