Negative Spaces

NaNoWriMo begins on the first day of November. On Sunday, I will either use my NaNo Prep Notes or I’ll hit the delete key and start the challenge with nothing but determination.

I have three random characters waiting in the wings for costume, setting and lines. The have home towns and occupations and names, compliments of Fake Name Generator. One has an expired Visa Card. Another comes from a town of less than 200 people that claims to have more ghosts walking the streets than people.

This morning I awakened and remember saying to myself, ‘that is a good idea.’ By the time I fed the animals and had a cup of coffee I didn’t have a clue about what the ‘good idea’ might have been.

Last night we carved pumpkins, later, on a television show called Castle, one of the characters was also carving a pumpkin and mentioned that the image was all about ‘negative spaces.’ This is also a term used in art and photography. I remember when I was in grade school, maybe the best advice my mom ever shared with me was to ‘try putting the shadows in first, then you can work on the form.’

Life as I have experienced it is shaped by negative spaces, we are formed by the light and shadows, the colors and mud around us. Without negative spaces we would all be the flat cardboard characters that we dislike so much when we try to be creative.

Negative spaces enhance the objects we see, build the characters we become, combine and contrast with reality.

What makes a nurse become a nurse? Is caring born out of neglect? Guilt? A need for control? Is my nurse character specializing in wound care and urinary issues as penitence for childhood crimes?

My male character leaves a job with a printing press and leaves a seriously haunted town. Does he bring his own ghosts with him? Has he brought his negative spaces along for the ride?

My third character is a medical secretary from Lexington, Kentucky who used to word for a Fortune 500 company. She is trading in her riches for rags. She is turning her world inside out and embracing her negative spaces. She seems bent on bad choices and self abuse.

What am I going to do with these sketchy folks? I have an idea for conflict, the seed of a plot, three people dragging their own world views into the wings. During the next few days, I’ll have them write me a letter. Make confessions. How do these people come together? Who is the bad guy?

When I open the first empty page and begin with my first word on November First I may not use these people at all, I may rename the notes for them and visit them some other day. After all, NaNoWriMo isn’t about writing well, it is about getting it done.

Thanks for joining me as I rambled on. You just got a random glance at my writerly mind in the act of production. What are my fellow writerly readers doing? Post your plans or lack of plans. Who knows, someone might have an idea for you.