this is why

 I will never be able to finish the Great American Novel (remember Ellen and her murdered husband, Seth?) and it is not easy to post on da blog nor send bitchy emails most days. Annabelle resents MsBook Air and prefers me to concentrate my ALL only on her. Only when she wants, of course.

a walk on Bryant Street

A new paint job here ~ on the delivery door it says Juicero. I check it
out on google and they went out of business in 2017. So maybe they
are coming back? In any event, the walk for me yesterday was a
good one. I met Joanne at Starbucks and we did some catch-up. She
was in my fiction writing class and her book is finished and in print.
Mine is on the floor of my office, also over here on my desktop in
a file marked Ellen. I praise Ellen for her patience...

from Susan (and so true)

now it begins

OK, I've given myself one full month of no work, all play, and I have
enjoyed myself immensely. I love the freedom. Believe me, any of those
worries about "what will I do when I retire?" are gone. GONE. But
always, in the back of my mind, I remember Ellen and my promise
to finish the novel. Starting this afternoon I am back in the land of
Who Killed Seth? and I hereby pledge to write five pages a week
until the damn first draft is finished. But first, to the gym...

more writers at work

Last night I went to Novel Continuation class ~ we started with 14 and
are now down to about 6 students. That's how it works. If this were easy
everyone would write a novel. Ellen plods a long, slowly, but I got the
reboot I needed and I will keep at this. I will, I will...

ellen gets analyzed

Husbando is very nice about letting me use the dining room table to work
on the outline project. It has been so long since I read the first fifty or
so pages that I was amazed at the number of characters who have dropped
away, the discrepancies (is sister Diane two years older or younger than
Ellen? it varies...) and, in general, the smooth readability of this work.
I am not displeased and that is a surprise. So I am making notes and
chugging along. Novel class next week and I need to report on some
progress here and I think I will, but it is slow going.

Ellen on the table

Yesterday I plunked my novel into a flash drive, used my 30% Office
Max coupon and behold, here we have 178 pages of mostly drivel. But
it's impressive that I have written so much. Soon I will do the outline
(now that's a project!) work out the next 130 or so pages. and hit the
NY Times best seller list. No guts, no glory.

Nancy, beware!

(here is my Round Robin piece for today - I am a happy sub again)

HOW THEY DIED

I'm working on a mystery novel, one with very little blood or death. I don't
care for either of those topics. Ellen is my protagonist and her husband, Seth,
died (conveniently) before the story begins, in a hit-and-run on Cesar Chavez.
My teacher, Karen, says that I need another body and I am dragging my feet.
Since I've just developed her sister, Diane, I don't want to kill her off and her
friend Lori is helping Ellen and snooping around and would be the logical
next-death, but I don't think Ellen could stand that after all she has been
through. She would feel responsible, because she is/was/could be.

It is my belief that women mystery writers are far less violent and in-your-face
about the dead body business than the men. Sheeeeeez, so many of them
get all caught up in vivid descriptions of the bodies with eyes popping
out and gallons of blood ruining the carpets. I tend to skip right over those
paragraphs and get back to all the emotional and psychological issues.

At the end of the last Novel Continuation class a fellow student said that she
had just reread all the Nancy Drew classics. So many of us loved those
when we were girls. She said that the daring Nancy was chloroformed
in every single story. How convenient! Maybe I will try that with friend Lori,
I don't want to toss her under a BART train. Too messy.

so far so good

Yesterday I was able to start organizing THE NOVEL on Version 4 of
WriteItNow. It's almost self-explanatory and I started with the characters
and that helps a lot. Thankfully I took some handwritten notes along
the way, because the writer forgets who/where/what as the pages add up.
Right now Ellen is in Paris for a few days, she needed a break.

the New Balance project

 Here is my writing project for today. Suggested by Karen, my wonderful
Novel Continuation teacher - class begins again on July 24th.

100 Index Cards - I bought these at OfficeMax about two months ago. I'm
supposed to let my mind run wild and joyfully write down plot and character
ideas and toss them into some sort of shoe box. Then I rest for a day or so,
maybe another month, and go through them, getting rid of the ones that are
too outlandish. Some authors use different color cards or ink for each character.
I might do that. Let's play with this idea:
1) Ellen - black for mourning
2) Diane - green for jealousy
3) Keith - blue for the guy thing
4) Edgar - red for danger
5) Nabe Tim, Lori and Greg - purple
6) BFF Trudy in Paris - pink for the girly thing


Maybe I'll have a photo of a full shoe box for tomorrow. Maybe not.

off to Paris

My protagonist, Ellen, is stuck and so I'm going to send her to Paris for a
few days to visit her friend Trudy and to recap all the intrigue here in SF. She
will be taking a mysterious flash drive and I bet the women will spend some
time sitting here at the Jardin des Tuileries,  talking about life. Laughing
and crying and maybe visiting the Louvre, maybe not.  Probably not.

mid-journey

Yesterday I organized my extensive notes from the Novel Continuation class
which ended last Friday night. I already signed up for the next one which
begins in July and lasts until December. My goal is to have the first draft
finished by the end of 2015. Here are some nuggets:

• never step too far away from the novel
• what gives Ellen's life meaning?
• the antagonist will use Ellen's weaknesses
• one does NOT have to write in linear fashion - just write!
• why are we in this scene?
• what are the unwritten rules in Ellen's world?
• what is the "magic" in my novel?
• read "Drop City" by T.C. Boyle
• good fiction is really just interesting gossip
• if writing a book was easy, everyone would do it

modern day sheds

Every Saturday I submit five pages (well, 4.3 or so) of my Ellen novel
to my two partners, Anna and Joanne. This week we made a fictional trip to
a storage unit where Seth's stuff is stored. I need to go to a facility near here
for some work on this scene, but that can wait until the 2nd or 3rd draft.
Anyway, back in the 80's Husbando and I had a storage unit and mostly what
I recall is the huge relief when we closed the door there for the final time.
Then I think it was $35 a month or so - I need to know what it costs today.
My writing teacher, Karen, said that Martin Cruz Smith wrote the fabulous
Gorky Park (1981) without ever going to Russia. Remember, that was before
Google or the internet or Wikipedia! I admire writers who do research.

the antagonist

I went to my novel class on Friday night and Teacher Karen spent some
time talking about how absolutely necessary the antagonists are. They
are the hero of their own lives - think about that. Ellen's main enemy is
her sister Diane, so I have spent this week exploring her life and her
motives. I had never given Diane much thought before, but now I have
her story and (oh oh) I'm starting to like her. When I typed up the notes
from this class Husbando said, "it's like all your writing books condensed
down to these important concepts." Oh, and along the way, some protagonists
will become antagonists. I love a mystery.

is that you, Seth?

I'm having trouble understanding Seth, Ellen's husband. I can't picture him,
nor can I fathom why he would ever cheat on his wife. Teacher Karen suggested
that I google 60 year old men and I like the looks of this one, don't you? So
next I need to write about him and that will be a challenge. But interesting,
always that...

remember Ellen?

Of course, you do - she is my latte-loving heroine searching for clues
as to WHO killed her husband. Was it her sister? Relax, even the author
doesn't know. Especially the author. But, wait, there is hope. One of
my ex-teachers posted on Facebook (of all places) that we need to stop
saying how much we dislike writing, how difficult it is, etc. So now
on the top of my weekly To Do List in big letters: I LIKE TO WRITE!
And then by each day I have the word Ellen and I get to cross that off
when I have pushed this reluctant woman a bit further in her investigation.
A week from tonight I go to class again, so progress must be made!

In the meantime, Daughter Nancy and family are here and we head for
Napa in a couple of hours. G. dot Ceci is a chef up there, as you might
remember. So now after Ellen pokes around AT&T Park, I get to
pack the Paris suitcase and take Ken the Toyota for a run.

feeling (like) smug

Last night I went to the final Novel Writing Class at Karen's. It was
my turn to submit and I'm amazed to tell you that I have almost
10,000 words (goal is 80,000 or so) done. Ellen continues to search
for the killer of her husband Seth and even though I wasn't "feeling
it" for the last several weeks, my fellow students and teacher were
so very complimentary that I'm gung ho once again.

I have never accumulated so many words and I have learned so much.
They all loved my To Do List in the story which helped me propel
through some scenes when I was stuck. Here from my teacher:
"I love Ellen's voice so much. I think I'd read very far into her story
with very little happening, just to listen in on her thoughts and
observations."

On January 23rd I begin another Novel Writing class - this one
through the Writing Salon. And who is the teacher? Karen!
Oh, yes, you'll want to know that Ellen is resuming her blog -
it will lead to some clues and will focus on Seth and their
long and less than perfect marriage.

the Ellen update

 Yes, to my surprise I have kept on writing. Not everyday and certainly
not in Paris, but I push ahead. Trust the Process - meaning if I get to
really know my Ellen a plot will emerge. Unexpected twists and turns
emerge from out of the blue and that part is really fun for me.  I so envy
authors who can plot it all out beforehand, but try as I might, that ain't me.
The novel workshop helps immeasurably - I am inspired by the other students
and by my teacher, Karen. One thing I have learned is to stop writing
before ending a scene because it is easier to return the next day. And I
keep a separate hand written list of the various characters. It can get
confusing. I have almost 6,000 words and I need about 80,000. But
really, just keep moving it along, I tell myself. Also, the term NOVEL
is too intimidating, so we call them: pages, stories, pieces, words, etc.

getting Ellen organized

Husbando is being very kind by allowing me to take over the dining room.
Yesterday I started yet another first draft, changing and adding a lot of new
things, along with some old Ellen phrases and intertwining her emails to
her friends and neighbors. I do need to figure out a timeline here, but I am
sure that will happen. Tonight is my first "finish your novel" workshop!

resurrection

It's appropriate to show the clock here too. This is my Ellen file, remember
the heroine looking for her sister? Well, it is a mish-mash, it needs lots
and lots of work. But Ellen never really goes away, she has wormed a
hole in my heart and quite a few people encourage me to keep working on
this piece of (ahem) fiction. At one point I approached one of my favorite
teachers about helping me privately, but the cost was prohibitive. Well,
this teacher emailed me yesterday that she has an opening in her novel writing
workshop and yes, I will be going. It begins Sept. 10th, and I am very,
very excited. We will meet every two weeks in Karen's Glen Park home
and now I'm thinking that Ellen will be going to Paris at some point during
her sister search.  More adventure - more, more, more!