Jonathon/Dawson

The three main characters in my book are based on my kids. I have other stories where the characters are completely made up, based on nobody/nothing at all, but this book, this series, Dawson, Cris and Casey are Jonathon, Duncan and Kaes, and it's all their fault.

When Jonathon was a little boy, we came home during a thunderstorm, and just as he got out of the car (after a crash of thunder overhead) he said, "Dragon roar, dragon boom." I thought my mind was going to explode. Those four words overflowed with possibility, with creative genius. I tried to think of a story, but nothing came. Duncan came along and I tried several times to write a story about two brothers and dragons. Nothing worked (though those pathetic attempts are still on my computer). Then Kaes came along and suddenly so did the story. It was waiting for the little sister, the princess, and once she got here, things started falling into place. People who know my kids recognize them in their character counterparts.

Last night, Kaes's friend left her bike at our house when she went home. It wasn't late, but it was already dark outside when Kaes decided she would take the bike over to her friend's house, three houses down from ours. I was in the living room with Matthew and Jonathon when we heard this terrible screaming outside. Jonathon took off like a bullet. I was right behind him, but the boy is six feet tall and runs like a gazelle; he reached his sister long before I did. It turns out our neighbor's dog two houses over had gotten out of the house just as Kaes was walking past and came running up to her. Kaes, who LOVES dogs (and anything else with fur) has been told for over a year that she can't pet this particular dog because he doesn't do well with strangers. In her mind, that meant he was a mean dog, and when he came running up to her, she freaked out. He didn't hurt her, but she was pretty shook up about it.

The point of this story is that Dawson really does love and take care of his sister (and his brother). Do Jonathon and Kaes have the same relationship as Dawson and Casey? No. They are not exactly the same (for one thing, my kids don't really have dragons, darn it) and it's true that Dawson, Cris and Casey are a little idealized. But the love is real, and Dawson is an awesome big brother. He should be: he's based on my Jonathon.

NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month. It is also the month of my birthday, two siblings' birthdays, Thanksgiving, and the month before Christmas. Which is why I signed up to write a novel this month. What's that? you say. You're crazy, you say. You haven't written on your blog in months, you say (and I've heard something about it being write-on-your-blog-every-day month too). Why yes, I am a little insane, thanks for noticing. In fact, I'm insane enough to be working on polishing my first dragon book while committing to write the second. Yup. Insane. My patheticness knows no bounds. I'm supposed to keep track of my word count for NaNoWriMo and I can't even figure out how how to do that. (I am certain that these are things I should not be confessing, in case some interested agent/editor someday looks me up and finds out how utterly incompetent I really am. However, in my defense, they say that it is writing ability that will get me published, not my ability to to do a word count. Besides, I'm confident that by then end of this month, I will know how to find a word count.)

So, I spent an hour or so this afternoon writing. I know, an hour a day does not a novel make, at least not in one month. However, I spent most of the morning reading On Writing, by Stephen King, since I have been told on countless blogs that I should read that to improve my writing. And since I am focusing on my writing this month, this seemed like a good time to read his book. Except that reading does get in the way of writing. It's an issue I will have to work on throughout the month, I guess. In any case, I realized that my 'writing' muscles are woefully under developed. The idea of this month, and the reason I decided to do this instead of working on next month's Christmas presents, is to turn off the editor and just write. Create. That sounds like bliss. I just have a hard time doing it. I have barely one page written so far today (though single spaced, since I never fiddle with lines and page numbering and what-not until later) and I found myself going back and changing this word or that instead of moving forward. I have a lot to learn and I look forward to learning it.

Now, if they could have made NaNoWriMo in March when I don't have birthdays and holidays to contend with, this would be perfect.