So I voted Absentee. I'll be at a packing job in Connecticut on the 8th. I'm also doing a day trip to Chicago and that hop over to Hong Kong for a week. Then after Thanksgiving is a possible job in Berkeley, again, not to mention a tantalizing one in Maine, up near St. Johns, New Brunswick. It'll be fun.
Of course, this is happening as I'm planning to do National Novel Writing Month, again, but I think reworking A65 into a book will be relatively easy, compared to OT...or not. I'm trying to make it funnier and more character oriented while still maintaining a semblance of reality about it...so I may be making it harder. I won't know until I get into it and start pounding my head against the wall.
But the challenge is just to hit 50,000 words to reach your goal. I used to say win, and they do call you a winner if you make it, but reality is you don't get anything from it except the push to get your next book done. Only I have 5 that aren't completed, yet. First drafts, barely, not revisited. I ought to sit this one out...but I like Adam and Casey and want their stories told, so...away we go.
My excuse for not concentrating on P/S is simple -- I do not want to churn out a non-stop downer of a book like Angela's Ashes. I know it won the Pulitzer and it's a testament to the human spirit and all that, but God it was a depressing read. I didn't see the movie; couldn't handle that, too.
So I'm using A65 to work on my humor. Find ways to make P/S...well, not so much uplifting as honest about how kids can be, even in poverty. Like Hope and Glory did with kids in London during the Blitz and Empire of the Sun did with a boy separated from his parents and put in a Japanese prison camp. Kids cope, usually a lot better than the adults, do.
But Brendan doesn't want to merely cope. He's got friends and family and a profession he enjoys and a girl he wants to marry. All he asks is to be left alone to follow his life. Nothing grand or brilliant, but a life where he can be happy.
If only the bastards would let him.
Of course, this is happening as I'm planning to do National Novel Writing Month, again, but I think reworking A65 into a book will be relatively easy, compared to OT...or not. I'm trying to make it funnier and more character oriented while still maintaining a semblance of reality about it...so I may be making it harder. I won't know until I get into it and start pounding my head against the wall.
But the challenge is just to hit 50,000 words to reach your goal. I used to say win, and they do call you a winner if you make it, but reality is you don't get anything from it except the push to get your next book done. Only I have 5 that aren't completed, yet. First drafts, barely, not revisited. I ought to sit this one out...but I like Adam and Casey and want their stories told, so...away we go.
My excuse for not concentrating on P/S is simple -- I do not want to churn out a non-stop downer of a book like Angela's Ashes. I know it won the Pulitzer and it's a testament to the human spirit and all that, but God it was a depressing read. I didn't see the movie; couldn't handle that, too.
So I'm using A65 to work on my humor. Find ways to make P/S...well, not so much uplifting as honest about how kids can be, even in poverty. Like Hope and Glory did with kids in London during the Blitz and Empire of the Sun did with a boy separated from his parents and put in a Japanese prison camp. Kids cope, usually a lot better than the adults, do.
But Brendan doesn't want to merely cope. He's got friends and family and a profession he enjoys and a girl he wants to marry. All he asks is to be left alone to follow his life. Nothing grand or brilliant, but a life where he can be happy.
If only the bastards would let him.
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