Laura Rae Amos

day 22: i

Laura — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:41:39 +0000

Amazon gift certificate time! I love debit card points

Hubby and I got about 20 books, and it only cost us about $40. There are too many to list, but I’m most looking forward to:

Self-Help, by Lorrie Moore
Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer (just have to see what all the hype is about!)
Men in Love, by Nancy Friday (part novel research, part horny curiosity
Veronica, and Bad Behavior, by Mary Gaitskill
and I also bought copies of already-read books I borrowed from the library:
The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides
Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris
and Billions & Billions, by Carl Sagan

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 21
30079 words (on track = 35000)

I haven’t exactly given up on NaNoWriMo, but am taking a slower pace. I took an entire day off yesterday, and spent it watching the entire second season of Weeds

Now I’m going to see what all this Twilight hype is about. I’m skeptical, and wasn’t too impressed with either the reviews, or the Amazon sneak-peak. But you know, there must be something I can learn from it, since everybody alive has read it but me! It’s all anybody talks about anymore. Teenage vampire romance, lol.

day 19: apple juice

Laura — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:25:53 +0000

I used to write songs about love, and loss, and God, and the tragic but hopeful state of the world.

Today, Dylan and I wrote a song, and the lyrics go: “Apple tree, apple tree. Apple juice, apple juice.”

I’ll save love and loss and tragedy and God for the novel, I think.

day 18:update

Laura — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:38:23 +0000

My most natural writing pace seems to be about 1000 words a day, under the 1666 I need to keep on track for the 50,000 words in November. I’m not stressed out about it though. 50,000 words wouldn’t have finished the novel anyway, so I’ll gladly take longer than that, at my own pace, and not be rushed, or have as much to rework or throw away. November and December maybe? I’d like to have a finished first draft by the end of the year. Yes, let’s make that the goal! Anyway…

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 17
26494 words (on track = 30000)

day 17: oops

Laura — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:49:13 +0000

Oops, I missed a day. I usually do, during this NaBloPoMo thing, at least once. And it’s usually for no better reason than I just had a simple brain-fart and forgot.

The novel was not forgotten though. I actually managed to poach some ideas and inspiration from old drafts. In one old draft, I had a bland and typical fight about a strip club that I rewrote, spun around differently, and it ended up being pretty funny and actually quite sweet. How about that, pulling sweetness and humor out of a strip club?

Only running about 2000 words behind now. Only, lol!

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 15
21828 words (on track = 25000)

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 16
24710 words (on track = 26666)

day 15: 91 words

Laura — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:07:43 +0000

I wrote 91 words yesterday. Good God, I rock! LOL!

I did well for today, but still, I’m very much behind at the moment. I need to pull about 3000 words out of my ass, on top of my daily quota. Not looking likely.

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 14
19917 words (on track = 23333)

day 14: he sees whoes-saurs?

Laura — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:23:08 +0000

“Whoes saur.” It’s two words, pronounced: (whoes, rhymes with clothes, and saur like from dinosaur). I have no idea where he heard it. He’s been saying it forever, and we had no idea what he was talking about for the longest time. We still don’t know really. “Whoes” we think is a small blue cloth cooler underneath his old high chair. Because sometimes he’ll go to it and say, “Open the whoes.” The “saur” part is still anybody’s guess.

It’s just a little freaky, because you know how they say little children can see things that grown-ups cant? I just hope a “whoes saur” isn’t some interdimensionary being living in our cooler. Ack!

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 13
19826 words (on track = 21671)

day 13: writing what I know

Laura — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:01:35 +0000

Crap. I’m having just as much trouble trying to figure out where my characters are going to go to college as I did choosing where I would go to college myself! The second college I’ve chosen for them just fell through since I found that they require all entering freshman to live in dorms, and my characters live off-campus in the story. Blah!

Writers don’t generally write college-aged characters, do they? Or not that I’ve found anyway. There’s plenty of high school fiction, plenty of grown up fiction, but no college-aged fiction, and why not, I wonder? I mean, I’m not about to write boring lecture scenes or anything, and in fact, I don’t know of many scenes at all that will actually take place on campus. But I just find it a very interesting time of life. Is it because everybody was so drunk or high in college that nobody remembers it?

So maybe it doesn’t matter? Maybe I’ll just send them to any college? Make up a college? Make up a whole city? Has anyone ever made up an entire university in a work of fiction before? It needs to be a non-selective four-year university, allows commuter students, nearby a metropolitan area, in a city near a river, in Ohio, or Michigan - any ideas? Crap, maybe I’ll just send them where I went, which actually fits the bill.

I keep trying to be creative, and keep trying to write about things and places wildly outside my experience base, and keep coming back to exactly what I know. But most writers do set their stories in the places they’ve lived and worked and studied, right? I mean, that’s pretty normal, isn’t it?

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 12
18162 words (on track = 20000)

So anyway, I had a pretty productive day yesterday, and ended up logging about 3000 words. I’m trying not to let this college drama mess up my groove for today.

day 12: on fire, or something

Laura — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:34:31 +0000

Apart from some age/timeline/legal drinking age logistics, I’m totally figuring things out today. I managed about 2000 words today, and I might have a few more left in me before the night is over. And that’s good, since I have a LOT of catching up to do.

I was really stumped over the weekend, stuck at the end of part 2, but now I’ve got part 3 and 4 plotted out. (7 parts in total). Each part having 5-6 chapters. Estimating about 90,000 words for the completed project. Man, I’m such a Virgo. I’ve got word-count-spreadsheets and plot-flow-documents and everything!

Unfortunately, what I don’t have is a solution to my problem: that most people in their second year of college are not old enough to drink legally. Grrr, timelines suck!

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 11
15586 words (on track = 18337)

“mad world” vs. “u want me 2″

Laura — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:07:06 +0000

First listen to “Mad World” by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules, which just breaks my heart it’s so tragically pretty. (Also a Tears for Fears cover, for the Donnie Darko soundtrack)

And then, a new song by Sarah McLachlan, “U Want Me 2.” Which let me say, besides being a sub-par song for Sarah McLachlan, I just can’t STAND it when people can’t even be bothered to use a three letter word! Come on! I used to think she was a poet or something!!!

Tell me I’m not crazy. Did she totally steal that beginning piano riff??? I hope she got permissions for that, because it sounds identical to me. Anybody else?

day 11: muse is back!

Laura — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:50:47 +0000

Welcome back, Muse. Hope you had a nice three-day weekend in the middle of NaNoWriMo! Not allowed, I’m telling you, not allowed!

We’re back to work today though, and I’m in the process of making something interesting of two once-directionless chapters. Lots of words to make up for…

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 10

14516 words (on track = 16670)