Gracie embodies surprises and awakenings in my universe. It all began with Eleven, which has come far, but remains incomplete. I know something of how it ends, but the process of writing has frequently turned into the process of disvovering that story. In 2004, for NaNoWriMo, I wrote ENX. ENX is a prequel to Eleven, but should probably be read after. Gracie started out, like many of my November novels, as an exploration of a human concept in a mostly-familiar setting. At one point, I may have called the story 'The Man Who Had Everything,' but what happened only fourteen pages into the story, was completely unexpected by me.
The future world of Eleven has taken me many years to craft and understand. I explore the landscapes, culture, and people through the telling of their stories. Eleven is fragmented, in the way that stained glass creates a big picture. ENX takes much of that time and place for granted, but there are fundamental truths about the nature of that world that even I have not known. I had impressions strong enough to guide the story and remain true to the world, but lacked an intellectual narrative.
Fourteen pages into Gracie, the old world ended, and that new one began.
It has been written that there would be three prophets.
(From Chapter 1, Page 15) Morning came with a dull grey light and freezing temperatures. They bundled themselves against the cold, and Vincent ventured outside to check the car. Dead. Resting on the ground. The backups wouldn't start. Not even a light. He stepped out on the street, but there was nothing. Not one sign that anything was working. He went back inside. No systems meant no power. No power meant that nothing worked. Vincent had a small disaster kit which he hadn't updated in a while. It included a light, a radio, a purifier, a stove - nothing would turn on. The food store all required hot water, and so the two of them started a fire with a tiny gas torch, wondering to themselves why they hadn't done it sooner. They heated water and warmed food there on the fire. They closed in the room so it would get hotter. "I don't think it's coming back. Ever." "Why would you even say that?" Vincent tried not to sound frustrated. "I mean, even some weird solar event or electromagnetic pulse wouldn't knock out everything. It wasn't even daytime." "Here." It was ominous without her even trying to make it sound that way. Vincent exhaled long and slow as he let it sink in. "Then we're really lucky we're alive." Gracie cried.
30 November 2010 Finished my 50k count last night while making Allison endure Goblin Cock on the stereo. Like last year, the OpenOffice word counter was way different from the official one at nanowrimo.org, and I had to "go over" by roughly 800 words to get my purple bar. Nonetheless, purple bar I have for my eighth NaNoWriMo! More significantly, I have a solid start on an important story, and unlike most years past, I don't want to take any break before finishing. I need to get this one out of me now, so on I write....
24 November 2010 Behind on the word count, but optimistic that I'll pass 35k today, and as anyone who's done NaNoWriMo before knows, it's a downhill slide after 35k. I'm trying more than ever before to get the story out and not worry about the words I use to tell it this year. I've reached a personal comfort level with the notion that the first pass should be the "raw" idea dump, and the first rewrite is the true first telling of the story. With that in mind, it feels more like the subconcious, creative brain gets to drive while I occupy the rational, thinking, monkey brain with loud music.
