Hello, my love-o-lees. So I have yet to really make a significant contribution to my novel this month. I’ve had yet another epiphany (they’re really not that hard to discover, you just have to be thinking all the time) regarding the success of this endeavour. Some novels will crash and burn, like September and Octobers did and here are the possible reasons why:
1. The story line’s too involved/complicated to be done by a neophyte novelist (or perhaps any) in a month. This is pretty self-explanatory. I might have succeed if the subplot wasn’t so twisty and it could actually be broken up into 2 or more novels.
2. The genre is too specific and I can’t accommodate its style with mine. This means that there will never be a dick tracey-esque story in my literary career (other than the short story spoof that was based on dogs, not people à la “Dogs Playing Poker” idea). That’s okay because I really don’t enjoy reading them.And you should writer what you enjoy, correct?
3. There just isn’t a story in me at the moment that fulfills this month’s genre. With the horror, I love it, I had an idea but it wasn’t to the point where I was ready to write it. Perhaps nothing will come of it or perhaps it’s an amalgamation of too many that I’ve come across in the past so it’s at best unoriginal, at worst plagerism. Maybe one day true inspiration will strike and I’ll think of something original.
4. Pascal and Jose(fiend)phine won’t leave me alone. Writers have strange bedfellows sometimes. And the strangeness isn’t always all that great. Dreams and nightmares can be the richest sources of material (when you can remember them) but laying awake at night debating on what the best word is to describe a character’s underpants or fighting the impulse to edit/delete your work is not conducive to your writing. And please, think twice before defenstrating your computer.
All that being said, I’m really happy about this month’s story. I was hoping to make it to the Sunday write-in at a library yesterday but I got lost on the bus and found myself at a different branch. Instead of working on my piece I rented 2 books and they both are in the 1st person narrative that I decided to use. I’m taking this deviation from my master plan for Sunday’s writing as a sign that I’m on the right track. But more importantly, it’s shown me that narrative-heavy stories can be engrossing and that they can work. Yay for me because I’ve come to the conclusion that I suck at dialogue.
So with this in mind I’ve decided to go for broke and see how close to 25,000 words I can get by next Monday. If I manage to make that, don’t be surprised if i post on Monday that i’m on a transplant list for new fingers because I’ve worked mine down to little nubs. Let’s do the math:
I’m starting with 233 words today. 25,000-233= 24,767. Now 24,767/7= 3,538.14 but let’s just round it up to 3,600 because I like symmetry and 3,600 is much more aesthetically pleasing than 3,538.14. It’s like swearing- it sounds prettier in French but more literal in German.
So that leaves me with 3,600 words per day for the next week. Can I do it? Where’s my coffee and laptop? I’m determined to end this slacking off. Right. Now.
So without further ado, let’s get started. Keep me on track this week and hold me to this promise! I’ll resume my former practice of posting that day’s word count and will include the day end tally, both word count and page count.
Yes, San, don’t give in to your inner Schweinehund 😉
I refuse to give up the fight for any reason, especially becasue of my Schweinehund!
Uh, what is this inner Schweinehund anyways? Is it a mythical Germanic pig-dog? I have a feeling I’m way off base here and my Deutsch ist sehr schlecht (Thank goodness for online dictionaries! haven’t had to write in German for 15 years and my spelling was atrocious!)
Sometimes I wish it were just a mythical beast… 😉
In general, referring to someone as a Schwein or Sau (female pig) in german can mean that person is externally dirty, but also (perhaps even more so) dirty-minded, foul, mean, lazy.
The Schweinehund was originally simply a dog that guarded the pigs = “pig”herd dog. During the 19th century, “Schweinehund” found it’s way into student’s language as an insult, referring to someone who is lazy and/or a coward.
Der innere Schweinehund would be that part of us that keeps saying “nah” or “later” and finding or making up excuses…
Sometimes you have to let go of the boundaries. Genres are just a guideline and shouldn’t be the definition of how you define your writing. Why not write what you want to write and simply add little nuggets of genre throughout?
I agree there are times when boundaries need to be ignored, broken through or disregarded but I do work best within the confines of structure. It’s comforting for me to have these guidelines because otherwise my brain can end up paralyzed because there are too many options. It’s part of the reason why I gave up a residency card- it was too overwhelming to have the choice to freely live in one country or another.
I like having freedom and the ability to explore something but to get the most out of it, I need to have restrictions at some point.
Danke Schon, Maria! Ich habe gelernt ein neu wort heute!
*This deviation into the German language was brought to you by my new favouritest tool- the online dictionary/translator! Keep your eyes peeled for future sentences in French and Irish. I promise to stick with the languages I’ve studied.
(Translated: Thank you, Maria! I have learned a new word today!) You gotta love languages that have the same (or close to the same) sentence structures as your native one. Let me go on the record and say Irish is impossible until you give up and just go with it!
You are cordially welcome 😉
Word-ly Translation is one of-the most-effective Methods for a Foreignlanguage to learn. As-well Sentencestructure as also Wordtreasure become visible and easy to behold – because they so weird and funny are.
Examplesentence: I have today a new Word learned. – Ich habe heute ein neues Wort gelernt.
It gives also Tricks how man the Endings of-the Grammer in-build can, but that lets itself not in a Comment describe.
(Translation “Germanlish into German”:
“Du bist herzlich willkommen. Buchstaebliche Uebersetzung ist eine der effektivsten Methoden um eine Fremdsprache zu lernen. Sowohl Satzstruktur als auch Wortschatz werden sichtbar und leicht zu behalten – weil sie so seltsam und lustig sind. Beispielsatz… Es gibt auch Tricks wie man die Endungen der Grammatik einbauen kann, aber das laesst sich nicht in einem Kommentar beschreiben.”)
[You can learn even Japanese and Chinese this way – so it should also work for Irish 😉 ]
Please substitute “word-ly” with “letter-ly” – I had started out writing something different, and then got confused because Germanlish is not my native language…
This made my morning! Grammar is so difficult sometimes and pfffft forget about sentence structure! I consider myself to be a superstar when my sentences have more than 4 words. And it’s a spectacular day if punctuation is required other than a period, exclamation mark or question mark.