Category: Writing

NaNoWriMo and Moving Updates…

I have to admit, I didn’t finish my novel yet. I like to continue writing for NaNo until the novel is done. I have learned quite a bit about myself in the last month, though. Here are a few things I am reminding myself of while I finish this novel:

1. Writing is stress relief.
2. I can write over 3000 words in an hour if I focus. (3332 was my record for a full hour, and 102 wpm was my record for a single 750 sprint.)
3. There is a limit to how many things can be accomplished in one day. (Wait, that isn’t new.)
4. Dreck is expected for a first draft, especially at a rough pace. Finish the draft and worry about edits later.
5. Don’t stop at 50 000 words. It’s about finishing the project.
6. Motivation is cumulative. Sitting down and making progress every single day is important for continuity and overall progress.

I’m not sure how long it will take to finish the novel. I allowed distractions to get in the way of my daily progress – so not all of my words for NaNoWriMo were part of this novel; however, all of them were fiction. The total was 67,854 words. And starting yesterday I refocused on the project and took it in a different direction to the tune of 1000 or more words per day.

We found a new place and we moved mid-month. Part of my distraction included the annoyance of packing up the belongings I needed to have for the six months we’ll be in this temporary place. I also packed up the things that might be considered clutter to prospective buyers to our home. Luckily I had a lot of help!

I’m too pregnant to actually move the boxes I pack, so someone has to move them when I’m done. That’s challenging because not too long ago I could move everything just fine. I suppose it’s fair to say I can start slowing down, because I’m only six weeks from a new baby.

After we moved, we managed to unpack. Again, I’m stymied by stacks of boxes to unpack, because a couple boxes came with us that I didn’t intend to unpack. Of course, these boxes are full of the books that don’t exactly fit on the bookshelves. I had two bookshelves to move to declutter my office space, so that shouldn’t count against me. And I am unpacking the minimum needed.

Wait, that should be “unpacked.” Because we were fully unpacked less than a week after moving. Within four days, even. Sure, we missed a few things, but those have either been fetched or replaced.

The first few days it felt like everything went wrong, but it’s improving this week. I’m hoping it keeps going.

I’m very appreciative to the support I’ve received from family and friends, and I’m again faced with the oft-asked question, “Where are you from?” I’m not sure why people think we must have moved to the area to be around family. This does happen to be a little closer to family for both my husband and I, but we moved for his job. If they moved us somewhere else, we’d go.

The good news is I can write from anywhere. I’m sure I’d even figure out how to put pen to paper if all my digital devices disappeared!

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Old Navy, Moving, and NaNoWriMo – Oh My!

I joined CrowdTap earlier this year. My sister-in-law started it. She and I share a love of shopping in many ways, which explains our Black Friday marathons and long telephone conversations that include details about recent trips to the store as well as opportunities to save more on the next trip. I’m lucky my husband has such a cool sister! But every now and again, I bet he wishes we didn’t have so much in common after our shopping trips.

In Dubuque, the Old Navy staff know my sister-in-law by name. I end up shopping as often or more with her there than I do at my own Old Navy in Des Moines. Somehow CrowdTap gave me a bunch  of opportunities to rate Old Navy merchandise and has offered me opportunities for several sample shares – but I either didn’t have enough experience within CrowdTap or not the right credentials for the past ones. The first one I qualified for I shared with my sister-in-law, of course!

It was totally worth paying priority mail to get it to her. I was also ecstatic when they opened it from only the compression tops to all activewear tops. I’m 30 weeks pregnant today, so it would not have been comfortable or pretty to put me in a compression top, even only long enough for pictures.

One thing that cracks me up about this picture is I think she bought me the same coat that she’s wearing – at Old Navy. I’ve been wearing it all the time because it is only one of two coats that fit me while pregnant. We should get a picture together when we match.

As usual, she looks great in everything, but I think she made a good choice.

While this is not taken while I was teaching, I have already taught a couple classes in m new outfit. My internal thermometer gets me too hot while teaching and I have a fan blowing on me most of the time, but I wear the hoodie to and from class, and also while packing at home.

I love how easy it is to move in this outfit. I have an Old Navy maternity yoga top underneath, too. The shoes are Vibram FiveFingers and this is one of my most comfortable outfits while pregnant! The pants don’t roll underneath my belly, but stay snuggled up to my new curves.

And on to the moving update: I will be moving from Des Moines to the Quad Cities on November 19th. It’s all happening very fast, and I hardly know which way is up. It’s one reason I haven’t been updating this blog as often, and the posts will be somewhat infrequent until we land in our new space. Moving is difficult but, on the up side, I’ll be much closer to my sister-in-law to go shopping! Because I need more distractions from my writing…

Speaking of which, I have come to grips with my limitations at 30 weeks pregnant. Even though I am moving, I still have to sit down from time to time. During those times, I have been writing. I have an entire novel prepped from an October challenge with my writing buddies. We don’t spend a ton of time per day as a minimum, but sometimes we get carried away. I spent over 15,000 words brainstorming around the outline, and I think I’m ready to attempt the novel. I am not promising to make the 50,000 words in 30 days, but there’s a good chance I’ll make it anyway. Things are coming together at home and I’m quitting my part-time jobs for the move, which will mean more time when we land in our new temporary living space.

Until then, I will be up to my eyes in to-do lists and little chores to take care of. Wish me luck, and go shop at Old Navy!

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Point of View?

[Note: I’ve had an internet outage at home this week, and it’s been difficult to even check email, much less get a blog post up! Luckily I’m back online and hopefully out of the dark ages…]

I remember from my long-ago English classes that there are several points of view available to a writer. Some of them are used more often than others, the most common among the books I read are 1st person and 3rd person limited. There are a few 3rd person omniscient books running around, but there aren’t a lot of other viewpoints used.

Perhaps it’s because 2nd person is too distracting for most of us. Maybe our feeble minds just can’t handle a story from 1st person or any plural perspective. I know a lot of writers out there who each have their own ideas about what makes a good point of view to tell the stories they’re pouring out of their hearts. I’m no different in that way and have a few that I prefer.

But do you ever stop and wonder what this story, this novel, would be like from a different point of view? When you switch from 1st to 3rd, what are you losing? Does it connect with more readers?  When you axe your main character and put her best friend in the spotlight; it completely changes the question. Changing by a character is much different than simply changing the point of view, but it actually isn’t less work to change point of view. It’s about the details and how much your message comes through to the audience. It’s not just changing a bunch of instances of “she” into “I”, but about how the entire thing comes across.

Plus you have to figure out which she you mean if there are other female characters involved.

So often I find myself writing a story as the character is telling me it happened. Sometimes it feels stronger in 1st, so I put him right where the action is. Other times it feels a little more distant and I put it in 3rd. I’m not one to write in omniscient viewpoint if I can help it, but I’ve been experimenting with it as I learn more about it. I learned this summer the difference between head-hopping and a real omniscient viewpoint and it made me really consider writing that way to understand it better.

One thing I did learn and was re-iterated from a book on point of view I read: There has to be a reason for invading a character’s head. It isn’t about understanding what the turtle sees on page 5 if the turtle is just a distraction. The reader doesn’t care about how the water is flowing in his world if the book is about the humans having a conversation on the other side of the river. That is, at best, a distraction. Even in omniscient viewpoint a writer needs to decide whether to enter the thoughts of a character to share it with the reader. Some of them, like the poor turtle, are sidelines to the real action.

Then I wonder why we enter that mind. What did we learn? What was so important to use that character instead of one already established with point of view? I’m still learning to ask the right questions to the other writers about this, and I think they don’t like it because they know I’m not a fan of omniscient viewpoint. I am improving by learning about it.

A story from a friend in writer group unfolded a fairy tale with a 3rd person plural viewpoint. At first I found myself waiting for a single character to catch the spotlight. It didn’t, and when it ended the story wrapped the loose ends in a way that left me satisfied. I enjoyed it, but it would take a special novel to keep me engaged throughout several hundred pages.

But I’m also really curious what all of you think about point of view. Do you write in 1st or 3rd? Do you consider omniscient or stick with limited or head-hop? [Please say no to head-hopping and leave the turtle alone.] Are all the stories you write in one strict point of view or do you mix it up to suit the characters in each story? What do you think when you read something that is in an alternate point of view?

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Writing: Fast or Slow?

Do you ever wonder how fast you type? Usually it isn’t an issue, or is it?

Typing is a necessity for many of us, writers even more than most. Something about all those novels makes it hard to understand how you could manage at a slow pace. Do you do 120,000 words on a novel for how many revisions?

In the interest of keeping the writing time down, do you organize your thoughts? Do you wade through an outline or just start chugging from page one through to the end? Do you write longhand or do you sit at the keyboard for hours on end?

I love it when people get to study things like writers tend to be wordier when they do rough drafts at a keyboard instead of by hand. So what does it mean by wordier? Did they put the same writers side by side on the same topics and count words for each of the outpourings? I think it has to be difficult to make a really good comparison between writers. Especially when you consider that there gets to be a point where each writer makes a decision about the form that works better on an individual basis.

I’m one of those writers who logs hours in front of a keyboard. Perhaps less than some who transcribe their longhand so much slower than I type, but more than many if you consider all the other things I do in front of a monitor. Ha.

When I’m warmed up and awake, I can type about 100 words per minute. That’s from a typing test, though, and it isn’t about how fast I can create the words in my head. Creating requires more attention to detail and sometimes the proper word doesn’t just sprout from the fingertips. At times you end up with a blue where you really need a cerulean or a navy.

For me, the first draft is about getting the ideas out. It’s all about the concept. It’s one reason I just let it all run out from my fingers like they’re on fire when the ideas come fast. When they come slow, it’s one word at a time. It’s all about continuing the stream. Sometimes I skip ahead and come back to the troublesome parts. I don’t like to stop where it gets slow; I jump ahead if I have momentum to keep things moving. The movement is how I finish things. Some projects languish when I lose the steam to keep things on track.

It’s one reason I like NaNoWriMo. Everyone’s about moving and keeping the words spilling onto the page without worry about the inner editors getting in the way with whether it ought to be a separate sentence or hooked together with a semicolon. It seems like a small distinction, but it impacts the finished project.

So instead of recording just how fast I type, I’ve been keeping tabs on how fast I can pour out ideas. It varies on topic and particular day for my energy, but it looks like I could finish a day’s worth of a NaNo requirement between 30 and 90 minutes. Big swing, so I’m working on it to see if I can narrow the gap.

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What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

Yes, I’m serious. We all have our characters we come to love when we write. We have to in order to make it through an entire novel with them. Do you ever make it too easy on your main character?

In my writer’s group, one of the contributors is working on her first fiction project. She’s got a wonderful flair for description and the short bits she reads us are vivid. I’m sure it helps that she’s got a long history in nonfiction. One of the veterans asked her the question: “What’s the absolute worst thing that can happen to your protagonist? Do that and you’ll find your plot.”

It’s not always how I think of it, but it’s very good advice. Sometimes people try to go easy on their characters if they like them, though the best thing is to torture the poor protagonist until he wants to give up – except you never, ever let that happen. Even giving up is a choice and bad things can happen from it. Just like a juggler who throws all the balls in the air and then doesn’t try to catch them – one of them will turn into the brick to land on his head.

When was the last time you read a book where the worst thing didn’t happen? Did you get bored with reading it? The other extreme might be where believability hits. Did you put the book down because the events just couldn’t happen that way? Within each story world there are possibilities and consequences for every choice made.

Pretend you’re writing a young adult novel and Mom forbids the main character from talking on the phone for a week. The main character has two choices, to follow the restriction or to break it. Either choice has consequences. It seems very cut and dried, but what happens when you add the love interest who’s expecting a call that evening? What happens when you add the mother’s incessant checking of the phone logs? Then a father who allows it because he doesn’t know about the restriction? Does your character choose to follow the restriction even if it means the love interest will be upset? Does the character come clean to Dad about not being able to use the phone (and maybe even why)? Or is it just a one time thing that the character hopes won’t be noticed? Suddenly there’s a plot!

Might not be an epic plot right now, but the more consequences and reactions the writer adds to make the choices more tortured adds to the reader’s pleasure. Somehow George R. R. Martin gets named in protagonist-torturing crowd. Readers might get mad at him for killing off their beloved characters, but as far as I know they’re still reading. And making movies and a game out of the story line. I suppose we can’t all do it that way, but kudos to him for making it work well!

Next time you take a look at your plot, whether you’ve finished writing or if you outline beforehand, really dig in to see if you’ve made your protagonist’s life as troubled as you can. That’s when you know you’re writing a good story.

Note: This is not to say that writers love to torture people. We’re pretty much just aiming to get readers, and we can’t overdose on all the sugary fluffiness that it would require to make an entire novel out of things happening that aren’t bad. 

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Where Do You Find Your Answers?

I find a challenge is best when looking to boost my creativity. Maybe I should say I’m finding that a challenge is best to really get the gears turning in my mind. This month’s challenge is prepping a novel, which may not seem like such a big deal when one considers that I’ve done this before. Often. But this one I’ve poured my heart into and it’s coming out my ears.

I have a protagonist that has an interesting voice. I have a couple antagonists, one obvious that is simply annoying and a potentially more difficult one who seems friendly mixed in with a lovely set of background events and characters who promise to make life difficult for the main character. I found a big question that my novel is probably answering.

The big challenge today was finding the question. The answer has not yet presented itself, but I’m still working. It’s silly because I wasn’t looking for that particular question. It just popped out of the free-writing exercise like it belonged right in the center of attention. So now, when I think my mind might be quiet, I hear that question whispering through my mind.

Like right before that yoga class I teach, I heard it. Luckily I didn’t repeat it out loud – I replaced it with ‘inhale’ and ‘exhale’ and some movements for my students to follow along. I’ve been thinking about it on and off all day, but it just isn’t clear what the best -or worst- thing to happen is.

I know some people don’t write with all this kind of preparation. A few people can dig right into the novel and write from Once Upon a Time and go until The End and have a story when they finish. Often it has to be dusted out of the wreckage of several drafts, but that’s the fun of writing, isn’t it?

I’m curious what you do to find your answers to those questions when you’re writing or when you’re planning a big project. Do you wait for inspiration to strike, or do you hunt down the answers to those questions with single-minded ferocity?

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Criticism or Ridicule?

Free speech is a beautiful thing. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and has the ability to express it.

But, sometimes, I wonder what the point of expressing an opinion in a certain way is. I love to read. I love to write. I love this form of expression – and many of you who follow me on Google+ or Facebook will have noticed the YouTube video Words Are My Sandbox.

I learned from reviewing other authors and from working in critique groups that often it’s good to sandwich the bad stuff inside the good things you find about the piece. There are some where it can be difficult to find something nice. There are also venues with spoken-only reading and critique where it is easy to focus on just one flaw and miss all the rest of the beauty of that segment. Many groups implement rules about how to treat other writers and others try to focus on how professional the advice may be – but nearly all of them are not about tearing down an amateur. I know I never would want to be the reason someone decides to stop expressing opinions through words.

How does that change when someone becomes a big name professional? Why is it that I hear conversations where people discuss only the bad aspects of some series and trash the author for it? There are so many examples, but here are two:

1. Stephenie Meyer‘s Twilight series seems to take a bad rap from a lot of people. I know many who love the novels and read them again and again. I read them and enjoyed them, but they’re not something that will draw me to read them 50 million times. I’ve heard people call them nothing but a teenage romance and think it’s awful for a 110 year old man (or however old Edward’s character was at the time of publication) to be after a 17 year old girl. Whatever else you say about them, didn’t Meyer make some interesting characters?

2. J. K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter series has throwbacks to the British boarding school novels. Sure. I’m sure there were other critics, possibly about the whole good versus evil thing. But there were rich things in the story, too, that some of the amateur people won’t admit.

Maybe it boils down to jealousy or something else I can’t easily name. I don’t think a single novel will fit every reader out there – which is why we have so many different genres and subgenres and points of view on everything. I wonder if that’s how you know you’re successful – that there are people out there trying to trash your accomplishment. Perhaps I’m just too thin-skinned and I worry what people will say about my work if it’s out there more. It hasn’t stopped me from pursuing publishing yet, and it isn’t likely to in the future.

I can acknowledge that many of the authors I read and enjoy have flaws. Some of them take much less flack than others, but some are much better known than the rest, too. It doesn’t make anyone more discerning to burn another in effigy.

Next time you want to stomp all over someone else’s expressed art, think to yourself- did I even try to see the good in it? What is it about this that so many people find fascinating? We don’t have to “agree to disagree” (don’t get me started on the wrongness of this phrase) or agree on anything at all, but it might be nice to acknowledge that not everyone who disagrees with you is completely wrong. And, also, that the tired, worn-out, dog-eared copy of whatever your favorite novel is has its own baggage. Peace!

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Does the World Need Another Fill-in-the-Blank?

I’m looking at writing an urban fantasy novel for NaNoWriMo. One of the challenges is to understand the market where I think this book would be placed. How often do you think about the market you’re going to be in before you write the book? I can’t say I do it often, though it is somewhere in the back of my mind when I’m thinking about a project.

Part of the trouble is that it’s difficult to imagine my book alongside the ones I take home and read. Not that I won’t be thrilled when that happens, it’s just difficult to picture ahead of time. Sometimes the closer I get, the farther it feels to the eventual goal. I have a published book out there, though it isn’t on the physical shelves of the bookstore. Some days that is hard to remember.

Today I was asking friends about urban fantasy novels they enjoyed. I know I’ve read a few, but I’m curious what draws in others who read that genre. I’ll also be making a trip to the bookstore this week to see what I haven’t read on the shelves that might be interesting or in the same market segment. The tough part might be keeping that list up to date by the time I get this manuscript ready to put in front of someone who can do something about the book-on-physical-shelf thing.

My answer to the title question is yes. It doesn’t matter how many urban fantasy genre books there are – mine will still be different. It’s like so many other things that take time and effort and seem to be a dime a dozen (bloggers and novelists can both fit in this category). If you want to make it work, do it. If you’re going to allow yourself to be daunted by the established names in the field, you’re toast. I’m working toward my goals and I won’t be afraid of failing. The only thing to be afraid of is not trying.

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Just Around the Corner

NaNoWriMo is almost here. Seriously, it’s a month and two days away. Yet I get Twitter updates saying “33 Days to NaNo!” and I get excited. One of my friends put together an entire challenge to be ready to write a novel in November, and I help her organize it every year (fourth year running).

The energy is gathering among people throwing in their hats, making decisions about what possible project might be good enough to focus so much time and effort. Sometimes we agonize over the big decisions, like can we manage to get enough world-building in the beginning to make it stretch over the novel writing time without slowing down. It’s a particularly large problem for anyone starting a science fiction or fantasy novel of any kind. How do you get enough of the NaNoverse painted if you drive in on Day 1 without any preparation at all?

It was just that question that drives so many of my friends to undertake a small amount of early work before attempting that big novel. We gather and cheer each other on – digitally since we’re geographically diverse – and sometimes even help get past the inevitable block.

The NaNoWriMo challenge is about writing a novel in a month – usually stated at 50,000 words. The problem with that stated challenge is that most novels don’t end at 50k. In science fiction and fantasy, they’re often between 70,000 and 120,ooo words. For young adult it’s much closer to the guidelines. Many of the challenge-takers stop at 50k instead of finishing the book, or they write so that the book ends at 50k. Then when it’s time for the revisions it gets interesting.

On the other hand, you end up with a half-finished novel even if you didn’t finish the challenge, and the rules are all about starting a new challenge next year, rather than finishing something that was an abandoned idea.

Another drawback is that it is difficult to look at that novel when December rolls around. The energy will sap into a stupor as the crowd that cheered everyone to the finish is taking a collective breath and thinking they ought to rejoin their families and friends. Edits are pushed off from December to June to some other future date. I think it’s just difficult to be that dedicated all the time for most people. Fits and starts get me through some edits, but I’m not consistent in that area.

Someday I’ll wrangle a bunch of people into NaNoEdMo with me, not that March is a better time than November but I think the energy of having a group working through the words would be fun and inspiring to get through it.

Who else plans to take a dash at a massive dump of creative words in November? What do you do with your manuscript when you finish (yes, we’re assuming that we’re all going to finish)? Does the creative flow of energy help you get in the spirit of the novel? Do you ever get bogged down by the pressure of 1667 words per day rather than gushing out of a story? I’d love to hear what NaNoWriMo means to you.

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Sleeping Cat Books Debuts with Anthology

Sleeping Cat Books is a new entity out there – run by one of my copy editor friends, Sarah Holroyd. This newest venture brings all kinds of publishing services to authors.

I’m especially excited about the new anthology, The Coming Storm. It’s open to many visual and written options – from black and white photography to poetry to fiction.

Speaking of anthologies, my first published story appeared in an anthology, Ruins Metropolis. It can be a great way to start to build a presence and get a name out there for readers to see who you are and what you want to say. It reminds me also that the reasons all of us write are different.

I know there are writers out there who work on a book or one specific world for all of their spare time. It’s about characters who become very close to them and I was really struck almost speechless when I heard a woman say she didn’t want to end the book because then she’d be done with the characters. Maybe that explains why we just keep moving slowly through the story.

Other writers have a couple things moving at a time, each at different paces, cycling through ideas and characters as if they have a shelf life and must be written before they expire.

Do you ever feel like one set of characters or one world is so close to you that it is impossible to work outside that zone? Do you instead put a little here and a little there and mark characters in as many different times, places, situations as you can manage to imagine? What makes you decide to write this set and not a different one at this time?

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