Road Trip to NaNo: Finding the Seeds of Your Story

NaNoWriMo is an international event, and we’re taking a Road Trip to NaNo to hear about the stories being written every year in our hundreds of participating regions. Today, Al Stegall, Municipal Liaison for the USA :: California :: Monterey region, shares how his region has shaped his writing:

People arriving in Monterey are awestruck the majestic scenery. I get stuck behind them every day. Traffic screeches to a halt when tourists round the giant sand dune and behold our sapphire blue bay, sandy beaches, mast-filled marina, and sun-speckled windows peeking out from the cypress-covered peninsula. It’s particularly bad on weekends.

Monterey County’s coastline has inspired artists of all stripes, including many wordsmiths. Views of scenic Point Lobos inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Carmel’s art colony attracted many, including Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, Jack London, and Langston Hughes. Robinson Jeffers’ Tor House and Hawk Tower still stand in Carmel. Jack Kerouac wrote Big Sur while living in Bixby Canyon. The hometown writer of greatest acclaim is John Steinbeck, who set many of his novels in Monterey County.

At first glance, Steinbeck’s description of Cannery Row seems at odds with the traffic-stopping vistas—seriously, people?—and idealistic postcard panoramas:

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses.”
― John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

One might argue the disparity results from time and gentrification. The commercial canneries packed up and were replaced by a world-class aquarium and haute cuisine. In some ways, the proverbial tides have turned, yet look deeper you’ll still find the heart of Steinbeck’s description.

Where workers once splashed sardine remnants, tourists now litter the shores with wrappers, and receipts, and abandoned aquarium maps. The local fishing industry has felt the not-so-subtle pinch of marine legislation. Prostitution still abounds, though in lieu of bordellos, high-class consorts are transported in when millionaires flock to the peninsula in their Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys (and any other make imaginable).

Less than a mile away from multi-million dollar mansions of Pebble Beach, a vibrant homeless community still thrives. Like Doris (name changed), who spends her days scouring the public library internet studying the decimation of bee populations while at night she’s roused from public benches by Monterey’s finest. Undocumented kitchen workers dash out of Carmel, hoping to avoid prowling police and impound fees while those same cops free an uber-wealthy drunk driver so he can make his morning flight.

My view of Monterey may sound cynical, but it is in these layers we find story seeds. Cultivated, they bring our settings and our characters to life, adding texture and heart. As you prepare for November, scour your setting and characters for these tensions. Hunt out your quirks and warts, then place them as obstacles to your protagonist’s goals. This creates organic conflict that will drive your story and draw in readers.

Monterey really is beautiful. Please, come visit, but remember, the speed limit on Highway 1 is 65 mph. If you want to take in that view by the sand dune, here’s a little-known secret: there’s a cliff you can access by foot. There, you may sit and watch as long as your heart desires. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll meet one of our colorful locals there.

NaNoWriMo in USA :: California :: Monterey

Al Stegall returns to NaNoWriMo in 2018 for his fifteenth year. He has been the ML of Monterey since the region was founded in 2005. In addition to writing, he’s a husband, a father, and a very small cog in the military industrial complex. Al is a US Army veteran and erstwhile intelligence analyst. He’s used his Korean language skills to avoid arrest on two different continents, but fell short of brokering peace on the Korean peninsula. He’s managed a fish prison and jockeyed police cars. Somewhere along the way he managed to pick up an MBA and a Masters in Biblical Studies. His novella ÜberVern: Defender of the Multiverse won 3rd Place in the 2016 International Three Day Novel Contest.