Despite the lack of updates, I have been working diligently away at NaNoWriMo 2014. I’ve stopped updating daily because it feels like post-padding without having something unique to say about a particular writing session, like “I was writing today when my left foot suddenly fell off and the stump starting gushing blood all over the place.”
Note that my feet are currently intact and otherwise fine. Here is a summary of the last five days. The number in parentheses is how much I exceeded the minimum of 1,667):
Day 4: 1,668 words (+1)
Day 5: 1,720 words (+53)
Day 6: 1,801 words (+134)
Day 7: 2,257 word (+590)
Day 8: 1,966 words (+289)
Total after 8 days: 20,083 (+6,747)
The story is still a bit formless and I have little doubt the pacing is all wrong but I’m content to keep pushing and letting it find its own way, with the thought in the back of my mind that a lot of revision will be needed to get it into shape afterward. Such is the way of putting the emphasis on quantity over quality.
Still on track on Day 3, with 2,003 words written and a total of 10, 671 (minimum to stay on track after three days is 5,000). The story is flabby and slowly warming up, with most of the primary characters introduced and there broad hints of spooky shenanigans to come.
I’m not sure what I will write on Day 4 but that’s all part of the nutty fun. Just writing regularly again feels good, like rolling naked on a furry carpet. Or so I’ve been told.
I trimmed away 200 words from my previous day’s writing, which is a big no-no in NaNoWriMo but I’m a rebel. It meant that while I wrote more than the daily minimum (1749 words–the minimum is 1667) it calculates the total for the day at a shameful 1549 words.
I’m not entirely sure where the story is going next but I am sticking with my guiding principle of “go nuts.” On to Day 3!
National Novel Writing Month 2014 begins today and the first pep talk of the month has been posted by author Chuck Wendig. It can be read here: Pep Talk from Chuck Wendig
Wendig misses being an awesome name by a mere single letter. But would I actually consider clicking “Buy” on an Amazon book by a Chuck Wendigo? Possibly. I imagine Chuck has long ago weighed the pros and cons of this.
Here are two things he writes in his pep talk, completely taken out of context, because they better serve as bizarre totems of inspiration this way:
Crack open your chest and plop your heart onto the page.
Donuts in an empty field.
The first brings to mind the ritual seen in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. That ritual did not end well for the heart-offering participant. I recommend plopping out a less vital organ, like your appendix, if you still have it. I’m not sure what kind of story you would write after looking at your appendix soaking into a sheet of paper on your desk. Probably not a romance.
The second conjures an image of abandoned donuts, stale and windswept. What kind of monster would abandon donuts in a field, anyway? Possibly a monster watching its waist. Those poor donuts, left to the uncaring elements or ravenous coyotes. Now imagine running into a pack of coyotes hopped up on these donuts, their blood racing thanks to the ingestion of deliciously smooth Boston creams and sticky honey crullers. Is this what Chuck Wendig wants? For would-be writers to be eaten by coyotes fueled by bakery treats? I don’t know, I can’t peer into Chuck’s heart. Mainly because he’s yanked it out of his chest and put it on a sheet of paper on his desk.
Anyway, here’s hoping I work on my novel today instead of watching clips of all the Indiana Jones movies.
After flailing about I have come to a decision on what to write for National Novel Writing month 2014 with a week to spare: Road Closed.
As with 2009, I am taking an unfinished short story and expanding it to short novel-length. There are a few differences this time. I am actively working on the story “Road Closed” while “The Ferry” had been abandoned many years prior. I also had planned on completing “Road Closed” before November 1, using it as my warm-up for the contest.
But with it already clocking in at 7,000 words and only just laying the foundation for the grisly meat of the story (ho ho) I realized I might be able to turn it into a novel by expanding certain aspects of the story while keeping the basic plot/framework in place.
I can’t say I’m optimistic about my chances of being successful, as my writing has floundered for most of the year. “Road Closed” began as a writing exercise back in January before being abandoned and it was only a few weeks ago that I dusted it off, chucked most of what I had written and dove back into it. But the intervening months did give me time to think about the story and I found a hook that eluded me. My intent is to keep the story light while dealing with alcoholism, death and dismemberment. We’ll see how it pans out in 36 days.
2,957 words per day average (NaNoWriMo average needed is 1,667)
Longest period of non-writing while still participating: 5
I am one of those writers who eschews outlines, preferring to let the story organically grow as I write it. The biggest plus of this method is that it keeps me engaged because, much like a reader, I want to keep going to find out what happens next. The big negative comes if the story is not much more than a loose idea or concept. If I don’t have some kind of guidance the story can go down rambling dead ends and it can be difficult or impossible to find my way back to a semblance of plot structure.
This is what happened this year. I saw a general big picture, I had three characters, each with a clear identity, personality and purpose. But after a few scenes I found myself unable to hammer out specifics to keep the story moving. The writing ground to a halt a few days in then picked up and sputtered along about a week later before finally stopping slightly over halfway through the month.
I don’t think I needed a formal outline for the story to have succeeded but I did need more than just a neat idea with few details to back it up. The good news is I can still make this story work, especially now that I am free of the constraints of the contest.
I am not sure if I will continue to participate in future National Novel Writing Months. Reflecting back on my five tries the best thing has probably been the sense of community while taking part, first on the Quarter to Three forums and for the past two years on Broken Forum. It’s enjoyable to see everyone discuss their writing travails and triumphs, give and respond to feedback, and to silently mock those whose lofty goals always fall short on the weakest of excuses (the writer equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”).
The other aspect that has been useful is the whole writing kick-in-the-pants the structure of the contest gives you. If you find yourself lacking motivation there are worse things you can do that join in a global effort to crank out a novel in 30 days, something (as mentioned above) that requires a commitment of about 1,667 words per day. The thing here is that if I am maintaining discipline I should never need to take part in NaNoWriMo for that kick in the pants.
My feeling at this time is I probably won’t take part in National Novel Writing Month 2014. I have more than enough on my writing plate as it is to keep me busy all of next year, some of the work being the two successful NaNoWriMo projects from 2009 and 2012.
In the end and as always, I regret nothing*.
* a lie. I regret many things but shrug and move on
This will be a short update for reasons that will be clear as you read on.
Namely, I am behind. As of today, November 20th, I should have a word count of at least 33,340 to be on track. Instead I am officially at 22,340 or exactly 11,000 words (6.5 days) behind. I’m actually not quite that far behind because I’ve written more scenes in a Word document that hasn’t been added yet to the main Scrivener file but I am behind.
But that’s okay because I’m confident I’ll finish the story, whether it’s on November 30th or sometime after. I think it’ll be a good ride.
I’m not sure if I’ll NaNoWriMo again next year, though. I think my time may be better spent working on less “gimmicky” writing. We shall see.
Today marks the official start of National Novel Writing Month 2013 and I managed to come up with a vague yet somewhat attractive idea two whole days ago, so I’m running with it.
The first day was a success! I didn’t really start writing until 9:30 p.m. but ended up coming it at 2049 words, a generous bit above the daily 1667 word minimum.
The tentative title of my novel is The Start of the World, though that will change. I just can’t think of a better title right now.
Stats from Day 1:
Words: 2049 Music: Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms; The Moody Blues, Long Distance Voyager
I have officially set October 15th, the halfway point(ish) of the month as when I will panic if I don’t have a firm story in mind for National Novel Writing Month.
October 15th is three days from now. I’m sure I’ll have an idea. Oh yes.
To help prepare the way I have added the word count widget from the NaNoWriMo site to the blog. Come November 1st it will start tracking on a daily basis my stupendous output on the quest to completing a 50,000 word mini-opus.
Should I find myself in the unthinkable position of not having a plot ready to go, here are three I grabbed from a plot generator site, each lending itself to literary greatness:
One evening, a widow and a strange boy try to find a game possessed by the spirit of a boy after playing with a disturbing puppet.
One day, a young widow and a lost widow transform a widower into the heart of a mental patient. [this generator really likes widows]
A barking dentist takes over the world under the bed and discovers another world.
I kind of like the last one, at least the “discovers another world” part, though perhaps if the barking dentist were a dog that would add another unexpected twist.
These were culled from the Springhole.net plot generator site. As with most generators the results are silly but can provide a spark. Especially if you like widows.
Having looked over more of the stories that I plan to gather together into a collection I’ve concluded that meeting my self-imposed deadline of year’s end will require winning the lottery so I can devote all my time to writing, a miracle on the level of something that would make for a snazzy short story or some combination thereof.
The main problem is that although I have a lot of completed stories, they are not finished. Most are first drafts and a number of them are rough first drafts or simply reflect a level of writing quality that I feel falls short of what I am capable of now. Why toss a bunch of mediocre stories into a collection? That’s not going to make for good dust jacket quotes. “From the author that brought you the so-so collection 10 Pairs of Shorts comes his latest average novel!”
Instead of mildly freaking out about this as I once might have, I’ve adopted a more sanguine attitude. The collection will continue to be worked on regularly but I’m no longer going to pressure myself with the arbitrary deadline of December 31, 2013. Besides, everyone will be drunk that night and won’t want to read, anyway.
Going forward I’m going to work on the collection at a more relaxed pace, dive back into the next draft of The Ferry and start doing the prep work for my NaNoWriMo 2013 novel, which will, I promise*, be a spectacle to behold.
What better way to conclude an evening of spamming posts to my blog than to provide a summary of my current state of writing or SOW as I like to call it (starting just now).
I have divided my writing into four categories, each more daring and fancy than the previous!
Category 1: Blog and forum posts Status: Firing on all cylinders
I do this sort of writing every day, without effort and often without thought. Whether it’s posting the latest online gaming bargains on Broken Forum or lamenting my inability to float in water on this here blog, this is the one category that is never wanting for output. Each in its own way helps improve my fiction writing, too, by either simply exercising the writing muscles that may atrophy otherwise or through communal efforts like National Novel Writing Month.
Category 2: The Ferry (2009 NaNoWriMo novel) Status: Like a slow ship steaming along a lazy river
I am slowly working through the second draft of my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel The Ferry. My intention is to do some work on it every day and have it self-published with a decent cover before the end of the year. I will start work on another novel sometime this year, as well.
Category 3: Short stories olde and new Status: Like a car that sat all winter and you wonder if the battery’s dead but hey it’s not, so you may actually get somewhere
On the olde side I am working on cleaning up 30+ short stories with the intention of putting them together into a single volume to self-publish. I have no set timeframe on this and the stories vary in terms of work needed from minimal to ‘maybe this should be buried in the back yard if I had a back yard’. I am also working on new stories as I think of them, as long as they don’t distract from my novel writing. Unless the stories are so super-awesome that they simply must be written. Yeah.
Category 4: Writing exercises Status: Uncertain
I have participated in writing exercises on and off since my days as a callow youth in college when I wrote bad poetry (my specialty) right up to having my own website devoted specifically to the task (which started out nicely but collapsed when I could not keep up the silly pace I had set out for myself). As my last few attempts to gather like-minded people to participate has met with middling success I haven’t done anything of late. I’ve decided on a new approach, which is to semi-regularly challenge myself with a particular exercise, complete it, then invite others to do the same and if they do, more to share and if they don’t I’ve already done my bit on keeping myself challenged and engaged.