Melora Johnson's Muse

Why is it that our plans for writing so easily go astray?  The post before last I said that I was going to finish this novelization of Biomalware by October 25th to give to my writer’s group and let them read it and give me feedback.

I haven’t done it.  No, instead I’ve been watching Doctor Who and writing a sort of fan fiction based on some experiences I’ve had recently.  It’s been a pretty strange time, as I’ve previously recounted, and it turned into a weird little story.  I’ve finished it and now I’m thinking – what’s the point?  I’m not going to sell it that way.  I’ve written an interesting little anecdotal story and now I want to invest it with mean, or maybe I just need to discover the meaning in it, what it means to me.  Why did my brain come up with it?  I did find two of my favorite themes in it so I hope that helps bridge it.

I think fan fictions and dreams are interesting to ourselves but a lot of times they don’t stand on their own as a story.  It takes some work to turn them into a real and complete story of their own that doesn’t require a whole lot of back story.  I shared the story with my writer’s group last night and the reaction was lukewarm.  Maybe it was just my sleep deprivation interpreting their reactions but I was looking for at least one person to really LIKE it, even if they could see room for improvement, but I didn’t hear that in their responses.  I have to wonder if that isn’t because fan fiction just requires too much knowledge of the story world for it to make sense to the average reader.  I don’t know.  I’m going to move forward with their suggestions and hope it makes it more accessible for everyone.  They gave me some good info about what didn’t work for them so I hope I can bridge that gap.

I also still want to finish that novel for my writer’s group but I just don’t see it happening before the end of the month and November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) so I may be looking at the end of the year for that.  I want to finish it but I don’t want to rush it.  Maybe the ending will be part of my word count for NaNo.

I’m planning a NaNo that combines short stories, non-fiction and maybe poetry.  I seem to keep getting pulled back to science fiction.  I started thinking I should be writing in that vein because I love it, but I also love mysteries.  Then I looked at what I’ve been writing on and realized it pretty much is science fiction.  I’m sure both will show up in my Nano.

Right now, I’m preparing for NaNoWriMo by collecting inspiration and prompts.  I’m making lists of people I’ve wanted to base a character on, things that inspire me, topics I’m interested in and the like.  I once did a 2,000 word story a day for most of a month so that’s what I’m shooting for.  Of course, I was out of work and single at the time, but why let little things like a family and work stand in the way of a good NaNo?  It might just take a little time travel to get things done.  No problem.