National Novel Writing Month

Here’s my second pre-NaNoWriMo update. Exciting news ahead, depending on how very generously you define exciting.

Story idea progress: None

This is slightly disturbing because my goal was to have an idea picked out by the end of the month OR ELSE. There are eight days left in the month. Tick tock tick tock…

Tool selection: Tentatively done

I have come up with what is likely to be the final selection of writing tools for NaNoWriMo. In theory I could choose a tool that would work across all three major OSes I’ll be writing in (Windows, Mac and iOS) by using Word, for example, but I’ve opted to stick with using distraction-free programs and saving in txt format. The winners are:

Windows: WriteMonkey. I am still hoping version 3 gets a final release before November, but I’ve written over 50,000 words using version 2.7, so it’s not a big deal if it doesn’t.

macOS: FocusWriter. Mainly because WriteMonkey is not yet available on Macs yet (another reason to hope for version 3’s release).

iOS: iA Writer. I already have it, it’s simple and works. I am also testing out a couple of other apps, such as Werdsmith, but so far none has really won me over. I don’t expect to do a lot of writing on my iPad, anyway.

I will be using OneDrive again to save to the big fluffy cloud, with local backups on each platform. I may also send backups to Dropbox or Google Drive if I’m feeling zany.

Now I just need that pesky idea.

Let’s check in on my progress in preparing for NaNoWriMo 2016!

First, a recap of my prep schedule below.

September:

1. Come up with a story idea
2. Choose a program for the actual writing part

October:

1. Ruminate over the chosen idea, perhaps outline a bit
2. Configure the writing program as necessary

Since October hasn’t arrived yet, let’s look closer at September:

1. Come up with a story idea

Progress: None whatsoever. I can say without hesitation that I have devoted no thought to what I might write about, other than a vague notion that it will be a story in which things happen. This is partly because the first week of September is the start of the fall semester and this is a very hectic time for me in my current work. My brain is not inclined to creative thinking during these early days. This is a bit of a stretch this year as Labor Day didn’t fall until the 5th, meaning I had five entire days to do nothing but think without significant distraction and instead of thinking I did other things, like eat olives. Mmm, olives.

2. Choose a program for the actual writing part

Progress: Some actual progress. Right now I’m looking at four different programs and mulling the pros and cons of each. The four are:

• Microsoft Word 2016
• WriteMonkey
• FocusWriter
• Scrivener

I’ve used three of the four in previous NaNoWriMos, with FocusWriter being the brash rookie trying to win me over. A succinct evaluation of my experience in using each would be:

Microsoft Word 2016: Technically I used earlier versions of Word but the last few have been essentially the same. I’ve encountered no issues in using Word for NaNoWriMo.

Pro: Works across Windows, Mac and iOS
Con: Way more than you need to write a straightforward novel, formatting code is a hidden, tentacled monster that will try to strangle your story if you start mucking about with it

WriteMonkey: Again, no issues. The spartan nature of the interface puts it squarely in the distraction-free writing category. Most of its extra functionality is hidden behind keyboard shortcuts or a single menu that is hidden by default.

Pro: Simple, highly configurable interface
Con: Curiously slow to start up, current version is Windows-only, some features are limited or hard to use

Scrivener: A mix-up in local vs. cloud (in this case, Dropbox) saves resulted in a catastrophic loss of a large chunk of the story (thousands of words). This derailed my attempt and further pushed me away from using Scrivener for any writing. Scrivener is essentially the opposite of WriteMonkey, with an absolute ton of options and tools, most of them staring you right in the face (though you can hide most if you choose).

Pro: Many options for researching, outlining, organizing characters and more, interface can be tweaked, scenes can be easily moved around, works across Windows, Mac and iOS
Con: Instead of a single file, it creates many, introducing more points of failure, save mechanism annoyingly saves after two seconds of inactivity by default. This can wreak havoc if you save to a cloud-based drive.

FocusWriter is similar to WriteMonkey, but emphasizes a different set of features, including backgrounds and ambient music intended to put you into a relaxed and writin’ kind of mood. Curiously I find these rather distracting so have turned them off. It works on Windows and Mac, which is a plus.

At this point I am leaning toward either WriteMonkey or FocusWriter. WM has a spiffy new version in the works but it may not be ready before November. The current version (2.70) is still perfectly fine, just less sexy (and Windows-only). FocusWriter is nice but I haven’t found that feature yet that would convince me to use it over WriteMonkey.

I expect to have settled on the tool in the next few weeks. As for the story idea? Maybe I’ll do some brainstorming this weekend. Yes, that’s it.

No writing on Days 10-16. I am now a little over 20,000 words behind the required pace.

This does not bode well. If it was a suspense story, it would be one of the “where exactly is the suspense?” variety. We know how it’s going to end. In failure. [sad trombone sound]

And yet I am not sad nor am I discouraged. Is it because I am drunk? No. Is it because I have succumbed to despair and no longer care? No. Is it because I’ve become suddenly obsessed with adult coloring books? No. (What’s up with those, anyway? What a weird yet ultimately harmless fad.)

It is because while this version of Weirdsmith currently languishes (turns out third time is not always the charm) I am still confident that the latter half of the month will be a productive one writing-wise. How? I shall discuss this soon.

After a trickle of words on Day 7, work came to a stop with nothing at all written on Day 8 and 9. In fact, what I just wrote here is more than I have written for the past 48 hours on the story.

There are a few issues. Here they are:

1. Although I had a better plan this time than I did during NaNoWriMo 2015, it still wasn’t a very detailed plan. It was less a map and more a series of scratches on tree bark that had then been assaulted by a ravenous woodpecker.
2. I opted to use some real life settings and people as templates, intending to blend/merge and refine these things on a subsequent rewrite to make them more genuine composites rather than thinly-disguised stand-ins. But I went so all-in on this that a rewrite would be a challenge at best and a lot of work to make the reality more fictional. Too much work, possibly. In other words, I kind of screwed up.
3. My efforts to write at lunch have been stymied by distractions. I’ll probably move future writing there from the staff lounge, which can be loud and prone to interruptions, to one of the designated quiet areas of the library, which are prone to silence because very few people want to occupy areas that are truly silent, even in a library.

Mainly though, my plan is lacking form and shape and what I’ve written feels like warmed over work-based fanfic than an actual piece of fiction. I haven’t decided what to do yet but come tomorrow (Monday) I’ll move forward with…something.

Day 4: No writing done as I came home completely pooped from work.

Day 5: The weather outside was frightful so I took advantage and wrote about 1,000 words over lunch. I was not overly enthused with the output but this is quantity over quality time so I made temporary peace with my mediocrity.

Day 6: See Day 4. I sat down to write and immediately felt ready to doze off. Was I actually tired or was it the thought of continuing the unexciting scene from the previous day’s work that was yawn-inducing? Note to aspiring writers: don’t end a writing session with something dull like, “Randolph washed the dishes, put them away and went to bed.”

Hopefully Day 7 will see exciting plot twists and hijinks, possibly involving blimps. But probably not.

Not yet, that is.

Day 3 of Camp NaNoWriMo and I am remaining a wee bit ahead of the pace, finishing the day at 5,650 words (the minimum for three days is 5,001). The protagonist of Weirdsmith leads a fairly ordinary, even slightly dull, life. His biggest issues are little ones, with things never quite working out the way they should. His frustrations are growing and in a few more days I expect to see some big things go very right for William Smith before it all goes horribly wrong. And after that? Things get weird.

I’m enjoying the ride so far. I don’t even want to think about editing this mess, though.

Starting late and a little slowly, I still managed to add another 1,984 words to my story today. Hooray!

It’s still a bit shapeless and when I’m winging it like this I always have a hard time getting a sense of the pacing, but I think it’s starting to pull together in a few interesting ways so I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to keep puttering along until I arrive at the real meat of the story where things get weird. I’m still in the setting-things-up stage where the story is very conventional, just an average schmuck in an average job trying to write and find a steady date. Soon events both bad and good (but actually still bad) are going to happen that will make life suddenly a lot more interesting for one William Smith.

The first thing I did today for my inaugural Camp NaNoWriMo project was abandon my chosen project.

This happened to be my failed 2013 NaNoWriMo novel, Start of the World. Instead I decided to take another stab at my failed 2015 effort, Weirdsmith. One advantage here is I’d only written about 5,000 words of Weirdsmith before abandoning it, so it’s easy to start over rather than figure out what to do with a larger chunk of text (as would have been the case with Start of the World).

I also happened to come up with just enough ideas and little hooks while running today to give the story an overall arc, something it never really had last year. I still wasn’t sure what the opening scene was going to be when I sat down to write, and having now written 1,780 words (above the required minimum of 1,667) I’m still not convinced this won’t all blow up in my face like one of Wile E. Coyote’s inventions. Still, it was nice to write something longer than an amusing cat image.

I’ll mull over whether to switch to first person perspective before starting tomorrow’s session. On the one hand, first person has an immediacy that I find appealing. As a bonus, it’s easier to find the protagonist’s voice, though there is a danger in making it too much your voice.  If I’m undecided by the time I’m writing again I’ll stick to third person to at least keep things consistent.

Hopefully tomorrow’s update won’t be a picture of me sobbing into a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Nope, no ideas yet. My brain is in that mode where if I try to come up with something it just freezes over like a pond in winter. There’s probably some nifty trick to get past this–maybe I’ve even used it in the past and just forgotten–but it eludes me at the moment.

Still, no need to panic. I still have almost 24 hours to do that.

I asked a pair of co-workers for ideas. They suggested:

• a Die Hard remake set on a zeppelin (or the Titanic)
• some kind of love story featuring Herbie the Love Bug, Knightrider and their possibly illegitimate offspring, some kind of smart car
• a person driven to (ho ho) madness by traffic and daily commutes. I suggested the title Honk.

If I do most of my writing during lunch I will be using my Surface Pro 3, which works well enough, though I still think I’d like a real laptop, mainly for the better keyboard and slightly larger screen. A person on Broken Forum said he switched to using an iPad Pro as a laptop replacement. When asked why he said it was mainly because of weight and lack of distractions. iOS has never been great at multitasking so you just tend to focus on what you’re doing instead of constantly flipping between different things. Hopefully he hasn’t heard of split view…

While using the iPad Pro intrigues me, the price is hard to take. It costs more than some (pretty good) laptops and that’s before you add things like a cover, keyboard or whatnot.Then again, it looks almost cheap compared to the Surface Book, one of the laptops I’ve considered (which can go for over $2000 after tax. That’s a lot of money, even in Canadian dollars).

Maybe I’ll write a story about a man who can’t decide what to buy and somehow the decision gets made for him and he has to live with the consequences. If it was a horror story, I’d end up with an 11″ Chromebook.

A few days ago a fellow forumite (and published author) on Broken Forum solicited invitations to join him in taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo. This is basically National Novel Writing Month done in July, with looser rules and a summer camp theme, including but not limited to putting people into cabins and where you can share spooky stories around the virtual campfire about how your muse left you frightened and out of ideas.

Since being invited to a cabin requires a project, I slapped in my failed 2013 NaNo effort, Start of the World (one of the worst working titles I’ve ever devised). I don’t know if I’ll actually try reviving it but I only have one more day to mull it over before the writing begins, so the suspense won’t last long.

It may turn out that Camp NaNoWriMo is just the thing I need. Or it could be another dismal petering-out. Or it could even be both.

Mostly I think I’m going to get up on July 1st, revel briefly in being Canadian, then spend the rest of the day shifting between writing paralysis and spewing out nonsense that sees me getting intimate with the backspace and delete keys (or on the Mac, the delete and other delete key–what’s up with that, anyway?)

Stay tuned for exciting and/or painful updates soon™.

National Novel Writing Month Autopsy Report

Autopsy Number 1
Name Weirdsmith
Body Identification Novel
Date of Birth November 1, 2015
Date/Time of Death November 18, 2015
Coroner Creole Ned
Cause of Death Fatal lack of interest
Due To Lack of planning
Due To Lack of motivation

Yesterday I officially declared my 2015 NaNoWriMo attempt dead. What caused its tragic demise? Read on for more (or skip to the TL; DR summary at the end, I won’t mind).

For months I wavered back and forth on whether or not I would participate this year. I finally decided that if I was in the middle of writing something and going like gangbusters (what are gangbusters, anyway?) I would keep writing and skip NaNoWriMo, as it seems silly to suspend one writing project for another without having a really good reason for doing so.

Come the latter half of October and the only thing I was writing were inane posts to my blog. I promised myself back in August that I would write every day, whether it was posting to my blog, working on a short story, writing on a forum or handcrafting a nuanced grocery shopping list. I’ve kept to this (writing every day, not handcrafting nuanced grocery lists), mainly by writing on my blog. The posts vary in quality and quantity, but I’ve written something every day for the past three months, even if it was sometimes no more than “here’s an amusing cat image I found”. Establishing the discipline of writing every day was important. I hoped this routine would smooth the way for my return to writing fiction, but apart from a few writing prompts, that didn’t happen.

So here it was, mid-October and I was ready to take part in NaNoWriMo again, to get the ol’ fiction juices flowing. Don’t ask what fiction juices are, you don’t want to know.

Here’s a summary of my NaNoWriMo efforts to date:

• 2009: Took unfinished short story “The Ferry” and turned it into a novel. WIN.
• 2010: Took completed short story “Hello?” and turned it into a novel. LOSE.
• 2011: Took completed short story “The Dream of the Buckford County Church” and turned it into a novel. LOSE.
• 2012: Wrote original novel The Mean Mind, based on an idea I came up with a hundred years earlier. WIN.
• 2013: Wrote original novel Start of the World, based on an idea created specifically for NaNoWriMo. LOSE (due in part to catastrophic loss of data)
• 2014: Took unfinished short story started earlier in year that began as a writing prompt, “Road Closed” and turned it into a novel. WIN.
• 2015: Took unfinished play “Weirdsmith” (I wrote the first act back in 1991) and adapted it as a novel. FAIL.

You may have noticed a pattern here. In all but one case I totally cheated by adapting existing stories or ideas. NaNoWriMo discourages this and my success rate–2 out of 5–is not compelling anecdotal evidence that it’s a good strategy.

As the days went by I cast about for ideas, looking through my old stories, idea files and cans of fiction juice. Nothing grabbed me. Nothing called out to be written. Not even a grocery list.

Finally, on October 31 I re-read my unfinished play “Weirdsmith” and at 10 p.m.–two hours before NaNoWriMo 2015 officially began–I made the decision to take the play and adapt it as a novel.

The first problem came up the next day. I didn’t particularly like either of the two main characters in the play. I decided to jettison them and replace them with the couple from “The Dream of the Buckford County Church.” I’m a big believer in recycling. It’s good for the environment and lazy writers.

I wrote 1,745 words on Day 1, with the opening scene left hanging at a tantalizing point, so I’d be eager to jump back in the next day. But the next day I did not jump back in. The opening scene was limp and uninspired. There were wiener jokes. I’m not philosophically opposed to wiener jokes, but when you start a novel with them, you’re perhaps looking more at a novelization of an Adam Sandler movie more than writing your own daringly original work. I sat out Day 2 to ponder my next move.

On Day 3 I wrote a new opening scene, jettisoning the two characters that had replaced the previously jettisoned characters. It was like the story was built on a foundation of ejector seats. This time I wrote from the viewpoint of Weirdsmith (William Smith) himself. It felt better, though I only had a vague inkling of how the already vague story would proceed.

On Day 4 I pondered my new direction. I pondered for the next five days after that. I finally wrote part of a second scene on November 10. Then I pondered some more. I knew I wasn’t going to jettison Smith, because the story would be jettisoned along with him and that would be the end of it.

Yesterday, November 18th, I jettisoned the story, realizing there was no way I was going to finish by November 30, and more importantly, feeling strongly that my time would be better invested in other efforts.

So what went wrong? Here’s my quick analysis, in handy list form:

• I waited too long to come up with an idea. This gave me no time for any sort of planning, outlining or just plain thinking about the story. Adapting an unfinished play should have helped but it didn’t in the end because…
• I cribbed from existing material, decided on Day 2 it wasn’t working and had nothing else ready to fall back on. I didn’t want to just damn the torpedoes (“Torpedoes, I damn thee to a brief and violent life!”) and keep going because I really didn’t like that opening scene. Continuing on from there would have felt like I was wasting my time, simply writing out of obligation and nothing more.
• My new opening scene written on Day 3 was better, but it was like a sketch that has faded so much you can barely see any detail. You’re not even sure what exactly you’re looking at. I didn’t know where to go from that opening scene and NaNoWriMo demands that you go, you go, and you do not stop. I stopped.
• A few more days of pondering yielded no insights or bursts of inspiration. Sitting down and forcing myself to write resulted in me pecking out a few more words. The only mercy was no more wiener jokes. But it wasn’t enough.

That’s pretty much it: poor planning, flat writing and in the end all I had was something I wasn’t interested in pursuing. It was kind of like visiting some place you’ve always dreamed about going to and when you finally get there you realize you can make better tacos at home. Or something like that.

Anyway, my plan for next year is to write a novel about writing a NaNoWriMo novel. It should be a breeze.