Novel Wishes and NaNoWriMo Dreams

Baby Stepping Through NaNoWriMo

NaNo’s over. Time to Party!

National Novel Writing Month is over for 2012.

Whether you rocketed past the finish line or were miles away, you wrote words that didn’t exist before November 1.

Even if you never got past the first sentence, you made something happen. Seriously. Pat yourself on the back.

Celebrating even a tiny success can motivate you to succeed further.

I’m a huge believer in baby steps. Some people get jazzed by lofty goals. The mere idea makes me want to puke in my mouth a little.

Sure, I have lots of lofty goals (*cough* NYT Bestselling Author *cough*) but I get along only with lots of constructive denial.

Me staring down a big goal.

Constructive Denial: Willfully ignoring how far you have left to go and just seeing the next tiny step ahead of you.

When writing a novel, that means setting any goal that seems truly doable to you. 10 words or 1000+. 5 minutes or 15. The key is to set a non-threatening goal so that you can tell yourself “I only have to write __.”

You may end up writing more. Once your butt is in the seat, it’s easier to just keep going.

However, if you just do the minimum, you’ve still reached a goal. You’ve kept a promise to yourself. When you keep your promises to yourself, you gain confidence in your ability to do it again and again.

If you fail, don’t beat yourself up. Use those failures to motivate your future success.

Once you’re comfortable with that pace, bump it up another notch. Every time you do, tell yourself, “Just a little further.”

You may find yourself zooming along at finger-breaking speed in no time.

Then again, maybe you won’t. Maybe you (like me) will take a little longer to start busting out word counts in the thousands. Maybe you’ll take a lot longer.

The KT Bomber at Mach Fur.

In any case, know that, if you keep putting one word after the other, you will get to your lofty goal. Once you’re there, it doesn’t really matter how long it took you.

So what does this have to do with NaNoWriMo?

When I first heard about NaNo a couple of years ago, it scared the stuffing out of me. I had all sorts of reasons why I couldn’t join (I’m in the middle of a novel, in the middle of moving, in the middle of watching a Lost marathon). While some of those reason were certainly good ones, the deeper reason was fear.

50k in 30 days seemed like too much when my cruising speed was around 500, a horrible affront to my baby steps philosophy.

When NaNo rolled around again this year, I put on my big girl panties and joined up (as a rebel because I planned to add to my work-in-progress).

Going in, I had hopes and doubts. Lots of doubts.

I hoped to add 50k words and finish the first draft but I didn’t think I really would. I had a family vacation coming up after Thanksgiving and would not have internet during the last week of November.  And I still couldn’t fathom writing 1667 words every single day, let alone the 2000 I’d need to finish before I went internet free.

But…the writing nearly every day, regardless of my “slow” pace had worked some kinda magic deep in my brain.

When NaNo kicked off, I sat down at the computer and told myself I only had to write 500 at a time. Just 500. Then I could take a break and have a cookie. Once I started, 500 words didn’t seem like such a big deal. Even 1000 didn’t seem so bad (okay, so I used a few “tricks” to keep my word count up…mostly in the beginning).

That’s right. I’m a NaNo superstar.

At the end of the first day, when I’d actually passed 2K, I was stunned. I wasn’t convinced I could do it again.

But I did.

I marched my way to the 50k mark on last night before I left for vacation. I did it. I won NaNoWriMo (rebel status be darned). And not because I’m a turbo writer but only because all those itty bitty baby steps I’d been taking finally added up to something big.

So what if it took me a couple of years to get around to it.

Now, I’d like to say I got to type “The End” on my first draft at the end of NaNo. I didn’t. I’ve still a few miles to go but I now know that I can. I can reach my lofty goals and without freaking out over how far I still have to go.

I just have to keep going.

Wherever you ended up when the curtain fell November 30th and however far you have to go, you will get there if you just keep putting one word after the other.

I think I can…I think I can…

How did NaNo go for you? For those of you who didn’t join NaNo, are you going to give it a try next year?

Image Attribution (In Order of Appearance):
Upside-down yawn by twolittlemoos, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Scary Pepper by zane.hollingsworth, on Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0
Jump! by ehisforadam (Adam Minter), on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
funny animal by didbygraham, on Flickr CC BY 2.0
Acrobat by Vicki & Chuck Rogers, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Possibly Probably Related articles

• After NaNoWriMo – Editing Part 2 (the-view-outside.com)
• NaNoWriMo Novel is Done! (rachelleharp.com)
• You Survived NaNoWriMo….Now What? (diamondpublicationz.wordpress.com)
• Post NaNoWriMo: Day 3 – WINNER!!! (thegrownupya.wordpress.com)
• What Comes After NaNoWriMo? (fulltimewritermom.com)
• NaNoWriMo 2012: How’d I Do? (jabwriter.com)

Are You Stuck in the Squishy Middle?

How to Get Over the Halfway Mark Hump in NaNoWriMo
(or any big writing project)

Middles.

Sometimes they’re a cause for celebration. As in: “Yeehaw! We’re halfway through!” Or: “Whew! Thank goodness that’s half over already.”

Other times, they just suck. As in: “Oh man, I’ve come all this way and I still have so far to go.” *cue self-pity montage music*

I suppose it probably depends on whether you’re glass-half-full kinda folk or if you’re stuck in that middle.

We’re heading towards the halfway mark of NaNoWriMo. Some of you may just be picking up steam after a long, slow start. For others, the creative high of the first half of NaNo may be wearing off, leaving them stuck in that mushy, soggy, squishy middle.

Me, I’m aiming for denial. I refuse to admit to being stuck. So what if the words are harder to write? So what if I’m trying to make excuses not to put my butt in the chair? So what if I find myself wanting to procrastinate more and more?

If I pretend the middle slump doesn’t exist, it won’t catch me. Right?

Weeellll, maybe.

Here’s what I’m doing to get over the hump in NaNoWriMo:

•  I’m just going to keep putting my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard. I’m gonna be like my mom when I didn’t want to eat my veggies: “You sit right there, miss, until you finish every last brussels sprout.” (Okay, okay. My mom didn’t really do this. Well, probably not more than once anyway. I still hate brussels sprouts though).
• Meet every excuse not to write by sticking my fingers in my ears and yelling “Nah nah nah, I can’t hear you.” Hey. It worked when we were six, didn’t it?
•  I’m only letting myself procrastinate by writing notes about my novel. If I have to, I’ll endlessly discuss my story with myself in writing. Eventually, my muse will give in and get back to the story or I’ll hit 50K with “author commentary.” Author commentary totally counts for NaNo, right?
• Bribing myself with treats. I may or may not have a secret stash of Halloween candy. I do have a backlog of tv shows on the DVR that I really, really want to watch. And then there’s the reading. If I give myself a short break to have a little treat, maybe I can get back into the writing flow afterward.

So far, these things seem to be helping me. I feel the slow-down nipping at my heels but I am mostly not giving in.

Only time will tell.

In the mean time, enjoy this video of a cat who knows all about being stuck in the middle:

.

And this compilation of funny cats:

.

Do you find the middle of a writing project, like NaNoWriMo hard to get through? What do you do to get through it? 

Image Attribution (In Order of Appearance):
Lalalala.. I don’t wanna hear this! by hebedesign, on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Possibly Probably Related articles

• NaNoWriMo Day 12 – The Good, The Bad and The Unwritten (allmeanssomething.wordpress.com)
• NaNoWriMo 2012 (cultofajracewood.wordpress.com)
• NaNoWriMo: It’s All Right To Take Your Time (evilnymphstuff.wordpress.com)
• YEA for my NaNoWriMo outline! (crimsonleague.com)
• Confessions of a NaNoWriMo slacker (laurieanichols.wordpress.com)

Fattening Up Your Word Count for NaNoWriMo

Is it Cheating to Use Tricks to Get to 50K?

I have to write how many words a day?!

50,000 words in 30ish days. That’s the NaNoWriMo goal and it breaks down to about 1667 words a day.

For some, word counts in the thousands a day is routine. For others (*cough cough* like me), this is no small feat.

Prior to NaNo, I averaged about 5-600 words a day. 750 was a pretty good day. And 100o was cause for a parade and statue erected in my honor (in my head, anyway).

Of course, I was also hand writing all those words. So that may have played a big part.

Coming up on November, the idea of hitting 1667 daily was nothing short of terrifying.

But then I remembered reading a post on padding your word count for NaNoWriMo and 750Words.com. At the time, I ignored the advice. Sounded like a good idea but I didn’t think I needed it.

And I didn’t need it for 750 words but for 1600-2K?

Well…maybe.

Right here, it might help to tell you a little about my writing style. I tend to write sparely and flesh out the work in revisions. Even then, I favor lean-ish writing (for my fiction, anyway) in the finished product and I hate to have to clip out a bunch of nonsense to get there.

Lean won’t cut it for NaNo.

I’m a m-model and you know what I mean…

My word count has got to get fat. Fast.

Oh yeah, baby. There’s so much of me to love.

Except, how could I possibly use sneaky, dirty tricks for reaching 50K? That’s cheating, right?

Still, I was willing to give it a try. After all, NaNoWriMo is about quantity, not quality.

Quality is for rewrites.

I picked three tricks and settled into my first day. 2400+ words later, I was sold on word count tricks.

The idea that I had a little help with word count  eased my anxiety about writing.

Take that, inner critic.

And, it put a gag on my inner editor.  Putting in material I know I’ll cut out later actually made me feel free to just write whatever popped into my head. I can just cut it out later too, I told myself. It worked like magic. My inner editor was too busy gaping at all those ridiculous tricks to pay attention to the story experimentation.

Yet another unexpected benefit of all word count obesity was deep insight into my story. As I piled on the description, inner monologue and musings, I started to see connections between the characters that I hadn’t seen before. I found backstory that sizzled. I even discovered a couple of new characters who brought with them suitcases fully of subplot possibilities.

In short, those word count tricks which were just intended to soften the blow of 1667 words a day actually made me write completely non-tricked out words. And the more I write, the less heavily I’m relying on the tricks because the story’s starting to flow all by itself.

Here are my favorite word count tricks so far:

• No contractions: Do not instead of don’t. She is instead of she’s. And so on. You get two words instead of one. This is likely to lead to relatively smaller gains but sometimes even one extra word makes a huge difference. I only use this one in narrative. When I tried it with dialogue (except for some of my more uptight characters), it came off sounding too stiff and killed the flow.  Word Count Calorie Rating: Fun Size Milky Way.
• Always use full names, titles, etc: If your character’s name is Bucky Ball, make sure you always refer to him as Bucky Ball and not just Bucky. You can also add a title such as Bucky Ball, Ruler of the Known Universe and Prince of Underpants. Or you can go with a genealogy element: Bucky Ball, son of Basket and Base Ball. This can lead to substantial gains, depending on how often you mention characters by name. Again, I only use this in narrative as it feels way to heavy in dialogue. Word Count Calorie Rating: Hot Fudge Sundae.
• Loads of description, inner monologues, musings, etc: Describe everything, from what people look like to what they’re wearing. Describe every detail of the location. Make the characters do a lot of thinking and soul-searching. Have them ramble to themselves and each other about the situation. Potentially massive gains plus the chance to realize new aspects of your story. I use more or less of this depending on how fast the scene is coming to me. Word Count Calorie Rating: Two Extra Large Doughnut Burger Combos with  Extra Cheese, Super Size Soft Drink and a Hot Fudge Sundae.

Nom nom nom.

Here are more word count fattening ideas from around the web:

• Suggestions from NaNoWriMo participants.
• 5 Completely and Utterly Ridiculous Ways to Boost Your NaNo Word Count
• Top 10 Ways to Increase Your NaNoWriMo Word Count

Do you pad your word count or is that cheating? What are your favorite tricks?

Image Attribution (In Order of Appearance):
Cat (05) – 20Jul10, Phaistos (Grece) by philippe leroyer, on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Dancepuss by brandoncripps, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
fat cat by kalavinka, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Hostage by Knee Deep Photography, on Flickr  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
doughnut burger by roboppy, on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

What Gets Your Pulse Pounding?

I am NOT hiding under the bed. I’m…um…looking for dust bunnies.

With the smell of Halloween still in the air (that is chocolate on your hands, right?), it’s good time to ask you about the stories that thrill you the most.

Heart pounding. Heavy breathing. Laying awake at night, scenarios running through your head.

Be they action, thriller, disaster, suspense, horror or whatnot, which books, movies and/or tv shows get you going? Which ones would you read again and again and recommend to friends (or enemies)? Which ones do you dare not read again because they were that good?

Imaged Attribution (In Order of Appearance):
You can’t possibly see me hiding under the bed… by Ninithedreamer, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

How to be a NaNoWriMo Rebel

NaNoWriMo is in the air. Can you smell it?

Sure, right now that’s the smell of excitement, stockpiles of chocolate and coffee, and possibly disinfectant, as writers furiously clean their houses one last time before NaNo sets in.

Later on, it’ll be the smell of madness and unwashed people.

You get the picture.

Folks are signed up and raring to go.

For those of you that haven’t signed up yet, fear not, there’s still time. Head on over to NaNoWriMo and get it done.

Some folks have their outlines all ready and some are just brimming with ideas.

Come on. When this thang gonna start already?!

Other folks, having thrown caution to the wind and signed up without the slightest clue to how they’re actually gonna finish, are now feeling the winds change and are frantically wondering if they can unsign up.

Still others are sneaking in the back door of NaNo because they’re breaking the first rule of NaNoWriMo.

You know the first rule of NaNoWriMo, right?

The first rule of NaNoWriMo is: don’t talk about NaNoWriMo.

No…wait…that’s another club.

The first rule of NaNoWriMo is: you may only begin writing your novel on Nov 1. You may not add to a pre-existing manuscript.

Okay, it’s not really the first rule. It’s something like the 4th. The rules aren’t actually numbered. Anyway…

The idea is that a partly finished novel could hold you back:

This sounds like a dumb, arbitrary rule, we know. But bringing a half-finished manuscript into NaNoWriMo all but guarantees a miserable month. You’ll care about the characters and story too much to write with the gleeful, anything-goes approach that makes NaNoWriMo such a creative rush. Give yourself the gift of a clean slate, and you’ll tap into realms of imagination and intuition that are out-of-reach when working on pre-existing manuscripts.

Read more here.

Of course, the minute you make a rule, somebody’s just gotta break it.

And one of those somebodies is me.

Yep.

As I may have mentioned before, I’m hip deep in my post-apocalyptic  pre-megabestselling novel. While I’m fully aware that joining NaNo with said novel could be a total disaster (especially since I’m a NaNewbie). I might be too attached to the existing outline to really get into the NaNo psychosis spirit.

 Blah blah blah.

Please oh please, let me finish this novel. Oh, and send some chocolate fishies too. Amen.

However, I determined to finish this beast book by the end of the year. At least the first draft part. And since it feels like snails on quaaludes could finish faster than I could at my current pace, the unique frenzy that is National Novel Writing Month could be just the kick in the pants I need.

Hey.

Stop it.

I said NaNo could be the kick in the pants I need. You don’t need to kick me.

Sheesh.

My starting November with a work-in-progress really isn’t all that unusual. In fact, there’s a whole forum on the site for folks like me.

So, if you think you can’t do NaNoWriMo because you’re working on something you don’t want to put aside for the next 30ish days, despair not.  Come join me and the other rule-breakers and get your NaNo on.

How are you doing NaNo this year?

Image Attribution (In Order of Appearance):
Image via NaNoWriMo.org
The smile of the cheetah by Tambako the Jaguar, on Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0
Grady Prays by ornoth, on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Possibly Probably Related articles

• Gearing Up for NaNoWriMo (rachelleharp.com)
• How Not to Starve During NaNoWriMo (doingthewritething.wordpress.com)
• NaNoWriMo (lyssaproctor.wordpress.com)
• NaNoWriMo Writers Rock! (rachelleharp.com)
• NaNoWriMo and Publishing . . . (nfaa.wordpress.com)
• Stumbling Towards NaNoWriMo (doingthewritething.wordpress.com)
• I am ready for NaNoWriMo (cindydejager.wordpress.com)
• NaNoWriMo Rebel (cultofajracewood.wordpress.com)

Abe Lincoln, President of the Vampire Hunters

I caught this movie over the weekend with my hubby (usually he doesn’t go for movies like this but he’s been listening to audiobook and was intrigued).

And…I enjoyed it. The vampires were reasonably scary and, perhaps most importantly, they didn’t sparkle or pine for teenage girls.

I also enjoyed the way history was woven into the story. Sure, it might not be the most historically accurate piece but, hello, it’s fiction. The vampires are kind of a dead giveaway, you know. It’s just a story that asks, “What if vampires were real and what if one of the least glamorous-looking presidents was actually a Buffy-meets-The-Matrix vampire hunter?”

Night of the Living ROW

Final ROW80 Check in for Round 2, 2012

Having reached the end of another ROW80, Mortimer decides to take a well-deserved nap.

We’ve reached the end of another round of ROW80. This round, I haven’t been as attentive as I would have liked. Of course, lots of life intervened. But all we can do is all we can do.

My plans for this round:

• Update ROW80 page, for last round and this one: I updated the page at the beginning of the round but it needs another update.
• Spend 15-30 minutes minimum 4 days a week on new novella. I’m working on expanding Postcards from Hell and its sequel, Ants in the Mailbox into a novella. My MIP is on hold for now: For the last month, I’ve tried to catch up with work projects and a big move. I put a hold on writing work until I get settled.

Ray Bradbury Lives On

Last week, I was in the throes of the move (the last one for the next 20 years, at least, if I have anything to say about it) and bereft of Internet. Since I rarely bother to turn on the TV (unless it’s to watch Netflix or something from the DVR) and even more rarely bother to pick up a newspaper, I did not hear about the passing of the great Ray Bradbury until last Sunday.

I wonder what Mr. Bradbury would say about our reliance on the digital word. E-books. Blogs. Google News. Yahoo! News. Search engines. Chat boards. Wikipedia. Facebook. Twitter. Books can be burned at the digital word can be altered. While I delight in the digital, I wonder…

Got Apocalypse?

I have, in the past, admitted a predilection for both disaster and horror flicks. And since a good many movies from either of those genres fall into the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic categories, it follows that I would also have a twisted obsession interest in apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories.

Just what is it about the apocalypse that makes (some of) our hearts go pitter patter?

I suspect it’s the same reason that disaster flicks and horror movies are so appealing. Giant odds and hope. Throw ordinary people into the worst possible situation and watch them rise to the occasion (or die trying).

And maybe we also love it because, on some level, we all worry about the end of everything. We wonder whether will survive. We wonder whether our loved ones will survive. And we hope there’s a hero inside of us instead of a monster.

The Get Tossed Mashup, Volume 1

As I sit here on this fine Tuesday, I realize it’s high time for another Tuesday Toss-Up Blog Mashup. However, since that’s a lot of “ups” in one title, I decree that the mashup will henceforth be called the Get Tossed Mashup.

So there.

Welcome to the first Get Tossed Mashup. I hope you’ll enjoy the following selections as much as I did…

Sometimes it’s “out of sight, out of mind” and sometimes it’s “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” But which is it when it’s your writing project that you’ve been away from? Natasha McNeely asks, “How Do You Return to a Project After a Break?“

Writing an ensemble can sometimes feel like a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. Jen J. Danna takes a lesson from Joss Whedon and explains How to Write an Ensemble.

The world seems to move faster everyday…maybe too fast. In another Avengers-inspired piece, Marcy Kennedy asks us “Do We Need to be a Little More Old-Fashioned?”

The mighty Bearded One, Chuck Wendig, shares another of his stellar “25 Things” with us in 25 Ways to Earn Your Audience.

Got Dark Tower? Anthony R. Schultz reviews Wizard and Glass by Stephen King.

A great teacher can inspire us to reach for incredible heights. But every once in a (hopefully) rare while, there’s a teacher that makes us want to fake a fever to get out of school. Cynthia Herron shares a difficult experience with a difficult teacher and asks “Can Great Leadership be Faked?“

What can humor do for readers? Margie Lawson guest posts at Jenny Hansen’s, telling us how Humor Hits Hook Readers.

Share the love: Do you have any favorite links or blog posts? Share them in the comments.