Week one of Nanowrimo is now officially done. After a slow start I’m well and truly back on track.
My daily word count for the first week of nanowrimo looks like this:
Day 1 0
Day 2 0
Day 3 2211
Day 4 2818
Day 5 3225
Day 6 2252
Day 7 2548
More importantly, my nanowrimo graph looks like this.
Apart from the slow start – I was in Sydney for work and staying with my parents, neither of which is conducive for creative work – the words have been flying from my fingers.
Already, though, it’s a completely different story from the one I envisaged. That’s probably not that surprising.
This story, working title After The Happy Ever After, is a grown up book and my grown up protagonists have grown up kids and grown-up problems.
Is it a romance? You know, I’m not sure. It’s definitely got romantic elements, and there’s a bit of a second chance at love sort of theme. The idea I’m loosely working towards, though, is more one of reinvention – specifically the sort of reinvention that has a habit of being sprung on you in middle age as a result of life events. As John Lennon said, Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. That sort of thing.
I still don’t know how it will end, but I do have a beginning and a middle in my head.
There’s a little bit of me in every one of my books and for this one I’m giving Kate Spence, my protagonist, a some of my history – from the things you didn’t know about me file.
Kate and Neil Spence meet after a Hiroshima Day rally in August 1985. Kate is in her first year at university and is loosely involved in the Nuclear Disarmament Party – and pretty much any other cause that comes her way. She’s marching to make a difference – and because she’d heard rumours that Midnight Oil would be playing at the Quay afterwards.
Neil has not really heard of Hiroshima Day, but he’s at the Quay because he heard a rumour that The Oils would be playing. He’s also one of the lucky ticket winners who got to see them play Goat Island in January 1985. I gave him that because there was no way my parents would have let me go – even if I did win tickets.
(As an aside, does anyone else remember watching that on ABC or listening on the Js? Or is it just me? Yes, I really am that old.)
Anyways, I attended that Hiroshima Day rally – partly because I supported the cause, and partly because I’d also heard the rumours about The Oils and was a massive fan. In fact, I’ve often wondered whether it was some elaborate urban myth designed to help get the rally numbers up. Thanks to the power of the internet geekdom, in the process of researching this book over the weekend I found out that they were touring the US at the time so couldn’t have been doing an impromptu concert at the Quay. There’s one mystery solved. You can thank me later.
What else? I also gave Kate the story about how I quoted Midnight Oil in an economics essay:
The rich get richer, the poor get the picture
The bombs never hit you when you’re down so low
And yes, I passed.
Finally, I sent Kate and Neil to the Wilderness Society benefit concert in December 1985. I can’t remember whether we were fighting for the Daintree or Kakadu, but I remember Redgum, Midnight Oil, and the Warumpi Band.
In short? I’m loving writing this book. Possibly as much as I enjoyed writing Big Girls Don’t Cry – that was another that almost wrote itself.
Having said that, it could be a very different story by next week’s update.