This wee possum needs a hug...

NaNoWriMo is odd for me, this year. On the one hand, it gives my brain something creative to think about so that it doesn't fall into an obsessive pit of TOTALLY USELESS worry* about my dad. And I can get several hours of mental rest and peace, that way.

On the other hand, for at least the last 15 years, whenever I've hit a snag of writer's block, I've talked it through with Dad, and it's always helped. But now, I'm writing away at my NaNo, and I get an urge to call him. Then I realize that not only can he not speak, he's stuck in a single bed room in a nursing home without a phone so I can't even call him to let him hear my voice, and so that I can hear his, even if his words are slurred or missing. ... And it is totally unfair of the universe. And I lose all will to write, and end up watching TV for the rest of the day.

(So far, I've written above the minimum of 1,667 words a day, but I have consistantly fallen below my daily goal of 2,000 words a day.)

And damn it. This sucks.

And yet. In many ways, I think finishing my NaNoWriMo novel is more important this year than it was last year. Because if I can do it, it will prove that I have internalized the strength to write (and therefore, to live), without drawing strength from either of my parents, any more.

But it still sucks.

*Really. Can anyone point to any time in their own lives, or in the history of the world, where worrying about anything did any good at all? So tell me, why did we evolve this obsessive habit of our brains in the first place?

NaNoWriMo wittering that I'd normally witter to my Dad about

So, in my last post, I complained (or made the suggestion of complaining) about how I don't have anyone to witter through my writer's block to, now that Dad's stuck without a phone.

So, I downloaded mIRC, again, and went into the NaNoWriMo chatroom to try and witter there, but it's kind of hard to get suggestions when you have over 100 people all talking at once...

So I will "outer" (aka "utter") my queries here, and maybe you can give me some help:

Okay, so in my story the popular-culture-Santa!Claus is the same, over-demesticated, super-sweet Jolly Man as he is in our culture. But the Real!Claus is more like a force of Nature; he is Wild!Claus, the male version of Mother Nature. As such, he doesn't kidnap and/or punish all the naughty kids, but just the ones who try to disrupt his work (or are "naughty" in the way of violating the laws of his Nature).

Okay, so first off, I'm using the story of Cinderella as a basic template for my opening plot: A wealthier divorcee marries a poorer widower and moves in with him and his son. Her son, Johnny, is playing the role of the Wicked Stepbrother, and systematically picking on the younger boy, Sam.

My protagonist is not evil in terms of blatant violence or breaking of human laws, but he does live by the philosophy that generosity and trying to make other people happy are bad things, because they leave you vulnerable to being hurt. So he sees his teasing of Sam as a good thing: his systematically working to make Sam "Look out for number 1" and "Watch his back" at all times, to protect Sam from getting hurt (and to prove to himself that he's invincible). He also wants to prove that "Santa" is not real, and break his younger brother of his belief in magic. All of these things go against the Father Christmas/Father Nature ethic, so when, on Christmas Eve, Johnny tries to grab the Real!Claus, and pull off his disguise, the Real!Claus nabs Johhny instead, and puts him in his (now) empty sack, and flies Jack away to his Workshop. Now, here's my puzzlement:

[Poll #861731]