Finally Over

Half an hour before December 1st, I am happy to say that I finished my 50,000 words. The book is by no means close to finished and I haven't even reached the climax, but I got a good chunk written of this book. In fact, that's the most I've ever written in a month. I got to know my character better and wrote a bunch of terrible scenes and some good-ish scenes that I may not have gotten by "regular grown-up means." That was an Anne Lamott quote, by the way. :) Between college classes, family obligations and getting behind nearly 6,000 words at the end, I actually got it done. Thank goodness I don't have a job yet. Which I'm seriously considering getting, because of a reason I'll probably post on my normal blog soon, once I've actually have time to post, which I'm hoping will be tomorrow after my exam...and practical.

Now that it's over, though, I'm finding, I lack the motivation to write. Maybe it's because I just wrote fifty-stinkin-thousand words and I'm all worn out. Maybe it's because now I don't have a goal. Maybe it's just because of finals this week. I'm literally taking an exam every other day and studying the days in between. Thus is the reason this is a short post, because I've got to study my butt off for two tests tomorrow. So much fun, right? What every the reason is, I'll overcome it and hopefully by the end of Christmas break, I'll be done. We'll see, though, won't we. Pray for me!

First week of NaNo

So, first week of NaNo. This was interesting. :) I have 10,600ish words so far. That was a third of my goal for last year. It's been a really up and down first week. 

Midnight, November 1st: lit a candle, made some tea and cranked out 3,000 words. Later that day I got in another 1,000 words in a kickoff party my writer's group had. 

November 2nd: Fairly normal. I had a practical and school, so all of the writing I did, I had to do in the morning. 

November 3rd: Lost my head start. Only wrote 400 words. 

November 4th: Somehow I got 2,000 even though I had school that day. 

November 5th: Got another 2,000 be cause every Thursday our writer's group goes to one of our houses, sits around the table, drinks tea, eats scones or cookies or mini pumpkin pies (those were good) and writes their heart out. 

November 6th: Nothing

November 7th: I've gotten all of 500 words down. 

 This scene I'm writing is absolutely worthless, but if I discard it, I loose everything I did today. Blegh. So not in the writing mood today. Which is kind of weird. I'm being the procrastinator we all know me to be. :) See, I even won a procrastination badge!

I'll give you a sample of my thought process today: 

'Okay. Gonna write.' Opens document. 'Nothing's happening.' Opens NaNoWriMo. 'Maybe I can word war. Okay. Going in at :45.' Writes for fifteen minutes. 'Only 274 words. Seriously? That's the best I can do. This scene is useless. I need to delete it. But it's in my outline, so I can't. Dang. I need a shower. Ooh! I wonder how I can start a thread in the forums. I have something I want to post.' Spends the next forty-five minutes trying to figure it out. Spends fifteen minutes actually posting in the forum. 'Ooh, ooh. There's one of my old books. I'm going to read it.' Reads through the next hundred pages. 'I don't like this part. I need to go clean my room. It's a mess.' Goes upstairs and spends two hours cleaning the room. 'I'm going to organize my PJ bin. It's spilling out all over the place.' Organizes PJ bin. 'Oh, I should probably clean out my closet. Mom and Dad wanted me to bring my hope chest upstairs so it's not in the walkway.' Cleans closet and brings hope chest up. 'I need to do my sheets too.' Strips my sheets and puts them in the wash. Sits down at the computer again. 'I'll try another word war. Just five minutes this time. Going it at :25. This scene is useless, but who cares? Still churning out words. 95 words? That's pathetic. Oh, look there's my blog. And it's Saturday. I need to post.' 

And here you find me. Some how I managed 500 words, though I can't really see how...

Anyway. This story's chugging along. It's not the story it's me. I'm just not in the mood right now. Maybe I will go and take a shower. I'm babysitting in a half hour. I have time. Hmm.... I have an idea. I'll make this productive and brainstorm in the shower. That's an idea. Okay, well, I'm out. Wish me luck!  

 Sort of...

Motivation

What do Finding Nemo, Spiderman and Maleficent have in common? I know, a total cliche to opening a blog post, but I couldn't help myself. So, think away readers, and contemplate my deep question...

Hint: The title has something to do with it...

Each of them have exceptional character motivation that we all can learn from. I'll make sure to warn you if there are any spoilers in case you haven't watched one of them. 

A couple of types of motivation for characters that are believable: 

1. Fear, with a legitimate root. In Finding Nemo Marlin is afraid of two things. The ocean and losing his only family, his son, Nemo. Why? At the beginning of the movie in a prologue of sorts, Marlin is a newlywed moving into his new home with his wife, Coral, and his four-hundred-plus eggs. As they're watching their babies sleep, Coral remarks casually that she wants to name one of the fish Nemo. Mere minutes later, a barracuda attacks, knocking Marlin out. When he comes to, Coral and all of his children are gone, except for one egg that got knocked to the ocean floor and forgotten. And he names the fish Nemo. As a result, Marlin is overprotective of Nemo and doesn't let him do anything that could be possibly risky. 

2. Being too sheltered: This one's also from Finding Nemo. His father's overprotectedness prompts Nemo to chafe under the short leash. After his dad yells at him and embarrasses him in front of his friends for almost doing something against what his father had taught him, he break the rules, resulting in him getting captured. 

3. Revenge: Sometimes this can feel forced, unless you do it right. Maleficent does this incredibly well. Maleficent has been betrayed by the person that she thought was her true love. So, as a result she storms the castle that he lives in and casts a curse on his firstborn daughter, Aurora, that "before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, she'll prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a sleep like death."

4. Power hungry: Again, be careful with this one. This can be super unbelieveable and cliche if the character doesn't have a good reason for wanting power. This one is again, excellently shown in Maleficent. Stefan meets Maleficent when they're both young and points out the castle that exists where he lives. "See that castle?" He says. "Someday I'm going to live there." Maleficent asks him where he lives now. He looks down for a second and finally admits, "A barn." After a bit more prompting she gets out of him that he's an orphan, and homeless, but someday he wants to rule. This later prompts him to betray Maleficent's trust in order to get the throne.

5. Something wakes them up: In Spider-Man, after Peter finally figures out about his powers, he intends to use them to get the attention of the girl he likes. He goes to a wrestling match with the hopes to win $3000 to buy a car that will impress his lady. He knows he can win. Right before he goes, his uncle pulls him aside and gives him a talk about using what you have to help people. "With great power comes great responsibility." Peter yells at his uncle to stop acting like he's his father and leaves. After the match the man refuses to pay him the amount he feels is due to him. "I fail to see how that became my problem," he says. "Now get out." So, Peter stalks out of the office. As he is walking away, a man walks into the office and holds the man at gunpoint, demanding all the money. The theif runs past Peter, and he has an opportunity to stop him, but he doesn't. Just lets him go. When the money man asks him why he didn't do anything to stop the theif, Peter simply says, "I fail to see how that became my problem." And he leaves. SPOILER: As he leaves the building, he sees a crowd of people and pushes through it. His Uncle Ben is on the sidewalk, bleeding from a wound in his chest. A man had shot him and stolen his car. Later Peter realizes that it was the theif that he had let pass at the wrestling match. If he had only stopped him....SPOILER END In the end, he remembers what his uncle had said, and begins to do things for people to help.

I'd suggest watching these moves and noticing different character motivations. I haven't nearly covered all of them. Are there any movies you've seen that have exceptional character motivation?