My Current Novel Problem

{First of all, yes I know that this is fast turning into my authors notes. This blog is a magical creature, everything I need it to be, when I need it. It just so happens that, at the moment, my novel-to-be is a mini-obsession, thinking about it and thinking about it but never actually putting pen to paper other than that attempted intro.}

At the moment my big dilemma is all about indecision. I just cannot decide how separate I am going to make this story. I mean, I don’t know how different I want to make Canter’s story (the aspergirl/vampire romance) from Emjay’s story (the original obsession, re-written more than 80 times, vampire romance which I now realise looking back was always an aspergrl/vampire romance).

In the world of Emjay’s story, and I know this from a long time writing this story, the simple act of changing the names changes almost everything. Only Emjay is Emjay. And I truly do not know how much of the story I actually want to change.

Mostly because I do not know how to do so much of what I want to do while changing the story, I do not know how to do some of what I want to do if I leave too much the same, and I do not know where the story is going other than it’s paranormal romance with two possible romantic interests. How do people meet? And more importantly, how can I have her meeting the two romantic leads separately, but they know each other, aren’t romantically involved (one of them is male and the other female and I don’t want it to be or seem like a couple seeking a unicorn because that’s so not what it is) and don’t seem to have an issue with each other romancing the same person?

I have thought up a way but I don’t know how well it will work. I can’t say too much because I haven’t started writing it yet so it’s kind of ambiguous in my own mind and…  

Well I guess that’s a significant amount of ranting about my story. No doubt this week will be a second (or is it third) week of having “start writing story” on my to-do list every day, never done. Who knows, I may finally be able to jump in the deep end!

Wish me luck

~*~ Note from after writing this: I have just been informed that this month is Camp Nano which means it's a smaller sub-variant of National Novel Writing Month. This, considering today is the first of the month, could be a bit of a kick starter for me. Setting goals for word count, giving me the kick in the pants I need... I'll look into it when I get home.

Novel Intro - Rough Copy

We walk among you, but you barely notice us. We look like you; if we want to, we can sound and act like you do. As far as you’re concerned, we don’t exist.

Except we do. And no matter what games of pretend we play, we’re not like you.

We barely even live in the same world as you do. Not the way you see it, anyway.

We’re all different, just so you know. I’m not going to generalise and say we all have the same superpowers, or even that we all have superpowers.  Each of us lives in our own world, with our own limitations, our own greatnesses. And two worlds can be similar, but we really are the unique snowflakes that you aren’t.

No, that’s cruel. You guys are individuals too, but… the same. You all live in the same world, this world that we can see and interact with but aren’t really a part of. I shouldn’t generalise you anymore than I should generalise us. After all, I’ve only pretended to be one of you, thought I was one of you. I never actually was one of you.

Some of us have superior hearing, eyesight, sense of smell – all to the point of distraction because how can you focus on one conversation in a room where you can hear fifty, or look at one person when you can see the air currents swirling around them? Some of us have amazing memories – but just because you can store all that data doesn’t mean you can find the file it’s hidden in. For each of our strengths we have a weakness or three. And for each of us it’s a different mix.

You accuse us – when you even recognise us at all – of being robotic, inhuman. But that is far from the truth. We feel things so intensely that we try not to feel them at all – because this is your world and not really ours, we weren’t taught how to cope with emotions in a way that we understand.

We’re not so inhuman, we’re just different…

We’re autistic.

Trying To Start Novelling

I have a couple of ideas on how I’m going to start my Aspergian/vampire romance story, and because the two starters are at odds and I don’t think I can use both – but I like both equally {okay, I like one a little more but that’s only because I don’t know if the other one would be found offensive by people with aspergers or if they’d find it cool like I do} – I think that may be why I have held off on starting writing.

 {I am just going to do a basic sum up of the idea behind each start, I don’t want to give away too much or ruin the start of a story that I may eventually end up posting online for people to read… or more J (hopes and dreams of being published, as always) but hopefully this will give all y’all enough of an idea that you can say yay or nay to the ideas.}

Start One:

 The main character is in a job interview.  This chapter and this chapter alone will be formatted different, first person perspective (as will the rest of the story) but almost like a script. What the interviewer asks, and what the main character responds with in her head – what she says reveals her quirks – and what she actually responds with out loud. As well as this, there will be her fidgeting, nervous stimming, and other things, written in. But this chapter will almost (even though it is set in the present) be done as a “looking back” type thing.
Oh… it’s hard to describe and basically I can’t do it justice without writing it out! But that is the basic‑est of basic overviews of start one.

Start Two:

This is going to be a… um… I can’t think of the word. Sort of like an “unexpected twist” start, based off the start to some vampire novels I read when I was younger (The Night World, by L.J Smith, for example, has a similar start or premise but without my twist).
“They live among us, they look just like us, they could be us. But they’re not.  Each of them is different in their own way, unique. Each of them lives in a different world from us. Some of them are really cats {hey, I like the cat thing… although that line probably won’t stay}…”
Basically, a build-up, leading the reader to believe I’m talking about vampires. But, surprise twist: I’m talking about Aspergians.

Well folks, those are my ideas. Again, they are in their most basic form. Can people please let me know any opinions, do they like one idea better than the other, etc? Pretty pretty please?

My Novel Idea

As you can all no doubt tell by now {I hope!} I am a writer. I love writing; I would do it all the time if I could. The only things holding me back are time {nasty little thing called a job seems to get in the way, somehow, and then I just want to sleep or at the very least, not look at a computer screen}, medium {seems like a strange thing to be holding me back, but it is a valid one: for some reason I just can NOT write my novel on the computer, it has neither flow, continuity, nor attraction when I do it that way} and creativity {can’t write like a lunatic if I don’t have something to write about!}.

And really, that means that all the things that are holding me back are in my head:

·         I’m tired when I get home from work, sure, but I don’t (can’t) go to sleep as soon as I get home, or I’d be waking up around midnight wanting to do things.

·         I can’t write my novel on the computer, but I seem to do just fine writing my blog on the computer – although I don’t really need much continuity, and I generally lose interest within a certain amount of time… But still…

·         If I just write and write and write, something will click. Creativity doesn’t have to come from the start – I’m hoping – it can happen when I least expect it. {either that or I’m so full of natural creativity that no matter what I write, the creativity will come! Hope, hope!}

Or I could say, cruelly, what creativity is needed when I’m doing the 35176^th re-write of a novel {actual re-write number may vary} of a novel I’ve been re-writing since 2002?

The answer to that is: more and more, and less and less. Simple, but complicated. {Sigh}

The characters have become more real to me, needing less and less creativity to think up their actions and motivations, less and less time spent thinking up how to describe them because I know so well what they look like.

More time, however, has to be spent on something that has been grossly neglected from the start: a plot. My most recent version was extremely slow moving, slight bad-ness {can’t think of the right word, maybe it’s too early to be writing} with continuity and small details… it kind of ended up just being a story about a girl who got drunk with a bunch of vampires every night.

Yeah… I don’t see that being on the top 100 list, let alone anyone’s top ten.

Although, edited right, it could become an “outtakes” or “extra scenes” type thing for my die-hard fans – and we all know that one day I’m going to have die-hard fans other than The Crazy Flatmate.

Well, anyway, all that aside. The moral of this blog post is nothing (semi-nothing) to do with that at all. Basically just a preamble into the following statement:

I’m getting that urge again to work on my novel.

I’ve realised, looking back, that my main character may be an undiagnosed (and unknowing) aspie so I’m wondering if I should play that up.

Aspie/vampire romance rather than slightly crazy in the head mortal/vampire romance. Haha.

I don’t know if it would work, I don’t know if there’ll be a market for it – at all in either case. I’ve been added to an aspie writer group on Facebook and I’m going to ask around on all the Aspergers related (and private – sucks to be Aspie-outed by facebook to people I don’t want to be aspie-out to) groups I belong to on Facebook to see what the general consensus is.

So: Aspergers girl (openly or not, knowingly or not both as yet undetermined) meets vampire boy and they fall in love. Kind of.

That’s the general plot. There’s issues along the way (these are ones that are already in there, before I realised she may be aspie): he’s trying to woo her and she doesn’t even realise they’re pretty much a couple being the biggest issue.

Plus there will be conflict and adventure and misunderstandings and… well.

This time round I want to try and plot things out, actually have a plot and events on a timeline that I have to reach by a certain point… In other words, I can’t be 300 pages in and still in the first week – which is at least a week away from the first major plot/conflict event – and every chapter just them getting drunk and watching movies. Yes it’s good for character development and relationship development, but not good for creating a book that will get published, I don’t think.

I’m going to give it a go.

If you’ve been lead here from my link(s) on Facebook groups, please leave comments or whatever, your thoughts on the idea of making the main character Aspie. Please!