Jumping In, Head First

I've been amping myself up, in secret, for doing Fast Draft.

In secret because I can't stand the idea of my parents knowing about my writing.  1. Because it immediately comes with the high pressure nagging to start submitting stories to publishers.  (Bugging someone to submit before they're ready is not helpful.)  And 2. Because I know that they would thoroughly disapprove of what I plan to write.  It would be a hard enough secret to keep if I wasn't living with them and I got a story published.  But, emotionally, living with my parents is like living as an exhibit at the zoo.  Everything is know and noticed.  There's no mental privacy.  If they knew I was writing, they'd want to read it.  If they knew it was published they'd want to buy it and read it and tell their friends.  And while I feel no shame at all in what I read and intend to write, they'd be deeply ashamed of it, which gets in my head and scrambles it.

So, anyway, I was telling you how I was getting myself mentally prepared for Fast Draft.  That's two weeks of pedal-to-the-metal writing.  5,000 words a day is the goal.  (Although I give myself full permission to do less if that's beyond my limits.  But I want to stretch myself and see if that's possible.  If not, less is more than none.)  I've been mostly just *thinking* about writing.  Thinking about what music is inspiring me right now, looking at images that I might want to add to a collage.  Stuff like that.

And then last week, out of the blue, my parents start hassling me at dinner about my writing.  Now I admit, I have a pretty thin skin when it comes to anything that I'm trying to do and keep to myself.  If I hadn't been thinking about trying to write again it probably would have rolled right off my back.  But with that writing desire so close to the surface it upset me a lot.  My immediate response (which I did not voice, because even if they'd just "ruined it" for me, I still didn't want them to know what I was thinking about doing) was to not do it.  To give up.  I was pretty pissed for a while.

Today I said, "screw it," and I signed up for Fast Draft anyway.  I'm just going to have to find a way to put up steel bars, castle walls, and a moat all around me, to protect what I need to be intensely private from the intrusion of the unwelcome.  I'm not quite sure how I'm going to manage that without creating A Thing in the house.  Like the Mom in Everybody Loves Raymond, my mother has a very limited sense of boundaries, and feels that everything is her business.  I don't particularly want to deal with butt hurt while simultaneously attempting to write a novel.

So that's my frustration at the moment.  In lighter news, I did a bit of pre-work today by poking around looking for songs for the soundtrack and images for the collage.  I'm loving it all, although the whole thing is a bit schizophrenic.  Tone and imagery are all over the place.  I'm hoping that some of this settles into a semi-coherent something between now and next Sunday, when the class starts.

Like I said before, the goal is 5,000 words a day.  That's 70,000 words over the course of two weeks.  Not unheard of, but quite a bit longer than the average m/m story.  So I'm thinking, if the 5,000 words per day turns out to be doable, I'll end up writing two stories.  The first one I'm thinking of is the riff on The Hobbit that I toyed around with and wrote a few lines for last November during NaNo.  I plan to read The Hobbit this week, as soon as I find my old copy, make it to the used bookstore to get another copy, or break down and pay the outrageous $10.99 that Penguin is asking for a Kindle copy.  I really want a digital copy, but not at that price.

The idea for the second story came directly out of all the image searching I did today.  I'm thinking either A Rare Duck or An Odd Duck for the title.  A guy who collects rubber ducks is searching for one particular, rare duckie, and another guy is trying to block him from having it.  First thought was that something was smuggled into the country inside the duck.  Second thought is that maybe he's on some weird, Amazing Race type hunt, and he's looking for a clue hidden in the duckie.  I'm not sure, but I've got a week to figure this stuff out.

As a thank you for making your way through all this rambling mess, here is a video with one of the songs I've picked for the soundtrack and a few of the images I have so far.  You'll see what I mean about them not fitting together in tone AT ALL.  But this is what it is, so I've got to work with it.

Sarah Jarosz is a relatively new discovery of mine, and I completely adore her.  So talented.

Eyeliner Dude

I was going to put the crazy guys in the Hobbit story in a
van with a wizard painted on the side, but I thought that
was a little on the nose. So maybe they'll drive one painted
like the A Team van. Or maybe the Mystery Machine, who knows.

Cool Joe Duck

Love Duck

Vintage airplanes. Not sure where I'm going with this one
*at all*.

Disco Ducks!

Someone in this story has a dog?
Who knew?

Rockin' duck toilet seat

Christmas cookies, because who ever heard of too many
Christmas cookies?

And now, some more pretty boys.

I have him labeled as "Brad". Not sure
who Brad is, but I'll figure it out eventually.

This lovely specimen is apparently "Ethan". 

Not sure who this is yet, but he's got
attitude to spare.

Gotta love a kiss.

And this guy is just hot and wearing
a scarf.