NaNoWriMo 2012: A Summary

It has come to my attention that I never actually blogged here about NaNoWriMo this year, though I did participate and blog elsewhere. I thought I'd give a quick summary of the experience this year, as it is my best to date.

My novel this year is called Inevitable, though you've likely seen my refer to it as "The Time WIP" here. I scrapped what I had originally written and revamped the whole project and was rewarded with a fairly good starting point.

Jonah McCameron has known since he was twelve years old that he would become a Historian someday, because he was told so. Ten years later, Jonah meets the stern, yet slightly mad Dr. Miles, a professor and Historian, who soon becomes Jonah's mentor. With the help of Dr. Miles, Jonah learns the truth about the Collective Historical Society: that the men and women who make up its body do not simply research history, but experience it first-hand, with the aid of time travel. As an Apprentice Historian, Jonah learns the tricks of the trade, but is soon plagued by questions regarding fate and free will, with no thanks to the mysterious Kevin Doyle. In this novel, Jonah will relive the past, work to change the future, and learn why foreknowledge is so dangerous.

The main reason I was so successful with NaNoWriMo this year (I won with 60,013 words) is that I love the characters and even more than that, I love the world I created. I had fun with the idea of the Collective—a future version of our world where many superpowers have joined to create one massive empire—and the way I portrayed time travel in this novel. Time travel alone provided me a lot of room for experimentation and imagination. If all goes well, I will continue the themes in this book and write a three-book series of novels surrounding Jonah, Kevin, and the Historians. Additionally, I also want to write a fourth spin-off novel about Rosie Davis, my 1920s correspondent.

My success with reaching 50,000 words, and even more so with reaching 60,000 words, is in no small part due to the wonderful writing community of the Naperville NaNoWriMo chapter (or NaperWrimos). I attended two write-ins this year and was able to write 5k and 9k on those days respectively, thanks to the friendly and competitive nature of the meetings. Tim was a great help by encouraging me with additional challenges, promising me plot critters as prizes. At the end, I was rewarded with a great time at the TGIO Party, as well as a 60k start on a novel.

Afterwards, the NaperWrimo community proved to be even more helpful, by encouraging me to keep writing and work towards finishing my first draft. The forums are still alive, as is the community. Last week I met David, Katherine, and Carly at Caribou and had some fun with some editing and reading exercises. David has set me a goal of writing 2 more chapters (or 8,000 words) by our next meeting on the 26th. I'm already benefitting from having a deadline and accountability, but I also enjoy having writing friends to talk to, learn from, and share stories with, especially in person.

I'm still writing and, unfortunately, this means a lot more research. But I shall persevere!

P.S., if anyone knows of any good documentaries on the Battle of Gettysburg, drop me a line.

NaNo Countdown: 8 Days!

Hey folks, it's just about that time again! That's right, it's the time when we give up sanity, sleep, and friends all for the sake of our writing!

This will be my fourth attempt at NaNoWriMo and if all goes well I will "win" for the second year in a row. I'll be honest with you folks, I want to win, but I'm not going to be as devoted as I was last year. My schedule is fairly crammed with school and work, more so than last Fall, but I am going to do my best. I'll budget my time and take advantage of my 3 hour schedule breaks between classes/work.

I wanted to try something new this year, so I'm attempting a story unlike any I've ever done. I'm writing a sports book. A sports book. I don't even play sports! I also don't write a lot of realistic fiction, so this might be a challenge for me.

Caroline Reyes is a competitive inline speed skater training for the Nationals. In an attempt to gain an edge and clock in some extra track time (and after a few dares & challenges), Caroline tries out for a roller derby team—and makes it. Despite skating almost her whole life, derby proves challenging to Caroline. She'll have to learn how to skate on four wheels, play as a team, and most importantly: take a hit. But what happens when she has to choose between her dream and her team?

Tonight I finally figured out all the girls on the main team (The Rockin' Rollers), both their real name and their derby names. I love how much a derby name says about a girl, whether they're fun, sexy, or smart, even what their interests are. These girls love poetry, music, science fiction shows, and cooking. Never has naming characters been more fun.

If you want to friend me on the NaNo site, my username is typesetjez!

The Monsters of Writing

We as writers risk our lives every day, trying to give the public what they want. We are like gladiators, facing terrible monsters and opponents all for the sake of entertaining others. Writers are no strangers to fear and frustration, believe you me.

The Biggest Monsters You Will Be Asked to Face as a Writer

• Research - after coming up with an idea and forming a rough plot, you might be asked to face Research, one of the biggest monsters of the Writing World and one that will pop up again and again. You cannot ever truly defeat this beast, it is immortal. When you face this creature, keep that in mind; you are not fighting to kill, you are fighting to survive. Still, facing Research is essential in your quest as a writer and each time you face it, you will grow stronger, gain knowledge, and be able to face your novel with more courage and confidence than ever before.
• Doubt - This is another creature that will spring up time and time again, generally when you least want it to. It's always hard to beat and afterwards your confidence is shaken and you constantly question your ability to complete your Journey. Doubt generally coincides with other challenges, such as The Wall and The Unmarked Path. Sometimes the best defense against this monster is to simply ignore it. Embrace that 5-year-old mentality that if you don't acknowledge its existence, it can't truly exist.
• Revision - This beast often attacks at the same time as Doubt on the second leg of your Journey to Publication. You've acquired your basic skills and materials and you've finished the first draft of your Novel, but now it's time to revise. Don't be afraid to really fight this monster, cutting out words, sentences, chapters, and limbs. Don't hold back, because if you do, you'll only have to face it again later. Each time you face this dreadful foe, it's harder and harder to put up a fight, as it wears you down. You thought you were done and Revision rears its ugly head to remind you that you aren't. It's like starting over, but it is survivable.
• Querying - This is the true test of your strength and skills. Your Novel has to be the Best in Show, able to blow away any obstacles and impress the judges like no one ever has before. This is not quite the final battle in your Journey, but it is the turning point. Every foe you've faced up until now has been in preparation for this terrifying beast. Luckily, there are many guides that can help you train for such a match scattered about on the internet. I urge you to study them before you charge into battle.

That said, know that I am facing the first Monster on this list with my next project, as I've defeated the somewhat lesser foe of Lack of Inspiration, a close cousin to Doubt.

If you have any other Monsters you feel should be included in this Survival Guide, or any additional notes on how to defeat the ones above, please leave them in the comments.

There are No Vacations from Being a Writer

On Wednesday night I completed my edits/rewrite of Zenith, packaged it up pretty & sent it off to be printed. What I didn't know is that CreateSpace, the website I had a free code for, requires 1-2 days processing, so it looks like I'll be paying for my copy after all. It only costs about $5, so I don't mind, I suppose. After all that work, I plan on rewarding myself with a copy.

Additionally, because I finished my edits, I also sent off a PDF of my novel to seven willing volunteers for beta-reading. I haven't received anything definite from anyone yet––it's only been two days––but so far the feedback has been good. However, none of them have reached the completely sucky last few chapters, so I'm not holding my breath.

Yesterday I could have relaxed from writing (and probably should have, considering I work a 12 hour split shift), but I couldn't. I've mentioned it before, but writing is not a job you drive to, clock in, do your work, clock out, go home, & forget about until the next morning; writing is a whole life process. Even as I drove to work yesterday, my mind was already trying to choose which project to begin on next. I wanted to do something with time travel that reflects my personal beliefs about the way time travel should be; I wanted a character with a particularly nice moustache; I wanted to try romance, since I've never successfully pulled that off. Before bed I ended up writing a 500 word drabble about two characters for a friend, just so I could write something (a need I rarely have when a deadline approaches, sadly). There are just no vacation time available for a writer.

This morning I woke up from a strange dream that ended up being the inspiration for my next project and immediately I began brainstorming and researching, picking out names. I need an androgynous name that can be mistaken as a male name, but is also not uncommon for females, but cannot be a diminutive of a different name. Currently I am leaning towards Sky with Cameron as my backup. This idea differs entirely from anything I've ever written and I am so excited about it.

Which brings me to my last topic of the day: all writers are lunatics. I've told you all this before and it's the title of my blog, so this really shouldn't be much of a surprise. After I created my list of possible character names I asked twitter & some friends which androgynous names they could think of, to gauge the connotations of each name. I received a lot of responses, for which I am thankful, but no one asked what the names were for. Even after I started hinting that I had a new story, no one asked what it was about. Like the lunatic writer I am, I went into this whiny state of Nobody Loves Me before finally texting Secret Agent Casye my idea. I could have just told everybody, I know, but I'm a lunatic, remember?

[Next up, research! I'm heading to the library later today to pick up some books, including Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness.]

Writing is Inescapable

There are some jobs where you go to the office, clock in, do your work, clock out, and leave. Writing is not one of those jobs. Writing is who you are, every minute of the day, whether you're working on the story or not.

As I mentioned, I'm working on editing Zenith and I have until the end of June to do so, a date that is approaching far quicker than I'd like. After that last post I went to my day job as a receptionist, came home, and went into immediate care. I spent the next seven hours on a doctor's examining table, getting my blood drawn, being sent to the hospital, having a CT done, and waiting for results. Through that whole ordeal, between thoughts of "I bet it's appendicitis" and "ow ow ow OW" and "OH GOD I HATE NEEDLES" and just "uuggghh," there were thoughts like "I'll have to remember what a CT is like for when I'm writing about Ciera" or "Maybe the disease she can have is stomach cancer." I've had Ciera's story rattling around in my head for years, (where a teen is struggling with a terminal illness and doesn't tell her friend) so even when I was on the table, part of me treated the experience as research. It's a job you can't leave at the office, you can't leave at home.

That said I haven't gotten much done since the last entry here, because I spent such a long time in the hospital. I'm alive and I spent all of yesterday out of town away from my computer at a Memorial Day picnic. Tonight hopefully I can find some time to focus and get a few chapters knocked out before I have to turn my attention to homework.

Deadlines are great for me, ovarian cysts are not, even if they afford me chances to research a future project.

The Conqueror; Organization is a Battle

Total word count: 13,729
Words written today: 0

Yup, zero words written today, I know. Same for yesterday. My reason for yesterday is that I had a paper & a presentation to prepare for my Colonial Literature class and I had gotten home late from work/school. My excuse today is that I spent my hour off writing this post on the marketing behind the new Twilight book instead of working on my novel. Why? Because I'm not sure where to go next.

Which brings me to my topic: organization. Not all of the work that goes into a novel is writing. Sometimes you need to stop, take a moment, and figure things out. I have so many ideas bouncing around in my head, build up from the last 6 years since I dreamed up this novel, and I don't know where half of them go anymore. There is a huge hole in my narrative, some of these plots no longer exist, some need to be taken out to spare the world. So tonight instead of writing I went down into The Archives, which is the name I have for this semi-organized mess in my room where I keep all my writing things. I have finished copies, rough drafts, edits, & random loose scraps with notes that make no sense anymore. Tonight I went through, found everything that related to The Conqueror and refreshed my memory on everything. Also in my room I have a bulletin board with all the major plot points from the original idea still up there from 4ish years ago. It makes me wince to look at some times. I took all the scraps & I typed them up into two doc files on my laptop, for characters & misc ideas. I also have a paper from earlier tonight covered in questions about where am I going or notes on what things I definitely need to work towards.

I haven't figured out much, but it's a work in process. Hopefully this weekend and next Monday (no school!) I can do more work on these. For right now, I need to work on the outline for my research project in Ethics, and tomorrow is devoted to a literary review of all my sources for Comm Theory. College is not all parties, my friends.


EDIT: I finished my outline fairly quickly & had about 12 minutes before bedtime. I still don't know what's going to happen next (it's less a matter of what will be in the chapter as which chapter is next, narrator-wise) but I didn't want to spend a lot of time figuring it out, so I put in a blank chapter and moved past it. This was a chapter I had almost forgotten until I went through The Archives, but one I think needs to say. So I wrote 224 words before midnight & before I got word blocked.

Help: What is the word for when someone goes "aargh?" Like out of frustration? There is a word for it. It is a word I can't think of. Please to be helping me with it.

Total word count: 13,953
Words written today: 224