NaNoWriMo

Classroom Visit and NaNo Thoughts

I had a great morning yesterday, visiting a class of Writer’s Craft students at a local high school. I talked with them for an hour about publishing: different ways to get your work published, some warnings, some resources and some facts about the money side of the business. The time flew and the class was attentive and asked good questions. I hadn’t visited the school before, but I was made very welcome. I was a bit early and while I waited for the teacher to meet me, without exception every teacher that passed me smiled and said good morning. That doesn’t happen everywhere.

In the conanowrimo_participant_06_100x100urse of talking about writing resources with the teacher after the class, I mentioned National Novel Writing Month. She teaches a course in the first semester that would overlap NaNoWriMo’s dates, and I thought it might be fun for her students to explore.  NaNoWriMo has a fantastic program for young writers with lots of excellent resources for the writers and for teachers who might want to get their classes involved.

So this got me to thinking about this coming November. Will I join NaNo and try to write a novel in 30 days? The first time I attempted NaNo, I stopped around 20,000 words. I was happily writing a suspense/romance and enjoying just letting the story go where it may, when I realized that if I could write 20,000+ words in a couple of weeks, why wasn’t I writing the book I had wanted to write for several years? Duh. So, I stopped the novel and finished Writing Fiction: A Hands-On Guide for Teens, instead. My 13-year-old son finished his NaNo novel with 50,000+ words and a lot of pride. The second time, just as we started NaNo, my much-loved mother-in-law began a swift and deadly decline due to pancreatic cancer.

There’s a unique quality about NaNo that seems to crack through something in me that just gets words on the page. Maybe it’s because the objective is so absurd that the writing can’t be overthought or second-guessed, and I don’t put up my usual procrastination roadblocks because I need to post a number every night.  Yup. Seeing that graph head upwards really motivates me.

Have you tried NaNoWriMo? What do you think about the experience? Are you thinking of signing up this year? If you’re a teacher, have you ever used the resources or used NaNoWriMo with your class?

Jumping into Fiction Again

Take a deep breath. Calm the shaking hands. It’s done. The book has been sent to iUniverse and I’m on my way to actually holding a book with my name on it in a few months time. Exciting, scary, and a huge relief to have it done. Now what?

No problem with that.  I have several things that I can’t wait to start working on. I was lucky enough to get a Writers’ Reserve Grant from the Ontario Arts Council at the end of December and I haven’t written a word. Now I am free to start working on the revisions to a YA novel that someone liked the first 10 pages of well enough to actually send me money.  I have a middle grade fantasy novel that’s been lingering for a while and I want to take a look at my NaNoWriMo manuscript, too. That’s three projects to start and I’d also like to include a short story for children in the group. Yup, no problem with what to start writing.

I can’t wait to jump into fiction again. I look forward to revisiting the many voices I have created who are telling my story. With non-fiction, the only voice is mine, and as charming as I may think it is, it’s not as much fun as playing with a bunch of characters who walk, talk, and act in sometimes surprising, but always different ways.

Writing fiction is like visiting my local flea market. New sights, textures, people, and even smells are around every corner and I get to sample them and see if they fit in with the work I’m doing. Sometimes my choices are a perfect match for my project and other times they end up in the bin, but always they are a part of my creative fiction process. I learn as much from the things I decide to eject as I learn from the ones I keep.

With fiction the shoulders come down a bit. I allow myself more room for experimentation, for deviating from the plan, for just playing around. For my non-fiction book (Writing Fiction: A Hands-On Guide for Teens) I had a strict deadline because I knew when I needed to have the books in my hand. My fiction deadlines depend solely on me and I have deliberately set them for several months and more down the road. I want to have some play time, some time to remember how to write fiction again, some time to rediscover the voices of my characters and the rhythms of their stories.

And I’m starting now.

First Draft Blues

Not every word needs to be a gem. Not in the first draft anyway. So why is it so hard to get the words on the page? I’ve got I’m-thinking-way-too-far-ahead-itis and it’s getting in the way of the writing.

I know exactly how I want my project to turn out, so I keep trying to get the work to a finished level on the first try. And I need to stop. I know if I keep on this road, I’m not going to even want to put fingers to keys and I’ll stop writing altogether.

Putting the words on the page was easy to do when I was writing NaNoWriMo. My self-editor was banished to the outer limits and I happily typed away at my story. Nothing was really at stake. I knew my NaNo story was unlikely to have a life after the month was over.

But this current project is different. I’m excited about it. I think about it every day. It’s consuming all my spare thinking time—well, what little there is among the holiday planning, finishing my teaching chores for the semester, and family. I have a goal to have it published by spring and I know it’s doable. (Yes, I’m self-publishing, but that’s another story.) In other words, this time I really care.

Okay. Enough. Right now, I’m giving myself a good mental kick in the pants to forget perfection and just get the words on the page. I’d love to hear your strategies or “been there, done thats” because I know what’s next is not going to be easy. But for now–

Kick. Ouch! Onward.

Filling the NaNo Void

Okay. NaNoWriMo has been over for almost two weeks now and how much writing are you doing? Are you writing every day? Or has your word count since November 30th dwindled to an embarrassingly low daily average?  If your daily writing pattern has changed back to a not-very-inspiring normal, I’m betting you are not alone. It’s hard to keep going when such a great incentive has run its course.

I have a solution, but here’s a little background first. I’m part of a small writers’ group that meets once a month and during July this year, we set ourselves a challenge of writing every day. We kept our personal goals to ourselves, but we let each other know by the end of the day (and sometimes very close to midnight) that we had reached our goals by sending an e-mail with the word “done” in the subject line. The idea came from an article that I read in a writers’ magazine. An author said that this is how her writing group works every day.

For the month of July we met our goals, did lots of writing, and enjoyed reaching our “dones.” However, in August most of us went back to our everything-else-is-more-important-than-writing modes and … well you can imagine the rest.

If you’re missing NaNoWriMo and would like an incentive to get some writing “done,” I’m proposing a Twitter hashtag #ididthewriting. You set your own writing goal. It may be as simple as just thinking about the book and doing some brainstorming. It might be 500 words a day until the chapter is done. And you are free to adapt the goal to your life and writing needs at the moment and to not tell anyone what it is.

The purpose is to give yourself a daily reminder that you are a writer and to honour that by doing something writerly every day. If  you’re not on Twitter, post a “done” comment on my blog page or on an email to me at wright underscore writer at hotmail dot com. Now’s the time to think about what you want to do with your writing life and join me at #ididthewriting.

Explaining the new writing project

Hmmm. There are times I wish I’d stuck to my NaNoWriMo story and just left things alone. It was so much easier to say I was writing a romantic suspense novel about 2 people who are kidnapped by a bad guy, escape, and set out to rescue the bad guy’s next likely victims, while avoiding the police who want them for murder. Well, okay, it’s easy for me to explain.

So what am I writing? A hands-on writing guide for young writers. And that’s a lot harder to explain—even if I can get past the glazed oh-it-must-be-a-teacher-thing look. I finally figured out what my problem was.

When I talked about the romantic suspense novel, my friends got it because they were readers. They understood bad guys and murder and romance and how that all works. They could see the movie.

But my book is by a writer for writers, and that’s a lot harder to get excited about if you’re not a writer, too. I explain that my book is not for teachers; it’s for young writers, ages 12-18 who don’t care if they ever see a black-line master in their entire life. It’s for young writers who enjoy a sense of humour and some attitude. It’s for young writers who don’t want to brainstorm or create mind maps every time they sit down to write, because they have a great story in their heads already and they just want to write the damn thing, the best way they can. I’ve been around these kids for years and they’re amazing, creative, energetic, and can’t wait to tell their stories. They also want to be taken seriously as writers—not as students—and that’s what I want my book to do.

Whew! That feels better. Thanks for listening.

Stay tuned for more as I get this project into shape and embark on my experiment in self-publishing.

Now, back to the book.

Stretching my legs at NaNo Station 20,000+

It’s time for me to get off the NaNoWriMo train for a while and do some thinking. Until a bout of feeling physically crummy knocked me down for a few days, I was on board writing to quota and enjoying myself. A good thing. My story had holes in it big enough for a Twilight fan club meeting. Another good thing, since it was a first draft. I was writing every day. A great thing. And I was enjoying my characters and the trouble I was getting them into. Also a good thing.

But—

Yup there’s a ‘but.’

I have realized that I’m a purposeful sort of person. And though the writing has been fun, I want to write something with—if I may be so bold to say so—A PLAN! I have reached the point where I have decided that, if I’m going to set aside time to write every night, it should be something about which I have a clear vision. I’ve been writing for fun and it’s been fabulous for getting the creative wheels to turn and to get my commitment to writing every day back again. Now, I desperately want to take that energy and that revived excitement and put it to use—at least my version of use. And thank you NaNoWriMo for some much-needed writer CPR!

I have a project that has been lurking and begging me to get to work for a long time. It plays to two passions of mine–young people and the love of writing. And I’m going to go for it.

My NaNoWriMo daily word count is now ‘counting’ toward something purposeful. Nervous but eager,  I’m getting off one train and getting on another. New direction, new excitement, new challenges—but—that’s why I’m a writer.

Photo via Flickr:http://www.flickr.com/photos/78469770@N00/

How to blindside the internal editor

I worked on my NaNoWriMo novel tonight after a brief hiatus. I didn’t go back over what I’d written before, or even try to start where I’d left off. I knew there was going be a scene later in the story in which my hero and heroine meet up with the hero’s former girlfriend. I really wanted to write that scene and have some fun with my heroine (my POV character)—and so that’s exactly what I did.

I’ve done this a few times in the course of my NaNo novelling. If a scene seems clear to me I write it. Then I go back and fill in the bits in between later. There’s no way my internal critic can get up to high doh about continuity of mood or voice or action or anything else, because I’ve taken her out of the equation with my “I’ll fix it later” mantra.

I’m sure my internal editor will declare serious payback when it comes to pulling the whole thing together into an actual readable story. But that’s fine with me. She can just sit and do her knitting until then. For now, I’m enjoying the ride.

Anyone else play around with your stories like this? I’d love to hear how it works for you.

Success is not measured by word count.

Yesterday, Laura LaRocca, fellow NaNoWriMo participant and writing buddy, wrote on Facebook, “Onano_09_blk_participant_100x100_1_pngn some days, success is not measured by word count.” That’s where I am at the end of the second week of NaNo. I have written over 19,000 words, but am many short of today’s NaNo word count goal. But the word count I have is so many more than I had two weeks ago, and 6,000 more than I wrote in July when I conscientiously wrote every day for a month. I have been successful in other ways, too. The pile of test papers that I have to mark is diminishing, I worked outside in glorious warm sunshine yesterday, my kitchen is clean, and I watched a mushy movie with my husband last evening while my son wrote up a NaNoWriMo storm and had a blast doing it.

This is a day to be proud of my accomplishments—and to also keep writing and recommit to the next 2 weeks. If I can write every day for a month, just think where I can be if I write every day for the rest of my life.

So, how do I keep the incentive going? Why did I write every day in July and then stop?

In July, I had a group of writerly friends who agreed to a challenge for the month. We each chose our own particular daily writing goal. When we had completed our goal for the day, we sent an email to the rest of the group with the word “done” in the subject line. NaNo makes you accountable to post your progress and lets you see what your writing buddies are doing every day; our “done” challenge worked in a similar way. It was important for us to get our “done” email send by the end of the day, some scrambling to send their emails just before midnight in order to make the deadline.

The idea of “done” came from an article that I read in a writers’ magazine in which an author said she belonged to a writing group who did this. I proposed it as a challenge to our group and everyone agreed it was a great success. And nearly everyone lost the daily writing habit when the month was over.

I’ve already talked to a couple of writer friends about keeping up the NaNo habit after November with our own “done” project and I believe we’ll make it work. We’re a lot of other things, too: moms, wives, knitters, cooks, teachers, TV and nature watchers. But when the writer piece of our personal puzzles is missing, the world just isn’t right. Success for us is sitting at the keyboard every day and fitting that writer piece of the puzzle into our lives. It will be good to be “done.”

Inspiration – Be ready for it!

INSPIRATION: Stimulus to do creative work; something that stimulates the human mind to creative thought or to the making of art. Encarta Dictionary

Things come along every day that inspire, that are great ideas for stories or novels or poems. But creativity needs more than inspiration. What do you need, as the definition says, to make the art? The first step you need to take is to be a working writer. And working writers do more than pound keyboards all day. When you’re out in the world are you open to new sights and sounds? Do you take a moment to look at the sunset or sunrise, or listen to the sounds of your neighborhood—radios, leaf blowers, dogs barking, airplanes, trucks, road construction, a motorcycle a few blocks away. Where else are you going to get the vivid details that will paint the picture that your inspiration suggests?

Do you listen to people? Not just to your own circle of friends and family, but to people on the bus or at work? What are their speech rhythms and patterns like? Do their voices go up at the end of sentences? Perhaps, they use a lot of technical jargon, or catch phrases like ‘you know’ or ‘it’s like’ or ‘so.’ Do they talk about their kids all the time or complain about the boss? All of these details make up the palette from which you create your word pictures—your stories and poems.

At a workshop I was a recently, I heard from a woman who had lots of story ideas. She shared some with us and they were wonderful. She was definitely inspired and had the tools to create wonderful pictures for her listeners. She was also a self-confessed procrastinator. What a shame. She wanted to be a writer so much but had never made her dream come true, because she kept putting it off.

Do you keep saying that you’ll write that story or novel ‘someday’? Make that someday now. Many NaNoWriMo writers have gone through the exercise of finding the time to write a novel in a month. Log your activities, hour by hour, for a week. Find out where you can take the time to get your writing done. Do you need to watch all those TV shows when they’re on? Can you record them and watch them some other time? Having a big chunk of time for writing is wonderful, but it can be very intimidating to fill with constructive work especially if you’re not used to it. Chipping away at a project a little at a time is a great solution and also helps you develop the habit of sitting at the keyboard, or somewhere with pencil and paper, and writing every day.

Make sure you keep reading, too. Immerse yourself in someone else’s writing. Read the words aloud to hear the rhythms and understand how the author keeps the action moving with sentence variety. Expand your vocabulary. Look up words the author uses that you don’t know. When you are writing your story and looking for just the right word, you’ll have it at your fingertips. Vary your reading so that you read in different genres and forms: mystery, sci-fi, literary, romance, poetry, adventure, short stories. When inspiration strikes, you can take your ideas and frame them in the form and style of writing that serves them best.

Lastly, write even when you’re not inspired. Athletes practice when it’s not race day and writers need to write even when there’s no deadline or no real inspiration. Writing “muscles” need to be kept in trim, too. Finding words and putting them together with depth of meaning and in a way that grabs a reader needs to be a daily habit not just an intermittent exercise that you take on when the mood strikes you. Keeping a daily journal is one way to strengthen those muscles and keep them flexed. Another is to play with words whenever you can. Take a page from the novel you are reading, point to three random words on a page, and see what you can make from them. Take a line from a song you like and use that to start a story or a poem. Describe what you see out of your window, or write from a different point of view, such as that of your baseball cap, or your backpack, or your running shoes, or your alarm clock.

Who knows? You may be inspired. And when you are, you’ll have all the tools you need to create your work of art. End

Unravel–Rewrite–Now!

NaNo ParticipantThe sleeves on a sweater I made this summer were knit on 4 needles. When I finished knitting the second sleeve, I tried the sweater on and the sleeve just didn’t feel right. I had used needles that were a size too small and not noticed. Fed up, I left the sweater in the knitting bag and walked away. I just didn’t feel like unravelling and reknitting the thing after putting all that work into it the first time.

On Saturday, my NaNoWriMo novel hit the same snag. I happily wrote a scene of great danger and suspense, met my word quota for the day, and closed the laptop. On Sunday, I realized that I had written the wrong scene. Unlike the sweater, where I could put off tearing it down and fixing it as long as I wanted, the novel needed to keep going—right away. I used Chris Baty’s delete method—highlighted the useless chunk of writing and changed the font colour to white so I couldn’t see it anymore. Then I wrote another scene, one that fits the story, and makes the next scene—and the next—possible.

The crazy NaNo deadline kept me from moaning about my wasted writing time and put my focus where it should be—on getting the book finished. Once the new piece was written, the feelings of annoyance at the waste of time and effort on something that was destined for the delete button went away. It felt good to find another solution, to fix what was wrong and, more important, to know I could do it. Back on track, I am now looking forward to clicking out Monday’s instalment.

I’m ready to finally face the sweater, too. Unravel, pick up the stitches, start again. And next time, I won’t wait so long.

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