Z is for Zealous

Are your characters zealous? Do they want things and go after them? Are they enthusiastic?

My work in progress is told in 3rd person limited. I like my main character: she's smart and sensitive. But I realized that I hadn't revealed enough about OTHER important characters, in part because my main character wasn't active in that sense.

To balance that, about a month ago, I started writing from another main character's point of view. This one has more zeal. Enthusiasm. Initiative.

Tomorrow or the next day, I'll write a reflection on this blog challenge. (I'm currently on my lunch break, composing on my phone!) For now, thanks for stopping by!

Y is for Yesterday

Yesterday was another rainy day, but the sun broke through enough times to create some awesome skies.

Just outside the condo, a double rainbow! And then we went to the park. It was cold and rainy, but the sky was awesome. We could still see the bottom of one of the rainbows, but I'm not sure if it came through in the panoramic shot.

By the way, I reached my word-count goal yesterday around 5pm. I now have 30,009 words in my work in progress! I plan to have 40,000 by the end of May.

X is for eXpectations

I know, I know, I know. A horrible cheat. But I remember as a kid, that alphabet choo-choo train surrounding my room, and feeling annoyed that "X" was always "Xylophone." Obviously "X" can represent the "Z" sound at the start of a word, but a child learning his or her letters is much more likely to encounter an "X" at the end of a word -- "Max," "relax"--or inside of a word--"exciting," "exit." The "x" there isn't the "z" sound but "ks." At least, that's my logic in doing expectations instead of xenophobia.

My goal this month is to reach 30,000 words. I'm raising my own expectations for what I can accomplish in a day or a week. It had taken me five months to write my first 10,000 words, and less than two months to write my second 10,000. Now, I have until the 30th to get from 28,226 to 30,000 - this would be far less daunting (to me) if I didn't have work all day Friday and Saturday. So instead, I'm going to raise my expectations once again to write those 1774 words today. I know it doesn't seem like a lot, just six double-spaced pages. But it's more than I've written in a day since undergrad, when I had an 8-10 page paper due in twelve hours and I hadn't slept.

There's that saying: Shoot for the moon - even if you miss you'll still be among the stars. I always thought that was kind of hokey, but I think it's relevant here. Always push yourself. Always strive for better, for more. The success is in the striving.

W is for Watching

As a child, I was especially fond of corners. On the school playground, where two chain-linked fences met at a 90-degree angle, I crouched and watched—who played with whom?—who teased whom? I catalogued their gestures and their strange and natural ways of speaking. Everything for them seemed so spontaneous, and this fascinated me. I was too shy to join them, but by observing and recording, I shared in their experiences.

This is what watching became for me—a way to participate. Years later, writing serves that same purpose.

V is for Verisimilitude

Verisimilitude is one of those words I've read or felt I understood, but never really knew the definition. I see "verisimilitude," and I think "very similar."

But the dictionary definition is more precise: the appearance or semblance of truth, as in "The play lacked verisimilitude." (Had I studied Latin, I would have noticed verum=truth, similis=similar).

In fiction, writers give their stories verisimilitude, for example, by crafting realistic dialogue and by using specific details to describe a setting. Verisimilitude makes it easier for a reader to suspend disbelief and enter a made-up world. That doesn't mean that all fiction has to be grounded in real life's messiness. Growing up, I loved reading Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles," set in the future, and Jean M. Auel's "Clan of the Cavebear," set in the past. For a great post on the different kinds of verisimilitude in fiction, check out http://writingandliterature.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/verisimilitude/.

Here's a challenge: use "verisimilitude" in a sentence and not sound pretentious!

U is for Umbrella

If April showers do, indeed, bring May flowers, then Southwest Ohio is due many flowers in a couple weeks. Every day, it's rain. This post is an ode to my favorite umbrella. It had been a gift from my mom -- I had requested an "artsy" one. She picked out a neat umbrella with the image of Caillebotte's "Rainy Day,"and I loved it until it was lost in Wilmington, North Carolina (I let someone borrow it; argh).

The forecast for the next week calls for lots and lots of rain. On the plus side, the grass is really green.

Side note, not A-Z related. Today I visited my grandmother for Easter. She had given up candy for Lent, and at 1:30 Sunday morning, she bit the head off a chocolate bunny. Ha, she deserved it :)

T is for Thinking

I know, I know, the "Th" kind of ruins the awesome alliterativeness of the challenge. But clearly I've been doing too much thinking. For the second morning in a row, I've woken up while it was still pitch dark outside, and haven't fallen back asleep. My mind circles the characters in both the novel I'm writing and the novels I'm reading.

Thursday I finished "Cutting for Stone," by Abraham Verghese. It's long--six-hundred pages--and sprawling. It travels from the Yemen in the 1940s to New York in the 1980s and Ethiopia in the 2000s. The story is told from the point of view of Marion, half of a pair of identical twin boys born to a Catholic nun under mysterious circumstances. Verghese is a doctor, and this is his first novel. The book is well-written with fully-formed characters, and you can tell that Verghese wishes to fit their entire world within the pages of the book.

Another book I'd started a week or so ago, "The Uncoupling," by Meg Wolitzer, is very different in tone and theme. Her story takes place in a New Jersey suburb that is considered livable and progressive. But a spell comes over the town one winter causing the women (of all ages) to lose any desire for men. We jump points of view, learning the stories of the women, and see how this spell affects them. I'm two-thirds through the book and fully engrossed in the characters. Not unrelated, the school (to which all the women are connected) is set to perform the Greek play "Lysistrata," by Aristophanes.

I recommend both books.