Archive for November 2011
What I’ve learned from NaNoWriMo, Part 1
November 30, 2011
I’ve spent the last day or so in a haze. This haze has consisted of a few sets of words, combining and buzzing and circling around my head like a cloud of midges:
- holy crap
- I’m done
- 50,000 words
- I finished NaNoWriMo
So, yes, I actually completed NaNoWriMo (A day ahead of schedule!) and the experience has been extremely illuminating. Here are some of the things I feel I’ve learned by taking part. I’ll add more items to this list in another blog post a few days from now.
Just because I’ve written 50,000 words doesn’t mean I’m done
The rule for NaNoWriMo is that if you’ve written 50,000 words, you’ve “won” the event and have written a novel. However, most novels are significantly longer than this. A typical debut novel published by a publisher is between 70,000 and 100,000 words. At best, writing 50,000 words means your work sits comfortably in the “novella” category. I can tell that my novel will be much longer than the 50,000-word minimum, as there are lots of holes I have yet to fill; for example, I still have no idea how the story will end. I think, at best, that I’m between halfway and two-thirds through.
Despite this, I can understand why there’s such a focus on the 50,000-word benchmark: It’s a nice round number, and it’s probably in the upper limit of what a fledgling novelist can accomplish in a month. Thus, it’s like a good workout: It’s doable, but it still forces you to push yourself in order to build muscle.
This thing is nowhere near publishable
This goes right up there with the story being incomplete. Even if it were complete, though, I would not consider sending it to a publisher – or at least, would not do so without some heavy editing. My goal right now is to prove that I have the discipline to finish a novel. However, just because a novel is completed doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good, and since it’s a first attempt, I seriously doubt it will be. My plan right now is to finish the darned thing and just let it sit untouched for a few months so I can see the flaws more objectively when I pick it back up.
“Pantser” versus “planner”
During November, I did a lot of catch-up listening to old episodes of Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing podcast. Within the show, several episodes mentioned the distinction between outline (“planner”) and discovery (“pantser”) methods of writing. Some writers feel that they need to discover the plot during the act of writing, while others feel that they should plan out everything that happens in the story before they sit down to the keyboard.
I don’t know whether it’s because this is the first time I’ve tried writing a novel, but my attempts to plan out the story failed. I found I was much more comfortable writing in the moment to see where the story took me. A lot of the time, I went down detours I never expected to encounter. Then the fun was in trying to make sure those tributary streams all flowed to the same river. Which brings me to…
Wattle-and-daub, or: Writing like an Impressionist
I mentioned in a previous post that I didn’t write the story linearly. Instead, I would focus on a scene and try to see that scene in my head to fill in the details. Or I would think to myself, “Well, something needs to happen in this scene here. What will it be?”
What amazed me, though, was the sheer amount of the world I had created that remained unknown to me. A lot of the time, when I discussed the story with friends and family, they would ask me things about the characters, plot, and setting, and I would answer “I don’t know.” I didn’t know about where my military commander came from. I didn’t know the span of time over which my story was taking place. I didn’t know whether one of my characters came from an abusive home or not.
In all honesty, it felt like there were images in my head, but they had the colouring and contrast of an Impressionist painting. One detail would be vivid, but the rest were all covered in black. As I worked harder, I either uncovered the black spots to reveal colour, or found places for new black spots to form. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced, because I feel that since this information is coming out of my head, I should know about it already. I was expecting writing for NaNoWriMo to be more like creating a painting than creating a statue out of Lego.
The million-word threshold
ISBW brought another concept to my attention as I was catching up on old podcast episodes: That of the million-word threshold. Raymond Carver is thought to have said that writers need to write at least a million words before they get all of the crap out of their systems and finally write something well.
I have no idea how true this is, but if so, then I’m 5% of the way there. Onwards and upwards!
How I got my writing mojo back
November 20, 2011
I knew from the age of 7 that I wanted to be a writer. That idea grew with me as I grew up, when it reached its most distorted apex in high school. You see, I didn’t want to be just any writer – I wanted to be that writer.
You know the one. The one who becomes a smash success with their first book. The one whose crystal-clear, vibrant prose would make readers weep and publishers bow in awe. The kind of writer who lives in a trendy apartment downtown, dispensing insightful bon mots in coffee shops, wearing black, and generally living the bohemian dream.
Despite this unrealistic ideal, one family member in particular was supportive of my goal. Too supportive, in fact. She constantly asked to see what else I had written lately, and said I would be famous. I grew very resentful of her constant interest, but still kept on writing – I was a teenager, of course, and this sort of irrational thing is a teenager’s specialty.
I hit my final year of high school and took a creative writing class. In that class, I wrote a short story that I had considered my best up to this point. It was about a high school girl who was incredibly gifted but had a lot of pressure put on her, who nearly got killed in a skating accident and then recovered from her coma by going through some sort of spirit-quest while being guided by a painfully obvious Jungian archetype figure.
In other words, my story was pretentious as fuck.
Unsurprisingly, I eventually grew dissatisfied with it. I tried so hard to sound distant and thoughtful and pretty, but it just wasn’t getting anywhere. I likened it to having a “membrane” separating my mind from the story I really wanted to tell, and concluded that I would never be a good writer, because I couldn’t break through it.
At this point, I finished high school and entered university. This meant essays. Lots and lots of essays. Some of them were interesting. A lot of them were meaningless. But all of them required effort and time spent writing. It was at this point that I concluded I would never really be a writer, because the writing I used to enjoy was fiction and would never amount to anything, whereas this writing – the important stuff – was hard and boring. Besides, my “fun” writing was pretentious and disappointing and distant, right? So much for the downtown dream!
Things stayed like that both throughout my university studies and for a year or so after I graduated. “Leisure” reading was fun, but I was just too burnt out to take the next step.
Then a funny thing happened. I got an iPod and started listening to podcasts. I subscribed to “I Should Be Writing” and “Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing” and “Variant Frequencies” and the “Seventh Son” trilogy. I was exposed to the heroin of genre writing, and it was fun. On top of that, I decided that freelancing would be an excellent fallback plan in light of my current employment situation. And what did I think I was good at? Writing, of course.
I got to networking. I joined organizations. I blogged. And slowly but surely, I started to write for myself again. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m now doing NaNoWriMo. I also got myself out of the “fine Canadian literature” ghetto that I was in and embraced reading non-fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books. Now I’m writing something that is unabashedly a genre novel, and doing so with glee.
Will I “win” NaNoWriMo? Who knows. Will my writing be good? Who knows! The difference this time is that I know that real writing – satisfying writing – takes time and tenacity.
All that really matters is that I’m doing it again, and that I’m doing it with more realistic expectations. And that’s why I’m happy that I’ve got my mojo back.
This originally appeared as a guest post on the blog of Valerie Haight. She has recently been signed on to Turquoise Morning Press. This post was originally published on November 14th, 2011. It has been slightly altered from the original version.
NaNoWriMo, Days 12 and 13
November 13, 2011
I’ve hit the dreaded “Week 2 Wall” in NaNoWriMo.
Last weekend I wrote over 8,000 words – 3,000 of backstory and notes, 5,000 of plot – because I knew that the following Monday, I wouldn’t have the time to put anything down because of a WCDR Board meeting. However, the loss of momentum was deadly. Between Monday and Friday, I wrote only 3,700 words, less than half of what I should have been aiming for. Then, on Thursday, a certain special sweetheart and I went out for a birthday dinner. So yes, my week has not been distraction-free, and I have broken the first rule of NaNoWriMo: get’cher bum in the chair!
To atone, I’ve been listening to copious amounts of I Should Be Writing and Writing Excuses. The latter podcast has been particularly enlightening, especially the episode called “Hollywood Formula.” I’m not writing a piece of experimental, literary, Giller-worthy fiction here, so hearing about some “tried and true” methods behind story structure and characterization has been invaluable.
Yesterday and today have been spent in catch-up mode. Or rather, today has been. Yesterday was the WCDR’s monthly breakfast, which always makes me tired once I come home, necessitating a nap. After that, I got caught up in playing Portal 2 (selfish! I know!). Today has involved a tremendous goal for myself: 5,500 words in one day. So far I’ve gotten past the 3,000-word mark, but it’s been tough.
However, it would have been much tougher without the purchase and installation of Scrivener. I am in love, love, love, with the corkboard and outlining features, as well as the character sheets and drag-and-drop method of organization. I haven’t used the camera/snapshot feature, and I don’t intend to, but I can see what a valuable tool it would be for the revision process. It has made my “wattle-and-daub” non-linear writing process much more manageable. I’m delighted that the Windows version finally came out this week. I was considering purchasing a copy of WriteWayPro instead, but the trial version didn’t impress me. The software was ugly, and the tutorial method was a help file that contained huge chunks of text worthy of a “tl; dr” response.
In addition to the WCDR and the sweetheart business, this week also contained another noNaNo focus, but one that is sufficiently writerly that I think it deserves to get off scot-free: I got a phone call confirming the date of my library lunch with Margaret Atwood. Now it appears that I have a new project in addition to NaNo: catching up on all of her books!
NaNoWriMo, Days 5 and 6
November 6, 2011
I have to admit at this point that I’m beginning to flag a bit. I’ve made a good amount of progress so far – over 12,000 words in total – but both yesterday and today were days where I had to struggle to think of what to put down next.
This does not mean I didn’t get a lot of writing done. I got a ton of writing done – over 8,000 words, in fact. However, at least 3,000 of those words don’t count towards the 50k mark because they’re part of the backstory that I realized I needed to create for myself. I am proud to say that I’ve got a majority of my novel’s plotting out of the way.
However, I’m chagrined to say that even though I’ve now set up an “official” plotline for myself, it feels that the characters and circumstances aren’t conforming to it as easily as I thought. Things just don’t seem to make as much sense in the world of the story if they adhere to the plot I’ve ginned up, so I’m still playing things fast and loose.
On top of that, I wrote a guest blog post for someone else and sent it off, and here I am writing again. I guess it’s true that the more you write, the easier it is for the dam inside you to burst.
One last note: A few nights ago I tinkered with saying my story out loud, recording the spontaneous dialogue that resulted, and then transcribing the recording. It was an interesting experiment, but one that I’m unsure of repeating. I got some great dialogue at first, but once it ran out I stopped the recording due to dead air. Once I transcribed the result I still wasn’t sure where to continue, but in the midst of typing I came up with an excellent incident to illustrate the main characters’ abilities, advance the plot, and highlight the incipient insanity of one of the story’s antagonists. I still consider that my best piece of NaNo writing so far. So yes. while the method had good results, it requires real improvisation and momentum.
NaNoWriMo, Day 3
November 3, 2011
Ok, I have to admit it: I’ve fallen for NaNoWriMo, and I’ve fallen hard.
When I first heard of it a few years ago, I thought it would be a neat thing to try, but that it wasn’t the right thing for me to do. Then, when I decided to go for it a few weeks ago, I thought that I would approach it in a very detached manner – write the words, count them up, and bam. A good day’s work of writing done, I would then sleep like a baby.
However, now that I’ve actually got an account on the main NaNoWriMo site, I have to marvel at what a smooth ship these people run. Municipal Liaisons. An extremely active community. Corporate sponsorship, complete with discounts. And so many people! I’ve gone whole hog and agreed to attend the Toronto-area brunch they’re having in a few days, got myself a NaNo mentor, and am even in the process of arranging write-ins with other NaNoers who live near me.
This sort of rush is how I feel about the WCDR too, now that I think about it. Finding people with the same goals and trying to synchronize your activities with theirs is incredibly gratifying.
So, now that I’ve got the love-in out of the way, what do I think about the novel itself that I’m writing?
My method of approaching the process has been a bit surprising to me. I haven’t approached the plot linearly at all. When I started writing on November 1st, I had a very vivid image of a man looking over a wall to see two people coming towards his fort in the distance. I then cut back and forth between the people at the fort and the stragglers heading towards them, and ended with the two parties meeting in the middle of the field.
When I first wrote this scene, I thought the ending would provide enough juice that it would be a great “hook” at the beginning of the story from which I could hang subsequent sections of the story.
However, yesterday, I realized that this meeting didn’t have enough weight behind it, and that it isn’t meant to start the novel at all. It really needs to be the first conflict point about 25% of the way in. So now I’m trying to work myself up to that point.
I’ve been taking a fairly wattle-and-daub approach with this. I’m not writing the book in a linear fashion. I have an idea of how I want A, B, C, and D to connect, but I’ve been hop-scotching over the various parts of the novel, hoping to fill in the holes later. Also, instead of writing one looong word file, I’ve decided to save a different word file for each scene or each day of writing. I figure that if I use this method of saving my work, it will be easier to rearrange scenes for impact later on.
I’m also trying hard not to edit my work, but sometimes it’s hard to resist. I do go back and change certain words to avoid repetition, but I’m quite proud to say that I haven’t touched what I wrote on the 1st or the 2nd. Maybe over the weekend I’ll put the jigsaw pieces together.
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NaNoWriMo, Day 1
November 1, 2011
Well, the first day of NaNoWriMo ended much differently than I thought it would.
For the past few weeks I was mulling around one idea in my head, thinking over how I would structure the story and how to introduce the main character and her circumstances. However, the story I was planning was just a bit too autobiographical to be interesting, and the main character was just going to be a thinly-disguised version of myself.
I sat for a good 10 minutes or so, trying to think of how to write about myself in a fictional manner without turning myself into a Mary Sue character. It didn’t work.
So I went back to the drawing board and thought about a story idea I’d had, but abandoned about a year and a half ago. And then all of a sudden, words came out. To be precise, 1644 words came out – very close to the average number of words you should be putting out each day to meet the 50k mark by the end of the month, and more than the goal of 1500 words that I had set for myself today. My plan over the month is to write 1500 words per day on the weekdays and 2000/day on the weekends, with an extra final push at the end of the month.
There were place names. There were multiple characters. There was a semi-dystopian military setting. I began to conceive of a backstory involving power struggles and wars and secret government experiments.
In short, right now it sounds like the most hackneyed thing alive, as God knows there’s enough dystopian fiction out there. But it was fun! Thinking of names for my characters was a good mental exercise. Most importantly, it got the words going, which is the big goal of NaNoWriMo.
So, I’ll consider this an important lesson I’ve learned: an unplanned but exciting story concept is better than a planned-out, boring, vaguely autobiographical one.