For my NaNoWriMo project this year I'm going to attempt to write a novel (or several chapters of one) focusing on a family caught in the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s. I think that if one really wants to explore the full scope of the Great Depression, one has to pay special attention to the Mid-West. I have several items on hold for me at the library. Two DVD sets, both from PBS:
Surviving the Dustbowl, and
The 1930s; and two books:
The Worst Hard Time and
Survival in the Storm. There's one more on it's way and that one is a very short children's chapter book that I expect I'll have read in about an hour. I can't wait to pour into these novels and nonfiction accounts. I'm still working on my Death Man novel, and I have a nonfiction book to read for that as well, but during NaNo I really want to play with first person and that's where the Dust Bowl novel comes in.
So far I haven't been super successful in pumping out the words, but I have some great ideas and I'm just gonna run with them as long as I can. Tonight I'm gonna work on SoAH (the acronym for my working title) and tomorrow I'll work on both. My main problem right now is that I just need time and space. It might end up being a library day for me tomorrow because not only do I want to write for NaNo (fifty thousand words of writing, or approximately 72 pages single spaced), I also
have to keep writing for my MFA. I guess I'm just frustrated right now and thinking about doing a word challenge or two to keep me motivated. We'll see how tonight goes and how tomorrow goes.
I'm not doing so great with my NaNo word count, either. Are you going to participate in the marathon thing on Saturday at all? I'm thinking I'll try, which means today and tomorrow I have to get some research done for the two characters I haven't written at all yet...ugh.
ReplyDeleteYour Dust Bowl novel sounds interesting...and it reminds me of the "vampire" one, doesn't that take place during that time period also?
Hang in there, lady, you'll get it all done. :)
Haha good eye! Yes the 'vampire' one does take place right smack dab in Kansas during the Dust Bowl. I just love that era, it was so raw and horrible and yet people pulled out of it and survived and they are to commended. It wasn't a war zone - but it might as well have been. People seem to forget about that I feel. So I want to really draw attention to the day to day struggle and the feelings of hopelessness. This one does have a supernatural element to it but it's more Magical Realism than it is paranormal. It's about a young man dealing with things after his father's death - his mother is going a bit nutty and his younger sister is suffering the long term effects of a bout of polio when she was younger and all he can do to get away from it all is read sci-fi/fantasy magazines and wish he was somewhere else.
DeleteWe should call Grandma!
ReplyDelete