This week’s love-turned-obsession? Disney’s TANGLED. (What follows is not really about the movie’s plot, so those who haven’t seen it are safe from spoilers!)

I saw this in the theater almost two weeks ago with my husband and some friends. I’d been clamoring to see this since I read a review saying that the film featured music by Alan Menken — THE Alan Menken, of ’90s Disney movie-musical fame. By the time I was six or seven, I ranked Alan Menken up there with Mozart and Beethoven and Vivaldi (names I’d learned in music class) because what child in the ’90s did not have a life-altering reaction to “Under the Sea” or “Part of Your World”?

From the very opening line (Flynn: “This is the story of how I died.”) to the song of the end credits, I was… spellbound. Captivated. I sat there and I swear to all that is good I felt like I was a kid watching BEAUTY AND THE BEAST or THE LION KING or CINDERELLA or SLEEPING BEAUTY for the first time. No Disney film has done that for me since before MULAN.

I’ll give you some history. My mother put Disney videos on for me from the time I was capable of focusing my eyes on a television screen. The songs, the stories, and the characters were imprinted upon my consciousness at an early age. The Disney Princess Movie is a permanent part of my soul. The first stories I told myself as a kid (when not attempting to write another Cam Jansen or Encyclopedia Brown mystery) were all my own made-up princess stories, because none of the real fairy tales were… well, exciting enough. (After I saw FERN GULLY and THUMBELINA my stories, briefly, became fairy princess stories. Don’t judge me.) So obsessed was I with the Disney princess movie that in third grade, at age eight, I proclaimed before the entire class I wanted to be a Disney animator when I grew up. My drawings (pretty decent for an eight-year-old) were [mostly] of princesses and I knew that after I went to art school I’d totally be drawing the next Disney princess. And even years after I realized that animators aren’t the ones who make up the story and that I was more interested in telling the story than animating someone else’s, I still look at Disney movies and there’s this strange itch I can’t scratch. Like, in another life, if the profession I’d chosen when I was eight was the one I was involved in today, maybe I’d be working on a movie like TANGLED even now. It’s almost like a kinship. We grew up together, Disney movies and I, and we share a special bond.

(Which makes me imagine me and my friend Disney Princess Movie going to lunch together, because even today I anthropomorphize everything thanks to, probably, Disney. I digress.)

So when I left the theater having seen TANGLED, I was in knots. (HA!) I wanted to see it again! I had to download the soundtrack! (When that love turns into obsession I don’t do thinks by halves.) But a couple of blocks away from the theater, TANGLED’s shortcomings started poking me… but I realized they weren’t the movie’s shortcomings at all. The poking, prodding thoughts I was having had nothing directly to do with the movie I saw but everything to do with the necessary form of the Disney princess movie and its parent, the fairy tale. The story. The tropes. I started asking questions about them when I read the original Grimm and Anderson and even Lang, which led me to studying this stuff in college, in part: tropes and themes and histories of stories like this, in medieval and early modern literature, in classic fairy tales. The old crone and the witch, the step-mother versus the mother, the innocent naif and the handsome swashbuckler.

I looked at TANGLED under this critical lens and thought, It’s still a fairy tale. Though this film had some of the best nuance and backstory of any Disney princess movie, it was still a very basic fairy tale. But what was it about Disney princess movies, I wondered, that got me to start writing my own stories? Imagining the characters and the depth and the reality behind that very basic fairy tale. THE LITTLE MERMAID hardly characterizes Eric outside of his being a handsome prince; the most exciting part of SLEEPING BEAUTY is Prince Philip’s wild ride to slay Maleficent, which relies on no involvement from the film’s titular princess. (And of course the fairies give him the sword and the shield!) I had to write my own stories — set in my own worlds, with my own crazy casts of characters — because I needed to tell stories that felt as wonderful as my favorite Disney movies but as real as my own experiences. I wasn’t a princess. I was a complicated contradiction of a child. I needed to write a story that reflected me.

So two weeks ago I realized all over again: as swoon-worthy as TANGLED was, as absolutely awesome, active, and wonderful its princess was (as Meg Cabot so beautifully points out here), it wasn’t enough for me. No Disney movie has ever been “enough” for me. Because even as a kid I wanted more. More complexity, backstory, layers, and history. Though TANGLED’s character backstories and psychologies were pretty deep stuff for a Disney film, they weren’t equivalent to the depth to be found in say, a great middle grade or YA novel. The reason why I decided when I was twelve that I needed to write novels was due in direct part to my obsession with providing my characters with the depth, backstories, and psychological growth I was missing in my favorite Disney films, because as a medium and a format they’re not exactly optimal for providing that. (And the G or PG rating? I wanted to get a little more intense with my worlds and Disney movies usually can’t do that and have the same wide-ranging appeal.)

Disney movies were the first stories I ever really started analyzing, and that analysis was what led me to realizing the important role of the writer in the genesis of a story (of course, you say, but this was revelatory for Erin the eight-year-old!). That led me to wondering what makes a good writer, a good story teller, and started me on the path that led to me taking writing course after writing course, attempting my first drawer novels, then studying writing (and critical analysis!) in college, and now to writing for real. By the transitive property, Disney movies are what led me to my chosen career. (That and Star Wars, but that’s an obsession worthy of another post.)

So in a really round-about way, seeing TANGLED reaffirmed my passion for (and obsession with) writing young adult novels.

Do you share my Disney princess movie obsession? What experience have you had with Disney movies?

That said, because this is NaNoFinMo for me, more or less, because I have decided to be a NaNo Rebel, my word count is actually more than 50K in the document. That is more than halfway through a planned 80K draft. Which is good. Marvelous in fact. I am exactly where I need to be in so many ways — but clearly I need to spend the next 48 hours or so playing a serious game of catch up not only in the novel (I need to hit 26,667 by tonight theoretically) but also around the house. This weekend was filled with marvelous things — friends visiting from out of town! Gatherings and happenings hosted at our house! Meeting the incomparably awesome Stephanie Perkins! — but one thing I didn’t accomplish over the last few days was maintaining pace. I knew I’d fall short and I have, and I need to make up the difference. My brain melts at the thought.

But things aren’t bad, don’t get me wrong. I’m still very optimistic that the goal I set for myself will still be met. Working consistently has been key for me, as has forcing myself to be cautious about the words I use. I am not employing any of the standby NaNo tricks — extending a scene for no purpose; relying on excessive banter or funny dialogue with no purpose; dwelling on moments best glossed over or avoided through well-used scene jumps — and yes I know this is costing me time and effort but even if I “lose” NaNo and come in short of my personal goal of 50K new words, I will know that the words I am using are all good, solid words, and to me that’s the most important part. NaNo’s enthusiasm and community is helping me set and maintain a consistent output but because I am half a full time writer and I have the time and ability to put hours and hours toward this task every day, I am not letting myself squander that time with unworthy words. I am following my outline and I am absolutely in love with my characters, this world, and their story. I couldn’t ask for a better project to be tackling this month and I’m glad I didn’t put this aside and start something crazy or fresh for NaNo; I’d've missed this world too much.

Though this NaNoWriMo is turning out to be very productive and positive, it’s no less exhausting than previous NaNos; in fact I’d say it’s the hardest mentally (I’ve spent hours bashing my head on the keyboard getting a single sentence right) while the easiest physically (the dishes are done, even if the laundry isn’t folded, and I’m well fed). I miss the literary abandon of 2008′s crazy ride — when I had no idea where I was going or what scene I would write next — and I also miss 2009′s cool surety of steady (unbelievable) progress. But 2010′s NaNo, even if it doesn’t end in a completed book, will end with me very close to the end, and hopefully in December I will be able to finish it, tear it apart (gently) and build it up again, and give it over to some folks with fresh eyes. I am nothing if not exhaustingly optimistic!

This year I’m finishing my work in progress which as of 11:30 last night stood at a perfectly even 30,000 words. (So terrifically convenient for updating word count on the website; so whatever word count you see on the widget to the right? Add 30K and that’s the ms’s total.) This is a hardcore rewrite of an old project, which means 100% of the words are new, 50% of the plot and events are new, and about 5% of the characters’ traits and personalities and attributes are new. I know these character so well. I’ve known them longer than I’ve known some people in real life! But in between the day job and other distractions, I’ve been stuck under 30K on it for a while now. In September I vowed if I didn’t have this novel mostly done by November 1st I would spend NaNoWriMo finishing the darned thing. And that’s what I’m going to do. This is NaNoFinMo for me, dang it, and I will write that last page before December 1st or my fingers will be bloody from trying. (I’m overdramatic. Shush.)

I asked the kind people of the NYC meet-up for NaNo I went to last week and they were unanimously agreed that (1) because writing is what I do all year long anyway, why the heck not take advantage of NaNo and use its community and motivators to help me finish this project? And (2) it’s not cheating, to them, if the words are new. I’m not copy-and-pasting, I am writing the words from scratch from a plot that has been pretty tightly outlined and characters I know well enough to know what they’d do in a dozen of strange scenarios my husband has posed for me (hypothetically). (“Would they think this joke is funny?” “A would, but B would think you were being rude, and C would completely ignore your existence for even trying.”) The kind folks at NaNo don’t recommend going in with a book you’ve already started because they don’t feel like it promotes the true kamikaze spirit of NaNo — but that’s exactly why I need to do NaNo. As much as I adore it, I’ve been dragging on this ms. It needs some kamikaze noveling to happen to it and what better time to do that kind of writing than during NaNo?

Anyway. I’ve written five — FIVE — words as of right this moment, but I’m not planning on sleeping until I get my 1,667 minimum for the day which will undoubtedly happen once I get home from the day job.

Onward!

1. Plan as much as you can in advance.

With only FOUR DAYS left, I know it’s hard, but it’s not impossible to sit down and spend three hours or so this weekend plotting and brainstorming and taking notes. Who are your characters? (What are their names? I find I waste lots of time in November if I need to suddenly create a character name.) What do they want? What are their obstacles? Literary agent Nathan Bransford has a great post to this effect, reminding NaNo-ers of the basic tenets of starting any new writing project. Once you know your protagonist, start in on the other major characters and some of the secondary characters. Give yourself as fully-fleshed-out a cast as you can before you start, if you can. If you can’t, then work on plotting an outline or figuring out other elements: settings, places, obstacles, events, Things That Need to Happen, et cetera. We all follow different creative processes and have different ways of tackling the same writing problems so I can’t speak for what may be best for your process. But the bottom line: the more you go in knowing, the less you’ll need to stop and figure out along the way.

2. Write something every day. Don’t give yourself a day off.

Pace for NaNoWriMo is 1,667 words a day, which can be a brief chapter, part of a scene, an entire scene — but it’s not overwhelming. What is overwhelming is realizing that you are 6,000 words behind pace and you need to catch up by yesterday. By writing a little each day and not taking a day off — which admittedly is hard, but NaNo is about discipline — you’ll stay on pace and far away from tearing-out-your-hair territory. That said, sometimes it’s hard to get in front of a computer, so I’ll suggest some of the things I did when I could not actually drag myself to write my 1,667 words for a day: I plotted and planned and made sure I knew what my next 3,000 or 9,000 words were going to be about. If you can’t write today, make triply sure you know what you’re writing tomorrow, or next week, because every little bit of NaNo planning helps, even when you’re in the thick of it.

3. You don’t have to start a new project for NaNo if you can find another way to get to 50,000 words.

It may seem a blasphemous thought: you can find a way to use NaNoWriMo to your best advantage, especially if you’re a writer normally. Though some would argue it’s “cheating” to do anything but the most traditional write-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kamikaze noveling for which NaNoWriMo is famous, I firmly believe — and talking to people at NaNoWriMo meet-up events, I’ve found everyone has agreed with me — that the #1 most important thing about NaNo is production. The actual 50,000 words. Not what document they’re being written for. Need to rewrite that old project you started five years ago but never got around to finishing? Do it! Have the first 20,000 words of a novel already sitting on your computer? Finish it! The nature of the challenge changes when you’re not writing-by-the-seat-of-your-pants but having done a rewrite from the ground-up last year, I can attest that even though I knew my characters and I knew the plot, writing at a NaNoWriMo pace was still breathlessly challenging. I adored every moment of it and I even finished well before Thanksgiving (which is always my personal goal). Did that make it any easier? Maybe. But I still skipped scenes (leaving big [MORE!] brackets) and for the most part had NO idea what the ending was going to be, but I didn’t let that get in the way of getting my 50,000 words done.

4. Have fun.

Don’t kill yourself to win NaNoWriMo. Shirk the chores for a few weeks — have the roommate take over dishes duty for a while! — but don’t sacrifice your first born child over it. Yes, it’s difficult, yes it can be stressful, especially if you fall behind pace — but don’t forget, you’re not alone. One of the best things about NaNo, for me, is the community aspect of the challenge. Go to the forums and talk with other NaNo-ers to get ideas or to find a place to whine to sympathetic ears. Pit yourself against strangers and friends and make it a fun competition. Find your local NaNo chapter’s in-person meet ups and go — they do word sprints and give out free prizes! But always remember: it’s okay to quit. It’s okay to finish with less than the goal, especially if you’ve never tackled the NaNo beast before, especially if you come down with a bout of the flu or the Day Job flares up and consumes your soul. It’s okay if your natural writing style or natural writing pace isn’t a minimum of 1,667 words a day; that’s a challenging pace for even a lot of professional writers. But at the same time, one of the best parts of NaNo is the fact that there are thousands of people attempting the same [seemingly] insurmountable challenge along with you, and you can succeed or fail with others, and giggle about it afterward. (Or go to your local Thank God It’s Over party on December 1st; that’s always a great way to finish the month!)

I’m downright enthusiastic about NaNo time every year because it always energizes me and gets me working. Having that little word count updater on NaNoWriMo.org acting like my ball-and-chain every day motivates me like nothing else in my writing life ever has. Seeing how many hundreds of writers are ahead of me in pace, or behind me, both challenges me and heartens me. Writing is typically a solitary profession but during the month of November when I’m writing I know I’m among friends. And I love every moment.

That summer, I traveled to Munich, Germany to study German and I saw the Alps for the first time. I realized I knew nothing about the type of mountains I was trying to visualize because I’d had no frame of reference. I’d never seen mountains like these before. In Munich, you can see the Alps from within city limits — okay I couldn’t see them until I was standing on top of the Olympiaturm, the sight-seeing tower built in the Olympiapark, the park built for the 1984 Olympic Games — but the Alps are visible. From Munich. Later that month I took the train to Neuschwanstein Castle, in Füssen, Germany, in the Alps — well. I realized I’d had no frame of reference at all for what was a “mountain” and what was a “castle.”

(Though admittedly, Neuschwanstein is no where near the norm of a European castle. King Ludwig II bankrupted Bavaria to build it and only lived in it for 172 days. For reference, this castle was finished in 1884, the year after the Brooklyn Bridge was completed!)

The Alps themselves were even more stunning when I returned to Europe — dragging my then-fiancé (now husband) with me — the following spring, when there was still snow visible on the peaks.

The same year I dragged my then-fiancé to Europe, he dragged me to Utah to ski with him, and we’ve been going every spring since. We go to a mountain just outside the city limits of Salt Lake City, UT, less than an hour from SLC International Airport. Salt Lake City stands at an average of 4,300 ft above sea level (so less than mile-high Denver, CO), but on the drive up the canyon road to the mountain, the elevation increases from 4,500 to 8,000 feet at the lodge base. (In the car, driving up the winding road, gravity pulls you back into your seat because of the incline of the road.) The mountain itself has a peak of 11,000 ft. The peak is covered with some kind of snow sometimes as late as June. And the snow! I could write a whole entry about the multitude of different kinds of snow I’ve experienced there over the years. (“Blizzard” is a term we in New York City use for something the folks at this mountain would laugh at.)

(See more photos here.)

What I wrote of mountains before I’d seen them, climbed them, skiied them was not factually incorrect. I’d gotten the basics correct; I had done my research. But when I rewrote the scenes, I found I wrote them with more confidence and authority. I was able to incorporate small details from my own experience, to give my characters the sense of unreality I’d felt being in such majestic surroundings. I think  my writing benefited.

Thoreau said,

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

and every time I read that quote I think of the concept of “writing what you know” — one of the principles taught to writing students early on, one of those things we learn… then learn how to break. I know that as a writer of fantasy I will never have the opportunity to experience all that I’ll write about, either from the standpoint of a practical limitation or that of impossibility. Even more basically, I’ll never know what it is like to have grown up with a single parent. I may never know what it feels like to be a grandmother. I’ll never jump in lava (hopefully my characters won’t ever, either), I’ll never run someone through with my sword (I don’t even own a sword, unless you count my plastic lightsaber), and I’ll never fly through the eye of a hurricane (I wonder if Superman ever has?).

Instead, I’m doing my best to experience life, to live it to its fullest, so that when I sit down to write I can bring a wealth of emotions and memories to the computer with me, from which I can draw to create realistic, evocative fiction.

EDIT: I should probably edit to make clear that I’m not saying one should write only what one knows — or make up an entire novel’s contents without infusing it with one’s real experiences and emotions. There’s a happy medium. I’ve always hated the “write what you know” saying, because as someone who writes fantasy that always annoyed me. But it’s a solid point I shouldn’t entirely disregard. I think I’ve finally come around to understanding that using what I know to make my entirely imagined stuff feel more real is one way I can help my writing shine.

How have you used your life experiences in fiction? How have you compensated for a moment for which you had no personal frame of reference? Tell me what you think about “writing what you know”!

I don’t remember a time when my parents said I couldn’t read any book I wanted to read. There were some frowns and “shouldn’t”s thrown around (regarding Stephen King, Peter Benchley, and Michael Crichton, when I was in elementary school), but never a “no.” They let me decide for myself.

For fourth grade reading class, we read Lois Lowry’s The Giver*. I didn’t understand it then; in fact, I distinctly remember having a nightmare about it – Imagine being told what your future career will be at a young age, I thought, the horror! — but then I read it again as a teenager and… wow. I was left chilled. In fifth grade, we read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time* and it was the first book I’d ever read for school where I connected with the protagonist. Meg Murry was ME, albiet 12. I was 10 with plain brown hair and glasses and although I was good in school and never felt as rejected by my teachers as Meg did, seeing her made me feel so much better about my own life. Reading that book gave me self-confidence. (It also made me desperately long for brothers.) When we read Julie of the Wolves*, I distinctly remember that never before had a book evoked such strong emotions from me. (I also remember being annoyed that Julie didn’t turn into a wolf. I similarly read The Witch of Blackbird Pond* thinking it was about magic.) Out of school I was happily devouring Goosebumps* and Roald Dahl*.

Even as an older kid, the Scary Stories series of books by Alvin Schwartz (with those amazing illustrations!) was still one of my favorites. Before I even knew that fantasy was a genre, I loved the historical/mystery/suspense feel to those stories, loved the exploration of the impossible and implausible they presented. Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw that that series was listed at #1 on the most-banned/challenged books of 1990-1999 list, as well as #7 on the 2000-2009 list.) In A Dark, Dark Room is still one of my favorite picture books/easy readers of my childhood.

I read To Kill a Mockingbird* for the first time when I was 10, the summer after fifth grade. I remember thinking, “I didn’t think an old book could actually be so interesting.” Reading it made me mad. I’d grown up in a school district that took celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day very seriously, but I had never gotten so upset about racism and bigotry until I’d read this book and felt it for myself.

I read The Catcher in the Rye* the summer before tenth grade, when I was 14. I hated The Catcher in the Rye. But I read it once for myself, and once again in class in tenth grade (still hated it), but I read it. I can now say that I’ve read it and I hate it for a variety of concrete reasons. I read The Great Gatsby* the summer before I was in eleventh grade, when I was 15. The Great Gatsby, unlike with Catcher — that book changed the way I thought about language in fiction. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s prose — I’d never read anything like that before. I’d been reading Star Wars novels and contemporary YA and anything fantasy in the children’s section of the public library. I’d never read… well. A book about “a great, sad rich guy and his life” and thought I’d ever connect with the characters, or find it interesting enough to read three times. I thought the only books I would love would have to involve space or dragons or swords or magic. For all of my much-maligned school district’s faults, we read some serious literature. Before Gatsby, we’d read Richard Wright’s Black Boy*, then Native Son* for another class; we read Song of Solomon* (surprising) by Toni Morrison and Of Mice and Men* (amazing) by John Steinbeck. There was The Jungle* (long), The Age of Innocence* (annoying); I read The Fountainhead* and was so affected by its message of individualism I obsessively isolated myself for a while. Outside of class, I kept reading science fiction and fantasy. I read YA fantasy, naturally, (like the first several Harry Potter* books) but also Dune, The Lord of the Rings* and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy*. Somewhere in there I discovered and gave up many nights of sleep for the His Dark Materials* trilogy by Philip Pullman (just after The Amber Spyglass came out, thank goodness, or I would have imploded from the wait).

I had no idea until I was seventeen or eighteen that many of those books I’d read for school or for myself, that I’d loved, hated, endured, and that profoundly affected me had, at one point, been either challenged or banned in other places around this country.

When the anti-Harry Potter fervor was first hitting libraries, I was a page in the children’s section of my local library, shelving books, and overhearing parents come to the librarians asking for a book “like Harry Potter, so my kid will read it, but with none of the silly witchcraft. Do you have stuff like that?” They’d recommend titles by authors like Louis Sachar or Jerry Spinelli for the boys and Katherine Paterson and E. L. Konigsburg for the girls, but insist to the parents, “You ought to read Harry Potter yourself. I actually enjoyed the books, a lot. They’re fun, and the witchcraft stuff is completely overblown by the media.” Some of these parents frowned thoughtfully. Win? Possibly. But I loved the librarians for not giving in to the fervor.

In conclusion to this ramble of a post, I adore books. I believe everyone should read books of all kinds and have the freedom of choice to be able to decide for themselves what they ought to read. And as people across the internet have proved in the past few weeks, there’s a power in speaking loudly against book banning. I love the internet community of writers and readers. Let’s keep talking and spreading the word and ensure every reader has a chance to read the books that could change their lives.

(* appear next to titles of recent books and older classics that have been banned or challenged at some point in the last 20 years – according to the ALA.)

When I first approached this rewrite (which is of a young adult fantasy, naturally), it felt like I was pouring the pieces of a huge, complicated puzzle onto a clean tabletop. I know this story so well I know (or can vaguely see) each and every one of its many little parts, its different plot points and characters with their arcs, the secondary characters who surprise me, the details of setting and scene and world-building I know so well. But how to fit them together again to tell a story better than the way I’ve told it before, in an earlier iteration? That’s the question that constantly drives me when I’m writing. The what in a novel can feel similar — tropic characters or themes, familiar settings or devices — but the how, that’s what always fascinates me about reading a novel as well as writing one. The execution, if you will. I didn’t approach this rewrite daunted by the unknown, not really, because I had all the pieces on the table before me. But I was fitting them together in a fresh way, and that excited me — continues to excite me.

I started with the frame of the puzzle, the opening and the world. In a rewrite, I pay careful attention to the way I lay out the words — and I obsess over this in subsequent edits. Because starting from the front, every word cumulatively builds the world as the reader knows it and is essential in setting up the frame of the world itself as it is with setting up the story, plot, and characters. As Ursula K. LeGuin explains in her (amazing!) essay, “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie”:

…In fantasy there is nothing but the writer’s vision of the world. There is no borrowed reality of history, or current events, or just plain folks at home in Peyton Place. There is no comfortable matrix of the commonplace to substitute for the imagination, to provide ready-made emotional response, and to disguise flaws and failures of creation. There is only a construct in a void, with every joint and seam and nail exposed. To create what Tolkien calls “a secondary universe” is to make a new world. A world where no voice has ever spoken before; where the act of speech is the act of creation. The only voice that speaks there is the creator’s voice. And every word counts.

This is an awful responsibility to undertake, when all the poor writer wants to do is play dragons, to entertain himself and others for a while.

(I love her.)

After I pushed through the first chapter or two, in setting up this world (though admittedly in this WiP, my opening still needs work), I continued on assembling the pieces. This is hard, this time around, because I’ve finally understood what I needed to fix to make this story stronger: it’s a dual-protagonist story, not a singular one, and the inclusion of the other main character’s point of view was so essential in making these pieces snap into place at long last. (It’s in third person, and considering the last project I was editing to within an inch of its life was first person, it’s definitely a switch.) Once I rewrote the first third of the novel, I looked back and what I’d put together and saw that some of the pieces didn’t fit as neatly as they ought to. I can’t obsess over those little pieces being wrong right now though; those are matters to address when I get to the end and can see the entire picture, the entire draft. Looking at it as a whole, I’ll be able to more clearly pull apart those pieces that don’t work, fix them, and reinsert them to make the entire story stronger. Maybe what I see now as little pieces that don’t work will actually come back together in the end. I put those pieces back in for a reason, didn’t I? (So I tell myself.)

One of the reasons I’m enjoying myself so much with this project is that absolutely I love puzzles, though I think I adore strategy games and logic puzzles more than I do straight up table-top puzzles like in my analogy. I adore solving them. I adore a puzzle that makes me think, that actually makes my brain feel as if it’s using more of its total potential. (I love it when my brain hurts after a complicated bit of thinking. I’m a nerd, shush.) Good puzzles spawn questions I think about in the shower, when cooking, when walking down the street; questions I ponder while staring into vacant space on the subway ride home (and which tend to garner me more than one “She’s crazy,” looks). Answering those questions, fitting the pieces together… that’s why I write. I get a rush from a plot’s pieces falling into place, at that little thing I hit on earlier in the novel coming back into play in a big way.

Writing a first draft is one kind of rush. It’s a new project high of anything goes and literary abandon, as the good people at NaNoWriMo call it. I love that feeling, absolutely. But once the novel is out in front of me, actually on the page in its messy first draft form, then begins the more interesting part. The pulling it apart and putting it back together for the second, or third iteration or more — that’s a rush of an entirely different nature. It doesn’t feel like writing a novel, to me, when I know the story so well. Thus my analogy: it feels like I’m simply putting all of the pieces of the story together to form the coherent image, the story I know waits at the end of all of that work.

Spending a day solving puzzles I’ve created for myself… yes, writing a novel is the best job ever.

Today is National Celiac Awareness Day, which was created for the purpose of getting the word out about celiac disease. It’s a disease that afflicts 1 in 133 people in the United States — statistics say you probably know someone else other than me! – in all sorts of ways, whether they know it or not. The symptoms can vary so widely, even doctors have difficulty diagnosing this disease. The treatment is simple: it’s dietary. Because celiacs can’t digest gluten, the best way to feel better is to eliminate gluten entirely. Such a simple treatment for a disease that can seriously wreck an affected person’s digestive system.

I was diagnosed with celiac disease in May 2009 and I’ve been gluten-free ever since. While I feel great, I’m not going to lie: it’s been hard. I loved beer and New York pizza crust and a huge bowl of authentic al dente homemade pasta. Loved. There’s no way around the fact that the gluten protein is what happens to be that which makes some foods good. (Alton Brown explains why good pizza crust requires gluten here — it’s around 3:00, but the whole episode is great.) Now, though, if I eat gluten in a large enough quantity, I’ll feel like I’ve eaten a bowling ball. It will sit in my middle making me feel all sorts of awful for days. A bite, yeah. I can handle a bite. But I’m an all-or-nothing kind of girl, so it’s hard.

But there is good news! In the year and a half since my diagnosis, I’ve found more and more products I can eat — and more and more people who know what the heck I am talking about when I say I can’t digest gluten. My local grocery, and the big ones I shop at regularly (FreshDirect, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s) clearly mark and label everything. I’ve picked up some big name brands and found the words “gluten free” on their nutrition label. (Pick up a pack of Starbursts! Really!) Big brands are adding new gluten free products all the time. I found a brand of gluten free foods I’m completely obsessed with and finally, I feel like I can eat a sandwich again. I’ve discovered restaurants with gluten free menus or options. It’s also led me to re-discover the awesomeness of vegetables, fruits, and unusual grains in all of their glory. (Beets! Eggplant! Quinoa!) Still, grabbing an on-the-go gluten free lunch [for cheap] in New York is next to impossible, but hey, I can dream big. (Very big, maybe, but I’m an optimist!)

Part of what the different celiac disease foundations out there are trying do with today’s event is simple. The goal is to get the word out. Inform potential patients and doctors, inform teachers and parents — everyone. When I say I’m “gluten free,” most of the waiters at restaurants look at me like I’m crazy. Parents of kids I’ve chatted with know everything about allergies — peanuts, tree nuts, soy, dairy, et cetera — but celiac? What’s that?

So… tell someone about celiac disease. Share the Wikipedia love. Read this article. Spread the word! And thank you.

Lately — and by lately, I mean for months now — I’ve been thinking about why I blog and wondering all over again what I ought to be blogging about.

Apparently, judging by the plethora of posts on the topic available in the blogosphere, as a writer — an unknown, as-of-yet unpublished novelist — who maintains a blog, I must ask myself some questions. Who’s my current blogging audience? Who’s my intended audience? What’s my platform? What makes me unique? What are my strengths and weaknesses? Then there’s the other advice, reminding me I ought to be publicizing myself, advertising myself, developing a brand as an author and a platform. Be active in the social networking scene! Then there are the corresponding questions — what about Twitter? How involved should I be, what should I be tweeting about?

All of that is a bit overwhelming. There’s a pressure that’s developed as a result of becoming more active in reading and responding to the community of writers out there in the world of the Internet. A pressure to add my voice to the group, to be as active, fun, and engaging as some of the stars of the YA blogosphere. I’ve spent the last few years prioritizing my novels, not keeping up with the Joneses, so now that I’m looking around… I’m not sure what to do. Where I fit in. How high school!

Then I found this post by YA author Hannah Moskowitz last week. She hit on a lot of different topics. The comments delved even more deeply. I’m fascinated by the whole discussion, all sides of it.

My take away on the whole discussion is… why am I obsessing about the blogosphere and my [nonexistent] place in it when I ought to be — as I’ve been doing the last few years — prioritizing my novels? Worrying about how often I blog, what I blog about, who I’m following and keeping up with on Twitter — these are not things that will help me write. But on the other hand, I love being a part of a community on Twitter. Writing (and publishing in general) can be a solitary profession and as Jessica of BookEnds, LLC pointed out the other day, Twitter serves as a fantastic industry watercooler. But just as a real office watercooler is a break from the monotony/reality of the “real job” at one’s desk, that’s how I regard Twitter. It’s a break and it can’t let it become a distraction.

The blog, to some degree, should be something of the same for me. When I was a teenager first starting to read YA (and the Internet was still in its relative infancy), I only looked up writers on the Internet because I wanted to read more about their books. Were there planned sequels? Were there deleted scenes or fantasy world tidbits available? Now, author sites are so much more, and so incredibly different from one author to the next. But what’s stayed the same is that what I love most about my favorite author sites: they’re quintessentially reflective of their authors’ tastes and interests.

So, that led me to thinking: what are my tastes and interests? What do I like blogging about? What’s… me?

I love telling stories. Anecdotes. Rambling. Pondering. Riffing on random subjects (like this one?). The occasional rant (which I differentiate from a riff by the level of vehemence). I love getting nerdy in a literary criticism way. I’m incapable of writing a blog entry shorter than a thousand words, which can be time-consuming. Bottom line: I like blogging when I have a topic on which I’ll happily spend a thousand words, but because of that, I can’t expect myself to blog daily, or even very frequently.

I think I may do what Jodi Meadows decided she needed to do the other day: take a break from the Internet and work. Get the next big hurdles done on the rewrite I’m in the midst of (which has only a working title that is lame, not a real title, because as you all know I am terrible with titles) and then start focusing on the next step(s) for Bound Between.

I will be maintaining the blog and updating Twitter and obsessively checking email (so don’t be shy about poking me), but it’s going to drop down on the priority ladder. My first is writing — always writing. Immersing myself in my worlds. But when I need a break, I’ll return to the virtual watercooler. With any luck I’ll find my happy medium.

What do you all think about your balance of virtual watercooler, blogging, and work? Have you found your happy medium?

With Labor Day weekend about to start, I started thinking about other upcoming holidays and events in the shockingly-not-so-distant future. I also discovered the website http://dayzeroproject.com/ yesterday, which reminded me that constantly having and setting goals and deadlines is a pretty good thing to do. Author Natalie Whipple also had a terrific post about self-imposed deadlines and goals the other day, which only added fuel to the already bubbling brain fire.

What kinds of dates and deadlines am I talking about? A few with varying levels of importance to me and the world. In X days from now, it’ll be…

58 days – November 1st, the start of NaNoWriMo. (That means 57 days until Halloween and 64 until my birthday. So that will be a fun week.)

89 days — December 2nd, the first night of Hanukkah. (It’s surprisingly early this year!)

112 days — Christmas. (That’s 16 weeks, kids! Start yer shoppin’!)

119 days – 2011. (Eeeeeek. Where did 2010 go? Isn’t it still 2008, or 2003? I’m so confused…)

I’ll let you all take those numbers in. For a minute. We still breathing? Good!

I’m thinking of goals and numbers and planning because I need to set some goals for myself independent of all of the other Things of Potential Import ahead of me this fall. (Namely, the submission of Bound Between.) I’m looking at this fall and feeling ambitious. I want to accomplish a lot. That Back to School eager excitement has gotten to me and it’s making me want to work. But I haven’t set myself any deadlines yet.

I start my countdown list with NaNoWriMo because I’ve won it the last two years because I’d planned the project I was going to write — in a vague sense — in each year’s respective September. This is the first November in a few years I’m not certain I’m going to be able to participate (what if Things of Potential Import preclude my participation? I just don’t know!), but I’m planning on it anyway. There’s nothing like a community of writers encouraging each other — and that daily wordcount update graph! It’s so energizing! (And the 50,000 word goal? I’ve hit a personal best of 70K-ish in a month before, so I’m not worried. She says overconfidently…) So if I end up working on NaNo, I’ll participate in true fashion and start something new (either a new project or a new rewrite). I’m looking forward to that. If I don’t, then I’ll be working my butt off on something older or meatier, and probably working just as hard on it. That will be fun, too. Either way, I am very definitely looking forward to November.

Hanukkah and Christmas I mention because I adore the holiday season, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, and I’m planning to start collecting gifts as insanely early as I can tolerate this year. Holiday shopping in September? Bring it on!

And finally, New Year’s. It always makes me think of goals, of setting them, of meeting them. I started 2010 with a vague goal (have an awesome, successful year) and a more concrete goal (query BB and sign with an agent). Since I’ve done the latter (still grinning about that), which has led to the former (yes, I’d say it’s awesome), I must conclude 2010 has been pretty good to me so far. But the year is still young. More awesome can still happen in the next four months. So even if 2011 is a mere 119 days away, that’s still four months of potential win. Who says I can’t be cheekily optimistic?

What are your goals for the next month — four months? Are you planning on NaNoWriMo, or getting all your holiday presents before Halloween (and do you have a Halloween costume)? Tell me!