Coming Into the Station

It's strange coming to the end of a story that's insistently told itself every day for a month.

I'd like to go on, but it's finished. Oh, perhaps another night of writing, at most.

It's not sad to come to the end, though having evenings to do nothing will seem strange, almost indolent, excessively free, you know what I mean.

I may even start going to bed at a reasonable hour again, instead of 2 or 3am, and do away with the weekend sleepfests.

What can I say about it? I've had a writer's block for about a year and a half in that nothing has flowed easily in that long. Yes, I do feel writing's been released in me again and that feels good and wonderful. Writing is flowing, the block's released, and I don't care what caused it or didn't.

The story is strange in that it is not autobiographical at all and doesn't have huge depth or any of the writerly slants I like to give things I compose.

The first day I sat down and wrote, without any prior notion of what to write.

Each day was like this. In fact, the less pre-determined, the more spontaneous, the better. I cleared my mind as in meditation and wrote from a fresh place. Often what occured surprised me, yet seemed logical in terms of the story that was telling itself.

The story, now that's another aspect of this process. The story reminds me of those long, boring dreams we have, ones that take lots of dreamtime, and if we remember them, relating them goes on and on and really we see very little point to them. They are not 'major' dreams. They are ordinary, every day dreams. Our little adventures, the ones submerged in our minds beneath the big transformational dreams, beneath the big thoughts and important occurences of our lives. What I discovered from writing this book is that an awful lot of things go on just below the conscious threshold. We are infinitely rich beings on whom the world makes a huge impact.

Yeah, there 's a fair bit of Eros in it. But not nearly enough. And towards the end it dies out altogether, but then the main character got married and has a family and etcetera.

But it was juicy in the telling up to the settling down.

I'm going to race through it cleaning up glaring inconsistencies, grammar, excesses, and if you convince me you'd be interested, and were willing to share your thoughts on the composition, by email, then I may add you to a version for readers and/or collaborators (for the purpose of editing typos only) who've expressed an interest in the manuscript.

Post-NaNoWriMo

After the effort of the last month to produce 50,000 coherent words, which I chose to do as 2,000 words a day, prefering to give myself a little leeway for the inevitable crises in daily living that occur or to finish early, both of which happened, and having crossed the finish line yesterday, I found I was truly exhausted today.

Yesterday I also managed to disable the wireless network and not having an hour or more to deal with technical assistance got a long internet cable out of the doldrums and plugged it into my computer to cross that NaNoWriMo finish line!

While I did attend Kaeja d'Dance's fundraiser last night, and showing of dance films by local students, and had tickets to Kaeja Mad Screen this evening, I had no energy. But my novella isn't finished! Instead of resting, I wrote my daily count. Another 2500 words! Crazy or what.

Now he's almost out of the mountain cave where condors nest having recovered his memory & I have to get him safely down & home... :)

Official NaNoWriMo Winner

It's official. I am a NaNoWriMo winner - just logged in at 50,042 words, and still writing... whoopee.

Now off to Kaeja d'Dance.

Almost at the NaNoWriMo finish line...

My nights are spent avoiding then struggling to write, hours, agonizing, then bursts of a clicking keyboard as a new scene emerges, now at 46,658 words.

That's, so far, 223 double-spaced pages.

For someone who started NaNoWriMo on November 1st to break through a writer's block, it's an explosion of writing. And I'm actually not displeased with what's happened in the pages that have spun out during the past few weeks. It's a fascinating process, writing under a deadline.

I recommend it, along with the writing we do when inspired of course. Both are valuable.

I'm very tired, so time to turn off the computer.

'Night everyone!

Sleep for a Thousand Hours

Passed the 40,000 word mark . Only 10,000 words to go. Groan, Groan, Groan, Groan, Groan... ::wan smile from a NaNoWriMo moll::

When this is over, I'm going to sleep for a thousand hours.

Or years, whatever comes first.

Don't I look like I'm writing maniacally, not having a life! Squirreled away, pounding the keyboard, reading glasses hugging the nose, hour after hour, night after night... sleep for a thousand hours, I say!

How's it going? Really and truly I can no longer call it 'erotic fiction.' Ah, well. I tried but ya know writing trash is difficult and beyond my capacities to keep up for any length of time.

Here's a snatch from tonight:

At HIL (House of Ill-Repute), Orsola and Mœdello sat at the great wooden table next to the kitchen surrounded by the five Madames and whoever else drifted in and out, various children of varying ages mostly. The Madames were dressed in old velvets and chiffons of deep and warm colours, dark purples and rose pinks, and some wore rhinestone beaded bandannas and they all wore dangly shiny costume jewelry from their ears and around their necks. They were more opulent than when they were younger, and exuded even more sensuality.

Perhaps it was the insular way the city had developed, the Bordello more-or-less aging with its original occupants. These were older women who laughed easily and who were comfortable with who they were, how they looked, in themselves; even if some might say they looked a little batty, to Orsola and Mœdello, they were colourful, warm and beautiful.

But it got worse in tonight's writing.

The Bordello was like an apothecary. A pantry at the back contained an array of herbal remedies, not just many bundles of dried herbs hung from the rafters and walls, but shelves of tinctures.

And then my rampant muse, oh! My rampant muse made an outrageous assertion.

For, besides being hookers, the old Madames were as knowledgeable as trained midwives.

While they laughed often, they were jovial women, particularly hearty laughter shook them when they said they were women from the ancient religion and were high priestesses who were sacred prostitutes, midwives and healers. Of course, no-one took such nonsense seriously.

The Writing a 50,000 word novella in a month challenge continues...

The NaNoWriMo novella is progressing on schedule. I wrote till 2am last night, this is becoming normal, especially yesterday, a day of kid crises that were finally all resolved at midnight followed by two hours of intense writing, and then an hour to unwind. Slept from 3am-8am without waking, then onward with the day. Day after day of these hours and I do get rather tired, but I'll sleep late on the weekend and catch up. I should finish the 50,000 words five days early, and so I'm considering spending those five days on a 'clean-up' edit for consistency and spelling etc., I don't think it'll be possible to do a rewrite (at 10,000 words a day, uh uh - I'm |insane| but not that |insane|!)

Is it fun? Maybe the first hour was!

Since I have no predetermined plot, no outline, nor is it autobiographical, each day is fresh and a surprise to me. It's hard work, dragging this rather plain and ordinary story out of my imagination. I mean I started out trying to write trash but there's not a whole lot of trash in it, more long social conscience scenes with some erotic interludes, which I try to juice up, really I do, but I actually don't have much or any experience of the sort that I write about in some of the erotic interludes. Really imaginary! No matter, writing creates its own story. 

And I have been rearranging my apartment and it's beginning to come together, still a couple of corners of papers to sort - moving from a 3-bedroom house to a small 2-bedroom apartment continues to be challenging and I've given away or thrown out masses of stuff.

Been at it with my power drill too- hanging curtains, multiple coat hooks and kitchen shelves and masks and paintings, and now I have to finish two paintings that I've hung, so it's all good.

Tonight a Slovakian movie, Return of the Storks, part of the European Film Festival in Toronto.

(though my head is heavy and dull, made my word count, before midnight too. 28007 words now.)

Onward, NaNoWriMo!

Gak! 600 words more for today's 2k goal. Like pulling reeds out of quicksand! Or words out of the sludge of my brain tonight. Focus, write!

I passed the half-way mark yesterday.

No Comparisons, no, no

If I think my NaNoWriMo's raunchy, I have a ways to go: "My Name is Juani," Spanish flick, won awards, upcoming European Union Film Festival in Toronto.

On my calendar, sigh.

Take notes.

NaNoWriMo continues...

Reached 18,204 words now, becoming more social conscience, clearing out the old order & rebuilding society, ah NaNo freedom!- must stop, got to meet a friend.

I find a daily word goal works best- this year it's 2000 words a day, and thus far I've been meeting it. In the early morning I write 600-800 words, and in the late evening the remaining 1200 or so words to meet that day's target.

Find your rhythm, and go with it.

Excerpt from NaNoWriMo, on the process of writing

Dear Reader, I need not tell you what an unexpected afternoon of delight he had. We shall discover the details, for I am as curious as you, and after all this is a book of erotic fiction.

Though, dear reader, you understand that I but partially write the story of these characters. My idea had been for Ambra to discover his innocence and for he and her to spend a delightful night together as she indoctrinated him in the arts of love. Then I could have written of deep emotional love, of indissoluable bonding, and thereby written of the poetry of their souls.

But Ambra, on the brink of being written into the text as the woman who deflowered him, decided to meet with her rich lover and disappear.

I was surprised as you, dear reader, by her quick and complete exit.

It doesn't look like she's coming back either. I'm not sure where she's gone, or what happened to her. In this regard I, though the author, am as 'in the dark' as you, the reader.

Never mind. The story continues. It appears to be, more-or-less, writing itself. I have found any planning I do for what may happen next goes for naught. The characters have other ideas.

I'm learning in my daily life to forget that I am writing a novella since nothing I decide in terms of direction or character development happens that way.

Rather, it is as if the text decides its own direction moment to moment.

Things develop logically out of other things, but what happens to characters seems based on the inner logic of the story rather than my control of it.

Hence I shall relate Mœdello's afternoon at the Bordello, though you understand I, too, am entering the Bordello along with him; this writing has not been thought-through beforehand, there are no notes, or plot outlines, or even overall moral for the story.

Everything in this story is created in the moment.

Though I have unsuccessfully tried, no premeditated directions of any kind have been permitted by the writing itself. I sit before my computer, or my legs stretched out on the couch or bed, touch typing.

The writing tells its own tale.

No, I'm not "chaneling." Such a ludicrous notion!

It surprises me, what goes on in the subdued buried populations of my mind, where these characters roam close to a wild abandon to the senses, racous, on the edge of social decency. They are like dreams called forth through the act of writing without prescribed notions of what is to happen, or not happen.

What unfolds through these pages might embarrass me, but dreams are like that.

NaNoWriMo continues...

12,011 NaNoWriMo words, wrists hurt, story's raunchy but sad, made my daily word count, I did, sleep in peace now, till tomorrow's count...

NaNoWriMo 2008

Aiming for 2000 words/day, should reach 50,000 words before the end of the month or have a few days for crises'; NaNoWriMo is exuberant, hell, a way to drive yourself |insane|.

NaNoWriMo begins...

Yes, I've begun NaNoWriMo - 402 words so far, only 49,598 to go! No plot, no outline, allow oneself to compose a story unplanned! Discover it as you go. Why not, I ask. Why not?

Is this fun? I don't know. I'm surprised too. Where this character came from, I have no idea. But here he is - Moedello. And onwards...

My site at NaNoWriMo is RubiesInCrystal.

I'm writing it on Google Docs (which some of you have heard me rave about). I'm sure I'll be posting bits on this blog throughout the month. The first beginning...





No beginning. Mœdello, I tell you this. Remove the concept of beginning. Everything develops out of something else. Coming into fruition or withering away, seeds set a long time back, perhaps when the universe developed out of something else. No ex nihilo.

Take off your monk's garbs, leave the Order. Forget the salvation of the timeline. Without beginning, there is no end.

It's a gentle truth. Whatever we are will become something else. We live in continuums. Going all the way back and all the way forward. Nothing is wasted and nothing lost.

Even black holes, which suck everything in, disappearing past the event line, the horizon of being. Which then evaporate. We think they're gone, information lost, trajectories lost, where there was is now nothing, impossible to conceive, inconceivable. Yet transforming, evaporating from disappearance.

Perhaps we are an evaporated black hole. The disappeared who are here, a living universe.

Drop your robes, Mœdello. Unstring your rosary in the garden. I am not a wanton woman tempting you.

I'm only writing this to discover time, the passing. Because I respect the time that our grammar weaves, teaching our minds generations after generations. Organizing our memories, too. Timelines. Enfolded complexities of living.

If I could understand where you're coming from I'd go there too.

Or perhaps only visit. Bringing my past to meet your future.


The horses were white and galloped powerfully, muscles and nostrils and flank hair and hooves. Were they in a pasture or were they a memory?

You came from Italian stock. From farmland. You gave up the soil for the dry run of Ecclesiastical words. Hearing, breathing the scriptures. Predictable shadows on the walls. Walking by pillars every day, upheld. Comfort in the predictability of the hours of the days that repeated themselves without interruption and were unlike the cycles of farming, dependent on the weather of the seasons and the market. When the rains stopped, the famines began. The horses died. It was cracked and dry.

You all went away, there was no food. The friar on the street of the city where you stood shivering took you in. The friar who offered you his robes. You were thin but he fed you and taught you to mime the sacraments with him.

It wasn't that you didn't believe what the Church offered.

I never said that.

Nanowrimo this year?

With the impossibility writing has been presenting for me these last months, I wonder if joining Nanowrimo this year would be a good discipline and challenge?

The first year I began where I was, and let a story unfold. Of course the manuscript is huge and unwieldy! I've never edited it into something more reasonable. Though it's possible that the urge to do at least one complete rewrite will overtake one indolent day.

Nanowrimo begins Nov 1st - enough time to decide.

The first one began in a temp job matching files to original ledger entries in a vault at a funeral home in Vancouver. A natural title was Book of the Dead, and I incorporated a couple of other texts, the Egyptian and the Tibetan ones, into the writing.

That was fun, discovering each day what was to happen, and layering the text with references to other texts.

We build on ourselves.

I find it inspiring to be among those who are running their own writing races separately but together as a group - last year of the 100,000 who enrolled world-wide, 50,000 participants made it to the finish line.

It's interesting to reflect on my own Nanowrimo path. In 2004, "Book of the Dead," was more of a 'novel' and 50,000 words; in 2005 my writing was shifting to prose poetry and I wrote that year's in smaller numbered segments that I still haven't finished but it came in at 50,000 words and then I spent a few days reading it and deleted a third of the manuscript, never mind (the first pages can be found at my art website here); in 2006 my writing moved even more towards the poetry end of the spectrum and while I wrote "EnTrapped WOR|l|DS" in November of that year I didn't enroll it in Nanowrimo since it's only 17,266 words, and too short for the contest, but poetry's like that - though it is a completed manuscript, which made me happy.

I wonder where this one might start and what the writing style might be?