Another Revised Synopsis

Leo Song sues big financial institutions on behalf of angry investors. His wife, Nora is a fledgling mother of a feral toddler and is pregnant with a child whose paternity is uncertain. The couple, transplants to San Diego from New York City, volunteers to host a masquerade party intended to build community among the aloof parents of children at their son's private preschool. An uninvited, masked woman shows up to the party and refuses to leave. She never removes her mask because it covers her deformity, and apparently she speaks no English. Speaking in Shanghainese, this stranger, who calls herself Bei Qi, tells Leo that she is his own grown daughter, she has just landed in the States from China, and she needs a place to stay.

While Leo's career hinges on messy litigation involving a scheming foreign financial giant, Nora's motherhood is threatened by the intrusion of this supposed daughter. Meanwhile, Bei Qi gets caught up in emotional troubles that rattle her plan. And when quiet domestic struggles sustain all the secrets and betrayal they can endure, the family realizes that what is also at stake is a global identity crisis.

{Actually the end of the novel is not yet written; I have no idea what is really at stake.}

Revised Synopsis for Masque

Leo Song sues big financial institutions on behalf of angry investors. His wife, Nora is a fledgling mother of a feral toddler and is pregnant with a child whose paternity is uncertain. The couple, transplants to San Diego from New York City, volunteers to host a masquerade party intended to build community among the aloof parents of children at their son's private preschool. An uninvited, masked woman shows up to the party and refuses to leave. She never removes her mask because it covers her deformity, and apparently she speaks no English. Speaking in Cantonese, this stranger, who calls herself Bei Qi, tells Leo that she is his own grown daughter, she has just landed in the States from China, and she needs a place to stay.

While Leo's career hinges on messy litigation involving foreign financial giants, Nora's motherhood is threatened by the intrusion of this supposed daughter. Meanwhile, Bei Qi gets caught up in emotional troubles that rattle her plan. And when quiet domestic struggles sustain all the secrets and betrayal they can endure, the family realizes that what is also at stake something something something something ?????? [TK] [TK].

What is also at stake?

Reader? You have any idea?

Updated Synopsis for Masque

Leo Song is an attorney who sues big financial institutions on behalf of angry investors. His wife, Nora is a fledgling mother of a difficult toddler and is pregnant with a child whose paternity is uncertain. The couple, transplants to San Diego from New York City, volunteers to host a masquerade party to build community among the aloof parents of children at their son's private preschool. An uninvited, masked woman shows up to the party and refuses to leave. She never removes her mask because it covers her deformity, and apparently she speaks no English. Speaking in Cantonese, this stranger, who calls herself Bei Qi, tells Leo that she is his own grown daughter, she has just landed in the States from China, and she needs a place to stay.

While Leo's career hinges on messy litigation involving foreign financial giants, Nora's motherhood is threatened by the intrusion of this supposed daughter. Meanwhile, Bei Qi gets caught up in family and emotional troubles that rattle her plan. And when quiet domestic struggles sustain all the secrets and betrayal they can endure, this family realizes that what is also at stake has the power to change the value of Chinese currency.

Synopsis for Rebecca Jane's NaNo Novel

My National Novel Writing Month novel is entitled Masque.

Here's the synopsis:

Leo Song and his wife, Leanora, host a masquerade party to build community among the fancy and aloof parents of children at their son's private preschool. An uninvited, masked woman shows up to the party and refuses to leave. She never removes her mask because it covers her deformity, and apparently she speaks no English. Speaking in Cantonese, Leo learns that this stranger, who calls herself Bei Qi, is his own grown daughter, she has just landed in the States from China, and she needs a place to stay.


-----

Now I do wish that the voices that urge me to write this blog would be respectful and remain quiet so that I may concentrate more writing energy on the novel, but novel writing is so challenging, and I love finding ways to procrastinate.

NaNoWriMo Tee-Shirt

So Ginny put on her NaNoWriMo tee-shirt and lots of deoderant because writing at such a fast pace makes her sweat. She has been known to write so slowly that choosing one right word consumes her full attention for over an hour, or a day. When she was writing her second published novel, Swindler’s Night, she left a whole chapter unfinished for a month because she was laboring over one word. The right word, she eventually realized, was “cadence.” When she came up with it, she had been shopping at Trader Joe’s and she nearly poked out a fellow shopper’s eye when she whipped out her pen and notebook to write down her idea. She’s never attempted NaNoWriMo, nor has she ever forced herself to write through the un-artful first-thing-that-comes-to-mind kind of writing that others seem good at. But today, she tried it and she enjoyed the speed with which she reached 1667 words. She made it to 1800, in fact. Her characters are on the page, having a significant conversation at a beer garden. Her tale is coming into being on the page, and Ginny feels a sense of relief that it is finally getting out of her head. She is far from satisfied with the klutzy writing. The piece totally lacks cadence, but Myles can’t have gotten as far in his endeavor. His novel is probably some rambling erotica crap, Ginny wonders, but then immediately tells herself to focus on herself. Forget him, already, forget him.

Myles, dear reader, is taking a bubble bath and drinking champagne to celebrate his victory today. He’s written over 4,000 words of his erotic, legal thriller entitled Thanks Be to Godfrey. The protagonist Godfrey, a lawyer and law enforcement officer, chases his financial advisor on I-5 going South and entering Mexico, a car chase scene that rivals what we saw on TV back in June 1994 when OJ Simpson ran from cops on the San Diego Freeway near L.A. Godfrey’s nemesis rides away in a black Ford Bronco, and this inciting incident throws Godfrey to his knees. Myles is so proud of writing this scene because he feels he made it very literary and successfully rendered a thrilling car chase as a metaphor for global financial emergency. If he gives his rival novelist a single thought—which he doesn’t—he’d be thinking, “Ginny, eat my dust!”

1667 Words Per Day

Myles Smyles and Ginny Floow used to be writing buddies, but now they are writing rivals.

The two met as undergrads at UCSD, eloped in Vegas and divorced one month later. But they always remained admirers of one another's work ever since they'd been workshopping in Creative Writing 101. They continued critiquing and editing as loyal writing buddies for a whole decade after their brief marriage. Alas, a terrible misfortune turned them on each other.

Eventually, Myles grew to be the kind of writer who relies on improvisation and composing from the gut while Ginny writes according to mind maps and outlines; she researches and fact checks. But that's not the reason why these two writers have grown to despise one another. We'll get into that later.

Tonight, both writers sit grinding their teeth anticipating the serious writing work ahead. Both writers plan to participate in this year's National Novel Writing Month. Both writers have their pen's poised. This year hundreds of thousands of writers out there will be taking this 50,000 words in one month lightly; they enjoy writing for the hell of it, the fun of it, the literary abandon. Myles and Ginny, on the other hand, are in this for blood. Neither writer will rest until he or she has outwritten, outworded, outstoried the opponent.

In her quiet Study, Ms. Floow is prepared for National Novel Writing Month. For the past few weeks, three main characters have been doing lots of talking, moving, acting, thinking, loving, hating, eating, shitting, dressing, making their beds, etc. etc. inside Ginny's head. She has been sitting at her writing desk with her notebook open, completing writing prompts, watching her characters engage in whatever activities the prompts prompt. She has mind mapped and highlighted and has note-taken in the margins, Tonight she will sleep with her outline beneath her pillow.

Her opponent, Mr. Smyles is just as prepared. Myles has been WiFi-ing in coffee shops and beer gardens all over San Diego, He's been playing fast and loose with the "What If..."game, has engaged in dreamstorming and diving headlong into the white-hot center of his unconscious. He's come up with sordid but lovable characters and a plot for an erotic, legal thriller. The sensualist in him is on high alert--his skin pulses: Code Orange. Now he writes about lips pulling away from a straw of slurped lemonade. Now he writes about fingers feeling for change in a deep pocket. He will sleep with another whore tonight while he recites the words to his favorite novel, Finnegans Wake, in his sleep. He's going to write a novel called, Thanks Be to Godfrey, about a guy named Godfrey. He's dreamt that the opening line of the opening chapter goes something like, "Godfrey be nimble. Godfrey be quick. Godfrey jump over your financial advisor's dick!"

At midnight on November 1, Ms. Ginny Floow and Mr. Myles Smyles will proceed to write rival novels. Place your bets, folks; it's going to be an exciting race. What do you think? Which writer will win? On your mark! Get set!