NaNoWriMo-Doug

I wrote this little piece here at 1 o'clock this morning.  Mom likes it, I like it, someone else who read it likes it.

Do you like it?

(Scene Set Up: Doug to talking to reporters about a dead body he found)

~~~

“Well, I was walking.  I like to take walks early in the morning.  And, I like to take this path.  It’s quiet, and there’s not a lot of people."

Doug stopped and slowly looked up.  A smile grew across his face.  “It was so weird,” he started, putting a hand on his hip, “I just, I just knew something was up.  I’m kind of an observant person, and I didn’t feel right this morning.”

Doug put his hand down and straitened up, putting a hand on his stomach.  “You know how you get these, I don’t know, feelings?  Like in the pit of your stomach?”

He held out both of his hands, palms towards them.  “Well, as I was walking, I could tell something was off.  I just knew something was up.”  Doug put his hands down and laughed.  “And, I saw the blood marks on the sidewalk.  So, I followed them.”

The reporters looked back to see them.  “Oh, no, they’re gone now.  Someone came and cleaned them up already.”  The reporters looked back at him and nodded.

Doug widened his eyes and pointed to where the body was.  “When I got back there and I saw the body, I was shocked.  I mean, who would do this?  He’s just a kid!”  Doug hung his head.  “Humanity, going to Hell in a hand basket, as my mother would always say.”  Doug looked up and crossed his chest.  “God rest her soul.”

Doug looked back down.  He cleared his throat and changed his expression to one of surprise.  “I went to the street and I yelled for someone to call the police.  I left my phone at home, you see.  I don’t like to take it with me on walks.  This is a time for me to be alone with God.”  Doug folded his hands.  “Looks like He’s the one who needs the credit for me finding this young lad.”  Doug looked up and closed his eyes.  “Thank you.”

He looked back down at the reporters, some looked sorrowful, others as if they were thinking too hard.  They all wrote on their pads of paper.  Doug smiled.

Don't Diss Courage

In my last post, I talked about my NaNo novel from 2912 (more like 2012), titled Times. I talked about how it was poorly written. I want to talk about that in this post.

There is so much to do with this story. I'm talking editing wise. I need to rewrite most of it, now that I know the real relationship between the characters. I also need to rewrite most of it because there's a lot of looking:

Talitha looked at David. He looked at her, then at Isaac. Talitha looked at Isaac, who wasn't looking at anyone.

In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, we call this word padding. Ugh.

So you can see why it's hard for me to read. And if I can't read it, I can't edit it.

Enter discouragement.

After reading a page or two, I quickly exit out of the program, and walk away from the computer, feeling as though this story isn't as awesome as I think and know it is. It will never be what as it is in my head: a best-seller, soon to be a movie. I just want it to be good enough to be publishable, really.

It's been eight months since I finished it. If I remember correctly, about five pages have notes on them. I can't quite get past this next part. Or maybe I just don't have the courage to.

When you get discouraged, you diss your courage to try.

I won't sit here and tell you to keep going, to keep trying, to keep doing. Because I'm not. What I will say is, every day I feel more and more like I'm getting to the point of getting there. I did write one note on it yesterday. It was a small note, but it was a start.

Now, how did I get here? Time. Patience. Building up my confidence by writing other things. Also, getting annoyed at the fact that I haven't gotten there yet.

It's ok, we'll get there. We will.

Cheating During NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is less than a month away. Can you believe that? Just last month I told myself, "Eh, I have awhile to plan." No, no I do not. In fact, planning should start in August.

Before I begin, what is NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo, also known as NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, starts November 1st and ends November 30th. You have the whole month to write 50,000 words. That breaks down to approximately 1,667 words per day.

Sound hard? For some, it is. Children, school, work, etc. For others, it's still hard, but they persist. Some are planners, some are pantsers, but we all have one common goal: the end.

Now, technically, you're supposed to write a novel. But, of course, you have those rebels who have other plans. Like me, last year. I tried to write about everything that happened that summer. But since it had just happened, it turned out to be crap. I only wrote about 10,000 words (if that) when I got to the end of my story. I decided to write the remaining words elsewhere. It was a bad year.

This year, I'm cheating again. First, I'll tell you why. Back in 2012, during NaNoWriMo, I started a novel called Times. I finished it at the beginning of this year. I started to edit it, but it's so poorly written, I can't even look at it. But I love it. It could potentially be great...it just isn't (yet).

My characters told me there's a second book. I love the ideas they're giving me. I want to start it, but I will not subject it to the craziness of November. I really don't want two poorly written stories (even though I probably wouldn't let it get that way).

I'm in the process of writing a murder mystery, but I'm stuck. If I can't figure stuff out now, I have no time to be doing research when I have 50k words to write!

Instead, I will be writing short stories. My stories usually run between 2,000 and 3,000 words, so this should be fun. And who knows? I might find a novel in there somewhere.

Planning A Box

In 2011, I had a dream.  It was such a detailed dream, that I decided to write a story around it.  Before NaNoWriMo came around, I did lots of planning.  Who are the characters?  Why does this item mean so much?  What actually happens?  Why?  Where does the story take place?  What's the story behind the story?

On and on I went, until I had filled up about five full pages in my notebook.  I even wrote out two full pages of the synopsis.

While none of this is a bad thing, I found out that I didn't know how to plan.  I'm usually a pantser, but this year, I wanted to go full on planner.

It didn't work out very well.  Once I started the story, I realized that I had planned myself into a box.  Since I had a pretty distinct outline, synopsis, time line of events, I couldn't allow myself to write outside of my research.

"This has to happen after that, but I feel like it's too soon."
"I don't really like the way A happened, but B has to happen after it, so I can't change it."

I finished the whole story in about 35k words.  I was done, but I was still short 15k.  What was I supposed to do?  I didn't plan for this.

Now mind you, this was: A, my second NaNoWriMo, and B, the second story I had ever finished.  I was a "new" writer, and I didn't know what I was doing.  I say "new" because I was starting to write stories about things other than Zelda.

I learned two valuable things from this experience:

1. I am not a planner
2. If I do plan, I must learn to leave holes, or give myself permission to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

Here are some tips for planners who aren't used to planning:

1. Do you know exactly how you want it to go?  Well, get rid of the idea that it's going to go that way.  Plain and simple.  You're dealing with art and creativity, which has about as much of an attention span as a kitten who just ate and woke up from a nap.  Shout out to all my cat people.

2. Have a set destination, but make a map.  There are many ways to get to one place.  Allow your plans to go into different directions than the route you chose.  There might be traffic or road work.  You never know.

3. "I'll cross the bridge when I get there."  That's a good motto for a writer, remember that.

4. Also, here's a tip: go talk to a planner.  I'm just trying to teach you how to not plan yourself into a box, they can teach you how to plan effectively, if that's what you want to learn.

Well, I hope you learned something.  If not, then I hope you enjoyed learning about my struggle.  By the way, I did finish the story with 50k.  I just added 15k of back story on one of the characters.  It's a good story, it just lacks...a point.

Writing is like math.  There is always a set answer (the end of a story).  It doesn't matter if you find it with a different method than someone else, it just matters that you get there.