I wanted to finish last night, but somewhere around midnight I realized that the scene I'd saved for last was far too important to write while half-sleep and drooling on my keyboard (it was a long weekend). So, this morning, I nearly jumped out of bed at 6am, and only stopped on my way to my laptop for my contacts and a cuppa coffee - technically, I went to my computer before either of those things to try my hand at getting Pottermore early access (I was successful), but that's besides the point.
My mind's been playing tricks on me for the last several days as I've been getting close to this moment. It feels like I've slowed down and everything else has sped up. I wanted desperately to get here and also desperately never to get here. I don't know what my life is going to be like without this story kicking around in my brain needing to be written.
I started world-building a very different Escaterra from the one it is now when I was 13 years old. In late June of 2003, I felt the breath-taking end of my childhood when I came home from babysitting to find my mother in tears after receiving a phone call that my grandmother, to whom I was utterly devoted, had passed away. I flew with mom to Seattle - something I was supposed to do by myself only a few short weeks later for my annual visit to my grandmother - to help her arrange the memorial service and pack up her apartment.
Depression came easily to me in the months that followed; it a condition that runs rampant in my father's family tree, and I was no beauty, often plagued by barbs and insults from classmates about my looks and teacher's pet nature. Creating my world of fantasy was an adventurous escape, and that's what I needed most: something to make me feel alive and excited again. I eventually received the first bit of help for my depression when I was 14 at a summer camp that I will forever credit with saving my life. But long before that July day when campers and camp counselors supported me through my worst, I created my own light at the end of the tunnel - something sufferers of depression must do, but too often fail at.
As I've grown in maturity of age and writing, Escaterra has changed, my characters have changed, but what it means to me never has. Never will. I can only hope and pray and fight for the chance that one day it will mean even a little something to someone else.
Today's post is not one for weekly stats or goals or summary. I just wanted to share a little of me with you. And I'll end with the Last Line of the scene I finished this morning: "Nico didn't hesitate."
From here on, neither will I.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Week Ten: Nearly There
Holy shit.
So last week I began renewed with a sense of hope and optimism. And it didn't fade - by Friday I was maxing out at a 15 page day.
I also wrote what will be the last scene of the book. Contrary to the happy-go-lucky feeling I had while writing, the ending is much darker than I originally anticipated and leaves it much more ambiguous as to whether or not the goal is actually accomplished the way the protagonists think it is. Of course in Farrell-dream-world where it rains cookies and ponies are common household pets, this novel is just the beginning of a series, so that kind of ending makes sense, since it leaves a good jumping place for the next book's plot to begin; however, I am trying to allow for the book to be a stand-alone, so that just makes it a slightly downer ending. That does fit with the tone of the book, though, so I'm not too distraut. It was strange writing the last scene. I've never written a last scene of a novel before. Short stories, absolutely - mostly because my short stories have one scene, which makes writing the last scene far less monumental. I don't know what I'm going to do when I write the other last scene, not chronologically within the novel but that I will write for this draft.
Technically that should be happening either this coming Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, by the way. I say "technically" because I'm babysitting for my adorkable nephew again on Thursday and Friday. For those days, I'll be skipping ahead to my agenda for Week Twelve: I've divided the manuscript into 6 neat chunks and will be editing one chunk a day. So, Thursday and Friday, I'll have a hardcopy of the first chunk (I doubt I could get to the second one) that I'll edit betwixt moments of helping him stand, playing with him, feeding him, changing him, calling him adorakable, etc and while he plays/naps.
My nephew's mother is completely fantastic, in case I haven't mentioned. I don't want to say too much until things are more certain, but she's a graphic designer/web designer/book illustrator, and she's trying to get me an intro to an editor she's doing some design for. I adore this woman. She called me about it last Thursday, and it's very exciting because it's... real. I don't know how else to describe it. With the book coming to a close, the prospect of meeting an editor just mkaes everything I've been doing for the past ten weeks now, and will be doing for the next three weeks, feel just utterly real.
So last week I began renewed with a sense of hope and optimism. And it didn't fade - by Friday I was maxing out at a 15 page day.
I also wrote what will be the last scene of the book. Contrary to the happy-go-lucky feeling I had while writing, the ending is much darker than I originally anticipated and leaves it much more ambiguous as to whether or not the goal is actually accomplished the way the protagonists think it is. Of course in Farrell-dream-world where it rains cookies and ponies are common household pets, this novel is just the beginning of a series, so that kind of ending makes sense, since it leaves a good jumping place for the next book's plot to begin; however, I am trying to allow for the book to be a stand-alone, so that just makes it a slightly downer ending. That does fit with the tone of the book, though, so I'm not too distraut. It was strange writing the last scene. I've never written a last scene of a novel before. Short stories, absolutely - mostly because my short stories have one scene, which makes writing the last scene far less monumental. I don't know what I'm going to do when I write the other last scene, not chronologically within the novel but that I will write for this draft.
Technically that should be happening either this coming Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, by the way. I say "technically" because I'm babysitting for my adorkable nephew again on Thursday and Friday. For those days, I'll be skipping ahead to my agenda for Week Twelve: I've divided the manuscript into 6 neat chunks and will be editing one chunk a day. So, Thursday and Friday, I'll have a hardcopy of the first chunk (I doubt I could get to the second one) that I'll edit betwixt moments of helping him stand, playing with him, feeding him, changing him, calling him adorakable, etc and while he plays/naps.
My nephew's mother is completely fantastic, in case I haven't mentioned. I don't want to say too much until things are more certain, but she's a graphic designer/web designer/book illustrator, and she's trying to get me an intro to an editor she's doing some design for. I adore this woman. She called me about it last Thursday, and it's very exciting because it's... real. I don't know how else to describe it. With the book coming to a close, the prospect of meeting an editor just mkaes everything I've been doing for the past ten weeks now, and will be doing for the next three weeks, feel just utterly real.
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