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!
Showing posts with label national novel writing month. Show all posts
Showing posts with label national novel writing month. Show all posts
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
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."
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).
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! |
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).
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