NaNoWriMo and firing my characters

So I can hear your questions all the way from here. What is a NaNoWriMo, do you eat it or sprinkle it on your carpet after pet accidents? Does it hurt and/or does it involve outer space?

National Novel Writing Month, its formal name, is a nonprofit organization that internationally promotes creative writing. It’s best known for this November event, where, officially, participants attempt to write a 50,000-word manuscript. Think quantity, not quality. There’s a website that provides tips, information on local meetups, and the support of other writers.

Now the thing is, I tend to take three years to write my novels. After the first draft gets slapped down, as fast my fingers can move, usually a three-to-four month process, the real work starts. I revise, rewrite, take a break from it, reassess, rip out stuff, and repeat all of that a second time. This year, I’m in the revise/rewrite phase, but I’m taking way too long for my tastes. So I’ve made my own personal goal for NaNoWriMo to have this draft finished and the manuscript readable to others by the end of the month.

Wish me luck. This is a massive manuscript.

Curious to hear what I’m working on, now that the Ballet Theatre Chronicles are done? Here’s my current story description:

As the three Dressler sisters descend on the family’s rural California home to plan their father’s 70th birthday party, each hides a problem they don’t intend to share. Penny, the youngest, struggles in the aftermath of three years of African aid work and a shattering incident she’s trying to forget. Esme, a professional ballet dancer whose single-minded commitment to her art has defined her since childhood, is now, at thirty-three, being shown the door. Erin, who made a childhood vow to protect her younger sisters, now excels as a corporate safety manager, but can’t get pregnant, can’t loosen her controlling grip, and risks derailing her marriage.

Then Amy—the flamboyant, rebellious eldest who ran away as a teen—shows up after a twenty-five-year absence, landing like a bomb within the family dynamics, making it clear that this year’s gathering of family will expose and disrupt everyone’s lives in ways unimagined.

I like these characters, and while it’s always hard work to write a novel, they seem to be working with me, not against me. Back in 2014, I sorta had a big problem with that issue. I wrote a blog about it that I found hilarious and insightful, so, in honor of NaNoWriMo, I’m bringing it back.

So. Without further ado …

“The Story Needs Music”

I fired my characters the other day, the whole lot of them. They stood there, dumb with confusion, as I raged at them.

“You’re dull, you’re cardboard cut-outs, you’re not revealing anything to me, no matter how many hours I sit at the computer or in front of my notes. I’m here, floundering, and there you stand off in the distance, offering no hints or advice. So I give up. I quit. I quit this whole stupid business. Get out of here. Out of my head, out of my life.”

They don’t move.

“What are you waiting for?” I ask, my voice rising. “Get out!”

“Dad?” Kaia, my thirteen-year-old narrator asks, looking up at Patrick, her father, who steps forward.

“Here’s the thing,” he says in that father-knows-best tone of his. “There’s no music in the story. That’s why it’s not working.”

“What, like the cadence of the words, the paragraphs, the way the story flows? It doesn’t sing yet, is that what you’re telling me?”

“Well, that, and more,” he says, and Susan, his wife and my second narrator, nods. “Literally, there’s not enough music mentioned in it. Like there was in the last novel.”

“But that was a novel set in the performing arts world. This one isn’t.”

“Well, why don’t you just toss some in?” Patrick suggests. “A little Beethoven, maybe Dvorák. Did you know he was passionate about trains? It was a hobby of his.”

“Look.” I wave my hands as if that might make their spectral presences back off. “Trains and composers and classical music—that’s way off the mark. Catholicism, faith and spirituality, duty to family, everyone sort of stuck in their beliefs and perceptions—that’s my story.”

Kaia whispers something to her mother. My ears prick up. “Excuse me?” I call out.

She shrinks. Susan answers me instead. “She said it sounded dull.”

“You’re dull,” I shriek. “That’s why I’m firing you. All of you.”

“Um, with all due respect?” Susan sounds both nervous and resolute. “I’m not dull. You just made me that way. Because you never bothered to figure out what made me tick. What I yearn for and dream of.”

I let out my breath in an explosive exhale. “Fine. Tell me.”

“Okay.” Susan reaches up to pat her long, unruly blonde hair—I really need to write in a haircut—and then nods. “You made me a literary specialist. It’s just that I don’t want to be a literary specialist. I want to work with kids, grades K to 3, fine, but not as that.”

“As what, then?”

“As a ballet teacher.”

“You?” I don’t even bother to hide my scorn.

She lifts her chin a notch before replying. “Why not? I took ballet classes all the way through high school. I performed.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

“I know.” Her tone is reproachful.

Patrick rejoins the debate. “Ballet would connect well with a music motif. And look, you’ve already got that scene with Kaia going into an ecstatic trance listening to the Bach Toccata and Fugue.”

“And I bring up the Schumann story to Freeda,” Kaia says eagerly.

“The Schumann, of course,” Patrick says, looking at Kaia and Susan but not me, which annoys me. “That part about throwing himself into the Rhine.”

“Perfect.” Susan beams. “She could expand on that, on the way it ties in with Freeda, the way she…”

“Stop right there,” I exclaim, looking around nervously. “That’s giving away crucial plot. Do you mind?”

They manage to look both perplexed and smug. “Well, didn’t you say it was all over?” Susan asks. “That we were fired?”

They’ve got me and they know it.

It’s not hard, what they’re proposing. In fact, it would be easy as anything. I’d much rather be writing about music than about church ladies squabbling over Catholic doctrine in regards to Kaia’s mystical experiences. Music and mysticism—that works.

And Kaia was right. There’s the Schumann that’s already mentioned.

Something sleeping in me awakens and my thoughts begin whirring. I could have Susan and Kaia go to the symphony one Sunday. In fact it would be perfect. Susan, aching over the troubles I’ve thrown on her shoulders, aching over Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, the way I did last September, the Mahler exposing all my secret hurts and pains and longings.

It would work perfectly.

I look up and they’re trying to hide the smiles growing on their faces. I do my best to scowl at them. “Well, don’t just stand there. We’ve got work to do. Come over here and help me lift this thing off the ground.”

Happy November to all, and if you’re American, here’s wishing to you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving.