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

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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

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

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How Not to Starve During NaNoWriMo

Freeze Ahead Meals for National Novel Writing Month

Feed. Me. Now.

Imagine this: it’s the end of another NaNoWriMo day. You’ve worked, studied, and/or chased kiddos all day long. Maybe you’ve already knocked out your daily word count or maybe you’re gearing up for a kamikaze session this evening. Your stomach is growling and your family, especially if you’re usually in charge of meal prep, may be eyeing the dog with evil intent. Somebody’s gotta make dinner or it’s gonna be pocket pizzas and candy corn again.

That dog is starting to look pretty tasty.

He knows what you’re thinking and hides under the nearest chair/couch/bed.

Happily, it doesn’t have to be that way. Sure take-out and delivery are always an option, as are those nifty tv dinners (mmmm, LeanCuisine again) but, with almost three weeks left to go, you’ve got plenty of time to store up a freezer full of tasty, homemade food that’s ready to go come those dark NaNoWriMo days.

Some folks call it “once-a-month cooking,” some call it “freeze-ahead meals” and some call it “freezer cooking.” Whatever you call it, it generally involves some menu planning and shopping in bulk, then preparing, assembling and/or cooking enough meals over a day or two to last 30 days.

You don’t have to plan for 30 days. Especially the first time around, it’s a lot of work. You can prepare meals for 7 or 14 days even easier than for 30.

This is something I like to do for my family on a regular basis, NaNo or no. By the end of any given day, I’m so very not in the mood to prep and cook a meal. But my kiddos must be fed and good nutrition is important. So, I generally freeze meals for 14 days at a time.

My favorites? Soups, stews, chili and any crock pot meal that can be assembled and frozen without cooking.

Once a Month Mom, Once a Month Cooking, Mama and Baby Love and FrugalMom all have excellent resources for getting started as well as recipes to suit just about anybody. Some of these sites offer membership with monthly menus and shopping guides. Mama and Baby Love offers an ebook with recipes and tips.

Whether or not you’ll do NaNoWriMo, you could still stock up on side dishes and dessert for Thanksgiving. That way, when the holiday rolls around, you can pull them out of the freezer, heat/cook them up and relax (for a change). Once a Month Mom’s 101 Fall Freezer Meals have tons of tasty side dishes and desserts that would work beautifully.

Tomorrow, the kiddos and I will be heading out to a local apple orchard on a homeschool field trip. We’re likely to come home with more apples than we can possibly eat fresh, so I’m planning to put up the majority of the apples for later. I’m thinking of canning some apple sauce and apple jelly.

I’ll also be experimenting with freezing filling for apple crisp. I’m going to use the freezing technique described on Green Bean Garden (but I’ll be peeling my apples) and this apple crisp recipe from AllRecipes. I could freeze the apple crisp raw and fully assembled in a baking dish but I’d like to put up enough for several apple crisps, I only have a couple of suitable baking dishes and freezing in a freezer bag will take up loads less room (more room for all my other frozen meals). I may also mix up a batch of the crumble topping to freeze as well. That way, on baking day, I can just thaw, assemble and bake.

Nomnomnom.

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Have you every tried freeze-ahead cooking? Any tips? How will you not starve during NaNoWriMo?

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Image Attribution (In Order of Appearance):
Hungry bird by Marco Vossen, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
we are ready (to not cook) by found_drama, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Apple Orchard (mine)
apple crisp by bookgrl, on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Every Word Counts When You’re Writing a Novel

Word Count Trackers for NaNoWriMo and Beyond

Writers everywhere, newbies and old hands, are staring down the barrel of NaNoWriMo. *cue tense theme music*

At the moment, I’m wading hip deep the first draft muck of my work-in-progress. I don’t know if I’ll be joining the ranks of psychotic intrepid ink-slingers in November but I am learning the value of a monthly deadline, even a self-imposed one.

My goals are considerably more modest than the 50,000 words in 30 days NaNoWriMo goal. I’m aiming for 13,000 words monthly which works out to 500 words daily for 26 days of the month. Though I’d ideally write more, this allows me a doable goal and the option for a day off when I need it.

In September, I added 16,900 words and used three of my four allotted days off. To keep myself both encouraged and honest, I’m keeping track with two word count tools.

StoryToolz
StoryToolz offers several resources for authors, such as a readability analyzer, cliché buster and random conflict generator as well as the word count meter. Once you create your word count meter, you can copy the HTML code and paste it into your blog’s sidebar or a post.

 

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The meter updates automatically when you add words and you can also see your word count history with the progress chart.

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WriteChain
WriteChain is an iPhone app which can also be used on the iPad. As far as I know, it’s not currently available for Android OS. WriteChain allows you to set your daily writing goals and ”coast days,” the number of consecutive days off you can take without breaking your “chain.” You create links in your writing chain for every day you write.

I love that this app lets you set unique goals, whether it’s a personal goal of 50 words or a NaNoWriMo goal of 1667 words. Adding words is extremely simple and you can edit your session history to correct any days you forgot to add. The coast days feature lets you decide how many days off you will take in a row (be careful, more than two can result in a loss of momentum) so that you don’t have to feel overwhelmed by a nonstop work schedule but the chain, much like the badges on the 750 Words site, gives you incentive to not let too many days slide by.

NaNoWriMo, of course, offers fantastic tools for keeping track of writing stats but WriteChain and StoryToolz can be used anytime. Whether you take the NaNoWriMo plunge or not, having a fun way to track your writing sessions may keep you motivated to hit those word count goals, whatever they may be.

Are you gearing up for NaNoWriMo? How do you like to keep track of your daily word count? What’s your favorite way to get motivated for writing sessions?

Image Attribution (In Order of Appearance):
Typewriter by toastytreat87, on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Word Count (mine)
Progress Chart (mine)

There’s a Story Here Somewhere: Inspirational Images from Flickr

*Looking for the Summer (June – August) Writing Challenge – Every Picture Has a Story? See below for details.*

Flickr is my favorite site to scout for images to use on my blog. There’s a wealth of Creative Commons licensed images and it’s easy to search for them. The images vary widely in quality and artistic value but I’ve rarely failed to find just the right one for a post.

And, of course, it’s all free…which might be the most important factor to a blogger who isn’t making money off her blog.

My Favorites stream over there is already jammed with more images than I can use in a couple of years but I just keep adding more. So many of the images I’ve encountered have captured my imagination, inspiring blog posts, stories and stories-to-be. Here are some that have really stuck with me even though they have no story…yet:

April-May Writing Challenge: First Impressions and Famous Last Words

Great opening lines draw us in, making it impossible for us to turn away and great last lines linger long, long after we’ve read the end. Two of my favorite first and last lines come from Stephen King’s work.

“The man in Black fled across the Desert, and the Gunslinger followed.”  The Gunslinger (1982). Ooh…I know I want to follow them both. Don’t you?

“lady fingers they taste like lady fingers.” Survivor Type (1982). That one even makes my husband shiver and he’s never read the story.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write either the opening or closing lines of a story. Start us off with a bang or leave us begging for more. As usual, any genre will do and the word count limit is 100.

Here’s how it all works:

• Prompt: Create the first or last line of a story.
• Genre: Anything goes. Mystery, Western, romance, historical fiction, alternate history, steam punk, science fiction, horror, fantasy, slip-stream, or whatever.
• Word count: 100 words.
• How to share: You can put it up on your blog and link here or (if you don’t have a blog) you can email (sonia DOT m DOT writes AT gmail DOT com) it to me and I’ll put it in a post for you.
• Time limit: From now until the next challenge is posted in June.
• Prizes: No…no prizes. Just the reward of a story well written.

There were some fabulous stories for the March Writing Challenge. I’ll be updating this post with links to them all shortly. In the mean time, cruise on over and read them here (in the comments).

***

I’ll posting over at the Life List Club tomorrow. Come on by and say hello.

Image Attribution (In Order of Appearance):
keyboard ~ blur by striatic, on Flickr CC BY 2.0

Ants in the Mailbox – Postcards from Hell, Part 2 (a 500-word story)

My friend, the lovely historical fiction writer Haley Whitehall, issued a flash fiction challenge in the horror genre and this time it involves a prize! The contest runs until 10/31/11, so there’s still time to enter. My entry is Part 2 of a story I wrote for BeKindRewrite’s Inspiration Monday IX. You can find Part 1, Postcards from Hell here.

And now…

Ants in the Mailbox

They stood at the edge of the front lawn gone almost knee-high with weeds. The figure in the filthy postal uniform lay still on sidewalk.

Steve looked right. Left. Nothing else moved anywhere on the street.

Deanna squeezed the stock of her crossbow. “He really dead? Dead-dead?”