So, I want to talk about something I realized yesterday. Could’ve talked about it then, but I felt like it deserved its own post.
After my toaster refused to work, after narrowing my eyes at birds ripping leaves off of the tree by my window, I decided to head out and buy actual food–a wholesome breakfast of literally-just-bread wasn’t going to cut it.
On the walk, I found myself wondering why I was struggling so much with the start of the book. Why I couldn’t quite figure out how to write this happy kid’s exposition.
And then it hit me. While walking outside, I smiled and chuckled at myself.
“I’m having a hard time writing this happy kid’s exposition . . . because he’s happy.”
Before it sounds like I’m being a bitter, emotional asshole, let me explain. What I’m definitely not trying to say is, “Meeeeh! This character’s happy and I’m not, so fuck him!”
What I am trying to say is . . . emotionally compromised, fucked up characters are really, really my comfort zone.
Aixa Silva is this complicated, traumatized mess. Kole Buchanan is a massively beat down guy who has spent his whole life trying to survive, a reflex he’s forced to fight. Eli Brunner, from a short story I’m still tweaking, man, he is all kinds of damaged. Lethe Dega is probably insane. Edin Attenborough is . . . ugh; I don’t even know where to begin with her.
And that’s the part that I laughed at. “All of my protagonists are fucked up! Modis is the first ever who doesn’t start off damaged! Of course!
“But he eventually becomes damaged, so phew!”
Cause, ya know, that’s a thing to celebrate.
Sarcasm aside, I finished the exposition yesterday and presented Modis with the major conflict of the story. Today, I followed up with a scene full of upset people. Both sessions were incredibly easy–even today’s, which I intentionally left for late at night, wanting to write in the midst of just-got-home-from-work-wanna-relax time.
I know that, when I edit, I’ll need to have prep for the exposition by meditating on the good parts of my childhood, trying to remember what it was like to be an energetic 10-ish year old. Because, of course, getting that feeling right is another challenge I can’t turn down.
But for right now, I’m just glad to have two sessions go really well with minimal stress.
Words for the Day: 892
NaNoWriMo Total: 5,249
House of Error 
Looks like you found that motivational ‘leg up’ to move the story forward. Word counts can be misleading because we both know that some words flow easily, others have a difficult birth. But all of them are ‘children’ of sorts and are potentially of equal worth. You referred to editing in today’s post – now that’s another disturbing part of the words/children metaphor. As Stephen King said, sometimes you have to kill your darlings. But for now they can all have their place in the sun.
LOL Yeah, that does make for a pretty disturbing metaphor. But I love that quote regardless. Because it feels like it’s the last lesson we have to learn before we can become really good writers. At least my journey took a final turn towards quality when I started killing my darlings.
Yep. It even felt weird writing it. But whatever. LOL