Thursday, November 3, 2011

Day Three - The Rollercoaster

Word Count - 10083

Yeah baby! I came out of my funk in an impressive way yesterday, screw Wheaties - I'll shout from the rooftops that cold pizza is the breakfast of champions! Of course, that also means that I am going against what I said before about taking it slow and easy and enjoying NaNo to it's fullest. Maybe I am just not the slow and easy type, maybe I need the speediness incentive to propel me along. So, I guess my goal will be word count, to reach for a goal in numbers. Meh, we'll see as the month progresses.

It never ceases to amaze me - these ups and downs that I experience every November during NaNo.  And yet, it surprises me that I'm surprised. I have plenty of ups and downs the other 11 months out of the year, periods where I would rather put my fingers in those Chinese thingys than put them on my keyboard, periods where I know I am writing absolute rubbish that deserves no better than to be put into my recycling bin, pulled out, then put in again  because it is THAT BAD.

And yet, I seem to feel it stronger during NaNo, I hate certain characters more, the whining grates on me more, the scenes are much more emotional, there is much more at stake if I don't make things right after creating chaos - all of this after turning over my will to the Goddess of Typos, the Prince of the lands of Bad Punctuation, and Sir Spellingsucks, allowing them to create havoc where they will.

And the worst thing of all, forcing myself out of my comfort zone. I try to do something every year during NaNo that challenges me. Last year, it was a male characters emotional weakness. This year I am tackling the titan - I am battling SEX.  Yes, I said it, it's out there. I am writing a sex scene. And to clear up any confusion lets make this clear - I am not writing a love scene, I have written hundreds of those, hearts and flowers on white fluffy clouds surrounded by unicorns. Nope - I am writing a drunken sex scene that has to have enough of an impact that my male character will remember it even though he can't remember what my female character looks like.

Granted, that will be helped along by a peacock feathered mask and blonde hair temporarily colored black - but still - this is someone he has known his entire life, so he'll need to be pretty drunk to have sex with her and not realize who she is, even if she keeps the mask on the whole time. So, it's going to have to be pretty good sex. Hearts and flowers are just NOT going to cut it, Unicorns won't make an impact - not unless one of them impales him with it's horn, and that just won't do.  I kind of need him to stay alive.

And so, I am finding myself on another down on the rollercoaster. Can I do this? Can I do it successfully? Lets be serious, anyone can write sex, but how many can write sex well? We've pretty much all read at least one trashy sex story, stories filled with references to his  "manhood" and her "taut nipples" Quite honestly, everytime I hear the word taut, it reminds me of school and being "taught" to read and write. Taut is just not  sexy. For that matter, neither is "rock hard manhood" What woman would want a rock near her? Rocks are cold and rough and in my experience, they are pretty dangerous - I tend to fall down a lot (see previous post) rocks are not my friend.

So anyway,  here is my dilemma as I shoot for 15,000 on day three. Write a sex scene, while avoiding any and all tacky cliche's. Oh, and did I mention that I am having lunch with a woman I have known since kindergarten right before I come home to write it? Yep - likely I will be revisiting memories of eating paste, beating up Joel Schmidt with my tote bag and Brian Halverson picking his boogers and flicking them at Mrs. Ball's back just before I sit down to write it.

Should make for an interesting afternoon eh? It's just another ride on the NaNoWriMo Rollercoaster!

Ya gotta love it.

1 comment:

  1. I can completely understand this. There's just something about Nano which brings it much more to life and pushes it all along. Maybe it's more intense due to the numbers of people there also going through the mayhem, who knows!

    As for the sex scene, I was told to write it as you'd see it and narrate it to yourself. It's really hard to get into the mindset but you'll crack it!

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