Newbie « Journals of Journeys

19Nov/08Off

Oh, Hello! Days 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 … Eep!

Whoa! Has it really been that long? Wow, how time flies! And that's what happens amidst the lovely month of November for writers participating in National Novel Writing Month - time flies. If you have been receiving Chris Baty's updates you'll even note that he, the founder and participant since its inception 10 years ago, has gotten a bit ahead of himself so it's safe to assume the time continuum thingamabob does go wonky for us writer-type folk.

It's hard for me to remember from one NaNoWriMo to the next, kind of like how childbirthing goes, the pain is just that great that you tend to push it away and relish the joy that came as a result of the pain. I do, however, vaguely recall this lull in the writing and the absence from daily life that occurs between the third and fourth weeks.

Now, I'm not going to advocate what Chris Baty, the fearless NaNoWriMo leader suggests to do at this stage, which is to recite favorite ads in the phone book or have a character sing the entire "America Pie" song. To me, that's cheating, even borderline plagiarism and to a writer, that's a might scary word! I will, however, dispense some sage advice that I have collected over the years that might make this a bit less daunting for my fellow writer-type folks.

Every writer experiences a moment of helplessness and shamefulness. We get to a point where we think we're all writing complete drivel that no one would be interested in reading. It's called the turning point. And the only way through it is to just. keep. writing.

This isn't NaNoPublishMo, you're not creating a final draft that you'll send out to your agent (if you're lucky enough to have one and if you happen to have one, please consider putting a good word in for me) or box up and ship out to a POD company. This is your rough draft. Write backstory, leave out whole "how I got from there to here" segments and come back to them during the spring NaNoEditMo or whenever you choose to edit your work. Write lengthy descriptions of your characters, put them in a time and place where they might be having a conversation with you, their creator, or the antagonist. Hell, even a nice little chat with one of the spear carriers!

And once you do all that writing, do not delete it. Do not cut it out of your manuscript! That's word count, baby!

Something that's motivated me this year is learning that a novel isn't anywhere near a mere 50K words. It's more like double that if not more. In reality, when you near the end of NaNoWriMo you should be about at the halfway point, maybe even a third of the way, towards the end of your story. Oh, it probably was said in one of the zillion motivational emails I get from the Letters of Light offices (the parent company of NaNoWriMo), but it didn't sink in until this year. There I sat, almost halfway to my NaNo goal and I started to freak out. "I'm nowhere near the end!" I screamed out much to the annoyance of my cat. "I'm not going to make it!" I cried out in my nightmares. And that's okay, because I don't have to be. That was a huge relief, my friend! So take solace, you don't have to be there. But also don't start freaking out if you feel you're almost to the end and you've just hit the 30K marker. Spend some time fattening up your character, give some wealthy descriptions of the setting (after all, you don't want just a bunch of talking heads, do you?), are you getting in at least 3 of the 5 senses in your writing (seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling)? Adding those details into your tale will surely fluff up your word count and certainly make it a story you'll feel more proud to tell.

Hopefully I've made up for my five day absence with these words of advice. In the meantime, I have a page left to go of the longhand script that's calling for me. My current transcribed count is: 34,699 (what a very odd number!)

No lurkers allowed! Leave me some love! I'll even settle for your own word counts or words of advice you've got just begging to be shared.

Filed under: 2008, Day by Day, NaNoWriMo, Newbie, Pep Talks, Writing 2 Comments

13Nov/08Off

A Day Off And Day 12

Being well ahead of the game with three more write-ins scheduled for the remainder of the week and knowing that with the kids off from school, I wouldn't get much writing done anyway, I took yesterday "off." I even spent some time on the novel in progress that I had set aside to take part in this year's NaNoWriMo. No, I didn't write. The kids and I drove up into the mountains and took some snapshots of the colorful array of leaves (not as rich as I would have liked seeing that I apparently missed the window and the drought made it less than breathtaking.) I'm hoping to use some of the snapshots for the cover of "Olly, Olly Oxen Free" the working title of the book.

(c) 2008 All Rights Reserved My nature quest didn't stop there. I went spelunking today. Virtual spelunking, that is. Apparently not all caves are alike, or so Mira Beck, the protagonist of my current NaNo novel, has learned. And so she had to take me along to a few good sites where I could learn more about some caves. The Oregon Caves to be specific. It was definitely not something I could just make up, but it was well worth the trip and something I look forward to actually doing next summer when the caves open again.

Which brings me to a point for novice NaNo'ers. While it's helpful to know what you're talking about as you write your novel, be careful how much time you take doing such. Get down the points that are pertinent to the story, know that you are writing fiction so you can always make up a place, thing or person and fudge a little bit. You can flesh it out later (make it your mantra, there's always NaNoEditMo in the spring to work on editing your novel.) It's easy to get caught up in the more finite parts of the novel so you have to be firm with yourself and set limits. Say you have two hours to write and are getting stuck, spend 15 minutes max doing some surfing and then move on whether or not you have what you were looking for. You simply have to keep plugging away and moving toward the goal of 50K words (you might even find that you're not finished with your novel by 50K and that's okay, too!).

After tonight's write-in, I'm up to 28,326 transcribed words and estimate I have about 34,866 words written longhand. Not too shabby, although I know there have been others that have already reached the goal (what a shock that was to learn!)

Write on!

Filed under: 2008, Day by Day, Journals, Kathie, NaNoWriMo, Newbie, Notes, Writing No Comments

7Nov/08Off

Day 6 Do Not Mess With The Ninja Writer, Foo

This was a miserable day for writing. My protagonist doesn't have to deal with bassackward garbage companies and customer service representatives claiming the customer cussed them out nor do I want her to have to deal with that. She's got enough crap to deal with as it is with a ghost chasing her and everything! I hate it when life interrupts with writing. It made me come dangerously close to bringing out the damned Ninjas. So I opted to put on my Ninja hood and write. There. Don't mess with the Ninja writer, foo'!

All my plans for pep talks and other newbie NaNo advice has gone poof. You can thank the garbage company for that. And yeah, I now have solid, indisputable evidence that (oh my husband is going to like this) I was right, they were wrong. Imagine that. So that'll just have to wait a day with the exception of this little snippet of advice: 1.) Why are you surfing the net, didn't you read the rules of engagement from the start of NaNo? 2.) Write! and 3.) If you aren't signed up for receiving the pep talks and other worldly advice coming from the esteemed Letters of Light (the foundation NaNo runs under), do. There are some great author letters coming out and wonderful pep talks. They've been doing this for 10 years now and they know what they're talking about. Maybe even more than I do. Eh, or not.

I think I may have transcribed a mere 200 or less words in the mix of all the mayhem yesterday (Day 6) but I did manage to write out via longhand another 10 pages, so that's about 2830 more to add onto the already staggering count. Of course, that's not official until it has been typed up. I'm hoping with the four write-ins scheduled over the next four days I'll be all caught up with the transcribing and by this time next week, done. And no, I'm not going to shoot for the double goal I did a few years ago. I am aching to get back to the work in progress that I had been editing before NaNo started. I mean, I dream about that one, so it has to get done!

Ciao! And for all my writing homies, write on!

Filed under: 2008, Day by Day, Journals, Kathie, NaNoWriMo, Newbie, Notes, Pep Talks, Writing 2 Comments

6Nov/08Off

Day 5: The Essence of Music

Flair: Bother me in November and I'll kill you with a pencil. Thanks NaNoWriMo Today I met with three other writers for a write-in, some of us working on our NaNoWriMo novel, some on other works in progress. We met at a coffee shop just a block off campus that played some swanky music during the majority of our session.

Music, as you may recall from my first NaNo post, is for many a vital component in the writing process. For Stephenie Meyer, author of the wildly popular Twilight Saga, it was an inspiration during the writing process, has become the soundtrack for the movie due out later this month and has just been released to the public with zillions of downloads off her site and across the Web. Of course, Stephenie's not the only one to use music to help inspire, calm and whittle out a few more well chosen words. However, I'm a bit brain dead so I won't go surfing about to look for some examples. That's your homework!

The choice of music being played at the shop was a bit, well, culturally centric and soon we were laughing as one piece moved to another. It changed my mood a few times and the tenor of the transcribing I was doing (I almost rewrote an entire chapter just because of the music!) For one writer whose novel takes place in Louisiana at one part, the music seemed to pop into her novel. And then it jumped back out and slid over into mine as the tune was a Caribbean calypso bit that reminded me of the Day-o song from Beetlejuice. Alas, I wasn't permitted to play the Twilight soundtrack I have loaded since one of the writers has yet to read the books and doesn't want anything giving it away. The end all was when a song I instantly recognized as the one Lucille Ball's husband, Desi, sang and a bit later, a very old gentleman sitting nearby confirmed I had it right when I overheard him sharing with the employee who changed the track on the CD (she didn't like the song) that was the theme song to The Lucy Show (actually, that wasn't, it was just one of the songs Ricky's band played on one of the episodes.) It was a bit embarrassing to be able to recognize it in just a few strains. I suddenly felt very, very old especially given the man who spouted off about it across from me.

Point being, music can help shape your writing, take it on a tangent you might not have expected as the author. I, for one, will be snagging the headphones. I really don't need to have my characters cavorting through a Parisian cafe or taking a trip to a dude ranch in the middle of the desert. Attending a write-in? Traipsing off to a coffee shop to get in a few hours of writing? Grab yourself a CD and some headphones for backup, just in case.

End of the day word count (transcribed): 15181. Estimated total word count (longhand) is (let's do the math!) 1 page = approx. 237 words X 91 pages = 21567. Not too shabby! How are you doin'? Look for tomorrow's installment with some thoughts and ideas on how to bump up your word count ('legally') if you're laggin'.

Write on!

Filed under: 2008, Day by Day, Music, NaNoWriMo, Newbie, Notes, Pep Talks, Writing 2 Comments

3Nov/08Off

Does This Count?

NaNoWriMo 2008 Day Two

So, tell me, do emails, blog posts and Flash fiction exercises during writer's workshop count towards the NaNo word count? Believe it or not, that is a question that's asked and sorry, but unless you're incorporating all that into your story, no. If you are adding that to the story, make sure you don't publish it without checking the copyright and privacy laws so you don't inadvertently cross a line!

I didn't spend as much time as I liked to have on writing today and while I did do some more transcribing it wasn't enough to bog down the servers at NaNo to post for that lovely progress meter that shows up in a number of places. I'll worry about that tomorrow when I can get some serious writing done.

I think I had some dialog added, courtesy Z-dude. Think I can work this into the new tale?

Me: When are you going to realize that the world doesn't revolve around the back-seat there, dude?
Z-Dude: Oh. Think I can move up to the front seat, then?

Time to call it a day.

Filed under: 2008, Day by Day, NaNoWriMo, Newbie, Thoughts, Writing No Comments

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