Tonight, I broke 40K. Woot!
Suddenly, some of the pressure's relaxed. Loose ends are tying up. My poor little MC is having a bad day that's about to get worse. I'm writing toward a climax.
And the wonderful thing is, it really does get easier when you get closer to the end.
***
It's been a while since I had something that (I thought) was excerpt-worthy, but I do have one right here from last night's sessions. It's something adapted from the last draft of my short story, only filled out a little more, and re-reading it just got to me a little. So, figure that's one worth sharing.
The setup: Neil's been noticing some really weird behavior on his sister's part, so he's going to confront their dad on it and get some advice. It doesn't really go so well. In the original story, this scene happened at home, but didn't really have the right tension. For this version, Neil decides to skip a class (which leads to a really lame cliche filler scene where he gets beat up by some punks... but whatever. we won't talk about the lame cliche filler scenes. ;)) to have this conversation in his Dad's office. (Dad happens to teach English at Neil and Jon's high school)
Anyway. Putting the scene at school instead of home seems to change the mood and dynamic a bit. But this first excerpt was lifted straight from the original, with some reworking. I always liked this part... bittersweet, and contrasting with where the family is now.
(Side note: Renting NC cabins = the Floridian vacation of choice. Seriously. :))
***
"And just why were you in the faculty hall?"
Neil raised his eyes and peeked at his father. He was taking a sip from a chipped coffee mug from his college days, one with his alma mater's logo. He set it down with a heavy thump, then said, "Neil. Did you hear me?"
"I did..." He looked at the desk, focused on the back of a photo frame.
"Then why were you in the hall? I know you were supposed to be in geometry, so it appears you skipped class." Neil just fidgeted and said nothing. "Is something bothering you?"
He shrugged his skinny shoulders once, then reached over and picked up the frame. His dad made no move to protest. When he turned the wood frame over, he held his breath.
It was a family photo from some Christmas past. They were outside in the snow, standing in front of a cabin they rented one winter in North Carolina. There were tree limbs in the background, bent with snow. And they stood together, bundled in their thin-blooded Floridian winter finest.
And she was with them. Smiling in a green sweater, her wavy hair, the same coppery color as Neil's, flowing out from under a matching cap, a colorful scarf draped around her neck. It was long then and so beautiful... before the treatments had taken it all away from her. Her eyes sparkled with life, before the cancer ate the spark away. And they all looked younger, happier, more alive then. Dad had an awkward grin on his face as he posed with one arm tightly around his beautiful wife's shoulders. Neil and Jon were barely nine, and had glints in their eyes as if they would break out into a snowball fight any second, though Jon's grin was a lot more mischievous, while Neil smiled as shyly as ever. Shanna was a gangly twelve year old with freckles and stick straight auburn hair, standing between her brothers with her arms protectively around their shoulders.
Neil felt a lump in his throat. "This was taken... like six years ago, right?"
"It was. You remember that year?"
"Yeah. That was fun."
He just nodded without answering. Neil could feel his hands trembling as he stared at the picture, falling into his mother's eyes. Into all of their smiling faces. He wanted so badly to see these people again... they seemed lost, frozen in time. He barely recognized them now.
"Are you thinking about her?"
"I..." He couldn't stand to look at the picture anymore. He handed it back. "I miss her."
***
Sadness. :(
Okay, so then... there's this whole scene where I really tried to play up the tension between them. Neil tells his dad everything he's observed in Shanna, but he doesn't seem too concerned. And then he basically says, "Yeah, I know, but she won't listen to me." Which ticks off the concerned, sensitive teenage son, but he tries to keep his cool and be respectful. Mostly.
One comment I got from the early version of this scene was that they acted like strangers, so I tried to play that up. The whole conversation is melodramatic purple prose I don't feel like sharing with the world, so nyah. :P But there was this one little bit I really liked... so world, you can have this:
***
“I keep trying, but I just can’t seem to reach her. So… so I’m letting her sort this one out on her own. You have to believe me. I’m not ignoring my own precious daughter.”
“But if she’s that broken, she can’t just fix herself,” Neil said without looking up.
“And I certainly can’t fix her either. The rest is up to her.”
Neil looked up and stared straight into his father’s eyes. They looked like a stranger’s eyes. He didn’t seem like himself. Neither of them did.
“So you’re giving up.” It was more of a statement than a question.
He said nothing in response.
***
Oh noes! To be continued. I'm liking this story again.
Showing posts with label excerpt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label excerpt. Show all posts
Friday, November 27, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Day 5
Death scenes are the worst thing to write. Ever. :( Especially when you like the character.
Today I sneaked out of the office on my lunch break, grabbed some coffee at Borders (not knowing it was the half price happy hour. Cheaper mocha for the win!), and picked up on a little scene that happens in between stuff I'd already written.
It was much easier for the short story, writing the death scene. Gloss over it -- oh yeah, she died, so sad -- and move on. Not so here, since I'd scribbled some backstory and gotten to know the mom character. And that's the problem.. a good problem. I've kind of grown to love Erin and hate to write her out so soon.
But... unlike other times, I can't change my mind on this one. No death = no story. :P
So my word count is up to 5,615. I'm tired, but might try to scribble some more before bed. I like the lunch break writing thing... helps a lot. (Yesterday, I sneaked to an empty office with a couch and wrote for my lunch hour. So nice.)
Oh yeah.. here's an excerpt. Just a few lines that I thought turned out rather okay for a first run through. There are some redundancy tweaks that must be made, but whatever. It was all about getting things quickly and capturing something so emotional and intense I can't begin to imagine it. I felt kind of sad after I finished writing it, so I guess I did something almost-right.
***
We all knew she was dying. We all knew the time was short, even though we didn’t really talk about it. Every day seemed like a breath. A sunrise. Inhale. A sunset. Exhale. God only knew how many more she would have.
When she came home, nothing about her suggested defeat. She didn’t limp, she didn’t moan, and if it weren’t for increasing thinness and frailty, the way she needed help with little things like opening bottles, and later, bigger little things, like getting up and walking across the room, we would’ve never thought of her as different.
She spent less and less time up and around the house, but never took less of an interest in our lives. Sometimes I’d walk by her room and see her propped up on pillows, tucked under her lacy white quilt with Shanna at her side, reviewing college brochures. Or helping Jon work out problems as he studied for a math test. Or with Dad, talking in hushed voices, holding hands. Sometimes I was the one with a chair nearby, recounting the events of the day.
...
Death is supposed to be something poetic, almost romantic. But for us, I think we all would have given anything to stop it.
I mean, how do you watch someone die? It’s the worst, most helpless feeling in the world. At least if someone’s hurt, you can try to help them. If someone’s crying, you can make them laugh.
But to watch a life end… to watch a heart stop beating… and know the person is someone you love and totally okay and peaceful even though you’re the one falling apart, and you can't do anything about it… has to be the hardest thing to face.
The sun rose. Another inhale. Another breath beginning.
And she exhaled for the last time. The rest of us didn’t. We were too busy holding our breath.
***
Note: This post dated Thursday because I wrote it on Thursday... but posted Sunday because I forgot to publish it. Makes sense, yes? Yes.
Week 1 recap to come soon. Carry on. :)
Today I sneaked out of the office on my lunch break, grabbed some coffee at Borders (not knowing it was the half price happy hour. Cheaper mocha for the win!), and picked up on a little scene that happens in between stuff I'd already written.
It was much easier for the short story, writing the death scene. Gloss over it -- oh yeah, she died, so sad -- and move on. Not so here, since I'd scribbled some backstory and gotten to know the mom character. And that's the problem.. a good problem. I've kind of grown to love Erin and hate to write her out so soon.
But... unlike other times, I can't change my mind on this one. No death = no story. :P
So my word count is up to 5,615. I'm tired, but might try to scribble some more before bed. I like the lunch break writing thing... helps a lot. (Yesterday, I sneaked to an empty office with a couch and wrote for my lunch hour. So nice.)
Oh yeah.. here's an excerpt. Just a few lines that I thought turned out rather okay for a first run through. There are some redundancy tweaks that must be made, but whatever. It was all about getting things quickly and capturing something so emotional and intense I can't begin to imagine it. I felt kind of sad after I finished writing it, so I guess I did something almost-right.
***
We all knew she was dying. We all knew the time was short, even though we didn’t really talk about it. Every day seemed like a breath. A sunrise. Inhale. A sunset. Exhale. God only knew how many more she would have.
When she came home, nothing about her suggested defeat. She didn’t limp, she didn’t moan, and if it weren’t for increasing thinness and frailty, the way she needed help with little things like opening bottles, and later, bigger little things, like getting up and walking across the room, we would’ve never thought of her as different.
She spent less and less time up and around the house, but never took less of an interest in our lives. Sometimes I’d walk by her room and see her propped up on pillows, tucked under her lacy white quilt with Shanna at her side, reviewing college brochures. Or helping Jon work out problems as he studied for a math test. Or with Dad, talking in hushed voices, holding hands. Sometimes I was the one with a chair nearby, recounting the events of the day.
...
Death is supposed to be something poetic, almost romantic. But for us, I think we all would have given anything to stop it.
I mean, how do you watch someone die? It’s the worst, most helpless feeling in the world. At least if someone’s hurt, you can try to help them. If someone’s crying, you can make them laugh.
But to watch a life end… to watch a heart stop beating… and know the person is someone you love and totally okay and peaceful even though you’re the one falling apart, and you can't do anything about it… has to be the hardest thing to face.
The sun rose. Another inhale. Another breath beginning.
And she exhaled for the last time. The rest of us didn’t. We were too busy holding our breath.
***
Note: This post dated Thursday because I wrote it on Thursday... but posted Sunday because I forgot to publish it. Makes sense, yes? Yes.
Week 1 recap to come soon. Carry on. :)
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Day 1 - Word count and an Excerpt
And the final word count for Day 1 is... 2,431. Not bad! Surpassed the 1667 mark anyway. True it turned out to be a bunch of stream of consciousness rambling for the most part, but hey... it's progress. At least I got a prologue and the first chapter down.
A couple of peculiar things happened in today's writing. First, between the two sections, I switched point of view. Ever since I decided to shoot for a YA angle, I've agonized over whether or not to keep the third person POV like the original story or try a first person approach, since that seems to be the thing in YA. I started off in first, wasn't feeling it, switched to third for the prologue... then switched back in Chapter 1. Guess I'll fix that in revision.
Second odd thing: my teen protaganist decided in Chapter one to go off on a rambling tangent about how his parents met. Odd, since he (obviously) wasn't there, but I think it might work.
*sigh* Will I ever learn to make an outline? :) Then again, if I outlined the thing to death I wouldn't get these surprises. Can't wait to see what happens when I write tomorrow.
So anyway, I close with a little excerpt from the prologue, when it was still third person. It's pretty close to the first scene of the Music Lessons short story, but a little more drawn out to up the word count (and, IMO, a lot sloppier!)
Enjoy or something. It's very painful posting this without editing, so cut me some slack, okay? :)
***
“Do you ever sleep?”
The music stopped, the last notes still vibrating the air as gently as they had drifted down the hall. Shanna looked up from her guitar and gave her brother a little smile. “Not much. Do you?”
Neil stood in the hallway watching her sit in her usual spot on our worn-out dark leather couch, and the way he was yawning, the way his long copper hair stuck up in the back he looked like he would much rather be in bed.
“Jon snores.” He put on his glasses, stepped into the living room, and flopped onto the couch beside her. “I can’t sleep anyway. Mind if I join you?”
“Sure! But only if you practice your scales.”
“At midnight?”
“Hey, I didn’t tell you to come in here and interrupt my private practice time, did I?”
“Yeah, but…”
“No buts, you.” She dropped the instrument onto his lap. “You walked into this.”
He sighed. She was right, as usual. He was up anyway, so there was no point in wasting time. He held the guitar close, taking time to feel the smooth, polished wooden body of the instrument against his skin, to feel the steel strings cutting into his fingers as he pressed on the frets. It was a miracle that this contraption could make beautiful music in capable hands. He strummed each one lightly, letting each pure note resonate in the air, low to high. Then he fumbled to position his fingers, and attempted to pluck out a clumsy basic scale, just as she had been teaching him.
His hands weren’t exactly the capable ones.
...
“Here,” he said with a discouraged frown, passing the instrument back to her. “I can’t concentrate.”
“Oh, good grief…”
“No, really.” He couldn’t get the sound of her laugh out of his mind. “Will you play something?”
“Sure.” She positioned her fingers over the strings, gave them one quick pass with her hand.
Then she began to play… chords, notes, a little arpeggio. Her fingers spun steel and air into a delicate melody she had composed herself. It swelled in the right places to feel sweeping, melancholy, but in some ways, hopeful and true.
If she were a song, this would be her sound. A sad song, one that didn’t resolve. But a beautiful song that made you want to sing, made you want to believe things were okay, even though everything around you — the world, the people around you, your own better judgment — said it wasn’t. A song to help a broken world come to terms with the pain.
That was Shanna.
A couple of peculiar things happened in today's writing. First, between the two sections, I switched point of view. Ever since I decided to shoot for a YA angle, I've agonized over whether or not to keep the third person POV like the original story or try a first person approach, since that seems to be the thing in YA. I started off in first, wasn't feeling it, switched to third for the prologue... then switched back in Chapter 1. Guess I'll fix that in revision.
Second odd thing: my teen protaganist decided in Chapter one to go off on a rambling tangent about how his parents met. Odd, since he (obviously) wasn't there, but I think it might work.
*sigh* Will I ever learn to make an outline? :) Then again, if I outlined the thing to death I wouldn't get these surprises. Can't wait to see what happens when I write tomorrow.
So anyway, I close with a little excerpt from the prologue, when it was still third person. It's pretty close to the first scene of the Music Lessons short story, but a little more drawn out to up the word count (and, IMO, a lot sloppier!)
Enjoy or something. It's very painful posting this without editing, so cut me some slack, okay? :)
***
“Do you ever sleep?”
The music stopped, the last notes still vibrating the air as gently as they had drifted down the hall. Shanna looked up from her guitar and gave her brother a little smile. “Not much. Do you?”
Neil stood in the hallway watching her sit in her usual spot on our worn-out dark leather couch, and the way he was yawning, the way his long copper hair stuck up in the back he looked like he would much rather be in bed.
“Jon snores.” He put on his glasses, stepped into the living room, and flopped onto the couch beside her. “I can’t sleep anyway. Mind if I join you?”
“Sure! But only if you practice your scales.”
“At midnight?”
“Hey, I didn’t tell you to come in here and interrupt my private practice time, did I?”
“Yeah, but…”
“No buts, you.” She dropped the instrument onto his lap. “You walked into this.”
He sighed. She was right, as usual. He was up anyway, so there was no point in wasting time. He held the guitar close, taking time to feel the smooth, polished wooden body of the instrument against his skin, to feel the steel strings cutting into his fingers as he pressed on the frets. It was a miracle that this contraption could make beautiful music in capable hands. He strummed each one lightly, letting each pure note resonate in the air, low to high. Then he fumbled to position his fingers, and attempted to pluck out a clumsy basic scale, just as she had been teaching him.
His hands weren’t exactly the capable ones.
...
“Here,” he said with a discouraged frown, passing the instrument back to her. “I can’t concentrate.”
“Oh, good grief…”
“No, really.” He couldn’t get the sound of her laugh out of his mind. “Will you play something?”
“Sure.” She positioned her fingers over the strings, gave them one quick pass with her hand.
Then she began to play… chords, notes, a little arpeggio. Her fingers spun steel and air into a delicate melody she had composed herself. It swelled in the right places to feel sweeping, melancholy, but in some ways, hopeful and true.
If she were a song, this would be her sound. A sad song, one that didn’t resolve. But a beautiful song that made you want to sing, made you want to believe things were okay, even though everything around you — the world, the people around you, your own better judgment — said it wasn’t. A song to help a broken world come to terms with the pain.
That was Shanna.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Well, hello.
So, here it is... one week away from yet another year of NaNoWriMo. My guess is, if you're here, it's probably because you're a fellow participant or because you saw a link at my main blog. And chances are, you have some vague interest in this year's noveling endeavor.
Well, welcome cyber-traveler! :)
This blog is mostly a development place for my 2009 NaNoWriMo project, Music Lessons. Basically, it is -- or at least I hope it'll be! -- a YA novel based on a short story I wrote for a creative writing class this year about a family coping with the loss of their mother. (More details/synopsis and such will probably come!) I've been meaning to expand that little piece into something that can contain all the relationships and layers of story that were happening in my head and the first drafts, but well... sometimes I procrastinate. And sometimes it takes an arbitrary, stupid goal like writing 50,000 words in a month to push me into the task.
Ummm.... yes. Hey, I did it last year. I can do it again! :D
So, expect this to be a place to dump planning stuff, character profiles, ideas and perhaps the occasional excerpt. This is my totally self-indulgent place to open up about the thing I'm writing for anyone who might care. For more general thoughts on writing, NaNo, and life in general, please visit my other blog, Divinest Sense.
If you read this far... well, thanks! Guess you are interested, huh? :) Here's an excerpt from the original short story. I can honestly say that this was one of my favorite scenes, because in these short paragraphs, I think I saw my main characters Neil and Shanna most clearly. I just hope I can capture the heart of this scene in my rewrite this month!
******
Do the right thing? He wasn’t sure what that meant anymore. He wanted to ask, but he was too busy remembering the last time he saw her truly happy.
It was a year ago, her senior year of high school, and even though she had been asked to the prom by at least two different boys, Shanna skipped it and took Neil to his first concert. He had just started taking an interest in music, and she was thrilled to have someone in her family that would even entertain the idea of spending three hours packed in a smoky downtown bar listening to loud bands with her.
That night, she swayed and sang, and her love was contagious. He felt alive too, anonymous, but intimately connected to these sweaty, crazy, beautiful strangers. When they left, the smell of alcohol and smoke that permeated the place lingered with them. They drove home under a starry sky, the windows down all the way, the wind whipping her hair like a storm. The only sound was the wind, a tape by The Smiths blasting on her stereo, and her pretty voice singing along.
And he realized that she did smile a lot these days, but it never seemed as real as that night. He hadn’t seen her face light up like that since.
Well, welcome cyber-traveler! :)
This blog is mostly a development place for my 2009 NaNoWriMo project, Music Lessons. Basically, it is -- or at least I hope it'll be! -- a YA novel based on a short story I wrote for a creative writing class this year about a family coping with the loss of their mother. (More details/synopsis and such will probably come!) I've been meaning to expand that little piece into something that can contain all the relationships and layers of story that were happening in my head and the first drafts, but well... sometimes I procrastinate. And sometimes it takes an arbitrary, stupid goal like writing 50,000 words in a month to push me into the task.
Ummm.... yes. Hey, I did it last year. I can do it again! :D
So, expect this to be a place to dump planning stuff, character profiles, ideas and perhaps the occasional excerpt. This is my totally self-indulgent place to open up about the thing I'm writing for anyone who might care. For more general thoughts on writing, NaNo, and life in general, please visit my other blog, Divinest Sense.
If you read this far... well, thanks! Guess you are interested, huh? :) Here's an excerpt from the original short story. I can honestly say that this was one of my favorite scenes, because in these short paragraphs, I think I saw my main characters Neil and Shanna most clearly. I just hope I can capture the heart of this scene in my rewrite this month!
******
Do the right thing? He wasn’t sure what that meant anymore. He wanted to ask, but he was too busy remembering the last time he saw her truly happy.
It was a year ago, her senior year of high school, and even though she had been asked to the prom by at least two different boys, Shanna skipped it and took Neil to his first concert. He had just started taking an interest in music, and she was thrilled to have someone in her family that would even entertain the idea of spending three hours packed in a smoky downtown bar listening to loud bands with her.
That night, she swayed and sang, and her love was contagious. He felt alive too, anonymous, but intimately connected to these sweaty, crazy, beautiful strangers. When they left, the smell of alcohol and smoke that permeated the place lingered with them. They drove home under a starry sky, the windows down all the way, the wind whipping her hair like a storm. The only sound was the wind, a tape by The Smiths blasting on her stereo, and her pretty voice singing along.
And he realized that she did smile a lot these days, but it never seemed as real as that night. He hadn’t seen her face light up like that since.
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