A Conundrum

Unfortunately, this conundrum is not as simple as figuring out what the word "conundrum" means, or how to use it in a sentence. This conundrum is much much bigger, and it is this:

NaNoWriMo is coming. O_O

These words are enough to strike fear into the heart of the unprepared writer, myself not withstanding. Not only am I not prepared for this massive noveling event (see sidebar for more posts on this topic) but I am terribly, dreadfully....busy.

Which is partly why the blog has been so quiet lately. Between schoolwork, testing, driving now(!!), church responsibilities, redoing my room(!!!!!), impending job opportunity, and everything else, the blog has fallen to the wayside. But I have not forgotten it!! I would LOVE to post pictures of my newly painted room, but it's not quite finished yet. And I really want to put in the finishing touches before I take the pictures. It will look very...designer. I've been super excited about the whole project over the last few months.

Back to NaNoWriMo. If the last few months are any indication of the next few, my life shall be hellish indeed. Not that busyness is a bad thing. I enjoy every single one of my activities, but there is simply no rest. As my friend Maike puts it so nicely, life is like the sea pounding against the shore. Over and over and over like one great rhythmic heartbeat that never stops beating. Powerful. Constant. Mesmerizing.

I have much on my plate between youth and government (which my research for my bills is sadly lacking) and my schoolwork. I'm expecting to be taking three online language arts courses through BYU this semester, which means lots of reading and writing for school. Will participating in NaNoWriMo be setting myself up to fail? Will it be too taxing of a challenge to undertake? I already feel a little overwhelmed. Mom is urging me not to do it this year...

And I wasn't. Or at least I wasn't--until today. Today, I had the pleasure of spending some time with Kristin and Sabina in the Starbucks at the mall. We didn't get much work done, but it was so refreshing to be with them, to laugh, to brainstorm. And I came up with a plot.

I suppose, it would be cruel not to tell the plot. A genius in the making must keep their secrets carefully, but I think that an exception will be alright. Just this once. ;) It started with two elements. Art and Dance. I wanted to write a novel about one of these two things... but what? And how? I thought of a couple different scenarios. Then I browsed through Wikipedia's 36 dramatic situations and wrote down which ones stuck out to me. Two characters: a struggling art student and a mad painter.. All combined into this, the plot of my story:

A genius painter, mad and alone, sacrificed everything for his art; but when he takes on a struggling art student to model for his paintings, they find they have more in common than meets the eye.

I admit (confession time!) that it will probably be a love story--but not of the kind that makes you want to gag. It will be cute and sweet, and the model/budding artist will teach the seasoned painter how to see the beautiful things in life. See? Doesn't that sound sweet already? It will be a Scrooge-like transformation, I think.

I'm still not sure how the whole story will go, but I feel like the possibilities are endless. I don't have an era or any particular sequence of events. All I know is that the student is female, and her role will be similar to that of a modern internship. She poses for his paintings in exchange for lessons in art. <3 I'm in love with it already!

AND, now that I have a handy dandy keyboard for Bernard, everything will go much much smoother. I can write in a more comfortable position, take it to starbucks. All I need is a little stand for Bernie and I'll be good to go! Mom doesn't want me to do this, but I feel like I can't not. Such frustrating feelings. Sometimes I do not understand myself. What a conundrum.