Imminent NaNoMongering - Not So Much An Overview of the Past

How, after months of silence, does one segue again into the muddy waters of bloggery? 

One doesn't. One must stoop to the exigency of simply farting a post into existence from the flotsam and jetsam that populates the swampy retention pond of one's mind. One may also use the deplorable trick of shifting attention away from one's iniquitous self with the fortuitous inclusion of an awesome picture. One will stop writing in this tense now.

Click for larger readable version.

After months of a dry spell, this picture shows exactly where I am going. Yes! Fiction Land! It is a truth generally acknowledged that a writer in want of finishing at least one thing she started must be in want of a severe kick to the pants of motivation. Therefore, in September, I undertook the WIP-From-Hell Challenge. The goal: to finish a draft by the end of 2012. I chose to work on my fantasy/steampunk/science fiction series Dark Arcana, because my badly behaved bunny-headed Plot Hydra, Beyoncé, has been whining in my ear about it since November 2010. Then again, what else could I expect from a two year old?

So, this is my vision (I can't even pretend to have a plan at this point) for the rest of the year. Things get really patchy at this point, because Henry, my Muse, is drunk (on anticipation). No wonder, after dealing with Beyoncé for more than two minutes at a time.

October:

Where, oh where has my story gone? Where does it begin and end? I need to know these things.
I ordered On Writing by Stephen King, and am now halfway through. This book is GOOD.
My only real goal this month is to nail down the 'situation' for each character, rather than the plot. I suck at plot. I'm a pantser to the core. I write with my Faster-Than-Light drive set to full power, flashing between scenes at the opposite ends of the multiverse with the Pen of Simultaneous Dissimulation, while plot lags behind at the crawling speed of light. So, to borrow the word from the book, situation refers not to the plot, but to the sticky situation in which the character finds himself or herself, and must then struggle like a fly in a web to extricate said self. The trail of slime the fly leaves behind is the plot.
I need to up the conflict...

November: 

The smell of fall is in the air, and with it, the wilted weeds of literary ambition give way to the tender blossoms of unnecessary metaphor, which fill the air with the scent of NaNoWriMo. November beckons! 50,000 words of goodness! I myself have been infected with the rampant Purple Prose Pox, imparting to me a tendency to indulge in the worst excesses of egregious application of the thesaurus and all manner of shocking and hellish Literary Devices more fit for the glowing pits of a twilit Mephistophelian hell than a respectable gentleman's drawing room.

December: 
Imminent is the long, cold dead season, and the lonely trek to the finish line.
The snows of Dojong will set in ere long, and it won't do to be stuck there, to freeze in the bitter hereafter.
I finish, one word at a time, or I die.
The end awaits.
One way or another.

And now that I have wandered back here and vomited all over the page like a drunken dodo, I think I'll go metaphorically sober up my Muse with a nice walk. 

This I must do.


An Inconcise Prologue...

I could write an essay of all the excuses I have for not posting. I am trying to eliminate all non-essential typing, in order not to relive the Great Carpal Tunnel Caper. Capitalizing things and stating the obvious make things seem more dramatic than they really are. However, as those of you who are acquainted with the (sometimes hilarious) vagaries of the speech to text on my phone will know, since when has that ever stopped me? It's not for lack of topics. I have almost too many of those, such that the sheer weight of possible directions is daunting. 

Alternatively, I could also write a leviathan post detailing everything that has happened (inside and outside my head) in the past few months, so that the ensuing posts make sense.

After much consideration, I have decided to do neither. Frankly, rehashing the past is BORING. If I don't even want to write it, who'd want to read it? Now is the time to move forward with my goal, which is simple: to use October, November, and December to finish one book of my huge series idea, Dark Arcana. NaNoWriMo is but one step in that process, during which time I plan to step up the blogging. In order to maintain some semblance of accountability, I aim to make some sort of progress on the story each day, so that I have something to write about! 

The infection of Purple Prose Pox continues. What nefarious eldritch purpose it has in mind, I hardly begin to comprehend. I sense it has a fell intent: the plague has mental faculties greater than my own weak powers! Oh, how cruel my sufferings! 

Now that I have used as many words as I can to say as little as possible, I can say that my misguided mission (for the day) is done. 

Until next time, minions dear readers.