Month: November 2013

Bending the Rules

Posted on by Ely0604
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles  FreeDigitalPhotos.net

     NaNoWriMo is about writing a novel in 30 days.  The rules state that you start writing a brand new novel on November 1st and after 50K words and/or 30 days, you should have a new novel.  But rules were made to be broken or at least bent.  Many participants use the NaNo challenge to finish a novel they have already started, because 50K words does not a novel make (at least not completely, for most genres).

     So if the rules can be bent to continue a novel already in progress, why can’t they be bent even further (or in the other direction maybe)?  The point is to get the writing done, right?  Why force yourself to sit and focus on something that inspiration refuses to participate in?  If I am bored writing it, then the reader will get bored reading it.  It will feel as forced to the reader and it does to me, trying to pull the words from someplace they don’t want to be found.

     More than 26K words in and I am still eking towards the real action in the story I am writing.  I’m actually only one scene away, but it’s like there is a wall preventing me from seeing or going any further.  There is a lot of lead up and a good chunk, if not most of what has already been written, will likely not make the cut when it comes time to edit (which is not until after November of course.)  But the closer I get to the good bits, the harder I find it to focus and produce the words I need to get there.  And no, there is no jumping ahead and writing the good bits first, because I only know the feeling I’m going for and a portion of how it will be achieved.  Getting through the lead up helps shape the story as a whole and without it, it would be like building a house with no foundation.  At least, that’s how it works for me.  Other writers will have different opinions and approaches.

     Yesterday, I was barely able to write over six hundreds words.  My mind and my heart just weren’t in it anymore.  So why force myself to continue something when inspiration is pulling me in another direction?  Simply to stick to the rules?  But then doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the challenge, to get me writing?  So as of this morning, I am going back to working on a short story I was writing before joining this year’s NaNo.  Anything new I write will be counted towards my daily word count since I am still writing, just not the novel I intended.  If I finish that and I still don’t reach the 50K word goal, then I will just go wherever inspiration leads me.

     It just doesn’t make sense to fight with my muse because he/she/it isn’t telling me what I want to hear and then later curse him/her/it out because they aren’t telling me anything at all.  Unfortunately, as many writers can attest, we are slaves to our muses and not the other way around.  So we need to be open to listening when they are speaking and that’s exactly what I’m choosing to do.

The Decline

Posted on by Ely0604
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles  FreeDigitalPhotos.net

     It’s starting.  The very thing that made me question whether or not I should participate in NaNoWriMo this year.  Gone is the lull in the project at work that had freed up my mind, giving me time to get swept up in the excitement of the NaNo prep that was going on all around me.

     I started off stronger than any of my previous attempts, averaging over two thousand words a day for the first week.  But then slowly but surely, that number began to dwindle in week two.  As the workload increased at my job, my motivation and energy began to drop.  Add to that the fact that I was starting to get bored with the novel and it was looking like a recipe for disaster.  The nice cushy lead I had given myself is gone and for the first time yesterday, I ended the day slightly behind the total word count.

     The problem I realized is that after a long exhausting day at work, I would come home and sit down to write, but I was bored with what I was writing.  I still have yet to get to the real meat and potatoes of the story.  And try as I might, I have trouble writing ahead and then finding ways to tie everything together, transitioning from one scene to the next.  For this reason, I find myself compelled to write the story chronologically and then go back and beef it up or revamp it.

     I was starting to drift and the story slowly veered off track.  Wondering how I was going to find my way back to the story I wanted to write from the detour the story had taken, I came up with a few ideas during my walk home tonight.  For the most part, the heart of the story will stay the same but a lot of the build up will change or disappear altogether (but not until after NaNo of course).

     So while I am almost a full day behind my word count at this very moment, I still have three hours to reduce that number and I’m hoping that the new ideas will give me the push I need to get me back into the groove of writing two thousand words a day.  After all, I need to build up a nice cushion again so that I can relax on Thanksgiving.

     While I may have fallen behind, I am still pleased with the progress I am making.  This is normally around the time when I’ve fallen so far behind that I get discourage and make less of an effort to catch up.  With a little over two weeks left, I am only about nine thousand words shy of my previous best and haven’t even written the most intriguing part yet which should set my fingers flying across the keyboard once again.

     Well, gotta go!  I’ve got a word count to increase!  I hope your NaNo experience is going smoother than mine.

Flying By The Seat of My Pants

Posted on by Ely0604

     As you most likely already know, I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year.  Although it is my fourth year participating, the entire experience feels different from previous years.  First, I was completely unprepared this time, no characters, no plot, nothing but a setting in mind.  Second, I have absolutely no notes on this newest novel, not a one.  Third, I’m trying something new with POV.  Fourth and most exciting, I have NaNo friends!

      I’ve stated in the past that my first go at NaNo found me floundering for a novel idea until the very night before.  But once the idea struck, I had everything I needed; characters, plot, conflict, etc…  I scribbled it all down like a mad genius and went to be satisfied that I now had a solid foundation to build on.  When I woke up the next morning, more than 2k words poured out of me and I was off to a great start.  

A picture is worth a thousand words so 50 should help me reach my goal.
Image courtesy of Jetkasettakorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

     This year however, the only thing I had to work with was the idea that I wanted to write a horror story, potentially dealing with a young couple moving into a haunted house.  But I had no idea who the couple was, what they looked like, why they were moving into the house or why the house was haunted.  Then another participant mentioned using photo prompts to help them create 30 short stories in 30 days and I thought, photo prompts, that’s exactly what I need.  So I headed to Pinterest to create a board dedicated to my NaNoWriMo novel.  With each picture I found, the story began to take shape, morphing and evolving along the way.  While in its current state it is still a story about a haunting, it is no longer the story that I first thought up a little over a week ago.  For the first time, I can truly say that I am writing by the seat of my pants.

     In the past, I have had notebooks or Scrivener projects chock full of notes, character sketches and conversations that I’ve wanted to include in the novel.  I would use these to help keep me on track.  One year, I even attempted to do an actual outline in hopes that it would guide me on what to write next, keeping the words flowing freely.  

Swapped notes for photos
Image courtesy of pixbox77 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

     This year, the closest thing I have to notes are my photo prompts.  I have no character sketches and no real idea of how the story will end.  Somehow, the story seems to be writing itself this time around.  I just set my fingers on the keyboard and they do the rest.  There is no over-thinking, no second guessing and no constant need to edit this time around.  I even noted inconsistencies with POV and tense and just kept going with the knowledge that it would get fixed during the initial edit.  And if it gets missed in the first edit, there is always the second or the third or however many it takes to get it ready to share with the world.  This is a huge step for me.  When I first started writing, noticing something like that would have caused me to obsess, feeling the need to fix it right then and there, setting me back on my word count and making me lose the momentum that I had built up.

      I always prefer to write in the first person, present tense.  I know a lot of authors and even readers find this approach a bit odd, some even calling it unnatural.  But to me, this is what feels right.  The main character drives the story, explaining what is happening along the way, taking us on a journey.  This time around, I am still using the first person, present tense, but instead of one main character telling the story, there are two.  The novel is being split into parts; the first telling the story over a span of six months, from one character’s POV, the second telling it from the other character’s POV over the same six month period and the third part will give us the outcome (not sure how the POV will be worked in this part).  I’ve never written a story from two different POVs, nor have I ever written one with parts.  I’m not sure if the final product will still be structured this way or if I will find some way to merge the first two parts and just do a normal chapter book.  Only time (and maybe beta readers) will tell.

      And for the most exciting change in this year’s NaNoWriMo participation, I have other people that understand what it is to take on this beast that is NaNoWriMo.  In the past, I have always done this on my own and half way through, I would just start to fizzle out.  I’m hoping that this year, seeing all of my fellow participants soldier on, will be a motivating factor for me not to give up.  And when I feel my conviction start to waiver, I have people that I can turn to, who have been there and done that, to give me the metaphorical swift kick in the pants that I will need to keep going.

This time I’m not alone
Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

     So far, I am doing great, writing an average of about 1,700 words a day.  To find out what the novel is about and read an excerpt, click here.