How Do I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?

So, I quit Nanowrimo last week, after I'd reached 42,000 words. That's crazy, right? I mean, I had eight thousand words to go (have, I guess, since it's not midnight, yet), and I could certainly have made. I still could, in the nine hours I have left. But I'm not going to. It just hit me a few days ago, right before Thanksgiving, that I wasn't going to finish. The thing is, I started Nanowrimo to knock out a draft of the Next Book and I did that. In 42,000 words. HAHAHAHAHA! you may be saying. "Jay, there's no way that you have a viable YA book in 42,000 words." You're right. But I wasn't writing a final draft, I was writing a first draft. And I'm a reviser, not a planner, so that means that what I actually got was 42,000 words of a possible path that the book might take. The actual draft of the book that's fit to show anyone (think two to three drafts from now) will be considerably longer, and will actually make sense.* The ...

Earlier this month, Steph Bowe wrote a list of things that make her stop reading a YA book. If I'm being honest, I'll say that very little will stop me from reading a YA book, mostly because YA books are generally so short that by the time I realize that I should have stopped reading one, I'm done with it. But here are the things that would make me stop reading one, and will keep me from reading the next book in the series, should there be one: 1. "hip" teen slang. Do authors really think that they're being authentic when they do this? Because without fail, "hip" slang sounds corny and cheesy in, at most, a year. Also, if you are not actually a teenager, you have no idea what they think is hip. Adult writers for YA should focus on story and worry about slang later. 2. too many pop culture references. These references, like the slang, grow stale way too quickly and only serve to date the story. And, again, adult writers have no idea what po...

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Recently on the Upstart Crow blog , Chris asked about inspiration, and how writers keep track of their ideas. Chris seems to have a series of making notes where ever he is, which would drive me crazy. I'm a bit of an organizational nerd, so I have to have a system, and I experiment from time to time with changing up my system for keeping track of my ideas. At the moment, this is how I keep track of my ideas. 1. The Daily Notebook. I have a notebook on my person virtually all the time. Not a variety of notebooks, one notebook. I keep it it my purse* and I write down everything in that notebook. Grocery lists, to do lists, story ideas, daily journaling, everything. Once it's full, it goes on a shelf in my office organized in chronological order and a new one goes in my purse.** Then, from time to time, I look through the notebooks to see if anything captures my fancy. 2. If an idea really sticks with me, I start making notes on it. These notes start in the Daily Noteb...

1. I've been watching old episodes of The West Wing on Bravo lately, and have come to the conclusion that I love the character of Sam Seaborn. He's smart, he's earnest, he's a good writer, and he's played by Rob Lowe. What's not to love?* 2. I just bought the cutest jacket at Ann Taylor Loft. I know you care, but it's not every day that one can find a white denim jacket with styling reminiscent of Michael Jackson and a tailored waist. I'm just saying. 3. NaNoWriMo proceeds apace. There is no way that I'm going to be able to keep writing at this pace after this month is over, but I'm on track to finish. It's an interesting project...in some ways the speed is freeing and in other ways it's extremely limited, as to make the word count I have no time to go back and revise. 4. Alien and Aliens are amazing movies. Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection ? Not so much. 5. This week's Glee characterization inconsistency watch: Rache...

Nostalgia - it's delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, "nostalgia" literally means "the pain from an old wound." It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. Don Draper "The Wheel" Mad Men Like a lot of writers, I suspect, many of the things I write come from memory. Not memories, per se--but from memory , using bits and pieces of things I've seen and heard and lived to create whole new places that, I hope, are just as real. And I've discovered, recently, that there are things I shouldn't do in order to preserve my memory. Like, for example, Facebook. Don't get me wrong--I'm on Facebook, and I've reconnected with people from my past and all that--but there are people who I don't look up, because they have become fantasies. And there are questions I don't ask of the people who I have reconnected with because I've already made up the answers. And when I go home, there are str...

see more Lolcats and funny pictures Via LOLcat, of course. NaNoWriMo Word Count: 32,668