National Novel Writing Month -- Update 6

So, this is my last update for National Novel Writing Month in 2016. It was a good ride as I wrote and discovered Searching for Rachel Edelstein.

The good news is that I found her and, more importantly, so did Rachel.

It is the story of a black Jewish woman from New York City who has been estranged from her black relatives in Virginia for her entire life. And as she seeks to understand her dual racial and religious heritage, she visits her black family outside of Charlottesville for the first time over a Thanksgiving weekend.

Also, the other good news is I reached the 50,000-word challenge of NaNoWriMo, as I have four other times since 2009. And two of those novels, once totally re-written, have made the rounds in my agent search. And while I haven't landed an agent or a publisher for either, they are quite good enough for publication, whether independently or traditionally published.

The bad news this year is that I am still very unsatisfied with Searching for Rachel Edelstein. Even as a first draft, it is choppy, inconsistent and full of holes. I originally had Rachel's Jewish grandfather traveling with her down to Virginia, only to change my mind midway through the novel. I also changed the parents of one minor but key character midway through the novel.

And there were other problems. Then again, that is what a first draft is for -- to get the story down and to later re-write, re-write and re-write again until the story is nearly perfect. I shouldn't be too hard on myself with this effort. But that re-writing, however, will have to wait until some time next year. I have work on my plate to perfect first.

Anyway, thanks for joining me this month. It's been a blast. Let's do it again next November.

Thanks for reading.

National Novel Writing Month -- Update 5

Not done yet, with just a week to go in National Novel Writing Month, but I'm closing it. The challenge is to reach 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. I'm more than 85 percent of the way there. Therefore, Searching for Rachel Edelstein is coming to an end. And believe me, I will close it out somewhere just north of 50,000 words.

I'm tired of, on the fly, coming up with what's next to write.

As I look back at this month, I wish I had thought and planned more in advance. It would have made the writing easier. I have long since written past the notes I outlined for the story and so every day I face the challenge of what's next.

By temperament as a writer, I am a pantster -- someone who writes by the seat of the pants -- as  opposed to being a plotter, who does a lot of planning or outlining before writing. I like it because as a pantster, I discover the novel in much the same way a reader would. I like to be surprised by details as I go along.

But with that approach it would take me at least three or four months to write a first draft, and probably longer than that. My first novel -- Fighting Chaos, which gave its name to this blog, took me more than a decade to write. And it's still dreadful.

The second one took four and a half months. Better but not nearly as good as it can, and should, be.

So, I like NaNoWriMo because I can get the first draft done and on paper quickly. But I can't do that much writing so quickly without some planning ahead. I write out pages of notes and use them as a guide day by day.

I wrote notes this year, have hardly looked at them, and now have written well past them. I have to do better next year.

But that is for 2017. I just need to get Rachel done this year. So I must get back on it.

Thanks for reading.







  

National Novel Writing Month -- Update: A partial of Searching for Rachel Edelstein

Since so many people have been so kind in the last two weeks as I have struggled to bring a little of this novel to life -- and there have been times when I've seriously doubted it -- I have a small treat for you. Very small.

Here is a little of the beginning of Searching for Rachel Edelstein.

This is only a little more than a page and doesn't really tell you what the story is about. But I thought I'd do this anyway.

Remember: This is part of a first draft. It has no polish. Much is likely to be re-written one day.

Enjoy. Thanks for the support and thanks for reading.

Searching for Rachel Edelstein

By

MB Dabney

00,000 words

 

BEFORE

 

The blade of the shovel sliced across his face, gouging a deep cut, from his hairline down across the cheek to his chin. Dazed, Muller dropped the gun and staggered backwards. Rachel raised the shovel again and brought it down.

Hard.

The rounded part of the shovel caught him squarely in the face, flattening his sharp, pointy facial features. The blow dropped him to the ground and Rachel continued savagely beating him. Fear and anger overwhelmed all her sensibilities. She kept hitting the man lying helplessly on the ground.

Rachel didn’t know Ellington was behind her until he reached around and grabbed the shovel in mid-swing, stopping her from again striking her helpful victim.

“That’s enough, Rachel. It’s over.”

When the autopsy was done on Johann Muller the next day, his face was nearly undistinguishable.

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

“Rachel, you haven’t answered.”

 

The subway car rhythmically rocked Rachel side to side as she blankly stared ahead, almost like a zombie, oblivious to her immediate surroundings. The clang of the metal wheels on the track below didn’t phase her, nor did the sight of the fashionably dressed young Korean woman across from her. She was uncomprehending of the aroma of the man in the tattered clothes seated to her right, although those unfortunate enough not to have a seat turned away from him and his assault on their nasal passages.

It was perhaps muscle memory that guided Rachel from the subway stop to her shop, Guilford and Sons Antiques, in the Union Square section of lower Manhattan. Once inside, the shop greeted clients with the smell of mahogany and old money. The items on display reflected it, because it wasn’t a shop for a spend-thrift.

Guilford and Sons specialized in furniture for any room – cabinets, seating, tables, wardrobes and armoires, decorative objects and occasionally rugs. There also was a small area dedicated to classic photography and prints.

To accommodate its customers, the shop could arrange shipping to anywhere in the U.S. – for a hefty price. Global shipping was also available, for an even heftier price. But New York’s wealthy rarely blinked twice at the expense.

Rachel had not changed the name of the shop when she purchased it years before from the sons of the late owner, reasoning that keeping the former male owner’s name on the front windows would probably help her business in the city’s male-dominated antiques industry. It certainly would be better than having the name Rachel Edelstein front and center.

Or so she told herself.

In an emotional sense, that pissed Rachel off, as it might with any black or Jewish woman. And since she was both, she was doubly pissed off. But from a business sense, she was willing to let it slide. After all, she had herself to feed and her employees to support, though that hadn’t been a problem recently.

 

 

 

 

National Novel Writing Month -- Update 4

Well, I've reached 30,000 words, which I wanted to do last night but ran out of steam and out of time. But I'm there, more than 60 percent done.

I've figured out the end but haven't figured out yet how to get there so I just keep plugging away. I am totally beyond what little of the story I outlined last month. But the good thing is I'm discovering little pieces of interesting information about my characters as I go along.

For exchange, Rachel, the main character in Searching for Rachel Edelstein (isn't that amazing?), loves mac and cheese. She uses her mother's long-held recipe, since her maternal grandmother was a horrible cook.

The plot of the story involves Rachel, who is from New York, going to Virginia to meet her estranged family on her father's side. And while she is there over Thanksgiving, she'll learn that the mac and cheese recipe her mother used was actually from her father's mother, who Rachel just met for the first time.

The recipe is a small thing -- and hasn't been revealed yet in the novel. It comes later -- but I only discovered it while writing. I never would have thought of that while I was writing an outline.

Anyway, that's it for now. Not sure who reads these updates but here it is.

Thanks for reading.

  

National Novel Writing Month -- Update 3

Oh my goodness, I just made myself cry. Damn, I hope this stuff is good. I'm too close to it to know for sure.

I just wrote the scene where my main character, Rachel, a black Jewish woman from New York, meets her paternal grandmother in Virginia for the first time. It was more emotional than I thought.

But then again, I am playing the theme from Love Actually in the background, so that -- and not my writing ability -- could be the reason I shed a tear or two.
  
It's been a slow week and while I'm still on pace to reach 50,000 words by the end of the month, I am far behind my personal goal. I know the important thing about NaNoWriMo is writing but word count is always important to me. I know this first draft will be crappy. I accept that. But it will have -- or should have -- all the elements I will need whenever I get around to re-writing it. And I hope this new scene survives in the re-writes. It feels good.

You can't improve your writing until you write it. And so, I will plunge forward, hoping to up my pace so that I can finish close to my personal due date.

Thanks for reading.

 

National Novel Writing Month -- Update 2

Took a day off from working on the novel yesterday because it was Election Day. But in the end, I wasted a day.

Oh well . . .

Maybe now I should just write fiction non-stop, 24/7, for the next four years.

Thanks for reading.



 

National Novel Writing Month -- update

It's Day 4 of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and the average target for today would be to reach 6,668 words. But I have been ahead of schedule since Day 1, which is the only way I can do NaNoWriMo, and I just passed 10,000 words this afternoon.

Ahead of schedule, of course, but lagging slightly behind my personal goal. No matter. It is an achievement so far and the day isn't over. There's more writing to do.

I am discovering some interesting things about my characters, which is good. Just not sure all of it should be in the novel. But that's a judgment for the second and subsequent drafts. This is just the first draft and I need to get it down.

Tally-ho.

Thanks for reading.

Love Actually

I'm listening to the soundtrack of Love Actually (2003) as I write a particularly melancholy section of my novel, Searching for Rachel Edelstein.

I wonder what music I will have to find for the more uplifting portions of the book. Can't be this, although I do like it a lot. Plus, as I think about it, the ending is very uplifting. So maybe I can stick with this.

We will see.

I'm ahead of schedule and at this pace will reach 50,000 words well before Nov. 30. That's the main goal. But I haven't matched my secret writing goals, the ones I try not to mention aloud. If I grunt it out today, perhaps I will get close. Like I said, we will see.

Writing is work and I am lazy. But I have to get back to it. The novel won't write itself.

Thanks for reading.

Searching for Rachel Edelstein

In a less than two hours, I will start my next novel during National Novel Writing Month, Searching for Rachel Edelstein. It will be a follow-up to my 2010 NaNo novel, The Last Tontine Survivor. But this is not a thriller.

Rachel is a black Jewish woman in Manhattan. While she was conflicted about her dual ethnic heritage in the first novel, it was not central to the plot, which involving looking for her grandfather and millions of dollars he took from the Nazis in the 1940s while trying to stay ahead of killers who were after her.

In this novel, Rachel, having survived the chaos from before, takes stock in her life and decides to seek out her estranged family in Virginia. Raised virtually as a white woman in New York, Rachel will come truly face-to-face with her blackness for the first time.

I have written out about three pages of an outline for the novel but haven't finished it. So I will be flying blind a little. But that may be good. It will certainly make reaching the 50,000-word goal by Nov. 30 at midnight a serious challenge. I hope I am up to it.

Wish me luck. I'll need it.

And thanks for reading.

National Novel Writing Month

It's nearly that time again. November. National Novel Writing Month.

Let the games begin.

I first signed up for NaNoWriMo in 2009 and since then, I have finished four novels -- in 2009 and 2010, and 2013 and 2014. I wasn't able to do a novel last year because I had a serious car accident in late October which resulted in a bandaged left hand. It was difficult for me to type while it was on and it came off too late in November for me to feel confident of a successful NaNoWriMo attempt.

I haven't definitely decided to enter this year -- there's a lot going on here and I should remain focused on selling one of the novels I have already finished -- but I have two in mind. The most likely of the two is about Rachel Edelstein.

Rachel is the main character in my successful 2010 NaNo attempt -- The Last Tontine Survivor. And it was a quarterfinalist in the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. That novel focused on Rachel, a black Jewish woman in NYC, who is searching for her missed and beloved grandfather, a German Jew who survived WWII. But he and others stole money from the Nazis and now, 70 years later, the descendants of a former Nazi official are looking to get the money back -- and are willing to kill to get it. With her pursuers on her tail, Rachel must find her grandfather and save him before they are both killed.

Rachel's ethnic duality (and her conflicted feelings about it) is part of the subplot but will be part of the main plot of his newest effort. I tentatively call it Searching for Rachel Edelstein.

More about that later. But for now, I just wanted to put it out there that I will probably attempt a novel this November.

Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading.

I WON!!!

I won this morning at 2. My National Novel Writing Month novel, THE TONTINE, hit 50,251 words. I rushed the last part in order to finish. There are more holes in this story that you'd find in Swiss cheese.

But I got the novel done and it reached 50,000 words.

Now I'd like to sit back and just read and enjoy the story. And maybe next year, if I still think the story is worth the effort, I will decide to definitely make it my 2011 writing project.

But for now, it's done. I am happy it's done and can sleep some.

Thanks for reading.

40,000 words

I hit 40,000 words this afternoon on my NaNoWriMo novel, THE TONTINE, and have more writing to do today. I am well behind lasat year's pace with no hope of catching up. But I am well on my way to finishing long before the Nov. 30 deadline. Much will depend on how much I can squeeze in today -- my wife has a boatload of chores to complete -- and tomorrow morning.

I will be busy all tomorrow afternoon and probably won't get anymore writing done until Tuesday morning. Then I guess I will spend Tuesday knocking out the rest.

It has been fun -- or as much fun as NaNoWriMo can be. But I fear my characters are too two-dimensional and the plot too neat. During the week, I should have time to read it in its entirety and get a better handle on it all. Right now, I am in the middle of it and can't get that much perspective.

It is short, of course, and will clock in at around 50,000. I imagine I will spend all of 2011 fleshing out the characters and plot, and smoothing out the rough places, of which I imagine there are many. In the end, it is probably a novel that will end up with 75,000 to 80,000 words.

But I am getting there. 40K. That's 80 percent. Just 10,000 more words to go.

Thanks for reading.

NaNoWriMo, Day 8

Last night, I closed out Day 8 of National Novel Writing Month with 25,025 words, which is half the distance. Plus, I am only 100 words off the pace I had last year when I reached 50,000 words on Nov. 15, and finished the novel at 54,000 words four days later.

It's harder this year. The story is harder and is taking more concentration because I am not as familiar with the material. Plus, I have a couple of major holes in the story I want to go back to address but I know it is best just to continue plowing forward. So that is what I am doing.

But I enjoy this story and its various aspects. I will have to change my strategy a little, starting today. I generally write in continuity, from start to finish. But I will reach a section later in today's writing that requires more research and some studied thought in order to have the story hang together.

So I am going to jump over it and continue on toward the end and come back to write it later. It is a crucial part and without it the rest of the story don't work.

It is, as you've guessed, some back story. I plan to write it in its entirety but I haven't decided how it will finally appear in the novel. In later drafts, I may disperse it throughout. But for now, I think it best to have it in one big chunk.

Well, that's it for now. I have a freelance assignment to work on today before I concentrate on NaNoWriMo. So I have to get with it.

Thanks for reading and don't give up.

NaNoWriMo, Days 1 & 2

It's now the morning of Day 3 of National Novel Writing Month in 2010 and I am already tired but also excited with the prospect of writing. After two days of writing, I have 6,521 words, which is about 100 words MORE than I had last year at this point. And last year, as you may recalled, I reached 50,000 words in two weeks.

I was walking Pluto at midnight on Sunday/Monday and still working out in my head how the first scene should go. Then, as I was walking and noticed the blinking security light in a neighbor's car, it hit me. After setting up a folder in my memory stick and formatting my pages, I started writing, using my wife's laptop, at around 1 in the morning, though I was already tired and should have been in bed. I wrote until 3 and finished 1,100 words. Not a great pace but I was just getting settled in.

Now much opportunity to write again until 10 at night, again using my wife's computer. My pace improved some but not nearly what I needed, given that I don't have reliable access to a reliable computer. By midnight, I had 2,404 words for the day, which was 50 percent more than I needed as a daily goal but also 50 percent less than on Day 1 last year.

I was satisified with what I wrote but a little discouraged, nevertheless. I wished I had written more.

Tuesday morning saw me venture to the public library. First, I cleaned out my e-mail account at Yahoo, updated Facebook and then settled into writing as little children sang "Ittsy-Bitsy spider" in the background. Good totals after two hours of work.

The afternoon saw me at my brother's house to use his computer but I won't do that again. Too many distractions. Home again on Angie's laptop in the evening after dinner, finishing up at 11:30. (I tried using the borrowed laptop of a friend but it is slow and it re-formatted my pages. Took my an hour to correct it all.)

Pace was very good and I had more than 4,000 words, which was more than I ever expected. I was hoping for at least another 2,400-word day but I went well beyond that. (Also wish I could have got to a NaNo writing session at a local coffee store.)

Plus, there are hills and valleys in writing a book, moments of heightened drama and then the build-up to the next dramatic moment. I finished at the conclusion of my first big dramatic moment where I surprise the reader. I loved it.

I wasn't sure what scene should follow next. What I had in my outline seemed insufficient. I got a little worried. But Pluto -- or walking Pluto, which is more to the point -- provided the answer. I would add another scene with the antagonist to start ramping up the tension again.

So this morning, I have a good place to start and I am looking forward to some interesting action.

I will probably just rely on a computer in the library during the day, when I have the time, and on my wife's laptop in the evening. Not sure if that will be enough for me to reach more than 2,000 words a day but I will try. And if I want to keep pace with last year, I will have to do 3,500 words today.

Not sure that's going to happen, either.

But we are off and running. It's fun. Not totally sure about the story yet but we will see.

That's where I'm at. You undoubtedly find all this boring but I wanted to get it all down mostly as a reminder to myself. I will try to be more interesting next time. I promise not to constantly only go on about NaNoWriMo.

But for now, thanks for reading and keep writing. It really is worth it, even if you are the only one who thinks so.

Still problems . . .

With just over two hours before the start of National Novel Writing Month and I still can't get online with a laptop at home. But I will still start at 12:01 a.m., Nov. 1, which is two hours and one minute away.

Wish me luck.

NaNoWriMo woes

National Novel Writing Month starts in under 12 hours and I am facing several problems. I still haven't worked out the creative problems with the story. Howevber, I will write the story regardless of that. That is part of the purpose of NaNoWriMo. No plot, no problem!

But more worrisome are my technical problems. I still don't have reliable access to a reliable computer. I may have a solution to that later this afternoon so I will have to see. Right now, however, it is a challenge.

Either way, I intend to write my novel. Some way or another I plan to upload more than 50,000 words on the NaNoWriMo website before 12:59 p.m. on Nov. 30.

I will try to update you later. But for now, Happy Writing, particularly if you are doing NaNo this year.

And thanks for reading.