Halfway to “The End”

I have managed to make my mid-point goal of 25,000 words by the end of June! That puts me on track to completing 50,000 words by July 15! The only way I met my halfway goal was that I had such a great start and I was a couple thousand words ahead of schedule the whole time. The last 2,000 words were difficult, but so much easier than the previous few thousand had been. Somehow, something inside gets loosened up when I start writing, and then the words seem to flow easier. I almost hate to stop when things are like that. Not really, because I have been sitting at this computer for hours on end, and I am only too glad to finally get to get up and do something else (which in this case, is probably going to bed, sadly). My pace has been a little off, story-wise. It dragged for a while over parts that really did not need to be so long (I have a hard time writing dialog, so I tend to draw those scenes out way too much), and now I am wondering if 25000 words will be enough to finish the ending. The pace has picked up a bit, and there is more “action” now (if you can call “solitary night swimming in a lake” action). I think now that I have laid the groundwork for my characters’ relationships in the slow doldrums of the novel, I can concentrate on getting the plot written, and fix up whatever needs more depth (or dialogue) in post.

(I think the Camp NaNoWriMo site might be getting hammered– it has been up and down all day. I wanted to post my half-way accomplishment to my cabin, but I might have to wait a few days for that.)

P. S. Loyal readers will notice I changed my theme. I went from Twenty Eleven to Freshy because although I really liked the picture of the pine cone on a stone, I hated having to scroll down past this same picture every time just to read a post. Hopefully you will enjoy the cleaner look I’ve got now.

 

20000 words!

Behold! I have written 20,000 words! I might have struggled with the last few thousand, but now the novel is well under way. The main character is just about to figure things out (or so she thinks), just before the novel takes a bit of a turn. I am still running on schedule, thanks to my very excellent start which put me ahead enough for the very poor showings I had last Friday and yesterday. I have written at least 1000 words every day but those two (100 and 500 words, respectively), and even though that was my plan, I am frankly surprised I have kept to it this well. I credit that to the fact that this has been really quite fun. Frustrating at times, but fun! My mid-point is Sunday, when I must have 25,000 words written. Then next week, everyone else finally joins me for my last two-week sprint through the official Camp NaNoWriMo. That will be exciting! I’m looking forward to having everyone else writing their novels, too.

Excuse me, I believe it is time for my 20,000 word dance now. Yay!

Writing Start to Finsh

I am writing my novel from start to finish. I think it would be great to be able to skip around while writing. I’m just not going to work that way, apparently. Part of the problem is that I veered way off the outline I came up with originally. If I started writing in the middle, then I would probably still be writing that original plot that, frankly, didn’t make much sense. I would have written myself into a corner trying to figure out why a character was taking an action that did not really follow from the previous things that I thought were going to have happened then. By building up one step at a time, things make more sense and flow logically from one action to the next.

Another problem with skipping around is that I really hate to write some scenes. I have had a really difficult time writing these past few days because it has been the relationship-building, dialogue-heavy scenes without a lot of action. If I were skipping around, then I would probably leave those until much later, and I might never get around to doing them. Knowing that I just have to get something down on paper before I can go on to the next thing means I don’t spend too long dreading those scenes and I just try to finish them. (Okay, I spend a long time dreading them, but I do eventually write something for them. And this is a first draft; it doesn’t matter how terrible it is, I will polish it later.)

I have been doing really well so far, but I did not meet my writing goal for tonight. I started surfing the Internet, reading blogs, and suddenly it was late and I hadn’t started writing yet. (Tomorrow, no Internet until after the words are counted!) I did manage 500 words tonight, to bring my total up to 19,119 words in 11 days. I am looking forward to getting the next 500-ish words out of the way so we can get past all this dialogue and back to some action!

I Do All My Writing In A Tent

As you know, Dear Reader, I have been writing a novel for Camp NaNoWriMo. It has not all been easy, but I have been pleasantly surprised that it hasn’t been as difficult as I expected it to be. (16,521 words done so far!) I set myself up for success, though, creating a writing schedule that was compatible with my weekday job. Another thing I have done is to create a space devoted solely to writing. Because this was supposed to be a virtual summer camp, I strung up a sheet along a piece of string in our empty dining room and created a tent. My Dear Husband help me drag a spare mattress underneath it to sit on, and I have some pillows to lean against. I lined up all my writing notebooks and pens and spare USB sticks under here, and have a space for my laptop beside the outlet. To make it more like camping, we brought the lantern down here, and I have a small pot of flowers at the tent entrance. Thanks to the care package from my awesome Dear Mother, I have even been making s’mores recently. Mmmmm!!

Okay, it may seem a bit hokey to actually be camping in my dining room during a virtual summer camp.  You certainly don’t need a tent to write a novel. But I think that for large undertakings like this, it is important to develop a space that is solely devoted to that task. Having some sort of ritual, whether that is a special place, a special hat, or a special candle you burn, puts your mind into the right space and lets it know that “hey! it’s time for writing now!” I will be taking down the tent this afternoon (I need the space for something else), but I already have an area prepared to write in for the next three weeks. (I am also planning to try unplugging my laptop from the Internet until I am finished writing for the day.)

 

10000 Words

I don’t have time for a complete post right now, but I’m just so excited to have written 10,000 words on my novel, that I had to write something to celebrate! The funny thing is, I’ve already had some ideas for a sequel. I don’t even know what is going to happen in this book yet! I didn’t write much tonight, but I’m looking forward to filling out a good chunk of the middle over the weekend. I’ve set up my hero to go on her heroic journey, and I’m looking forward to finding out what happens along the way. Yay!

I Am Become Shiva, Creator of Worlds

This process of writing completely amazes me! Last month, I saw something in a museum that really resonated with me. It made me imagine the person it originally belonged to. I saw her standing there, and wondered what circumstances in her life would lead her to that moment, that object. I saw her so clearly that I wanted to write about her for a short story in July. But as I thought more about who she was and what she wanted, her story filled out before me into a longer outline than I expected, so I decided to make it a complete novel. I thought I wasn’t a “pantser” — someone who simply starts writing and makes things up by the seat of their pants. That’s why I made sure to have a rough outline before I started. I discovered, however, that I am not very good at following my outline. Already, the story has diverged considerably from what I started with. (For the better, I must admit; the events I had planned for the first third of the novel were a bit weak.) I believe that I am still working towards the vision I had of her in her moment of crisis, and am even working towards the ending I had planned. But the entire beginning has veered strongly off-course.

Where is all of this coming from? I’m creating a world, and it is becoming more and more vibrant and real with every word I write (8690 as of today). I sit down each evening to write, and after suitable amounts of procrastination and grumbling and minutes spent staring at that darn blinking cursor, suddenly I know what happens next, and the ideas and words just appear, almost magically. (It’s not quite as smooth as all that; there are some additional grumblings every now and then.) They aren’t all golden honey words that drip sweetness in your ear for hearing them. But the plot is interesting, and I am exploring themes that I didn’t realize were in my outline until I saw them crop up multiple times in the early writing. And I have no idea where all of this is coming from. I’m not one of those people who say, “Oh, I had this idea I’ve been mulling over for the last twenty years, and I finally got around to writing it.” Did I have this novel in me the whole time?!?

Writing Schedule

When I decided to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days, I honestly did not think I could do it. But I set myself up for success by knowing myself and the way I work best. Because I work 8 hours every week day, and often come home with decidedly less energy than I left it with that morning, I knew that I would have to do more of my writing over the weekends and holidays. It worked out to really nice, even numbers: if I write 3,000 words on every Saturday, Sunday, and July 4th, then I can write 1,000 words every weekday and meet my goal in exactly 30 days! I also know that these first days are a heady rush of writerly excitement, and that by week three, I’ll be running on nothing but s’mores fumes. That is why I’m trying hard to write more than my goal here at the start, so when I have that inevitable “I just can’t write today” moment, I’ll still be able to finish my goal on time. So far, it hasn’t been as difficult as I thought it would be. Granted, I’m only two days in, but the first 500 words were the hardest words I’ve ever written. Once I got the first 1,000 under my belt (accompanied by a little “thousand word parade” through the house), the rest have just seemed to flow with a lot less gnashing of teeth than I expected. I’ve only gnashed a tooth or two so far. And the most important thing is: I’m having a complete blast! This is so amazingly fun to sit down and just have this story appear from some unknown place inside. Don’t get me wrong — it is difficult. But it is not as impossible as I thought it would be. I think I can actually do this!

Update: Day three was pretty difficult. I managed to eke out exactly 1000 words, though a few are placeholders: “They talk about something while they sit.”

Fix it in Post

I have a saying when I’m taking photos, “I’ll fix it in post!” It derives from all those commentary tracks on DVDs where the actor or director says, for example, they went back and rerecorded parts of the dialog after filming the movie. What I mean is that when I take a photograph, I try to get a nice picture, of course, but all kinds of little things can be changed afterwards to make it a better picture. I can always crop out random people standing around on the sidelines or manipulate the picture to get rid of whatever I don’t want. I can also zoom in more and re-center the photo on the subject itself. I can get rid of red-eye, make the colors more vivid, and improve the contrast or brightness. I can even straighten the image when I hold the camera askew. When I take a picture, I just try to capture the subject in the least-blurry way possible, knowing that as long as I have a picture, I can take care of all these minor things later on the computer screen. The only picture you can’t edit is the picture you never took.

Writing is the same way. As long as you get the ideas out, you can always go back and improve the style or story or gaping plot holes later. The most important thing is to turn off your inner editor and allow yourself to create the story you have inside. The only way I’m getting through this next month is by frequently reminding myself that I am going to worry about the problems later, when it is time for editing. This month is the time for writing and creativity. My mantra this month: “I’ll fix it in post!”

 

The Month of Junly

I decided to write an entire 50,000 word novel during the 30-day month of Junly, which runs from June 16 to July 15. That’s right; I started writing this morning! I met my word count goal for the day (3334 words) before noon, and I still have the rest of the afternoon to go. I might try to keep going and see if I can get to 5000 words today, which would be an amazing start to my Camp Nanowrimo experience, and would take me completely through the scene-setting and the inciting incident into the thick of the action.

This has been extremely difficult. It is amazing just how daunting it is to see a blank page and the singe blinking cursor counting the seconds that you haven’t written anything. But somehow I managed to start, and then to restart and then to restart yet again every time I found myself having trouble with a section. This has been difficult, but also so much fun! It is amazing how I just had this vague idea of the world, and as I wrote more about it, it started to come to life before me. Now I can visualize the parts I’ve written about quite well. They feel more like a memory rather than just an idea. I’m excited to see where the rest of the novel takes me. I expect this month will be difficult, but rewarding.

I am officially a writer!

Writing Goals

I posted last time about my very decisive goal to write 25,000 words in short stories for the first two weeks of July. I have spent some time thinking about a few plots and trying to plan out my ideas. I discovered that one short story that I thought would be a historical fiction short story, really wants to become a historical supernatural romance novel! This distresses me to no end, because that is exactly the sort of novel I would least enjoy reading myself. And yet the storyline called to me, asking to be chosen, begging for its chance to live in the world. How can I say no?

Now I have to decide which path to take: my original goal, 25,000 words in short stories? 50,000 words on this novel? And if so, should I give myself the last two weeks in June to make it a full month of writing? Should I at least give myself the extra weekend right before July starts? Or should I try the outrageous notion of writing 50,000 words in two weeks of July?

Decisions, decisions…