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Nanowrimo–Never Enough Time At The Computer
November 4, 2010Nanowrimo – Morning Update – What next?
November 4, 2010
Pearl More Enthusiastic Than I am
I’m past 10,000 words and still hoping that my unconscious will supply a story line –you know, one of those things with beginning, middle, and end. As it is, scenes shift, and something happens inbetween the shifts (the unwritten part), but little in the scenes themselves. Is it all going to be background? Random moods?
Granted, my focus has been very mixed. I just have to hope that my unconscious works best when no one (i.e. me) is watching it too closely.
I don’t truly believe that this is the way interesting novels are written. I’m a planner. But then I tell myself to just try. What do I have to lose? Why not? Who cares? What the F? Etc. etc. etc.
I’m concerned that all these questions are really a cover for….what’s next?
Pearl Gets Thoughtful About Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month)
November 3, 2010
Pearl Gets Thoughtful About Nanowrimo
Nanowrimo – Some will do anything for success
November 2, 2010
Doing What It Takes (Pearl Just Doesn't "Get" Plagiarism)
Trying To Plan A Novel? (For Nanowrimo?)
October 28, 2010Three days and very very few hours until November and Nanowrimo begin and I still haven’t spent a moment mapping out a plan.
Nanowrimo, as you may know, is National Novel Writing Month–a month in which any one of the writing persuasion is justified in caving in to all anti-social, anti-utilitarian, and Auntie-Mame tendencies in order to pound out a novel (or 50,000 words) in thirty days.
Technically, you are not supposed to put a word to paper (okay, screen) prior to 12:01 a.m. November 1.
Planning is allowed, however: outlines, mapping, character sketches, thinking.
(The deadline is self-imposed. No would actually know if you cleverly converted outlines into written text… a week or so before November 1.)
But here I am. Not planning anything yet, because, in my ManicDdaily way, I am grappling with personal and professional issues that feel in the instant like matters of crippling importance. (In fact, it’s probably the feelings that are crippling, the matters less so.)
Enough said. What do you do when you don’t have a plan for a novel and you really really want to write one anyway?
First of all, be honest. You say you don’t have a plan, but is there nothing kicking around your cranial closet? What about an old plan, discarded plan, some plan that seemed at one point impossible to you?
When you come up with that old plan–and seriously, just about everyone has one–think about whether you could commit to it for a month. More importantly, could you have fun with it?
Don’t pass over a plan because you think it’s stupid or impossible, but only because you are genuinely not interested. And even then, think twice. (The novel loves narrative–it really is helpful to have an idea for one.)
If you can’t come up with a plan, you can always try just writing. Start with a scene, a place, a person, a feeling, relatively random words set down upon the page. (The human mind’s love of narrative is so strong that a story is likely to take over even when using this method. Eventually.)
But take care. This kind of writing (which the Nanowrimo staff calls writing “by the seat of your pants”) can feel emotionally satisfying at its inception (like therapy) but can sometimes bog down (like therapy), especially if it wanders too much into the territory of a roman a clef.
Which brings up another important point. Whether you are a “pantser” or a planner, try to let go of the angst. There may be a nobility to enduring suffering, but few people want to read pages and pages of how you have endured yours. Whining tends to be very hard to shape.
Besides, what fun is it avoiding the trials and tribulations of your personal life for a month if you’re going to spend your whole time writing about them?
(The lady doth protest too much, methinks.)
Pearl Makes Distinction Between Egg and Light Bulb
October 27, 2010The last couple of days I’ve posted somewhat abstruse poems about mistaking eggs for a light bulbs. Pearl, however, has not been confused.
Need An Excuse To Write? – Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month)
October 25, 2010One week until Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) begins.
I confess that I am writing about Nanowrimo mainly to steel myself to actually do it.
National Novel Writing Month, in case you haven’t heard, is a month in which you try to write a novel (or 50,000 words) in the month of November. You and a zillion other people.
Yes, it’s arbitrary.
Why not write a novel during the month of August? Or from mid-January to mid-February? (Better yet from mid-January to mid-December?)
And why make the effort to write so public? With so much hoopla?
Many of the good (and silly) reasons to try Nanowrimo can undoubtedly be found, somewhere, on the very comprehensive website–www.nanowrimo.org.
One of my favorites is the excuse Nanowrimo provides–the justification (good for at least a month) to put your writing first. Here is how it works:
“Clean the fridge? Yes, I did notice that green sphere (too furry for cabbage), but I’ve got to get to work on my Nanowrimo.”
“You say we need new sheets, towels, glasses, winter coat, blender and they’re all on sale this Veterans’ Day? (But I’m only on Chapter 3!)”
“You expected Turkey?”
PS – sorry that the video is not exactly up to snuff! I really don’t have the hang of it yet, still don’t have camera, and don’t have a clue about editing commands, or uploading, and it takes forever. Agh.
Blocking Writer’s/Editor’s Block – Major Restructuring? (Maybe Focus On the Laundry)
October 24, 2010A bit of a dreary Sunday.
The good news: This morning, I finished a re-write of an old Nanowrimo novel. This does not mean that I actually finished re-writing it, but that I finished another complete round of revisions.
The bad news: I haven’t done my laundry yet and the laundry room here gets really crowded Sundays.
The good news: This afternoon, I started another round of revisions on this same old Nanowrimo novel, going through it one more time. For a while, the whole thing just seemed to work.
The bad news: Then, I ran into a chapter that I seem to have over-edited my last time through, trying to break up the scene. Now I think I have to seek out some of that old deleted material.
The good news: I have a bunch of laundry to do.
As I’ve mentioned before in posts on writer’s block, my block does not arise in my initial writing, but in the editing and revising.
Part of my problem is that I sometimes want to make the manuscript to take a shape it doesn’t want. I will try a major restructuring, hoping that certain kinds of manipulation–flashbacks, changes of view–can supply the momentum and drama that the plot is lacking.
This type of re-organization may work for some writers. I’m not sure I’m not one of them.
Please understand that I am not saying here: “first thought best thought.” I strongly believe in revision and editing. (Except perhaps on this blog–sorry!)
But, for me, the editing sometimes works best on a sentence to sentence basis. Or, even better, through cuts. (One can get very enamored of sections that don’t move a story forward, especially when you’ve heavily re-written these sections on a sentence to sentence basis.)
But changes that involve fitting the manuscript into a different framework, or inserting a… device… tend to be less successful for me.
A good test of whether structural changes are useful is whether you can actually carry them out. If, as you go through the manuscript, the changes feel increasingly hard to write, they are probably not helping you.
Again, I’m not saying that re-envisioning of a manuscript is not sometimes important. Filling in blanks or making blanks can help you find your voice and your audience; it can feel both creative and compelling.
The key word is “compelling”.
Good writing does not re-write itself, but if it becomes too much of a tussle, you might consider a return to your initial, rawer, vision. This at least will have a certain energy and drive.
Here’s the point: be realistic about the true nature of your first draft. If you have made an amuse-bouche, don’t try to stretch it into a full course meal. If you keep trying to inject further substance into it, you may end up with something that can hardly be chewed (much less digested).
Now, about that laundry….
Pearl’s Approach To Friday Morning
October 15, 2010
Yes, I know I have to get up soon... soon... soon....
Blocking Writer’s Block – A Beautiful Day (Oh No!)
October 11, 2010It was a beautiful weekend in New York City.
This can be a real trial for a would-be writer, especially one with a day job, a family, and at least one hamper of dirty laundry.
Most writers do not like waste; they carefully save scraps of scribbled paper, notebooks, drafts. Only a terrible mishap, or true epiphany (sometimes one leads to the other), induces most writer-types, artist types generally, to discard.
A beautiful day, a free day, a three-day weekend, is something you want to savor. As a writer, you feel you are supposed to be experiencing the beauty of the world; as a person, you want to experience the beauty of the world; as a job holder, an office worker, you are desperate to be carefree, outdoors, enjoying a sunny sky.
One problem is that most would-be writers work on computers (they save their scribbles in notebooks, but they really would prefer to avoid having to re-type) ; and most computers really don’t function well under sunny skies. Computers, even laptops, tend to be curmudgeonly homebodies; grinches who love grey; cloud-seekers.
But it’s your one free day! But you want to work! But it’s beautiful outside!
You feel guilty for staying indoors working; guilty for hanging outside not-really-working. (I confess this guilt may plague me more than the average would-be writer–I was raised, after all, as a Lutheran.)
Some thoughts: Try a notebook, even if you will have to re-type.
Or take your laptop into the shade. Deeper Shade.
Try just walking and thinking for a while.
And then, finally, bite the bullet, and work indoors, hopefully by an open window.
Here’s the gist of it: if you are a would-be writer; and have a day job, and a family, and dirty laundry, you really can’t live your life quite like other people–those lucky less-fragmented souls who can, for example, just lay out in the sun or play tennis much of the day.
If you want to do your work, you simply have to devote some of your free time to it, even when the day is beautiful.
You might, however, put off the laundry.
(PS – once again I take inspiration from my dog, Pearl, shown above, enjoying the outdoors but not fixated on it, knowing that she has to get home to do her one of her true jobs.)
PPS–the titles of two videos above don’t seem to be coming out–first –“Pearl Nonplussed by the Hudson”, second–“Pearl Doing One of Her True Jobs”.
ManicDDaily 
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