Not a New Year’s Post

This is not a New Year’s resolutions post. Really. It’s just bad timing, so it looks like one.

It’s been a rough patch. I didn’t complete NaNo because of rolling illnesses, not the least of which had me hospitalized for over a week. I’m not going to complete the final total rewrite of a certain novel as I planned. My home is a pit. Granted, given the circumstances, all these things and more are understandable. They contribute to my general sense of discouragement, though.

Rather than wallow (okay, so I wallowed – I’m moving on), I tried to look at my life with realistic expectations. I figured it was the springboard for any goals and plans. Makes sense, right? Easier than it sounds.

When being brutally honest with myself, I focus on the brutal part or shy off the realities as they are. Happy mediums are challenging. When I feel like being brutal and I rein myself in, I feel like I’m being a Pollyanna. When I’m ignoring things and I try to be more aware, I become a stubborn ostrich. Either way, my natural instinct is to fight being dragged out of my ridiculous truculence.

As I write this, I feel weak from a combination of illnesses and the side effects to a medication. It would be easy to put off dealing with this issue. I’m starting to think perhaps this is an opportunity to make the most of a bad situation, though. My natural instincts to fight against logic are fuzzy from exhaustion. It may be a slog, but I’m coming up with what seem to be realistic expectations.

Problem I keep tolerating: Son is fixated on playing online video games during his holiday and I can do little, so the apartment is becoming even messier.

• Proposed Solution: Change tactics. He likes to cook, so I got him an R2-D2 kitchen timer. I’ll make an agreement with him to set the timer for a one hour block of work a couple times a day. It’s amazing what he can get done in a short time with his music blasting. I can do a little bit at the same time and then do little things he missed along the way.

Problem I keep tolerating: Finances are out of control.

• Proposed Solution: Get organized and get them the hell under control. A recent huge reduction in our monthly budget will create huge problems if I don’t stay on top of things. I’ll get a few inexpensive tools and create a system for keeping track of bills and payments rather than the haphazard system known as barely controlled chaos.

Problem I keep tolerating: I’m not writing.

• Proposed Solution: Write. Gee, that sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well, it is. Yes, I’ve been sick and it often makes writing pretty impossible. Even when I could push myself to write something, anything, I didn’t write because it wouldn’t be good enough. Good enough? By whose standards? Who the hell am I, some literary phenomenon who churns out awe inspiring prose every day? Feh. Okay, that was a little of the brutality sneaking in. In simple terms, I must write whatever I can, when I can. I must set goals and be prepared to make them fluid enough to both challenge me and respect conditions as they exist.
• I will work on the final rewrite of the novel with an aim to completing its first draft by the end of January 2015. Beyond that, I will set first edit and send to betas goals as appropriate. I’ll also try to blog again, perhaps even doing a flash fiction or two in the next month.

My energy reserves are used up for the moment, so no more. It’s more than enough to begin the process of decrapifying my life.

As for New Year’s resolutions? I don’t do them. Really.

photo credit: andres.thor via photopin cc

#NaNoWriMo: Prep and Plotting

 

Photo by Robert (Jemimus)

While the title here is “NaNo Prep and Plotting,” most of this information is applicable to any project. As an example, I used clustering to plot a flash story. It just wasn’t showing itself to me via the usual means, so I tried something different. There it was, exposed and waiting to be written.

Johanna Harness, founder of #amwriting on Twitter (archives for the site here), has explored many plotting methods. As a result, her blog is often my go-to for information which is accessible and useful. I’ll use a couple here as well as other sources.

I call my entire process of prep “outlining.” That’s misleading. While I begin with a basic – and extremely loose – outline, I may more deeply explore the plot and/or characters using other methods. Having discovered the benefits of clustering, I often use it in the “outline” at some point. Describing arcs for structure may figure into it. You get the idea.

I consider myself a combination of a pantser as well as a plotter. No matter how carefully I plan and plot, my story ends up wandering into places I didn’t know existed. Secondary characters take on whole lives and become more important than intended. Never fails – thank goodness! As such, I don’t plot so tightly there’s no room for breath and movement within the structure of the plan.

Right. Time to address some plotting methods:

• Clustering: The reason Johanna Harness suggested I try clustering for my short story is the oddities of my migraines. That is to say, I can write with a migraine, but cannot plot or edit. Johanna sees clustering as a right brain/left brain process. It uses (*gasp*) pen and paper and is simply bubbles of words all over the page, willy-nilly. While it goes against all my instincts, I found it immensely helpful – even with the migraine. (YMMV) Check out Johanna’s blog article for more on clustering. She speaks to it far better than I.
• Snowflake Method: Randy Ingermanson is generally known as “The Snowflake Guy” and his Snowflake Method for novel writing is immensely popular. This article is chock full of interesting ideas on what he calls “designing a novel.” As no two novels are exactly alike, no two snowflakes are, either. His position is, however, novels can be designed. This article teaches how to do that. Please read the entire article to get the full impact.
• Phase Drafting: It’s Just a Phase is an article from 2003 by Lazette Gifford. It’s no less useful today. Lazette brings fresh thoughts to the subject of outlining a project. She leaves room for growth and fleshing out the story. Don’t miss this one.
• Big Board Planning: Here’s another one from Johanna Harness’s blog. She also turned it into a YouTube video, which is embedded on the page. Do you cleverly organize your ideas on note cards or post-it notes? (Do you think you should but don’t?) I didn’t start the post-it notes idea until Johanna showed me Big Board Planning. It’s as simple as taking a large poster board and putting your cards or post-its on the board. I use a tri-fold board so I can fold it up and put it somewhere safe. Johanna has some ideas for how to organize the colors and placement in this article so please do give it a read. Scrivener has a version of this, but I like it being tactile.

There are more to be found. With NaNo breathing down my neck, my goal is to get the outline broken down using clustering as needed. Big Board Planning beyond that would be gravy. I may need to take breaks writing in November to BBP my way through a section. Who knows? Anything can happen during NaNo.

 

 

Ready Or Not, Here NaNo Comes

You probably know I do NaNoWriMo every year. I’m a big believer in what it can do for a writer, whether casual or professional, young or … uhm… not young.

I planned to plan this year. My goal was to approach this NaNo the way an author “should” approach a project: all plotted out with chapter / scene notes. I even expected myself to master a new-to-me piece of writing software in time. I started prepping with a song in my heart (The Pretenders – Precious).

When the song in my heart turned to non-writing difficulties, I floundered. Perhaps I should confess at this point I’ve never approached a writing project the way an author “should.” With everything else going on, I poked at my project here and there. It was easy to say I’d work on it when I had time and ability to devote attention. I managed to put together five pages of tightly typed outline before packing it in and deciding my NaNoPrep was a big fail.

Oh, and Scrivener? Bigger fail. Never got to it at all.

Frankenstorm came along and absolved me of my guilt. I’m not minimizing Sandy’s devastating effects to so many. We were blessed and the impact here was just inconvenience. I couldn’t work on the computer, therefore it was beyond my power. (See what I did there?)

Oh sure, I was frustrated. All my good intentions to pound out more prep! As I relaxed into the windy night, I remembered something important. NaNo can also be fun. What? That’s right, you heard me: FUN. For heaven’s sake, I have a general outline for each of six acts of the novel as well as those five pages of scene notes. I have my comfortable Word. Why all the agita?

I face this last day before the first long night of NaNo at ease. I’m doing some prep today, but it has only to do with creature comforts for the coming month. The more I think about past NaNos, the more I recall how much I appreciated the little things, like my fingerless gloves and knowing there was enough flavored coffee creamer, being sure there was food so my guys didn’t go Lord of the Flies on me. (I’m not kidding about the fingerless gloves. Even a cheap pair with the tips snipped off. Trust me on this.)

Is there such a thing as too much prep? Perhaps only if it saps the creative spirit from the process. Maybe NaNo2013 will find me fully prepped and yet eagerly awaiting the midnight bell. NaNo2012 has me prepped enough – but more importantly, tugging on the reins. Bring it, NaNo!

NaNo Prep and Plotting

As our heroine is poised to begin her NaNoWriMo preparatory work, dear Reader, she finds herself mulling methods. (She also finds herself procrastinating by noting the many options in this blog article.) I’ve written about plotting before, but I’ve learned a good deal in the meantime. Perhaps I can summon some of it into something worth reading. Let’s try, yes?

While the title here is “NaNo Prep and Plotting,” most of this information is applicable to any project. As an example, I recently used clustering to plot a flash story. It just wasn’t showing itself to me via the usual means, so I tried something different. Voila! There it was, exposed and waiting to be written.

Johanna Harness, founder of the #amwriting site and hashtag on Twitter, has explored many plotting methods. As a result, her blog is often my go-to for information which is accessible and useful. I’ll use a couple here as well as other sources.

I call my entire process of prep “outlining.” That’s misleading. While I begin with a basic – and extremely loose – outline, I may more deeply explore the plot and/or characters using other methods. Having recently discovered the benefits of clustering, I will likely use it at some point. Describing arcs for structure may figure into the preparation. You get the idea.

I consider myself a combination of a pantser as well as a plotter. No matter how carefully I plan and plot, my story ends up wandering into places I hadn’t known existed. Secondary characters take on lives of their own and become far more important than intended. Never fails – thank goodness! As such, I don’t plot so tightly there’s no room for breath and movement within the structure of the plan.

Right. Time to address some plotting methods:

Clustering: The reason Johanna Harness suggested I try clustering for my short story is the oddities of my migraines. That is to say, I can write with a migraine, but cannot plot or edit. Johanna sees clustering as a right brain/left brain process. It uses (*gasp*) pen and paper and is simply bubbles of words all over the page, just willy-nilly. While it goes against all my instincts, I found it immensely helpful – even with the migraine. (YMMV) Check out Johanna’s blog article for more on clustering. She speaks to it far better than I.

Snowflake Method: Randy Ingermanson is generally known as “The Snowflake Guy” and his Snowflake Method for novel writing is immensely popular. This article is chock full of interesting ideas on what he calls “designing a novel.” As no two novels are exactly alike, no two snowflakes are, either. His position is, however, novels can be designed. This article teaches how to do that. Please read the entire article to get the full impact.

Phase Drafting: It’s Just a Phase is an article from 2003 by Lazette Gifford. It’s no less useful today. Lazette brings fresh thoughts to the subject of outlining a project. She leaves room for growth and fleshing out the story. Don’t miss this one.

Big Board Planning: Here’s another one from Johanna Harness’s blog. Do you cleverly organize your ideas on note cards or post-it notes? (Do you think you should but don’t?) I didn’t start the post-it notes idea until Johanna showed me Big Board Planning. It’s as simple as taking a large poster board and putting your cards or post-its on the board. I use a tri-fold board so I can fold it up and put it somewhere safe. Johanna has some ideas for how to organize the colors and placement in this article so please do give it a read.

There are more to be found. With NaNo breathing down my neck, my goal is to at least get the outline done using clustering as needed. Big Board Planning beyond that will be gravy. I may need to take breaks writing in November to BBP my way through a section. Who knows? Anything can happen during NaNo. (Twitter users, many of us will be using the #NaNo hashtag. It’s shorter and we get a good group of encouraging wrimos. Please join us!)

I’m interested – what works for you when you work on a project?

Conquering Challenges: Debating with Doctors

It’s gone on far too long. Shunted from this doctor to that with myriad ER visits, our heroine is still dealing with health issues, dear Reader. Having decided it’s time to take the doctors by the horns and force them not to blow me off, I feel a strong conviction to return to the writing world.

In the meantime, I’ve made goals and have been unable to fulfill them.

Were a good friend to come to me in the same situation, I’d tell her she has her priorities in order. Getting better is primary as is taking care of family. If only I’d take that advice to heart. I beat myself up for not posting the Forum or a #FridayFlash.

I’m too invested in the old “a writer writes” adage, I suppose. I do write here and there, between periods of pain and overwhelmed by the painkillers. (Although the writing on painkillers is pretty interesting.)

I have an idea for a good Forum which I hope to post soon and a flash piece in the works. Painkillers be damned. They will be written.

Thanks so much for your support and good wishes.

Forum: Nonfiction

Our heroine has always considered herself a writer of fiction only, dear Reader. Last week, a friend suggested a Forum article about nonfiction. It took far too long for me to realize that I do write nonfiction at times. You’re reading some of it now.

I delved into the world of nonfiction writing and freelance work. The first article I’d like to share is by Beth Morrow on her Writer-In-Progress blog. It’s titled Why I Love Writing Freelance Articles. In it she compares her experiences writing both fiction and nonfiction. Her enthusiasm, as always, is infectious.

I found some great resources for those who write nonfiction. Whether you’re already freelancing or considering doing some nonfiction work, these may be helpful.

The suite101.com article Freelance Writing Topics contains a “list of nonfiction topics, writing prompts and subjects for articles.” It’s written by Jenny Evans for the site. There are so many good ideas here. They’re not just for nonfiction inspiration, either. I came away from it with a few ideas rattling around for fiction pieces.

Julie Wheelwright, of City University, London, wrote an article on WritersServices.com for nonfiction writers. Not the most pleasing of website designs, but please don’t hold that against the text. It’s called Top Ten Tips for Nonfiction Writers. Basic, easy to understand but important information for anyone getting into the arena. Fiction writers would do well to give it a glance, too.

There’s a fantastic article by Silvia Hartmann on her site titled Non-Fiction Book Writing Tips. She describes different models and methods for approaching a project. This is definitely worth a bookmark.

everything.com has a lovely section of articles about Creative Nonfiction. The link I’d like to share is Creative Nonfiction Writing Exercises, but look to the navigation bar on the left for the whole list of articles. The article was written by Richard D. Bank and has a few helpful techniques. Do take a look through the series.

Many writers of fiction are supporting themselves in part by freelancing nonfiction articles. Is this an option for you? Are you a step ahead of that question and already doing it? I’d love to hear from you.

Forum: Reach Your Goals

Happy New Year, everyone. May you and yours enjoy a blessed, loving and prosperous year.

So you’ve done it. You’ve decided to set some resolutions or goals for 2010. There are arguments for and against this. Our heroine figures if you’ve come this far and set some goals, dear Reader, you’re either optimistic or used to pounding your head against a wall. Mind you, either can be good. Means you’ve got the stuff to reach out and grab the brass ring in my books. (See what I did there? I crack myself up.)

One of the key elements to reaching your goals is setting them properly. Jennifer Minar wrote an article geared for non-fiction writers that is really just basic goals setting. It’s on WritersBreak.com and is called 5 Steps to Goals Setting.

I found a .pdf I liked very much. It’s called Habits of Effective Writers. Would you believe seven are listed? What are the odds? It goes into good detail, especially regarding the last point: Avoid Common Mistakes. I strongly suggest you take a look at this one, especially the second page that lists so many basic errors writers make.

Now, this article is from a self-esteem site, but if you scroll down you’ll find a handy method for detailing your goals. It’s titled Creative Goal Setting Worksheet. I liked the method, perhaps you will as well.

Another key element to reaching your goals is having the tools available. Information, applications and even support are tools that are helpful in ways you may not recognize at first.

I’ve seen a number of people declare that they will attend a writers conference as one of their goals. Shaw Guides has The Guide to Writers Conferences & Workshops. Failing that, I’ve seen a few people post their locations on Twitter and ask about writers groups that meet. The ones I’ve seen have always gotten replies.

Have you set a wordcount or amount of time per day goal? Bookmark Dr. Wicked’s Write or Die. As Dr. Wicked says, it’s “Putting the Prod in Productivity.” It’s a valuable tool for anyone who’s pushing the clock. Having trouble writing without that inner editor second guessing everything? Use WoD. You won’t have time to listen to it. WoD comes in a site based version, but the desktop edition is very popular and affordable.

Support is important. Even one person can be an accountability partner. Communicate with each other at least once a day about how you’re doing on your goals. Anne Tyler Lord is hosting an online support group geared to the Twitter writing community called #writerlbsOff. The name may mislead, though. They are supporting all writerly type goals and lifestyle changes writers want to make. Check out New Year Resolutions for Writers for all the information.

If you make your goals reasonable and reachable, there’s no reason you can’t get where you want to be. Be sensible, plan ahead and get your tools handy. Pantsing resolutions doesn’t really seem to work out well, in my experience.

What are your goals? You show me yours and I’ll show you mine…

The NaNo Curse

The NaNo Curse. It hits our heroine every year, dear Reader, usually early on in the process.

It’s usually been my health. I get sick, one year hospitalized. Last year I was ill early on, but Sterling (known at Twitter as @JSterlingS, I recommend a follow there) coached me through it. I kept writing a little a day and when I came out the other side, I put on the fuel.

Until the computer went TU later in the month. Yes, the NaNo Curse was persistent last year. The computer was new so I took it to the Geek Squad and said, “this is under warranty, fix the networking issue.” The guy wanted to ship it out! At least a week’s turnaround! I told him I was writing a novel, was in the middle of it, it was out of the question. He took pity on me and hooked it up. He fiddled with this, that and the other and fixed it. He still has no idea how.

I have spent the last week working on prep for NaNo. I think I faked the Curse out because it has already hit. I have what I’m hoping is just a really, really bad cold and not the flu (missed my shot this year). I’m upright now, obviously, which is an excellent sign. First time in about 24 hours.

I will emerge victorious. I will write for NaNo, Curse be damned

Say it yourself: No matter what hits, you will write for NaNo. Fight through the adversities and WRITE. Even if it’s just a little bit, a paltry 100 words, WRITE IT. You can and will make up for it later. Remember that the spirit of NaNo is to get past the inner editor and just write, just let it flow. If you can do that, regardless of if you hit the 50k because of trials in your life, then you have won NaNoWriMo.

Friday Forum: NaNo and Character Development

What’s on all our minds right now? NaNoWriMo! We’ve already gone through a good deal of what you’ll need for NaNo, so your heroine is going to list some Forum links to start, dear Reader.

Friday Forum: Outlining – Are you a Pantser? I was. I converted. (Mostly.) Here are some solid outlining procedures that may give you a second thought to pantsing your way entirely through NaNo. Take a special look at the 30-minute outline procedure that’s linked to NaNo’s own site. I use it myself to clarify what I’m doing.

Friday Forum: Plotting – This is the one that is so popular. It covers the Snowflake Method, Phase Plotting as well as Fast Drafting. Take a good look at this one. It may well be exactly what you need in order to inject a plot that moves the whole way through your NaNo.

Now, on to Character Development. We did Character Creation during the first Forum. I’d like to offer you some links to give a good read in prep for writing anything at all, but especially for NaNo. If you’re going “No Plot? No Problem,” you’re going to need some exceptional characters to fill your 50k. And NaNo aside, I think we all want exceptional characters in anything we write.

Warrior Writer’s Blog contains a terrific article called Balance the Party – Warrior Writer’s Guide to Creating Legendary Characters. It uses a system you with which you may already be familiar, but applies it in a way I hadn’t considered. I enjoyed this article and the blog’s a good one.

edittorrent‘s Alicia Rasley wrote an article Pulling for the Main Character which helps keep your perspective about your MC. I really enjoyed this one and took a lot away from it. My NaNo MC could have come off as very unsympathetic. I believe that with some of the information I got from this post, I can avoid that. Check out the same author’s Sympathy Without Saintliness for even more good information on the subject.

And what about the villain? Type M for Murder has Creating Your Villain, Tips from Donald Maass. You don’t get much better than that! All sorts of information to make your villain come alive. My confession: I have a good deal of trouble wrapping my head around my villains. This article helped me see them more clearly. You don’t want to skip this one.

It’s NaNo prep time! I encourage you to take a little while and look through these links. You could get some ideas and a better grip on your novel. The better prepared you are, the slicker a job you’ll do when November rolls around.

Finished: Model Behavior, rough

This morning, dear Reader, our heroine completed the rough draft of Through the Mirror: Model Behavior. Huzzah! Confetti! Holes you could drive a bus through!

It’s a seriously rough draft. No matter how many novels I end up writing, I’ll never forget all I went through putting together this rough. This was my training ground in the very basics of fiction writing. This is the one I used to learn all the things everyone in the business assumes we already know when we have the temerity to call ourselves “writers.”

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t utterly without merit. I’d written before, novels, poetry, short stories over the years. Had just come out from a long, long break, but that’s another story. My work had always been received very well when I shared it. That felt good. Not once did I submit for publication, despite being urged to do so. I almost wish I had now. That was twenty years ago. Different world in publication now.

I began and then restarted this rough three times. Each time, I didn’t quite start from scratch, didn’t quite edit, either. Line for line, I updated, improved and added. Each time, I readdressed the manuscript because of visions I’d gotten, insights into the world that was the setting for the series. Only a few chapters into the novel, I felt it was worth going back to the beginning and adding the necessary details, planting the seeds for the plot devices that were a natural outgrowth of these world changes.

The entire way through this novel, I learned things about the world in which it’s set. Seriously, even the last chapter was a real eye-opener. I did some worldbuilding before I began this series (this is Book 2) and again before I began this book, but the details and a deeper foundation revealed themselves while I was in trance, in the zone.

When I hit the zone, I’m pounding out 1k+ words per hour. While my focused awareness is on the story that I’m writing, I can feel other things going on, see them in my mind out the corners of my eyes. It’s as though tendrils are creeping through my subconscious, gathering little bits and pieces and then putting them together and *bam* putting them into my awareness while I’m writing. My fingers fall from the keyboard. I stare into midair at the thing in my mind’s eye. My awareness, still running at top speed, grabs the new shiny and runs with it, fitting new pieces together, looking back, looking forward and then crying out with glee at all the pretty new shinies.

It’s exhausting to be in the zone. I wouldn’t trade it for a thing. It is my cardio workout.

So this is the novel that has new shinies put into it at different points throughout the rough. I didn’t go back through and update the manuscript each time a new shiny came up, that would have been madness. I paused, I tilted my head to let the shiny fit into the rest of the storyline and I kept going. When I rewrite, I will have the multi-faceted view of the world well in focus and will be able to bring the entire manuscript up to date to reflect it.

This is the novel that allowed me to finally internalize “Show, Don’t Tell” (no, not just recently, when I did it for the Friday Forum). I’m pretty sure the first few chapters are dodgy on that. When it sunk in finally, it really hit home. It went from theory to foundation. For the most part, I don’t have to think about it now. The story tells itself in show. (Love that sentence.) I do catch myself, when I slip out of the zone, slacking off. Bad writer! *smack*

Don’t get the impression I write continually in the zone. I don’t. I don’t even think that would be healthy, mentally or physically. Some stories lend themselves to it, some parts of them more than others. The last half of this novel definitely did. While I’m thinking about it, I apologize for all the calls I missed and voicemails I still haven’t gotten.

Being in the zone is great for roughs, but not so much for the real meat of writing fiction, which is the rewriting. Being in the zone creates those bus-sized holes I mentioned. For example, I know what happened to the villains in this story. I know, now that I’m out of the zone and looking back, that I left a gaping hole there for the reader, having skipped like a rock on the surface of a pond over it in my speed.

I learned techniques, some that everyone needs to know, others that just help me and my style. I converted from being a pantser to a plotter, but that because I get in the zone and fly, my plotting only goes so far. I would zone, see a shiny, deviate course toward it, integrate it and then aim myself back toward the plotted course. It worked well.

The end is not the end it was supposed to be. The epilogue came out of nowhere. The climax is so very much better than I had plotted, but details are overlooked because I was in the zone. The last chapter drags. The main character developed steadily through the story, reacting, learning and moving on with her life.

It’s just a story. Just a novel like any other in the bookstore. With luck, it may actually be in the bookstore some day. All the same, I’m very pleased with it. I’m eager to go back to the beginning and build the world from the first word. Thrilling at the idea of opening it up again and doing the second draft!

But first: NaNoWriMo, in which our heroine takes on Book Three of this series. Zone, here I come.