Name: Tom Burkhalter
Age: 59
Hometown: Hickory, NC
Occupation: Engineering technician
When/where do you write? Mostly at home, but weekends at the coffee shop of Barnes & Noble (sole surviving retail bookstore in town).
Writing background: Been writing since I was 14; NaNoWriMo finalist every year since 2004
Why NaNoWriMo and why now? I did my first NaNoWriMo in 2004, mostly in the hopes of actually finishing a novel rather than getting 30-40 pages into it, running out of ideas, and spending months rereading what I’d written, liking it, and wondering why I couldn’t finish it!
Since then I’ve gotten an awful lot of practice writing first drafts. I’ve come to experience an almost addictive thrill on November 1st, starting with nothing but an idea and maybe some notes, and than ending up with a first draft by November 30th.
That first year I didn’t think I could do it. The story idea I started with turned out to be something I couldn’t write and I had to begin all over again seven days into the month.
When I finished that year, I had a story with a lot of holes and loose ends and outright writing errors – but it was a story, with a beginning, middle and end. Every year since, I sit down to write, not always knowing where I’ll end up, sometimes with the subject and genre changing totally, but filled with that anticipation of creation, of fostering one of the few true acts of magic humans are granted.
As for why now - well, this particular year I’m having something of a crisis of faith in my own ability, so NaNo will be a bit of a pilgrimage for me. I believe I can do it; but I want to hold the product of that belief in my hands on November 30th.
Genre (of NaNoWriMo novel): Science Fiction
The novel I want to write (in one paragraph): In orbit above a beautiful blue planet, you look across dozens of light years, only to find the star you call “the Sun” is faded to the merest spark, and the beautiful blue planet that is home is lost in that void of space and time.
With what spirit do you come to this place, with what preconceptions do you look down on a world not touched by human hands? How do you react to the voyage, to the void, to the limitless potential, uncertain and unknown, of the planet below? What bewilderment is yours when you contemplate that what brought you here was not the spirit of exploration, but that of the police officer, whose purpose is to arrest the first humans to make the trip?
Meet my main characters: Colonel James T. “Stroker” Davis, USAF, commander of the USS Virgil I. Grissom. Stroker’s lifelong friend, Jack Baumer, is a physicist who develops the prototype stardrive. Stroker is given command of the Virgil I. Grissom, whose maiden flight to Mars is made for the purpose of pursuing Jack Baumer and arresting him for “grand theft starship,” then bringing him back to Earth.
Captain Moira C. “Witch” MacRae, USAF: Supercomputing Matrix Program specialist who qualifies for the starpilot program. On the way to Mars and in Chaos Black beyond the Oort Cloud, MacRae must confront not only the Void but her own demons to become Chief Starpilot of the Grissom.
Jack Baumer, the physicist whose paradigm-shifting research permits development of stardrive. In a political power play, Baumer is marginalized and his work, if not stolen outright, is certainly taken out of his control. His response to that is to attempt a solo interstellar voyage – unplanned and without permission.
Have you done any planning? Planning doesn’t seem to work well for me. Too often I get into the story and realize there’s an utter impossibility contained in the story as I’ve written it – and after a bit of panic (!), I either work that out, usually with a radical departure from the previous story line, or by a complete shift in genre and story as noted above.
So I’m not one of those people who can outline extensively and then start writing from the outline. Anyone who can do that has my respect, admiration and envy.
The only advantage to writing the way I do is that somewhat fearful, somewhat exhilarating intimacy with uncertainty and the unknown. This year, though, I’m going to try something a little different. I’ve done Script Frenzy in the past and enjoy the way a screenplay makes you think about your characters and dialogue. I’m using techniques set out in The Screenwriter’s Bible by David Trottier to analyze the story and characters to see if it makes the first draft a bit more of a finished product for me. We’ll see how that works out.
Writing fears: I’m not afraid of “writer’s block” as much as I am of depression and burnout. One reason this year is something of a pilgrimage for me, in the sense of an act of faith and renewal, is dealing with depression and burnout over the last year.
For NaNo 2012 I wrote the first draft of a historical novel titled A Snowball’s Chance, which is the second book of a trilogy whose characters are involved in the SW Pacific air war in 1941 and 1942. I decided to push hard and see how much more than 50,000 words I could write. I ended up with a little over 73,000 words but I think it was a bit much for me, psychologically. This last year hasn’t been anywhere close to that productive, for several reasons, but I think pushing too hard was the start of it.
Writing hopes and dreams: I would very much like to see my novels in print and actually read. I would also like to be able to write full-time rather than part-time. I also want to keep developing as a writer, trying new things and perfecting what I do. There’s not really any such thing as “perfect,” but there is the satisfaction of seeing one’s skill (hopefully!) grow with practice.
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