NaNoWriMo Installment 1

I wasn't going to share this, because I don't really want to read people's comments on it, but @improv encouraged me to, and I do want to keep posting here on a regular basis, so....here it is. If you comment, I might ignore it. Sorry in advance!

So this is what I wrote yesterday. It, well...if you read it, you'll see. And I haven't written anything today--YET!! Enough stalling. Here you go.

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“You are such a tiny little cross-eyed thing,” the ugly old lady said. Ugly because she was ugly on the inside, mind full of self-loathing that made her hate out toward anyone and everyone, even when she hid it in soothing and kind sounding tones. The child was small and slightly cross-eyed. It glared up at her. The child was Jamie. A child for all children. Obnoxious to some, endearing to others, but just a child, an average child. Didn’t ask to be born but here it was.

Once upon a time there was a child. This child was named Jamie and the child was neither boy nor girl, was both boy and girl. This child was just a child to represent children and the trials they face. The child lived in a land filled with dangers and no clear heroes. The child was not a hero, either, but is the hero of this story. The child will survive, and that is its journey.

Hey Jamie. What would have happened if you hadn’t died? Did you mean to shoot yourself? The story I heard when I was a child was that you were playing Russian Roulette, but I have this sense that I also heard you were alone, so how would anyone have known that you were playing Russian Roulette rather than that you committed suicide? I was so young when it happened. I have a vague memory of what you looked like, that you had feminine features. That you had quite a mop of hair.

The older sister chased the younger sister throughout the house. It was a desperate, futile attempt to escape the older sister’s forceful ways. There was a strawberry in the older sister’s hand. The younger sister didn't want it. Was the younger sister picky then, or only afterward? It was a battle of control. A younger human testing out its ability to decide for itself what it wanted, a older human demanding obedience and forcing it when it was not forthcoming. How do these experiences impact people?

Today is a day for exploring these thoughts on the page, because no decisions have really been made and I can’t just sit here thinking about it and writing nothing. So these thoughts, these words, I’ll count. But it’s something of a false start. Oh well. What’s a story that would flow? A story that won’t feel like pulling teeth every day to write? What can I do to make this easier on myself? Because the goal is really just to write. That is what I need to do. Write and let it come. Write and hope it gets easier. Write and remember that I like to write. Because I do, don’t I?

The stories that I think of, that seem like they’d be interesting to explore, are often not too happy. And I don’t really want to write them because of that. But they are the moments that leave me with questions. The real life moments that I wonder how people can survive from. But they aren’t so much the stories that I love to read, and the stories that I love to read are the stories that inspired me to want to be a writer. Maybe I should try and write a children’s book about atheist kids to counter the books I read about Christian kids. Maybe my stories can be happy and sad. Life is happy and sad.

I feel too caught up in reality to lose myself in story right now. God. Why does this feel so hard? I just need a spark of an idea. Maybe I should go back to the plug.

It’d been a few years now since Hazel had been holding the plug of the world. She’d given up on stopping it from draining completely, but spent every day trying to slow its flow.

I don’t know. I don’t know that that’s what I want to explore. Does it count as a NaNoWriMo if I just write, every day, about how I’m not sure what I want to write about?

Hup.

So this is heaven.

The snake. The dog. A story about animals.

The world is made up of ants, is what the horse learned when it started digging.

Hazel started digging when she was just a little girl.

Here are some of the things that trouble me. How can I write about heaven, even imaginary heaven, when I don’t believe in heaven? I’d rather write about some imaginary make-believe world that is literally made up of ants, where horses can dig. But I’m not sure that story would get me too far. The Jamie idea, which was originally going to be Joey, after our neighbor, was going to be partly set in Joey’s imagination, and that seemed that good fodder for story. But I’m worried now about modeling this child too closely after a child I really don’t know at all. And that whole idea of making the child gender free seems like it might be too much to think about, when I’m just trying to write fast. So maybe I should just go back to this idea of Joey, a child who’s often taken care of by older siblings, but I just make Joey a girl because. Or I don’t. Joey can be a boy. There’s room to explore things there.

Once upon a time, Joey had pets. So many pets. Eight cats, two dogs, a rat, and a parakeet. Joey had been learning about heaven and hell in Sunday School, and was afraid for Joey’s pets. They couldn’t go to heaven if they weren’t Christians, so Joey had to help them become Christians. It was so easy to be a Christian! All you had to do was accept Jesus Christ into your heart. Joey knew the prayer.

I shouldn’t write at night. That’s part of the issue right now, I feel. I’m pooped. But also I’m afraid my brains are not as good. My brain got scooped out and stirred around a bit, then put back away. It just wants to watch something right now, to consume media, not create anything.

I used to love to go out to the horses at June’s. There was something magical about the woods and fields at her place. It was so forested, down by where the house was, kind of dark because of all the trees. And then I would walk up a hill, a fairly steep hill, to get to where the horses were hanging out, and I would come up from the hill into a field of light. I miss the woods and trees and fields of Virginia. I miss the feeling of southern gothic. I should write a vampire story. There’s so much no in my brain. Before I wrote that, I was thinking who am I to write a vampire story, especially one inspired by the south? That’s Anne Rice territory and I couldn’t touch that. So much no. Ugh. Gotta yes and myself. Haha improv.

It’s just a little tough, that I feel like I can’t quite pinpoint what I love about southern gothicism. Is that a word? It’s a feeling of history and heat and romance and angst.

I loved mysteries when I was a kid. Those Jennie McGrady mysteries. How about a kid story set in L.A.? I like to be where I am. Maybe I should write about heaven. About people who’ve died prematurely and what happens to them. You know, it should be a merpeople story. A story of how people who die early, too early, become merpeople. Or maybe unicorns orbiting the universe. Just a wishful thinking type story. A fairy tale.

The idea from before, some time before, was that unborn babies that die in the ocean become merpeople. Which was sparked from that sad sad story about the two women who accidentally drove into the water, in Maine, I think, and drowned. One of them was pregnant. But really, the story is too tragic. I don’t want to delve so deeply into real people’s actual tragedies. But I do like the idea of writing about merpeople. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m tired. I just want to write 1666 words right now so I can say I met my word count. Not really the spirit of things. But maybe tomorrow some spark of some idea from this will be the keeper and I’ll be off and running.

Maybe I can’t be a writer, if writing about sad things makes me feel too sad, but I want to write about sad things, but not feel sad. I want to write. I want to write a story. To get lost in a story and have to find my way out. I loved V.C. Andrews when I was a kid, too. Maybe I should write something very dark and smarmy. And with vampires and merpeople and unicorns. Like a Harry Potter crossed with V.C. Andrews. Ha. I kind of like that idea. Just go full on fantastical and full on smarm. And it won’t be for kids but I can imagine a kid like me reading it. Haha. Now I’m imagining merpeople having sex with unicorns and what may come of that. Full license to just go for it. I like this idea.