Out of Gas: NaNoWriMo/NaBloPoMo day 12

12 Nov 2014 Leave a comment

Total word count goal: 50,000

Total blog post goal: 30

Today’s word count: 1,032

Today’s blog count: 13

Total words written: 22,198

Total blog posts: 13

 

I ran out of gas today. I started rather late today after a looooong day of errands and exercise (and NBA basketball!), and didn’t start writing till around 9 pm EST. I started writing during halftime of the Miami Heat-Indiana Pacers game, and picked it up during time-outs and the Houston Rockets-Minnesota Timberwolves game (which is being played in Mexico). I wrote more dialogue and more speculative fiction stuff; in fact, this novel is shaping up to overlap between genres. Which will be interesting when it comes time to publish it; I’ll be checking lots of boxes when categorizing it.

Anyway, I only managed 1,032 words today, and I wanted to write my blog post before midnight (in accordance with NaBloPoMo). But, on a positive note, this is my 100th post on this blog. YEAH!

I have to be up early tomorrow, so I’m signing off. I hope all are doing well on their books, or blogs, or both.

Thanks for stopping by.

Aside by Tiffany M. Davis

Death and Dying: Building A Character Through The Ultimate Adversity

10 Jul 2014 Leave a comment

by Tiffany M. Davis in Brain Droppings, Fiction, My Stuff, The Craft, The Process Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The words are coming in dribbles, for both Camp NaNoWriMo and Clarion Write-A-Thon. Maybe a spurt or two.

Perhaps I am affected by the agonizing wait for The Decision 2.0, if only to see who my beloved San Antonio Spurs will smack down in next year’s NBA Finals. 😀 And yes, I am rooting for the demise of the Miami Heat (although I love me some Pat Riley), because I’m petty when it comes to NBA hoops (although I will root for Shabazz Napier, whose style of play I enjoyed throughout his UConn career); plus, I’m very partial to four-year players).

ANYway…while working on the Camp NaNoWriMo project, I figured out the form of betrayal (mentioned in a previous post) that will catapult my character into the rather unlikeable person he becomes in subsequent books (albeit only mentioned in passing). Death has a way of doing that; not my character’s death, but the effect of death on his life.

What is it about death that completely bends and alters a character, much as it does a real-life person? Is it the finality of it all? The unknown (because everyone does not believe in any semblance of an afterlife)? Depending on the manner of death, it could be the suddenness, or even the lingering; each manner has its pros and cons. It could be the tallying  of life’s balance sheet and coming to the conclusion that you may just end up in the red. Or the realization that there is still so much to do, even if you’ve done a lot.  That effect is more pronounced in the taking of a life, be it accidental or intentional. No one ever recovers from that, unless you’re an assassin or psychopath, in which case it never mattered in the first place.

No one ever fully recovers from grief.

I’ve had death touch my life more than I preferred, so this may be yet another way of me working out some long-buried angst. Writing is much less expensive than psychotherapy.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to researching diseases of the 1940s. I’m also reading City of Beads, the second installment of the Tubby Dubonnet novels, by author Tony Dunbar.

Thanks for stopping by.