Tidbit Tuesdays: The trilogy begins!

I'm really excited to offer this first glimpse into Contributor today.  This book was born during NaNoWriMo 2011, when I thought, "Hey, why don't I try writing a YA dystopian/post-apocalyptic novel?"  I had a lot more fun writing it than I would have imagined! 

*****

Dara swallowed hard, trying to fight the nausea that threatened her concentration.  As she stared at the monitor, the numbers and symbols seemed to swim through her vision, and she blinked several times, forcing herself to focus.  Though she was only seventeen, her training as an engineer had begun at the age of three, so she was more than capable of handling the task before her. 

This, however, was no exercise.  If she failed this evaluation, none of her years of hard work and dedication would matter.  She would lose her position amongst the Ballasts and would have to take up one of the menial occupations of the Cores.  If she did well, a prosperous future would be well within her grasp.

With one last deep breath, Dara looked at the screen. As she exhaled, she cleared her mind.  To her immense relief, as soon as she started to pick apart the problem, she lost all sense of her surroundings, her mind completely focused on unraveling it and implementing a solution.
At first glance, the problem appeared to be simple, but Dara knew the engineers wouldn’t lob anything quite so easy at her.  Because she had been first in her class, they would want to test the limits of her abilities, so she continued examining the schematics in front of her, her mind working rapidly to diagnose and analyze the problem.  She ran through a couple of scenarios, rejecting several possible solutions until, finally, everything clicked into place.  She broke into a wide grin as her fingers flew over the interface.  It was tempting to pump her fist in the air when the machinery resumed its smooth operation, but she managed to restrain herself—barely.

Almost instantly, a door opened and a tall, imposing man entered, followed by two women and one other man.  

“Ms. Morrow, I’m Head of Engineering Andersen, and these are my subordinates, Senior Engineers D’Angelo, Walters, and Chen,” the tall man said.

Stunned, Dara hoped she wasn’t gaping.  She’d had no idea the Head of Engineering would be supervising her evaluation, which was a good thing.  Had she known, she’d have been even sicker with apprehension. 

“P-pleased to meet you,” Dara said, cringing internally at her stutter.  She offered her hand first to Andersen, who shook it with a bruising grip.  Each of the others shook her hand in turn, and Dara tried her best not to squirm as they studied her.

“Due to the high level of aptitude shown by your evaluation results, you have been selected for a specialized apprenticeship program.  You and two other candidates will spend a year under the tutelage of the senior engineers.  The highest performer may earn the opportunity to become my assistant,” Andersen announced.  His eerie blue eyes were very keen, and it was clear to Dara that this was a man who missed nothing.

“Oh, thank you, Head of Engineering Andersen.  This is truly an honor, and I’ll work very hard to prove myself worthy,” Dara said.  She fought to remain composed as a giddy combination of relief and excitement washed over her.

“I will expect you tomorrow morning at six-thirty sharp, when you will begin your training with Senior Engineer D’Angelo.  A word of caution to you, Ms. Morrow: you must operate at your peak each and every day.  I expect nothing less than a stellar performance from you.”  Andersen’s eyes met hers, and Dara had the disconcerting sensation that his gaze was boring straight through her, stripping away skin and bone, muscle and sinew until all that was left was her very essence, her innermost thoughts.  She tried hard to suppress a shudder and thought she saw Andersen’s mouth quirk, as if he had noticed her discomfiture.

“I assure you, sir, I will not disappoint you,” Dara vowed.  The thought of working with this towering, blond, imperious man was dismaying, but she wouldn’t allow this to show—she couldn’t.  She knew full well that becoming the assistant to the Head of Engineering would mean big things for her.  If she had to work herself half to death in order to impress him, so be it.  Nothing mattered more than securing her future with Magnum.

“I will see you in the morning.”  He examined her for one excruciating moment before turning smartly and leaving the room. 

“Congratulations, Contributor Morrow,” Walters said, smiling warmly.

“We’ll see what you can do tomorrow,” Chen told her, a muscle in his cheek twitching.  The two shook her hand and left the room.

“I’ll escort you to the exit,” D’Angelo offered.  Her face betrayed nothing, and Dara’s stomach quaked.  The Senior Engineer was taller than Dara, her dark hair pulled back in an immaculate twist.  Her face would have been devastatingly beautiful were it not for the cold expression in her eyes.  As D’Angelo turned, Dara shivered.

They wound their way through the corridors of headquarters, Dara peeking into every window as inconspicuously as possible.  Though apprehensive about her severe master, she was barely able to contain the excitement that made her feel as if she wanted to fly apart.  She couldn’t believe that she was actually here, in Magnum’s headquarters, and that she was going to become a part of its team.  Her head spun as she thought about her acceptance into the elite apprenticeship.  She couldn’t imagine a more perfect beginning to her career.

They finally reached the exit, which led into the thoroughfares ringing the dome.  D’Angelo closed the door gently behind her.

“Be prompt tomorrow,” D’Angelo instructed, smiling and nodding at a man with a Magnum badge who was passing by, before turning back to Dara, all trace of the smile gone.  It was disconcerting.

“I will,” Dara promised.

“Head of Engineering Andersen is a man of many talents and one of Magnum’s most valued Contributors.  He has high expectations and misses little,” D’Angelo said, emphasizing the last two words.  “You must be meticulous.”  Each syllable was like a hammer blow, and Dara forced herself to stand up straighter.

“Of course.” 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Tidbit Tuesdays: Fun with agriculture

Today, I am debuting my new feature, Tidbit Tuesdays.  On Tuesday of each week, I'll post an excerpt from my current work-in-progress, along with some of my thoughts about the excerpt.

So, without further ado, may I present to you an excerpt from Creators, my prequel novella to the upcoming Contributor trilogy:

They were losing the war; this much was obvious.  As he stood and surveyed the fields, Zhang Liang swallowed against the lump in his throat.  As far as the eye could see, the crops were dying.  Crouching, he grabbed a handful of earth, feeling his own impotence as it trickled through his fingers.  It was so depleted it could no longer sustain life, as evidenced by the dessicated plant stalks waving forlornly in the hot breeze.  No matter how much they tinkered with the soil, Zhang Agritech Systems had been unable to successfully replace nutrients in the soil.

Wiping his hand on his thighs, Liang stumbled over to a vivid green patch.  In a blind rage, he began yanking plants out, feeling a vicious sense of satisfaction as he tore their roots from the earth.  Still, he knew it was an empty gesture.  Though the corn and soybeans fought valiantly, they were helpless against the onslaught of the virulent pigweed, horseweed, and countless other so-called superweeds.

*****

My thoughts: When I began working on Contributor during NaNoWriMo 2011, I thought a lot about what kind of dystopia I was creating.  Why did it exist?  What did it look like?  How did the society function?  These are all questions I tried to answer in Contributor without doing it in info dumps--which can be quite challenging.  Still, I'm happy with the end result and feel that lots of writing and editing have led to a Contributor that creates a good sense of the society it examines.

Still, I couldn't find a way of exploring the origins of the dystopia without doing some sort of info dump or faux history lesson within Contributor, and I didn't want to do that.  Then, it hit me: write a novella.  Just like that, Creators was born.

The first question I needed to answer in creating the dystopia was why did it exist in the first place.  I'm a big fan of speculative fiction, and I've read many great authors who root their dystopia in a current truth, which makes it feel all the more ominously possible.  I wanted to do the same thing, so I asked myself what might make a society grow so dependent on a certain structure and the answer I kept coming back to was food.

I'm not shy about stating right up front that food safety and security is an issue of particular importance to me.  I read everything I can about food production, and I've watched many documentaries on the subject, and all of these things have led me to this ultimate conclusion: if we don't carefully examine our current system and fix its flaws, we may back ourselves into a corner.  The population on this planet continues to grow, but this planet only has finite resources.  How can we best utilize them?

The real trick in writing Creators is writing it in a compelling way.  Though I often find reading articles about farming practices and GMO crops fascinating, I know that not everyone feels the same way.  I wanted to create a face-paced story without making readers feel like they were sitting through Crop Sciences 101.  Hopefully, with Creators, I've reached that goal.

If you're interested in the topic, here are a couple of articles I found particularly interesting:

NY Times op-ed about Congress's revamping of the farm bill 
Mother Jones article about the rise of so-called superweeds

I also suggest reading and watching the work of people such as Jamie Oliver and Michael Pollan.  Though this is by no means a complete list of people who are instrumental in driving the conversation about food safety and quality, they are a good starting point.

Insecurity, thy name is Nicole

There's now a fair bit of distance between myself and an extremely productive NaNoWriMo.  I clocked in at just over 50,000 words at around the 18th of November, and then I took a bit of a break.  I've been back at it for most of this month, however, and am now up to 77,326, as of today.  My intent is to cut the final product down to about 70-75k words, but I want to just finish it and then start going at it with a scalpel (or a hatchet, as may be the case).

Working toward the finish has made me realize something: I tend to get really insecure about my endings.  I don't know why I never really thought of it before but, as I look back on my writing, I realize that endings always stress me out--maybe even more than beginnings.  On the one hand, things are easier here than they are in the middle, because all of the action is moving along swiftly and the words usually flow.  On the other hand, there's the stress of trying to tie all of the threads together, trying to keep the pacing on an even keel, and trying to write a killer of an ending.  As this book is intended to be the first in a trilogy, I need to have a good hook in place for my ending as I naturally want to interest people in reading the next installment.

Today was kind of rough going because I am back in the mode of worrying.  The closer I get to the ending, the more I stress about the idea that I'm hurrying things along.  I'm not doing this intentionally, of course, but I just can't seem to shake the conviction that my newest chapters somehow feel rushed.  I think this may have something to do with the fact that the story took a much different turn than expected, so I have a lot of balls up in the air and I don't want to drop any of them.  Whatever the cause, today was one of those writing days where I felt like I needed to reach into my brain and forcibly extract the narrative--never a very fun thing.  Whenever this happens, I tend to worry incessantly that the writing sounds stilted or forced and I never, ever want my writing to feel like that.

I'm not sure that someone can understand how all-consuming writing can be unless they also write.  I think about my writing constantly, and I do mean constantly.  I think about it while I'm driving, while I'm grocery shopping, while I'm brushing my teeth.  Sometimes I walk around the house muttering to myself about it, which prompts my two-year-old to say, "What do you say, Mama?"  I'm still not sure how to respond to that one.  "Sorry, kiddo, your mom is a crazy wreck who is obsessing endlessly" seems like it might be just a bit out of his grasp.

But when you are in the midst of writing something, particularly something about which you feel very strongly, you live, breathe, and eat it.  I have to figure out how the plot will unspool, decide what's motivating each characters, dream up scenes, etc.  It's really pretty astonishing how much writing goes on inside my head before anything even hits the paper.

Once I'm finished with this manuscript, I'm going to give Scrivener a try.  I was really pleased to get a discount on it, thanks to my NaNoWriMo completion and, though I've only taken a pretty cursory glance at it, I'm pretty excited about it.  I particularly like the bulletin board feature because it makes me think that I might be able to write a bunch of sticky notes so that I can get the information in a trustier place than my good ol' brain, which has an unfortunate tendency to erase those massively awesome scenes I dreamed up just hours ago.  Maybe once I do that, I'll stop walking around the house talking to myself and worrying my two-year-old, who already seems concerned that I may need extensive psychotherapy.  Maybe, but I kinda doubt it.

***

“Any idea what Javier is up to?” Letizia asked her at lunch.

“Javier?” Dara asked.

Letizia scowled at her.  “The project, Dara.  Do you have any idea what Javier is working on?”

“Oh, that.  Uh, no, I hadn’t really thought to look...”

“Do you know how many mistakes you’ve made?” Letizia asked, and Dara knew her master wasn’t referring simply to her lapses of attention during shift.  “You cannot afford to keep on going like this.  It’s a miracle you’ve made it this far.  You must have more dumb luck than any other person I’ve ever met.”

Face burning, Dara ducked her head so that she wouldn’t have to look at Letizia’s accusing eyes.  “You’re right.  I’m sorry.  I’ll look today.”

“You need to learn how to compartmentalize.”

           She knew Letizia was right.  If she wanted to make it, she was going to have to learn how to lock her emotions in tiny boxes and hide the keys where no one could find them.  In short, she was going to have become a master at dissembling, just like her master.

It all makes sense now!

Well, at least I hope it all makes sense now.  At any rate, I'm finished with the first round of edits to the chapters I wrote during NaNoWriMo.  Some of them needed extensive rewriting, while others just need a little tweaking here and there.  I also wrote an entirely new chapter, so I boosted my total word count by around 5,000, now that the first round of work is over.  This means I can now continue working toward finishing the manuscript, at which point I'd like to try to do another round of edits before I consider it ready for exposure.

Last night, my husband and I sat around for a while as I worked out some thorny plot issues verbally with him.  I'm determined to do my best to make the plotting very tight, and to avoid those convenient little episodes that are oh-so-handy in terms of moving the plot along.  If some event happens, I want there to be a reason for it, and so I was using him as a sounding board, trying to figure out which of the options I was playing around with struck him as the most believable.  It was extraordinarily helpful.  Though he's always been supportive of me, reading my manuscripts and offering feedback, I think this was the first time I really used him in this capacity.  I guess this is because, while my novel is infinitely interesting to me, the last thing I want to do is bore other people to death talking about my work.

Really, what I'd like to do is to try to create a smaller, more focused group of fellow writers.  While going to the large group is extremely helpful, it's also a bit limiting because, naturally, we want to give everyone a chance to share some of their work, which means we only have time for small excerpts from each person.  I used to think writing was an entirely lonely exercise, and in some ways it is.  However, as I've worked on some collaborative projects and become involved in writers' groups, what I've found is that it can be really eye-opening to sit and toss ideas around with other writers.  I have a teaching background, so this doesn't entirely come as a surprise to me.  One of the things I liked doing as a teacher was attending conferences or team meetings where we'd share activities we'd done in class.  It inevitably resulted in surging creativity as the thoughts of one person were embellished by another person, and so on.

At the end of the day, if this novel becomes successful, it will be the direct result of not just my own writing, but of all of the assistance I've received from various friends and family members.  Without their contributions, the novel would definitely not be what it is, nor would it continue to evolve as it has without their feedback.  This, for me, is the most rewarding part of writing.  For a long time, I kept my work to myself because I was afraid of criticism, but now that I've taken a leap, I find the feedback and the time others devote not only feeds my creativity, it makes me a better writer.

And now, a small tidbit.  This particular bit of conversation really speaks to me.

***

          “But what’s more despicable is that the system not only allows this, it actively encourages it.  How many times have you been told you should report any suspicious activity?”

             

            More times than she could count.  “We’ve always been told that it’s for our own security,” Dara said.

             
           “That’s always what people say, when they’re busy stripping away rights.  If you work everyone up into enough of a panic, they’ll be glad to hand you things they’d normally never even think of giving up,” Mal told her.  “Don’t believe me?  I can give you plenty of books on the topic—books you’ve likely never seen in your life.  Why do you think that is?”

I'm kind of loving editing

NaNoWriMo has now come and gone, and I'm left with a manuscript of which I'm rather proud.  However, it was also a very messy manuscript, thanks to its evolution over the course of the month, and the anti-editing philosophy of NaNoWriMo.  While it was a good thing to concentrate on getting words on the page, it's also a relief to me to now be able to go back and fix those parts of the novel that were so incongruous they were setting my teeth on edge.

I'm happy to say that I have now edited around half of the manuscript and am more pleased with it than ever.  Now that the first half all makes sense, I have an even better sense of the flow of the narrative, and I really like where it's going.  I feel like the pacing is good and that the character development is coming along nicely.  While everything I've ever written is special to me because it has all been the result of blood, sweat, tears, and passion, I have to say that there is something magical about this one.  It just feels so intensely right.  This may have something to do with the fact that I was stepping way outside of my comfort zone when I decided to shoot for YA dystopian fic for NaNoWriMo that there is immense satisfaction is seeing that things are working out far better than I'd hoped.  Though I have a tendency to freak out a little when I face a challenge, I find that the intrinsic rewards of succeeding at a challenge to be extremely gratifying.

I've also been flying high all day because, last night, I returned to the writing group I'd been participating in, but have missed for several months due to various and assorted reasons.  It felt so good to be back with a group of like-minded people, sharing our work and offering one another feedback.  For so many years, I was deathly afraid of showing my work to anyone.  The very thought of participating in something like a writing group was enough to make me break out in a cold sweat.  Now I find myself wondering why I waited so long.  Not only do the people in the group offer very good feedback, they are a wonderfully supportive bunch, and everyone is genuinely interested in helping everyone else succeed.  More than that, everyone truly believes in everyone else.  It's a fantastic environment, and I have learned so much from everyone there.

I brought a two-page excerpt of my novel and volunteered to go second.  This time, I didn't really even have that nervous flutter.  I was actually excited to hear what everyone had to say, whatever it was they had to say.  To my delight, they were very complimentary about the excerpt.  I've often heard that writers should write what they would like to read, and I have always adhered to this philosophy.  However, I think this also engenders insecurity about whether it's something anyone else might like to read, so I was very happy to find that the others seemed to enjoy it.  It's more than just validation (though the validation is very important and wonderful!), it's knowing that my work may actually have a chance of finding an audience.

As much as I've love writing, it is a very solitary experience for the most part, so to be able to find a group of people with whom I can share this passion is a wonderful thing.  It's an amazing feeling to be in a roomful of creative people who are bouncing ideas off of one another.  I'm extremely grateful to the members of the group for boosting my confidence and inspiring me to continue on with my work.

NaNoWriMo 2011: It's official, I've won!

Even though I hit 50,000 words several days ago, "winning" for NaNoWriMo didn't start until the 25th and, what with the holidays and all, I frankly forgot to verify until today.  However, I've amended that and it is now official: I have completed NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row, which means I'm 2-0. 

As I said in an earlier post, this doesn't mean that my novel is finished, though.  I had intended to keep writing throughout the month, but I've been taking a much needed break.  Now that Thanksgiving is over and I'll be back to my normal routine, I'm going to start working on my novel again.  I'll also continue to blog and post excerpts.

While I am relieved and excited that NaNoWriMo is over and that I managed it, I'm now turning my thoughts to ABNA, which will happen in a matter of months.  From now until then, I'm going to be editing and finishing my manuscript so that I can submit it in the Young Adult category of ABNA.  I'm very hopeful that this manuscript will garner some attention, and I'm going to continue to keep my eye on the prize: my dream of seeing something I've written in print.

I'd be remiss if I didn't thank my husband here.  He's been so great about taking care of some of the parenting duties so that I could have some extra time to write.  As always, he's been a constant source of support and encouragement, reading the manuscript and offering me his thoughts on it.  When I get worried and self-critical, he's good at bringing me back down to Earth.  Thank you so much, honey!

And thanks to those of you who've been keeping up with my blog and following me on Twitter.  It's exciting for me to see unfamiliar names in my followers, and it's gratifying to know there are people out there who are interested in my work.  Knowing you're reading inspires me to push myself harder, so that I can continue to draw you in as, for me, that's the greatest reward of all.

NaNoWriMo Day 18: I did it!

I'm really happy, excited, and proud to say that, for the second year in a row (and I've only done this twice now), I have hit the 50,000 word mark during NaNoWriMo!  I'm especially proud of it this year, given how much chaos was surrounding me.  There were some days that required a serious amount of discipline in order for me to sit and write and, since I am a procrastinator by nature, this is a very big deal to me.

I'm also excited because it means I can now go back and revise and tweak some sections of the novel.  I am just amazed at how much the story has evolved over the course of these 18 days.  It's different from what I had envisioned, but much stronger and much better than what I had originally planned on writing.  Honestly, when I decided to tackle this genre, I was pretty sure I was going to fail spectacularly, so it's nice to know that I might just be onto something here!

Still, though I am technically done with NaNoWriMo, I am by no means done with my novel and, because of that, my intention is to continue writing each day, and to continue blogging as well.  Thanks for being part of my journey!

***

“Are you happy with your life?” he asked her out of the blue.

“Yes, of course,” she answered automatically.  “I’m a Contributor now, and Magnum has always provided me with a good life.”

“Uh huh,” he said.  “I used to sound just like you.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” she asked angrily.

“It’s not that it’s wrong,” Tasha said, breaking in.  She stepped into Dara’s line of vision, and Dara knew she was doing it deliberately, trying to break the tension.  “It’s that it’s limiting.  That’s maybe not a bad thing; some people are content enough with limits.  But shouldn’t people have the freedom to choose?”

“We do get to choose,” Dara insisted.

“Really?” Raj asked her.  “Tell me, what if you decided you didn’t want to work for Magnum?  What if you wanted to sit at home and paint all day?”

“Why would I want to sit and paint?  It’s not a productive use of my time, and we must all be productive,” Dara said.  

With a violent start, she realized that she sounded exactly like her instructors.  In fact, she could have been picked up from the room and replaced with one of them and the conversation would have taken exactly the same course.

“Still sure you’re so happy?” Raj asked, but his voice was gentler this time.

“No,” Dara said in a very small voice.

NaNoWriMo Day 17: The final stretch--or not

As of today, I have 46,001 words of my novel written.  This means that I only have 4,000 words to go to complete NaNoWriMo and I will have a novel!  Or not. 

In fact, I find that I am only now really getting into the story and I have quite a bit of rewriting to do, so hitting the 50,000th word just means that the real work will begin.

Still, this isn't a complaint.  I was so worried about making it through NaNoWriMo this year, what with all the chaos that's been going on with the renovations and with the normal, everyday challenges of my husband's job and life with two young kids.  I thought I was crazy for even contemplating participating this year and, in fact, I've had several days where I wondered why I've been inflicting this stress on myself.  There are two reasons for this:

1. I really like the concept for my novel, and I want to submit it for the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest (ABNA for short, if you've never heard of it).  I've entered the last two years, but both times in the adult category and, since I'm still unpublished, it probably goes without saying that I didn't win.  But, while I'd certainly love to win or attract the interest of an agent or publisher, I'm still really proud of myself for entering as it means I'm taking those first tentative steps toward actually trying to get myself published.  To be honest, as much as I love my other manuscript, I feel like the one I'm currently writing will be much more competitive, and I think the young adult category may be a better fit for me.

2. This is the real reason: because NaNoWriMo proves to me that I can do this.  I can write a novel, no matter what kind of craziness is happening in my life.  I've always been a writer, ever since I was a child, but I've somehow always had this thought in the back of my head that I can't do it.  I have a bazillion reasons why: conditions aren't right, I don't feel inspired, etc., etc., etc.  But I've come to realize that these aren't reasons, they're excuses.  NaNoWriMo does not allow for excuses.  NaNoWriMo provides me with that extra nudge I need to make me feel I simply have to finish my project.  For me, NaNoWriMo is about chances, about proving to all those little voices of doubt inside that they are, in fact, wrong.

I recently read this really offensive article on The Economist.  It more or less states that NaNoWriMo is a waste of time and that the world doesn't need more bad novels--as if every novel that's published is good or, conversely, as if every novel that isn't published is bad.  Well, The Economist, I will take a Shakespearean tack: I bite my thumb at you!

I'm not suggesting that everyone is capable of writing a masterpiece--I'm nowhere near being convinced that I'm capable of this.  Nor am I suggesting that everyone quit their day jobs so they can sit home and write a novel.  We do need to be practical.  What I am saying, though, is this: we always encourage our children to follow their dreams.  Why, then, are we so willing to give up on our own?  Maybe I'll never get published, but at least I'll know I tried.  I don't want to be one of those people who lives a life full of "what ifs".

And further, to suggest that participants in NaNoWriMo are just fooling around is offensive.  I bleed for my novel, just like every other author I've ever known or read about.  I care passionately about what I write.  I agonized over this manuscript long before NaNoWriMo began, and I will agonize over it long after NaNoWriMo is finished.

So to my fellow WriMos: I salute you!  Maybe you're surrounded by people who are supportive and helpful and believe in you.  Maybe you're surrounded by doubters who think you're crazy for even trying.  Either way, I am with you.  I may not know you and you may not know me, but we understand one another's passion.  Go right ahead and reach for the stars--I'll be doing the same alongside you.  Let's shine on together, fellow crazy NaNoWriMo diamonds!  May we all someday look back and laugh at that article, as we enjoy the phenomenal success of our books that were originally NaNoWriMo novels.

***

“Dara, the next four weeks are going to be critical,” Joshua said, his voice urgent.  “We have to do everything in our power to help your mother.”

            “Oh, I wish we worked opposite shifts,” Dara moaned.

            “I know, but there’s nothing we can do about that now.  We’re just going to have to make do.”

            “We’ll take turns each night.  I’ll sleep one night, you sleep the next,” Dara suggested.

            Joshua looked relieved as he nodded.  “Yes, that was my idea as well.”

            “Let’s take turns going to the medical bay too.  There’s a lot that needs to be done around here to get things ready.”

            “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” her father said quietly, taking her right hand and pressing it between both of his.

            “We’re a family,” Dara said, a lump rising in her throat.  

            “Nothing and no one can change that,” her father said, a ferocious note to his voice.

NaNoWriMo Day 16: It has a life of its own

Well, I am now just over 41,000 words into the novel and I can say that it truly has taken on a life of its own.  Though I actually prepared this year, coming up with a concept and making lots of notes, the novel is turning out quite different from how I thought it would.  I liked my original concept, but I was  a little worried about how I would flesh it out and make it interesting.  Since I started writing, I've had several epiphanies, and the fact that the novel is different from how I'd envisioned it is a good thing.  I think the new ideas I came up with will actually make it stronger and better.

My big frustration right now is with having to move forward.  I've been hopping around in the novel, adding chapters here and there as I've changed the direction of the narrative.  However, there are several chapters that need extensive rewrites and it's killing me not to be able to touch them!  I swear, as soon as my fingers finish that 50,000th word, I am going to be rushing straight to the stuff I want to fix.  Yes, I am a little obsessive!

***

“What are you trying to say?” Dara asked, tired of playing games.  She felt a sense of foreboding at where the conversation was going.  Seeing as how she had so much on her plate already, she was very unhappy at the thought that Letizia was about to heap more on it.

            “I know you don’t want me here.  I don’t want to be here either—I have no business intruding on you right now.”

            Dara knew she should probably protest, but she didn’t.  She agreed with what Letizia had said, and she was done observing form for form’s sake.  It had been a long day and she simply no longer had the energy for it.

            “Magnum is very protective of its secrets, you should know that,” Letizia said, sounding as if she was choosing each of her words with the utmost care.  “If trade secrets were provided to other Job Creators...  Well, I probably don’t need to tell you that it’s one of Magnum’s worst fears—one of the worst fears of any Job Creator, actually.”

            “What does that have to do with me?” Dara asked, her fatigue making her much more blunt than she’d normally dare to be with her mentor.

            “It means that Magnum is very meticulous about the information exchanged by employees.”  Letizia studied her intently, waiting for her to put the pieces together.

            “Are you saying that...that the conference rooms are observed?” Dara asked, horror struck at the idea.

            “Not observed, no.  But there are recording devices—and not just in the conference rooms either.”

            “But why...”  Dara allowed her voice to trail off; Letizia had already anticipated that question and had answered it.  “So everything I said in the room...”

            “Was being recorded, yes,” Letizia confirmed.

NaNoWriMo Day 15: When frustration leads to inspiration

One of the most rewarding things about writing is this: when your life is really frustrating or sad or awful or tragic or whatever, writing offers not only a respite from it, but sometimes your best work is informed and inspired by the rocky patches in life.  It's the classic making lemonade from lemons scenario.

***

Suddenly, Dara realized what a long road they had ahead of them, and it made her feel so weary she wanted to curl up on her parents’ bed and fall asleep like she had when she was a little girl who’d had a nightmare.

            Instead, she said, “You’re right, Dad.  We both need to go in tomorrow.  We can go to see Mom after our shifts.”

            He nodded, and she noticed how red and hollow his eyes were.  How strange it was for her to see such vulnerability in her father.  She supposed this was part of growing up, this change from the conviction that her parents were invulnerable and would always be there to protect her to wanting to protect them.  It made her feel much, much older than her seventeen years.