The end is nigh

Well we are coming into the home stretch and looking forward to some down time with the writing before we face NaNoWriMo in November. But strangely I’m going to miss some of this as well. Not the back log of things that need to be taken care of or the putting more on my plate then I should do in one go (some of my months goals are going to run into next month because I failed to get them done in time) but oddly enough the coming up with new stories and seeing where they go. Even the mush for brains feeling at the end of the night when I’m practically falling asleep with a pen in one hand and paper in the other.

I’ve gotten to test my limits on some of these nights, and I’ve explored new territory for my writing experiences. I’ve even created a few settings that I’m antsy to get back to. Does this character ever gain her memories back and discover what happened to her? Does this characters power come from an alien artifact or a magical device? Do two time crossed lovers ever meet again in the same lifetime? Is he crazy or is he divine? Will a common enemy unite two incompatible races, and how do they reconcile their differences?

One of the other things I came across, while worrying about getting enough story ideas to do them all this month, was old stories long forgotten are now closer to the surface then they have been in a long time. Some had been shuffled to the back of my mind, hard drive or notebooks to waste away. I hadn’t played with the ideas in so long they need a good airing out and to be revitalized again. They look a little clumsier then my more recent ideas but as new ways of playing with them come along they’ll become just as interesting I’m sure.

It’s going to feel weird to wake up and not have to figure out what I’ve got to write today, on top of what other projects I have to schedule in. It will be nice to not have to stress about these things when work starts on Wednesday though. I still have a fair number of projects to tend to before November, but they are a different kind of stretching of myself.

But enough of that, I’d also like to share with you something that occurred last night. As I sat down to write a story idea that I’ve had since April I had done my usual prep. Also known as absolutely nothing. I had the basic idea of the setting and the fact that the character would have to be gritty and sort of noir but also supernatural in some way. That is it. That’s all I had to go with.

This is how I often work. Sometimes I have an emotionally powerful scene that I build a story around to support, sometimes I have a goal or message to express but they usually all start out this vague. The story comes into focus as I write and it fits the place I started from. But not last night.

I started writing and had a character that was just a normal working class guy on a construction site, not noir, not gritty. Ordinary. He has an encounter with the not so ordinary and so does his best friend and coworker. Short story shorter he ends up having an origin incident. The story is not anything related to what the intention was and it doesn’t even take place in the same setting. It’s good and I’m keeping it but that wasn’t what I was trying to write. So I tried starting my original idea again.

This one was just as rebellious. The thing that gets me about this is that both are viable stories that I’d never even thought of until after I read what I wrote. It’s weird and fun at the same time. I never did get the intended story to show up on the paper. Maybe I’ll do it again tonight and see if the situation repeats.

This has been an amazing month for me and I keep finding it hard to imagine that this has in fact only been a month since I started this project down at the convention. It seems like months have passed. And while the writing and events of this month took up so much of the time that I never did get to some of my goals I think that when I spend some time looking back at it tomorrow it will be interesting to see the things I have managed to achieve, and the new directions I’ll be venturing into from now on.

I’m not sure how blog updates will be done after this; I’m not sure how a lot of things will be going after this to be honest. I’ve been mainly focused on getting to midnight tomorrow. But at that time I’ll give you all a heads up to what will be happening. I know I’m working Wednesday and that I should be able to get here to the labs after work. So look for posts at least tomorrow and Wednesday.

Until then Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack