when sleeping in means waking up at 6:30 it's probably time to shoot yourself

i slept in and didn't write this morning, but i will tonight while i eat dinner before heading over to the clockhouse pub quiz where my team will once more be attempting to win back our title of kings of the clockhouse pub quiz.

want to know about my NaNoWriMo attempt? want me to tell you all about it? okay, let's go! at first glance it would be easy to assume that it's about my family, specifically during the year 1992 and our sort of 1955 style crisis when my brother got his grirlfriend pregnant and then she hid it for 7 months. right up to there things are about the same. but here's what i'm doing, or rather here's what the writing is compelling me to do.

1. i'm writing it from 5 points of view at the moment, all third person. the teenage parents, the parents of the teenage father, and the sister.
2. i'm trying to be as sympathetic as possible to the teenaged mom. i want her to be so likeable, not not likeable, i want people to empathise with this miserable girl. i want you to get that she has made bad choices but that she has only meant to do good things (and if you know my thoughts on my former sister-in-law, you might be assuming, correctly, that this is not so easy)
3. the adult father is not, i repeat, IS NOT a HAM radio operator. he'll probably have some other time consuming obsession, i haven't decided yet
4. the sister is going to become firmly entrenched with the punk kids at her school, she is also very reticent in a way that i never was. i was shy but always knew what to say to make people laugh, she is not shy she chooses not to speak. also, by page 20 she's been kissed by a cute boy with green hair, that boy would have gone for my pretty blonde friend sara.
5. the teenaged dad is not the smart ass my brother was. in fact he's the weakest character so far. i'm having a hard time making him real
6. the adult mother, is actually pretty closely based on my mom so far. but she's going to be a lot more religious and i'm going to bring in a lot of her back story, she'll be from a much larger family and will have a lot more class issues
7. and obviously, there will be intentional themes tying this miserable mess together. the main themes being about family, lies and loss of innocence. the three fit together well and i don't think it's too ambitious to try to address all of them.

i feel good about this in a way i haven't felt good about anything in a while. i know for a fact that the first chapter i wrote from the girlfriend's point of view is some of the strongest writing i've done in years and i felt elated after i wrote it. as i get further in i'll need to be careful and at some point i'd like to write a chapter from the future of the novel written in the point of view of the child, based on a discussion i had with my friend jessica in august about how it feels to be an unplanned child.

but that might all change. things always veer away from my plans when i'm writing. i don't do outlines in anything other than the loosest sense because they're rendered useless when the characters start to dictate their own paths and i'm just left to follow.

i'm really excited though and it feels pretty awesome.