Blog Archives
NaNoRebel Challenge — Guess Who’s Purple?
Okay, so I’m a lazy pants.
Maybe not lazy, and I’m certainly not pants, but I admit I fell behind a bit on my posts regarding NaNoWriMo. Sowwy. Still love me?
In spite of my lack of postage (return to sender), I have been chugging away at my word count, and early last week I crossed the 50,000 threshold. I forgot winning started on the 25th, and so I just now validated my words. And this is what I saw:
Look at me, my bar is purple! 
Very exciting. I also got this handy-dandy doodad for the road:
Weener! Oscar Meyer.
All of that is very exciting. That also brings me to the detail of stats. If you recall from waaaay back at the beginning of the month when we began this challenge, the goal was to average 1,500 words per day and spend at least an hour a week doing something that refuels you. So without further ado, here’s the final info:
Average words per day: 2029
Hours spent at Panera: 34+
Coffee ingested: several gallons
Panic attacks: 0
Bread bowls devoured: 2
Nights past 4 AM: 5
And in case you were wondering about what I’ve been doing to refuel lately, here’s the most recent acquisition that has occupied my time like Wall Street:
Cannot. Stop. Reading.
I had a friend who didn’t really like the second and third books, but I am really enjoying them all. So with all the elation from my bar turning purple today, I’d like to take a minute to review book one of the trilogy, The Hunger Games.
I’ve always been partial to dystopian futuristic stories. Something about them, the grit of survival, the bare-bones attitudes of the characters always sucks me in. I heard of this book a while back, but it wasn’t until I saw the trailer for the movie that it really caught my attention.
“Primrose Everdeen!”
Those are the words that snared me, and when they were followed by the cry of, “No! I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!” I knew I had to get the book.
I wasn’t disappointed. That desperate, guttural cry that leaves Katniss’s throat when her sister’s name is called, condemning her to fight to the death in the 74th Annual Hunger Games against twenty-three other tributes from the country’s twelve districts was only the beginning of the story, and yet there’s so much subsumed within that moment that I was hooked.
For one thing, I am enthralled with the character of Katniss Everdeen. The trilogy is written by a woman, and the protagonist is a young woman. I’ve been yearning for something like this for quite a while — a female hero written as men have written male heroes for centuries. There are others out there, but I fiercely loved reading Katniss’s story. It resonated with me because she thinks like me. She’s pragmatic, stoic, strong, and flawed. She is rarely emotional and often gruff. While I don’t resemble her much on the outside, reading her thoughts was like reading a transcript of what goes through my head about life and its trials. She’s someone I would aspire to emulate. Her dogged determination is something to be envied, and she is a hero I think will inspire both male and female readers. She’s not over-sexualized. She’s attractive, but that’s almost never the focus of the story. The focus is her drive to protect her family and herself.
The story itself has many levels of political intrigue, nuance, and some very 1984ish doublespeak as Katniss tries to navigate a path that is fraught with traps and snares from all sides — both literally and figuratively. I think I enjoy it so much because she is flawed. She doesn’t know what she’s doing for most of it, but she keeps trying — oh, she tries. She fights. She doesn’t give up even when it seems like every step she takes brings some new terror onto her head and everyone around her has their hands on her to push her in some new direction of their choosing.
I haven’t been able to put the books down, and that is something I haven’t felt in a while. I plowed through all three in a few days in the midst of turkey, poker with the family, and a bit of an excess of port.
Katniss Everdeen. She’s already been added to my wall of heroes. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I have. This holiday season, buy someone a book — one with a binding and covers. Give someone something to hold on to.
Like this:
The Cone of Shame
After arriving in Toledo last night, my husband, mother-in-law, and I were sitting around the kitchen discussing a bizarre ladybug infestation, and somehow the conversation turned to the gnawing/scratching habits of their adorable little white dustmoppy dog named Skooter. He doesn’t actually look like a dustmop, because they groom him very well, but if he lived in the 70s and they let him grow out, he would.
Skooter doesn’t really get it when scratching or gnawing at himself is wrong, so they had to get him a cone.
Oops. Wrong species.
Here we go:
Not Skooter...but you get the point.
Anyway, after my triumph over NaNoWriMo in the wee hours of the morning (I think I told you once that I only see 6 am when sneaking up on it from behind), I had a little mini-attack of chagrin, in which I gnashed my teeth thinking, “Molli from my writing group has 134,000 words and counting! I think Kana is kicking my arse too!”
And just like that, this was me:
It burns, Precious.
Like this cat, all I felt was the burning shame of not doing more. I wanted to have 100,000 words too!
*Cou-complex-gh*
But then I realized that I work 45 hours a week. And each day this month, I have updated my blog here, no matter what was going on. I did that first before starting my NaNoWriting. I have said hello (and then some) to my husband every day. I have jealously eyeballed some trees I would like to climb without getting arrested.
Like perhaps this tree.
And I realized that all those things I was saying to myself were basically like Skooter gnawing on his bum until it is so raw they have to cone him. My cone was imaginary, and it was made out of shame. It wasn’t protecting me from myself.
Have you ever felt that way, gentle viewers? Have you ever made yourself a Cone of Shame?
Today, I have shucked off my invisible Cone of Shame, written 1,408 words, and traded that cone in for something much better:
With this cone, I shall bust through word counts with mah lasers!
No more gnawing on ourselves, writers and gentle viewers. If you need a cone to make you stop, at least make it one that amplifies your lasers.
Like this:
The Writing Colonic
I heard a description a while back (and I of course cannot remember who tossed this little tidbit to the winds of my imagination) that writers have an amount of shit writing inside of them, and that the only way to get to the good stuff is to pass all of the shit. The way to do that is to basically give yourself a writing colonic.
Try not to laugh. I dare you.
Before you convulse like this baby at the word “colonic,” allow me to esplainy. First, I’m not sure if I necessarily agree with the idea that I have a predetermined amount of shite in my writing digestive tract that has to come out before I write anything worth reading. However, I think this mystery poo-metaphor person does have a point.
Very few people (if any at all) pen their first ever novel and have it become their opus, their master work, the salient, salable, and dare we say profitable breakthrough into publishing. This isn’t to say that first novels can’t be successful — just that often it’s the books that come after them that end up being better quality.
Writing is an art, yes, but it’s also a learned skill. And the way to learn it, gentle viewers, is only to do it. A lot. In that sense, I agree with poo-metaphor dude. (I shall henceforth refer to him as “Poom.”) A lot of the writing we do to develop our craft is shite. Or it falls into the category of “I like it, but please gawd don’t ever let anyone else see it…ever ever ever ever ever.”
I am certain that if I were to ever stumble upon the 30-40 pages of handwritten sci-fi that emerged from my 9-year-old writing tract, I would laugh until I cried and then laugh some more. I also have gone back and read my fantasy novel I wrote in high school, thinking how cute it was that everything was so tidy and clean for the first hundred pages, and only seeing glimmers of what I now do often — play gross out because fighting vampires is gonna be a bloody mess (unless you’re Buffy — Joss’s zing-poof vamps were no muss, no fuss).
To sum that up, I definitely had some crap in me that needed to be flushed out. There’s probably still some in there. The point is, gentle viewers, that practice may not make perfect, but it will at least make it so what comes out of you isn’t shite most of the time.
I don’t think there is any predestination involved with how much practice it takes to write something really good. I also think writers flock to poo metaphors almost as much as Poom (Writer’s block? Might as well say you’re verbally constipated). I think NaNo helps for this sort of thing though. Even if your NaNo novel ends up in That Drawer, it still forced you to push out a novel, which is good practice. It also gave you a deadline. Also good practice.
So while I don’t 100% agree with Poom, I do agree that in order for us to write the best that we can, we need to write a lot. Get to it, everybody.
PS: I have been getting a few comments about my “gentle viewers” reference. It is a throwback to (what else?) one of my favorite Buffy episodes of season 7, in which Andrew Wells entertains the world with some true hilarity and word confusion, such as the following.
Amanda: Um, Faith killed a volcanologist.
Andrew: Silly, silly Amanda. Why would she kill someone who studies Vulcans?
I leave you with this, gentle viewers. Enjoy!
Like this:
Day 10 and Novel 2
Day 10 winds its way to a close with some fabulous news.
Elemental is finished.
During my many hours at Panera today for my Corridor Writers write-in, my word count for the novel hit 111,000, and as tomorrow is 11/11/11, I decided it was done. Just kidding. That wasn’t my reasoning, but I found that the story didn’t need another 10,000 words. More might happen in the rewrite, but for now it’s finished.
You know what that means?
That means I have written TWO WHOLE BOOKS!!!!!!!
Yeah, sorry for the spaz attack. I felt it was merited. Two whole books, and a quarter million words. Geez oh Pete’s, that sounds like a lot of words. Probably because it is.
I am now about 2,500 words into book three, going way back in time and into some nitty gritty historical urban fantasy for the prologue, which is interesting but exhausting — and torturing a character is never that fun for me. I feel bad for her. She’s a little shaky, but she will evolve. And we’ll get to see that happen.
We will also learn the back story of one of the trilogy’s major antagonists, one of the superbad baddies. And that is worth it, for sure. He will grow a sympathetic side for a time — although that time is four hundred years ago.
So here we go. Book three of three. Wish me luck.
Like this:
Watch Your Mouth
It’s going to do a trick!
Sorry. I’m just chock-full of the bad puns lately. You can smack my wrist if you must.
Well, gentle viewers, we are back to The 25 for the penultimate day! Aren’t you excited?! I sure am. Though I’m going to have to start nosing around for little tidbits to chuck my two cents at day after day. Hm.
Here’s today!
24. Language
Think of your writing as a windshield. Ill-suited words can streak and cloud your reader’s view, and just-right language can be as clarifying as a high-powered carwash. Once you have a solid draft, it’s time to consider:
- Could a different word bring even more energy or resonance to a poignant moment through sound, subtleties of meaning, or syllabic rhythm?
- Could the setting be conveyed more vividly? Is the natural world palpable?
- Is the emotional tone consistently resonant? Are there neutral words or passages that could be more charged?
- Does the language powerfully enact the action?
As you polish and prune, each piece of writing will teach you something new about what is possible. Let yourself be surprised.
—Cohen
Ah, language. Such a fickle critter. Sometimes it’s in our corner, flowing off our tongues and out of our fingertips like some kind of magical chi. Other times, it’s a monkey flinging poo at our heads. And that’s all that drips off of us. Poo.
There are times when what’s important is to simply vomit the words onto the page, like this month, where hundreds of thousands of writers feverishly slave at their notebooks (electronic or otherwise) to just get the damn things out of us. Words.
And then comes December. It’ll roll over on you like a sleeping grizzly, flinging a furry arm over your face in its hibernation, then cough bear breath — which I imagine smells something like stale sushi and digested berries — in your face to remind you that what you just vomited on the page is stinking up its den. And you’ll want to clean it up, because you’re not stupid enough to piss off a hibernating grizzly, no matter how sleepy he looks.
This one looks friendly enough.
The best way I know when my language is flinging poo instead of sparkling like magic is when my attention wanders away from the page I’m revising. Come December, I’ll be going back over my first draft with a red pen text color to mark any points in the manuscript where I see something shiny in another direction, or start pouncing light beams on my wall.
Reading aloud can also show you sticky spots. If your tongue falls out on the floor or ends up in a knot tied around your uvula, some re-wording is probably in order.
The questions posed by The 25 are very good starting points. Some others to ask yourself are:
1. Are your action scenes dragging?
2. Does your exposition drop you like a weighted body at the bottom of the sea?
3. Do your characters make themselves distinct? Pick a random (but meaningful) chunk of dialogue and stick another character’s name in the attribution. Have one of your readers read it. If they shrug at you, look over that character’s dialogue. People have verbal tics. Listen to your characters until you find theirs, then pepper their speech with them. Liberally.
4. Does your story flow from beginning to end or does it cough and mutter in fits and starts?
Language is both the poo-flinging culprit and the glorious wand-waving solution to all of those issues. So when you revise, make sure you keep that grizzly happy. Or at least bring him some honey.
Like this:
Day 8 My Brains.
Get it?
Aw, never mind. Regardless, I broke 20,000. And that is cause for glee. Didn’t think I’d have the time tonight, but lo, it appeared. Until tomorrow, gentle viewers. Dream of sugar plums and sticky toffee pudding and haggis. Nom. Or for my lovely UK readers for whom it is an ungodly hour of the morning, dream of more sleep.
Love and kisses!
PS: A whopping thank you to you new subscribers and for all who stopped by today! There were lots of you, and it gave me a warm fuzzy. You’re all just peachy.
The Wee Hours
Well, to me it is. I seldom see this side of noon excepting when I sneak up on it from behind, or if I have to be at work at 10. And even then, I repress any morning experiences for the first two hours — by then it’s afternoon, and all is right with the world.
Me.
I am not a morning person.
I used to be sort of passive about it. “Yeah, I don’t like mornings, la dee dah…” and then I got a job where I regularly had to be at work by 7:30 and still could never sleep until 3 or later, and it stressed me out to the point that the mere sound of my alarm triggered a stream of expletives and near-panic attacks. Sleep. I value it. It’s one of the reasons I don’t have a “real” job right now.
But lo, it’s 9:41, and I’ve been awake for about an hour and a half. Strange miracle, but here we are, with the opportunity to blog today when I thought I wouldn’t have the time. Once I go to work in 45 minutes, I won’t be home till almost 11.
Gentle viewers! We are almost done with The 25! In fact, we are on…
22. Objectivity
The perils of subjectivity arise largely from overidentifying with a subject, narrator or character in a narrative, and making it (or him or her) the vehicle for a thematic point in which the author himself is overly invested. The antidote is at least as old as the New Testament, specifically Matthew 5:43–48, where Christ instructs his followers to love their enemies. If what I have to say seems old hat, therefore, I’ll be neither disappointed nor surprised.If you find yourself overidentifying with a topic or character, try to identify within the sympathetic subject, narrator or even oneself a trait or belief or habit that is repellent or inexcusable or just plain odd. In doing so, you’ll enhance the psychological or moral distance between yourself and the object of familiarity
or allegiance.Another possible strategy is to rewrite the scene or section from the point of view of someone other than the object of sympathy. This forced disconnect can achieve a similar effect.
—Corbett
I find it rather appropriate that this is today’s. In my frantic writing sprint (or spring, as Twitter would have it) last night before bed, I wrote a scene that bothered me immensely. The protagonist from my first book becomes….sort of an anti-hero if not a downright antagonist in the second. Basically, she starts acting like a massive twit. It drives me nuts, and I want to smack her. I found myself last night trying to put words in her mouth, make her more sympathetic in a scene where she is downright cruel. And I knew that as I was trying to do that, it wasn’t true to her behavior. She has a lot of reasons for acting the way she does — some of them more valid than others — but the bottom line is that she’ll get over it eventually, and until she does, I have to let her be a bitch. I find the whole concept exhausting. It’s like putting up with a temper tantrum because you know your child will eventually grow out of them.
It’s one reason I like different POVs in fiction. I love seeing a story told from different angles and getting inside different heads. I also enjoy a good first person POV, but there’s something to be said for different POVs. Sometimes a big story just needs to be told that way.
It all boils down to one little sentence, in my opinion: tell the truth. Listen to your story and your characters, and let them drive your story forward. If you want to give it a shot, find a scene in your story where things fall a little flat and subjective and rewrite it from the viewpoint of an antagonist, or even someone who just doesn’t like your main character very much. See what happens. If you’re NaNoing, just keep plugging along at your word count.
Also me.
I was going to post a picture of a pretty morning to enhance the objectivity of this post, but then I changed my mind. Google gives mornings some damn good PR. So instead, I give you Garfield.
Happy Sunday!
Like this:
Day 5/6….
Here I am…now get your extra hour of rest and dream of days off! (Or enjoy your Sunday if you work a normal job…)
EDIT: This is my 100th post on this blog! Bomb-diggity! Aaaaand I totally missed seeing WordPress cheer me on because I posted from my phone. Fail.
Day 3: Word Count and Refuel
There have been a lot of words today. As the day comes to a close, here is where I am. To refuel I spent the evening in the kitchen making whole wheat spinach lasagna and ratatouille, to be followed by a raspberry and ricotta/yogurt parfait.
Shoo, Garfield.
Stay tuned for tomorrow: Emmie’s Diatribe on Twilight, and Other Sordid Stories
Time, Time, Time
Time is what turns kittens into cats.
It’s also something that tends to run out on you and leave you naked and wondering why you ended up in the grocery store with no clothes on. It’s because you didn’t have time to get dressed, silly.
The problem with my work schedule is that my day goes something like this:
10 AM or 5 PM: Start work. If I’m a double, I start at 10. Otherwise I usually work at 5.
12 AM-2:30 AM: Off work. Happy dance!!!! Now what?
3:00 AM: I’m hungry. Dinna time!
3:30 AM: Hang time with spouse.
4:30 AM- 5:30 AM: Bed.
This means I wake up no earlier than noon most days. Today that was 1. Which means on a day when I have to be at work at 4 instead of 5, I have an hour less of that time stuff to: write 2,000 words, eat, shower, PUT ON CLOTHES!, talk to the husband, and get ready to go. That’s not much time stuff.
So here is my two hour sprint of writing/food/clothes. Day 2, I’ma kick yo butt.
19. Tension
Tension results from two factors: resistance and ambiguity. In nearly every piece of narrative writing, fiction or otherwise, someone is trying to achieve something. Tension results from external or internal opposition to achievement of the goal (resistance), or uncertainty as to the narrator or character’s understanding of the situation in which she finds herself (ambiguity), specifically its perils (psychological, emotional, physical).
Tension is essential because it keeps readers reading. Thus, in every scene you write, strive to heighten tension by doing one of two things: Enhancing the forces impeding achievement of the goal, or confusing/complicating the narrator or character’s understanding of the situation.At the end of every writing session, take time to find and stress those elements within the narrative that serve these purposes. Trim away elements that do not, unless they add necessary color.
—Corbett
This is excellent advice. My biggest problem when I was completing the second draft of book one was that it a: was far too scattered and b: lacked the necessary tension to propel it to the conclusion. I remedied a lot of that with the second draft, but when I pull it out again December 1, that’s what I will be looking for as I read.
I think Corbett says it best when he says that tension is what keeps readers turning pages. You can also describe it as conflict, whether internal or external. I like to think of it as a rope. When a reader picks up your book, your first chapter should hook her (if it doesn’t, you’ve got a whole other problem). When that happens, you tie a rope around your reader’s waist. Now, it’s a long-ass rope. Think hundreds of feet. Your job the second that knot gets tied around your new pet reader is to pull him where you want him to end up (this reader’s gender is ambiguous). You can’t pull your reader anywhere if your rope is slack. And you have a LOT of rope to mess with.
As soon as you get the rope around your reader, your job is to pull it tight. To create tension early so that reader doesn’t wander off to look at that cactus over there or fall in a river. You could strain and reel your reader in over those hundreds of feet of rope, or you could simply start running in the direction you want the reader to go. Take off. Make that rope pull tight before the reader knows she has any slack to wander off. Create tension so your reader can’t help but follow where you lead. Once the tension’s there, you don’t have to pull him at a sprint for four hundred pages, but you want enough tension there at all times to guide him as you lead. Enough that you don’t stop to tie your shoe and she goes off chasing mongooses under a bush. (This reader is very easily distracted; readers often are.) If you do let up the tension for a moment, it should be because you want to stop long enough for your reader to look around and see where you are now before plunging forward.
Your words are your rope. It should be a good, strong rope. You don’t want it frayed or rotten in bits so it breaks when the tension gets applied. It’s a tricky thing to pull a reader through a story; make sure you have the best rope possible.
Here we are for Day 2: Time for me to get back to the drawing board.
Before today's additions...but here's where I am.
