Hello. This is why I haven’t done much blogging in the month of April. I try for a post every week, but I almost didn’t get one up last week because of this:
So back in the middle of March, one of my writing friends emailed me and asked if I was going to do Camp NaNo with her again this year. I’d done the July session with her cabin last year and enjoyed it – I really liked being able to set my own word count goals, and my understanding of the November NaNoWriMo session is that you’re locked in to the 50,000. (If that’s not correct, someone tell me, please.)
I decided that yes, I would do it again this year and do another short story. Enter Nathan.
Nathan is probably the most difficult character I’ve written in a while, and mostly because he is so young and helpless. He’s a very broken kid but he wants to trust people, he wants to be loved and protected and helped. He wants that so badly… and until he meets Sabrina Anderson and her mixed-up family, he never gets any of it. I found it difficult to write, and I’m not entirely sure where the whole idea came from.
I’m not going to share much because this is a very, very rough draft, and it needs to just sit for a while and simmer on a back burner in my head. But here is my favorite quote from the story:
“All of my children have taught me something. Abbi first taught me how to be a mother. Theo taught me that sometimes your own worst enemy is yourself. Vivi taught me how to see beauty in broken things. Sonya taught me that being wild is okay. Jason taught me that sometimes being angry is a good thing. And Nathan… Nathan taught me the importance of tigers.”
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| ‘The Importance of Tigers’ – pencil and Sharpie sketch, ALT |
Also, I got sick in the middle of the month and didn’t touch my stories for a week. I got bored of watching Gilligan’s Island one afternoon and decided to draw something instead, and came out with this beastie. I am absurdly pleased with my tiger, especially since I was so stuffy and fuzzy in my head at the time. I like to sit and stare at my tiger. I find it quite mesmerizing and I’m not entirely sure why, just that I’m weird.
Anyway, I wrote my 12,000 words that I wanted to write for the month, and I am shifting back to editing and revising my Spinner of Secrets, draft seven. I’ll probably be talking about that this next month or two, so if you’re in conversation with me and I suddenly yell something about Aleya and Kyle, and violently scribble things on a sticky note, please just quietly roll your eyes and wait until I finished scribbling before you continue talking.
Copyright 2016 by Annie Louise Twitchell
Artwork Copyright 2016 by Annie Louise Twitchell