The Win

Third year in a row. I did it.

The myth of productive weekends

Lots of my NaNo buddies said last week they'd be catching up on their word counts over the weekend. Makes sense, right? More free time. Stay in pajamas, write all day--and all night! No alarm clocks to interrupt that creativity-restoring slumber from 3:00 to 9:00 am.

(You didn't know? Yep. Beauty sleep before midnight, creative refresh after 3:00. But it only counts if you go to bed at 3:00.)

NaNo isn't just about winning. Is it?

We Wrimos get pep talks every day during November (and beyond). Catherynne M. Valente (who?), James Patterson (oh, I know him), Rainbow Rowell (who?). Today's is from Patrick Rothfuss, another who? for me and an author whose genre I normally read only if I'm stranded in an airport and I've already read everything else in the bookstore. 

I'm not kidding. I haven't read Games of Thrones. No plans to remedy that. The TV series is enough for me.

But Pat is wise. So much, indeed, that I might give the first book of his trilogy a try (assuming I can find it in this literary poverty zone that is my island).

One chance at redemption, 2013

I've been horribly delinquent on this blog. Every single blog-related commitment I've made this year--the A-Z challenge, Write1Sub1, the Perú series, the Curaçao series, the Accountability Reports--has sputtered and died before ever roaring into life.

Who's up for NaNo this year?

I'm addicted. 3rd year, novel #4. Join me!

Post-NaNo Blues

On Friday I skidded past the NaNo winning line at 50,022 words and felt all good and self-satisfied with myself. I decided to take the weekend off from writing--from the computer as a whole, period. I deserved it, right? I worked hard all month, neglected all sorts of stuff to get this NaNo thing (and the editing thing) done.

And now, five days later, I can't seem to garner enough enthusiasm to get up from the couch, let alone write.

By the skin of my teeth, but I did it.

Which makes me a

NaNo--the last 1,000 words

Whew

NaNo Update Nov. 28 2012

Pffff... I'm aiming for a historic redefinition of the 'comeback' concept.

See that slump there, from Day 17 to Day 25. I flatlined. 3,179 words written so far today, but I need at least 5K in order to be sorta back on track. 5K today, 5K tomorrow, 5K Friday, and I'll make it, just barely, to the 50K goal. Forget that 75K target--simply undoable at this point, unless I commit to not sleeping and just writing round the clock.

Hmmm. That's an idea.

NaNo Update -- 2012/11/18

So I didn't make those 5K I promised the other day... Or any day since. *Sigh* But I did manage to catch up, at least to the par per day (today's par is 30,000, and I made 31,387).

And I have my donor's halo--yay! I'd been trying to donate since mid-Oct, but the system doesn't have "Curacao" or even "Netherlands Antilles" in the country drop-down menu. Credit card info and billing address have to match, so... But ok, finally I got the payment through. Let's hope it also works for the merchandise I'm planning to buy at the end of the month--including the Winner's T-Shirt :D

Thanks, all, for your support. Means a lot to me that you take the time to stop in and leave a word or two of encouragement :) Keeps me going.

NaNo Update 2012/11/14

I have been remiss in my NaNo updates, haven't I? Yeah... Well, I've been remiss in my NaNo, period. I'm far behind my goal of 35K (2.5K per day x 14 days)--almost by half.

Oops.

Why? I haven't finished revising Novel #1. Revising a novel and NaNo'ing require different sets of skills--for NaNo one wants more words, it's all about twisting open that faucet of creativity all the way, but revising requires cutting words, evaluating each one and making sure it carries its weight. You can probably imagine what a mess my head is from trying to do both.

Even on separate days. See those brown lines below that stay the same day after day? Those are the days I've spent editing MANTRA.

BUT I will catch up. Today I will write 5K words, no excuses. No dog rescuing, no laundry (well, maybe a load. Or two). No leaving this chair until I have a minimum of 5K in that section at the top that says Words Written Today.

No excuses.

And I'll post the updated screenshot sometime before midnight to prove it.

NaNo Update 2012.11.01

Yep, I started at midnight. Hope to get in enough word count to make me feel a bit more comfortable about that 75K goal I've committed to.

Where Do Ideas Come From?

With NaNo prep running rampant everywhere, the forums teeming with excellent plots and characters so alive you hear their pulse, isn't it remarkable there's so many ideas out there, so many stories to be told?

Sometimes it doesn't feel that way, does it? Sometimes, when you're facing that blank page, it seems there are no more ideas anywhere, everything sounds trite, cliched, boring. On these same forums I've heard the comment "all you guys have such great ideas, mine sucks" so often I keep having to check it's not the same person. No, it's not. But here's the clincher: that person's idea sounds awesome to me.

Where do ideas come from? Where do we get the inspiration for what we write? What kick-starts our imagination into a snowballing run that ends in that disorganized, ultra fertile mess of a novel's first draft? Do we all get inspired by the same things--overheard conversations, autobiographical stuff, a story in the newspaper that sparks a what if? Or do we have different sources? Because, see, if we share these sources, then the next time any of us is stuck in the myideassuck rut, we can try a different source.

NaNo Spotlight Interview

Today the great Chris Kelworth features me in his NaNo Spotlight series. Come on over and join the conversation!

NaNo update

NaNo begins in 15 days, and I'm beginning to have serious doubts on whether I can reach 50K or not. Last year, my first, was tough enough--I slacked there at the middle horribly, then had to rush to catch up.

My NaNo stats from 2011--note the slack there between
day 13 and day 21

St. Jorisbaai yesterday, storm clouds
in the horizon, no wind, water like
a mirror. Hot.

And that was the only thing I was doing.

NaNoWriMo 2012

Last year was my first NaNo. Yeah, I won with 54K (or was it 52K? Oh, oops--50,582 :D Bit full of myself, aren't I?). As soon as it was over, though, I was already looking forward to the next one. And now IT'S. AROUND. THE. CORNER.

Who cares where the year went? Who cares I'm still tweaking my 1.5-year-old MS, haven't finished the NaNo project from last year? Who cares time is flying and we're one year closer to death? Who. Cares.

IT'S TIME FOR NANO!

So. Who's signing up? I just registered for this year (updated profile here), added a synopsis for the novel I'm planning to write (that would be Novel #3, thank you very much), and have started lurking in forums. Add me, and let's have some fun!

NaNoWriMo 2011 Winner--Yes, That's Me!

I cannot believe I did it.  I logged in 50,582 words at the NaNoWriMo word count verifier a few minutes ago.  Over 50K words in less than 30 days--yes!  Got my certificate, got the little badge you see here...  And no, didn't get my t-shirt because the site doesn't list Netherlands Antilles as a possibility for billing addresses.  Dang it.

It was a challenge, I admit, but it wasn't nearly as overwhelming as I thought it would be.  Writing 50K words in one month *is* possible.  Sure, I'm lucky because I get to write full-time--no kids, no job, a partner that loves the fact that I write.  I had everything going for me this month.  It really would have been an embarrassment not to finish.  As it is, it's probably an embarrassment that I didn't win earlier, that the word count is *only* 50,582 today.  But I'll take my pride where I can :)

The NaNo novel, as yet untitled, is only half-way.  So--yes, I wrote 50K in one month, but I didn't finish a novel.  Does that take away from the sense of achievement?  Yeah, sure it does.  The goal was 50K--that's what you need to win NaNo.  But that's the letter of the law.  The *spirit* is to finish the damn thing.  Of course, a first draft of a novel, in Guiliespeak, is +100K, so perhaps it is unreasonable to demand of myself that I finish one in 30 days.  I do plan to raise my target next year to at least 75K--that should bring me closer to the end.

What do I have now?  I have about half of a novel's first draft.  Sure--there's going to be a lot of editing in my future, eventually, but first...  First, I need to finish the first draft.  That wonderful feeling of writing "the end" at the last page--how I love that.

So...  Even though I have my NaNo winner certificate and my little badge, and even though I earned a t-shirt that I cannot buy, I'm going to keep writing, keep logging in word count at the NaNo site, until tomorrow night.  See how far I get.  I doubt I can finish the first draft by then, but it'll get me farther.  And even after tomorrow I won't stop.  I'll keep on writing.  And I won't go back to the way I wrote before NaNo--writing, revising, editing, writing some more.  No, no.

The most valuable lessons I garnered from this month, these "thirty days and nights of literary abandon", were these:

• Write.  Just--write.  Don't worry about revising, not before you put the story down first.  Later there's always time to revise and edit and rewrite.  But the main thing: get the story down first.

• You are your limitations.  And those limitations are all in your head.  Think you can't, and--voila--you can't.  But raise the bar, aim for the impossible, and--taah-daah!  There it is.  Raise the bar for yourself constantly.  Celebrate the achievement, sure, but--don't let it go to your head.  If you did *this*, whatever it was, it means you can do more.  Quality-wise, quantity-wise.  Whatever.  You can do more.  Always.  Never let yourself forget it.

So...  There you go.  That's the end of my NaNo experience, technically.  In reality, it's the beginning--truly--of my life as a writer.

The NaNo Blog Hop

Somewhere in the backlog of Google Reader posts I'm trying so hard to keep up with, I found a reference to a NaNo blog hop...   And I thought, hey--that's cool.  I'm late arriving, so I couldn't find the source of the blog hop (that's to say, the blogger whose idea it was to start this up), so I'm linking here to the blog where I saw it and where I copied the linky list below from: Natz at Deeply Shallow.  All you unlinked Wrimos out there, here's the chance to sign up and meet new bloggers you hadn't discovered yet, and stay up to date on everyone's NaNo progress during the month.

Happy NaNoing!

NaNoWriMo Update

Whoa...  Broke 30K last night.  Thirty thousand eighty words, according to the NaNo word count verifier. Of course, according to ol' Scrivener, it's more like 30.5K.  But who's counting anyway? ;)


Over the weekend I had a rough day, writing-wise.  I think it was Saturday.  My writing brain went on strike.  "NO," he said.  "I refuse.  I need a break.  I need to gather my thoughts and regroup.  Whaddya think I am, some kind of faucet?"  So I took a break.  I caught up with the 500+ unread items I have on Google Reader (is anyone else getting annoying notifications on Chrome that 'the page contains insecure items'?  Why are they insecure?  Are they just socially challenged, or is it something deeper, nastier?).  And--to my utter amazed befuddlement--the words just got flowing (yes, very much like a faucet) on Sunday.  In two days I got in over 6K words.  Yeah, I'm damn proud.


Sure it's crap, mostly.  Lots and lots of "ly"words (and I hate them, but the faucet produces them).  Lots and lots of repetitions (there's this one sentence that uses "hand" every third or fourth word, and throws me into hysterical convulsions every time I think of it).  And those are just the things I see as I rush to channel the faucet.  I'm sure that when I go back to edit, sometime in December, I'll find all sorts of funky dangling clauses and, yes, probably waaaaay too many passive stuff that will get its snarky little butt kicked right off my MS much like you'd get rid of a cockroach in your bathtub (horrified squealing applies here, too).

But you know what?  I managed to quiet the EIE (evil internal editor--do take a jump over to Rick Bylina's blog and learn about his anti-nano guerilla), and for me, that's a huge triumph.  I'm learning to just go with it, let the story out and not worry about the form too much.  In legalese-speak there's a term, "substance over form"--well, that's exactly what NaNo has been about for me so far.  The substance is what these thirty days of oblivious spewing forth of the faucet will be about.  The form will come later, to shape it into acceptability...  But the substance?  Yeah.