Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Something about Sandy and NaNo Pains

In October 2002, with thanks to "October Novel Prep Challenge" , I put together my settings, my characters, and my outline, which somewhere around midpoint, sends my characters to Disneyworld’s Arts of Animation resort that opened in May 2012, as most of the story happens in NY.

I thought my preparations would work out just fine, as they did last year. What a hoot, because came hurricane Sandy at the end of October, and I can’t escape from mentioning the hurricane in this story due to the setting and the time. And I thought I had the story in the palm of my hand. What a joke!

Another thing with Sandy. Just before the hurricane showed up, hubby and I went to NYC. After staying a couple of days, we made a hasty retreat, courtesy of Sandy. Not only that, but I also ended up worrying for my son who lives in Long Island’s south shore by the sea, and refuses to leave NY. Anyway, he stayed in a hotel in the city during the storm. Afterwards, because the electricity was cut off in his condo and a second snowstorm was coming their way, he went to Montreal (he likes that city).

Back to my NaNo prep...The name Sandy was the first hurdle because my main character’s mother’s name was Sandie. I changed it to Irene, which was last year’s storm that I forgot about, until someone in the prep forum alerted me. I changed the name again to Connie. This is a biggie, because I'm used to thinking of her as Sandie.

In the meantime, NaNo had already begun, and I noticed that I had named a minor character Consuela. Although the two Con-- women never meet, this is another name clash. But what the heck, so much for names; I’m staying with Connie...for now.

Enter Sandy, the hurricane itself in my story. I haven’t started on it yet but only mentioned the beginning of it, today. This hurricane was a big and nasty event in the Northeast, but I need to minimize it to not take away the attention from the already drawn storyline. As of now, I have decided to let the characters stay longer in Disney World than I originally intended. Still, the storm will have to sneak in, and I’m not too happy about it.

Then today, I peeked into The StoryMaster ’s blog. The coincidence made me laugh. His family’s travel itinerary followed, somewhat, my story’s characters' trip. But this is the sweet part because the Writing.com children are cute as can be.

Anyhow, there’s a lesson in this Sandy affair for me. Next NaNo, no more present-day, specific-place story. Made-up settings like maybe another planet, imaginary or vague time frame, and the names like no one’s names. I’ll start with the sequence of the letters of the alphabet and come up with totally freaky names. Ouch! I don’t really like to write sci-fi or fantasy.

Oh well, I’d better not think so far ahead. It seems I’ll have enough problems with the present NaNo work during the next few days.

But then, we masochist writers love problems, don’t we?