Last Sunday there was a raging snowstorm outside and inside the Waves Coffee boardroom on Columbia Street, we were jammed in elbow-to-elbow for The Other 11 Months Write-in.
Today it was sunny and a balmy 10ºC (as it should be in mid-February) and only six showed up and two left early. On the one hand, fewer people is a bit of a bummer. On the other hand, I had plenty of room to stretch out in all directions. And did!
It was also a very quiet group, with church-like silence for nearly the entire three hours, save for a burst of chatter at the start and the tapping of keys throughout. At the end, several agreed it had been quite productive for them, so yay for silence.
I again continued to work through old, unfinished material, focusing today on Weirdsmith, The Mean Mind and Road Closed. Most of the work was done on Road Closed, as I fully converted it over to Ulysses, breaking each scene out into a separate sheet.
At this point, I’m pretty much done prepping my unfinished projects and have one of two choices for the next write-in:
Pick a project and resume working on it (that is, start producing new material–you know, actual writing)
Start something entirely new.
Bonus: Do neither of the above and just tinker for three hours again.
#3 is going to be tempting but I really need to commit to moving forward on something. Maybe I can conduct a self-poll. Or write a story about indecision. Or both. So many decisions.
Turnout for this week’s writing group was surprisingly high given the snowy conditions (the latest dump started midway through the writing session). As we gathered elbow to elbow around the conference table we settled into a mostly quiet session, punctuated by a few bursts of chatter over pitches for books and random advice.
One person had an iPad mini hooked up to a full-size PC keyboard. That was a little weird. The person to my left had a MacBook. I could tell just by closing my eyes and hearing how the keyboard clicked when she was typing.
For the third week in a row I bounced between projects, spending the bulk of my time converting The Mean Mind from Scrivener to Ulysses format and reading along as I went. To my surprise, it held up fairly well.
Soon I need to commit to finishing an existing project or starting a new one. When I think about trying to choose one thing to focus on I actually feel a certain level of anxiety, almost the beginning of a stress headache. Probably not a good thing.
I went to my second The Oher 11 Months write-in today and was better prepared for the weather, which was very wet (I say yes to this as I hope it can eradicate the last of the damn snow).
Once inside I asked for the same Chai tea I had last time. Every time I go to a coffee place and order a tea I always get asked if I want a tea latte and have to say no, just tea, with a teabag, in hot water, like people have enjoyed for thousands of years. If I wanted a tea latte I would order a tea latte, not a tea. But still they ask.
They asked again today. I confirmed I wanted tea, not a tea latte, but the girl at the counter was confused by my request for Chai, acting as if it never existed. Rather than go on about how I got it with no fuss last week, I just ordered English Breakfast and pretended I was in London.
When I went into the meeting room, a discussion took place over the various size cups we had, with the conclusion being that although only two sizes are listed on the menu (Regular and ‘Waves’–how twee) there are in fact more sizes and their purpose is to sow confusion, because we couldn’t come up with anything better.
When I settled in and opened the lid of my MacBook Pro I discovered the battery was at 68%. This was odd as I had left it plugged in and charging and I’m pretty sure the ten minutes to get to Waves would not drain 32% of the battery. I then remembered I had applied a hefty update and in moving the Mac to its usual spot I may have jiggled the USB-C cable just loose enough to have it stop feeding power. Even so, having it lose 32% of its battery over three days is not very reassuring. I easily got through the writing session, though, as the three hours only consumes about 25% battery.
I’m still not sold on the new low-travel keyboard, either. I’m close to saying Apple made a flat-out mistake with it. It’s simply not that comfortable to type on. It feels like banging your fingers on a table because there’s so little give. And it’s noisy for a laptop keyboard. Apple’s obsession with thin is starting to bump up against keeping things comfortable and practical.
As for my actual writing, I did a repeat of last week, bouncing between projects, re-reading and tweaking and moving a few more into Ulysses. I then wanted to look at the corkboard I made for Rainy Day. This is a feature of Scrivener, so I downloaded the program and was pleasantly surprised that it automatically registered and activated itself (kind of spooky, really). The pleasant surprise was replaced by an unpleasant one when the program kept repeatedly crashing, making it utterly useless. I didn’t want to waste my time troubleshooting at the write-in so I just left it.
This is far from the first time I’ve had issues with Scrivener and it’s not been platform-specific, either, as problems have happened in Windows and macOS, even when keeping the projects relegated to one platform to reduce the chance of error. I’m pretty close to being done with it. It’s a nice tool but seems in need of a complete rewrite (which sounds like it may be coming, more or less, though when is another question).
In the end I probably read more than I wrote and it’s been a bit frustrating to not fully commit to one thing to work on–a three-hour block is a huge amount of time to get a lot done–but I will keep going and hopefully something will stick. My goal in the next week is to resume doing prompts to help grease the writing wheels.
Yesterday I did something I would have done during National Novel Writing Month if my novel hadn’t stalled out after 10,000 words. I took part in a write-in, specifically one set up as an offshoot of the local NaNoWriMo group where people are invited during the NaNo off-months to write at Waves Coffee in New Westminster every Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
There’s a reserved from at the back that conveniently has a door that can be closed, allowing writerly types to scribe with little interference from outside. Eight had officially signed up on the Facebook page but a total of 11 made it, which resulted in a rather crowded table. I almost felt like I was co-authoring the projects of those to my left and right through osmosis.
Still, it was useful to have that three-hour block of (mostly) quiet concentration and focus. While I didn’t work on a single project, I successfully bounced around several, including:
new material on my 2014 NaNo novel, Road Closed
going over 2016’s stalled project and fixing most of the tense problems (specifically I started writing in the present tense then switched to the past tense without consciously meaning to. I have managed to fix all but the final section of writing to align everything to the present tense).
I was hoping to do some work on the short story “The Box on the Bench” but am still mulling over how best to approach it. I’ll write more on the revival of this ten-year-old (!) project soon.
Apart from a slight crick in my neck, I found the experience useful and refreshing. I’ll definitely be returning. If I actually write straight through next time I should be able to get quite a bit done, a novel (ho ho) change from my progress of late.
Stop spending all your time reading “How to improve your writing” articles and just write instead.
More seriously, there is a certain seductiveness in constantly seeking advice, a kind of pleasure that comes from immersing yourself in writing without doing any actual writing. It also helps one neatly avoid failure, too, since zero production = zero chance of failure.
I have actually become worse with this in the last few months, spending far more time reading about writing than writing. On the plus side, I have gotten a lot better at determining quality tips from puff pieces (most articles are puff pieces).
Conveniently one of my resolutions–just three days away from being implemented–includes a concrete writing goal. I am further working on fleshing out specifics. For a change, I am going to plan everything out as much as possible and leave the spontaneity to whatever writing I produce. I expect this to yield fruitful results, especially if I write about fruit.
This article highlights a number of interesting and useful tools–I approve!
One of these is HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator. I love generators because the results can sometimes work as intended, providing inspiration when you struggle to write anything, but more often they provide unintended amusement because they will happily interpret things literally or combine items in silly ways that are not meant to be silly
This leads to the results I got. As requested, I entered three nouns:
cat
future
writing
I was not advised to write about cats in the future…or was I? Here are my week’s worth of suggested topics:
10 Quick Tips About Cat
What Will Writing Be Like in 100 Years?
10 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About Future
14 Common Misconceptions About Cat
10 Signs You Should Invest in Writing
First, I must admit I love the idea of this monolithic entity known as Cat. Cat is good. Cat is all. You will respect Cat. I am less convinced that I could come up with ten quick tips about Cat or 10 signs I should invest in writing. But I’m going to try, right now!
10 Quick Tips About Cat
Cat is furry
Cat has four legs
Cat has tail
Cat likes cat food
Cat will chase laser pointer light
Cat will sleep on your keyboard
Cat does not like Dog
Cat loves Mouse
Cat is smarter than you
Cat will come back the very next day
What Will Writing Be Like in 100 Years?
We’ll have fully switched over from fountain pens and foolscap to holo-typing machines that imprint the letters into a space slightly in front of and above our faces. Writing will be a holistic experience, one you share just by running up to someone and saying, “Watch this!” while you spew out words into the air between you and them. Then they will leave because you’re a bit of a freak. Writing will still be a very lonely thing.
10 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About Future
The future is always just ahead
There’s no future in the past
Prices will be higher
That dude who is taller than you? In the future he’ll still be taller than you
Wait, who are my competitors, exactly?
If you don’t correctly anticipate future trends, you’ll never stop wearing those acid wash jeans
The future is so bright you will need to wear shades
Invest in sunglass manufacturing
What goes up must come down, so invest in elevator technology
Still not sure who my competitors are but they should watch out because I have read many books that predict the future using advanced math or something
14 Common Misconceptions About Cat
Cat is really Dog in disguise
Cat will never miss when jumping onto Couch
Cat likes cheese; it is Mouse that likes cheese, though Cat likes Mouse the way Mouse likes Cheese
Cat uses tail to communicate complex thoughts
Cat is alien species silently watching and judging us
Cat is spelled Kat in some countries; this is only done in cartoons for humorous effect, not in real life
Kit Kat contains real Cat (see above)
There are no cats with nine tails
Cat on a hot tin roof does not mean Cat likes being on a hot tin roof–do not put Cat on hot tin roof
Cat only speaks when it has something important to say (note: this may actually be true, Science has yet to prove one way or the other)
Cat likes taking many baths
Cat will never sleep on your keyboard
Cat will never come back the very next day
Cat enjoys long lists about misconceptions
10 Signs You Should Invest in Writing
You see a big sign that says “You Should Invest in Writing”
Your crazy but rich uncle says, “I’ll give you $100,000 if you write some stupid novel about anything.”
You have a vision of the future and it’s filled with blank pages–and only you have a working pen!
It’s better than investing in 8-track tape technology
Time magazine will one day make “Words” the Person of the Year, making writing hot and in demand
It’s like the lottery, someone’s going to strike it rich, so why not you? (Not applicable if you’re a hopeless hack.)
A typewriter can be used for writing, self-defense and as a door stop; to not invest in something so practical would be foolish
For #7 you may also want to invest in a time machine in order to acquire a typewriter
Darth Vader shows up at your place and says, “Invest in writing or I’ll force choke you where you stand.” It’s probably just another one of your kooky dreams but better to not take any chances
Because you saw it in a list
There, all done! Wait, that was supposed to be stretched over a week. I’ve done it all horribly wrong? Now what will I write about tomorrow?
Not to worry–there are plenty more great prompts just waiting to be used!
Now that my NaNoWriMo 2016 project has officially fizzled out, here’s my plan for 2017 if I choose to participate again (and I am at this very early stage leaning toward not doing so):
Come up with an idea at least a full month ahead of time
Plan out the tools to be used for the writing at least two weeks in advance
Outline the novel (new!)
Spend at least the first weekend building up as large a buffer as possible (the first weekend starts on Saturday, November 4th)
Talk talk talk about my novel–share all kinds of stuff, go totally bananas on it (new!)
Attend more local NaNoWriMo events
And that’s about it. I actually did the first two this year and still flopped. Maybe adding in the other four will result in dazzling success.
Technically I could still complete National Novel Writing Month 2016 successfully by writing just under 40,000 words between now and midnight tomorrow.
If you are a gambling type I recommend against betting on this happening.
Then again, Donald Trump is President-Elect. Right is wrong, the impossible is possible and all that.
Speaking of which, it’s time to dissect how this year’s failure came to be.
First, what I did right:
I settled on a story (of sorts) well before November 1st, giving me plenty of time to mull it over and have some ideas ready so I could hit the proverbial ground running
I had an established, successful plan from years past, using WriteMonkey, saving to OneDrive and writing during my lunch at work, something that can spot me as many as 1,000 words before I even get home, a big psychological boost
Day 1 started strong, well above the minimum word threshold
Despite uncertainties with the story, I continued to stay above the minimum word count for five of the first six days–a good start!
At the end of day six I was at 10,002 words, on track to finish November 29th (today). Cutting it a bit close but still, victory was entirely possible. What went wrong, then?
I took Day 7 off. I planned to spend time thinking about how to best tackle the rest of the story, which was still a bit too vague and shapeless for my liking. This is not in and of itself a bad idea but in the context of NaNoWriMo it is a great way to kill momentum. By skipping a day and by not having a big cushion of words to fall back on (let’s call it The Stephen King Zone) I had to double my input the next day to stay on track (writing 3,334 words instead of 1,667). This would also mean finding twice the time to accomplish the task. With doubts about the story lingering, taking a day off was a tactical blunder.
The day after I took the ill-advised day off was Election Day in the U.S. Throughout the day I experienced a level of anxiety that by evening transformed into a kind of existential despair, sapping me of the will to write anything except perhaps a brief essay on what it feels like to curl up in a ball on the floor.
The following day I re-read the 5,000 or so words I’d written for last year’s NaNoWriMo and found what I’d written to be more engaging than expected. I decided to switch back to this story. I had ideas. Changing gears could work! (Hint: wrong.)
I hit a dead end on the old story almost immediately. Looking back I was still not in a good frame of mind to write. My brain was buzzing, but with maddening, distracting and negative thoughts. I settled for writing anything as long as I was writing but was utterly incapable of putting down anything coherent. The experience was subtly surreal, so much so it would probably make for an interesting character moment in a story. Irony.
After my briefly-revived alternate project stalled out, I returned to my original story but could never summon more than a few sentences each day, usually totaling a hundred words or so. I fell even further behind. Eventually it became obvious that I was not going to complete NaNoWriMo this year and I quietly accepted this. I moved onto other projects and am just now starting to really write again.
Without getting overly political, the election of Trump had a fairly profound effect on me. Friends joked about how I’d want to suddenly switch to writing about some near-future dystopia but both of my stories were nominally hopeful and over the course of a day they came to feel false, even pointless. I’ve come out of the funk since then and have some thoughts on how I’d approach NaNoWriMo if I participated again–and I am leaning toward not doing so–but for now I am just happy to be writing anything again.
What a weird turn of events this month has been, writing-wise.
I was not excited about my story idea for National Novel Writing Month but I at least had an idea and was able to start on Day 1 with words a-plenty. Even as I hit roadblocks in the first few days I always found a way to push through.
Then doom came to NaNoWriMo.
On November 7th I decided to take a day off and plan/plot/mull/whatever. This was a mistake. By design taking a day off slows momentum. You skip 24 hours and the next day you need to write 3334 words instead of 1667. The latter is not even intimidating to me but the former is. And if you don’t write those 3334 words on the following day you begin to slip further behind and risk not just killing the momentum, but salting the earth it’s buried under. Or something like that.
November 8th was the U.S. election that saw Trump elected. This was, in psychological terms, the equivalent of hearing, “The world has gone mad, nothing matters anymore. Give up. Stop.” And I did not write that day.
The next day felt like a bad hangover. I made another decision that was not necessarily unwise but also didn’t help. I switched back to another project, Weirdsmith. I’d re-read what I’d done during last year’s NaNoWriMo, liked it more than I’d remembered, and committed to picking it up. But I only wrote handfuls of words. I wasn’t able to get into the story’s zone so the next few days I stumbled about and fell even further behind.
Then I thought of revisiting Road Closed, my still-unfinished 2014 effort (I did hit 50,000 words with it, though). This is something I’d been wanting to do for awhile. I started tidying up the story into a workable format again and this is where I sit, with two weeks remaining.
I am not feeling overly confident. Or confident.
Tomorrow is November 17th. I feel like it will be a turning point or maybe I just want it to be one.
The other odd thing is that while my NaNo effort has sputtered, even my regular blogging has fizzled. It’s like all the energy I had pent up got sucked out by a few sour events and I’ve been unable to get past them. Or I like making excuses.
Which is why I’m making this blog entry tonight. Excuse-making time is over! Over-ish.
On Day 7 of NaNoWriMo 2016 I found myself feeling particularly unmotivated but I dutifully sat down at lunch hour and typed out 100 words. I tried continuing but could come up with nothing. Rather than force it I decided I had earned a rest day and would devote myself to thinking about where the story would go next. I had written a little and would still work on the novel, if not directly.
Day 8 coincided with the election south of the border and my lunch was cut short because I needed to be somewhere immediately after. As such I only managed a paltry 124 words at lunch (it sounds more impressive when I frame it as a 24% improvement on Day 7) and when I got home in the evening to find Donald Trump was going to be the next president of the United States (I cannot adequately summarize my feelings about this in a few words but imagine my head tilted to the side and strange, incoherent babble issuing from my mouth and you’re close enough) I found I could not write at all, feeling a near-existential level of anxiety and an inability to focus.
I avoided social media, I avoided the news, I holed up and mentally hid away.
Today I am uncertain of how to proceed. There are a few concrete facts. My total word count as of yesterday is 10,536. To be on par after eight days would require 13,336 words, meaning I have a deficit of 2,800 words. With a strong effort that could be condensed into one extra day’s worth of writing, something that could be knocked out on a weekend, for example. This also assumes that I stay on track today and all other remaining days by continuing a pace of at least 1,667 words per day.
While I surprised myself by getting past an early hurdle with the story–a story I’ve never been enthused about–I am less certain I can do so now after a couple of down days. I debate over whether to plod on (“all writing is good!”) vs. admitting defeat and stopping (“now I can devote my time to something more constructive and/or enjoyable”).
The benefit of continuing is it helps reinforce the habit of writing and that is by far the most challenging aspect of writing for me, more than my annoying habit of switching between present and past tense, more than my tendency to lapse into passive voice, more than my stellar ability to start a story but never finish it. Sitting down and writing every day is essential to instilling the discipline needed to write and it is that discipline that strengthens the writing, that lets me find my voice as an author. It’s why I vowed to post every day on this blog last year (I’ve kept up fairly well on that, though I’ve lapsed, ironically enough, this very month).
If I do stop this story my backup plan is to start work on another but keep the existing word count toward my official NaNo total. I’ve written the words, after all, so they should still count. Technically it’s cheating but in the spirt of writing vs. not writing, I think it’s okay.
The next challenge would be what to write. My choices, as I see them:
start writing a new story
continue work on a previous NaNo effort. Even the ones that are technically done still need work or revision and several are still in a DNF state. The choices here are:
Road Closed (needs revision and an ending)
The Ferry (needs revision)
The Mean Mind (revision/ending)
Weirdsmith (barely started)
Start of the World (a little further along than Weirdsmith, but not by much)
continue working on my short story collection, 10 Pairs of Shorts.
free write 39,464 words of prose
A lot of options, some more enticing than others. I am not going to free write 39,464 words over the next 21 days (though I’d love to see what the last few thousand looked like).
I’m going to mull and commit to something this evening and get back to writing, blotting out (or perhaps infusing my writing with) the completely bonkers results of the US election.
The total after six days: 10,312
Minimum needed to stay on target: 10,002
I have a 310 word buffer–not exactly a huge buffer, but the important thing is I’m now over 20% of the way to my target, the novel is starting to take some kind of shape (though I still don’t think it’s very good) and I’m content to keep plowing along.
I feel I am past the point where I could switch to another story and still meet the 50,000 word target by month’s end, so I’m committed to this story, for better or for worse (right now it’s more for mediocrity).
Here are the stats for Days 2-4 of NaNoWriMo 2016:
Day 2: 1867
Day 3: 1112
Day 4: 1722
As you can see I slacked a bit on Day 3 but the buffers of the other days have kept me slightly ahead of pace. Four days in requires you to be at 6667 words and I’m sitting at 6839. Way to be a tiny bit above average!
I am not very excited by my story so far and in a way I am surprised that I have been able to keep on track and keep writing. I think the difference is this year I am taking a wider view of the effort, seeing beyond the effort of specifically writing a novel in 30 days and instead seeing the restoration of the daily (fiction) writing habit as a worthy goal unto itself, even if the novel ends up being poop.
I’m also now ahead of last year’s effort, so I’ve already achieved a victory of sorts. Hooray for me!
