The Novel Begins To Take A Shape That I Haven't Written Down
Last year in this blog, I usually made it a point to compare where I was word-wise in my 2005 novel with where I was with my benchmark 2004 novel (the benchmark for so many things including actually finishing in 30 days combining the days I wrote in November and the days I wrote in December).
While I can still do that this year by looking at my LiveJournal entries from last November, I inadvertantly deleted my spreadsheet. It's probably for the best as I would just be anal about beating last year's totals. Then again that does go with the theme since I am the retentivewrimo after all. :)
There are a couple of comparisons I want to make though.
The first is that last year on November 5, I was staying in Brooklyn which visiting New York City. Totally forgetting this and somewhat randomly, I mentioned Brooklyn in the part of the story I was writing. Though I did it with knowledge of Brooklyn that I wouldn't have had last year.
While I was visiting the ancestral borough (my grandmother on my father's side was born there though the other three sides stayed in New York for about the amount of time it took to process them through Ellis Island and one of the four sides even came in through Canada) last month, my friend Lynn got into a discussion with the cook at the bar where one of her friends bartends while I was visiting both of them at the bar in question (whose name I don't remember but it's in Carroll Gardens).
Lynn grew up in Williamsburg before it became a yuppie community. She's a mixture of races (white, black, and Asian) which, if I remember correctly, wasn't that unusual for Williamsburg. But she used to cross over into Carroll Gardens back in the day and she related the dirty looks that she got in the neighborhood because it was all Italian at the time.
I took this and made it into part of Anthony's story.
His parents as I wrote them still live in one of the sections of Brooklyn that's mostly Italian and he relates part of the reason that he left home (that his parents are basically racist and can't handle blacks and Hispanics moving into the neighborhood). Though I think when he reveals more of the reason he left Brooklyn for Greenwich Village (I think it would only take one guess for anyone who knows New York City to figure out what reason a young man would have for moving to "The Village" to be around other people) I'll actually relay more of the actual story as opposed to eluding to it.
This also let me explore a bit of Beth's past. I made it so she comes from an Irish-American family in Boston with a strong, uncompromising yet free spirited (probably a hippie I haven't decided yet) mother figure. And I got to contrast this with the patriarchy that Anthony grew up in.
Which brings up the other big difference from last year to this one that I want to mention.
Last year I did a ton of research into Detroit's history as well as the War Of 1812. Two years ago, I did the same for Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague (it helped that I had been to four of the five) as well as looking up other things like security measures at Charles DeGaulle Airport.
This year I'm in similarly new territory for myself as I'm dealing with a flood. I really need to look up elevations of various places in New York City because eventually the five main characters in the story are going to leave the apartment building the story starts out in and I need to know which parts of the city will suffer from the soup bowl effect as happened in New Orleans.
The funny thing, well not so funny as it will kind of ruin the story, will be if Greenwich Village is actually one of the highest places in Manhattan so it would be dry as the water collected elsewhere. Memory serves that the borough is lowest at the bottom and highest at the top but that could be wrong.
Anyhow, beyond the scientific portion of the novel, what's really a more important difference is how I was keeping track of the details. I had little maps of Detroit with pencilled in landmarks and everything last year. This year, nothing. I don't even have last names for my five main characters.
Anthony has a last name, Trablisi, but Beth doesn't yet - though I'm thinking maybe Fitzpatrick and neither do the other main characters, William, Allison, or Brian.
Though as the novel is progressing, they are developing personality traits and stories. What I should really do tomorrow is stop for a second and write down what I've created about the characters so far.
But I probably won't as I'm pretty happy that I'm now a few hundred words ahead of pace and don't want to get behind again.
---
CURRENT WORD COUNT: 7715 words.
While I can still do that this year by looking at my LiveJournal entries from last November, I inadvertantly deleted my spreadsheet. It's probably for the best as I would just be anal about beating last year's totals. Then again that does go with the theme since I am the retentivewrimo after all. :)
There are a couple of comparisons I want to make though.
The first is that last year on November 5, I was staying in Brooklyn which visiting New York City. Totally forgetting this and somewhat randomly, I mentioned Brooklyn in the part of the story I was writing. Though I did it with knowledge of Brooklyn that I wouldn't have had last year.
While I was visiting the ancestral borough (my grandmother on my father's side was born there though the other three sides stayed in New York for about the amount of time it took to process them through Ellis Island and one of the four sides even came in through Canada) last month, my friend Lynn got into a discussion with the cook at the bar where one of her friends bartends while I was visiting both of them at the bar in question (whose name I don't remember but it's in Carroll Gardens).
Lynn grew up in Williamsburg before it became a yuppie community. She's a mixture of races (white, black, and Asian) which, if I remember correctly, wasn't that unusual for Williamsburg. But she used to cross over into Carroll Gardens back in the day and she related the dirty looks that she got in the neighborhood because it was all Italian at the time.
I took this and made it into part of Anthony's story.
His parents as I wrote them still live in one of the sections of Brooklyn that's mostly Italian and he relates part of the reason that he left home (that his parents are basically racist and can't handle blacks and Hispanics moving into the neighborhood). Though I think when he reveals more of the reason he left Brooklyn for Greenwich Village (I think it would only take one guess for anyone who knows New York City to figure out what reason a young man would have for moving to "The Village" to be around other people) I'll actually relay more of the actual story as opposed to eluding to it.
This also let me explore a bit of Beth's past. I made it so she comes from an Irish-American family in Boston with a strong, uncompromising yet free spirited (probably a hippie I haven't decided yet) mother figure. And I got to contrast this with the patriarchy that Anthony grew up in.
Which brings up the other big difference from last year to this one that I want to mention.
Last year I did a ton of research into Detroit's history as well as the War Of 1812. Two years ago, I did the same for Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague (it helped that I had been to four of the five) as well as looking up other things like security measures at Charles DeGaulle Airport.
This year I'm in similarly new territory for myself as I'm dealing with a flood. I really need to look up elevations of various places in New York City because eventually the five main characters in the story are going to leave the apartment building the story starts out in and I need to know which parts of the city will suffer from the soup bowl effect as happened in New Orleans.
The funny thing, well not so funny as it will kind of ruin the story, will be if Greenwich Village is actually one of the highest places in Manhattan so it would be dry as the water collected elsewhere. Memory serves that the borough is lowest at the bottom and highest at the top but that could be wrong.
Anyhow, beyond the scientific portion of the novel, what's really a more important difference is how I was keeping track of the details. I had little maps of Detroit with pencilled in landmarks and everything last year. This year, nothing. I don't even have last names for my five main characters.
Anthony has a last name, Trablisi, but Beth doesn't yet - though I'm thinking maybe Fitzpatrick and neither do the other main characters, William, Allison, or Brian.
Though as the novel is progressing, they are developing personality traits and stories. What I should really do tomorrow is stop for a second and write down what I've created about the characters so far.
But I probably won't as I'm pretty happy that I'm now a few hundred words ahead of pace and don't want to get behind again.
---
CURRENT WORD COUNT: 7715 words.
posted by incendiarymind at 10:07 PM
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