Sunday, October 4, 2009

National Novel Writing Month Looms Ahead Again

I'm not sure if I'm going to bother writing another anti-NaNo rebuttal this year. I did last year and the year before that and I think all of the things I felt I needed to say have already been said. Between now and the end of November there is always the chance that someone will say something to set me off, but for now I really have no intention of rehashing things that I've already commented upon.

That said, there is less than a month left until the thirty-day writing exercise begins anew. I managed to get some research done yesterday in the form of a photo-snapping project at a local dying mall. Originally I'd intended to visit two or more of them, but one of the others seems to now be in fine form and the last one is in the process of being demolished and rebuilt. Still, the photos from the site we managed to visit are rather interesting. Next step in the research phase will be combing through old news articles and scouring the Internet for shopping mall maps and schematics.

In addition to photos, I managed to sketch out a few rough character and setting bios yesterday, which caught me quite by surprise. I didn't expect these aspects of the story to gel the way they did. One moment I was walking down a nearly abandoned mall corridor and the next I was running into the still-open (yet extremely depressing) KMart frantic for a notebook. By the time the evening was over I'd filled five pages of notes on at least three characters and two settings. Not too shabby.

Tomorrow evening there will be the first pre-November meeting down in Oakland. I'm still not sure if I'm going to be able to make the drive down and back, but I'm dying to meet the other participants. Hopefully there will be some familiar faces in the crowd.

1 comment:

Machinist said...

Look at those kids. Nobody can tell THEM what to do.