I must apologize for not updating the blog during NaNoWriMo. Sorry, but I was not able to finish any story this time around. Instead, I outlined about 2 novel length stories and one short story during this time.

CPU’s basic story plot has been outline and just needs to have me sit down and put some meat on the bones, so to speak.

Dragon’s Lair is a tricky one, though. I have the Prologue outlined, down to where I know how many main characters will take center stage, but I have yet to begin finishing it up. The issue is a simple one really: I lack a conflict for the MC.

Within the prologue there is Baloo the bugbear, who acts as the MC for the prologue. His conflict is easy to get to and one that is familiar to most people. Once it is resolved though, the root of the conflict is still there. I suppose the easiest thing to do about the novel’s MC would be to have her (yahoo for gender identification — took me two months before November to decide on gender . . . a boy would have been good only if … well … you’ll see) deal with the root of the original conflict, which itself speaks to the larger issue of the story which I will give away now.

Dragon’s Lair will be deal with the question of What do we do, as a society, with the “Other?”

The Other is, of course, subjective. If you are an English major walking through a Science convention, you may be considered other, and visa versa.

The question applies to society as a whole when the definitions of the Other become more general. Obviously, the Mystics are the Other but for the particular MC I have in mind, she will be an Other among Others among Others. So she is triple removed from the larger society.

Twist is simple and it is the reason for the mental block: SHE DOESN’T CARE . . . in the beginning.

The large conflict has yet to be established through smaller ones . . . which make up the big one. So, in a sense, I am stuck with the image of a pie and the recipe but no ingredients and my oven blew up due to over-use and lack of care.

Hence the lack of a finished novel.

Lame excuse but an excuse it is.

The point of me writing all this down and posting it, however, is because this “failure” is also a part of the writing process.

If you don’t fall flat on your face a couple of times, you will never be able to know where the ground is in relation to the sky.

It’s also a humbling process — you become less incline to judge a piece of art, literary, visual, musical, etc, harshly when you know what went into making the finished product. On the flip-side, when a poorly crafted piece of what-some-call-art becomes popular to the point that you cannot walk into Church without seeing somewhere totting the image of the art around, well . . . then you begin to feel cheated. . .

But it takes years to know the difference between fluff and substance.

As for the stories that I am working on, I WILL continue to post updates on them as sections of the stories are main. Yes they will be first drafts and yes I will edit them later. The edits however will not be posted because by the time the stories are edited down, I plan on sending them to publication of some sort.

This is the writing business from start to finish, and I plan to take you through the journey by example.

On a personal note, I plan to take Advance Poetry Writing next semester at SFSU. It is being taught by Camile Dungy (http://www.camilledungy.com/). She is an amazing poet, whose work I highly admire.

What poems I create will probably be seen here throughout the semester, so stay tuned for new works.

See you online!

-Rose