Category Archives: Terror Tuesday
The Black Hole Meets The Sun
Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The ratio between the black hole Schwarzschild radius and the observer distance to it is 1:9. Of note is the gravitational lensing effect known as an Einstein ring, which produces a set of two fairly bright and large but highly distorted images of the Cloud as compared to its actual angular size. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The last couple weeks seem somewhat blurred in my memory. Day to day, fretting over which bills are past due, which bills have passed their grace period, and crunching number after number trying to figure out if and when we can get ourselves on track and how we manage to keep hemorrhaging money even when we’re nickel and diming ourselves for all we’re worth. Each day’s tips are counted and logged onto a calendar. My husband’s income is charted as well, from each of his jobs. On paper, we should be fine.
If everything went by what was “on paper,” most of the world would run a bit more smoothly.
“You’re having trouble with your mortgage payments? Hm, that’s strange. It says right here that your income is high enough to cover it. We’ll just adjust your payment history. You’re right as rain!”
If ooooonly.
And so things fall by the wayside. Things like writing and answering that question people have been shoving in my face like a durian popsicle since I was in sixth grade: “What are you going to be when you grow up?”
I’m almost thirty. My husband is almost thirty. We ought to both have answers for that by now. But he’s working two jobs, and I’m waiting tables for a living while my history degree and near double major in history and Central European Studies moulders in a box somewhere. Come to think of it, I am not even sure where my college diploma is. That’s how little it matters of late.
And so the black hole of finances has consumed us once more. I don’t have a huge number of weapons in my arsenal against it, but I do have a few.
I’ve even tried out a couple new ones. For starters, there’s Tai Chi.
I’ve always been fascinated with Tai Chi. I remember watching a group of adults move through flowing poses as a child. I thought it looked graceful — just standing by as a casual observer managed to relax me somewhat. But I never had the opportunity to try it until I discovered a free video on FiOS. The soft movements and slowness of the forms mask an underlying strength, buttressed by breath and energy. There are strength in those poses. By the end of my first few practices, I was sweating, but my breath came deep and strong as if I had just awoken peacefully from restful slumber.
I bought a five dollar DVD that included a segment on Qi Gong, which is Tai Chi’s even more mellow counterpart that focuses on healing and strengthening. Where Tai Chi is a respected form of martial art (its steady slowness makes many people assume it would be a useless form of defense, but the forms are meant for balance and defensibility, and I dare anyone to take on a Tai Chi master), Qi Gong is a renewal, a way to recuperate both body and spirit by harnessing the body’s energy. Call it chi, call it life force, call it the holy hand grenade — but it helps, and after just a few sessions, I’ve felt a difference in both my body and my level of anxiety.
And then there’s yoga.
What I cannot do. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I never thought I would be a yoga person. Someone telling me in a calm, throaty voice to reach down and casually pick up my foot and pull it up to my face makes me turn blue just thinking about it. I can no more grab my foot and lick my knee than Homer Simpson can, but the beginner’s yoga practice I’ve begun has poses that focus on core strength and building flexibility where there is none. For the kid who would just bend her leg and grab her foot in ballet class, a slow approach to these maneuvers is vital — and much less unsightly.
These are small weapons, small changes I can make to help avoid disintegration via black hole. Even if life is stressful, they create moments of clarity and calm, and my body is the stronger for it. Whatever they’ve helped to get flowing has spurred my creative juices as well, and the drive to write that has been waning over the past few weeks through the mire of stress has returned to tap me on the shoulder and smack me across the face with a very silly white glove.
I don’t have any big news yet, but I am hatching a plot. Perhaps these full body journeys of meditation and movement really have captured the radiance of the sun to shine it into the maw of the black hole.
There are some things in life that you cannot change. There are points where you have to admit you’ve done all you can for one area and only time can do the rest. In those cases, all you can do is change your focus to things you can change, the things that are in your power to alter for the better. I can’t fix my finances overnight, but I can foster a sense of well-being by taking care of my body, eating well, and enjoying the small pleasures of my kitten’s purr or my puppy’s soft coat.
As a kid, I used to go with my mom to meetings for family members of alcoholics, and I remember the prayer very, very well. And though I’m agnostic, it still seems relevant.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
What helps you combat stress? How can you holistically approach life?
And just in case you think astrophysics are as cool as I do, check out these fun links to get a REAL black hole fix:
- Black Hole Eats Star: Astrophysicists Salivate (geeksaresexy.net)
- How Dangerous is The New Black Hole Discovered by Nasa? (catenacio78.wordpress.com)
- A burp of light from a black hole reveals that it ate a star (arstechnica.com)
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Remembering Titanic
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Did you cry?”
“I cried four times. Just hearing the song makes me cry.”
Such was the conversation of thirteen-year-olds following the release of Titanic in December of 1997. The song of course, is “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion, and reactions to the film somehow became a mark of status among my classmates in our tiny landlocked Montana town. Leo was a heartthrob to wallpaper your bedroom walls with; Kate was a picture of feminine beauty for us to aspire to.
I haven’t seen Titanic in over a decade. The last time I watched the movie all the way through, we had to change the tape halfway through — which ought to clue you in on the year that happened. So this year, with the film being re-released in 3D to honor the centenary of the unsinkable ship’s sinking, I felt a driving need to see it.
It’s strange to re-live a childhood memory through an adult perspective.
It’s strange to watch something so iconic with the eyes of someone who has experienced loss.
It’s strange to allow yourself to let in the reality of what happened that night one hundred years ago, stranger still to experience it through fiction knowing that in the background, the horror of the backdrop pales in comparison to the reality.
I couldn’t start to understand my desire to re-visit Titanic until the arrival of my April issue of National Geographic. The featured articles? All about Titanic. The ship, yes, but also the film. What I didn’t know before then was that James Cameron, aside from being a multi-bazillionaire and one of the most absurdly high grossing film producer in history, is a science buff and an historian. Specifically, it was his personal draw to Titanic that led him to visit the wreck in 1995 and film it, and it was that sense that made him make the film.
In my April issue of NatGeo, James Cameron wrote a piece entitled “Ghostwalking in Titanic.” He wrote it about visiting the wreck, about his emotions and fears, revelations and awe. Some new images of Titanic showed where Hollywood had to improvise; others mirrored the re-creation with eerie accuracy, down to the gold-plated mantlepiece clock in the suite of Ida and Isidor Straus who were known for their refusal to separate and instead opting to ride the wreckage of the ship to her final resting place together. Their suite was the inspiration for Rose’s suite in the film, the clock and the rest of the decor modeled after archival photos of the ship.
Perhaps Cameron sought only money, but in his words I sensed passion. Passion for what exactly, I am unsure. Whatever fire drives him beneath the waves of the North Atlantic time and again to search out the secrets of one of the greatest mechanical tragedies in human history has uncovered just that: secrets and images of the last moments of 1,500 human beings who lost their lives in the frigid cold.
And so this morning I set an alarm and got out of bed to catch the earliest showing of Titanic, unsure of what to expect.
Adult eyes catch more than the eyes of children, even teenagers. Of that I am now even more convinced than I was before I set foot into the theater. I understood a little of Rose’s situation as an adolescent — a young woman forced into an unwanted engagement for the financial gain of her family. That much I got even then. What I missed was the nuance and the insidiousness of Rose’s fiance.
This time around, I was able to understand Molly Brown‘s impudence in asking Cal if he planned to cut Rose’s meat for her. I understood Cal’s gift of the diamond necklace for what it was: a bribe for sex, as clear and naked as that sparkling blue stone. I understood his statement, “I thought you would have come to me last night.” Translation: “I gave you the diamond. You owed it to me to sleep with me.”
And I understood Rose’s character much better for the words in voice over, “Inside, I was screaming.”
I understood for the first time her heroism in rescuing Jack, how her bravery saved his life. I could respect her decision to stay with him and recognize that as a moment that also showed his worth as a character because he didn’t question her choice to do so.
The fictional story captured me again. With an almost Romeo and Juliet sort of naivete, you cannot help but love Rose and Jack. As he takes her from the stilted steps of high society to the pounding bodhran and uillean pipes in the steerage dance, you cannot help the exultation. Their love is unfettered and bright. Even though you know it’s doomed.
Even though their story is fiction, the backdrop against which it is set is not. Watching the film in 3D — well. The sound of the iceberg’s impact thundered through the theater, and I couldn’t help imagining it ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times louder. Feeling it shake the ship, hearing the crunch of thick steel.
Over two thousand souls trusted to Titanic to bear them across an ocean. And as she foundered on the calm midnight seas, some of the most horrific moments were not nature versus human, but human versus human. Locking the lower class passengers in their quarters. The panic that made officers launch life boats half-full or less when there weren’t even enough boats for half the souls onboard. The chaos and the scrambling.
When the water began rushing in, creeping from deck to deck, I felt the panic. As it encroached upon the higher levels of the ship, I had a sense not of the ship going down, but of the sea reaching up to claim it.
Claim it as what? A sadistic tribute in response to the pride of humanity, taken hungrily by an implacable sea? A reminder of the respect we so seldom afford to the earth? A frightening testament to human nature? There are parts of this history that are sickening. How only two of the twenty lifeboats returned to collect survivors after the Atlantic claimed the ship for good. How the arrogance of the shipbuilders led to allowing aesthetics to trump safety. The cost was almost 75% of the lives on the ship.
As I watched the final moments of the Titanic’s sinking in the film, I was reminded of the National Geographic article once more. In it, they described how the ship’s stern (the rear part that broke away from the bow once the waterlogged front portion sunk beneath the waves) corkscrewed to the bottom of the ocean. It’s the part of the wreck you don’t see images of. The bow in all its aerodynamics survived in a rather picturesque state; the stern took a tumultuous and violent spiral downward, and it took hundreds of terrified people along with it.
The end of the film shows those touching moments: an elderly couple meant to be Ida and Isidor Strauss holding one another, an Irish mother telling her children of Tir na Nog. What it doesn’t show, what it cannot depict, is the scream of strained steel, the terrible crush of the in-rushing water, and the darkness when the sea snuffed out the lights leaving people inside the belly of a sinking ship.
It was that that pulled the tears from me this morning. The adult knowledge of people, stuck and helpless, being dragged downward to the bottom of the North Atlantic.
So today, nine days after Titanic’s centenary, I’m remembering not Kate and Leo as Rose and Jack, or even the unsinkable Molly Brown. I’m remembering those who died faceless for human folly, because when people in power err — whether in building a ship and naming it unsinkable or invading a country — it’s the faceless who bear the brunt of it. And that is heavy enough to sink a ship.
I’m reminded also that nature isn’t to be trifled with. Perhaps that is what Titanic should remain: a lesson in humility, and a reminder that the swiftest and most brazen among us can be brought low.
And yes, I wept.
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The Chisel and the Mountain
A couple weeks ago, I started the umpteenth rewrite of my first novel. The first several were mostly in vain — I began again and again with no real feedback to help me better the story, characters, or writing, and I ended up making small improvements without affecting the whole.
So I began again last month. Or I should say, “began.”
Oh, I’ve gotten about 5,000 words done. Some of it’s even good. I think. But I’ve been stalling. And I realized today that the reason I’ve been a proprietor of the good old Procrastinapods is that I feel like I’m tackling this:
On my top 10 list of Things I Will Leave to Crazier People To Do. Upper part of K2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
With this:
Tally ho! Image of a steel woodworking chisel. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
And I thought to myself, “Self,” I thought, “That’s a damn fine mountain. I think it wants to eat you.”
And then I nodded sagely.
Writers aren’t alone in this dilemma. Not at all. There’s that pile o’ stuff that’s been growing and festering in your garage these ten years. There’s that heap of receipts you keep meaning to organize to itemize your deductions on this next year’s taxes. There’s re-painting the house, or losing 20 pounds, or finally putting in that flower bed, or learning how to cook when you practically burn water…
…you get the point.
We all have our K2 — some crazy people very literally — and if you’re anything like me, you take a gander at that steep-sided monster of a people-eating mountain and decide you’d much prefer a cuddle with your kitten.
I mean, I've made worse choices.
But imagine how you’ll feel after you conquer K2.
Whatever your mountain, here are some no-nonsense approaches to making it manageable.
Start with a small, attainable goal. Instead of saying, “I’m going to lose 20 pounds in April!” tell yourself that you’ll lose 1.5 pounds in the next two weeks by cutting 200 calories from your daily intake and committing to cardio exercise for the equivalent of ten minutes per day. When you look at the scale two weeks from now, you might even be surprised to be down 2 or 3 pounds.
Make small, sustainable changes. Maybe you can’t sit down and climb K2 in an afternoon. Assuming you’re human, you can’t. You’re not going to clean your garage in a day — but you can create a little grid of the space and tackle say, A1 today. Commit to tackling one square of your grid per week, and then in a couple months, voila!
Don’t beat yourself up. K2 will usually beat you up on your own behalf, so why would you team up with it? That mountain’s a monster. That pile of receipts is just armed and waiting to cover your hands with paper cuts and pour lemon juice on them. Don’t give it a chance. If you miss your threshold goals or skip a week, you can always add a few more receipts a day next week to catch up.
Something-something-marathon-not-sprint-something-something. There. A nice cliche to round it out. When you tackle K2, it will tackle you back and have your back flat on the mat if you run at it brandishing your chisel like William Wallace‘s claymore and screeching, “FREEEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” Like any successful battle strategy, you need to realize that you’ve got the disadvantage. Circle around and slash at the flanks until the flanks are gone — a frontal assault will just look silly until you’ve weakened your mountain a little. And those usually don’t end well.
I’m firing up my chisel today — are you?
"And if he were here, he'd consume the English with fire from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse." Mel Gibson as William Wallace wearing woad. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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Recipe for the Creepiest Villains
It’s Terror Tuesday in Emmie Land — not only that, I’ve missed you all for the last two days! I’m still getting used to my new posting schedule, and I feel a little bit like an addict who keeps reaching for the syringe. Must….have……blog.
I must really love you, gentle viewers.
Additionally, yesterday I entered #MenageMonday over at Cara Michaels’ blog, a 200-word flash fiction contest using three different prompts. I got an honorable mention, yeehaw! Thank you to the lovely Ms. Anna Meade for judging!
I have added a new little page for you to check out my short fiction in one place if you feel so inclined.
I picked up Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere this week, and I have been trucking through the book at a decent clip. The villains he’s introduced so far are quite creepy, and they reminded me of some of my all-time favorite villains. Without further ado, I’d like to show you how to cook up a nasty, creeptastic villain for all your goosebumpy needs.
Creeptastic Villain
4 cups urbane
2 cups calculation
1 tablespoon wide smile
1 teaspoon wrong
1 cup chunks o’ dogged persistence
1/2 cup drone-like underlings
Creeptastic Slicing Instrument Glaze
Starting early in a story, mix 4 cups urbane with 2 cups calculation. This will form the base for the rest of the ingredients. Sprinkle the tablespoon of wide smile and the teaspoon of wrong evenly over the mixture. There should be just enough wrong to peek out of the batter when you least expect it. Mix well.
Cut in the cup of dogged persistence. This should resurface in your batter just when you think it’s gone. Add the drone-like underlings to ensure even distribution of creepiness. Bake for the time specified for your story’s temperature (200-1000 words for flash, 3,000 – 10,000 for short, 60,000 – 150,000 for novel. Times may be transmuted for screen and/or stage.)
Drizzle Creeptastic Slicing Instrument Glaze over entire product. It should seep into the spongy batter.
Variations: Add 1 knowing child for additional creepiness, or omit underlings for a solitary product. The more experienced can experiment with the addition of a draining serum that will sap one or more of the consumer’s strengths, but that’s not for rookies.
Your finished product may never compare to this, but then only the best chefs ever do:
"Can't even shout, can't even cry, the gentlemen are coming by, looking in windows, knocking on doors, they need to take seven, and they might take yours. Can't call to Mom, can't say a word, you're gonna die a-screaming, but you won't be heard."
Related articles
- 6 tips on how to Create a Villain with Depth, starring Alan Rickman (cherstinieveen.wordpress.com)
- Buckwheat Spätzle Recipe (thedailymeal.com)
- Spring Salad, Spring Salad Recipes & Spring Salad Ideas | Pottery Barn (potterybarn.com)
- Grilled Mahi Mahi with Tropical Salsa – A Tropical Delight! (pastaprincessandmore.wordpress.com)
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Chillers, Thrillers, and Killers
What better way to spend Terror Tuesday than talking about the ones that make it all happen?
I just finished reading Writing the Breakout Novel and am in the middle of Bullies, Bastards, and Bitches right now, and it’s left me pondering what makes a strong antagonist.
When I think back over the literature that I read growing up, a lot of the Big Bads were really big. God big. Satan big. So how were they effective? How did David Eddings keep me reading for five books before he really introduced his Big Bad and we ever saw Torak’s melty face? I read a lot of epic fantasy, which always seems to have a lot of black and white (at least on the surface).
Think for a moment of the best, scariest, most disturbing antagonists you ever read/watched. Hold them in your mind, because we’re going to take them to our play pen.
Put them all in here! Let's see what they do!
In urban fantasy, the Big Bad is often an old scary vampire (Picary in the Hollows, the Mother in Anita Blake — or any other number of scary vamps in that world). While those can be effective, they need more than just the oogly-boogly factor to make them creep into your nightmares.
The Oogly-Boogly Factor
The Oogly-Boogly Factor is where that particular baddie lies on the spectrum of badness. What, you ask, is the spectrum of badness? Aha. Observe.
Spectrum of Badness
Here’s the key with the best Big Bads — they’ve been through the entire spectrum. When I think of the Big Bads I liked the most, the ones who stuck with me — these are the ones whose motives I understood, who may have even made me sympathetic to their cause at some point, and who have more depth to their character than just the Oogly-Boogly Factor.
You can plunk a character onto the Just Plain Evil part of the spectrum and call them a Big Bad from the get-go, but that won’t make them convincing. Sure, someone who kills at random is scary, but the methodical planning on serial killers is chilling.
Big Bads should also be stronger than the protagonist, at least initially. If the protagonist you’re rooting for can just smush them into smithereens before you can say yikes, that’s no fun at all. Boring. And that violates the basic rule of entertainment: don’t bore anybody.
Big Bads tap into our most primal fears. Something hiding in the dark. Something invading our safe places. Things that do what shouldn’t be done, make happen the things we dread the most. They make us children again, make us forget our adult sensibilities and make us want someone to tell us it’s not real.
Let’s look at a couple of my favorite Big Bads!
Image via Wikipedia
- Creeptastic Preacher Man
Caleb the Preacher, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
As many Big Bads as there were in that show, Caleb is one who has haunted me and who gives me chills each time I watch it. So where is he on the spectrum?
Caleb is full on Big Bad — we don’t see his progression during the show, but we do get glimpses of his back story.
Caleb’s primary characteristic is his misogyny. He calls women “dirty girls.” One interesting trait that he has is that he’s not hugely power hungry. He gets his power from the First Evil, but he bows to it willingly. He is murderous. One of the things that makes Caleb as terrifying as he is comes from the clothes he wears. Even if you’re not religious, his choice of outfit is disturbing. That collar is supposed to symbolize someone who is at least safe. Caleb makes it frightening. He uses religion in his rhetoric often, which adds another chilling layer to his persona. Here’s a quote that sums him up:
Now, it’s a simple story. Stop me if you’ve heard it. I have found and truly believe that there is nothing so bad it cannot be made better with a story. And this one’s got a happy ending. There once was a woman, and she was foul, like all women, for Adam’s rib was dirty—just like Adam himself—for what was he, but human. But this woman, she was filled with darkness, despair, and why? Because she did not know. She could not see. She didn’t know the good news, the glory that was coming. That’d be you. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. You show up, they’ll get in line. ‘Cause they followed her. And all they have to do is take one more step, and I’ll kill them all. See? I told you it had a happy ending.
Since we’re on the Buffy subject, let’s look at the development of a Big Bad — see the progression across the spectrum. Buffy fans probably know who I’m talking about…
Image via Wikipedia
- Creepy Willow
Willow Rosenberg, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
To get a feel for the humble origins of this Big Bad, it might be better to show a before picture:
Willow with...pigtails?
Willow starts out as a stereotypical smart, nerdy girl. She’s shy and awkward, she’s in love with her best friend Xander, and she is so self-effacing that you want to just hug her.
As the series progresses, Willow experiences heartbreak and begins to explore the world of magic, becoming a powerful witch. She often misuses magic for selfish reasons, which backfires more than once. This is where she is lured by the dark side a bit. When her first love cheats on her and leaves her, she meets Tara.
Tara brings out the power in Willow. Together, they hone their craft and fall in love. Tara is kind, wise, and gentle. When Willow spirals out of control, addicted to magic (enter Kinda Naughty range of spectrum), Tara cuts her off and breaks up with her. Willow is forced to learn to give up the magic if she wants to heal her relationship with Tara — and succeeds.
Enter Warren.
Warren is going after Buffy, but he’s a crap shot with his pistol, and he shoots Tara through the heart, spattering her blood across Willow’s shirt. Traumatic Event.
It doesn’t take long for Willow to go off the deep end in her anguish. Willow’s transformation is incredible, because she goes through every bit of the spectrum to become Dark Willow. When she gets there, she is full on Big Bad. She’s lost her most treasured love. She’s vengeful. And best of all, we sympathize with her. I cheered her on when she went after Warren.
For the writers out there, how do you make your Big Bads convincing? Do you actively ensure that they are in some way pitiable or sympathetic? Where do they fall on the spectrum, and how did they get there? Even if all of that doesn’t end up in the book, you should know.
As I rework my book, one thing I’m doing is strengthening my Big Bad, making him more frightening, considering his back story. Even though he is downright terrifying, he has reasons for being that way.
I want to hear your thoughts!
Who are your favorite antagonists? How do you feel good antagonists add to a story? If you’re a Buffy fan, how did you feel about Caleb? Willow?
Thank you for flying Terror Tuesday, do come back.
Related articles
- Why we love the Big Bad (christopherspenn.com)
- Monday Man: Wesley Wyndham-Pryce (emmiemears.com)
- Buttressing Your Protagonist, Part 2 (emmiemears.com)
- Monday Man: Spike (emmiemears.com)
- Treading the Tightrope Between Worlds (emmiemears.com)
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Try Not to Kill a Chicken
I know a lot of my blog days have themes. Monday Man, Wednesday Woman, Thorsday, Friday Fellows, Saturday Salaciousness, Sunday My Prints Will Come…
Yes, gentle viewers. I do know there are seven days and not six in the average week.
Tuesday is conspicuous in its absence. Or inconspicuous if you happen to hold an anti-Tuesday bias. I had conceived the idea for Terror Tuesday a while back, but it never seemed to fit before today.
Conquer your fear.
The idea for today’s blog politely tapped me on the shoulder on Sunday, during the closing address for the Writer’s Digest Conference.
You might wonder what was so scary about that closing address. Yep. Keep wondering.
First, I’m going to tell you a story. It’s not my story, gentle viewers. It’s the story of someone quite important, though I rather think he doesn’t think of himself that way. Many, many people think he is. You might be one of them. By the end of this story, you most likely will be.
Once upon a time, in a faraway state (this statement is relative), a young man had an idea. It was an ambitious idea, full of zeal and plenty of sparks. He had an idea to write a novel in a month. And he bamboozled 20 other people to do it with him.
Sound crazy? It is. But it’s also a little bit magical.
They got together to write. They dragged their giant laptops around — he said they were the size of washing machines — and they wrote through week one. They wrote through week two. Somewhere in week three, someone found the cord dangling out of those novels and plugged it into a wall.
ZING!
When electricity starts coursing through a work of writing — it’s a feeling like no other.
Suddenly novels were happening. Characters started doing what characters do. They get up and move when you ask them to sit still. They might pick their noses in public. That one just slept with someone who is actually in love with his best friend. That one grouched at everyone for the first half of the book before unexpectedly rescuing a chihuahua puppy before it could be hit by a careening van.
The twenty people of doubtful sanity kept writing. And by the end of the month, they had novels. How did these twenty people do it? How did they manage to scribble or type out 50,000 words in a month? I don’t know how they did it. I wasn’t there. But the next year over 130 people were. And the next year more than that. And on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on…and during that last “and on” there were over 300,000 people who wrote billions upon billions of words. Around the world, on every continent (maybe even Antarctica), novels were born. Some of them may have been nervous little novels at first. Shaky and trembling. Others may have started out with a bang so big that the rest felt like a fizzle. Some might have meandered around like one of Pooh Bear’s Pooh Sticks in a river — and perhaps not come out the other side of the bridge.
Who are these people? Are they the elusive novelists of the world?
Novels are not written by novelists — they’re written by every day people who give themselves permission to write a novel.
Millions of people have been touched by this phenomenon in some way or another. Whether they participated or just watched wide-eyed, full of sympathy or scorn or bewilderment — the fantastic, insane spark of an idea that kindled itself in one guy thirteen years ago has spread, leaving fire in its wake.
This is where the story caught up with my story. Because for most of that, I was oblivious. Then in 2008, I met a woman named Fly in Nashville who spent November glued to her keyboard. She’d show up to Borders with a handful of others, and they would go into a tunnel while I quirked an eyebrow.
In 2011, I decided to give it a go. I joined those 300,000-odd writers and try-ers and want-ers around the world, and I set out to write 50,000 words in a month. I blogged every day. If you’ve been around since then, you’ll know we had a wee challenge here in Emmieland, the NaNoRebel Challenge. We three, we happy three, plodded along and prodded ourselves, and we got our bar to turn purple together. I met with the Corridor Writers and spent many-a-day at Panera with our hourglasses named Sandy and Butch. Together the Corridor Writers passed 1,000,000 words together (and about 10% of that was Mollie…making the rest of us feel like slackers).
Including my blog, I wrote around 80,000 words that month. It began as an exercise in discipline and motivation. To teach myself that I could train to be a better writer, a more consistent writer. To convince myself to reach my arms out and take hold of what mattered to me. The end result was my second finished novel and a third begun with about 30,000 words.
During that month, I learned that the person responsible for this incredible journey, the one who inspired so many of us to just do it — this was his last year running the show.
I also discovered that he would be the closing speaker for the Writer’s Digest Conference. Yeah, that thing I attended over the weekend. That’s the one.
I walked out of my last planned session aiming to get some water and take a break before the closing address. Who happened to be standing right outside the door? The guy who founded NaNoWriMo. Chris Baty.
I walked past him and then turned on my heel and said, “Hey, so I did NaNo for the first time this year, and I won!” We started talking. I was struck immediately by the pure authenticity of this person. He shook my hand warmly. He made eye contact and asked about my book and what I had written — even reacted in a flattering way when I told him I’d done it “Rebel Style” and finished one book and started another. I told him that I thought his leaving NaNoWriMo was bittersweet — that he would surely be missed, but that I was (and am) so excited for him to be moving forward with his dreams.
He grinned and shifted his feet and said it was terrifying but exhilarating. I could relate to that — perhaps more than he knew. I told him that it feels good to be standing at the top of that hill, ready to just…kick the ball and get it rolling. See where it lands. Hope it doesn’t run over any chickens.
Soon all of us filed into the ballroom for Chris’s address. And what an address it was. I want to share it with you, gentle viewers, because I think it applies not only to writers, but to all of us. All of the strange containers of impulses that make up the human race.
Chris told us his story, about how NaNoWriMo began. That’s the story I’ve told you, of course. That’s why it’s not mine — it’s his. And then he said this:
I did one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I cleaned out my desk, turned in my keys, and I left. Monday — tomorrow — I start my new job: full-time writer.
Take a moment and let that sink in. Imagine for just a second that your dream — whatever that dream happens to be — suddenly must be fulfilled. Imagine cleaning out your desk or turning in your badge or uniform. Imagine walking out the doors of the familiar and safe, with only your dream in front of your face.
When he said those words, I teared up. I longed to do the same. Immediately my brain made a thousand excuses why I couldn’t do it too. But the next thing Chris said made something glaringly clear — it won’t be long before I must do it. Chris quoted John Shed and said something very, very true.
A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what a ship is built for.
-John A. Shedd
It’s as true for you as it is for me, gentle viewers. Your ship may not be a writing ship. It could be any ship, bound for waters on the opposite side of the world, or an island no one has discovered. Maybe even Atlantis. But you’ll never get there if you don’t leave the harbor.
I’ll close this with one more bit of wisdom from a man who gave thirteen years of his life to a movement that has affected the world.
Get your dream in your mind’s eye. Think of it. Hold it there. The words “book” and “writing” are in this quote, but I’m still looking at you when I type it — all of you. Whoever you are and whatever dream floats in front of your face right now. Are you ready?
Listen up.
Your voice is important, and your stories matter. Someone has waited their entire life to read the book you are writing.
-Chris Baty
Now. Get to the top of your hill. I know it’s terrifying up there. It seems like you could fall and just roll down, possibly encountering some chickens. But there’s a ball that’s growing moss because it should be in motion. Kick the ball. Get it rolling. And try not to kill a chicken.
Related articles
- The Writing Colonic (emmiemears.com)
- NaNoWriMo Lessons: The Once and Future Writer (emmiemears.wordpress.com)
- Emmie’s Salacious New York Adventure (emmiemears.com)
