subscribeAnd NaNoWriMo is over.
Tuesday December 1, 2009
I won NaNoWriMo 2009! Now all I need to do is get my winner’s t-shirt (or another, at least) and sit back, giggling over the ludicrousness of my accomplishment. Right?
Well, not really. I’ll explain.
The breakneck pace of my NaNoWriMo project this year was due in part to a lot of factors. It was a story I first wrote, in a version absurdly different from the way I see it now, back in 2000/2001. I’ve rewritten it top-to-bottom at least three times now, and in each version markedly different things happen but it’s the same world, same basic story. The three main characters are always the same three folks. I know them absurdly well. I even transposed their odd story onto a screenplay I wrote in college, for no other reason than I couldn’t think of what else to write for my assignment and these characters are old friends. But back in 2007 I imagined a vastly different background for the characters which gives a different gravity, a weight to the story that was never there. But I never wrote more than a vague scene and some notes on this new direction. I realized that this change was so big I had to delete certain characters I’d known for a draft or two, create entirely new ones, re-imagine old ones, and utterly alter the nature of the plot’s movement. (And that was scary and a huge thing to just… start one day!) My ideas for this draft were the same but the events leading to them were different, things like that. I was afraid to actually write it at last, I think. But I needed a project for NaNo and I think NaNo is the perfect opportunity for a writer to just take something off of their already large to-do list and just do it (as opposed to the way a non-writer approaches NaNo).
So I approached this year’s NaNoWriMo as my excuse to finally write this idea down, as I said a few weeks ago here. That helped my ability to punch this story out in 20 days, certainly, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t pretty much flying by the seat of my pants every day all the same. I also devoted a good 8, sometimes 10 hours a day to the endeavor, and had a lot of output as a result of the time I put into it. (And no, my fingers can’t fly over keys for all of those hours straight. I am easily distracted.) Some fascinating things happened. I was confident in my point of view and its changes. (Point of view is usually my hardest single choice in a draft! I agonize! Not so in this one.) I seamlessly slid into the persona of these old, beloved characters, even though I threw things at them I didn’t even know I’d hidden up my subconscious sleeve. It was glorious fun.
But now that I’ve done all of that, finally written down the meat of the story (and I’ve outlined what the rest of the story will be) I am looking at December quite differently than I looked at October and November. I’m realizing that while I can probably sit and finish my NaNo novel and make it what I know it will be now, I also have an obligation to myself to finish my 2009 WiP, the very same one I started during my self-imposed JaNoWriMo last January, the one I’ve been working on in earnest rewriting and polishing since the summer. I’ve made the [rash?] promise to myself that by 2010, I will finish it. Which means… 31 days from now. It’s only about 20 or 25,000 words away from completion. That’s half of NaNoWriMo’s sheer output demand. Theoretically as I wrote 50,000 words in 20 days, this 20,000 word chunk should be… well. Shouldn’t be too onerous for a 31 day task.
Now that is a hell of a lot scarier to me than NaNoWriMo. My WiP is a rewrite. Granted, I’ve diverged [at times majorly] from my first draft in this rewrite, but I still know where I’m going and [pretty much] how I’ll get there. (Rather, I know the major things I need to hit and where it will end, but the details are foggy. I am a write-to-know details person.) But finishing denotes… finality. I think I need to do it to prove to myself that I can wrap this thing up tight. Then, once I’m content with that, I’ll go back to this year’s NaNo, revisit my other drafts set in that same world… oh, the many things I must do. Oh, yes, and begin the query process. For the first time ever. The funny thing is I’m not nervous about querying so much as nervous about what happens when (“when” because, recall, I am cheekily optimistic) it all happens. When this amorphous agent wants me as a client, when they sell my book to a publisher…. I’m nervous about being a real grown up. Not about being a writer — I’ve been a writer since I was twelve, for goodness’ sake; I have a degree in writing! — but about being a real freaking grown up. I am too old to be nervous about that! But… still. Part of me wants to go tell my story to my Barbies and call it a day, like I did when I was twelve. But I’m too old for that, too.
Oh, December… how exciting you shall be…
It’s That Time of Year Again!
Thursday November 5, 2009
NaNoWriMo time, of course!
(I did see Christmas decorations at Duane Reade, though, so I do suppose it’s also that time of year, but the NaNo time of year is far more important.)
This morning I am at 18,955 words. I sprinted through the first few days and now I am in the midst of a tough scene, which has me stalled. Must push through! Several factors have helped me with my word count thus far: the first is that I conceived this story in its current form in 2007 and haven’t had the excuse, chance, or energy to do more than outline it in all that time. I’m working off of an outline but I’ve also held scenes in all of their vivid, visual clarity in my head for far longer than I really ought to have. I have a strangely visual memory when it comes to imaginary things. (Like, when I recount the plot of a novel to someone, I actually imagine the strings of images my brain put together and rebuild the story from those images.) I’m a weird duck.
The next factor is I was diagnosed with a case of bronchitis last Friday, October 30th, so by the time midnight between October 31st and November 1st rolled around, I was at home coughing up a lung and bored. So I started writing. (Getting two thousand words before bed was… exhilarating.) I spent all of Sunday writing (my friend and I even attempted to squeeze in at the Manhattan Write-in but it was stuffed full of people, so we went to an adorable little tea shop instead with the laptops.) Monday I took off from work and sat around, hacking and writing in tandem. Tuesday I was in the midst of an incredible scene. Then another, then another. Thus… 18,955 words. I had told myself I’d hit 20,000 yesterday but the Yankees decided they were going to absolutely kill the Phillies and I was torn the whole time between writing and rooting for the Phillies — yes I am a New Yorker but sometimes it’s no fun to root for the winning team! — and so I sort of stalled. That and I found I was prematurely digging into the meat of the story that I really need to wait on, so I actually need to backtrack and rewrite a little, then resume the forward momentum. That can be the hardest part of NaNoWriMo for me: I write fastest and best when I write compelling, exciting, integral scenes, and while I try to always write that way, it doesn’t happen like that in a first draft. No matter how well I outline there are still boring little bits (to me) that I slog through. I’m also a perfectionist, so first drafts drive me a little crazy there, too. I hesitate over a sentence if it’s not, well, good enough. But NaNo at least gives me the freedom to say, “Yes, it’s not good enough, just keep going and get it all out!” There’s really literary abandon in that, and I love it.
It’s exciting times, November. Can’t wait to get back to it.
National Novel Writing Month 2009
Tuesday September 15, 2009
Otherwise known as NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, sponsored by the non-profit The Office of Letters and Light, takes place every November. Originally started in 1999, it now involves thousands of novelists every year striving toward a minimum goal of writing 50,000 words in a single month. It’s mayhem and absurdly fun to do. I won it last year (meaning I wrote at least the minimum 50,000 words required) and I’m planning to do it again this year.
Last year was tough because I hadn’t really sat down with the discipline of writing an entire novel that quickly before (I’d done a chapter here and a chapter there for ages). It was crucial, though, because it taught me the limits of my discipline in a very organized, documented way. I understood under which circumstances the words flowed for me, and under which I struggled. (Knowing that now helps me with my current project. When I get stuck, I use the tricks I taught myself during last NaNo.)
Strangely enough, this last January was more or less JaNoWriMo for me (ha). I started a project vaguely between January 6-10 and had more than 50,000 words by January’s end. That furious pace continued until I had to set aside it for wedding stuff by March. Since then, I’d say I’ve also been writing a lot more in 2009 than I did in both 2008 and 2007 — it’s amazing, really, what I’ve actually written this year — so I’m eager to see what kind of pace I can maintain this November. Past success doesn’t guarantee anything, though. I still need an idea (starting with nothing on November 1st isn’t going to go over well!) and I’d had one by this time last year. If I don’t have one by October 1st, I’ll start worrying. By November 1st, though, it’s kamikaze novel writing time.
The other problem is this — what if I’m still up to my eyeballs in my current draft? Could there be any way for me to work on more than one that month? Probably not. If Things of Importance start happening with my current project, NaNo may have to fall by the wayside. In which case… gah. It’d be both a good and sad thing. Primarily good, though, because Things of Importance are really more important to me.
I tried NaNo first in 2002 and then again in 2007. Both times I gave up by the first week. The two unchangeable problems of November for me are my birthday and Thanksgiving; both occasions usually drag me away from my computer for some time. Ideally in NaNoWriMo you need to stay on pace (“pace” is at least 1,667 words a day — which isn’t asking too much, to be honest) in order to comfortably hit 50,000 words. Last year I had some days of 600 words then days of 6,000 words, which was somewhat absurd, but then again, I have days like that as a regular writer, even when I’m not trying to go for a goal as pointed as 50,000 in a month. I’m also an admitted procrastinator. That also influenced the way my month went. (For the image I posted: Red indicates “under pace”; green indicates “over pace”; and gray indicates “on pace”. Note: It says “30 days left” because it’s not yet November 2009 and the images I snagged from last year are a bit wonky, as they’re half updated; I snagged a bunch last year but I forgot where I saved them. Brilliant…)
I’m a writer but not everyone who participates in NaNoWriMo is, or at least is for their day-job. Anyone can do it. Anyone who reads has a good idea of how to start writing. A bunch of people I know personally are planning to attempt NaNoWriMo this year. Kamikaze novel writing with a collective group of people who’ve chosen to do this — there’s nothing like it. If you’ve never done it before, you really ought to consider signing up on the website (you can do that today!) and getting ready for the insanity to begin at 12am November 1st. Or 9am, or 5pm, really — the whole idea of NaNoWriMo is to set the goal for yourself, monitor yourself, and report your own word count on the honor system. So it’s entirely up to you.
Are you planning to do it? (Say yes!) Have you already been thinking about it, or are you considering it now? I bet you’ll have fun if you do it… Shameless non-profit promotion? Who, me?
JaNoWriMo?
Tuesday January 27, 2009
I haven’t posted since last Wednesday because I’ve been doing a very exciting thing called writing. Obsessively, ridiculously writing. I’ve written 22,429 words since last Wednesday, actually. That’s a 6-day average of a bit more than 3,700 words a day. Frankly, that’s staggering. And I’m the one who’s been writing that! What?! Is it JaNoWriMo and no one told me?! (Yeah, that’s a play on NaNoWriMo, I’m uncreative today, whatevs, I’m using my creative juices for my novel.) What’s really helped me work this week has been me avoiding the internet, either by going to Starbucks to write or by turning off the wireless internet switch on the laptop at home (or refraining from plugging the ethernet cord into it). I can’t really avoid internet on the desktop so I haven’t really been using it for anything aside from the internet.
To chart my progress this month, I’ve been keeping track in an Excel spreadsheet, as nerdy and techy as that sounds. What’s more amazing is my handy dandy high school Excel spreadsheet skillz (yeah, I didn’t really employ them in college) still apply, and I’m even turning the data I’ve been tracking into (colorful! Wonderful!) graphs of my progress. I input my data in the “new words” column. Using my supa-nifty formulae, the sheet calculates how many new words I’ve written this month and deducts it from my monthly word goal (which started out at 35K, but I had to re-adjust it as I realized I’d surpassed that. It’s now a proper NaNoWriMo-worthy 50K).
Then, I tell a graph to take the data in specific columns and compare it — one line graphs my cumulative new word count, one line graphs my constant word goal so I can see how far I need to go. Colorfully rendered, it looks like this:
As you can see, at my current pace I’m going to surpass 50K for the month of January. Crazy! I hope I can do it — really, I think that it’d be exciting to have done more in this month than I did in November for NaNoWriMo. And I started on January 10th! (Or input my initial wordcount of the document in on that day and started tabulating from then on.) It’s a bit… surreal?
Possibly the stranger thing is how excited I am about how good and right this story feels. It’s so alive and wonderful and has some moments that make my heart pound. I’ve had a few giggly moments, too, but I’m starting to get to the point where things are going to get real sticky for our plucky protagonist & friends, real sticky indeed. Also, she’s just starting to come out of the shell she’s hidden in for the last while, which is having some fun and unexpected results for her and the cast. I’m in Act II (yes, I think of my novels as having 3 or 5 Acts, like films or plays… this one has 3) and things are getting interesting!
Anyway, enough *patpat*ing of my graphs. I love them and they’ve inspired me to write but I still need that word count for today to keep me moving toward 50K and beyond.
P.S. Bryan introduced me to http://thisissand.com/. It’s… well. Addictive. And simple. Oh, addictive, simple things on the interwebz.
A whirlwind of… what, exactly?
Thursday December 4, 2008
The past two weeks have been just that: an inexplicable whirlwind. A strange combination of me being far too busy and alternately bored, but mostly filled with a desire to get things done that’s really pushing me to actually do just that. For a change!
Firstly, NaNoWriMo was a success. It was fun, it was painful, and it’s over. I can’t wait until next year’s attempt (I have learned, O NaNo, to respect thee and come into November prepared for thine total domination of my mind, ha) but I also, somewhat desperately, want to get back to what I was working on before NaNo took over my life. I recently re-read my draft and got excited about it all over again. I asked my friend to read it over and she’s given me some terrific feedback that’s given new zest to the fire under my butt to get it done. Also, because this is probably, at present, my single most interesting novel, I’m fascinating by the whole creative process — I, by and large, write to discover — but I’m also daunted by all of the things I simply don’t know about this plot yet. I have a vague, overhanging notion of where it’s going, how it will end, what happens to get it there — but it’s vague.
Thus writing to discover’s weak point… the whole vague part can’t really be wholly sharpened until I get there. It’s not that I have so many “things to do” that daunt me. Things are things: tangible, visible things. It’s my lack of certainty, of knowledge, of the plot that’s truly daunting. I hate looking ahead in my imagination and seeing this tangled Black Cloud of the Unknown I now have to plunge into, because while it can be fun, I also do like to have an idea of where I am going as I am getting there. There’s the famous E. L. Doctorow quote, that writing “is like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” That’s true, but I also like to be aware of landmarks on my route to know that I haven’t gone astray from the path that’s leading toward my desired conclusion. Sometimes the journey there has changed that conclusion (it’s happened more than once that while getting there I realized my vague desire was irrational and needed to be changed). Even so, it’s not an entirely comfortable feeling for someone like me, who tries to go into most things in life as completely prepared for all exigencies as possible. I traveled to Europe with lots and lots of guidebook information both with me and in my head and though we didn’t have a lot of hotel reservations, I worked my butt off before hand so I knew I could survive traveling into a city without being prepared with a bed to sleep in that night. Bryan’s confidence in himself and in me helped me a lot, and he’s been helping me get through writing the same way, with the same faith and confidence in me.
I know I have that same faith and confidence in myself, too. It’s somewhat cheeky, my view of my own future success. I know I will do it. I know it with a pure, palpable, ferocious certainty that will not be undermined or driven off course. I am too stubbornly determined to be a success to not succeed. But there are levels of success, there are levels of perfection — or perceived perfection — and it’s hard, so hard, to be able to plunge forward at this early stage in the game and not want what I am producing now to be as polished and perfect as the end result will be.
To that effect, NaNoWriMo’s Chris Baty had some brilliantly simple advice on the site the other day:
Do not spend a single second making your prose readable until you’re absolutely, positively sure that you have your story locked down. This is the single most important bit of advice I have, and I ignore it all the time and have wasted years of my revising life because of it. The impulse to snappy-up dialogue and make sentences eloquent is almost irresistible at every point in the revision process. It makes sense: We’re surrounded by so many big, messy plot and character problems that it’s nice to seek solace in tidying up sentences. It’s a finite task, it’s instantly gratifying, and it makes us feel like we’re making progress on our books. The sadness comes when we spend six months transforming our first three chapters into Pulitzer-worthy gems, only to realize that none of those chapters will actually end up in our novels because they don’t work with the ending. This happens over and over and over, and it will kind of make you want to die. My advice: Think of your second draft as a house that you’re building. You need to pour the foundation, frame the walls, and get a reasonably waterproof roof over your head before you start to think about putting art up on the walls and installing the basement bowling alley and aviary. Let the art-hanging and bird-bringing be the treat you give yourself for all your manual labors with the cement mixer and nail gun.
When I read that, I sort of snorted and said to myself, “Yep, that’s exactly what you do. Exactly.” Reading the first few chapters of my draft, I noticed how tight and well-written they were. I was proud of myself. Then reading through successive chapters, I saw how much looser the prose got, how much more rambly the dialogue became, how vague the scenery was… and I realized, I’ve spent so much time revising that draft, and not plunging forward, that I’m undermining myself. Every time I make the beginning more perfect, the Black Cloud of the Unknown gets thicker, murkier, and less certain of successful navigation, simply because I keep crystalizing what comes before without first determining what comes after. Katherine Patterson said it in her NaNo pep talk, precisely:
I live in Barre, Vermont which calls itself the “Granite Capital of the World.” Outside our town are enormous quarries, so when I speak in local schools every child has a mental picture of a granite quarry. “You know how hard it is to get granite out of the quarry,” I say. “You have to carefully score the rock and put the explosive in to make the great granite block break loose from the face of the stone. Then you have to attach the block to the chains so that the cranes can lift it slowly out of the hole and put it on the waiting truck. That’s the first draft. It’s hard, dangerous work, and when you’ve finished, all you’ve really got is a block of stone. But now you have something now to work on. Now you can take your block down to the shed to carve and polish it and turn it into something of beauty. That’s revision.”
So I suppose it comes down to this: NaNoWriMo taught me that I am capable of ridiculous output. Make that output now a weekly goal of a certain number of words — or actual time spent world building, researching, outlining/plotting, or developing characters — and I can certainly tackle this beast effectively.
Add to that revamped desire my absolute cheeky optimism, brash confidence, and unwavering determination… yep, I can do this.
The High Lord by Trudi Canavan
Tuesday November 25, 2008
I just finished The High Lord by Trudi Canavan, instead of writing (more) for NaNoWriMo. I’m down to the wire and a little behind for my early deadline but I could not put this book down. Absolutely could not. I decided I’d read a chapter or two earlier (I’d been doing that with the book so far, systematically reading only a few chapters at a time, desperately trying to save it for Thanksgiving break and finding I either enjoyed it too much or read it too fast). Then I hit its end-of-Part-I rise and I could not stop. I could barely contain myself all through Part II, getting all giddy and page-turning-crazed every few minutes or every other chapter.
I’ll try to keep the spoilers vague, as usual. Not to give anything away, but the ending both surprised and somehow felt right, though naturally I had thought of two or three other possibilities that I’d been thinking were more likely than what happened. Had I written the book at this stage in my life, it would have ended differently, I know that, and I can’t help thinking of the ending I wanted and didn’t get and feeling a bit sad. But I did enjoy it, let me make that clear. Admittedly, if every book I read proceeded along a path that was perfectly in line with my own tastes and desires, I would have no reason to write, now would I? I started writing books as a kid in “answer” to books that displeased me for one reason or another.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and the trilogy as a whole. I’m glad I bought them, retrospectively; I’ll end up reading them again one day, I’m sure. The third book was by and large the best and most exciting, as well as most satisfying, but that was accomplished in large measure due to its being the final book of a trilogy. The plots of each book were distinct and strong, as was the trilogy’s overarching plot. What Canavan built up across the trilogy paid off very nicely throughout. Each book had its little satisfactions but ultimately the third was the best, just because the largest, most interesting set-ups generally have the greatest and most exciting pay-offs. The character of the High Lord, Akkarin, for instance. He’s built up remarkably well — and slowly! — but a lot of that also has to do with the trade-offs between point of view. Canavan made certain POV judgments early on (limited third person) and decided to only choose certain characters through whom we would get to consistently see their world (Sonea, Cery, Lorlen, Rothen, Dannyl), and others to consistently be a mystery for us and the characters to discover. That was a good choice that paid off well.
Two points disagreed with me, though. The first book took forever to engage me. I was determined but not so many readers are. (I’d invested money which I never do when there are library copies easily accessible, which there weren’t for this trilogy.) I also wasn’t too daunted because the books are not that thick. They’re a good, proper-book size. I like proper-book-sized books. Why take 800-900 pages when you can do it in 300-500? Yet, to give Canavan credit, once you stumble through names and the world (which is immediately presented in full complexity — which was good; but this is not terrifically interesting because it’s all conversations and arguments — which was bad) there is enough there to hold on to. The High Lord and Dannyl probably hooked me the most to start with — even Sonea (the main character) was a little boring, though Cery proved interesting immedaitely.
The second point I wasn’t crazy about was, well, Trudi Canavan’s style. This had its good and its unfortunate moments. She is a terrific plotter and has a very smooth sense for consistent, active pace and tension — only when she’s gotten all of the “set up” done. She spends a lot of time setting up (especially in The Magician’s Guild where that slow start can also viewed as “set up” for the entire trilogy, which a large part of it effectively is). The exposition in that regard was engaging, however, so this only hit me retrospectively. The good of such quick plotting and movement is that the book is a really engaging and quick read once you “get into it”, which I always like to see and read. As much as I like to be pulled in from the first paragraph, sometimes I’ll be more patient if the book gets really good and makes up for it, as these did.
The bad part of her style of writing was that I had a hard time connecting, emotionally, at several pointswith the characters and the scenes (especially in The High Lord). These emotional moments were described in such rough, to-the-point exposition I couldn’t feel with the characters. I was shown (good, at least) how they seemed to be feeling and knew, based on the set up how they must be feeling given very good previous set up and characterization, but that resonance, that which should make me Cheer! or Weep! was not there. My eyes practically flew over these scenes as usual and I felt my mind skid to a halt and think, “Wait, what just happened to whom? What just went on there?” That was disappointing and a little disheartening. I love getting brought to that same height of emotion as the characters, especially characters we care about, or should be caring about. As I wrote about in my thesis, fantasy literature is a form of art, and in its highest form, as any true art, it can evoke in us the visceral emotions of the highest highs and lowest lows of the human experience. Regardless of how magical or inhuman the characters are, they have still got to resonate with us for us to really take something powerfully away from the book — and I do believe the best writing always lets us take something away from it, regardless of what that “something” is.
I bawl my eyes out when reading books; this has happened in the past, both for “happy” and “bittersweet” endings. Robin McKinley’s Deerskin saw me reacting colorfully all over the spectrum, while the third book in Robin Hobb’s Liveship Trader’s Trilogy (Ship of Destiny) had me bawling all over the place and grinning through tears in a way I really was shocked about. (Love/hate with characters? Yes. That book had me all over the place — and one of the most rewarding, shocking, and thoroughly terrific character arcs I’ve ever read. I love Malta Vestrit.) Come to think of it, Robin Hobb usually evinces that strong emotional reaction from me; Fool’s Fate had me bawling for hours, but that was also PMS coupled with one of those unusual twin-emotion realizations: when you realize what the character has seen and felt is what you, in the real world, are experiencing in your own life as well. Fitz and I had a moment, at the end of Fool’s Fate when I read it during the fall of my senior year of college. I think I remember distinctly that Bryan had to hold me as I nattered on and on about things he was really confused about having to do with the book’s plot and its connection to my own life, however tenouous and vague it was factually but how similar emotionally in some weird sense.
Call me crazy but I love when a book evokes that level of response from me. As much as I hate the feeling of “leaving a world” that really, really good books (or series) give me when I finish reading them (and again, upon re-readings), I love it. It’s not “escapist”; no, I don’t read these books desperately seeking an emotional distraction, though I have read books over and over seeking that comfort before. But a really good book does pull me in and let me see a different world and hang around with a hopefully interesting cast of characters, and it’s the most exciting thing in the world for me. When writing, I get as emotionally attached as when reading, though, which both makes it fun and tough, but it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve done.
To conclude, I definitely recommend The High Lord and the whole Black Magician Trilogy, though I bet you won’t react to it the same way I did. We’re all different readers, after all.
Now, to put my mind firmly on being a winner of National Novel Writing Month 2008. It’s been a good month but my brain is exhausted. Wrung out. If this novel had been at all planned or outlined I doubt I’d be feeling so wrung dry of all imaginative juices. But it’s been a really informative month about my own natural pace and capacity for work, as well as given me a newer appreciation for my desperate need to take breaks from stretches of “work” — reading, watching TV, playing mindless games… these are all good things. Really they are. I’ve missed them dearly this month.
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