Tag Archives: #nanowrimo2020

December 14, 2020 · 6:00 am

Finish the job #amwriting

This year’s NaNoWriMo saw a large increase in the number of writers who managed to cross the 50,000-word line. This is probably due to the pandemic—we’re all locked up at home with nothing else to do. People who have been dabbling in writing for several years at last committed to the challenge. After all, why not write that space opera or elvish romance that has been rolling around in the back of their mind? It’s not like they had anywhere to go.

In our region, we had 235 participants sign up. Of those, 27 didn’t understand how to use the website, so their data didn’t get counted. Of the 208 participants who did manage to sign up correctly, 33 created their profiles but chose not to participate.

On November 1, 175 writers began updating their word count. To me, the most interesting statistics are found in the lower word counts, the places where people stopped writing.

# of Writers:     Ending Word Count:

15 between 10,000 and 14,999
17 between 5,000 and 9,999
12 between 2,500 and 4,999
19 Between 1,000 and 2,499
11 Between 1 and 999

 

One statistic I won’t see (but would love to) is how many of this year’s NaNo novels, winner or not, actually get finished. And of those that are completed, how many will be published? Far fewer authors publish than I would wish.

Many people in my region admit that they quit writing the day after NaNoWriMo ended, even those with their books nearly complete. I suspect that if that is true in my pocket of the universe, it is true everywhere.

Will they rediscover their passion and continue on? I hope so, but odds are, they won’t.

235 people in our region signed up. 33 people created projects but didn’t participate. 175 participants signed up correctly and updated their wordcount at least once. Out of those participants, 74 logged in and updated their word count daily, and wrote 50,000 or more words.

The reality sets in within the first week. A strange, coincidental statistic is this: We had 74 winners, but we also had 74 writers in our region who never got more than 15,000 words written.

This is an example of what I think of  as “First Line Syndrome.” Sometimes, the first lines are all an author has.

I have a dear friend who began writing a novel they are exceedingly passionate about several years ago. But the first lines, introducing the characters, and the first few chapters are all that has ever been written.

Yet the author of those few chapters speaks of their barely-begun book with enthusiasm as if they could pick it up and finish it any moment. When they talk about this book, it sounds so interesting; something I would love to read.

Truthfully, I fear that talk about this novel is all that will ever materialize. A writer must dedicate a short amount of time each day to writing, or their book will never be completed. An hour, thirty minutes–all it takes is a little pocket of time that is only for writing.

Why do prospective books languish unwritten?

These writers are passionate about the idea of writing, but not the real work of it. They aren’t obsessive enough about their vision to ignore the drama that keeps them too busy to write.

Once in a great while, when they’re bored and can’t find a book they want to read, they will open that old file and read what they wrote. They will talk about how they’re going to sit down and finish it someday.

But that won’t happen unless they become obsessed, sit their backside in front of the keyboard, and do it.

We all have drama in our lives. For me, writing keeps the drama at arm’s length, makes it manageable. Things crop up, health issues, family emergencies, needs that I can help fill. I wrote much of Forbidden Road and The Wayward Son while sitting in various hospitals. As my son recovered from a variety of life-threatening injuries incurred because of his seizure disorder, my laptop and my work kept me grounded when everything else was out of control.

I wrote a novel during the year I had my mother living with me. She was dying, and we knew it, but we made daily trips to Olympia for chemo, a fifty mile round trip every day. Still, she was failing and we knew it.

When it became clear that nothing was working, we acquired all the things that come with hospice, turning our home into a place where we could care for her more easily. Oxygen tanks, hospital bed, you name it, we had it as part of our décor. A nurse came for an hour every day to help me with bathing Mama and to see that she wasn’t suffering any pain, but I was the primary care giver.

During that time, I also worked part-time as a bookkeeper for a landscape company, dealt with health problems of my own, and had a daughter and son with health issues.

Mama passed away in 2009, but other challenges have arisen to fill that vacuum. Life still affects us.

Writing keeps me sane. Other people discover that writing is too stressful, but reading keeps them sane.

Participating in NaNoWriMo encourages discipline. When you must write 1,667 new words every day, you force yourself to write the entire book before you begin editing.

Once you have the novel’s arc written from beginning to end, you won’t be left wondering where to go next, writing and rewriting the same first chapter.

You can’t edit a book that hasn’t been written, but you can rewrite the same opening lines over and over, until they mean nothing to you.

I encourage writers to read for pleasure. How else will you learn the tricks, the many ways professional authors begin and complete their work?

If you want to write a novel, you must read what is already published in your genre. There is no other way to understand what readers of that kind of book expect and want to see.

But, to become an educated reader/author, you should look outside your favorite genre. You will find books that surprise you, challenge your biased perceptions. Even if you don’t like the book, something will stick with you.

War and Peace, ninth draft, Leo Tolstoy 1864

Published authors, whether Indie or traditionally published, have finished their work.

Maybe they didn’t do as great a job as some people think they could have done, but they did finish writing the book.

Grand ideas about what you intend to write mean nothing if you don’t finish it.

If all you have ever written is the first chapter… over… and over… and over…, perhaps you need to set that idea aside. Perhaps at this point in your life, writing isn’t your passion, but reading is.

If writing isn’t your obsession, keep reading. Don’t stop searching for the one book to end all books.

And it is here that we come to a fundamental truth, one for which I am profoundly grateful.

Without readers, there would be no need for authors.

Credits and Attributions:

Image: Power of Words by Antonio Litterio |Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Power of Words by Antonio Litterio.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Power_of_Words_by_Antonio_Litterio.jpg&oldid=503150259 (accessed December 12, 2020).

Лев Николаевич Толстой, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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November 30, 2020 · 6:00 am

Goodbye NaNoWriMo2020 and Hello Revisions #amwriting

Today is the final day of 2020’s NaNoWriMo. Many writers have passed the hurdle and already collected their winners’ goodies. They have ordered their winner’s T-shirt and are embarking on revisions.

Others have decided they’re never going to finish, it’s a waste of time, and they’ll never do this again.

But some will.

The real storytellers, people who can’t completely stifle that dream of writing, will return in several years with a better idea and a realistic plan. They’ll conquer it, and writing will become their passion.

This year, I have so far written over 90,000 words. I wrote the final scenes of Bleakbourne on Heath, the alt-Arthurian serial I lost momentum on and couldn’t finish. Also, I made headway on my other unfinished novel, focusing on my antagonist’s story. In discovering the logic of a tainted relic, I accidentally wrote a backstory that became a novel. It is ¾ of the way done.

Participating in NaNoWriMo for the last ten years has taught me discipline.

It makes me do what is the most challenging thing for me—I have to ignore my inner editor to get my word count.

For that reason alone, I will most likely always “do” NaNoWriMo, even when I am no longer able to be a Municipal Liaison.

I love the rush, the thrill of having written something for myself, something I alone will see and enjoy. But more than that, I love knowing that some of what I have written is good and is worthy of sharing with readers.

When I finally write the last words of my accidental novel, the work will have only begun.

I will set it aside, as I need to gain some distance. I’ll go back to finalizing Bleakbourne on Heath, which will take a couple of weeks, or even a month or two. By the time that book is ready for the editor, I’ll be able to see my other work with fresh eyes.

Writers tell me all the time how new and intriguing characters pop up and take their tale in a different direction. Sometimes this works out well. Other times, not so much. I floundered for years on my first novel and can tell you now, it will never be published.

I didn’t know the first thing about how to write a novel, which is apparent when you look at that old manuscript. I didn’t realize that authors are sculptors. The first draft is not the finished product. It’s only a roughly shaped block of clay.

In that glorious moment where we write the final words of our novel, we see it as a precious object, as if it were complete.

Trust me, others won’t see the story the way you do just yet.

A block of clay is only a lump of sticky dirt, but a sculptor envisions what that mass of soil can become. They begin by scraping the layers away until the real shape emerges. That is what we must do.

We scrape away, scene by scene, removing the extraneous fluff in one place and adding more substance in others.

Each chapter is made up of scenes. It might be one scene or several strung together, but these scenes have an arc to them. They’re shaped by action and reaction.

These arcs of action and reaction begin at point A and end at point B. Each launching point will land on a slightly higher point of the story arc.

Strung together, these scenes give form to the narrative, with a beginning, middle, and end.

Often, the middle is where you discover that you have lost your novel’s overall plot. This happens to me for several reasons.

First, it can happen because I deviate from the outline, and while my new idea is better, it lacks something. I go back to the original idea and rewrite it so that it conforms to that outline.

We try to figure out why the plot has failed. I have to ask myself, did the original quest turn out to be a MacGuffin? The MacGuffin’s importance to the story is not the object or goal itself, but rather its effect on the characters and their motivations.

Many times, it is inserted into the narrative with little or no explanation, as the sole purpose of the MacGuffin is to move the plot forward.

Every story has a quest of some sort. It can be a personal quest for enlightenment or a search for the Holy Grail. No matter what, the characters want something, and that thing must be sharply defined.

If the quest has become a MacGuffin, the real quest is not for the object. It is a search for power, love, money, or personal growth and must be given more prominence. The effect that searching for it has on the characters must be clearly shown.

We peel back the layers of our first draft. What symbolism have we subconsciously inserted into the story, clues that we can work with?

Authors always leave hints and symbols in their work, signs of who they are and what they believe. Sometimes it is intentional, but often it is our subconscious writer-mind in action.

If we can identify the symbolic aspect of the plot, we have the opportunity to amplify it.

I have often used the film, The Matrix as an example of how symbolism, intentionally applied, is an underpinning of world-building. When it’s done right, it can show the story in a more focused light.

In one of my favorite scenes, when Neo answers the door and is invited to the party, he at first declines. But then he notices that Du Jour, the woman with Choi, bears a tattoo of a white rabbit. He remembers seeing the words: follow the white rabbit, on his computer.

Curious and slightly fearful of what it all means, he changes his mind and goes to the party, setting a sequence of events in motion. The white rabbit tattoo is a symbol, an allegorical reference to Alice in Wonderland, a subliminal clue that things are not what they seem.

What is the deeper story? With each pass through our manuscript, we sharpen the final product, scrape away from this part and add some over here, rewording and redefining as we go.

Ultimately, we will have exposed the core of our original vision, revealed the parts we couldn’t articulate at first. Some things only become more apparent to us as we dig deeper.

This is why, while many people can write, not everyone can write well. It takes patience and time to cut away the fat and bring out the core of the plot, the story that needs to be told. It also takes practice.

Digging the deeper story out doesn’t happen overnight.

A first draft is our block of clay, and after much effort, the final draft is our finished sculpture. November 30th has arrived, and NaNoWriMo 2020 is over.

Now the real work begins.

Credits and Attributions

David Monniaux, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Auguste Rodin (French, 1840-1917): Bust of Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, 1882, terracotta, Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University Campus, Palo Alto, United States Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Rodin Carrie-Belleuse p1070141.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Rodin_Carrie-Belleuse_p1070141.jpg&oldid=451362532 (accessed November 29, 2020).

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November 23, 2020 · 6:00 am

Murder and the Dry Well of Inspiration #amwriting

We have arrived at week three of 2020’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I’m still zooming along in my accidental novel. However, this is the place in the month where many writers will fall by the way, as they lose the plot and then lose momentum.

The well of inspiration has gone dry.

When we are writing a story that encompasses 50,000 to 100,000 words, these mental stopping places are how we end up with bunny trails to nowhere. We’re trying to force getting our word count, so we go a bit off the rails.

There are ways around that.

If your employment isn’t a work-from-home kind of job, using the note-taking app on your cellphone to take down notes during business hours will be frowned on. In that case, I suggest keeping a pocket-sized notebook and pen to write those ideas down as they come to you.

This is an old-school solution but will enable you to discreetly make notes whenever you have an idea that would work well in your story. The best part is, you don’t appear to be distracted or off-task.

For me, ideas occur when I stop “pressing my brain” to work when it’s on its last legs. Trust me, pounding out 1,667 or more new words a day severely tests both your creativity and endurance.

We know that arcs of action drive the plot. However, random, disconnected events inserted for shock value can derail the best story. Therefore, when I am brainstorming where to go next in my plot, I keep both the ending and overall logic of how to get there in mind.

At the outset of the story, we find our protagonist and see him/her in their familiar surroundings. Once we have met them and seen them in their comfort zone, the inciting incident occurs.

This is the first point of no return and is often where an author’s ideas run out.

They had only visualized the character and the problem but hadn’t thought beyond that point.

A point of no return comes into play in every novel to some degree. The protagonists are in danger of losing everything because they didn’t recognize the warning signs, and they are pushed to the final confrontation, whether they are ready for it or not.

I’m writing a fantasy, and I know what must happen next in the novel because it’s an origin story. I’m writing it from a historical view. I see how this tale ends and am merely writing the motivations for that ending.

Try to identify the protagonist’s goals early on. The words will come as you clarify why the protagonist must struggle to achieve them.

  • How does the protagonist react to being thwarted in their efforts?
  • How does the antagonist currently control the situation?
  • How does the protagonist react to pressure from the antagonist?
  • How does the struggle deepen the relationships between the protagonist and their cohorts/romantic interest?
  • What complications arise from a lack of information regarding the conflict?
  • How will the characters acquire that necessary information?

Suppose your main character doesn’t want something bad enough to do just about anything to achieve it over the next couple hundred pages. In that case, they don’t deserve to have a story told about them.

At the inciting incident, our hero just wants to go back to their comfort zone. They want that desperately, but things happen that prevent it.

  1. What are the events that keep the main characters slogging through the roadblocks to happiness?
  2. Why should the reader care? Every scene and conversation will push the characters closer to either achieving that goal or failing, so if you make it a deeply personal quest, the reader will become as invested in it as you are.

Everything you write from the inciting incident to the last page will detail the quest and answer that second question. Your protagonist and antagonist must both desire nothing more than to achieve that objective.

If they care about the outcome, the reader will too.

I find it helps to have some idea of what the ending will be. Now, as I write my current unplanned novel, a broad outline of my intended story arc is evolving. As I’ve mentioned before, I keep my notes in an Excel workbook. It contains maps, calendars, and everything pertaining to any novel set in that world, keeping it in one easy to find place.

When logic forces things to change as I am writing, as it always does, I make notes to the growing outline and update my maps.

If you are stuck, it sometimes helps to go back to the beginning and consider these questions:

  • What is the goal/objective?
  • Is the objective compelling enough to warrant risking everything to acquire it?
  • What choices will the protagonist have to make that challenge their moral values and sense of personal honor?
  • Who is the antagonist? What do they want, and what are they willing to do to achieve it? Are they facing ethical quandaries too?

Every obstacle we throw in the path to happiness for both the protagonists and their opposition forces change and shapes the direction of our narrative.

When your creative mind needs a rest, step away from the keyboard, and do something else for a while.  I find that when I take a break to cook or clean out a corner, random ideas for what to do next in my novel will occur to me.

Sometimes, these little flashes of inspiration are what I need to carry me a few chapters further into the novel.

Finally, let’s talk about murder as a way to kickstart your inspiration.

I suggest you don’t resort to suddenly killing off characters just to get your mind working. Readers become frustrated with authors who randomly kill off characters they have grown to like.

When a particular death was planned all along, it is one thing, but developing characters is a lot of work. If you kill off someone with an important role, who or what will you replace them with?

You may need to replace that character later, so plan your deaths accordingly.

in the meantime, happy writing! May the words flow freely for you and may you never run out of new ideas to write.

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November 18, 2020 · 6:00 am

Foreshadowing #nanowrimo2020 #amwriting

November is half over, and we are on the downward slide for NaNoWriMo 2020. This is a good time to think about where you are taking your story.

Good foreshadowing is crucial. Suppose you have been working from an outline. In that case, you should have a few clues embedded in the first quarter of the story to subliminally alert the reader that things are not what they seem. These are little warning signs of future events.

For those who wing it, this happens on a subconscious level, but it does happen. Clumsy foreshadowing or neglecting to foreshadow are things we do when laying down our story’s first draft.

Recognizing those signals can be a challenge unless you have a plan.

When a possibility is briefly, almost offhandedly mentioned, but almost immediately overlooked or ignored by the protagonists, that is foreshadowing.

Some readers will miss the suggested possibility just as the unsuspecting characters do. Other readers will guess what is going on.

We subtly insert small hints, little offhand references to future events. If the narrative is well-written, readers will stick with it as they will want to see how it plays out.

The most crucial aspect of foreshadowing is the surprise when all the pieces fall into place. This is the moment when the reader says, “I should have seen that coming.”

We have many reasons to pursue good foreshadowing skills. In my opinion, the most important is that it helps avoid using the clumsy Deus Ex Machina (pronounced: Day-us ex Mah-kee-nah) (God from the Machine) as a way to miraculously resolve an issue.

A Deus Ex Machina occurs when, toward the end of the narrative, an author inserts a new event, character, ability, or otherwise resolves a seemingly insoluble problem in a sudden, unexpected way.

Foreshadowing also helps us avoid the opposite ungainly device, the Diabolus Ex Machina (Demon from the machine). This is the bad guy’s counterpart to the Deus Ex Machina.

Death on a Pale Horse, William Blake c. 1800 (via Wikimedia Commons)

That occurs when the author suddenly realizes the evil his character faces isn’t evil enough. We see the sudden introduction of an unexplained new event, character, ability, or object designed to ensure things suddenly get much worse for the protagonists.

As a reader, I hate it when a character suddenly develops a new skill or knowledge without explanation. When this happens, it’s usually explained away as a Chekhov’s Skill.

You need to mention previous examples of the characters using or training that skill. Without briefly foreshadowing that ability, the reader will assume the character doesn’t have it.

This is when the narrative becomes unbelievable.

Literature and the expectations of the reader are like everything else. They evolve and change over the centuries.

In genre fiction today, a prologue may or may not be a place for foreshadowing. This is because modern readers don’t have the patience to wade through large chunks of exposition dumped in the first pages of a novel.

Shakespeare used both exposition and foreshadowing. Larger events may be foreshadowed through the smaller events that precede them.

Let’s look at Romeo and Juliet and the scene where Benvolio is trying to talk Romeo out of his infatuation for Rosaline.

“Take thou some new infection to thy eye,

And the rank poison of the old will die.” 

In other words, “The minute you see a different girl, you’ll forget this one, Bro.”

Benvolio’s advice proves to be correct because as soon as Romeo lays eyes on Juliet, he forgets his obsession with Rosaline.

And again, later, when Benvolio brings the news that Mercutio is dead, Romeo says,

“This day’s black fate on more days doth depend; 

This but begins the woe, others must end.”

Romeo is predicting that Mercutio’s death is a disaster for everyone and feels as if he is racing toward an unknown future.

In that moment, we see that Romeo is deeply aware that he has reached a point of no return.

He will fight Tybalt to avenge Mercutio because his society requires it. Therefore, he must duel but is fully aware that killing Tybalt won’t resolve anything. Instead, the murder will only perpetuate the problem.

Romeo has seen the foreshadowing and knows he is no longer in control of his fate.

Inserting small hints of what is to come into your narrative gives the protagonists an indication of where to go next.

It tantalizes a reader and keeps them turning the page.

Credits and Attributions:

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:DickseeRomeoandJuliet.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:DickseeRomeoandJuliet.jpg&oldid=431079125 (accessed November 17, 2020).

Painting: Death on a Pale Horse, Commissioned from Blake and acquired by Thomas Butts c. 1800 (via Wikimedia Commons)

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November 16, 2020 · 6:00 am

Mid #NaNoWriMo Update: Best Laid Plans Gone Awry #amwriting

Well, I’m not sure how it happened, but I am now halfway through the first draft of a novel I didn’t intend to write. This book didn’t exist last month even as a possibility, so I began writing it with absolutely no outline.

I may have a working title.

Or not.

It is set in the world of Neveyah, so I do have an Excel workbook containing basic maps and a style sheet for word-usage. I know the ecology and the kind of society the protagonists live in well. Thankfully, the world is solidly built. I keep the Neveyah Excel workbook/style guide open while I am writing and regularly add new usages and made-up words.

I am also updating the general map as I go along.

The way this came about was this: On Nov 1, day one of NaNoWriMo 2020, I sat down and began pounding out the ending for  Bleakbourne on Heath. I had outlined it well, so writing the final chapters took far less time than I planned for, only two days.

On day four, I immediately plunged into my other work-in-progress, writing my antagonist’s story, just as I had planned. That went amazingly well for a day, and I made serious headway on his character arc.

On day five, it occurred to me that I knew nothing about the tainted artifacts. Yet, these relics are significant traps for the protagonists.

That raised a question. Where did the mage-traps originally come from, and who had the dark magic and skills to make them? On the day of the Sundering of the Worlds, the universe intervened. Tauron, the Bull God, was barred from physically entering the World of Neveyah.

So, they must have been created before the Sundering. At the time of Daryk’s story, a thousand years have passed since the Sundering. What dark properties allowed this artifact to conceal itself for a millennium? Where did Kegan get the relic, this mage-trap, that he used to ensnare Daryk?

I always start my backstory in a separate document, so I began telling myself the story.

The next thing I knew, I was writing a novel detailing the path of the tainted artifact.

Now, I am so focused on this that I can hardly think of anything else. I was like this for Huw the Bard and Tower of Bones.

I know I’m nuts, but I have now written over 50,000 words on that story alone, and (fingers crossed) this first draft should be concluded by the end of the month. Whether or not I ever take it beyond first draft to publication is another question. Still, I’m having fun with it, and the exercise is serving its purpose.

Writing this backstory has several functions. First, I am writing the outline as I go, and keeping the ultimate goal in mind gives me a finite point to write to. When I pause to plan my next steps, I can look at this book’s page in my workbook and see the story arc to that point. I will then decide what has to happen to get the protagonists to their next obstacle.

This has been a productive world-building exercise. In this time, the world is beginning to recover from the catastrophic war of the gods. The ecosystem is rebounding, and as life becomes easier, values are changing. The original fifty tribes are starting to go apart, to form distinct cultures.

Society is splintering—a small number of tribes are leaving their roots behind, becoming tribeless. During this time of transition, these tribeless citadels have shifted to a more commerce-driven economy. There are positives on both sides of this, and for both emerging cultures, resistance to change is pointless.

As I write, I am discovering how the artifact manipulates its owners. In writing this historical piece, I find things popping up that need to be noted on my other work-in-progress outline. Because of that, I am making good headway on fleshing out the outline of Daryk’s side of the story.

Writing this backstory helps me understand the negative changes to his personality and makes them logical. Regardless of whether I ever choose to publish this little fun-run, I’m having a great time writing it.

To me, that is what NaNoWriMo is all about—writing something that has been simmering in the back of your mind and having the best time of your life doing it.

Credits and Attributions:

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Landscape MET DP800938.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Landscape_MET_DP800938.jpg&oldid=451365649 (accessed November 15, 2020).

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October 28, 2020 · 6:00 am

Goals and Rewards – the No-Punishment guide to #NaNoWriMo2020 #amwriting

Most people who undertake a first project for NaNoWriMo aren’t “career” writers. For them, it’s a hobby they must fit in around their work schedule.

When we first set out to write, we are fired up about our project, and the words flow. Unfortunately, the fire of enthusiasm burns low as time goes on, and the magnitude of the undertaking becomes apparent.

I think that to be successful as a writer, one must be obsessed with their own art. However, even many successful authors either have day jobs or a spouse whose salary pays the bills. Unless you write Romance, royalties and fat advances don’t fall from the sky except for the lucky few.

We must make time and steal time to write. When you have bills to pay and mouths to feed, there is no other way to produce a finished book.

But to be happy, one must have a balanced life. What is the point of life if you’re so busy writing about fictional lives that you aren’t present in your own?

That need to be present in my real life is why I schedule my writing time. It’s also why I reward myself for achieving my writing goals.

Some people manage to fit short bursts of writing into their daily schedule, writing at work while on break or at lunch.

Others must schedule a dedicated block of time for writing, either rising two hours before they depart for work or skipping some TV in the evening.

During my working years, I fell into both categories.

When I am gripped with a new idea, I find myself stopping wherever I am, pulling out my notebook, and noting that idea for later use.

While driving on the freeway, this isn’t possible. And that is when my best ideas all seem to occur, more’s the pity.

First, we must write at least 1,670 words every day (three more than is required). This takes me about 2 hours because I’m not fast at this.

I can’t stress this enough: write every day, no matter if you have an idea worth noting or not. If you are a person who needs a dedicated block of time, do it even if you have to get up at 4:00 am and don’t let anything disrupt you. On December 1st, you can reward yourself by sleeping in.

But maybe you can’t sit still for too long. Write in small increments—ten minutes here, half-an-hour there. These short bursts add up.

Perhaps your mind has gone blank. If you are stuck, write about how your day went and how you feel about life, or write that grocery list. Just write and think about where you want to take your real story.

Write about what you would like to make happen in that story. Soon, you will be writing what you intended, and everything tallies toward your daily word count goal.

Stay connected. Check in to the national threads and your regional thread to keep in contact with other writers. This is a reward that will keep you enthused about your project.

Nowadays, I fit household chores into my writing time the way I used to squeeze writing into my working life.

But we have one hard, inviolable rule in my home. Whatever else happens during the day, we sit down to the table and eat dinner together. Then we work together to clear the table and clean the kitchen, continuing any discussions that were begun during dinner.

This is a reward for all the goals each family member met that day, a pocket of time dedicated to keeping the lines of communication open and maintaining the connections that bind us.

All through “the blender years” of child-rearing, dinner at the table with the family was required. Some evenings, food was accompanied by the sarcasm of a disgruntled teenager who was angry that we couldn’t “just nuke some Hot Pockets like normal people.” Yes, they were upset, but they were there.

Balance and rewards are the keys to a happy writing life. We want to feel productive and creative, and we want to share our experiences and interests with others.

Achieving your word count goals for NaNoWriMo is a reward but enjoying your life while doing it is critical.

We who write must make time to write, allowing us to be creative and still support and cheer on our families who all have activities and interests of their own. You might find yourself sitting in the car while the children are at sports (as I have often done), but I look at that as at least an hour of undisturbed writing time.

Use it to your advantage.

To be a writer requires discipline and the ability to set aside an hour or so just for that pursuit. You deserve that pocket of time where no one is allowed to disturb you.

I used to encourage my children to use that time to indulge in their interests and artistic endeavors. They became hard workers with challenging day jobs, but with hobbies in music and the arts.

As November and NaNoWriMo progresses, writing becomes more challenging and more onerous.

It becomes work.

Rewarding yourself for achieving your word count goals is essential, especially since you won’t receive a raise or a promotion for them.

Some rewards aren’t good for us. Giving yourself permission to eat junk food as a reward can be a bad idea.

If you want junk food or chocolate, just have it and enjoy it, no strings attached. Life is too short to waste time denying yourself the small pleasures.

However, a reward like scheduling time to watch something on Netflix or a regular show you’ve been looking forward to is a good thing.

The most important thing is this: don’t punish yourself and don’t feel guilty for not making a goal one day. Simply try to make it up over the next few days.

That is what NaNoWriMo is all about. Writing, developing discipline, and feeling good about indulging your creativity.

To be happy, one must have a balanced life.

Above all, be present in your life, and be happy with what you create.

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October 26, 2020 · 6:00 am

Making the most of your writing time #writetip #nanowrimo2020

No matter where you are in the process, the act of writing daily is an important thing. Many people participate in NaNoWriMo because having a visible goal forces them to find the time to write.

I have been a Municipal Liaison for my region since 2011, and my co-ML is author Lee French. Between us, we keep the writers in our area stoked about their projects and help them get through the rough spots. In the past, we have hosted write-ins, both virtual and at libraries and coffee shops.

This year, due to the pandemic, we are going completely virtual, hosting meetups through Discord and Zoom.

As established authors, we have learned a few tricks that we’re always happy to share with those planning to “do” NaNoWriMo for the first time.

If you are just embarking on this literary joyride for the first time, here are a few quick tips and resources to help you stay organized:

Things you want to have at your fingertips, so you don’t have to stop and look it up:

MAPS: If you are writing a story set in our real world and your characters will be traveling, walking a particular city, or visiting landmarks, bookmark google maps for that area and refer back to it regularly to make sure you are writing it correctly.

If you are writing about a fantasy world and your characters will be traveling, quickly sketch a rough map. Refer back to it to ensure the town names and places remain the same from the first page to the last. Update it as new locations are added.

TECH: Many people are writing sci-fi novels. In hard sci-fi, technology and science are the central core of the stories, so it’s a good idea to know what tech is available to your characters well in advance of writing their scenes. A little planning now will aid you greatly in the writing process.

If you are writing fantasy involving magic or supernatural skills, briefly draw up a list of rules identifying who can do what with each ability. Remember:

  • Magic without rules is both impossible and creates a story with no tension. No one wants to read a story where the characters have nothing to struggle against. Working within the rules develops opportunities for growth.
  • Each character should have limits to their abilities. Because they are not individually all-powerful, they will need to interact and work with each other and the protagonist. Establishing boundaries can drive your story in some creative and unusual directions.

Looking things up on the internet can suck up an enormous amount of your writing time. Do yourself a favor and bookmark your resources well in advance, so all you have to do is click on a link to get the information you want. Then you can quickly get back to writing.

Resources to kickstart stalled creativity:

Resources to bookmark in general:

  • www.Thesaurus.Com (What’s another word that means the same as this but isn’t repetitive?)
  • Oxford Dictionary (What does this word mean? Am I using it correctly?)
  • Wikipedia (The font of all knowledge. I did not know that.)

Three websites a beginner should go to if they want instant answers about grammar, written in plain English:

Never delete, do not self-edit as you go. Don’t waste time re-reading your work. You can do all that in December when you go back to look at what you have written. If you don’t like it, change the font color or use strike-out. Those words will all count when you go to upload the manuscript, even those using the strike out. You wrote them, so count them!

Make a style sheet: If you love your sanity, make a list of all the names and words you invent as you go and update it each time you create a new one, so the spellings don’t evolve as the story does. Save this to your desktop, so all you have to do is click on the icon to open it for updating.

My co-ML Lee French and I have found that setting a goal of 1667 words a day really is the best way to meet the goal of 50,000 words by November 30th.

However, if the stress of writing that many words a day is too much, step back and write at a speed you are comfortable with.

Sure, there’s a contest full of personal goals involved. Still, NaNoWriMo is really about encouraging the act of writing and developing the discipline to set aside time to write daily.

Every word you write is essential because it gets you closer to having a book you can hold in your hand and say, “I wrote this.” By writing in short bursts whenever you have the opportunity, you will get your first draft finished.

Here is a list of earned badges we who participate hope to acquire from the national website:

  1. (this one is the easiest) Update your progress! If you want some of the later badges, do it on day 1, and then do it every day after that.
  2. Update more than once in one day!
  3. Start a streak – update two days in a row (do you see a pattern here?)
  4. Update 3 days in a row!
  5. Update 7 days in a row.
  6. Update 14 days in a row.
  7. Update 21 days in a row.
  8. Update 30 days in a row (our personal favorite!)
  9. Achieve par every day (1667 words) (difficult, but doable).
  10. Update at precisely 1667 words (fun!)
  11. Reach 5 k words.
  12. Reach 10 k words.
  13. Reach 25 k words.
  14. Reach 40 k words.
  15. Reach 50 k words by November 30th!
  16. Download that winner’s certificate!

Some years I write words like a fountain spews water and write two novels worth of words.

In other years, every word is torn from my keyboard, accompanied by the howling of banshees. During those years, I can barely make my word count.

For me, the most important thing is having my project that much closer to completion.

If you choose to embark on this project, make that your goal. Write because you have a story burning to be told, and have fun doing it.

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October 21, 2020 · 6:00 am

Theme, Discipline, and Drabbles, warmup for  #NaNaNoWriMo2020 #amwriting

November, also known as National Novel Writing Month, is racing toward us. If you are planning to participate, it’s a good idea to give your project a working title.

Some even go so far as to write the first sentence and then leave the rest blank. That way, the project is waiting for them to dive into on November 1st.

Most authors have a difficult time churning out 1667 words a day, so not everyone is cut out to participate in this writing rumble. However, you don’t have to officially sign up. You can set your self a daily goal of 100 – 300 or more new words a day and try to accomplish that.

You never know what you will come up with.

I think of writing as a muscle of sorts, working the way all other muscles do. We’re healthiest when we exercise regularly.

Writing daily is easier once it becomes a behavioral habit. 

A little practice in advance helps. The more frequently you write, the more confident you become. Spending a small amount of time writing every day is crucial. It develops discipline, and if you want to succeed in your goal for NaNoWriMo, personal discipline is essential.

Trust me, it is not asking too much for you to have some time every day that is sacred and dedicated to writing.

On a personal level, you must decide what is most meaningful to you. Is your dream of writing that novel important? Or do you choose to watch a television show that is the result of someone else’s dream? This is a choice only you can make.

Suppose you are planning to write a novel in November. In that case, writing random short scenes and vignettes is a good way to develop that world in advance. This is also a good opportunity to create the characters you will put to paper on November 1st.

In writing these scenes, you have the chance to identify the themes and subthemes you hope to explore during NaNoWriMo. Theme is different from the subject of a work. As an example that most people know of, the subject of Star Wars is “the battle for control of the galaxy between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance.”

The themes explored in those films might be “moral ambiguity” or “the conflict between technology and nature.”

At some point, you might become brave enough to submit your work to a magazine or anthology. When you choose to submit to an open call for themed work, your work must demonstrate your understanding of what is meant by the word ‘theme’ as well as your ability to craft clean and compelling prose.

For practice, try picking a theme and thinking creatively. Think a little wide of the obvious tropes (genre-specific, commonly used plot devices and archetypes). Look for an original angle that will play well to that theme, and then go for it.

Most of my own novels have been epic or medieval fantasy, based around the hero’s journey, detailing how their experiences shape the characters’ reactions and personal growth. The hero’s journey is a theme that allows me to employ the sub-themes of brother/sisterhood and love of family.

These concepts are heavily featured in the books that inspired me, and so they find their way into my writing.

To support the theme, you must layer

  • character studies
  • allegory
  • imagery

These three layers must all be driven by the central theme and advance the story arc. A way to get a grip on these concepts for your NaNo Novel is to do a little advance writing that explores your intended theme. Think of it as a bit of literary mind-wandering.

Some of the best work I’ve ever read was in the form of extremely short stories. Authors grow in the craft and gain different perspectives when they write short stories and essays. Each short piece that you write increases your ability to tell a story with minimal exposition.

This is especially true if you write the occasional drabble—a whole story in 100 words or less. These practice shorts serve several purposes, but most importantly they grow your habit of writing new words every day.

Writing such short fiction forces the author to develop an economy of words. You have a finite number of words to tell what happened, so only the most crucial information will fit within that space.

Writing drabbles means you have a limited amount of space, so your narrative will be limited to one or two characters. There is no room for anything that does not advance the plot or affect the story’s outcome.

The internet is rife with contests for drabbles, some offering cash prizes. A side-effect of building a backlog of short stories is the supply of ready-made characters and premade settings you have to draw on when you need a longer story to submit to a contest.

Writing a 100-word story takes less time than writing a 3,000-word story, but all writing is a time commitment. When writing a drabble, you can expect to spend an hour or more getting it to fit within the 100-word constraint.

To write a drabble, we need the same basic components as we do for a longer story:

  1. A setting
  2. One or more characters
  3. A conflict
  4. A resolution.

First, we need a prompt, a jumping-off point. We have 100 words to write a scene that tells the entire story of a moment in a character’s life.

Some contests give whole sentences for prompts, others offer one word, and still others no prompt at all.

A prompt is a word or visual image that kick starts the story in your head. If you need an idea, go to 700+ Weekly Writing Prompts.

In a previous post on writing short stories, I showed how I use a loose outline to break short stories into acts. I’ve included that graphic at the bottom of this post.

A drabble works the same way.

We break down the word count to make the story arc work for us. We have about 25 words to open the story and set the scene, about 50 – 60 for the heart of the story, and 10 – 25 words to conclude it.

Info dumps about character history and side trails to nowhere have no place in short stories. However, they do make useful background files for your world-building and character development.

When you write to a strict word count limit, every word is precious and must be used to the greatest effect. By shaving away the unneeded info in the short story, the author has more room to expand on the story’s theme and how it supports the plot.

Save your drabbles and short scenes in a clearly labeled file for later use. Each one has the potential to be a springboard for writing a longer work or for submission to a drabble contest in its proto form.

Spend an hour to get that idea and emotion down before you forget it. The completed scene is a small gift you give yourself.

Whether you choose to submit a drabble to a contest or hang on to it doesn’t matter. Either way, the act of writing a drabble hones your skills, and you will have captured the emotion and ambiance of the brilliant idea.

Good drabbles are the distilled essences of novels. They contain everything the reader needs to know about that moment and fills them with curiosity to learn what happened next.

That is what true writing is about.

 

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October 19, 2020 · 6:00 am

Jump-starting #NaNoWriMo2020 #amwriting

I have been a Municipal Liaison for NaNoWriMo since 2012. I started participating in this annual writing rumble in 2010. I  found myself taking the lead as the unofficial ML for my region in 2011 when our previous ML didn’t return. Organizing write-ins, cheering on my fellow writers—I didn’t know how it all worked. But it was a lot of fun, and I became close friends with a fantastic group of writers.

Over the years, I have learned many tricks to help people get a jump on their NaNoWriMo project.

Most writers will start an entirely new project. Some have an outline, others are flying blind, or in author speak, “pantsing it.”

Other writers will continue writing the first draft of an unfinished work-in-progress. On November first, they write all the new work in a separate manuscript that is for NaNoWriMo validation purposes.

This year I have several projects. One will be to write the final chapters of Bleakbourne on Heath, a novel that began life in 2015 as a weekly serial. I have the outline all written for that, and the ending is now firmly established. Finishing that should cover about 20,000 – to 25,000 words.

My second project is for my new duology set in Neveyah. I need to write the chapters that show my antagonist’s storyline. They are also outlined now, and when Bleakbourne is finished, I will move on to the Aeoven Cycle.

I also have three short stories and a novella to fill in on those days when I can’t focus on the tasks at hand, so I will have plenty to keep my mind churning.

Several years came where I had no novel-length ideas. For those years I wrote collections of short stories to submit to magazines and contests.

But what if you think you have no ideas worth writing?

Feel free to look on the internet for writing prompts.

Don’t let your flashes of inspiration slip into oblivion. Write them down and use them. A pre-prepared list of prompts can stimulate any number of projects. It’s like an “extra brain,” full of ideas to jump-start a short story.

Great novels all begin with a random idea, a “what if,” so I save this document to my computer’s desktop. It’s nothing fancy, just a list of ideas and one-liners that seemed interesting.

You could use sticky notes or a pencil and paper, but the important thing is to not forget them.

Whenever I don’t have a specific project to write on, I go to that list, select a prompt, and start writing. I write new words on that idea for fifteen minutes.

Often, I end up with a drabble or a poem to show for my fifteen minutes. Other times, what I produce is not worth much, but the act of writing new words is essential.

It trains your brain to think like a writer.

The following are some of my favorite prompts:

  • Edgar always said there was no place for pansies in this war. His preferred weapon was a dahlia.
  • Dogs and little children hated Winston. The rest of us merely despised him.
  • Death is the one thing you can take with you, and Sheila Harris was packed up and ready to go.
  • The body in the trunk of Edna’s car had become a real inconvenience.

Another trick to both jump-starting and finishing a NaNo Novel is to write the last chapter first. Then set it aside in a separate document from the NaNo Manuscript, and write the story to that moment.

Yes—it’s true. I wrote my first NaNoWriMo novel by writing the last chapter first and then wondering how the characters had gotten to that point, that place.

Once I knew how the book ended, I could write 60,000 to 70,000 words to connect up to that final denouement.

The original premise: An old man returns to a town that was the scene of his most treasured memories.

The book opens when he is a young man and takes him through grand love affairs and miserable failures. My soul was on fire with that book, and I couldn’t think of anything else.

Julian Lackland had a rough journey but was published this year.

Julian Lackland @ Books2Read

Julian Lackland @ Amazon

Julian wasn’t my first novel, but it was the first one I had completed. If you don’t finish your projects, the world will never read your work.

NaNoWriMo has shown me that writing prompts are an excellent tool that we can use to jump-start our imaginations. The Writer’s Digest website has an excellent post dedicated to writing prompts:

Creative Writing Prompts

If you want to practice writing something but can’t think of what, take a look and see if something interests you.  No two people are alike, so don’t be afraid to use a prompt from a popular site like Writer’s Digest. The way you go with it will be as unique and individual as you are.

Every day, things occur that I think would make such good magazine articles, and November is a great month to write them.

  • A spring day at the Olympia Farmer’s Market (one of the largest on the west coast).
  • The story of a mentally ill homeless woman whom I met on a rainy day.
  • A road trip down Washington State Route 105 from Westport to Raymond, and the ghostly, nearly abandoned coastal towns of rural Washington State.

So many random ideas and so little time to write those stories! That is why November and participating in NaNoWriMo has become so precious to me.

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September 30, 2020 · 6:00 am

Autumn, and thoughts of #NaNoWriMo2020

September is ending. Here in my native northwestern forests, the colors of the big-leaf maples and alders paint the landscape in shades of yellow and gold.  Lower in the canopy, bursts of red and scarlet from our sumac and vine-maples shout that autumn has arrived, and summer is leaving.

In the high country, golden larches surprise those hikers who’ve never seen a deciduous conifer. They might think the forest is dying when really, it’s just going to take a long nap.

The autumn forest feels mysterious, a place of change and shadows, with depths we can’t really know.

The sky is also changing. Our days are shorter, and while the sun is shining this week, the monsoon months approach. Rain will be our most constant companion, or heaven forbid, lowland snow.

I don’t mind the snow now that I don’t have to drive in it, but something about the slightest dusting sends the Northwest into a panic. By the middle of October, gray overcast skies seem to linger unending, eternal.  Visitors from sunnier places wonder if the sun will ever shine again.

I always tell them to wait a day or two. When the clouds finally part, they reveal a shade of blue so beautiful that words can fail me.

These are the writing months, the mad dash to finish that first draft, and the build-up to NaNoWriMo. These are the days when inspiration knocks on the door, calling “Trick or treat!”

In October, I begin prepping for the month of intensive writing.

If I am going to be effective, I will need to make an outline of the basic story arc. I will make one even when my novel could end in several different ways.

Writing a story as it falls out of my head can be fun in short bursts. However, my years of experience with NaNoWriMo have taught me that I will quickly run out of ideas of what to do next if I don’t have some sort of guide.

In some novels, it feels as if the authors became desperate at the halfway point. Random sex and violence occur without any real feeling. It’s a terrible temptation to kill someone just to stir things up and raise the emotional stakes.

I don’t want to be faced with that dilemma. I intend to begin writing on November 1st with a solid notion of  who the story is about, what their problem is, and where the story will go. For me, good preparations are the key to a finished first draft. Sometime toward the middle of October, I will share some of my simple nano-prep ideas.

There are times when someone must die to advance the plot or fire up the protagonist, but readers get angry with authors who kill off too many characters they have grown to like.

Autumn and winter are also my reading days. In October I immerse myself in reading, mingled in with the writing I ordinarily do. I admit that some days I get so into what I’m reading that I forget to cook dinner.

Oops.

Today’s autumn glory will intensify and linger for a few short weeks. Then, the rain we Northwesterners are famous for will move in.

Those few leaves fortunate enough to go unraked will become soggy and moldy, waiting for the wind to set them flying. They will huddle in the gutters and against the foundations of buildings, seeking warmth and perhaps regretting their freedom.

And when the skeletal remains have turned to soil as all leaves must, perhaps a seed will take root. Maybe one day, the seedling-tree, nurtured by this year’s broken remains, will shade me as I walk.

In autumn, my ideas for stories are like fallen leaves. I cast them flying in the wind that is NaNoWriMo, letting them go where they will against the framework of my world and plot outline.

All I can hope is they come to rest in a place where they will nourish the seeds of the story I intend to write when November 1st arrives.

Credits and Attributions

Albert Bierstadt – Autumn Landscape PD|100 via Wikimedia Commons

Autumn Landscape with Pond and Castle Tower-Alfred Glendening, 1869 PD|100 via Wikimedia Commons

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