Channeling the Spirits of Spontaneity

So last year as a lot of you may know I finished NaNo for the first time, thanks to the crazy dares and challenges that I agreed to do if I didn't. Last year was loads of fun, but it lacked something that I always hear other Wrimos talking about: spontaneity.

Everyone is always excited, confused and sometimes downright furious at the things that their characters decide to do. They decide that they need different careers. They decide that the villain is actually a pretty nice guy and take him out to lunch. They decide to die. They say and do all of these wonderful off the cuff things, only barely under their writer's control. My characters did not.

I had an outline of scenes which I had jotted down on the day I came up with my silly little concept: of a girl haunted by the ghost of a black Labrador retriever until she fell in love with his former master. Oh Stirfry (the dog) was fantastic to write about! He did all sorts of fun things... but my actually living characters? They went from point A to point B and really didn't develop much at all. They just followed the outline. That's becuase the only real CHARACTER that I had was the dog. The rest were just sort of there so that I could write more about the dog. One very fun side character made a few brief appearances (Psychic Selma, of Psychic Selma’s Tarot Card Reading, Palmistry, Phrenology and Exotic Pet Emporium) but for the most part my novel just diligently (and boringly) followed it's little outline.

This year, I refuse to outline. Downright refuse. But, this year I have characters! Real people with wants and needs and problems and dreams who also just so happen to have really ridiculous watered down super powers. Some hide their powers in fear. Some use them constantly in the hope that somebody, anybody will notice - though no one does. Some powers are useful (if only slightly) while other are huge annoyances.

I have a man who can control flies, a girl who conjures tomatoes out of thin air when angry, a man who channels his weak telekinetic powers into the form of an imaginary, invisible squirrel, a man who can see through cardboard (but only if it's thin enough) and a man from a long defunct government agency who knows all of their genealogies back to the original six super heroes. I know when they discovered their powers. I know how they feel about them. I think I even know what makes a couple of them tick. I know that two will meet, learn of each others powers, set out to find more people like themselves, and perhaps fall in love. I also know that their powers aren't quite as useless as they think they are...

I don't know the rest. I don't want to. I'm hoping that in time, they will tell me.

Welcome All!

Hey y’all!

Yep, it’s time to try to get this back up and running. We also have a NaNo_Maine group over on LiveJournal. I’ll get the link to it up here ASAPA (As Soon As Pancakes Arrive - modified by one of my teens).

We have so many fabulous writers in Maine and we should be proud of them. We should really be trying to create a writing community in our too spread out state. As it’s hard to create personal writing communities with people all over the place - so why not try it online? We form a fabulous community every November and then it fades away for ten months or so. Yes, some of us manage to keep getting together year round with a variety of other writers and writing friends, but we need something more!

What I propose is that we really try to pull together here - as well as on the NaNo boards - and form a writing community that helps each other through whatever anyone might need. I know we’re all on different levels with our writing - some just starting , others are published - but we can all learn from each other.

So, post anything and everything to do with writing! Ask your questions, scream, yell, cry and kvetch, celebrate and we’ll celebrate with you! We’re a small state and all should stick together to help each other!


Ken