Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Smallville...Really?

So, I haven't created a playlist for my latest novel. I've blogged in the last couple months about inspiration and the different things we use to motivate ourselves to write. Music is important for me. I listen to the same playlist the entire time I write and edit WIP. Of course I've know several of you out there in the writing world that are the exact same way. My routines are the same every step of the journey, so I don't mess with the flow of the story.


NaNoWriMo is a challenge for me. I understand that it is a the same for every writer to write that many words in one month. So here's a list of my obstacles: 1)I'm a co-manager for Wal-mart. I work 16 4-hour days. On the plus side I get 4 days off. The biggest problem is where is everyone shopping right now, because it's that time of year? Yeap, you guessed it! No, we don't have any ZuZu pets. 2) I have to develop my characters by research and planning. Detailed researching and planning 3.)The outlines can be crazy, I tell you. I outline everything. 4.) What do you mean I can't go back and edit.

Other than reason one, my husband has told me for years to chuck it all out the window and than one day when I get published I can chuck number one as well. While writing in the past week, I have been so carefree. No outline, no character development, and no editing. All my rules are out the window and quite frankly it feels wonderful. Yesterday, I struggled to hit save and close my computer, so I could go to work, because my characters were in their zone...yes, their zone. All these years I've did all this crazy stuff, before I started writing and sometimes it would take me chapter and chapters, before the characters were telling their own story. Quite frankly up to that point I forced it along. I'm proud to announce that half way through chapter one it was all them.

At this point you might be wondering what I've done for music. I've broken all the other rules right? I'm not listening to music. Instead my muse has been the television show Smallville. Yes, my friends, the CW's version of Superman has kept me pumping the last week. Previous to this week, in our house we'd decided to go back and watch all the old episodes, because we didn't start watching until season 4, so every day we go get a new disc from the video store. I have made the discovery that each episode is 45 minutes long and I can write approximately 600 words in that time. This show has absolutely nothing to do with the novel I am writing; there are no superheros, tights or flights.

Well I hope this tidbit puts a smile on the faces of my NaNoWriMo and non-NaNoWriMo writing friends.



From now til Christmas the retailer in me will be sharing a tidbit that will hopefully make either your or my experience at Wal-mart a little bit better this holiday season. Believe me through the holidays I see some funny and weird stuff. I also have my pet peeves like I'm sure all of you as customers do.

Today, my beautiful and artistic daughter had a program at school for Veterans day. They were instructed in advance to ensure that they wore red, white and blue. Of course they didn't specify that if the students wore a flag on their shirts that it would need to be the American flag. The picture you see is of a couple of the participants, who felt the need to sport their Miley Cyrus style. They went to their local Wal-mart and in this case probably mine and picked something out of her new line, which is probably not appropriate for elementary students to where. The girls in this pic don't know any better, but parents the British flag really? Don't take me as Brit hater, because I'm not, but its Veteran's day folks.

Keep smiling and writing everyone! Have a great NaNoWriMo week, I know I will!

5 comments:

  1. I bet you do see some interesting things this time of year. I love it when my characters get in the zone. Last night, they were right there and I was typing away like crazy and I had to go pick my son up. When I returned, the zone had disappeared. Aye! Anyway, thanks for taking the shoe pic. That's awesome. You can email to me at smills1@att.net.

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  2. Yeah, showoff! I haven't been able to do that yet, get my characters in the zone, they keep escaping! I know it'll happen, but guess I'll have to click away until it does. My fiance says my chakras are out of wack! :) I guess I have to get 'em in line huh?!
    PS. Smallville is one of my favs girl! Faithful to that show even if I'm no teenager.

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  3. Sorry Ellie, those characters will come I promise. For whatever reason this NaNoWriMo has got me in the zone. I'm telling you all I want to do it write and be with them. Usually it takes me awhile to get there. Chase those characters down and make them tell you what they want:)

    Smallville's great, but when it first came out we just didn't watch it. My husband's such a superman junkie too. Now I've got 8 seasons of disks to use as a muse:)

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  4. I have to write to music. Sometimes I use a playlist I have on Winamp. Sometimes I pull up Yahoo launchcast and see what radio station seems to fit my mood. Now I'm using Pandora.com since it tries to make a playlist to fit the style I like. I have multiple "stations" to choose from too which I love. Either way I understand the background being necessary. Music just works.

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