by Charles Dickens

I’m reading this as my Christmas book for the season as well as the beginning of a research project for next year’s NaNoWriMo novel.  I apologize for remaining secretive about this project, but I CAN say it involves reading a butt-load of Mr. Dickens!

I am very enthusiastic about this project, and I’m glad Rhiannon feels the same.  I’m glad I begin this year with Mr. Dickens with Cricket.  I’ve never read it, and it’s nice and short.  This commentary, on the other hand, may not be.

Chirp the First

Interesting.  It seems Mr. Dickens is trying to recreate the feel of the opening lines in A Christmas Carol, here.  “Marley was dead: to begin with.” “The Kettle began it!”  And both begin with a discourse which introduces the setting of the story.

However, in Cricket, Mr. Dickens spends the first few pages giving us his opinion on where the story should start.  He even ventures to argue with one of his characters about it.  For the first few pages I wasn’t sure who was telling the story.  I assumed Dickens’ voice in the opening lines was that of a character within the story.

I understand Dickens got paid by the word, and a writer has the need to experiment with his work, but this only confused me.  I, myself, played with the idea of giving the reader my opinion in such a way, and even interact with the characters.  Rhiannon was never receptive to the idea though.  Reading this only reinforces her point. I found it rather disorienting.

As for the rest of this first chirp … it’s great in the way only Dickens is great.  Sure, at times he can be too verbose in his descriptions for the modern reader, but his dialogue is still flawless.

Because I don’t know anything about the plot of this story, I’m not sure what I’ve just seen here in this chapter.  It was a night in the life of a delivery man and his family.  We were introduced to the whole cast (I assume, since the book only has three chapters), and he’s set up a lot of things.

Mr. Tackleton sounds like an interesting man.  He’s obsessed with his work and his hatred of those who it benefits.  He adores the ugly, and tries to project it into the toys he makes.  Oddly enough, Mr. Tackleton makes it sound like people actually admire what he does.  Such a mixed up man.

He stirs up trouble for John too.  John’s revelry at the end of the chapter is beautiful and finally terrible.  The meditation the Cricket gives him is interrupted by a virus in the mind put there by Mr. Tackleton.  There’s no way I can stop reading at this point.

Chirp the Second

Pleasing, in an unexpected way.  I didn’t think we’d be changing settings at all.  I wasn’t expecting that … whatever that was, with Mrs. Perrybingle and the stranger.  I assume we find our more about this in the conclusion.

There seems to be quite a few possible redemptions in this story.  John, Dot, Caleb, and Mr. Tackleton promise to have revelations, confrontations, and changes of heart.  This is where I start to get worried.  Mr. Dickens has many things to do in such few pages …

Other than A Christmas Carol, I’ve only ever read one Dickens novel:  Great Expectations–and that was for high school.  I remember loving every moment of the read, but, when I came to the end, my stomach was ripped out.  You see, through his narration, he lead me to believe there was more to the story from the very beginning.  When he didn’t deliver, it hurt.  I’m afraid that my expectations might be too high here.  Let’s hope my disappointment with my first experience with Mr. Dickens was a fluke … and misunderstanding youth.  Oh, c’mon, you knew I was going to end up read that book again too.  That’s a SHORT one–haha!

Chirp the Third

My fears were unfounded!  Mr. Dickens manages to fulfill every promise made in the previous two chapters.  Dot and John are a happy family again.  May doesn’t have to marry the miser, Mr. Tackleton comes around, Caleb and Bertha find comfort in the truth … everything.

As I was reading the chapter, at times, I thought to myself, “now this seems contrived,” and some of it was.  There are some pretty miraculous turn arounds here, at the end of the story.  Bertha would have known she wasn’t surrounded by luxury, I think.  She also would have known the true nature of Mr. Tackleton.  Once I was finished reading, I flipped over to the title page again, and meditated for a moment … “A Fairy Tale of Home.”  That did it.  Miraculous turn arounds and mysterious ignorance are completely acceptable–encouraged–in fairy tales.  Brilliant to the last drop.

I’m not sure how much this has done for my research for The Dickens Project, but it has given me a peek at what I’m in for in the coming year.  Bring it on Mr. Dickens … bring–it–on.

I’m in it for the long haul though.  Here’s to getting draft one done!

I wasn’t going to do one of these tonight.  Then I thought, what the hell (you know?)–I needed another distraction from reading.  Yeah, reading.  I need to STOP myself from writing at this point.  I’ve found such a great flow in the story, and I’m doing everything I can to prevent burning out.  I want this to keep going.

Reading regularly usually helps me to write.  If I don’t read for a long period of time, it gets harder to keep myself in the chair and surrendered to the powers of inspiration.  At present I am reading Pride and Prejudice AND Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  I should have the commentary to it up in a few days.

I guess I’ll get to it then.  Thanks for reading!

Officially surpassed the NaNoWriMo word count goal today!  We’ve been making exciting leaps and bounds in the story.  It’s fun discovering things that work themselves into the plan, but are entirely unplanned.

I find that that is very helpful when it comes to writing.  Allowing for surprised.  New characters spring themselves into the story, adding flavor to “boring but necessary” scenes that come in between the big events of the story.

Does anyone else find their characters running into unexpected, yet great turns?  They don’t necessarily effect the plot, but they add a dimension that wasn’t there in the planning stages.  It’s exciting.

I have tomorrow off from the J. O. B.  I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of writing done.  My goal is 10,000 words for tomorrow alone, but that is pending on getting other things done as well.  Gotta write with Rosie for a bit, I want to pound an article out for the site, and I have to get some reading in.

I’ll probably read tonight.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is rather entertaining.

You can’t catch me!  I’m off and running.  More than halfway through the story, and I’m feeling good.  The kids are back in the magical world, and things continue to play out better than planned.

There are all kinds of elements coming together in this story.  I feel like I’m racing towards the finish, seeing the sum of all the hard work that has brought me her.  I’m proud of this journey.

Anyone else experiencing an easier time than they thought?

Writing With Rosie

If I’ve never introduced my sister to you all, let me take this opportunity.  She is not a WriMo…at least not yet, but she is a writer.  She’s had this story in her head for AGES (three years to be exact), and I’ve tried my darnedest to get her to start writing it.

Collaboration seems to be the way I do things nowadays.  Working in a team is my ideal way to work.  Go figure.  Me!  I used to be such a loner.  I digress.  I’m headed over Rosie’s house this afternoon.  Gonna play with my nephew and we’re going to write some of her story.

I’ve planned for Rosie’s funny stories about two middle aged “ladies” of Vermont to be a regular feature on this site.  “The Misadventures of Miss Happs and Miss Fortune” are sure to make many chuckle…or at least raise a few eyebrows. The first chapter will be posted either late tonight or tomorrow.  Check back or subscribe to our RSS feed.

Not bad for the sixth day of writing.  Hah.  I’m sorry.  I know we got a head start, but it’s working!  The drive I was hoping to get from NaNoWriMo has delivered.  Even Rhiannon is getting excited about what’s coming out.  So much better than planned.  Sometimes all it takes is a force to get you through.

Motivational Forces

There are times–for every writer–when coffee, pixie sticks, and other biological forms of motivation just don’t cut it.  You may be sitting in front of your keyboard all day intending to write, but the distractions are too high.  You can’t bring yourself to unplug the internet (you mean disconnect from the world? Scary!), or turn off the cell phone.  How do you focus yourself?  You have to write, but you can’t.

Let’s talk magical forces.  There are as many different kinds of magical forces as you can think of, and the magical force of motivation is a very powerful one.  With motivation, any task–even dreaded ones–take on a life, are quickly completed.  To seek and use a motivational force is to add power to whatever you intend to do.  First, you have to know where to locate it.

In the pit of your stomach, that place that hurts when you feel hungry, that is where motivational forces live.  Go there in your mind.  Feel around.  Whenever you get excited about something, it usually comes from here.

It has been said there is a flame inside all of us.  I believe this is where that flame resides.  Whenever the distractions around me are getting to be too much, I focus on this place.  I feed the fire in a minute’s meditation.

When I feed this fire, it grows, and my fingers find their way through the story–blasting into scenes unthought of.  These are times when it’s just you and your story.  It’s almost as if you are watching it in action.  I find I write the best stuff when I have to do these meditations.  I’ve been doing them daily for NaNoWriMo.

Strike a flame with me!  Add inspiration to your story.   Tell me, what do you do to inspire yourself when you’re not feelin’ it?

Nearly finished chapter twelve, but I promised myself only to write until lunch time on work days.  I need some time to just relax and write blogs like this!  The past four days have been very invigorating.  NaNoWriMo is giving me the steam I was hoping for.

Rhiannon isn’t too excited about NaNoWriMo, but I wasn’t expecting her to be.  She knows my brain works funny, so she’s accepted WriMo…but if I end up slacking off, she’s gonna be mad!  I don’t blame her.

I’m impatient, which means I can’t work fast enough.  I write loads, then I burn myself out, and don’t write again for a month.  If there is any advice I can give from today’s day of writing it’s this:  take your time.  If you can write more than the daily word goal, great.  Be the tortoise not the hare.

Reading

An important exercise for any writer is reading.  All published authors tell we aspiring many this.  I find, even if it’s just a couple of pages, that reading fiction recharges my batteries.  In order to be a teller of stories, it’s important to be a fan of other people’s work.

I’m going to read for a bit before work.  Want to join me?

I have to say, I write a whole lot more than the minimum everyday.  Writing comes easy to me.  I love making up stories.  And I usually don’t set out with a word-count goal in mind when telling one.

Having a Plan

Setting out on something like NaNoWriMo is like getting in a dingy in a hurricane.  It’s hard to be prepared to deal with every single obstacle a writer has to overcome in writing a long piece of fiction in such a short amount of time.

Rhiannon and I spent months planning our story.  We saw that we had more than one book’s worth of ideas.  First, we found the first story, wrote a general summary of that story (about two or three pages), then we began to write.

Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of planning my writing.  our general summary was basically a list of ideas we wanted to be sure to include.  However, pre-writing is a definite phase in the planning of a novel.  So we jumped into pre-writing.

Five chapters in, we ran into a couple of snags in our plot and decided to back up a bit.  We were still finding our story at this point.  We wrote a chapter-by-chapter outline, then summaries to most of the chapters.  It was then we realized we had a detailed map of our story.  It wasn’t quite clear about everything we’d encounter in the writing–like a street-map in a brochure–a course guide to aid against getting lost.

My Expectations and Yours

From the average length of each chapter we’ve written so far, I expect we’ll be close to 100,000 words when we are done–well over the goal of this competition.  A lot of WriMos jump into November feet first.  Rhiannon and I were lucky enough to have a well planned idea (not to mention, a bit of a head-start).  I think it’s only fair that we should write more!

So those of you worried about not reaching the 50,000 word count, take it easy on yourself.  Write what you can–force it out of you.  Know that you can only do what’s best for you.  This is birth.  No child is born good or bad.  You have all the time in the world to make this story your best.  November is just for getting it out.

Yeah, it was an insane day.  I’m tired as hell, as predicted.  Lucky me, I go back to the J. O. B. tomorrow morning.  Apparently, it hasn’t been the same without me.  Feels good, but I really can’t wait until all my days are WriMo days.

Sweet dreams, I pray thee come again!  Melatonin helps too.  How did the rest of you WriMos fair?