Pam Tanzey

NaNoWriMo 2011

2011-11-09T21:46:00.000-08:00

My NaNo 2011 novel A Dusty Little Oasis is 9 days old

and tonight I am a little ahead 15,041 words WooHoo!

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T19:57:00.000-07:00

April come she will... and left with only a few pages toward the Frenzy script but certainly helped with the filling gaps in the novel for the revision. Scripts are way hard and different from novel writing, I kinda don't like them, and I kinda do. It made me look at the story and live it in a different way.

Hope y'all had a wonderful day!

The Frenzy Begins

2011-04-02T01:26:00.000-07:00

Painted my two projects this afternoon while the light was still good then switched to my screenplay.

I've finished 5 pages! To finish on time you have to write 3.3 pages a days.
I reverted back to seeing it playing before me as a movie. It's not easy but it sure is fun, look it's 1:23 already!

29 Hours Until Script Frenzy

2011-03-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

Approaching sunset over the Horse Park.

Yep Script Frenzy. I've been thinking about it for a long time just as I did NANO before I actually got bold and crazy enough to do it. I've collected a few how-to books and several screenplays, American Beauty, UP, and one of the most helpful, Brokeback Mountain as it has the short story in front then the screenplay so you can see how it was adapted.

I'm going to work on Wishin'. I saw it as a movie as I was writing it. It is still in the first draft. I haven't done any editing or adding to it yet.

Writing a screenplay is a whole different deal. It seems to be nuts and bolts compared to floating out across the desert on the pink clouds of your hero's thoughts. Still it seems like a fun and interesting challenge.

Favorite Sentence of the Day

2010-11-06T15:19:00.000-07:00

In the NaNo forums there is a Best NaNoWriMo Line Contest. Here is my entry for the day-

Mary Margaret is examining me with her eyes and reaches out to touch my hair and he pushes her hand aside as if she is a child reaching for a fresh baked pie or the baby Jesus on an altar.

WooHoo! 6109 words!

2010-11-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

Darla June has made it to Virginia City already and back here at the ranch

Barbie has lost a shoe.

Had DinDin with the neighbors from the old street tonight at Sweet Tomatoes.

It's almost ten. I figure I'll do a couple of Write or Die sessions and call it a night. WooHoo though 6109 words!

So it begins- WooHoo!

2010-11-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

The NaNo site is very slow. I tried to get on to log in my first exciting words, 1253 as of right this minute, then I lost the signal. Oh well later I'll have more. Four pages into the story and it has me crying already, and laughing and admiring the main character, Darla June Bug, and her Daddy who hasn't said anything yet, I believe he gets the next chapter.

I took today off, having some coffee and that darned Cheese Its and candy corn combo. I started at 12:08 this morning after yahooin' and dancing around, which got the dogs riled and I had to get them settled down again. Then I sat down and she talked and I wrote. When you take a break and reread, later I won't do that so often, it is like you've channeled someone as they tell their life to you.

Candy Corn and Cheese Its

2010-10-31T22:55:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know. Usually it's Candy Corn and Spanish Peanuts, can't remember who started that one, somebody's Mother, hmm but who? And that's about as high speed as my wee brain is going right now. Not gonna panic but I've been living with this story for so long now and its evolving faster than I can throwout my old worthless notes.

The NaNo site slowed to a halt as everyone from around the world are checking in. We Pacific Coasters among the last. Just a hare, or hair (hahaha wow that's all right I'll clean it up in revision) over an hour to go. I'm sugared up and going to make some coffee now.

13 Hours to Go

2010-10-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

My plot has evolved into a complicated thing that will have to be expertly knitted together in a fancy lace stitch with a cable that weaves in and out of the present and the past. It's made me cry over the fates of the characters I love already. They are shifting their positions and their value in the story.

I'm cleaning my work area of cookie crumbs and debris. I hung my favorite pictures on the wall in front of the computer, gathered my faithful writing companions, and now going off to get the rest of my world orderly, and probably get some Cheese-Its.

Seven Days Away

2010-10-24T18:49:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful sunset looking across the horse park

to where I imagine my friends in California are sitting on their porches watching the sky also.

My main character has gathered memories and friends around her

and has chosen new music. She's got a big story to figure out and even now is trying to decide which world is the real one.

My favorite character from another story of mine has been visiting again. He turned up out of the blue while I was working on the finish of my last year NaNo novel this spring. As I paused from California Crazy suddenly the second part of Strings appeared. I didn't know there was going to be a second part.

I worked on them one after another. It was darned exciting.

This time next week, after everyone is fed, I will be making last minute preparations, brewing a nice strong pot of coffee, reviewing my notes,

or maybe just sitting outside with my muses around me,

all of us waiting for midnight

Happy 10 10 10 and Welcome

2010-10-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my writing blog, well my NaNoWriMo writing blog. I decided to put all of my stuff here this year instead of everywhere else making my loved ones eyes glaze over with that time of year, you know, boredom.

Happy 10-10-2010 by the way. It works out to a 5 and Las Vegas is a 5 city. Since I live in Las Vegas I'm happy to be in the right place at the right time, with a closet full of toilet paper in case it's the end of the world.
No wait that was Y2K.

The weather now is cool and beautiful, those days that make you want to leave the windows open or sleep on the porch in a hammock with the breeze surrounding you like good music. Ah, some Robert Plant music.

I've been working on notes for my 2010 NaNo novel for about a year and a half when at the last minute for 2009 it got shelved for California Crazy, who knew that was going to happen. So I'm trying it again. Got all the same books from the library, studying Virginia City and the history of the Comstock Lode, the ladies of D Street and the whole early west. I got out my notes and started back story and bios on my main character then she grabbed the pencil and took over. So soon?

As of Monday she changed her name, all this time it was Dahlia Kent, now it's Darla. A small change. She informed me she is from San Diego North County not a small town in Nebraska, apparently I can't write about places I haven't lived myself.

She started as an orphan raised by Church ladies who called themselves Aunties of a small, you know town in Nebraska. Now she has lived all her life with a wonderful ex drug addict hippie Uncle, who I'm thinking looks like Gregg Brown, who knows who she's decided he's going to look like. He had a heart attack making mac and cheese lunch in the tiny kitchen of their old travel trailer, leaving her an orphan. But wait this morning I am informed there is a Grandma who lives next door.

Geese, there's much to be said of hands hovering above the keyboard at 11:59 October 31 waiting for midnight and just give it up to the muse.

Well, who knew this would be so darned fun. If you've got nothing on your plate 'til Thanksgiving turkey come on along and join all the rest of the 100,000 NaNo Nuts, no kidding that many and more, and write a novel (a mere 50,000 words) in the month of November! You'll still have December to shop for your holidays. Create worlds, kill your old bosses and mother-in-laws, throw people from trains, suck some blood with the rest of the vampires, learn to fly, cast some spells, solve some crimes, or like me just do some Wishin'.

National Novel Writing Month

Come on check it out!

Listen to Pam Tanzeys Playlist

2010-10-03T23:15:00.001-07:00