Nanowrimo 2012

It's that time of year again. I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as Nanowrimo. During the month of November, I will be attempting to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. It's my 7th year participating. Lucky seven, I hope!

If any of you want to be writing buddies, I would love to join you in the insanity. My username is Rhov.

If you have a novel you want to work on and think a competition like this is a good excuse to focus on it, it's not too late to join in. It's lots of fun, especially if you get really involved, meet up with local writers at write-ins, and make acquaintance with the people in your region through the forums. Sometimes I write so much in the forums that I get too distracted from my novel.

So please excuse me as I take a break from writing fanfiction during this month. Random one-shots might spring out from my over-worked Muse, but otherwise my life is focused around my novel. It's called Trombones Are Blue, about a girl with synesthesia, a condition I have where I hear colors and see sounds. In my story, her way of experiencing the world causes her to be bullied and outcast. Still, she struggles on and in defiance of the kaleidoscopic chaos, she joins the school band. Although petite, she wants to play the trombone (which I play) because "trombones are blue."


Rough concept of a book cover.

One Week In

One week in, and I'm starting to hate my story. This is probably a record. Sometimes I grow to hate it around Day 15, but no... I started to hate this story at about Day 3, and as I sit here drinking hot cocoa and rum, medicating my chronic insomnia the bad way, I'm staring at Chapter 4 and realizing... I simply do not like my story.

Perhaps it's because I have another story I put on hiatus in order to do Nanowrimo. I'm tempted to work on that story as a "dream sequence" of this story. Or maybe my MC sits down to watch TV, and this "show" comes on. I don't know, but I can't just put that other story out of my head. I tied it up at a neat little spot so I could focus all attention onto Nanowrimo, but now... I just can't focus.

The fact that I'll be leaving to California in two weeks and staying there until December means I need to put even more effort into these first couple weeks. I should be at least around 35k before leaving Portland, because I know I'll have almost no time to write while I'm gone. This is turning out to be the hardest Nanowrimo since my very first attempt. I don't want to break my 5-year winning streak, but this apathy is draining all my creativity like a... like a... hell, I can't even think up of a good simile.

So... any suggestions? How can I fall back in love with my characters? What tricks are there to revitalizing my enthusiasm for my plot? Besides chocolate and rum, which obviously aren't working, what other sacrifices to the Muses should I offer? And am I cheating if I make a "dream sequence" so I can work on another project without sacrificing my precious free time?

The End of NaNo

Notice I have not written in a month. This is because of that once-a-year nightmare and miracle called "National Novel Writers Month." During NaNoWriMo, I magically transform from a hermit sitting in my darkened apartment typing with feverish fervor, to a "WRITER"... nay, even more, a "NOVELIST." The special effects team never arrived, though, so the transformation looked less like Sailor Moon...



... and more like what I was doing before, only a little more insane and pressed for time.

The last two Nanowrimo contests, I pushed for the Double NaNo, writing a novel, not just 50,000 words long, but 100,000. I did it, too. This year, knowing publishers do not like epic tomes, I decided to aim for something a bit more humble. I finished the month at 80,780 (I like round numbers).

The story lacks only one more chapter, a scene I skipped because I'm not sure what to do with it. Lizby is in Purgatory, and as she is being led back to the "world," she is shocked to see that her mother, whose sudden death led to her own suicide, is in Purgatory too and about to be led away to whatever task she must do. It's supposed to be a real tear-jerking scene, but I'm stuck. I'll wait a few weeks to let my brain rest.

So what's next for this writer? Well, I have a few people who want to read Last Days, so I'll finish that up. I also want to do another read-thru of Daughters of Ashby because my dad wants to read it. Yikes! I never let my parents read my stuff, it's embarrassing!

Eventually, I want to return to my roots, to Shadowstrider, and finish the last book. Even if I'm left with an issue of what to do with novels that exceed 300k words, I at least want to finish the series. A morbid part of me wants it completed before my stereotypical untimely death, at which time Shadowstrider will be discovered and turned into another post-mortem classic.

A more practical side of me, the one who ignores the Keatses and Poes of the writing world, wants to finish it so I can look at the entire arc of the story and break it into bite-size bits. Or set it aside and publish a bunch of novels that become huge hits so I can pull a "Robert Jordan" and publish Shadowstrider as-is, 300k words and all, and no publisher will glare at me. No, they will joyously accept this epic tome with dollar signs in their eyes and Hollywood on the phone.

MWAHAHAHA!!!

Ahem, yes, that is the more "practical" side of my life. Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia, after all.

My Nano Novel: Last Days

I've been piddling around on which story to pick for this year's Nanowrimo. Usually I pick an outline that has been sitting on my computer for years, waiting to be told. Last year I invented an entirely new story, coming up with about 30 characters, an entire plot, and a few key scenes all in about two days and only a week before November 1st. This year, I'm picking something that has waited almost a year for attention.

I had first decided upon my Jane Austen-esque YA novel, The Gardens of Bidding Hall, something I began in 1995 for my Junior English class in high school. It wasn't received too well, at least not the first chapter. My teacher said, "You write along the same principles as Charles Dickens, going on elaborate tangents which, eventually, all tie together, but leaves the reader guessing at their importance in the meantime." To this day, I'm not sure if that was a compliment or a criticism. I assume it was both. Anyway, I thought I had only the first couple chapters written and an outline for the last scene, I checked it again and I've already written 22,000 words, nearly halfway through the Nanowrimo goal of 50,000 words, so that one's a no-go.

Then I realized I had this mainstream fiction "what if the afterlife is all bureaucratic" type of story, nothing but a rough outline, a first paragraph, and the last page written out. That's more in the spirit of Nanowrimo, to write something from almost scratch, notes and outlines allowed, but not completed chapters.

Thus... (drum roll please) ... Last Days will be my Nano novel this year. Huzzah!

---

"Welcome to the Last Days. Be sure to fill out all forms."

Elizabeth "Lizby" Siddall has recently killed herself. She ends up in the Last Days Department, a bureaucratic sub-section in Purgatory for people who commit suicide with no other major sins against them. They are given the duty of living out the last days of terminal patients who have prayed for God to end their suffering. They have a time period in which they must live through the sufferings of that person, anywhere from a few days to weeks. They have some flexibility in what they do with their time, but there are plenty of rules.

1) Don't reveal anything about the afterlife.
2) Don't cause the death of others.
3) Don't do anything that might damn your host.
4) Don't kill your host.
5) Don't save your host.

But when Lizby is put into the body of an old man who doesn't have to die, she begins to want to live... and that's against the Last Days rules.

---

Like it? The plan is that each chapter follows what person she "possesses," seeing different lives, feeling physical pains, witnessing emotional upheavals of those realizing the person is about to die, and slowly being redeemed.

It follows religious ideas I don't personally believe in, but it's a fun story. The idea of a literal bureaucratic purgatory is fun, and this will also be my first attempt at writing an entire novel in first person. I experimented with that in I Saw Lydia Cry, another not-quite-completed novel, where Lydia is telling her story first person, a journal she left behind, but many pages are missing, so the story is interspersed with interviews of the other characters who fill in the missing gaps plus details Lydia herself never knew. I'd like to tackle that story again; however, I wrote it in 1994, so it's outdated politically and technologically and in dire need of a plot overhaul, not something for Nanowrimo.

So this is a good change for me, something more mainstream, something actually publishable. I have hopes in it, and hopefully the economy changes so I can publish some of these things. Bad economy means bad book sales, so I have to put everything on hold... grrr! >:(

[activate optimism]
Which means it's time to build up a buffer of novels!
Weee, Nanowrimo Time Is Here!
[optimism activated]

Getting Closer to NaNo

It's about that time again, when I finish up whatever projects I have open, clear my mind from the inundating world I've been scuba diving through for months, and try to set myself up for something fresh, something new, something crazy and wonderful.

National Novel Writers Month - a.k.a Nanowrimo.

I'm already on the forums and chatting away with other writers. I've just finished what I hope will be my final draft of last year's Nano novel, Daughters of Ashby, which turned into a 2-parter both measuring slightly over 150k words. That's sort of big, but it's a historical fantasy so I hope it's not considered too long.

I also have my "brain break" novel ready. Sometimes I just have to break away from the novel I'm working on and try something totally different for a day or two. This is dangerous during Nanowrimo when a writer is aiming to create a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, but for me it's mandatory for my creativity. So my brain break will be my first Nano novel, Ghost Coast, which sadly did not win, coming to a dead halt at 42k word, 8k short of the goal but ended as a completed novel. I've since rearranged a whole lot, cut and pasted the entire timeline of events, and added an intense romantic element which I hope helps with sales. To complete my remake, I need to add three chapters. That's my brain break.

Other necessities to setting up for Nanowrimo is non-messy snacks for writing sessions (nothing that will gunk up my keyboard), lots to drink, and a plan for what days I can go out for write-ins. I tried attending write-ins for the first time last year, and it was loads of fun. Just sitting in a room with fifty other novelists is somehow inspiring, knowing I'm not alone in this creative force. I think our Muses combine and reinforce one another.

I'm currently reading The Various Shades of Fangline by Colby Purcell, which she posted on Blogger one chapter at a time, much of it being pushed out through November. I like that idea. I don't have a big following like her (although, if I could draw better, I would totally turn some of my stories into online comics) but perhaps I can get opinions, comments, and generally a good idea if what I'm doing works. Posting chapters online is dangerous (anyone could steal it) but I might give it a go. Still debating this idea.

NaNoWriMo

November blows in with crisp, autumnal aromas and the sound of a thousand novelists furiously tapping away at keyboards across the world.

It's that time of year again: NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month.

I'm not blogging much about this event, because my fingers are nearly bleeding from all the typing I've done over the past week. All I'll say is I'm working hard to make that 50,000 word deadline, and I have a horrendous case of writer's block at the moment (thus the blogging). Both me and my sister have entered. We'll see if either one of us finishes.