I realised today that this is less about feedback for me than it is a challenge. My next exercise will be written directly in French with proofreading by my husband. If I can get feedback, ok. It may not happen given the number of attendees. Rather than reject the session because it wasn’t what I expected, I’m rolling with it.

So the next exercise is to start a story with ‘Salut, ma vie.’ Or ‘Hello, my life.’ Based on a super short story by Grace Paley. I have a vague idea of what to do. Will get going with it tomorrow.

Translating should be complete this week before the next meeting on the 21st.

Am considering creating a website where interested folks can read (and download) what I write. Not an author site since I haven’t been published. Maybe one day it would be transformed into an author site. Who knows? A girl can dream…and do all she can to get where she wants to be.

(Later that same day…)

Turns out, there was a communication problem. I thought that Jake Lamar was going to read over my English rough draft before I brought the French version to the seminar. I guess that’s not what he meant. The “organisers” did let the sign-up sheet get out of hand and there are too many people. I was wondering how he would handle reading everyone’s stuff in a seminar that size. Definitely going back to the next session, though. However, if the number of participants hasn’t gone down, I think I will drop it because I won’t get what I need out of it. I have the discipline to write fiction on my own without a seminar. The point for me was feedback and, if there are so many people that even one of my stories can’t get a reading, I won’t get the feedback I wanted. Sucks, but the seminar feels too disorganised to be useful to me. Starting to feel like I don’t really need this seminar and I should leave it to make room for someone who does.

Kinda figured. This is the first day. Now add/drops begin.

Lamar is a really open and relaxed guy. Judging from his writing voice, I kind of figured that, too. He certainly doesn’t come off as a hard-ass on the page. But you never know. We sat in a square of tables, which was nice. You can pretty much see everybody. The best part for me today was hearing the introductions. It is so interesting to meet new people, hear why they are there, what they hope for and to get their book recommendations. This is a really interesting group. Different ethnicities, ages, jobs. Fascinating.

The first exercise is to build inevitability in a story. Imbue* the writing with the hand of fate. So the first exercise is only like one of the hardest things to do well in fiction. A bar so high I can drive a semi under it. Well, that’s how it feels right now.  I have two weeks.

Eep.

And I feel like Ginger Rogers because at least everyone else there, other than Lamar, has French as a maternal language. I did tell Lamar that writing in French was going to be hard for me. He offered to read my work in English. My husband has said that he will help me with the French if not just outright translate my work for me.

Au travail!

* I dislike this word. Why did I write it?

In 2011, I finally set foot in Italy (Venice)  and realised a dream I have had since the age of 6. I also experienced the Istrian Peninsula, which was familiar and new at the same time.

For 2012, my original plan was to finish the first draft of my NaNo novel, continue with rewrites and shop it around by next Christmakwanzakkah. However, a rare opportunity to study with the novelist Jake Lamar presented itself and I have decided to suspend other projects in favour of being a sponge for six months. It will be a special challenge since I have never written fiction directly in French before. I suppose I could write in English, but that would deprive me of feedback from other participants.  I have been very protective of my writing for a long time. It’s time to take some punches. Or relearn how to take them.

2012 will be the first year in France that I don’t have to stand out in front of the Direction des Etrangers de Seine-Saint-Denis in the cold and dark with rats around my feet for five hours before waiting another four inside for my yearly visa paperwork. (And…inhale.) My plan is to apply for dual citizenship after the French Presidential Election is all over. There is really no point to handing in any paperwork for a while. According to my next-door neighbour who handles social security cases for sans-papiers, there is an unspoken directive for higher-level civil servants  to come to work but not make any progress on any cases until the end of the second round.

My desire to vote in France has inspired my French husband to get his voting card and rocket launch himself out of his apathy. Or maybe all that has nothing to do with me and I’m flattering myself. Since I can’t vote, I have been been displaying my choice with a bright red wide wale corduroy jacket and a hand-knit rose red scarf and hat combo. In France, red is not the colour of the out-of-touch-no-really-what-planet-are-you-on conservatives or the extreme right-wing whack-job Holocaust-denying goons, but of the Socialists.  The other day, I heard a woman behind me say to her friend, ‘See? I told you red would be the cool colour this winter.’ I hope it’s still the cool colour next spring.

To the many friends I am so lucky to have in my life, if I had the money, you’d all get a bottle of Ruinart from me for this weekend. And, for those friends bravely collecting their sobriety chips or who just don’t like booze, something with a ton of Valrhona chocolate in it. You’re all gorgeous and fabulous!

See?

And with a day to spare. This win comes on a day that I was told by my cancer surgeon that there is not another surgery planned for the time being and on a day that I got to watch my cancer surgeon berate the cancer doctor I do not like at  all for ordering an unnecessary ENT exam. Massive validation for me. She sucks and I’m totally not the only one who knows it! Win! Win! Win!

I thought that I didn’t have enough story to get to 50,000 words, but there’re probably another 10,000 to 15,000 words before I can say that the first draft is done. I won’t be doing 2,000 words a day, but I will keep going until this draft is done and then beyond into the perilous land of rewrites. I already know that the beginning has to be completely overhauled and that there should probably be extra bonding scenes between the main character and the murder victim.

But for now, pizza.

One of the great things about NaNoWriMo is that it gets you writing and provides a framework for self-styled discipline.  This forces you to just write, damning the torpedoes as you go. This has been really freeing for me and I have come up with some interesting scenes and characters.  Do these words as they are at this moment make a great story?

Absolutely not.

This is what has been bothering me and it is the hurdle I have to get over each time I sit down to write. I remind myself, sometimes out loud, that this is NaNoWriMo. It is not about craft. It is about showing yourself that you can sacrifice a few hours a day to write and proving to yourself that the dishes will wait patiently in the sink for you to finish your daily word count. For me, it is also about taking time to engage in an activity that improves my quality of life, contributes to harmony in the home and makes me less neurotic in general. In its current state, this collection of words is a story, but a very superficial one. Better comes later.

To help me improve this story, I am reading Hooked by Les Edgerton. His book Finding Your Voice is also on its way. Only a few pages into Hooked, the cavalry arrived. I knew already that the beginning would need a lot of work in rewrites and I had a suspicion that the beginning should happen a few weeks or a month before the day and events that start this NaNo project as it is. When I started my rewriting notes this afternoon (yes, already), I found that the story absolutely had to start before the main character arrives in California. The murder that takes place, though it is important, is not the underlying problem that drives the main character’s actions. Her real problem is much deeper and it had better be or the story won’t be worth reading at all.

NaNoWriMo has been very helpful in showing me that, although I know all this storytelling stuff in my gut and in my head, putting it into practice is another thing entirely. If I didn’t have a full-time job and a commute, I could probably focus on the word count and writing a first-rate story at the same time. But that’s not how my life is at the moment. I’ll take a month-long break after November. It will be Christmas after all and that’s stressful enough. I am fairly sure that my brain will keep working at it as I shop, trim the tree and eat too much. After NaNoWriMo, I will keep writing, though not in 2,000-word bursts. More like 500 to 1,000 and, then, not every day. I dread rewrites because they are hard work and life sucks enough all on its own, but today I am looking forward to them because, really, it’s just a big make-believe puzzle, right?

My NaNoWriMo word count total is 14,360. I have started writing a little over 2,000 words a day. Now that the plot is on its way, I am not having many sluggish moments during my word count runs. I have even spied some possible future red herrings (red guppies?)  in a few places and they showed up  totally by accident.  Making up characters as I go is still the most fun I have while I’m writing. It’s kind of like customising a character in a video game, I guess, only more elaborate. Well, I hope so. This isn’t supposed to be Sims Murder Mystery. Anyway, it’s my kind of game.

Knowing that I had writing to do definitely helped me deal with the information I got today. I decompressed after my commute home then jumped right in. As I go, I know that so much will need to be rewritten in order for it to be worth a damn. It is the discipline of writing fiction every day that I have been craving, even though a good day like yesterday when a character really takes off feels so nice.

This afternoon at lunch, I went out with my colleagues and they asked me what I would be doing this weekend. I said, ‘Writing.’ I explained that I was doing NaNoWriMo. I even told them the title (Saint Lorenzo) and the genre (a sort of-kind of murder mystery but not a police procedural or detective). The neurotic part of me cringed seconds before I said the title, but when I said it out loud, I felt a spark. I felt that THAT *is* the title  — until an editor tells me otherwise.

I am finding once again the freedom that comes from self-discipline. It is intense and addictive. Come spring, I may end up training for a half-marathon. Who knows?

But I doubt it.

Yesterday was a bit rough and I can already tell that part of it will be cut when rewrites come around. Today, on the other hand, was a blast. The story is in motion. The two crucial characters have met and I know what the main character’s hair looks like. Not that that is the most important aspect of the story.  For now, there is very little editing and that’s as it should be.  Just writing.

Whenever my energy flagged or I got stressed out today, I reminded myself that I would be writing this set of scenes come evening time. After my word count was hit and exceeded, I felt giddy. I realised that I have  been wanting to write the main scene I wrote today for six years. The very basic bones of the scene actually happened to me when I lived in Venice, CA. From that morning back in autumn 2005, I knew I’d write about it one day. It was too strange and magical to file away and eventually forget. I am so happy to have finally written it. I feel like I have little song birds hopping on my shoulders.