Just 16 Hours To Go…

Although this is my sixth year participating in NaNoWriMo, I still feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. I recently read a post of another 6th year (sounds Harry Potter-ish don’t it?) who is a professional writer and he is thinking of bowing out. The enthusiasm and bravado of all the newbies grates on him, and he no longer finds NaNo fun.I understand where he is coming from, but he has a few ways he can look at this.

- He can ignore the posts and just write his story. That’s what I did my first three years with NaNo.

- Being a professional writer, he can recognize the most sincere of the newbies and use his experience to lift them up. Not to be a crutch for them, but take the training wheels off and show them how to ride on their own. However, if this is not his style – no harm, no foul. Most people don’t have the talent or patience to be a good teacher or mentor – myself included.

- Lastly, I simply replied to his post stating, “If it ain’t no fun – it ain’t worth doin’”. This definitely applies to NaNoWriMo. Why on earth would you ever want to spend your free time doing something you don’t enjoy?

I’m no professional writer, but I still enjoy this and hope to do so for as long as it lasts. The way I look at the newbie posts is that everyone has to start somewhere – so why not with NaNo, especially with NaNo? Other than that the forum posts are a repository of great information – to be had for free. It’s a huge community of like-minded writer’s sharing their experiences and resources, and reciprocating in kind.

Write On!

T-minus 40 Hours…

…And Counting – before we launch into another 30-days of good natured fun and general insanity.

I know I use the term “insanity” often, but it’s the best word for what happens among us writer’s in November. It’s said with a wry smile on my face, because this insanity is challenging and a plain old good time – even when we’re tired and don’t want to write another word, or blocked and can’t.

We go to the forums and voice our triumphs and complaints, our highs and lows. By week two the ‘NaNoWriMo Ate My Soul’ (formerly the ‘I Hate Myself and Want to Die’) forum gets the most entries and readership – still we go on. We seek camaraderie, support and encouragement and the forums will not disappoint. We are all in the same boat and totally empathize with our fellow writer.

I have this jittery, nervous anticipation inside of me. It’s beyond butterflies, it’s more like bats. It reminds me of when I did a little acting gig. I felt like I was going to vomit before going on stage, but once I was out there doing my lines and acting my bit, the nervousness went away and I had a great time.

I’m already to get going, but something inside is nagging me about which one of three story ideas to go with…

Creepy

I’m in the throes of making up my mind on which story genre to write in – Action/Adventure or Horror for NaNoWriMo.

I have an action story all set to go, and ideas for a couple of others. Then I recently came up with a horror story idea. I was further pulled into the horror genre (my old fav) when I picked a copy of ‘World War Z’ on recommendations from the NaNo forums. This fed my own idea for a “living dead” story.

Not having a lot of time to read during the day, I sometimes create a break for myself and read in my car. I find a nice quiet place, park, crack open the book and tear through pages for 30 minutes.

One of my favorite places is an old cemetery in my town. There is a small parking area right next to the cemetery, well off any main road. During the week there’s no one else there and it’s very peaceful.

This is where I was yesterday. I sat alone in my car, facing sugar maples afire with orange-red and yellow leaves; ancient, weatherworn headstones leaning at odd angles were off to my right.

At one point, I looked up from my book and noticed the sky had a bruised look; brown leaves blew around in gusts of a light wind-driven rain. The low setting sun shot deceptively warm light against the maples, but the graves stood in deepening shadows. It was a perfect New England autumn moment. Then it dawned on me, here I sat in increasing gloom, next to a cemetery reading a book about the walking dead.

How creepy is that!

Story Inspiration – When You Least Expect It

Yesterday I wrote about how I went to Salem, Massachusetts, to gain inspiration for the start of NaNoWriMo next week. That trip didn’t inspire any fictional stories, but it did inspire a non-fiction article.

What did inspire a creative spark for a story came from a movie I wasn’t in the mood to see.

My daughter begged, pleaded and hounded me into watching Dawn of the Dead (2004) with her last night. She knew I had seen George Romero’s original version from 1978 as a kid, and she wanted me to draw a comparison between the two to see which was better.

Since I’m no longer into “those type” of movies, I approached it with some trepidation. What happened is that I sat there in rapt attention and thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn’t that it was that great of a film, but while watching it I played out a bunch of “What if” scenarios in my mind and then my own version of a ‘living dead’ story popped, fully formed, into my head.

Since I already have an outline for an Action/Adventure novel with a working title ready to go on November 1st, I’m not sure if I should stay with what I have, or make the switch to a Horror story. What to do…

BTW: I still like the original Dawn of the Dead better.

Salem, Mass – 2006

This past weekend, I took my daughter and two of her friends to Salem, Massachusetts – site of the (infamous) 1692 Witch Trials. I thought the trip would provide me with an inspirational jump start to my creativity going into NaNoWriMo. Almost 400 years-old, Salem is a beautiful New England seaside town crowded with antique homes and steeped in history. Ironically, it is also home to more self-proclaimed witches than any other place in the U.S.Since I love history and early American architecture, I was in my element. As the girls went from shop-to-shop, I marveled at the old buildings surrounding me. They were painted in authentic early American colors of dark and mid-range browns, grays, greens and yellows – but most were white. The styles ranged from early colonial to federal, Greek revival to Victorian. I could feel their character and their history.

We visited a haunted house with at best mediocre effects, but the girls got a thrill out of it anyway. We then went over to the Peabody-Essex museum to go to another haunted house attraction that was supposed to be much better. What we found was a crowded market with vendors selling everything form devil horns, to crystals and talisman’s, t-shirts to buttered popcorn.

There wasn’t a store or kiosk I passed that didn’t have some sort of reference to a witch on a broom for sale in some form or another. Suddenly, it struck me how wrong all this was. How all these people, and the town, popularize and profit from the tragic events of 1692.

They advertise as though there were real witches here. There’s no mention of the fact that there was a gross miscarriage of justice, where 19 people were wrongly hanged by the town, an 80 year-old man was crushed to death, and another four people died in prison. In addition, another 150 wrongly accused people were imprisoned – wrecking their lives and livelihood in the process.

I bet, that if I polled 100 people, that not one of them could tell me the name of even one of the victims that was murdered by Salem’s own townspeople. I’d also bet that most of them wouldn’t be able to tell me how the victims were killed. I’m sure many would proclaim they were “burned at the stake”, or drowned – as I have heard people say in the past when they referenced the “Salem Witches”.

I came to Salem for inspiration – I left in disgust and a little sad as I wondered what those poor souls would think of the spectacle their wrongful deaths had become.

Settled On A Story for NaNo 2006

Ah, Friday the 13th.

I should be writing a Horror story.

After writing several outline sketches for three stories, I’ve finally settled on one to write for NaNoWriMo 2006. I know how it begins and how it ends. I know the characters involved, and I know most of the events and actions that are to take place in the middle.

 The working title for the story is Circle of Vengeance

I won’t say much about it other than the genre is an Action/Suspense story. I was originally going to do something outside of my personal experiences, but feel I need to get this story out of me. It’s going to take me places I may not want to go, but go I will.

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NaNoWriMo 2006

NaNoWriMo 2006 is finally gearing up to go. The NaNo crew re-released the website October 1st for newbie sign-ups and the forums. http://www.nanowrimo.org/

There were several times this past year I had severe NaNo withdrawal, but I’m now glad that we’re finally getting close. It’s not that I can’t write without NaNoWriMo, I just enjoy the insanity of it all. It’s all about the community of like-minded crazies who believe it’s possible to put family and life aside and crank out a rough draft novel of 50,000 words in 30-days. Some will, most won’t – so what – it’s FUN! Ya gotta love it!

Although this is my 6th year participating in NaNoWriMo, I only and finally hit the 50K mark in 2005. Lemme tell ya, it was tough, but more rewarding than I ever expected. It helped me break through self-imposed limitations and made me believe I was capable of more than I previously thought.

I’m in the process of working on some story outlines for ideas I have been toying with. I think I’m going to re-read Chris Baty’s ‘No Plot, No Problem’ – if I can find it – to give me a jump start. I’m in the process of re-building my home office and everything is packed away in bins. Between work and family obligations it’s been slow going, but I am more motivated than ever to get it done before the November 1st kick-off.

I am making the following predictions as to participation and progress for NaNoWriMo 2006:

1,000,000,000 (Billion) words will be written
83,000 People will Participate
14,000 Participants will be Winners (getting to 50,000 words)

Barring any mass media coverage prior to November 1st, I think these numbers will be close. However, if they get a lot of air play, the word-of-mouth factor will increase geometrically and my numbers will be totally blown away.

Getting to 50,000 – How I Did It

I always thought of myself as a “start with a blank page and see what happens” kind of writer. Y’know follow the stream of consciousness and see what the muse tells me. It didn’t work out too well for me.I read mostly horror, action/adventure and suspense/thriller’s. For the first four years I tried to write a story in one of these genres using the ‘blank page’ method. Each time, I’d run into a situation where I didn’t know where to go with the story after the first week or two. I’d lose ground every day as I struggled to think of what to do. Eventually I’d hit a wall and stop.

The other thing that happened to me is that while writing one story, another one would pop into my head and I’d think, “Oh man, that’s a much better story. I know where to go with that”. So, I’d stop work on my current story and start over with the new one. Yep, you guessed it; I’d go off the rails with the new story and come to a grinding halt – again.

I gave up on the ‘blank page’ method, as I finally had to admit I didn’t have that sort of creativity – as I once believed I had. I looked at what happened the previous four years and a clear pattern emerged and so did the answer.

1. Whenever I wrote a story without a map or plan as a guide, explaining what it’s about or where I am going with it; I’d get lost and stop.
2. Without a map or plan to follow there was no focus. I was easily distracted, going off on tangents – where again I’d lose my way and give up in frustration.

I often heard the saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. I took this to heart when I started to rebuild my dismal financial situation ten years ago – and it worked. For some reason, I never put the suggestion of that saying to use in my writing. That is until NaNoWriMo 2005.In October 2005, I knew I wanted to write a road trip/adventure story loosely based on a cross-country trip I took with friends in the ’80’s. I used the month of October to figure out where to start the story, and where it would end. I outlined chapters in the story with a series of events and obstacles that had to be overcome. I mapped out the towns and areas the events would take place – setting the scenes. I then put a lot of thought and work into creating the four main characters of the story.

By the time November 1st arrived, I had the story pretty well mapped out. I knew where it was going to start, I knew who was in it, I knew where it was going, and I knew how and where it was going to end. I had the frame or bones of the story, all I needed to do was to flesh it out.

This time the writing was much easier and more consistent. I often was ahead of the 1,667 words-per-day goal. During the writing, new ideas for the story did appear and temporarily took me off the original path, but only as a scenic overlook. Each time the side trip came back to the original route and the story continued.

There is nothing (in writing) like hitting the 50,000 word mark for the first time. You get a real sense of accomplishment when you realize you wrote 175 pages of a story in just 30-days.

Outlining the story served as a clear guide of where to start, where to go and how to get there. With a little perseverance and determination, the outline helped maintain the Focus needed to see the story to its end.

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How NaNoWriMo Helped Me Become a Writer

By November 30, 2004, I had participated in NaNoWriMo four years running. The first two years I wrote just a few thousand words, before hitting the wall. In 2003, I wrote about 18K words, and in 2004 I hit 33,000 before throwing in the towel – but this time something was different.

In November 2004, I wrote more words for one story than I have ever done before, and I did it in 4-weeks. It came out to 114 printed pages. I couldn’t believe it. In addition, this was the first time I actually sat down at my desk every day to write. I had learned and adapted a new habit.

That winter I found a posting on Writer’s Weekly from a new motorcycle magazine looking for a writer. Actually it was a re-release of the old Iron Horse Magazine with a new format and new owner.

Like almost every new writer, I feared my writing wasn’t good enough for publication. At this time the only published writing I had was articles in corporate newsletters, user manuals and some website content. To me this hardly counted.

I put aside my fears and queried the editor to do an expose’ on a high-end custom bike shop in my town (Chopper Works). I added the shop’s web-link to the query. The editor liked what he saw and gave me the go ahead. Throughout the article process he coached me in what he was looking for in the article and came up with a few questions I had not considered. It was an invaluable experience. The editor was blunt, but a straight shooter and very patient.

The interview process went better than I anticipated. However, when I turned in my first submission, I didn’t feel at all good about it. It was a dismal failure and the editor let me know it. As I read his burning comments and re-read the article I sent him, I knew he was right. After all the bland, pc, antiseptic writing I had done in the corporate world, my motorcycle article was stilted and lifeless.

I went back to my notes and the tape recordings of the interviews. I tossed out my original article and started from scratch. When I was done, I felt a little better about the completed article, but worried I might have missed something – as the editor always came up with questions I didn’t even think to ask. The next day I received the following e-mail from the editor:
—————————————————-
From: “Jeff”
To: “Werner”
Subject: like comparing apples to oranges…

Werner –WHAT the FUCK happened?!?!This story is about 1,000 times better than the first version you handed in! VERRRRY good reporting, I must say!

Kudos to you!I haven’t actually tackled editing it yet, but gave it a thorough read-through and did some polishing up on your grammar, etc.

Everything looks pretty good. Might have some questions for you to answer over the next few days, but that’s par for the course as I pick apart each story, so fret not.

If I make it past our Apr. 15 ship date, we are def. going out for drinks! 

congratulations again,
Jeff
Editor In Chief
Iron Horse Magazine
—————————————————–

The first line scared the hell out of me, but rest of the letter made me feel happy and proud. I had to overcome quite a few hurdles and obstacles in getting this first article written and published, but it did publish in the June 2005 issue. It paid pretty well too.

I eventually had lunch with the editor and ended up writing a couple of articles for the magazine before moving on. I attribute much of my success, in becoming a published and paid writer, from the great habits I learned from NaNoWriMo.

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How Much Is 50,000 Words?

So, just how much is 50,000 words?

To put it in perspective it comes out to 175 double-spaced type written pages using a 12-point Courier font – each page containing about 286 words (on average).

In order to stay on track to hit the 50K word mark in November, you need to produce at least 1,667 words of written manuscript a day - which comes out to almost 6 pages of type-written copy – per day.

How long can this take you on a daily basis?

Typically, I am one of those writers that constantly re-reads, corrects and changes what I write during the first rough draft. The cool thing about NaNoWriMo is that you can release yourself from any self-imposed restrictions and run free. Forget about spelling and punctuation for now – let it go. What’s most important is to get the story out onto the page and just write, write, write.

When you have a good idea of what your story is about and you are in flow mode, you can knock-off 1,667 words in less than a couple of hours. If you are in the flow you will most probably go way beyond the 1,667 daily goal. This is good. It will keep you ahead of schedule.

If the words are taking a while to form, you can potentially put in over 3 hours (not necessarily in a row) to meet the daily word count.

If you don’t make the daily goal – it’s okay. The important thing is that you dedicate time to your craft every day and write something. It doesn’t matter if you hit the 50K mark in 30-days. It’s more important that you adapt the new habit of writing every day. Even if it’s only 250 words a day, that’s 250% more than you were doing before.

Writing isn’t a destination; it’s a journey and a lifestyle. The scramble to try and reach that 50K mark is manic fun – and it should be – but what is often over looked is that participation in NaNoWriMo will help build your writing muscle and adapt the writing lifestyle. I know, as that’s what it’s done for me.

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