2013-07-11

Writing Journal

I would say my experience with Camp NaNo is successful so far.  I say successful in that I'm deeply connecting with my plot and characters.  I'm not even that far behind in my page count goals when I think about it.  We're about 35% through the month, and I'm at about 30% of my page count goal.  Don't have any setting studies yet, though.

I've made two discoveries this round, the first being how useful the NaNo forums are.  It's good for my story, and I really like being able to help other people with their writing and story problems, too.

The second discovery is something that I'm glad is happening during the planning stages rather than the writing stages.  I am shocked at how much my story has evolved.  I originally thought it would be about 2 young professionals growing together (probably romantically) with the aid (and comic relief) of a sassy Korean war vet.

Now my story is looking to be more about that sassy widower and his widowed friend developing a relationshp (platonic at this point).  I'm currently undecided about how involved they themselves will be in the development of a relationship between her grandson and a young woman the vet has a connection to.  (The relationship will happen; I'm just not sure how cognizant of it I want the older pair to be.)

Trivia: the character of the war vet is based on a man I know in real life.  I met him about 6 months ago when I started working in the temple, and it hasn't been until recently that he could remember my last name.  About a week ago, he took to lightheardedly calling me by the last name of "Cedarmore" to help him remember.  It was such a hit amongst our peers (yes, a widowered Korean war vet and I have peers; how amazingly bizarre is my life?!) that one of them commented it was such a nice last name, she might accidentally think it actually was my name.  That's when I decided to use it as "his" character's last name.

1 comment:

Mrs. Teacher said...

I love that :) How cool that you can use that experience as inspiration in your writing.