NaNoWriMo Update #1

It's November, and that mean National Novel Writing Month--a.k.a. NaNoWriMo, or just NaNo. It's a national challenge to all the writers and would-be writers to put the backside in the chair and write 50,000 words in a month (that's a decent juvvy novel, but well short of an actual adult novel, even a trade-paperback mystery. It's still a good start and a great accomplishment).

I've done it, twice. The first time, the result was Death By Trombone. The second time, I produced a mess of words that's supposed to be the 3rd Pismawallops PTA mystery (and it will be. I'll start revisions on rewriting that in December. But it went so far awry that I can't even use the working title). This time, I'm probably cheating a bit, but I'm working on converting a collection of flash fiction about Gorg the Troll into a novel. So, like Halitor the Hero, it's back to the world of fantasy that can't quite keep a straight face.

I thought I'd throw in a weekly report, along with a bit of cheer leading, each Sunday.

So: Week One.
I got off to a slow start, since I didn't get my final revisions on The Problem With Peggy (release date Nov. 28; preorders available now!) out the door until Wednesday. Then I spent a day pulling together some notes I made last summer and creating the first part of an outline. Of course, the existing stories provide something of an outline, but there is so much more to Gorg's story than is in the 8 or 9 pieces of flash fiction I've written over the last 3 or 4 years.

Since I didn't really start writing until Nov., 3rd, and late in the day at that, the word count as of Saturday night stands at 4759. That's a bit behind the curve, but I'll not have any trouble catching up. Gorg is a delight to work with, and I can write around 2000 words most days. It's so much fun to dive into this stage of the writing journey--always my favorite!

How about you? Participating in NaNo? Tell me about it!

In case anyone's forgotten, here's my favorite portrait of Gorg:

Camp NaNo and the A to Z Challenge

Yup, another post about writing, and deciding how best to keep myself motivated. And it's not even time for the Insecure Writers' Support Group!

Every fall, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) gets a fair bit of attention as thousands and thousands of people undertake to write 50,000 words in a month. I've written about that, and done it, too. (See here and here and here and here and here.  I've had a lot to say on the subject!).

In April, the organization sponsors Camp NaNo, a less structured event in which you set your own goals, with the focus on getting the work done and making connections/finding motivation. I haven't done that before, in part because April is ALSO Blogging from A to Z month.

So here's the thing: I need a little more structure and some deadlines. So I want to sign up for Camp NaNo, though I'm debating which project to do. More on that in a minute. First, a word about the A to Z challenge.

I love A to Z. It's fun, it helps bring in some new readers to my blog, and the challenge is energizing. It's also a total distraction from writing my books. And I never really do it right, because I'm always so busy keeping up with my posts that I don't visit as many blogs as I'd like. So this year, I'm doing something different.

I'm not signing up for A to Z. I'm not posting every day. But I DO plan to visit A to Z blogs. And I want to make many, if not most, of my April posts, short bits pointing to blogs and posts I've found that I particularly like. I'll continue to do my flash fiction, because I like to, but I'm hoping that I can consolidate blog reading and blog writing time into one, get around to more people, and not encroach so much on my regular writing time.

That leads me to point #2: I'm signing up for Camp Nano, and I have to decide what the project will be. I see three possibilities:
1. Since I'll be finishing the 1st revision of Ninja Librarian #3 about the end of March, I could start in on the second revision and try to do that in a single month. This would have the advantage of building on some momentum, but...I feel a bit like the work ought to sit a bit between passes, and maybe even go out to someone else to read in here soon.
2. I could do the first revision/new ending for the Pismawallops PTA #3.*  It's at about the right point for that, and I have some ideas floating around about how to make it work better. It will probably take more than a month, though that's okay too.
3. I could draft, at last, Gorg the Troll's book. Naturally, I really want to do this one. But getting 3 books into early draft form seems like a bad plan.

I know I have a problem, in that a) I like writing rough drafts more than I like editing, and b) I can write a draft in a month. But it takes much longer to revise and rewrite and edit one into submission. I procrastinate a lot. And that is where I think Camp NaNo might help, making it fairly clear I ought to do one or the other of the revisions, even if Gorg would be more fun.

I have had another thought, so for option 4: create a short-story collection out of the best of my flash fiction. That actually might be a project that could be brought to something approaching completion in a month.

Thoughts? 


*Note: neither of these books I'm working on has a title that satisfies me. That will need to be one element of either revision!

Insecure Writer's Support Group

Yup, I've finally done it: I've joined the IWSG, the Insecure Writer's Support Group, a large blog-hop group that airs our fears and insecurities around writing, in hope that we can help each other get over it and keep writing.

And what a great time to join: just as NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) kicks off. Nothing like being challenged to write 50,000 words in 30 days to bring out our insecurities. At least, my insecurities, at least this year. Because frankly, I've not been a very convincing author this year. I've taken pretty much the whole year to do a couple of rounds of edits on Death By Trombone, Book 2 in the Pismawallops PTA murder mystery series. And that from an MS (written during NaNo two years ago) that really wasn't THAT bad. [I suppose my next post will need to be about the agonies of editing. Or else about my utter failure as a marketing genius. Lots to be insecure about, now that I think about it.]

During that same period I managed to draft less than 40,000 words of a 3rd Ninja Librarian book, too. Not a very impressive output.

I have lots of excuses. I can sit around and make excuses. Or I could sit here and beat myself up: "You call yourself a writer? Writers write, you fool!"

Or I could sit down and enjoy the process of producing another draft in 45 days (I give myself 15 extra for the extra 25-30,000 words it takes to make a full-length novel).  I can also remind myself that since the beginning of the year I've posted 34 flash fiction pieces (for another 34,000+ words) and a bunch of photo essays. Sometimes you have to back away from what you think you should be or do, and appreciate what you did do.

I think I'll ignore my insecurities and enjoy NaNo. If you want to join me on the ride, I'm Nanning (I just made that up) under the highly imaginative name of Rebecca Douglass.

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Watch this site for news about Death By Ice Cream, because I'm going to reveal the cover here this week! Or just sign up for my newsletter and be the first to know all the details!

Outlines and Planning Ahead

Chuck Wendig has opened the conversation about plotting and outlining, in time for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I have written about this before, because I have gone both ways with my writing--total pantsing (def: pantser: one who does things by the seat of the pants, i.e. without planning or forethought) as well as pre-plotting. How well each works may depend (for me) on the type of book. The Ninja Librarian didn't require a lot of planning, because each story stood alone, and was short enough to get it all out at once--and to edit easily.

On the other hand, my first attempt at a full-length mystery novel was a disaster. It took well over a decade to draft, and was so riddled with plot holes and issues that I never was able to beat it into shape. The second went better, but still--revision for Death By Ice Cream was a painful and lengthy process that I didn't want to repeat. So when I decided to draft Death By Trombone (which is coming this fall!) during NaNo 2013, I made an outline. And by gum, it made the writing easier, and--the real key--it has made the editing easier (you wouldn't think so by how long that has taken, but, well, I got distracted by Halitor the Hero in the middle) (and I did a pretty danged cursory outline of that, which worked out okay, but it was a much simpler story).

So my verdict has been: for easiest writing and editing, a bit of planning is in order.

That leaves the huge question of what an outline might look like, and (more important) how you get there. Chuck describes several approaches to outlining in his post on the subject, and that's a good place to start. Go ahead and read it; I'll wait (caution: Chuck uses naughty language. Funny language, usually, but often naughty. Don't go there if you are easily offended).

What I use for DBIC was the "question approach." Start with some basic questions, and work on finding answers for them. This was my initial set of questions:

That's right. One page, and obvious questions. Who got killed? Why? Who killed him? What does my heroine have to do with it all? And, because these are, after all, the Pismawallops PTA mysteries, what does it have to do with the school/PTA?

After this page, I spent a fair bit of brainstorming time (on the following pages) coming up with answers to many of these questions--and discovering many, many more questions to answer. Eventually, I did create a more traditional-looking outline, with 5 main sections for the main--not scenes, but arcs, I guess--of the story, and lists of the things that should be covered in each. This outline was what I referred to as I wrote, and I can't include it here because it would be a total spoiler.

What did my outline do for me? First, it was a brainstorming tool. I could start small, with the obvious questions at the heart of any mystery, and use that framework to start fleshing out the story, start seeing the other questions. Eventually, I began asking really important questions, like "who are the red herrings?" "What is everyone lying about?" and also questions about the development of the relationships between characters.

When the questions had bloomed out to be a pretty good look at the whole shape of the book, I knew several things: I knew what I needed to research (cause of death, divorce in Washington State, etc.), and I had a list of scenes and events that needed to go into the story, roughly in order. That was probably key for the fast-writing approach of NaNo. I could look at the outline every morning and see where I was and what I needed to do next. And if a particular scene was a problem, I could jump ahead, knowing where something (probably) fit into the big picture.

The final outline was fairly sparse, but I still had those pages and pages of brainstorming notes, too. That notebook stayed by my computer, so that I could consult it for all sorts of questions. In the end, the process worked: I drafted about 80,000 words in under 6 weeks, and the story held together as it was written the first time.

One other tool that I am finding more and more important as I work through series: character charts. I use individual files on main characters, with everything I've learned about them. But I also have a quick-reference chart for Pismawallops Island, and another for Skunk Corners, listing every character I've put into the books, where they fit into the community, and anything really important about them. No more than one line per; if I need more, they get their own file. These files grow from book to book, though I'm wondering if I shouldn't maybe have saved separate versions for each book, so I could know at a glance when characters appeared. Maybe not.

I can't share the character chart for Pismawallops Island, because it has notes about who killed whom, etc. But Skunk Corners has fewer secrets. Here's a page from that list:

As you can see, in addition to people, I found it helpful to list all the places that I've brought up. What businesses and buildings are in town? What are the nearby towns? Geography is important, and I hate it when writers make mistakes or gratuitous changes in people or places from book to book. Growth and development of the community is natural, but if Endoline is up the mountain from Skunk Corners in Book I, it had better not be down the mountain in Book 3.

In the end, that's what outlines and notes are all about: making the best book I can, with the fewest headaches. Every writer has to find her own way; these are the things that have helped me.

Now to return to editing Death By Trombone, and outlining--brainstorming--the 3rd mystery.

It's NaNoWriMo time!

Yes, friends, November has begun, and with it National Novel Writing Month. What, you ask, is National Novel Writing Month?  For those of you who are new to the scene, NaNoWriMo (NaNo) is a semi-organized challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days (so actually not really a whole novel, unless you are working on a kid's book, in which case it's probably too long). Why? Because having a whole lot of people doing the same thing, and talking about it, is a great inspiration. And having an on-line word tracker to tell you if you made your daily target (roughly 1,666 words each and every day will do it) can be a big motivator.  If you've been thinking about writing a novel, check it out. For more information, visit the NaNo web site, and check out the pep talk from one of my favorites, Chuck Wendig (yeah, the guy with all the weird writing prompts).

Now, before I ramble on about this, confession time: I am not participating this year. Last year I drafted a sequel to Death By Ice Cream, and at last I am ready to revise it (I had a couple of other books to finish first, including Halitor the Hero, coming out Nov. 30th!). So I'm having a fine NaNoEdMo (national novel editing month). But I intend to feed off the energy NaNoWriMo generates, in hopes of actually ending November with a solid second or third draft, ready for beta readers and editors.

But after participating exactly once, I'm going to brazenly offer some tips, or at least ideas, based on my experience.

1. Make an outline. If you read this and suddenly decide to participate, you are probably sorely tempted to just start writing. Resist the urge. Even if you are not normally an outliner (that would make you a "pantser"; i.e. someone who writes by the seat of their pants) I strongly recommend making at least a rudimentary outline. I did it last year (for the first time) and got two benefits. For one thing, I could turn to the outline when I got stuck, and always have a suggestion about what to write next. I am reaping the other advantage now: this is definitely the most coherent first draft I have produced to date. Even if you just make a list of plot points you want to hit, you'll thank yourself later.

2. Make a few NaNo friends. This will give you someone to whom you are accountable. You can either feel a desperate need to sit down and write as they pull ahead of you in the word count, or you can feel smugly pleased when you hit your target each day and they don't. Either way, you are more likely to keep writing. On the flip side: if your NaNo friend stops posting word counts, ask if everything is okay. A friendly hand up goes both ways.

3. Read a few of the blogs and forums about dealing with problems and keeping motivated, but don't get sucked into the black hole of the Internet. Maybe put your Facebook folks on notice that you are not going to be around much, and stick to it. You are going to need to carve out a couple of hours (at least) of writing time each day, and that means reducing distractions, because you still have to do your day job.

4. Leave blanks. Don't be distracted by the need to research obscure things or come up with a lot of names. I am finding all sorts of interesting blanks in my MS where I didn't want to take the time to look back at the first Pismawallops PTA novel to find a name or details of an event. Keep your momentum!

5. Whatever you end up with is more than you started with, so don't beat yourself up if you don't meet your targets. Just keep on writing through December, January, and whatever it takes.

And finally, the most important thing:
6. Don't publish what you have at the end of the month. I cannot emphasize this enough. A draft is not a novel. It's a good start. Celebrate your good start, let it sit a few days or weeks or months, and then start revising.

Good luck with the writing, everyone!

Obligatory NaNo Update and musings.

I didn't originally plan to do this.  I wasn't going to write a nano-post.  I just meant to quietly do my writing and see what came of it.  But. . . it's kind of all-absorbing, and I am learning a bunch about myself and my writing, so of course I want to talk about it.  That's the problem with us writer types.  Words, words, words.

So, my plan going into this was to do what I needed to do first, and start when I was ready to start, and keep my focus on writing every day rather than word count.  On the eve of NaNo, that still looked like my plan.  My outline was a bit dim in my mind, I wasn't done with the edits on the previous book (to which my NaNo novel is a sequel), and there was that whole election thing.

Then everyone started talking about it.  People were queuing up to start writing at midnight (not me.  Never me.  I am no night owl).  So I kicked it into high gear, got the edits done mid-morning on the first, re-read my outline and decided it was probably adequate (way more than I've ever worked from before), wrote the one-page synopses of both books, and made a start.  By the time I knocked off to have lunch and a swim, I'd written several hundred words.  A nice start.

But something else happened.  I have always pretty much stuck to writing by myself in a room, often when I'm the only one in the house.  I certainly couldn't write when my youngest son was sitting at the computer across the desk from me.  Or when I'm tired from a long day and a lot of exercise.  Only, that night I wanted to write some more, so after my swim and an hour or two precinct walking, and making dinner and all, I sat down, ignored the teen, and wrote.

By the end of Day one I had learned a couple of things about myself that will make me a more productive writer, and possibly a better one:
1. I CAN sit and edit my own stuff for long periods of time.  It gets easier, too.  At some point you can be professional about it, at least a little bit, and work at it as though it was a job, not some dripping, bleeding bit of yourself that you've just hacked out of your heart.
2. I don't have to have total solitude and perfect conditions to write.  The funny thing is, I KNEW this.  For years I've taken my writing to coffee shops when I want to bribe myself.  What I had to prove was that I could ignore family as well as I ignore strangers, and ignore my own mess like I ignore the dishes some jerk left on the next table at Starbucks.

By the time the weekend was over, I was averaging about 2300 words a day, and had proven/learned a few more things:
3.  The more I write the more I want to write.
4.  An outline really does help.
5.  Writing every day and in large chunks makes it really easy to keep the story in mind.  Much more efficient than writing a bit every few weeks or months.
6.  I can write in 600-1000 word sessions, and still get the chores done. 
7.  That pain in my wrist isn't going away.

I could go on.  Maybe.  The pain in the wrist hasn't gone away, so I have to be careful.  But if the idea of NaNo was to find out if I could write like it's my job (which was the point, for me), I've already found out.  And knowing that, I know I can keep going, and that the end of November won't change much.  I'll write until the draft is done.  Then I'll edit like it's my job (on some other work; this one will need to steep for a while in its own filth), and write some more. . . because once you prove you can, there's no point in saying "I can't."

Wherever you are, just write!

I have to address a couple of common doubts/criticisms of NaNo before I quit.
1.  Writing so fast makes for really bad writing.  Want to know a secret?  Writing really slowly made for some bad writing, too.  Squeezing out little bits here and there, rather than working on it like it's what I'm working on, never made a good first draft.  It's a first draft.  It's not going to be good no matter how I write it.  Yes, if people think that their work is done on Dec. 1, they will have nothing but bad drafts, and probably not even complete ones. But if a writer understands that, there's nothing wrong with writing. . . at a pace that many if not most professional writers consider normal.

2.  NaNo has too many rules.  So ignore them.  I've gone back and changed things.  I'm here to be a writer, not to follow rules.  So I do what needs to be done to write the book.  Sometimes that means going back and adjusting the early part to make the later part work.  You can leave that to December if you want.  I don't trust my memory and want to fix it now.  It's all good.

Finally, for some of the blogs about NaNo that are keeping me entertained (not necessarily suited to young people):
M.L. Swift on what we'll have when we're done.
Gus Sanchez's Nano Survival Kit.  Check out the posts either side of it, too.
And, of course, Chuck Wendig's NaNo Dialogs, of which there have been many already.  My favorite is this  (warning: crude, crass, rude and hilarious).

NaNo Nano. . . oh, wait. . .

No, not Mork and Mindy.  This is something else.  Another day when I don't have a book review ready to go so I'm faking it.  No, no--this is more than that (though I also don't have a book review for you)!  After thinking about it and sneering at it and duly noting that the schedule won't really work for me, I'm going to join friends like Gus Sanchez (language occasionally unsuited to children) in NaNoing my own way (That means participating, sort of, in National Novel Writing Month, a.k.a. NaNoWriMo).  Here's the plan:

1.  Just finish the danged edits.  You have time, just need e a little longer attention span!
2.  Get the last major bits of the outline in place for the Orcaville PTA #2 (I really need a title.  Death By Trombone, perhaps, especially since #1 is looking like  Death By Ice Cream.  Sets up a nice pattern in titles).
2A.  Write the one-page synopsis.  That and what outline I've got should be a pretty good roadmap.
3.  Start writing, at least by Nov. 6 (post-election.  The election-night results party at my house should be a great warm-up for writing about corpses. . . ).
4.  Have a wheee of a time and write every day.  My big goal is to do it even during Thanksgiving break, meaning I take time to sneak away by myself and write--a great way to improve my sanity, as there will be (counts on fingers) 8 of us in my in-laws rather modest house.  Nine for lots of meals.
5.  Since my actual goal is more like 80,000 words, I won't be stopping with the end of November.
6.  I will ignore the rules (there are way too many) and pick and choose what will be helpful to me.
7.  I will try to continue to publish flash fiction and reviews on here, though some weeks I may cheat and share bits from my WIP (more likely the one that's nearly done; I really prefer not to share my rough drafts with anyone).  

NaNo is first and foremost meant to encourage people who have long thought or talked about writing a novel to actually do it.  I'm not putting myself in that category.  But hey--writing is a lonely process (which is just fine most of the time), and joining a community might make it easier.  Who knows?  In a way, it's already working--I've been working much harder at finishing the current revise of Death By Ice Cream in order to clear my plate to start the fun of generating all-new prose.

So any of you out there who are going to be NaNers, buddy up with me--you'll find me at Rebecca Douglass (yeah, not so original!  But I'm working hard to get some name recognition, so seems like hiding behind funny usernames is counter-productive!).

And here's my inspiration for keeping on going:

Monday Meanderings

Monday rolls around again, and I've no book review to share.  I did finally finish one--the October Terry Pratchett from my Humor Club read. But I've reviewed so many of his books, and I'm not sure I'm up for another--though The Hogfather seems to have called out some disgruntlement among other devoted fans.  The fact that I didn't have any problem with it suggests to me that I either wasn't paying enough attention or I'm easily satisfied.  Though I'm not sure I could make a coherent narration of the plot, that doesn't mean much with Pratchett.  So I'll digest that one a bit more before I decide if I want to attempt something of a review.

Meanwhile, what have I been spending my time on?  Editing, when I'm not campaigning (that's a different story and one I'll be happy to put behind me in 9 days).  And contemplating how to make the schedule work to join in the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) madness.  I had hoped to have the first Orcaville PTA mystery tucked away and the second fully outlined by the start of the month.  It is gradually dawning on me that it's simply not going to happen.  I'm thinking that I might start NaNo a week late, and let it run until I finish the draft, which is really the point anyway. 

Though all that might conflict with my plan to sleep for a week when the election is over.  Preferably on a beach in Tahiti.  Probably not happening anyway. 

See you Wednesday--I hope to have something worth sharing by then. 

Sometimes the work is watching you too closely.

And sometimes you have to look twice to find it at all.

Drowning in words

Dorothy Sayers said it, and I heartily agree: "The rereading of one's own works is usually a dismal matter" (Gaudy Night).  Even the bits that you can see are really pretty good have a great deal less shine to them than they did when they were new.

And why, you ask, this spirit of disheartened eloquence?  Because, like thousands who "won" NaNoWriMo, I am struggling with the revision of a novel that isn't quite there yet.  Unlike the NaNers, mine isn't fresh, but rather a book abandoned about five years back when I couldn't interest an agent in it.  Now, it's better than five-year-old fish--the book doesn't stink--but five years is long enough to let me see it as an editor might, which is rather harsher than the casual reader, I suspect.

Thus the "dismal matter."  But here's the thing: if I don't push through the dismalness (did I just make that word up?  The spell-checker thinks so), my book will never be more than mediocre.  So I'm rereading, outlining, making notes of what works and what doesn't, all preparatory to heavily revising a manuscript that I have already revised two or three times.  And, of course, getting some distance and reading it like an editor will make for a better book.

Does this make me happy?  Frankly, no.  This is the work side of writing, and not much fun. Oh, there are occasions when the realization that you've figured out how to make something that was just okay into something good is as exciting as was composing the crappy first draft.  But most of the time, it hurts a little.  "Dang," you think.  "I loved that scene.  But it really doesn't work.  Not unless I figure out a way to get the dog out of there, and I already made such a big deal about the dog never leaving the girl's side."  So out goes the scene.  Or days are spent in dealing with the dog, only to decide that your changes ruin something else, and the scene gets the chuck after all. (I made that up, so when the book comes out, please don't go looking for a girl and a dog and writing me snippy letters when you can't find them.)

This painful reality explains the sudden burst of short-story writing I've indulged in.  I can only edit for so long before I need a creative booster shot, and have to write something.  So, coming up next week: "An Elegant Apocalypse," just in time for the end of the world on December 21st.  You know, just in case.