July 1: It's a Start

So... this did not go in the direction I thought it would go.

A few weeks ago I turned my phone's recorder app and listed all the interesting "types" of students I knew. Not the Hollywood-typical "dumb jock" or "Cinderella girl" types that are overused on Disney channel and rarely seen in the real world. Real world kids are so much more complicated than those stereotypes, and most kids fit several of those pre-determined tropes at once. I listed real kids, by name, and tried to describe them on a deeper level.

My first NaNoWriMo-inspired step was to type up that rant (654 words) and see which characters would call me over to say hello.

Three gals did.

Each of them* is complicated in the most wonderful ways. I can't wait to get to know them better. Two of them now have names: Sarah and Alexis. The third is in search of a name. My book club friends, who requested that my next project be either about a girl (if I go the YA route) or a mystery (if I go the adult fiction route) will be happy. So you know, I was not expecting to write about teenage girl drama. But Sarah, Alexis, and No-name are dancing around in my head. There will be drama.

My next step was to decide which computer to use for the actual writing. I love my desktop mac but prefer to sprawl out in more comfortable chairs (and my bed) to write. I charged my Lenovo Yoga laptop and gave it a chance to replace my smaller, more lap-sized PowerBook G4. It won me over. It's not as bulky/awkward to hold as I thought it would be and the touch screen functions are working better than I remember. I just have to get used to the locations of the backspace, shift, and control function keys and remember to hit the "end" and "beginning" buttons instead of mac commands with arrows to maneuver quickly. Give me a few days.

The Lonovo Yoga, along with an accidental glimpse of my summer reading pile

I did (329 words) more prewriting (can't help myself) and fleshed out Sarah, Alexis, and No-name a bit. I added a setting -- one summer at a smalltown ice-cream shop like Art's Dairy Freeze -- and listed a few minor characters and plot complications. Then I paused to consider point of view before jumping in with actual sentences. SPOTD uses first person well enough, but I've known for a while now that my next novel would be in third person limited. I decided to rotate from character to character at chapter breaks.

Then my phone rang. That was the end of my writing for the day.

In my head, I have a fantastic conceit for a high school version of Slumdog Millionaire involving a fostered boy. It's not happening.

Prewriting word count: 988
Novel word count: 0



* the characters, who were inspired by kids I've known but not meant to BE those kids