What I learned from Nanowrimo2014.

- There is magic in doing.

The way I was able to finish was to start and keep going. I had days and times where I didn't feel like writing, but just made myself keep typing and I think this taught me a lot about the process of writing and being a writer.

- If you just keep writing, eventually you'll get to the stuff you like.

- very little is as bad as you remember it.

- It all works itself out in the revisions.

It's a process as well as a mindset.

Setting time limits leads to better productivity than 'just writing'.

Nano 14, Day 5 thoughts

Consistancy breeds mastery...or whatever.

So, last we spoke I was semi-dreading the start of Nano14.
Wondering how I was going to manage to write 1,667 words a day.
Worrying
Worrying
Worrying.

Well, it seems I over-estimated the time it would take to write and now, after 4 days of writing, I'm sitting at the quarter way point, twelve thousand five hundred words in. Twelve THOUSAND words in 4 days!!!!

Leap

I am afraid but I have purpose.
 Like hundreds of thousands around the world, on November 1, I am going to start the attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel.
It's a big deal for me, especially since I tend not to write a lot every day.
However, and this is what drives me; the winners get two copies of their book printed in paperback for free.
So, the deal is basically, if I complete the 50k mark for my book, then revise it, in a year I will be holding a copy of my book.

The only thing holding me back is the actual writing.
Fifty thousand words in and of itself is a daunting task. Any writer will tell you that it's a big chunk of writing. To try to do it within a month is even more daunting.

Yet, it gets done all the time.
thousands complete the challenge every year.
Many working writers regularly set 2,000 words a day as a reasonable daily goal.
Some even complete the NanO Century, which is 100,000 words in a month or 3,334 words a day.
Looking at that number makes 1,700 a day seem easy.

Like most things, it's attacking it day by day that will make it happen.
The thing is that we need to get up, get at it and see how it takes to get 1700 words out.
Given what I've read, at a steady pace, 1700 words takes about 2 and a halfr hours to write.
THe way I want to split it is one and a half hours in the morning and an hour at night.
Anything else is, as they say, gravy.
However, the hour and a half in the morning doesn't come cheap. Prime writing time is from five-thirty to seven, when the rest of the house wakes.
All we need to do is make it work.
And to make it work, we need to sacrifice everything past 9 that is unessential.
Cut away the fluff and reap the rewards of getting up early and getting writing.

Bump goes the life.

Today I am a failure.

Well, maybe not.

However, the Internal Editor's working overtime today and boy is he pissed.

Maybe a lot of that is because of the fact that I missed a couple days of posting, violating my ROW80 goal. However, that was because I was visiting my in laws and my Mom for Canadian Thanksgiving... I was trying to keep up with the writing but there were more interesting things to do on the weekend.

On the up side, great drive in and back, great chance to talk with my son, who is a brand new teenager. So, that's always great to be able to do.

I think this is important to writing, to get away from it and actually have days off from the routine and have things to say when you return.

All work has breaks and as I've been trying to emphasize, we need to look at writing like a job, with quitting times as well as responsibilities . Just as you work 9 to 5 or whatever, your writing needs boundaries as well.

Making it part of your every day life means knowing when to walk away from it. Hemingway talked about leaving when you knew the next sentence you would write, so that you had an entry point into the next day's writing.

 Lawrence Block went a bit farther and often rewrote the last half-page of whatever he was working on as warm-up every morning, before moving onto the day's writing.

Regardless of how you are going to start each day, it's important to know when to leave. Whether or not you can see a sentence into the future of your story or the entire next chapter, you need to plan your exit.

Mistaking motion for Movement.

One of the things we need to train ourselves to do is write freely while at the same time know how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

We need to remember that there needs to be a certain direction to the flow of a story.

Remember to think before you write.

The Time you Make is the Time You Take.

One of the biggest things I've heard from writers just starting out is "Where do I find the time to write?"

You don't.

You MAKE it, just like you make time to poop, shower, eat, dress and watch Reality TV.

Speaking of which, if you watch reality TV,  but want o be a Writer....then two things...
1)Shame on you.
2)Kiss it good bye....
No more Honey Boo Boo, but hello 55 minutes of writing time.


The thing I had to do...and trust me, this was hard, because Mike loves him some sleep....I get up an hour early......Which also means I go to bed earlier as well.....
This wasn't so hard to do as I'd just been staying either watching YouTube videos of dreck or trying to write, forgetting that writing while tired never got me anywhere.

So, what I've tried to do is get into good habits at night time and accept that I won't be creating quality work after a certain time, so there's no point in trying.

Has it worked?
Yes and no, but I accept that it's a work in progress and I'm not going to give up on at least trying to make it part of my writing practice.

Decisions Decisions

How to decide where to go in the story.

Right now, I'm deciding whether or not to kill off a  main character at the end of Act 1.
Unlike a lot of MC killings, this one won't change the bulk of the book, I think.
He was going to be out of the picture for 75% of the book anyway.
It just changes the potential ending.
The last scene being Trevor and Wade doing a joint signing, rather bthan Trevor doing it by himself
What's the upside to this? Anyway just write the thing and see where it goes.
There is no need to get all bent into whatever shape by having to decide right at this moment and deciding something that doesn't actually happen until 10 chapters or so into the book.

I think that this not an uncommon problem, though.
Authors must have to make the decision to kill off beloved characters all the time.
Often, the decision comes about in second draft or so where you see that the action just benefits from the death of a character or that there really isn't any room for them past a certain point.
However, when you've spend an awful long time crafting their personality, it can be a bit of a tug on your heartstrings to type out the words that spell their demise.
However, you have to do it. If you are going to be honest to life, you will have to face and write about death.

In my book, the person dying is at the end of a pretty full, long life.
How writers summon the courage to write about the death of a child is beyond me.
Yet they do.
And one day, I'm sure, in my writing I will have to tackle that most taboo of acts.
 I think the most honest thing you can do as a writer is to create characters that are multi-faceted and realistic and people that are recognizable as people.
Then don't be afraid to kill them, because fear of killing off characters that you like is a sign that you don't trust your instincts or skill as a writer.
It's as if you are saying "I don't know if I'll ever be able to create a character like this again."
And you will. In fact, by killing off characters you give yourself permission to experiment with characterization, by saying "If this doesn't work out, I'm not stuck with this person or situation"
In fact, and I just thought of this.....
Take a character you like...and kill them.
Take a section of whatever you are working on, a book, short story, whatever.
Kill one of the characters.
See how it affects the world around them.
You don't have to include this in your story, unless you want to or think that it's a direction you wish to continue in.
It's just a writing exercise in having characters react to a death.
Be brave.
Good writing is courageous and takes chances, in the belief that the writer will learn from the experience and strengthen as a writer.


The point is to get something down and not worry about things.