Whenever NaNo comes around it's typical that I will have strange dreams. I suppose it's because I get excited and my mind wont leave the topic of NaNo, even in sleep. Have you had any situations where NaNo has effected your life?
I'll share first:
I had a dream last night that spooked me a bit. I was on a trip to visit my father (who lives in California) and I had just gotten to the city. Somehow during the flight down to his house I was pulled over by the police (pulled over while I was flying... ha!). The officer told me that my license had been suspended due to an unpaid school fine from High School. He also explained that if I could prove that the fine had been paid they would renew my license with no trouble and all would be well. So my father and I hopped in his car and went to the local court house. Because this was in California everything was relatively new to me, I couldn't have even told you if we were in the right court house, but my father seemed certain. So I got in line to pay the ticket off (rather, I had all of the information with me that stated I had paid off my school fees and was therefore innocent). I realized halfway through that I had forgotten something in my father's truck (which had all of my suitcase/packed items inside). So I ran out, and got undressed. I was wearing only my underwear by the time I got back in line. Also, my father had disappeared (the theory was that he'd gone outside to smoke) too. He didn't come back at any further point in my dream. So the people call my name and I finally get to the counter (it reminds me a lot of the DMV, or the long lines that you wait in when you're trying to get your license renewed). I'm standing there with all of the items I need talking to this lady. At first the woman is happy to see me, but when she sees my file she becomes condescending. She does, however, give me a jumpsuit from the prison and tells me to put it on, that indecent exposure will get me slapped with a worse fine. So I put the jumpsuit on (which is strangely made of some type of furred material... faux fur?) and when she comes back she has a man with her who is to escort me to the place where I have to pay off a fine. He grabs me by my upper arm and leads me around the building.
If it weren't already strange, it takes a much weirder twist here. The man starts babbling about how because my fee's weren't paid in high school (which in my dream was 5 years ago, even though it was longer ago than that) and I had bought my car that point my car was going to be repossessed. He was turning a little crazy, and had a smile in his eyes while he told me the bad news. He explained also that because the car is going to be repossessed there will be no way I can make it's next payment. That the only reason I haven't gone to jail sooner is because I had not been pulled over by the police. I stop him here and explain the circumstances that have brought me into the court house.
I tell him about how my license has been suspended due to unpaid school fees, and that this has nothing to do with my not paying my car payment. Nor does it have anything to do with repossession. I have a job, and am paying the thing off.
He interrupts me and yanks me into this room that looks like a call center, but much more wild. People shouting, and running around with corded phones (tripping other people) etc. He hands me over to this large woman who tells me that she'll be taking me down to the fines payment location, but I must stay with her for a few minutes and answer the phones.
The building is called CBH (don't know what it stood for, but it was supposed to mean the court house's acronym) and that's about all I know. I have trouble answering the phone (every time I pick it up to go to a line, someone will already be on my phone). I hang up on about 5 people before this large woman yells over to me. "QUIT HANGING UP ON THE CUSTOMERS!" She continues with her phone call, and I struggle with mine. I do get a call from someone wanting to order cable service which was ironic. I was able to tell this person who serviced the area, and that they were calling the courthouse. If they wanted cable service they would have to call the cable company. After an argument about how I cannot give them the price on anything cable related because I'm at the court house and not the cable company they hang up. That was the last call I took. The lady was sitting on the table looking at me boredly at that point.
She too grabs me by my upper arm and starts leading me down this long ramp. She tells me how she's excited to see someone go away to jail like I am, and that I deserve it. I try and tell her, just as I had told the man, that I hadn't done anything wrong, but she wasn't hearing me. She dropped me off with this kindly looking redheaded lady and left.
I handed my paperwork to the redheaded woman and burst into tears. I told her that I really didn't think what I had done deserved to go to jail. And that all I had done was forgot to pay a school fee. And even that, I had pay, as the receipts that she had in her hands detailed. She smiled at me and then looked at the next person in line. She smiled at the next person in line as well. Then she took both of our hands (mine and the girl behind me) and said, thank you for coming to the courthouse today, but your services will not be needed. Have a good rest of the day.
I stumbled away from her, not knowing what do to or say. Where was I? Had my dad left? How was I going to get home?
And then I woke up.
But the whole reason for even posting this on the NaNo site is because when I was being persecuted by that man I kept seeing these signs all over. For NaNoWriMo it said something like, "November is here, so grab a pen and papier. NANOWRIMO California! Come and write with your peers and prove to yourself that you can do it!" Or something very close. And I thought (for one moment) wow. It must be a big to-do, down here if they've got advertising in the courthouse!
Silly me. :)
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To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don't get over it because 'it' is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve
50,201 / 50,000
oct. 13, 2008 - 07 08
I'm having some odd dreams too, which is dangerous for me as they all seem like fun stories to write. It seems a growing situation each year that just when I'm certain what story I'll be writing, I come up with another idea that sounds even more exciting! Thanks, dreams, but I don't need any more help!
I think what has changed, however, is how I'm looking at the Nano novels. I use to see them as fun experiences, but rather useless as they stood by the end, due to the short lengths and sometimes weird asides they go through. But now I'm seeing them as important foundations for the finished novel. It's change how I'm approaching writing them from the beginning.
And experience at writing a Nano novel is helping. I'm learning how much prep work I need and how much is too much, and, even more importantly, where I fizzle out in my story during Nano, so I can start preparing for that moment now by having a harder driving plot to race through those periods so I don't have to fall back on the plot ninjas as much.
Though plot ninjas are fun. And plot pirates. Arr!
50,233 / 50,000
oct. 13, 2008 - 09 54
How has NaNo changed for me, or how has it changed me? I think NaNo is pretty much the same for me as it was when I first did it five years ago--the same rush of excitement, the same crazy novel-planning techniques, the same budget crunching so I can buy more chocolate and tea. It's me that's changed.
I've always wanted to be a writer. I actually have a folder up in my room full of short stories I wrote in third and fourth grades. I wrote several (bad) novellas in high school, which I also still have. Though the writing was cliched, my characters and plots weren't totally horrible. I was getting the hang of this whole writing thing!
Then after I graduated from college, I discovered fanfiction. My noveling aspirations took a six year detour down the path of fun but unpublishable works based on someone else's characters and plot. Somehow, I forgot everything I'd learned about creating original characters and convinced myself that I wasn't capable of doing so.
NaNo pulled me out of that rut of self-defeat. My first NaNo I did do fanfiction. I did another fanfic novel in June of the next year, when a bunch of us on the forums decided we wanted to keep in practice. After that, I started drifting more and more toward original fiction with original characters. In 2004, I was planning to write a novel called Crazy Women, about a group of friends who go on a road trip together. That fell through for... a variety of reasons, but it's an idea that's still in the back of my head. In '05 I was back at fanfic (Harry Potter this time), but it was such a twist, with an AU plot and a totally different setting, that I still look on it as developing my ability to tell my own stories.
Then in 2006 I did it--I wrote a 50,000 word novel using only my own characters. It's a funny, quirky piece about a young woman trying to write a novel in 30 days. I love it and I'd like to get it edited so I can give it out as Christmas presents this year.
My novel this year is technically fanfic--it's Pride and Prejudice from Mr. Darcy's perspective. However, since the copyright on P&P has long since expired, it will be publishable. I'm working toward that as my conscious goal, which isnt' really something I've let myself believe in since I was 18 and writing those bad novellas. NaNo has really given me back my dream.
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