NaNoWriMo 2022 Week 1 - A Quick Review

On the plus side, I am managing to write every day and have managed to push the story forward in what could be interesting ways.

On the other hand, I have not been able to build any kind of momentum yet.

Yet, I remain hopeful and invested in the process. I am enjoying the time I have been able to spend on the project.

NaNoWriMo 2022

Yes, I seem to be participating in NaNoWriMo again this year. September and October were crazy with travel and other things, which is my excuse for being even less prepared than usual this year and getting off to a crazy slow start. Only 2,129 words so far.

Days 1 and 2 were especially slow (578 words and 293 words, respectively), since I had very little story in mind and no conflict at all. An actual story idea clicked overnight and I was off to the races this morning, adding over 1200 words in just a couple of hours. Then it was off to run errands and I'm beat and will pick it up again in the morning.

I'm pretty sure there is nobody reading this blog, other than me. So, there is nobody else to be shocked that I'm actually writing a post that isn't a book reaction or an end-of-year reading summary. But I'm pretty sure I don't want to be a daily contributor to the mess that is Twitter these days. And Facebook is still not blog or a microblog. So here we are with what I have available.

read: Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing (4 stars)

Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing by Libbie Hawker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been writing first drafts for NaNoWriMo by the seat of my pants for several years. Every once in a while I try a lightweight outline method to 'really be organized, this time' and still wound up with a mess. I quite enjoyed this author's lighthearted approach and I think the light may have finally gone on about how to formulate a meaningful story. This probably isn't the silver bullet for killing the beast of writing a novel. But I'm going to give it a quick rescan and see if I can apply it to this years' NaNo.

View all my reviews

NaNoWriMo 2017 Ain't Happening

This was my 13th attempt at NaNoWriMo. It is now my 3rd instance of not finishing (see 2009 and 2013). I have mixed feelings about this, as usual. I'm obviously disappointed. This is something I look forward to and boast about and enjoy. Mostly I'm relieved. What are this year's excuses?

1. I became a grandfather. We spent a week focused on family. As my wife keeps reminding me, I have the best excuse ever.
2. Statistics don't lie. In previous years, I've hit flat spots in production and had to pull out all the stops (including some 6K and 8K word days) to succeed. But this year, I had a full week of no output. And when I did get back into it, production it was not matching what I needed to push the curve to the top. I was only achieving a normal pace.

Basically, I had 30% of my words and was 60% into the month. That looks like I was halfway there. But look again. I needed to produce 70% of my words in only 40% of the month, with more holidays and family time in the mix. I can write pretty quickly. But I've never been one of the NaNoWriMo overachievers that cranks out 50,000 words (or even 25,000 words in a single week).

3. The words were not flowing. Even though I was writing in a world I thoroughly enjoy and thought I had a good story concept, that's all it was, a concept. And even that had kept shifting as I did my planning in the previous weeks. I had the protagonist. But no antagonist. I didn't have enough of a specific situation. I tried to write my way into it, like I usually do. But things were not really clicking. And my analytical brain kept me from just doing a worthless word dump (believe me, I tried). Hence, not enough words per day.
4. Besides the grandfather thing, other life and commitments were piling up and I was getting too stressed out to completely enjoy my writing time. 

On the good side:

1. I still love the world I was writing in. I will finish this story. This year's NaNo project is the third book in what I think is a trilogy. I do know what basically has to happen. I just need to break down the story better before I write.
2. My attempt to write my way in revealed holes in my world-building for the entire series that need to get repaired. I will continue to work through that during the rest of the year and then get back into writing production (I promise) after the first of the year.
3. 10 out of 13 ain't bad, ya know. I read that only 30% of those that attempt NaNoWriMo actually 'win'. I've beaten those odds. And I will again.

So, pass the remote and bring on the turkey. I have some shows to get caught up and some holidays to enjoy. I should get back to the gym, too.

NaNoWriMo 2016

I'm doing it again: National Novel Writing Month. 30 days. 50,000 words. This is my twelfth year in a row of trying to write a novel. I've only come up short twice (although calling any of the 'successes' a novel is generous beyond words).

Why do I do it? Why do I get up early and try to stay up late, staring at my computer screen, pounding out my 1,667 words a day? Why do I go into panic mode during last few days, sometimes forcing my self to crank out up to 6,000 words in a day?

Why?

Because I love it. Because when I finally push aside the distractions and focus on the page and get into the flow, the characters speak to me. They tell me their story and I try to get it down as fast as I can. Some days they are quiet and I have to coax and cajole the stories out of them and only get a few hundred words. Other days I simply neglect them and feel rotten about it. But that's just too bad because I have a life, too. This isn't just about them.

I told myself that this year I would have an outline.

I don't.

I told myself that I would be ready.

I'm not.

I had to spend part of my writing time getting my tools ready: 

• a brand new OneNote notebook to capture my words and my research and my notes. I love OneNote because I can access it from anywhere, keep everything in one spot and (most importantly) keep all my work automatically backed up.
• copy notes from the first novel in this series to the new notebook so that I can keep them as consistent as possible.
• connect my Surface 3 to the network at work so that it has all that latest stuff and I can work on my new novel just about anywhere.
• update the NaNoWriMo site, all my social networking sites, and this blog, just in case someone besides my family and close friends is keeping tabs on my progress. I don't want it to look like I'm neglecting any channel.

As a result, I am about 300 words short of my goal. But my eyes are starting to slam shut. Time to get to bed so that I will get a few more minutes of sleep before my stupid author brain wakes me up at 0-dark-it's-way-too-early with ideas on how to change around all the words that I've already committed to bits today.

My plan, as usual, is to shoot for at least 1,000 words a day on work days and 3,500 words on each weekend day. That averages out to the 1,667 per day that gets me to 50,000 words by the end of the month. Of course, as usual, there are complications. I don't just mean Thanksgiving. I mean extra commitments on top of Thanksgiving that will make it nigh impossible to get much writing done for four or five days. So that word count has to get added into the other days of the month. And then there are those unforeseen unproductive days.

Why?

Why do I do this to myself?

Because I love it.

Words written today: 1,354

Monthly total: 1,354

#amwriting

Authors and Web Sites and Platform, Oh My!

As I mentioned earlier (Dehosted and Rehosted), I had to find a new virtual home for my small amount of personal web site content. The move has given me the opportunity to rethink the content of that site. Up until now, it's been a haphazard collection of widgets and links to my haphazard collection of (so-called) social media outlets: Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Goodreads and BlogSpot (but not yet Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr and Google+), along with a sort of personal profile in bullet-list form.

It turns out, I had already been thinking about what I should be doing with my web site to prepare for promoting my authorly activities, assuming I would buckle down and turn one of my projects into something publishable in the not too distant future. I wanted to at least polish up my bio and weed out the less pertinent tidbits and links.

That still leaves some questions to answer. How does someone who has not published a book create an 'author' web site? What should a writer who has written at least eight unfinished novels (for National Novel Writing Month and in-between) say about their creations? Should I list them? Describe them? Should I be teasing about projects that are in-progress or the worlds I have created for them? Or just wait until I have something finished and at least submitted before doing that? I know I should (and want to) spend more time writing and finishing the stories than producing 'extra' content about them.

Of course, there are plenty of folks out there with opinions on what such a web site should include. I found this one on Creating a Website as an Unpublished Author by Amanda Luedeke pretty insightful. I guess I'll keep it focused on who I am and what might make my work interesting. I'll leave a few clues about the sort of stories I've been writing (maybe super short blurbs about my NaNoWriMo work). Keep the social media links intact. And work harder to keep the blogs active.

Meanwhile, until I get my site settled and a book published, have a look at the web sites (and books!) of some my favorite authors. They give me something to aim at and I'm amazed to actually call several of them friends.

• Robert Dugoni
• Boyd Morrison
• Guy Pace
• Mary Robinette Kowal
• Cherie Priest
• Jessica Lourey
• John Scalzi
• Neil Gaiman

NaNoWriMo Washout 2013

So I didn't finish NaNoWriMo this year. Again. This was my ninth attempt but only my second washout.

It doesn't seem like anyone is surprised. Except me. At least a little. I really thought I could do it. Maybe.

I knew I could overcome the usual odds: only about 30% of participants achieve a winning word count. After all, I've finished seven times before, plus three successful attempts at Script Frenzy. I've had fun. Writing is almost always fun. The words start flowing and as long as I have the time and focus, I can pound out the requisite 50,000 words and still have a bit of a life in November. 

The last time I didn't finish, there were extenuating circumstances (which you can read about here). This time around I guess I saw the writing on the wall and simply chose to ignore it. What happened?

1. Not to be too blunt about it, but this year my Dad passed away. It happened 5 weeks before the start of NaNoWriMo. He was pretty sick for a couple of months before that and I was pretty wrapped up in helping my family take care of him. Then he was gone and it hit us all pretty hard. But I decided that at least trying to accomplish another NaNoWriMo was better than not trying at all. If I was lucky, I might even get some sort of a crappy draft I could use to write a real novel some day. Nope. No such luck. Grief is a tricky beast. It sits there quietly for a while, letting you think everything might be all right and you can get back to living your life. You even get some days when you write 3 or 4 thousand words. Then it sits up and simply devours your life for a time, hours if you're fortunate, days if you are not. It consume several days of writing in November. I had a lot of days with nothing to show. And just as many with only a few hundred words.
2. Family is a wonderful thing and usually pretty manageable in November. Most years, we NaNoWriters only have to worry about losing Thanksgiving Day itself to family, along with a few other obligatory hours here and there. This year, however, in the context of the loss of my Dad, family time became precious time and it was difficult to let any of it go. That cost me at least another five full days. It's possible I could have written for at least part of a couple of those days, when I was just traveling. But truth be told, my heart wasn't really in it.
3. That's really the core issue here. This year, my heart just wasn't in it. On top of the obvious, I chose the wrong story to work on this year. I needed something that would fire up my imagination, something that would get me out of the here and now, and something that didn't require a lot of wrestling with reality. I needed something big and bold and crazy. For some reason, I instead chose a quiet mystery story where I didn't understand the mystery or the characters involved or the McGuffin. I thought I had enough to just get rolling and let the writing lead me, but that didn't happen.

So here I am at the end of another NaNoWriMo with only about half the words I need to win. As recently as yesterday, I thought maybe I could use the last three writing days to at least put me over 30K (or even 35K!). It's not happening. Am I disappointed? Only a little. At least I tried. At least I had a bit of a distraction from all the other stuff. And maybe I learned a couple of things.

1. If I ever tackle another straight up mystery, I can't settle in with a subtle antagonist. I need somebody with a genuine evil purpose. I need someone trying to make something happen that captures the attention of my protagonist. I need something more entertaining than based in reality. I also need to work out the antagonist's plans and purposes before I dive into the protagonist's story of discovery.
2. Corollary to that, a mystery requires a more detailed outline, timeline and map. Who's related to whom? On what days do things happen? Where do things happen? Those questions have to be answered before writing the first sentence. I was already becoming convinced of this. Now I'm more convinced. I just need to do it. This requires patience and focus and application.
3. Corollary to that, next time I come up on NaNoWriMo and want to participate and don't have a well constructed outline, etc., I will rummage around in my trove of story ideas and, instead of choosing the most sensible one, I will choose the most outlandish one. Maybe that will give me a big enough sandbox to play in and write 50K words in 30 days.

In the meantime, where's the remote? I've got 3 or 4 weeks of television to catch up on.

Why, Yes, I am writing a novel this month

I actually did start on a new NaNo novel last week. Only about 1200 words, so far. But I'm just getting started and think I can catch up.

Throwing in the towel on NaNoWriMo

This is the first time I haven't 'won' National Novel Writing Month since I gave it a try 4 years ago. This was my 5th attempt. There are still almost 4 days to go in November. So, why am I giving up now?

1. With only 4 days to go, I have just over 1/2 my word count yet to write. That's over 6,000 words per day. I've managed one 4,500 word. Even if I had nothing else happening on those 4 days (like my day job on Monday), the probabilities are against me.
2. My excuses for such a poor word count stem mainly from getting a late start. Trying to return from a long vacation and hit the ground running with a writing project was a bit over-ambitious. Then there were a couple of sick days when my brain wouldn't work. About a week ago, I figured out that I was about 10 days behind. I made up a few of those, but not enough.
   
3. My other excuse probably stems from having been writing fiction for 4 years. I just could not build up momentum because I kept paying too much attention to the characters and story. I just couldn't let go and slam stuff out.
4. As usual, I didn't have enough of my story planned out before I dove in. I kept writing my way into it and was about to get started on my third story angle. I do like this new angle. It's promising. But I want to flesh it out and give it the attention it deserves. This sort of goes back to the previous point where I couldn't just keep driving down a dead end once I saw it was a dead end.
   
5. I wanted my life back. I needed to get some stuff done this weekend that didn't involve staring at the screen waiting for words to come out of my fingers.

Am I sorry I even tried? No. As usual, I got to learn more about the writing process and my strengths and weaknesses.

Will I try it again? Perhaps. It will depend on where I am in the process next year. If I'm finally in the middle of finishing off the first draft or first (or second edit) of a story (maybe this one), I will probably stick with it until it's done (at least I hope I will).

In the meantime, I'm going to keep on reading. Nothing is more motivating for me to write than to experience a good story and think that I might be able to do that. Except maybe reading something like 'Atlantis Found' by Clive Cussler and being pretty sure that I can write better than that.

Broke 1000

That's not really a big accomplishment, considering it's day 5 of NaNoWriMo and I'm supposed to be somewhere between 8000 and 10000 words. But at least I'm getting some stuff down. I'm still hopeful that I can get some big numbers this weekend and maybe even catch up (if not get ahead).

NaNoWriMo begins

I'm a day late and a couple thousand words short. But I've begun and that's what counts. National Novel Writing Month is all about overcoming inertia (getting started) and building momentum.

Word count: 375

NaNoWriMo is coming

Just a little over two weeks to go until National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org). This will be my fifth time.

It looks like I'll be starting something completely different than I had been thinking. The start I got on my previous project proved that it really didn't have the legs it needed. So, I've got a related but different concept that I hope will get me through the month. Now I just have to get some sort of outline down so that I'm not firing blind, like I have in previous years.