So, I’ve done NaNoWriMo four years in a row now, counting this year. The first year, I made it by a day or two, if I remember correctly. The second year I cleared 50K just after the 15th. Last year I had hit 50K much earlier than that (I think it was the 10th).
This year, I just stopped dead around the 8th day, and haven’t written a word since. At least, not officially; I think there’s another thousand words tucked into my Neo, but I haven’t even bothered to paste them to the end.
Part of the problem is chronic nausea. Seriously; I feel sick every day, for several hours a day. It is accompanied by a headache which varies from “frustrating” to “I can’t open my eyes right now.”
But the other part of the problem is that this is the first time since the first year that I launched into this almost without a plot. They say ”No plot? No problem!” but in fact that’s a huge problem for me. I already suffered a major blow when I read that FTL travel is expensive and seriously damages causality; half the premise of my book was gone. I had to start over. (No, I can’t just do like every other Lucas- and Roddenberry-wannabe does and pretend that relativity has been circumvented somehow.)
I hated the first year’s book before I was done. I still like my characters at this point, but they don’t have much to do. I was looking forward to gradually unfolding a massive galaxy-wide conspiracy and making some interesting theological points, but now I’m thinking I’ll be lucky if Tom, Jackie, and Jonathan make it all the way from Brasilia to Dutchwelt. I’m half tempted to switch off the wormhole and just let them pop someplace in space and figure out what to do next… but then I’d have to remember all that relativity that I crammed in October, and it’s almost gone.
What do you do when it takes 25 years to travel 23 light years, relative to the people at the starting point at any rate (actually it’s 50 years relative to them; the travel is close to light speed and then the effects ripple back at light speed)? I don’t feel like rewriting the Ender series, and anyway (a) the ansible is cheating, and (b) I already stole that idea too, although I like the way I implemented it.
And in fact there is no sex in the book, and none of the three characters shares my own religious viewpoint. In fact two of them are completely foreign to me and I’m basing them on what I read on websites and what I experience when I happen to talk to one of their adherents in real life. Which isn’t often, because I don’t talk to people. No sex, no interesting religious issues, no magic, no battle scenes apart from three people overpowering one person briefly on the solar-system equivalent of a tugboat. The intrigue is only hinted at. I’m starting to just drone on and on about the history behind this story, because I have begun to realize that the only part about writing I really like is the backstory.
I’d like to be like Jubal in Stranger in a Strange Land, and just dictate plot ideas to secretaries who then fill in the boilerplate and rake in the cash. But I know I’d still be frustrated when it wasn’t exactly like I imagined it.
Anyway, I am hopeful that a few days off from work and few early mornings before anybody else in my house is up will reignite some of the magic and produce some word output.
But I have to stop playing Sudoku on the bus right now, and stop being sick.
