Illicit (T-rated) - Chao's 2nd NaNo

[Chao]

Second NaNo for me and I'm already excited. I even started doing some research prior to it (which I did not last year).

Again, story will be written in German as it is, like last year, intended for an Advent Calendar, so I can only share the outline, characters and development with you. Still, any input you might want to give, is more than welcome.

As last year I was struggling to make my plot meet the 50k, and had to write the previously ignored sub-plot as well, this year, I have already a sub-plot planned.

Genre: Gay-romance, real world

SPOILER: Click to show

We have my two main characters:

Carsten Gessler, a new (gay) teacher at the Friedrich-Schiller-Gymnasium (grammar school, and yes, the combination of Schiller and Gessler is intentionally), who teaches Chemistry and German (literature).

Henrik Rehms, (gay) student at the Friedrich-Schiller-Gymnasium, in his senior year. Core subjects are Mathematics and Art, as he intends to become an interior designer.

As you can imagine, a relationship between those two is not allowed, even though Henrik is not a student of Carsten's classes, but since Carsten is a teacher of the school, and Henrik is considered the school's charge, this makes Henrik by default Carsten's charge. So unlike my usual Advent stories, this one can't end at Christmas, but rather after Henrik's graduation in June (and to add a bit of Kitsch, it'll be the time where those white fluffy poplar seeds are flying around, resembling snow). So of course this illicit relationship is the core problem and of course fate (aka me) is throwing them back together everytime either of them tries to do the right thing.

The right thing from Henrik's view is not mainly based on the illicitness of the relationship, but on the reputation-damage any relationship with him might have for Carsten. In former times the occupation of Henrik's mother would have been called courtesan (of high quality), modern people tend to simply call her a whore, no matter how wrong it is, and by default/cruelty Henrik 'son of a lady dog'. Henrik is quite conscious that associating with him might rub off some of this bad reputation. This does not mean that he lacks friends who are able to look past this surface, but he has also known to be cut dead by some people because of it.

Now we add to this Carsten's flat-mate Benni Meyer. Benni is a party-punk by nature with his own independent free-lance web-design company plus a nice nest-egg he inherited from his grandparents. Benni owns the flat, but as he hates doing house-hold chores, he strikes a deal with Carsten who in return for a really low rent offers to do most of those chores. This deal dates back to university times, and since they got used to each other and get along really well, Carsten stays even after he gets a real job. In addition Benni turns out to be Henrik's half-brother, as Benni's father used to have an affair with Henrik's mother. This truth is only revealed by Benni's mother (the father died a few years ago in a car-accident) when Benni's kidney insufficiency becomes life-threatening and Henrik might be a possible donor. (Which will be the sub-plot.)

Another person of interest will be Henrik's best friend Jan (Tatjana) Volk, a girl a year younger than Henrik. Henrik and Jan grew up more or less together, as Jan's mother often baby-sat Henrik when his mother was working. Jan's family is from Belarus and because of different social views regarding the roles of women in the Slawic culture is more prone to accept Henrik's mother. But no, I do not intend to have Jan and Benni become a couple.

[Chao]

This post will be about the characters, main and supporting, and will be updated as I go along (unless I forget it due to writing the actual story).

SPOILER: Click to show

Age: 27
Occupation: Teacher for Chemistry and German (Literature) at the Friedrich-Schiller-Gymnasium
Family: Currently undecided if his parents will appear and whether or not he has any siblings (EDIT: His parents will appear and he has at least one older brother or sister (this is yet to be determined) but the sibling is not appearing in the story)
Allergic to: Poplar seeds (so yes, he'll be cursing my final kitsch-scene)
Appearance: I've yet to determine
Sexual orientation: gay
Best friend: Other than Benni Meyer, I'll have wait what my muse comes up with
Other notable facts: Shares a flat with Benni Meyer

SPOILER: Click to show

Age: 19
Occupation: Student at the Friedrich-Schiller-Gymnasium (core subjects being Art and Mathematics), works part-time at the local IKEA-store setting up furniture
Family: Only his mother, Monika Rehms, is still alive. His father, married to Silke Meyer, died quite a few years ago in a car accident. Half-brother of Benni Meyer.
Allergic to: celeriac
Appearance: I've yet to determine
Sexual orientation: gay
Best friend: Jan (Tatjana) Volk
Other notable facts: Due to his celeriac allergy (besides being gay) he was discharged as unfit for military service, which enables him to go straight to university after graduating. He wants to study Interior Design.

SPOILER: Click to show

Age: 28
Occupation: Free-lance web-designer and party-punk
Family: Only his mother, Silke Meyer, is still alive. His father, died quite a few years ago in a car accident. Half-brother of Henric Rehms.
Illness: Kidney failure
Appearance: I've yet to determine
Sexual orientation: hetero-sexual
Best friend: other than Carsten Gessler, I'll have to see
Other notable facts: Loves to party, especially on Saturdays as this is the day of the week he feels best (dialysis taking a toll on most of the other days)

SPOILER: Click to show

Age: 18
Occupation: Student at the Friedrich-Schiller-Gymnasium (core subjects being Biology and German/Literature)
Family: Both, her mother and her father are alive, also her grandparents, but they still live in Belarus
Allergic to: the colour pink
Appearance: I've yet to determine
Sexual orientation: hetero
loves: Horror movies and her Jiu-Jitsu-Teacher.
Best friend: Henrik Rehms
Other notable facts: Strange mix between a tomboyish young woman and a real lady.

SPOILER: Click to show

Mrs. Schmäling (teaches Chemistry)
Mr. Schmidt (teaches Physical Education)
Mr. Lüttich (teaches English and Music)
Mrs. Gehrke (teaches German/Literature)

[Rikku]

An acquaintance of Carsten being connected with Henrik might seem a tad contrived, but stories often rely on connections like that, so I can't see it being a problem. =D Good luck!

[Chao]

Oct 8, 2010 23:46:47 GMT -5 Rikku said:

An acquaintance of Carsten being connected with Henrik might seem a tad contrived, but stories often rely on connections like that, so I can't see it being a problem. =D Good luck!

Thanks.

;D At least I don't have Benni and Jan forming a couple, based on first wanting to see Carsten and Henrik together and then finding their own love. Plus life as known weirder twists than your boyfriend's flatmate suddenly being found out as your half-brother. Yes, it is predictable, it's cliché, but well... what can one expect when I'm writing Kitsch... *laughs at herself and her predictable plot*

[Chao]

Yay me! *can't help but laud myself*

Not only did I finish my QW-story today (writing 1300 non-NaNo-words to achieve this), I wrote 1900 words for NaNo as well!
(Though now of course I can't access the NaNo-page to update my word-count...)

As for my story... not sure if I like what I wrote so far, as I am not sure whether I should refer to my teacher character as Mr. Gessler (as my protagonists are currently meeting at the school and are adressing each other of course with Mr. and the chapter currently is from the student's POV) or not and simply call him Carsten Gessler at times for variance sake.

[Chao]

Okay, today I found out that my supporting character Jan had joined Henrik during early teenage years in Jiu-Jitsu-Training, as my muse suddenly decided that in order to prevent my accidentally pairing her off with another supporting character, Jan is already happy with the Jiu-Jitsu-Trainer.
Oh, and Jan obviously loves horror movies...

I'm looking forward to all the other secrets I'm bound to discover about my characters as I continue writing ;D

[Chao]

Despite lagging behind because of course RL had to interfer this week, for the first time in months I don't worry about not having enough words for this NaNo. Carsten has not yet even developed some interest in Henrik and I have already 8k of words. Sub-plot is miles away, my muse is constantly adding ideas, the story is getting filled with lots and lots of unimportant side-characters... so all I now have to do, is write along and connect the various plot-islands floating around in my head

SPOILER: Click to show

Eine gute Stunde später war Carsten mit seinem Bummel durch das Möbelhaus fertig und es hatten sich einige Posten auf seinem Notizzettel angesammelt, sowie einiges der direkt in der Markthalle gestapelten Waren in dem Einkaufswagen. Natürlich hatte nicht alles auf der Einkaufsliste gestanden, aber alles in allem war Carsten stolz auf sich, dass er sich größtenteils an die Liste gehalten und nicht allzu sehr über die Stränge geschlagen hatte. Jetzt stand nur noch die Puzzlearbeit bevor.
Die einzelnen Packstücke auf den großen Einkaufswagen zu hieven war schon nicht ganz so leicht, aber ihm graute schon bei dem Gedanken, das alles hinterher im Auto unterbringen zu müssen, ohne sich dabei als Fahrer im Platz einzuschränken. Unter diesem Gesichtspunkt war es sogar von Vorteil, dass Benni nicht hatte mitkommen können, denn allein die schmalen Bücherregale nahmen die gesamte Länge des Autoinnenraums ein, nachdem er den Beifahrersitz in fast liegende Position gebracht und die Pakete dann durch den Kofferraum nach vorne geschoben hatte.
Endlich hatte er es geschafft und auch die Blumenkübel waren sicher auf dem Rücksitz verstaut. Erleichtert seufzte er auf und wischte sich den Schweiß von der Stirn.
„Alle Achtung, da merkt man, das Sie nicht zum ersten Mal bei IKEA einkaufen“, kam es da grinsend von der Seite.
Carsten wusste nicht, ob er wirklich überrascht sein sollte, Henrik Rehms auf dem Parkplatz anzutreffen. Denn nach Murphys Gesetz war klar, dass jede potenzielle Hilfe für Kofferraum-Puzzle immer erst dann eintraf, wenn man mit der schweren Arbeit schon fertig war. Und andere weltweite Weisheiten besagten, dass man sich immer drei Mal traf, weshalb die Weisheits-Verwaltungsstelle wohl beschlossen hatte, es an diesem Tag noch ein drittes Treffen mit dem Schüler hinauslaufen zu lassen. Denn diese obskure Weisheits-Verwaltungsstelle zählte nie mit, wie oft man sich beiläufig in der Schule begegnete, weil dies wohl nicht als wirkliches Treffen registriert wurde. Kurz und gut, Carsten war fertig mit dem Tag, die Aussicht, die ganzen Packstücke noch in die Wohnung schleppen zu müssen, wobei unter Garantie die Nachbarn auch erst dann auftauchen würden, wenn er grad den letzten Blumenübertopf in der Hand hatte, stimmte ihn auch nicht froher und jetzt auch noch flotte Sprüche von einem Schüler ertragen zu müssen... er war kurz davor mit einem bissigen Kommentar zurückzuschlagen. Das einzige, das Henrik Rehms vor diesem unangenehmen Schicksal bewahrte, war wohl die Tatsache, dass Carsten nur gutmütige, ernstgemeinte Anerkennung in der Stimme des Schülers wahrnehmen konnte und so riss er sich noch einmal zusammen. Stattdessen erwiderte er nur: „Tja, ich schaffe es sogar, die berühmten IKEA-Puzzle fehlerfrei zu Hause aufzubauen. Meistens klappt es sogar auf Anhieb.“
Henrik lachte leise. „Ja, ja, die liebe Anleitung. Aber wenn Sie möchten, könnte ich morgen Nachmittag vorbeikommen und Ihnen beim Aufbauen helfen. Mit ein paar Insider-Tipps geht das wirklich schnell“, bot er an.

[Chao]

I'm catching up! Plus my little red note-book which contains the ideas of last year's NaNo as well as this year's NaNo is again subjected to mini dialogue-ideas I want to implement but fear I might forget them overnight.

Story-wise discoveries of the last 24 hours:
Carsten needs some nudging to admit he's interested in Henrik, as he is wary to give love another chance, seeing that his last relationship ended with him discovering that his boyfriend had married a woman the week prior to Carsten's scheduled visit.
Luckily Carsten has Benni, who won't accept his not taking chances.

[Chao]

So, I did have a vacation day yesterday, no office, lots of time to write one might think. Okay, there was this routine doctor's appointment which was the reason for the day off, there was the new ID card to be applied for. And then of course I decided to take a look at a supposedly close-by music store to have a look at the guitars as I am contemplating a new guitar as Christmas wish. (Needless to say that close-by ended up with half an hour's walk, as it was at the other end of the street...)
Still it would have been enough time to at least write the daily quota... But then a friend who has given me some webspace for my homepage IM'ed me to tell me I had better get a back-up of my page as the server would be moving sometime near the end of the month. And we all know that server-moving is never as smooth as you wish for it to be... So... I only managed a meagre 1k yesterday, making me lag behind 1k.... I hope I can write a bit more today.

[Chao]

Although given my word-count, where I barely managed to write a little more than 1k (although this was more than on Monday), I am not inclined to look upon yesterday as a failure. Especially not as it has given me a good insight on my characters.
Both my main characters love history and movies (never mention the combination of both), though Henrik is more for relative modern history (starting with the early stages of Renaisssance with an occasional trip to medieval age) while Carsten ist more into ancient history (Roman, Greek and Egypt with some of the surrounding areas as well).
Henrik loves to find flaws in movies with historical settings. He even had to drag his best friend Tatjana to cinema because he wanted to see the latest version of Pride & Prejudice, solely for the purpose of finding flaws.
On the other Hand, Henrik is absolutely tune-deaf. His friends joke that if he attempted to sing under the shower, the water drops would flee upwards.
Carsten proves to be more of a challenge... He is much more reserved, more inclined to listen to reason. Unfortunately.

[Chao]

After two days of not writing a single word despite the best intentions (but sometimes RL has a way to spoil your writing mood so utterly that you can't bring yourself to write anything as you know you would be re-writing the whole thing once you feel better, so it would be a waste of time), I finally had a good day and wrote a little more than 3k. I'm still lagging behind, but I'm definitely catching up (again).

Oh, and while doing some impromptu research today - I had to find a matching song for a certain scene - I found this crazy page: djbpmstudio.com/bpm-music-index.html
I never knew that dj's were that serious when it came down to beats per minute. Personally, I couldn't tell the difference between 102.04 and 102.05, but obviously to them it is a significant difference. *is clearly impressed*

[Chao]

Sunday saw me at out NaNo-Writer's breakfast, which was absolute fun, lasted four hours and got me at least 1k (which given the length of time is not much, but hey, contrary to some of my fellow writers I did at least write something there). Managed another thousand words throughout the day so at least I can boast that on the weekend I made up one day.

At least Carsten is no longer that headstrong...

[Chao]

Carsten loves Jelly Babies! Wohoo! Finally my muse is revealing some trivia which makes Carsten come more alive to me (as currently he is sadly overshadowed by Henrik's lively picture).

Plus my catching up continues. Another generous 2k for today

[Chao]

Yay me! 35292 words and I'm up to par again! Took me long enough, but eventually I found a way, which had me write like mad (for my standards) this weekend.

I had made proper progress throughout the week, writing 2k on Mo, Tu and We, but Thu saw me so tired I barely managed 500 words. So much for dreaming about catching up perhaps on Friday evening. But by then I had learned to detect the evil, which was keeping me from writing. It's called 'internet' with all the fun things one can do there... So Friday I eventually disconnected my laptop from the internet (I do know why I never installed Wi-Fi in my apartments, though both modems are capable of Wi-Fi) and went to bed with it, managing 2k before falling asleep.
Saturday I simply took my notebook downtown to my favourite café and made a deal with my muse: She would get cake and a second hot beverage after we finish the first 2k, and then write another 2k. And while eating the cake, she would be allowed to use the 30 minutes Hot-Spot-internet voucher each guest can request at the bar. Worked marvellously!
And today, despite cursing myself for having dawdled with everything else (including baking two kinds of Christmas cookies in order to keep up with the non-NaNo-schedule), I managed another 3k (and the cookies). So here we are: 35292!

As for the story: I successfully introduced Henrik's mother, along with her current lover (though the lover is only talked about, not making a real appearance so far), I had Henrik turn 19 years old, spending most of his party texting Carsten instead of playing host, introduced the idea of a lonely Christmas (which gave Carsten the chance of playing White Knight in shining armour by invinting Henrik to spend it with him and his parents in the Black Forest), had a nasty run-in with Henrik's ex, and now we are having my favourite endless topic: Germany's railway company

[Chao]

So, this is the last day of NaNo and I eventually read all those pep-talk mails which piled up throughout the month to get me through the day. Because of course I’m absolutely tired. I even considered drinking two coffees today (which for someone who can get through a week with a single coffee is quite a lot), after having reached the 50k yesterday late in the evening.

This month was… wonderful and horrible at the same time. In October I had been positive that November would be a quiet month at work and that I would have plenty of opportunity to write at least a couple of hundred words in the office every day, thus reducing the daily quota to write at home after work. Turned out to be quite the opposite! Not only was nothing I wrote at work NaNo-related (and about 80% of my daily workload involves writing), but often I felt too drained in the evening to write a single word. Which had me experience what so many other NaNo-writers experience, complain and exclaim about: lagging behind throughout the week and making a huge effort of writing rabidly on the weekend to catch up. Actually I found out that if I can get myself to write, it is not that difficult to write 2k a day (2k as this means slowly catching up) or 3k and more on a Saturday/Sunday. Problem is the first part: getting myself to write. And not watch my Mootixs harvest stone and wood or my Larnikin soldier fight pests. To not while away my time by admiring other authors’ works (aka reading fan-fiction). To ultimately disconnect my laptop from the internet (there is a reason I never installed Wi-Fi at my places) and drag myself and my computer to bed to write there.

Contrary to last year I also experienced the down-dragging feeling that I might not be able to reach the 50k in time. But that’s me: ambitious to a fault. While last year to me was only the opportunity to get a planned Christmas story written in time, not worrying about reaching the goal, this year was much more serious, since last year I had proven to myself that not only could I finish the planned story within the month but also reach the 50k. It was the ambition not to fail when I knew I was capable of winning, which drove me through my writing-weekends, to catch up over and over again. (Guess, the most horrible moment was when yesterday I realized that there was no more weekend for me to catch up this NaNo, that I had to write the last 2k on workdays.)

The wonderful moments of course had been when I had caught up or when I met my home-region people. Especially the latter as it was always fun, gave me the opportunity to relax and reload my batteries for the next writing sprint.
Or when my muse suddenly came up with a way to implement the next scheduled story (a short story for the November-round of a small competition) in our NaNo to give me both more time and more words.
And of course when yesterday the bar turned purple. And the bar of next to everybody from my writing group was turning or had already turned purple as well. That's not only an awesome personal feeling, to have made it against all odds, but that our group was again successfull!

Well, turns out that my story at this point is not finished, but that I'll do another insane writing sprint during Script Frenzy (even though I would be interested in writing a script as well, but this unfinished story comes first) to finish the second half of the story. Right now the story is still at the point of Christmas, I have yet another half year to write about and I have my dramatic subplot, which I want to write about, and I won't wait till next November for the second half. I will continue on April.