NaNo Lessons and Lynn Viehl Giveaway Winner

I wasn't going to do NaNo this year. I'd done it before, won before and not won before, and last year, though I did okay on the word count, also wound up in a mental muscle cramp a good deal of the time and ended up putting a book of my heart on the back burner for all the debris to settle before it's time to revisit that story. Not the ideal outcome, but sometimes, we have to go through such places in our writing lives.

It wasn't until days before the start that I signed up this year, and decided that I had nothing to lose by doing something radically different. For me, this NaNo, this was...not count words. Fired up Zen Writer with a pretty background, did a lot of longhand writing, and decided to do what came naturally. Which turned out to be a) writing longhand first, and b) working scene to scene.

Also helpful was becoming involved in the social aspect of NaNo, something made easier by the fact that the kickoff party was held at my favorite coffee house, literally a two minute walk from my home. I didn't make it to most of the events, but the Facebook group for local NaNo people is still going strong. I met two new friends through the group. While I didn't make fifty thousand words, my goal wasn't a number, but a story, and that's what I got. I got to the end of my draft. I had fun.

The draft I have isn't perfect, and it's going to need some work, but the story is told, and that's a success. Not a NaNo win, but a success. I'll take it, and move on to the next project, with a new set of skills and a better knowledge of what works for me.

Speaking of moving on, let's move on to the big reveal...

Our lucky winner for the Lynn Viehl giveaway is....

:drumroll:

BUNNY Bunny, please contact me at: AnnaCBowling@gmail.com with your mailing address, and Lynn will get that big bundle o' treasures headed in your direction.

emptyfull

Talk about writing exactly as much as you, personally, need to talk about writing.
--Seanan McGuire

When I walked away from the table, there were bruises on the unheard lyrics of my yet-to-be-born songs.
-K'naan

Creative work comes from internal fires.

--Mary Jo Putney

Today's quotes come from a file I started keeping a few months back. The title inserted itself in my head after I got to the laundromat, in a morning that looked pretty much like the picture above, and realized that I had not brought along a notebook. I had pens, but no notebook and nothing that could be pressed into service. How did I feel at the moment? Emptyfull. Technically not a word, but it fit at the moment, and it encapsulated a lot of what I've felt about writing over the past year.

Full of stories to be told. Empty of the right way to tell them. The voices of my untold stories doing their best to make themselves heard over the noise of the hypercritical gremlins who'd got into my head somewhere along the way. Since I had my e-reader with me, I delved into Marsha Canham's The Iron Rose, finished that and got a fair way into The Following Sea before it was time to fold laundry and haul it home. I've long admired Ms. Canham not only for her writing, but for her committment to telling her stories, her way. I find that a great inspiration.

A quick check of email and favorite blogs between laundry hauling and lunch alerted me to a timely post at the Word Wenchesm on writerly anxiety. If you're a writer or know one, I highly recommend this post. This. So exactly this. If the voices are going to talk to us anyway, we may as well let them have their say. Anxiety is going to happen, but we can ride it out and come out the other side, stronger. To add another quote to my list, this one from Joanna Bourne, "The only cure for the pain of writing is writing."

So yeah, I'm going to talk about writing as much as I need to. This is my place to do that. Talking is not a subtitute for doing, don't get me wrong, but I find that one revs me up to do the other.

How do you battle anxiety about your creative work and punch those hypercritical gremlins in the throat?

2012/2013 - and so it begins

1/14/2013

Made three attempts to blog today, and deleted them all. I do want to commit to a solid week of blogging to start the year as I mean to go on. Hence this.

Thanks to Barbara Samuels' blog entries on the fear and joy of writing, I'm getting a much better handle on why 2012 was not my best or favorite writing year, but we have a brand new year started, and that's good for a fresh start. Which makes this the right time do commit myself to another whole week of blogging.

There are a few reasons for doing this. One, it gets me on the right path (as in picture above). At the keyboard every day, getting something that's in my head out for public consumption. Two, I'm a talker. Staying quiet isn't natural for me, and the longer I am, the harder it is to climb out of it. Three, enough days of forcing myself to blabber about nothing, I will bore myself and have to talk about something interesting. Stories are interesting.

Our new home is within walking distance of two libraries. Maybe three if we're feeling adventurous. We've found both a small independent bookstore (with a really really really good romance section even though it's only one shelf - kudos to the buyer for excellent choices) and a splendidly sprawling (David-the-barista from our local coffee shop has me doing his vocabulary thing these days. I'm not complaining) Barnes and Noble.

I will admit to going on what housemate Linda and I long ago named "library orgies." No, not that kind. In family parlance, it means to go to more than one library in one day and take out whatever strikes one's fancy. Which means that I have a nice TBR stack next to my bed. At present, I count three library books -no, four, but one is a nonfiction book on art journaling, not a novel- and four newly purchased paperbacks on the "read me next" shelf. My nightstand also holds an ARC of a novel by two favorite authors. My Kindle app on my laptop has been a busy thing lately, as is the ereader that lives in my purse (and dearly needs a charge tonight.) However many books I have, I need more, because of that story hunger. After a dismal 2012, it has me again. Or I have it. It's hard to tell sometimes.

There's one more reason for this week of blogging. Fear. What if I'm not doing it right? What if I don't have what it takes? What if I've been kidding myself all this time and should shut up and go away because nobody really cares anyway? What if....fill in the blank with anything that seems appropriate. Fear, for me, can be crippling, and from my perspective, the only way out is through. So, how best to conquer fear of writing? By writing. No, a blog entry is not a novel, but it's putting the tush in the chair and the fingers on the keyboard and sending something out into the world.

So. This is a week of blogging. Some entries may ramble. Some entries may stink like that hunk of cheese that got trapped between the sofa cushions the same week the not yet paper trained puppy decided that sofa was his. (Not that this ever happened to me, because it hasn't, but DH once stashed a pastrami sandwich in my purse and didn't tell me, which resulted in me taking it to work that night and not finding it until um, eating it was no longer a good idea.) Some may actually make some sense, and some may surprise even me, but they will be written. So far, so good.

40255

I did not win NaNo this year, and I am okay with that. I didn't think I would be. I like to win. If I keep on at the same pace, I will hit 50k on December 7th. Not too bad in that respect, and since I was a rebel this year and worked on a project that was already in progress, I may be there already but I'm not doing that math at this point.

What I did win was A) the new writing schedule fitting itself into place, B) finding out what pace is good for me right now, C) 40,255 more words written than I had on November 1st. Also D) I write big, and trying to ignore that and go for anything else is not going to work.

I learned that the laundromat is an amazingly good place for writing longhand, and that it is possible to get pounced by heartbroken pirates in such a place. He followed me home and I'm keeping him. Since said pirate is fictional, DH is fine with this. I have even volunteered to babysit Housemate's laundry in order to get more writing time.

Bring on December.

No, I was not playing chess

When I was a teen, and I had an important school paper to write, I had to sit in the antique chair in the front hall and wasn't allowed to move from it until I had the draft done. I'm not sure if that chair made it when we moved things out of my dad's house, but it's not that particular physical chair that's the important part.

Needless to say, I haven't managed to completely distance myself from my own posterior, and the variety of chairs and corners of floor on which it has been parked probably do not bear numbering. Today (well, yesterday, to be honest; I didn't take pictures of where I sat today) I'm parked in the coffee shop again, in what has come to be my regular time for NaNoing. I would say for writing, but that happens in other places as well, as evidenced by the Moleskines that I keep filling, but we're talking NaNo stuff here.

Ask me on any given day how NaNo is going, and you're likely to get a different answer. From yesterday's really good session to today's wanting to curl in a ball and sob for an hour, venting to a nonwriter friend (who is writer-friendly) and then dragging my battered writerly ego back to the keyboard to see what more I can eke out, because if I don't tell this story, nobody else will. This NaNo has, so far, beaten me up more than the others. Today, for example, I had a casualty, ripping a secondary character whom I really like out of the story because everything else having to do with him had been deep-sixed and the things went better if my heroine did what this guy would be doing in this, basically his lone scene left in this version.

Still behind on count, but there's still a lot of November left in which to get things current. It's not always easy, but if the butt is in a chair and the fingers are on the keyboard and my head in the story, then one figurative foot in front of the other. I've done NaNo excited and prepared, trepidatious and only semiprepared, and this year, it's not so much a feeling as a determination. Maybe moving and family colds and all of the rest took up everything else. Whatever the cause, this year's NaNo sessions feel a lot like those papers and the chair in the front hallway.

In both cases, this puppy's got to get done, and nobody is going to do it but me, so onward.

Personal Archaeology

Our family is getting ready to make a much-anticipated move (that's our soon to be dining room in today's picture) which means that we are now in the decluttering and packing phase.

We've been in the same place for double digit years now, so there are a few time capsules to be found now and again. Today was one of them. This morning was rough, and I needed some time before I could face the keyboard, so to the boxes I went. We'd put this stuff away to look at later, and from the dates on the magazines, it looks like this was from slightly before my father's Alzheimer's diagnosis. I found a print galley of a favorite author's second book. Two spiral notebooks and one composition book with black pages, for writing on in white ink. Letters from friends. Printouts of pieces I'd written for fan publications. A big black binder with the printout of my first novel, My Outcast Heart. Handwritten notes from a talk a visiting rabbi gave at our church. Magazines for interests that I still hold and some that I no longer do.

I sorted. I read. I relived, all under the watchful eye of Skye kitty. I sorted into trash/donate/pack. I remembered how fun it was to write the fan pieces, how exciting it was to type THE END on my first novel. Then I signed up for NaNo. November is going to be a big month.

On the nature of talking....

A friend asked me what I've learned from the blog entry challenge this week. As a word of warning, this may get ramblier than other posts, but rambling can be a good thing; I'm writing this entry in Write or Die's web app so that i can't fall into the trap of self editing myself into oblivion. See, right there, the two instances of "self" in the same sentence. I would go back and get rid of that but Very Bad Things will happen here if I don't so that will come into play later.

Back to the original question. I didn't know how to take that at first. I didn't set out to make this a teaching tool, but hey, unexpected opportunities. What I'd say I recognized the most is that I am a talker. Talking and thinking are linked for me. If I can talk about it, then it's real and I can do it.

So, my friend asked, does talking about writing translate to writing and finishing stories? For me, yes. It does. Think about having the best racehorse in the world. Now don't feed him. What's going to happen? How is he going to run? Not very far or long after missing enough meals and the running he can do isn't going to be up to the usual standard. Kind of the same thing here.

While there are awesome writers who will go from initial idea to finished first or second draft before they breathe a word to anybody, I am not one of them. Everybody has their own right way to work, and for me, that involves talking. My friend did ask if the talking works if nobody replies; this is after I mentioned that blog entries seem to count as talking to my writer-brain so that there will likely be more entries in the future. (Since I also seem to do very well with accountability - if I tell the internet, then I have to do it- there will also likely be more challenges in the future. It can be a thing.

Best of all is sitting down with another writer, one on one, and talking about writing. Talk about their stuff, talk about my stuff, some back and forth, give and take and I'm good to go. Give me a beverage of choice, often some form of black tea with milk and sweetener in this autumnal weather, perhaps a nibble or two, and let me run, because I'm fed. So if that can be something learned, then there's that. It works for me, and it doesn't have to work for anybody else, because we all have our own best ways to go about this business of making the voices in our heads pay rent.

Is it a magic pill that will make everything all betters all at once? No. I don't think there is such a thing. It's a process. It is difficult for a talker to work when there isn't someone else to talk to/with; it can be done, theoretically, but it's a whale of a lot harder and will take a lot longer, and our talker is going to be worse for wear by the time it's done.

Already over my projected length for this entry, but in short, it's a process. For me, talking works, and I can talk here, so I will. You have been warned.

What have you learned about your own process over the years?

So. Writing. I do that.

So. Writing. I do that. Secret tip #2: “So. X.” works along the same lines as “here’s the thing.” That’s a good thing because it always helps to have a backup. Which is pretty much the whole point of doing these morning pages. The brain has to do something, and it doesn’t matter much what the starting gun sounds like, as long as it sounds.

Right now, it sounds like looking at a big blank white wall. Which is normal for the start of a writing day. Some days are great; the characters pull the writer out of bed, march her (or him) to the computer or crack open the notebook and they’re off and running. This is not one of those days. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad day. It only means it’s a day. Butt in chair and fingers on keyboard, same as usual.

The worst time-waster, for me, isn’t Facebook (even with SimCity Social) but doubt. Don’t ask me when the doubt monster (DM for short, as we’re that well acquainted) posed as a pizza delivery person and barged in to take up residence. I’m guessing DM used that particular disguise because, really, what writer is ever going to not open the door for a pizza? At any rate, it did, and while, as with any writer, there’s the obligatory trial and error of finding the right weapon to hit DM where it counts, most days the best way out is through.

So. Writing. There are days when any writer will do anything but write. That’s because writing can be scary. It’s at once intensely personal and meant to be shared. Kind of funny that way, but that’s how it goes. For someone who is both a writer and an extrovert, it can be a delicate balance. Still working on that, since I’m pretty sure I’m going to be both for the rest of my life.

The thing about extroverted writers (see what I did there?) is that we need the energy of others around us to get our own motors running. I can stare at the blank page for hours, go around and around in my own mind, but put me across the table from another writer and I can blabber out pages worth. Which brings to mind an interesting experiment; would it work to try speaking the day’s work into a recording device? Not sure on that one, since I’m a wuss about hearing my own voice in a recording. I’ve heard that’s pretty common, and it’s because we can’t hear our own voices within our heads the same way they sound to others, and the how-it-sounds-to-others is how we hear it on a recording.

That’s it for me today. What’s your favorite weapon when fighting DM?

Workings of a Writing Mind

Freewriting today to get the pump primed, our illustration courtesy of Gunther from my Sims 3 game. Pretty accurate for the writing life, I'd say. Though this is the day of the week when I generally meet with writer friends, life happens, and thus it’s me and me and me.

Which is fine. That’s how writing goes, isn’t it? One writer (two or more if we’re talking a collaboration, but we aren’t at the moment, so move along, nothing to see here) with butt in chair and fingers on keyboard. While it’s important to keep in contact with those of our own kind (especially for those of us who are extroverts, but that’s for another post), writers are not people who talk about writing, without actually doing the work. Writers are people who write. We tell stories. We interpret what’s unfolding in our heads and put it in a form that allows others to enter these worlds of our own creation and get to know the characters who inhabit them.

This morning, I told the woman behind the counter at my local Panera that I have crossed the bar into fall and my usual beverage is now hot tea rather than iced. I wore my fleece vest, a knit hat and matching mitts while on my once-again-customary morning walk with a neighbor. My brain gave me the signal that it’s time for fresh tunes on my mp3 player. Since my brain gave me that signal immediately prior to the device asking me to reformat it, I’m going to consider that confirmation that I’m on the right track.

When I was but a wee princess, my mother used to tell me that the more I did, the more I would want to do, and that holds true with writing as well. I’ve called these random babblings ‘morning pages’ if I want to be writerly, ‘priming the pump’ or ‘freewriting’ most of the time, and if I’m angry/upset/stabby/etc, ‘bloodletting.’ It’s that whole bodies in motion tend to stay in motion sort of thing. We like motion.

Which is why, today, you get this. I am giving myself a challenge. One page of freewriting every weekday morning this week, posted here. That’s the goal. If I tell the interwebs I’m doing it, then I have to follow through. Pictures may be present, but do not count toward page count. Happy Dance Friday will likely count toward fulfilling this challenge, unless faithful readers like you want a double post with extra rambling.

What goes through your head before you get down to business for the day?

After NaNo, Now What?

I did it. NaNo 2011 has been conquered, and I am ready for National Napping Month. However, that event has not yet been organized, and the holiday season approaches, and I make most of the gifts I give, and then there's that bit about writing being my, umm, job. I was asked recently how one knows when one is a writer. For me, the answer is, "one writes."

That's the easy part. Not that writing is always easy. It isn't. Ask any writer who has been doing this for a while. Though I must put in a caveat; they may give you the stink eye, snarl and return attention to keyboard or paper. In cases like that, put the caffienated beverage down and back away slowly. It's best for all involved.

After a solid month of showing up on time and blundering my way through Tamsen and Alec's world, it's odd to think of not doing that, but time for all of us to take a small breather. I'll go through and make my bullet point lists so that I know where I left off, but now is their time to simmer, and when I know more about this story, I can go farther. This morning, I spent some time with my notebook for last year's NaNo, Nothing Short of Heaven, and it felt like I was never gone. There's also the time travel ms that needs only some polish to wing off to potential agents/editors, and the postapocalyptic medieval needs the romance heightened before it can go out and earn its keep.

The showing up on time and pounding keys, though, that's staying. This rate of output feels like a doable pace for the discovery and first draft stages and blogging about writing feeds writing, so that's going to stay as well. Receiving the most recent issue of Romance Writer's Report gave me some good encouragement and ideas for career planning, so time to strategize there.

For any of you who are in the CT/MA area, I'll be here on Saturday, December 4th, speaking on how to go From Fanfiction to Fantastic Fiction, so time to get handouts and wrangle visual aids for that. After that? Nap. Reading. Gummi bears. Well, maybe after I go over some story notes...

Last Day of NaNo...with Goo Goo Dolls?

Last day of NaNo today, and by their count I need 1985 words to get the 50k. I'm going for it. Will I get it? That's the plan, but if I don't, it's not the end of the world. I played with pirates for a month, learned I can produce at this rate and as an added bonus (or two) I'm blogging more and stretching my graphic art muscles. All good stuff right there.

Text in today's art comes from "Still Your Song" by Goo Goo Dolls. I've been listening to this song on pretty much a continuous loop lately, and there's a story in there somewhere. Lyrics here and listen here:



Honestly, start a song with "Called you up ten years too late" and play it to a romance writer, and you know you're starting something. Music is often a point of entry into the creative quagmire area of my story brain, so this does not surprise me at all. Never mind that I write historicals - it's even better that way, as communications that can only travel by written word via foot, hoof or sail make for some tremendous drama. This song touches a lot for me, as I'm of the firm belief that the lower the valley, the higher the mountain, and I love putting my characters through all of that. Which is exactly where this song and NaNo dovetail rather nicely for me

The lines in the graphic leapt out at me when thinking of what NaNo has been this year. Worn down? Yep. Not gonna lie about that. Are Alec and Tamsen real people? Yep again. Sure, they live in my head, and they need more time to marinate before they trust me with something as intimate as their love story. Still, we felt each other out this month and when the time is right, we will complete our journey together.

Do I know when that will be? Not right now, but this is still their song...er, story.

One (NaNo) Day More

Some days have theme songs. Those that don't probably should, but then again I'm the type who generally has one running in my head anyway. For those participating in National Novel Writing Month, I suggest this:

This is the last full day of NaNo and according to their counter, I have 1978 words per day for today and tomorrow to make it. Since I did make over 2k yesterday, it is possible I could do the same today and tomorrow, but at the same time it's possible that I won't. I'm okay either way.

I've been asked if I'll be working on this story during December and the answer as I see it right now is 'no.' My intent is to put this away, focus on editing and polishing other mss that are ready to go out and earn their keep and let this one marinate for a while. What I have in this file isn't so much a book as background material, and an object lesson in knowing what my process is and how well it works for me. All good stuff. I like pirates and Port Royal and Alec and Tamsen and Cornelis and Lydia, and when we all have a chance to get to know each other in more depth, then maybe we can get together and make this happen.

Being an extrovert, talking my story out doesn't detract from ability to write it; it's more likely to unlock things the more I go over it with trusted writer friends. I need to know far more than will ever make it into the actual manuscript. Rushing the process, like trying to microwave a whole turkey half an hour before Thanksgiving dinner, is not something that's good for me, but when I embrace what works for me, as I did with last year's NaNo, the whole journey is a lot smoother. Lesson learned, and on we go.

I'm looking forward to closing out November and returning to other projects, and the new idea slot will be open for other characters to come find me. When they do, we'll take our time and get to know each other and wherever the story takes us, we'll get there together.

There's a PE teacher in my head, and it's writing related.

Only three days left in NaNo, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make the goal. This is not a whine, but an observation. Right now, before today's session, I am at 43833 words, and if I write 2056 words per day for the next three days, I'll sneak in under the wire. Do I see that happening? To be totally honest, no, I don't. What I've learned the most from this year's NaNo is that I do best when I keep to my process. Blorch first, then highlighters, sticky notes and numbered scenes, then outline, then flesh. Assemble story notebook with sections for hero, heroine, villain if needed, history and plot. Images of important things. Soundtracks.

That's what I did last year, and I won. That month spent in Georgian England with Slate and Melanie, two wounded souls with tragic pasts, who find wholeness and healing in each other, and Master, the only villain I've created so far who made me have to get up and walk away from the keyboard because he creeped me out too much, flew by. I still have the notebook at the ready, and as soon as I get the current ms polished and making its rounds, they're up next for front burner treatment.

This year, well, not so much. It's not that I don't like Tamsen and Alec, because I do. It's that I don't know them well enough to tell their story yet, so it's like trying to give a guided tour of a place I've never been to myself. Sure, I had a quick look at the brochure; I know that Tamsen tells far more than she thinks she does by the rings she wears on all fingers, I can see the rolling swagger of her walk and I know that she and Alec are destined to spend their lives together on the high seas in a matter more lawful than she might choose and more risky than he might pick on his own. I do know that they are each other's perfect mate in the nautical as well as romantic sense. I know Tamsen's parents, Cornelis and Lydia, are what I envision as living their happily ever after...and after. I know what a pirate ship is. I know what Port Royal is, and the events of the climactic earthquake...keep eyes peeled for an Unusual Historicals blog post on that for November 30th.

I know the events of the story, and I can pound out the plot points (and dear bullet points, how I miss you with the heat of a thousand suns) but how the romance develops? No, I don't know that yet. I have to live it along with them. With the large amount of words (and I will be thrilled to go back to counting pages in December) left to write and the short amount of time, what keeps me from throwing in the towel and sparing myself the misery? My high school PE teacher, Diane Nappier.

High school was not my favorite part of life, and PE was pretty much tied with math as most dreaded course, as I was not built for either one. Ms. Nappier came at her job with all the passion of someone who's found their calling, and I admired her for that. Though I lagged badly at the lone cross country run our class attempted, I still remember Ms. Nappier pointing something important out to the miserable group of us struggling in the back; the finish line was in sight, and we weren't allowed to quit if we could see the finish line. We could pace ourselves, we could walk if we had to -I did- but once we could see the finish line, quitting was no longer an option.

Every time I think about hitting the delete key and settling into a comfy chair with my e-reader or selections from my TBR shelf, it's Ms. Nappier's voice I hear in my head, and I keep on going. Can't quit when the finish line is right in front of me, no matter how far it seems.

Heroines Don't Get To Quit

It's after ten, and I am only now opening my NaNo file. First, I had to make some art. Having one of those days over here, and it started last night, so things are bound to improve, but my goal in talking about writing in this blog, and the creative process in general, is to be honest. Lay it all out, the good, the bad, and the ugly, because it's all needed to make the end product.

We are now in the last official week of NaNo, and even though some days have a rocky start, each day does find my bottom in the chair and fingers on the keyboard. Normally, I'm beyond excited to get to a project like this, but here's something I've been struggling with whether or not to share. Every single day in this year's NaNo, I've wanted to quit. Every one. I see others zooming on by with higher word counts while my goal is re-teaching myself to produce a certain amount a day, weekends included, and so far, I've been successful. I've also been successful in learning that, for best results, I need to follow my process and come to exercises like NaNo and BISW with my story notebook ready for reference, having ample time to spend following my hero and heroine through the mist and then shaping things into a blorch, and then I'm good to go. Not better or worse than anybody else, but what works for me.

I have also learned that comparison to others is bad and best avoided. Anybody else's goal is not my goal, so if I'm doing what I set out to do, yay me. They're not writing my book, I'm not writing their book, and everybody's life is different. While it's true that at some point during every day this month, I've thought about quitting NaNo, I'm competitive. I need the bragging rights. I get a graphic badge if I finish? Allrighty, then. Lock and load. It's on, baby.

There may come a point in every NaNo writing day when I want to cash in my chips, say 'good enough, this is as far as I go' but writing isn't a matter of want to. It's a matter of have to. Trust me, I've tried not writing and it doesn't work. I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life. November is one month. One month. When I let Alec and Tamsen rest for at least December, there's still Angus and Summer who need my attention so they can get all sparkly shiny polished to go see agents. John and Aline who need their romance emphasized so the wake of the Black Plague doesn't overtake the love story. Last year's couple, Slate and Melanie, are quite insistent that they're ready for me to pay them some attention again, and I am excited for all of the above. Tired from heading into NaNo with insufficient-for-me ammunition, but hey, that's how we learn.

So, is there likely going to be some point in today's writing where toy with flipping over the metaphorical table, muttering an epithet and spending the rest of the day looking for graphic art resources and playing Sims 3? I'm counting on it. I'm also counting on hitting the magic number of words for the day, announcing "Done!" and collecting my Awesome Writer Chocolate Truffle that is reserved only for days that goals are made, and then sticking my nose in a good book.

Week three of NaNo -where's my brain?

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Normally, I love Mondays. Seriously. Specifically Monday Mornings. Sure, Monday evening brings How I Met Your Mother, but it's the mornings that get me going. I am the dreaded morning person, up and doing stuff before the sun, so by the time evening rolls around, it's not uncommon for me to turn into a pumpkin somewhere in the middle of dinner, fighting valiantly to stay awake until the end of a favorite program, and then crash. Mornings, though, I can spring out of bed, head to a local coffee shop, obtain beverage and bagel and start pounding keys.

The difference here is that we're in week three (or four? Are there five weeks in November? Is it really Monday?) of NaNoWriMo. Although my stats page says that if I stick with my current pace, I will finish on time, there's still the anxiety of chipper posts from people announcing they wrote the entire fifty thousand words on their lunch break and want to keep going. New ideas are exploding everywhere and it's oh so fun and oh so fabulous and...yeeeah, about that.

Honestly, if you're reading this and the above applies to you, I will shake pompoms for you with great enthusiasm and if you catch me at the right moment, I will even include a marching band. I greatly admire the super productive and they deserve every bit of acclaim. Maybe some other year, that will be me, but this year, I'm the kitty above. Today, for example (or more specifically yesterday) I left my travel mug in a friend's car, which meant this morning found me rifling through conference tote bags because I thought I remembered a promotional sport bottle in there somewhere. The staff at the coffee shop have my traditional bagel and travel refill order down to a science and I am a creature of routine when it comes to starting the morning's work.

There have been days when I've found myself looking blankly at a friend, only to be told with a fond chuckle that it's okay; I've obviously used all my words for the day. Not, I should mention, because my head is that deep in the book -I love when that happens, though- but because pounding out my daily word quota (and note, I normally count pages, not words) is sucking my brain. I will admit that the discipline is my main reason for doing NaNo this year. Will the NaNo story live past December? Maybe. Too soon to say at this point, but I'm in it for the discipline, so I will do today's words today and deal with tomorrow when tomorrow comes. I have learned that I need to do my blorch first, then make my outline, then it's time for actual readable writing. I need to be able to talk to other writers, online and in person, about my characters and story the same as I talk about people we know in real life. My characters are real; they may live in my head, but they are alive, and I need to talk about them. None of this is better or worse than anybody else's process, but it's mine and I embrace it and dance with it, even if it does end up looking like Victor Frankenstein dancing with the reanimated corpse of his beloved in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Of Nor'easters and NaNo

The last couple of weeks have been interesting. Storm, aftermath of storm, recovery from storm, all in time for the month long exercise in creative insanity known as National Novel Writing Month. Last year was my first, and because of reasons above -and others- I had debated sitting this one out.

Normally, I like to have my story notebook all planned out, a detailed outline, sections for hero, heroine, villain if applicable, history, research notes, pertinent pictures, etc. This year? That didn't happen, and in many ways, it feels like I'm doing the detailed outline for my daily words. I miss my blorch.

Blorch is a word of my own creation, and it means the basic slapping of jumbly words on a page, exactly as it comes to me in my mind. Present tense, hither and yon, jumping around in the story timeline, in and out of POV, talking to myself, referencing TVTropes.org (warning, do not click if you expect to get anything done for the next several hours)A blorch comes before an actual draft and allows me to then go through it with my collection of highlighters, sticky notes and define and number scenes, which then becomes my outline, and then I write. Life is funny sometimes and this year, all I came to NaNo with was a large spiral bound sketchbook with random notes scrawled freeform in multiple colors of Sharpie.

Hence the image you see above. That's a rough concept design of one of a pair of handwarmers (aka mitts, aka fingerless gloves) and it's appropriate for a number of reasons. I am tackling a pirate story this year, so the skull and crossbones is appropriate. The "Deal," though, that's a reminder that no matter how crazy things may seem, we get through them. Appropriate for this fumbling about in the mist of NaNo and recovering from a whomping nor'easter. So far, I'm making my daily word goal and should hit the requisite fifty thousand words by December 1st. Taking this one day at a time and seeing how it goes. If I end up turning out fifty thousand words of horrible trash, well, nobody has to see it but me, and I'll have done the equivalant of half a manuscript in one month. Pretty nifty right there.

So, the whole "deal" part...yeah, that's the thing. Show up at the keyboard. Open the document. Pound keys until the daily goal has been reached (to get 50k by the end of the month, I'm shooting for about 1660ish words per day, which is again different, since I normally count pages instead of words)- then I get a reward. I have found that I am eminently self-bribable. This time of year, cocoa is good. I don't know exactly where I'm going when I start the day's journey, but I have somewhat of an idea. Most likely, this will turn into the blorch, if I can convince myself it's okay to do that here - yes, I know nobody but me is going to see this, but head knowledge vs heart knowledge, mmkay? I'm getting there.

Are you NaNoing? Would you? Have you?