Nanowrimo–blah

Okay, I finished National Novel Writing Month in 19 days. Well, 50,000 words really isn’t a complete novel for most genres, but whatever. I think they should make it a 70,000 word novel in a month.  At my pace, I could have completed a 78960 word novel in a month. Not bad. But then again…not really great either.

Seriously? Nanowrimo motivational emails? Do I really need those? Inspirational columns on the nano website from others writing their dubious works of fiction? Really? (This does NOT count for my twitter friends. I enjoyed their updates because we were in the trenches together…well…not really, but it was fun to see how I was doing against others.) I don’t mean to sound facetious here, but I can’t help it.  Look, writing, no matter how you look at it, is an individual sport, not an all play. Regardless of whether you write in a room of other people, or in your office–you are alone in your own head.

You’re either going to write the words, or you’re not. No measure of cajoling or handholding will help you. 

But all that aside, it was okay. I didn’t like the feeling of writing being a job, but I need to get used to that if I ever want to succeed at this thing.  The weirdest thing is, you don’t actually “win” anything for competion.  You just get to say that you finished the 50,000 words of fiction that may or may not be worth a damn.  I honestly think most people’s will need so much shoring up to be presentable, that they might as well start over.  I havent looked back at mine. I still need to finish the story, but I am taking a short hiatus, maybe a few days.

After doing all this, I have to wonder what I got out of the whole experience. This was my first year, and I can say with surety that I probably won’t do it again.  It wasn’t as much fun as all the pleebs made it out to be. It was WORK.  Maybe for someone who never wrote a book, and wanted to do their first one, then cool, they probably got all excited about it.  Now they have the daunting task of editing, which to me is more fun, but inherently more difficult.

Yeah, yeah, I can hear all you out there now…”But it was just to get your creative juices flowing!”  or “If you want to be a published author, you’d better get used to being under a deadline!”

Please, spare me your rhetoric!   My creative juices flow so much I have to sop it up with a ShamWow!  And guess what? If I was getting paid to haul ass on my writing, I would!  Paying me with a deadline is way easier for me, than doing it, “just cause.”

So you’re probably thinking I am being a sore winner here. I may be. I made it about 90% of the way through a story I had come up with literally days before the whole month started. I am pretty happy with it too. I pantsed the entire story –almost.  I did do a lot of pre-planning on overall story, but I did not plan for many of the things that are in it.  (Ninjas, anyone?)

I wrote an average of 2632 words a day. That’s really not that much. People say you should write every day, I usually don’t.  Life gets in the way, so I guess that was one good thing about nano.  2,000 words a day on a novel is probably a pretty good amount for anyone.  That would give you 60k at the end of a month, and a completely manuscript by the end of two.

What did I learn about the month? Nothing.  Let me enumerate the nothings.

1) A lot of people started NaNoWriMo–most of them won’t finish. (That’s the way of the world. Nothing new here.)

2) I can “pants”.  (I’ve written 4 books this way.)

3) I can write every day. (I knew I could. Question is, why would I? Oh. Yeah. So I could SAY I did.)

4) I met a lot of new cool people….oh…wait! Yeah…okay, that is one good thing. I’ve met a ton of cool new people and I really enjoyed their company while they were toiling away at their work.

I do wonder what other people get out of nano.  I really REALLY do.  Maybe there’s something in it that I didn’t see.  Hell, there probably is.  You tell me, player. Sorry if I sound negative. I honestly did not get it. So what did I miss? What part of NaNoWriMo went over my head? 

 

 

 

Guest Blog!

Hey everyone. Go check 0ut my guest blog over at Warrior Writer!!!  You like to write, right?!?!

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/

It’s all about being a secret keeper!!!!

 

 

 

Some blogs to read

Hey go check this out…and great post by Katherine James (AKA BCB on Twitter).

http://kdjames.com/2009/11/07/finding-truth-facing-fear/

And I will be a guest on Denise Robbins blog this week!

http://deniserobbins.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

NaNoWriMo

I wasn’t going to blog on this, and I’m still not going to. There are tons of other posts about it out there.  I am busy writing it though, so stick with me. I will have some new stuff very soon to entertain and make you think!!!

 

Bizzy!

Sorry, no new blogs for a while.  I have been NaNoWriMo’ing it and all my time has been taken up there.

I am guest blogging on another writer’s site sometime next week. I will post a link when I get it!!

Keep writing and keep reading.

Remember:

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
— Stephen King

 

How? Which? Huh?

I need (want) to add quotations at the beginning of chapters to a WIP of mine. (Well, it’s not really a WIP…I’m done with it.)

My issue is, how do I format it in my manuscript, and where do I put it?

Currently, each chapter has a number and title, like:

1.

Happy Holidays

 

And then the story starts.

So do I put the quotation above the number one? Below the number one? Below the chapter heading? Do I remove the chapter heading? Do I put the quotation under the chapter heading?

 

<Quotation?>

1.
<Quotation?>

Happy Holidays

<Quotation?>

 

NaNoWriMo

One week until NaNoWriMo starts, and I don’t feel completely ready. Hell, I’m not even sure why I am doing it.  Guess I am caught up in all the hype.  No worries. I will give it my best shot. Hell, I’d like to get it done early, and take the rest of the month off.

A friend of my, Mr. Jeff Posey, asked me a good question: by doing NaNoWriMo, are you being remiss in addressing your other work? I know I’ve got a story I want to get completed, and another one waiting in the pipeline. The one I am writing during the month of November is far and away the most different story I’ve ever written, and I’m doing it, trying on a new pair of shoes and see if they fit. But while I do, my other stories sit and wait.

I am going to give it a try anyways, but I feel bad for my other stories who sit off in the corner, waiting for me to show them some love.

 

I’m feeling tense!

Do you like feeling tense? Do you like tension when dealing with others? The answer is probably a resounding, “no!”

Yeah, I don’t like it.  But when writing prose you need tension in your story. Not just overall tension, but tension everywhere. Donald Maass, when I was attending his High Tension Workshop talked about “Micro-Tension”–literally tension on every page, in every paragraph, practically in every sentence.  Don gives great examples and actually picked up many people’s sluggish writing off the floor and made it a work of art.  He used to write novels, so he knows how to do it and from what I saw at the workshop, he should probably still be doing it!  He’s got a knack for drudging up the emotion in each scene and intensifying it to breathlessness.  It was truly spectacular to watch him ressurect sucky writing. Whichever writer he was working on, would be scratching down on paper, trying to capture what he said, as he was saying it. (He would go it on the fly, which was so SWEET!)  Go to this workshop if you can. Just google High Tension Workshop.

So Don gave us a handout from Elizabeth Lyon’s Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore  Of simply great ideas for adding tension to every scene. I have received permission from Ms. Lyon to post some of them here. They are just one or two sentences of things to add to scenes to PUNCH UP THE TENSION.   These are just some of the items from her list. There are more. I chose a few juicy ones. If you want more, go get her book!

• Turn the scene goal into a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t dilemma.

• Increase the number and difficulty of obstacles in a scene.

• Hamstring your protagonist with a temporary injury.

• Take away a source of your protagonist’s power or skill.

• Give the antagonist a secret weapon that the reader knows about.

• Give readers (and the antagonist) knowledge that the protagonist doesn’t have.

• Plant an emotional time bomb early in the story—an object of emotional meaning to the protagonist or victim, and light the fuse by presenting it in some form (found, destroyed, given away) late in the story.

• Start some of the scenes at a later point of difficulty—for example, revise to begin your scene where presently it ends.

• End a scene with a decision that is not revealed to the reader. • When a scene protagonist is about to reach a goal and resolve a conflict, add a complication that makes him or her fail instead of succeed.

• Create times of misunderstanding and mistaken communication between the point-of-view characters and other characters.

• Take away options that were formerly there.

• Close escape routes.

• Replace goals with smaller stakes with ones of larger stakes.

• Bring in a new character (not point of view), event, or problem that is foreshadowed, not contrived, but makes new headaches.

•Kill the protagonist’s mentor.

• Assign a number between one and five, one being the lowest level of suspense and five being the highest level of suspense. Give each of your scenes a rating. Decide if you have enough scenes of higher suspense

Don said something in the workshop which really hit home with me: If there’s enough tension for you in the book, add more. There might be enough tension for you, but it will barely be enough for your reader.  True enough, Don.  Always remember, raise the stakes! Add tension! Add some more! Chase your character up a tree and start throwing rocks at him!

Man, I’m feeling a little tense here.

 

 

Can your novel pass this test?

Is your novel ready for final editing and revision? Is it ready to send out? Read below.

Digging around in my office earlier this week, looking for Bob Mayer’s Novel Writing Presentation workbook, and I came across another workbook I got from Donald Maass when I attended his workshop earlier last year. It was his High Tension Workshop, and I highly recommend attending it if you can.

I flipped through it and forgot what a gold mine it was.  One of the absolute best lists I found was from Elizabeth Lyon’s book: Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford To Ignore

She lists out criteria you can use for your story to determine if it’s ready or not! She even scores it and gives you results on the score! Ha! She’s got it online too, so go here and check it out!  It’s worth the 10 minutes, and her advice is priceless.

 

What words do you use?

Check this out. I just entered my manuscript, Telecks into http://www.wordle.net/ and this is what it spit out…tells me a lot about the words I use in my story, and where I can try to whittle away some “crutch” words.  This is pretty cool, go see for yourself!