Hello? Is this thing on?

Wow. Hello out there. Ever tried to get back into a website you haven\’t used in 5 years? That was a walk down memory lane. Why do I have so many email addresses?

I started this blog in October 2010 with one goal in mind. Write a book. By the morning of December 1st, I\’d written more than 50,000 words. I\’d written a book. The story had a beginning, a middle, and an end. I was elated. I saved the story to a thumb drive for safe keeping. I printed the book so I could hold it in my hands. My laptop died. I lost the thumb drive. All I have left are my printed pages.

I attempted to edit the novel many times over the years but grew bored of starting the editing process over and over. I never really got through editing the first few chapters before feeling frustrated with the amount of revision needed. I started a prequel during the 2015 NaNoWriMo using two of my favorite characters from the first book. I wrote about 21,000 words by the end of November. I\’ve gone back to it here and there but not with any serious intent.

Don\’t get me wrong. I love both the initial book and the second would be book. I adore my characters. I just …. I don\’t adore the editing. There I said it. I have countless books on writing, structure, outlining, plot, characters, so on ad nauseam. Not a single book on editing. I do not have a clue how to edit this work. It\’s been 10 years now since I wrote the first book. Will I even feel the same about the story? Will I still love it? Let\’s find out, yeah?

Step one is to get the first book back into digital format. As I mentioned above, the only copy I have is printed. I\’ve tried a few different ways, but typing it over again seems to be the best way to get it back to an editable format. The goal is to get it done and not to get too hung up in the editing process during this phase. There are 160 pages double spaced. I type quickly, so I\’ll set a goal of getting through 12 pages a day. This puts me at two weeks to get this done. I can do that.

Double on the Rocks, Please

Are you kidding me? Only 9 days left of NaNoWriMo? This month has flown by and my mind has flown with it. I started out fairly strong with writing, but, well, life happens. I think I skipped out on writing for at least 3-4 days which put me behind in a big way. 

As of Monday 11/14/2015, I\’d only written 8,959 words. I should have been at 26K. I could have stopped, threw up my hand, and run screaming from the room. I didn\’t .. I wrote 11K words in 5 days. That\’s an average of 2,292 words a day. Some days I wrote more, some less. The point is… I wrote. How did I do it? How am I continuing to do it? 

  • Word Sprints – word sprints are pretty much what they sound like – set a time, say 10 minutes, 15 minutes and write as may words as you can in that time frame. Twitter is a great place to find friends to word sprint with you or you can follow @NaNoWordSprints for all day, every day sprints. Some like to add a word count goal to the timed sprint. The most popular timed sprint with a word goal is 1K in 30 minutes…. write 1,000 words in 30 minutes. Harder than it sounds and takes concentration.

  • Word Wars – word wars are battles between two or more people in which a time is set to write – the goal is write more words than the other person during the time limit. Typically you don\’t know how well the other person is writing, so you just hope you\’re doing more than they are. There are sites that allow you to word war with others and see their count as you\’re typing. This could be a big motivator to keep typing if you see your rivals words going up.
  • Writing Buddies – find friends online or at local write-ins to keep you motivated. It\’s helpful to feel accountable for hitting goals and reporting word counts to friends daily. I use Twitter, NaNoWriMo and Rough Writers to help keep me in check with word counts and goals 

Today is Sunday, November 22, 2015 and I have written 20,420 words. I will more than double this word count over the next 9 days. My novel is a mess, I\’m lost, and I\’ve no idea how this will end. I am okay with this and will keep writing. Just keep writing.

Finish the @#$!ing Story!!

Every year NaNoWriMo receives written \”Pep Talks\” from various authors which they send out to the NaNoWriMo masses for consumption. Typically, I read them and think, \”Thanks. That was funny or inspiring or worth the read.\” Today\’s \”Pep Talk\” is written by Stephanie Perkins and she wrote something that resonated with me. NaNoWriMo isn\’t about writing a good novel.

When I mention to my intention of writing 50,000 words in 30 days to my friends and family, I get a lot of nods with raised eyebrows. The assumption is a book written in 30 days could not possibly be publishable. Well, I\’m here to tell you, they\’re right. Thank goodness this is not GePuInThDaMo! Am I right? (Oh that was a lame attempt at a NaNoWriMo style Get Published in Thirty Days Month)

So, if the point of NaNoWriMo is not to write a publishable novel in 30 days, then what exactly is the point? The point, my dear readers, is to finish the @#$!ing story! Each day consists of a goal to write no less than 1,667 words each of the 30 days in order to reach the goal of 50,000 words by November 30th. The point is not to write eloquently. The point is not to write perfectly coiffed lines. The point is most certainly not to get to the end of the month without a single grammatical error. The point is to finish the @#$!ing story! Start anywhere you like in the story. Start at the end an work backwards. Start in the middle and work towards both ends. Just finish the @#$!ing story!

At midnight November 30th, the goal is to have a completed first draft of a novel. A completed first draft that sucks from beginning to end. A completed first draft with just a hint of the story you started and a lot of a story that formed in the wee morning hours when you were too tired to argue with the characters anymore. This first draft is wrought with plot holes and shifts in point of view. The main character\’s name changed half way through. Pages 150-153 are nothing but a rant about how much the ending sucks. Somewhere in there is a phone number for the pizza delivery guy. But, the @#$!ing story is finished.

December is for editing. 
November is for unbridled writing. 
No rules. 
Total anarchy!

Word Count? What Word Count?

Starting NaNoWriMo is easy. Pick a scene you want to write, and write it. Voila! You have your first 1,667 words, maybe more. Maybe your first day was a breeze and you were like \”Pfft, I\’ve so got this!\” Then…. it happens.

You wake up the next morning with a cough and a scratchy throat. Your eyes are watering like the falls of Niagra and your nose isn\’t much better. OMG.. you\’re sick! You know from past experience this whatever it is will likely last at least 10 days. No less than 5 of those days will be riddled with coughing until you pee in your pants and trying to remember a time when you were truly happy.

Of course this means no writing. Your days of NaNoWriMo are over! Oh hush. Don\’t be so dramatic about it. Sure. You may be down a few days and your novel may be taunting you, never mind the every growing word count you\’re not hitting, but there\’s always next year. Nah.. I\’m kidding.

I started NaNoWriMo with everyone else this year on Sunday, November 1. I was full of energy and ready to write a new novel. I hit my 1,1667 words in a just a few hours (more like 6 hours, but whatever) and was off to enjoy the rest of my Sunday. My new novel had begun. All was right with the world. Monday night, I found it more difficult to keep the story going and only wrote a few hundred words. I was tired and my throat was a bit scratchy. Tuesday morning I woke up to all the horrors described above. I did not write the rest of the week.

It\’s now Saturday, November 7, and my word count by this time should be 10,002. My actual word count is a whopping 2,254 .. a difference of  7, 748 words. Am I freaking out? Yes, of course I am. Am I giving up? Yes, of course…. wait, wait. No, no I\’m not giving up. To catch up I need about 3800 words today and tomorrow. That\’s not crazy! I can do that! Right? Write!

Throughout today and tomorrow, I will use the NaNoWriMo sprints on Twitter and set goals. I will update my word count before each break. You will see this number magically increase and hopefully by Monday morning, I will be back on target.

Don’t Be Rude!

The first day of NaNoWriMo is over. I wrote up to my expected 1,667 and maybe a few words past it. What do I think about what I wrote? Well, I knew only the very opening. I knew the feeling I wanted my MC to have. I knew very little else. I typed out what I wanted to be there and then it happened. The feeling I love about writing. The characters show up. They already know they are in this story. I’m the one moving slowly and trying to catch up. It’s exhilarating!

I love the rush of new characters arriving on the page. I just keep typing all the while thinking where did you come from, who are you. They ignore my questions and just keep telling me what to write. I’ve lost my ability to stay with it, though. I was so excited to see a new character jump in the scene yesterday that I stopped writing to walk around the house being excited. By the time I got back to the page, my new character was tired of waiting for me and had very little to say.

I must remember to stay with it. Just keep typing. Be excited when it’s done. Just keep going! Leaving the page during a good scene is like walking way from a conversation while the person is still talking! That’s just rude. Listening to my characters is the best way to find out what they really want and need.

I’m reading Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. The book and workbook were recommended by Jonathan Maberry during a NaNoWriMo online podcast. Each author present was asked which writing book still helps them in their current writing. Maberry was quick to say he buys this workbook for every new book he writes. I like to book so far and will be using as much of his suggestions as I can while writing this month. I haven’t used the workbook yet. Feel like I need to get through the actual book first.

Well, back to it. They are hovering over me and waiting ever so impatiently.

And Here.We. Go.

To quote the late, great Heath Ledger in his role as The Joker, \”And here.We. Go.\” If you\’ve seen this line in the movie, then you know he\’s expecting a big explosion and fantastic results, but he is underwhelmed when nothing happens. No explosions. No people scurrying for cover. No chaos. No results. I feel like The Joker today and the jokes on me.

Today is November 1, 2015. Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo. I made the decision to write a second novel sometime in October. I thought about the characters I would grow from my previous book. I thought about the time in their lives where their story should begin. I thought about a prequel but settled on a … what do you call the next book in series? A postquel? No, that\’s definitely not right. I made new \”buddies\” on the forums and on twitter. I chatted with a few and went to a local NaNoWriMo kickoff party. I prepared my family. I prepared dinner for later to save some time. I\’m ready! Yes. Bring on November!

Here we are. November 1. I have nothing prepared other than a vague idea of where this story needs to go. I have no bad guy. No plot. No other characters. I don\’t even remember how the other book ended. Well. Sort of. I suppose I will do what I normally do. Just write. Start with something and just write. Then keep writing. Then write some more. I\’ve seen many inspirational quotes over the last couple of months reminding me to just write. Forget about the errors, the flaws, and the lack of grammar. Just write. This month is about writing. December is about editing. Anything I write can be fixed at a later time. It\’s not supposed to be perfect this month. This month is about getting it out of my head and into this laptop (and thumb drive, and email, and extra saved copies).

Today, I begin writing Symbiosis (WT). I am a writer with a work in progress (WIP). I am letting loose my creativity and going with the flow. I know the very beginning of my opening scene and nothing more. I am a writer.