Greenscape

Dean Forrester had the ultimate life. He had money, he had women, he never paid taxes and most of his days were spent playing golf and drinking for free. He was prepared to live out the rest of his days like this - until one phone call from home ruined it all.

Sunday, October 31, 2004

Lesbians for Bush

The final side story, Lesbians for Bush is up. Fair warning - this is easily the biggest spoiler of them all. I almost didn't add it in, but a) my biggest problem right now is that Sissy and Dre's voices are too similar and b) I had thought about it too long, had to get it out. Especially before tommorrow. Sissy is actually younger than Dre, but should sound more mature. She's actually one of the more mature characters in the story, outside of Ma Forrester herself. Although Dre is older, she's stuck with one foot in high school and the other in the college never really attended.

Because of the spoiler factor, I'll just say that this is a phone call between Dre and Sissy after Dre's been a bit bad. I wanted to frame their relationship a bit more. Clearly, this isn't the first time these two have had a conversation like this, and then ending is meant to hint towards the kind of relationship Dean used to have with his hometown friends, though that will get more flushed out in the real story.

This came out at just over 700, so again - about half of a day's work for the NaNoWriMo. Mostly conversation, but that's difficult to get around when it's a phone call.

Tommorrow. Word 1. Chapter 1. I hope to get a better website for displaying sections of the novel, but I'm not sure when I'll have time. Apparently the Nano site has a section for excerpts as well, starting in the morning, so I'll check that out first.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Major Tom

Added Major Tom to the side story pile. Major Tom is largely a phone conversation between Sissy and her mother right after Dean has disappeared to the green and thinks that Sissy is leaving back for home. It's pretty short, but I've been equally short on time today. It hits about 800 words, so by nano standards I'd have to do this twice in one day to stay on target. There might be one more side story before the official start of the challenge (and I finally got confirmation that these side stories aren't violating any nano rules) but that would probably be it.

For anyone wondering, my rule on proofreading is probably going to be - not. It seems almost anti-nano to review for revision until Decemebr.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Special Forces

Special Forces is up, a side story about James taking Dre home after she has met up with Dean and the old gang at a mini golf park. These side stories are probably sticky with spoilage, but they're working in a couple of ways. First, writing with substance takes practice ... yesterday had about 700 words, this one is about 1200. I wouldn't say Livingston was short as much as I'd say that I've thought more about the characters and how they feel. I'm employing what I call a tight third person perspective, which is a fancy english major way of saying that I cheat and occasionally tighten the focus of the narrative enough to one character that it almost sounds like first person for a while. Special Forces has a slice more meat to it because we get a little more into the heads of the characters on stage.

I'm having a bit of technical quandry though. I like this idea of publishing to webcosa for viewing, but apparently you can't have a whole novel available online without, like, essentially foregoing all possibility of publication. Don't get me wrong - I don't think Greenscape would ever see a publisher, but I wouldn't mind entertaining the possibility. So I want to make a viewer tool in PHP with some kind of access control.

Anyway - that spoilage. Probably can't be helped. I'm picking these side stories specifically as key points of the story to help flush them out without actually writing those points. All I can say is - Greenscape isn't about the plot, it's about the characters. I will try to keep something ambigious, but if you read the side stories up until Nov 1, you'll probably now a lot what's going to happen in the novel itself.

Assuming, of course, it gets written and finished...

Monday, October 25, 2004

Paging Dr. Livingston

First side story, Paging Dr. Livingston, is up. It's a conversation between Dre, Dean's ex-girlfriend, and his sister Sissy on the car ride to the bus station which will take Sissy into the real story.

So far, I haven't decided if Dean is in Chicago or some mythical suburb which will let me avoid using a word like Chicago. I don't want Greenscape to have that feeling where the locations are something specific that people expect it to be "just like" something ... like New York or Wrigelyville or something. Harrison is fictional for that freedom, since we're supposed to be focused on Dean's perception of his hometown, not our own ideas of what a town is like. It seems like if the town where the country club is at is any different, it could be conflicting.

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Deleted Scenes

Next week I'm going to prep Greenscape by writing a few side stories. These will be scenarios that co-exist with the current outline but wouldn't be used in the novel because they're out of focus from Dean. Think of it as "On the other side of Metropolis" scenes from cheesy superhero serials. Hopefully I can flush out some of the side characters a bit before jumping in full throttle.

Friday, October 22, 2004

Courtesy Phone

My brother pointed me to an article about blogging and the NaNoWriMo - which is my feeble excuse to try and write Greenscape. I think I'm doomed though - I always think blogs are a great idea until I have to update them.

Greenscape comes from a lunch table conversation about work and country clubs, and this story about this guy who didn't really work but just sold things to doctors while playing golf. I don't think it was meant to be quite as salicious as the Dean Forrester lifestyle, but sex sells baby.

So when Paige took me to a fancy club dinner we got to talking about it and I thought it was interesting that this guy might not require any real connection with the adult world. The country club could become his bubble, and with the exception of some outside contact to maintain that lifestyle, he'd never have to leave his bubble. It seemed a perfect analogy for someone trying to evade growing up.

But of course, it wouldn't be fun unless that bubble popped. So I'm dragging up a bunch of old plotlines from other short stories and making them the life that Dean didn't live.