Initial NaNo planning.

So I did it. I officially signed up for NaNoWriMo. I have mixed feelings about this.

My first three novels were written out of a need to hash out some things I had going on. The ideas weren't planned, and the stories came from me, something like Athena. Here now is my first attempt to write something I'm not specifically emotionally dealing with. So I'm building from nothing. But I have a few ideas, and, of course, they came to me at 2:30 in the morning. (Thanks Elsie, for licking my knee and waking me up.)

What I'm working with right now:

A Playlist.
I asked for songs, and ten of you shared. Here's the list.
"Burn" Jeremy Enigk
"Jack and Diane" John Mellencamp
"Fascist Architecture" Bruce Cockburn
"Cosmic Love" Florence + the Machine
"Landslide" Fleetwood Mac
"Guinevere" Eli Young Band
"I Don't Feel It Anymore" William Fitzsimmons (featuring Priscilla Ahn)
"Into The Mystic" Van Morrison
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" Bob Dylan
"3 Days" Jane's Addiction
"Carry The Zero" Built To Spill

The Chapters
I thank Doug Martsch (Built To Spill) for the idea for this one. He's got this fantastic song called "You Were Right" that borrows lines from famous songs, and turns it into a story. For instance, "You were right when you said all that glitters isn't gold/ you were right when you said all we are is dust in the wind/ you were right when you said we're all just bricks in the wall/ and when you said manic depression's a frustrated mess/ You were wrong when you said everything's gonna be alright."
He uses that line from Jack and Diane "Life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone" and I can't hear Mellencamp without thinking of BTS. I was trying and trying to think of what to do with that completely incongruous list of songs, and listening to them, waiting for inspiration. Of course, it came to me on the elliptical. Kind of a take-off from "You Were Right", I'll pick a line from each song and use it somehow in a chapter. So the novel will have 11 chapters, the same as the number of songs.

The Story
So I've got the songs, and a basic idea of how I'm going to approach the structure, but absolutely no idea what this is going to be about. I've been poking around other NaNo's pages, and people have outlines, white boards of ideas, full synopses already written. Okay, so I'm a pantser, but jeez. I should probably have a little more done.
I was up this morning (thanks again Elsie!) doing the toss/turn thing, and letting my mind float around in the way that sometimes helps you fall back asleep. Problem is, my mind tends toward things that get me riled up and I started thinking about that stupid comment from Anonymous several weeks back. It really pissed me off. But then I thought, What if a person was trying to find love while within the confines of their marriage? And then I thought about FREEDOM, that post about "Perfection" I read by @danoah, and about a comment a customer made years ago that struck me, "I used to listen to good music. I'd forgotten that about myself."
Idea!
I'm going to write about a woman's infidelity.

I wonder if this story's not a little like calling decoupage art, since all my ideas have come from outside sources, but I suppose inspiration can come from anywhere. And, really, there's no such thing as an original idea. Anyway, it's just 50K, it's just a month, and this exercise is more about me working on my writing than working on a project I adore.

Listening to: I should be listening to my NaNo playlist, but I'm actually listening to my WHERE CURRENTS PULL playlist.

xo. kb.