Tuesday 9 November 2004

Pic of the day: No teen romance is complete without the bath towel episode. After all, as Miyu-chan says here, it always happens in manga and anime! (Screenshot from the animeDaa! Daa! Daa!.) (And yes, there is a low-quality screenshot of the same event on February 1.)

The plot sickens

OK, actually I am probably sicker than my plot. Although which of us is most likely to survive is another matter. I hope my Creator is more tolerant than I. But let's take the things one at a time.

As for my humble self, I went to work for some hours, which wasn't all that bad. People seem happy to have me back. Of course, how long was Adam in Paris? Tomorrow I will be sick again. (I know this because I write it tomorrow!) There is always some wear and tear from the stress of working. It is not for nothing that a Norwegian study showed that people on disability pension were mostly very satisfied with their own health. I would probably also be much healthier if I didn't have to work, as would most of us. And if money just grew on the trees instead of leaves. Yeah.

But the real trouble began as I waited for the bus, and stopped by the Narvesen kiosk to buy a little literature (Scientific American and Dragonball) and some caramels. "Ixnay to the caramels" whispered the Invisible Force of Goodness to my heart. "Hey, they're just caramels" I replied. Besides, it's not like I always follow the voices in my heart. People who follow well-meaning voices in their heart risk much inconvenience and possibly tying their son to a stone altar in some remote mountain. For me, even having a son would be pretty shocking. Anyway, for whatever reason, I bought the caramels and set about eating them on the bus home.

The caramels were harder than expected. My only remaining wisdom tooth took offense and began to hurt. (Obviously I don't have much more wisdom than teeth, or this would not have happened.) As the evening passed, the pain spread to the local sinuses, and eventually all the way to the eye. There it still is, although lots of sleep does help somewhat.

***

As for the plot, this is the second week, generally considered the worst part of NaNoWriMo. The first week is usually character-driven, but by the second week the story begins to demand a plot. This is usually the weak spot for people who never made it to become real novelists. They may have good ideas (anyone can have good ideas, these are not picky and will eagerly follow you home if you have milk in your house). They may have interesting characters. (They may even BE interesting characters, and if not you meet enough people over the course of a few years to populate a good book.) But plot ... plot rarely comes by itself.

I am in the same boat as a lot of other NaNoWriMo writers, which doesn't help since the boat is Titanic just after its unfortunate encounter with the unexpected iceberg and we are all in various stages of flailing about in the ice-chilled water desperately looking for a lifeboat that isn't already overburdened with refugees.

While my self-imposed 11+ rating may still technically be appropriate (11 year olds know a lot more than their parents think) the whole "oops my towel kinda slipped" thing was not in the contract when I hired these main characters. And now in chapter 11, there is a lot of talk about boys sleeping with boys. This is generally not considered a good thing by the characters, except the angel boy who doesn't see the problem. Sleeping is sleeping, right? Friends are for doing things together with, included of course sleeping.

This is, says the voices of reason, likely to upset two entirely different groups. On one hand there is the Republican majority who think that one should not even mention the possibility that boys may sleep with boys. It is disgusting enough that one would put the book aside, never to pick it up again. (Of course, in this case there are strong grounds to argue that the Republican majority is never going to hear about my novel in the first place, but they are kinda my standard of easy-to-offend-ness which I measure myself against to see if I could possibly manage to write an inoffensive book.)

The other group that is likely to take offense (and a couple of them may even read my story since I constantly refer to it in my LiveJournal) is the gays. They are unlikely to be amused by the fact that my characters are so negative to boys sleeping with boys. Describing homophobia without condemning it is likely to reinforce it, will be their conclusion, which is probably close to the truth.

Neither of these however can change the fact that it is realistic. Aside from upping the word count, which must reach 50 000 by November 30, the main reason to include it is that it plays an important part of what little plot there is. In the real world, high school boys are likely to be very worried about any chance that they may be branded as "gay". Even though I haven't gone so far as to use that word, just mentioned "kissing and mushy stuff". Angel boy loves both the brother and the sister, but both of them are afraid that love may be mistaken for sex. Since one of them is a boy and the other is underage, their caution is reasonable; but the price they will pay for it will be high.

At least if I'm still around to write it. I now have a strep throat as well, so goodbye dictation software. (The strep has almost certainly migrated down from the sinuses, where it is by now entrenched.) Needless to say, my hand already hurts after typing this. So ... off to watch my Sims while I download Daa Daa Daa episode 53.