What To Do, What To Do?

In about half an hour, I'm going to straighten myself up a bit - these early Sunday mornings do take a toll - and head out to a NaNoWriMo thing.

What? You've never heard of National Novel Writing Month (http://nanowrimo.org)? During the month of November, thousands of people around the world sit down and write a novel. It is only for the month of November. You can be the merest, curious amateur. All you have to do is to find a way to get words onto paper or pixels. If you want to know more, check out the link.

I've done this in 2004 and 2006. I totally freaked in 2006 when I entered an excerpt from a mystery novel that featured murder with a pair of scissors and found the excerpt illustrated with...a pair of scissors. Totally not my doing. And I thought - wait. People actually read this stuff?

In 2007, I was too busy with my new job. In 2008, I was too busy panicking about my job. This year, I've learned I can push panic aside for a few minutes at a time. I'm thinking about nano-ing again.

The only problem I have is deciding what to work on.

I have:

- A mystery set in Paris, having to do with races. This is the most fun and escapist and probably the most commercially viable. It will involve a lot of research, but the research could easily be fun. Includes spunky tall heroine, well-to-do Frenchman and his scrawny younger brother.

- Les memoirs. I know I've been setting down some incidents here. The other day, I made a list of incidents and observations. The thing about this one is that I could not do it at the breakneck speed NaNoWriMo needs. These bits have to come about thoughtfully.

- Then there's one I've scribbled a few pages on. A native Richmonder moves back after years in New York - and other than the setting, there is nothing autobiographical about it. It's a mystery, set in the Fan District and involves the theft of a painting to be shown in a gallery. No one quite understands why it was stolen. It wasn't that valuable but it's important enough to not shrug it off. I think my ambivalence on this one shows. I'm ambivalent because the heroine is not the kind favored in most fiction. She is older, tired, has recently suffered an illness that she may or may not recover from. I'm still working on her. The thing I should keep in mind is that I'm in love with her best friend since high school, Penny, who runs Cobblestone Alley Books, harkening back to my days at VCU when Back Alley Books still existed. I think there are too many blanks that require too much hard thinking to get a run at this one.

This should be a clue. When the sidekick is more interesting to you than the main character, it's time to switch main characters.

I've unofficially completed a NaNo book once. In 2004, I was writing a novel that I didn't complete by the Nov. 30 deadline. I went on to finish it anyway, and it was so horrible that I can't find it and I don't care that I can't find it.

I have so many little beginnings scattered around the house. In the file drawers. On my dead hard drive (sob), in the layers and layers of papers scattered on my desk. They tend to be about the same thing. Usually a mystery, sometimes light, mostly dark, all unfinished. I'm not so keen on writing romances, but I would someday like to try my hand again at serious fiction. And by that I mean the likes of Elizabeth Berg and Anne Tyler. I don't think I have the stamina for it right now.

So. The Frenchy thing, I think. Something light and interesting and fun, to distract me from the advent of The Long Dark, which starts exactly a week from now.