NaNoWriMo The Third Was NOT The Charm: How I Survived My 3rd Year of November Noveling Madness

 

All righty.

Here goes.

The long-awaited NaNoWriMo 2014 recap post!  Nearly a month later, I think I’m recovered enough to tackle this, and I think I’ve had enough reflection time to determine what I need to improve upon next year.

So, my dear fellow writerly people … if you have accomplished NaNoWriMo yourselves, please do chime in with your comments on your own experiences.  And if you have not NaNo-ed before, but are considering doing so next year, please take my experiences here and learn from them, because that is what I, myself, am endeavoring to do here!  (And is, in fact, the main reason I even bother to blog in the first place!)

Onward with the contemplative recap post …

This year was my third year participating in NaNoWriMo.  I felt more excited for this year than the previous two years.  I also felt more prepared.  I felt like a NaNo Veteran, you might say.  This probably contributed to the terribleness that later ensued.  Let me explain.

I believe I may have grown overconfident in my abilities to hammer out 50k words in 30 days.  I mean, I’d succeeded in reaching 50k the two years previous.  AND I’d even hit my NaNo Camp goal of 25k in 31 days in July.

I was convinced I was story-slinging badass M—–F—er who would eat this 3rd NaNoWriMo for breakfast without breaking a sweat.

I did several things differently pre-November this year, and I think all of them were bad choices.

So what did I do this year which just happened to spell my almost certain doom?  Well …

1) Most destructively, I did not touch the novel for a little over a month before NaNoWriMo.  I *thought* this would make me more excited to get to work on it again in November.  Goes with the whole “good things come to those who wait”, right?  I *thought* this would help me feel more organized once November rolled around because I would have been able to take the time in October to get life in order in prep for NaNo. THIS WAS VERY, VERY WRONG.  Not only did I NOT make any more progress on organizing my life in prep for NaNo than I would have if I was still occasionally writing the novel, BUT … I heard once that for every day you do not write, it takes 3 days to get back into the mindset, or the groove, or whatever you want to call it, to write. THIS IS TRUE.  THIS IS 100% TRUE!  As a consequence, I battled some fierce resistance and could not get settled into the writing “groove” for most of November. It was so bad that I distinctly remember the day it finally began to get a little better: November 20th.  Yes. It took that long to even BEGIN to get better.

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2) I did not really plot the novel beforehand.  “But your Boot Camps!” you insist.  Yes, my Boot Camps. But I had already DONE the Boot Camps.  You see, this NaNo my goal was to complete the novel I’d begun for NaNo 2013. I had the thing almost entirely plotted since November of 2013. I did do a bit of tinkering with the back end of the outline before this year’s NaNo, but nothing near involved enough.  Because frankly, I just DIDN’T KNOW. I should have made myself sit down and really hash out some ideas, at least.  But I did not.  I glossed over the plotting and outlining bit this year because I thought that part was really already done. Which it was. But it needed to be done BETTER. If it had been done better, the 20 days of agony previously mentioned would have been slightly more tolerable, because at least I would have had a guidebook for SOMETHING to hang on to!

3) I did not attend the NaNoWriMo Official Kick Off Party.  Pffft, I thought.  I am a veteran now, I don’t need those kind of newbie rallies and going-over-of-basics and idea-generating-games! Turns out, this very seemingly minor absence had a huge impact on my mentality throughout the month.  Because a HUGE part of NaNoWriMo is in RITUAL AND ROUTINE! The previous two years, I did attend this Kick Off Party. And so it seems skipping out on it this year deprived me of a much-needed brain boost, or perhaps mangled the signal to my creative centers that it was TIME TO ACTUALLY WORK! Perhaps I don’t need the goings-over-of-basics or idea-generating-games (although I probably DID need this one, see #2)… but I DID need the ATMOSPHERE. The KICK OFF EVENT, as it turns out, is REALLY a KICK OFF EVENT!  For my brain, or subconscious, or muse, or whatever. I needsssss it.  Also, missing the event meant I missed out on the swag. Just little things, like the standard 30 day calendar sheet of paper they hand out at those things, not being taped to the corner of my writing desk as it had been the two years previous, made this year feel all out of whack. You can bet I won’t be making THAT mistake again!

4) I was anti-social with my fellow regional NaNoWriMo-ers.  The previous two years I was much more active on the forums, with sending messages back and forth to my new-found Writing Buddies on the website, and with actually talking to some of them face to face in the local Write In meet ups.  Plus, I attended MORE of the local meet ups previously than I did this year.  Now, I blame most of this one on the fact I now have my very own lovely writing group, and thus I felt it was not as necessary to seek out the company of other, unknown writers. But this was also wrong. Yes, I have a writing group, and they are awesome, and I am really lucky to have found all of them! BUT, that doesn’t mean I don’t need to expand my horizons, so to speak, lol. It’s refreshing and stimulating to converse with people you don’t know about writing, and even though it was my writing group who carried me through the month (and which is responsible for me finishing 4 days early!), interacting with strangers who are undertaking that same huge task as well also helps to concrete the event in my mind as something REAL and tangible and happening.  If that makes any sense. This year, I scarce said “Hello!” to anyone outside my writing group, even during the two Write Ins I did attend, and I think overall, again, it hurt my overall attitude throughout November.

So what DID happen this NaNoWriMo? Did I manage to do ANYTHING right!?!?!

Well yes I did.

For one, despite ALL OF THESE MISHAPS, I wrote 50,000 in 30 days. In fact, I did better than that. In fact, I wrote 50,100 words in 26 days. And after I hit the 50k goal, I KEPT WRITING. Yes, by the time November 30th rolled around, I had reached just over 54,700 words! Considering how roughly this NaNo started, and how HARD it was to sit down at the computer every day and hash out the daily quota, I’m quite surprised at the results.

I fought for almost every word this year. I stuck with it and battled my own self-sabotage and resistance until, finally, FINALLY at almost the very end, the words started coming along much more easily, the plot started falling into place, solutions presented themselves, the characters came back from their strike, and everything fell onto the keyboard of its own free will. I FINALLY, at almost the very end, reached THE ZONE again. Really and truly. And then I began to love to write again. I began to love the novel again. I became once more fully invested in that story.

And then NaNo ended, and reality came crashing back to me.  And for 10 more solid days I kept up the writing every day anyway, until I finally had to give it a rest because of the approaching holidays (see previous December Project List 2014 post). And having to quit writing every day HURT, because I knew I’d have to start that self-battle ALL OVER AGAIN when I finally went back to writing consistently.

But at least now I really do know one thing for sure: I CAN DO IT.

I can beat the self-sabotage and resistance. I can conquer procrastination. I can banish excuses.

I can absolutely write decently even when every word is like pulling a perfectly healthy molar.

And I know for sure that eventually the writing will not feel like I’m pulling a perfectly healthy molar anymore.  Eventually, it will become wonderful again.

So.  Here is what I have learned from NaNoWriMo The Third Which Was Definitely NOT The Charm:

1. TAKE AS LITTLE TIME OFF FROM YOUR WRITING AS YOU CAN HANDLE. The more time you take off, the harder it will be to begin again. Period. ESPECIALLY do not take time off from a project if you plan to work on it during NaNo. In fact, if you plan to begin a new project, STILL work on it pre-NaNo, even if it’s just writing out a few scenes. Or writing out an outline. DO SOMETHING PHYSICAL. DO SOMETHING BESIDES JUST THINK ABOUT IT!

2. DEFINITELY PRE-PLOT, AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. Pantsers, you too. See my Boot Camp posts for some things you can still do to prepare yourself. Trust me, every little bit will help you, even as a pantster.

3. ATTEND NANOWRIMO EVENTS!  Even if it’s more about the ritual than the actual content of the events.

4. SOCIALIZE MORE WITH OTHER WRITERS OUTSIDE OF THE WRITING GROUP.  Because it’s good to be social every now and then.

5. JUST WRITE. WRITE AND WRITE AND WRITE. Forget distractions, forget excuses, forget the nagging little voice in your head telling you it’s crap, that you’re just not “feeling it”, that you must be “inspired” to write, that you’re behind and you’ll never make the word goal. SHUT UP AND JUST WRITE. You’ll find you’ll write all those inner-critics and excuses right into oblivion, where they vanish into smoke and dust.

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6. FIND PEOPLE. If not for my writing group, I may not have succeeded this year. But because most of them were kicking my word count ass most of the month, the competitive streak in me would not allow myself to give up, no matter how desperately I wanted to. (At let me tell you, at 1am when I was still struggling to hit the daily word count, knowing I had to be up again in a few hours to work and take care of a kid and animals and a house — I really, really, REALLY wanted to give up on NaNo.) You NEED a support group of some kind or another.  Whether to cry with or compete with. Find someone who shares your writing passion and form your own group. HOW? Well, go to your local NaNo forums. Go to local conferences and conventions. Be friendly. Talk to people. You’ll be amazed at who you’ll find.

Yeah, this November was full of much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

But I did it anyway. I kicked NaNo’s ass three years in a row.

And you know, all SEVEN out of SEVEN in my writing group did, too!

And every year I learn more and more about myself, my writing habits, and what it means to call yourself a “writer”.

So there.

 

 

Trial By Fire: Lessons and Habits Finally Realized and Learned in NaNoWriMo Year 2

And I thought I’d learned a lot from my first year of participation in NaNoWriMo.

Pah.

I confess that my transition, I feel, was a bit rockier than most in the beginning last year, likely because up until that point I had spent the previous nine years writing only fanfiction, which is a completely different beast than original fiction (and NOT just for the obvious reasons, but that’s a whole different post…).  It took me awhile to settle into the original fiction brain last year.

But this year, I had two things going for me straight from the start:

1) An entire year behind me in which I did NOTHING but write original fiction and
2) An entire month of planning the NaNo novel in October

I was SO READY this year (thus my Boot Camps, lol).  I thought after a year I had a pretty good handle on things.  And yet, whaddaya know, I STILL learned new stuff during my second year.  Things that had started as little inklings in my skull last year finally coalesced into concrete blocks that whacked me across the temple a few times over the course of November.

Some of these things were just habits of mine I noticed.  Some of them were much more important lessons that finally, FINALLY took hold.

So, I would like to share these things!  For the benefit of anyone who did not attempt NaNo, and for the curiosity of anyone who did, or who has nothing whatsoever to do with writing but finds it amusing to laugh at the really bizarre stuff we writers go through sometimes.  🙂

So here they are, organized into the important lessons, and then into some of own personal little quirks and realizations:

LESSONS:

1. Characters poop plot, plot does not poop characters!!!  (Thanks, Chuck Wendig, for that phrase.  I will use it forever.)  This lesson will get it’s own blog post, so for now I’ll just leave it at that.  But let’s just say this seemingly obvious statement didn’t really sink in until this NaNo…
2. Trust your story, not yourself.  Related to Lesson #1, but a little different.  Don’t try to force your story to follow an outline, however detailed or vague.  It’s good to have a direction (see Boot Camps) and I still think that’s the best way to go – at least have something VAGUE down, but if you’re stuck – it’s probably because you’re trying to force the story to go somewhere it doesn’t want to go.  As crazy as it sounds… your story will talk to you.  Try to listen.  Try really hard.  It might take you awhile to learn it’s language, but once your attuned, things will go much more smoothly!!  As a newly story-literate person myself, trust me on this!
3. DO NOT expect your rough draft to be a final draft, or even a GOOD draft.  As soon as you let go those expectations of perfection (or even general decency), the writing will begin to flow.  DO NOT force your rough draft into being awesome.  It will not happen.  You’ll just end up getting frustrated and then won’t write it.  Striving for GOOD at this point in time restricts your creativity.  Now this lesson took me a good long, long time to finally embrace.  I kept telling myself I wasn’t looking for good on my rough draft, but unconsciously, I really was.  (A leftover habit from fanfiction, I’m quite sure, but again, that’s another post.)  You always hear career authors telling new authors over and over, “Rough drafts are always shit.”  But it still took me a very long time to allow that this was true – or at least allow it to be true on MY drafts.  Okay okay, it’s not really true… rough drafts are amazingly awesome, really.  I mean seriously.  Here’s an adequate analogy… rough drafts are like having babies.  It’s never going to be a clean ordeal.  It’s going to be sloppy, messy, painful and probably embarrassing in some way or another, and the end product will be pruney and purple and sticky and screaming.  But it’s also a whole new creation brought into the world, yes?? However, just like you don’t try to give the baby a bath and one of those adorable little stocking caps before it’s made it’s way fully from the birth canal, you need to let your rough draft be fully birthed before you begin analyzing it for greatness, etc.  That’s for later!
4. Allow yourself to stumble around in the dark if you need to.  If something doesn’t work, go back and rewrite it.  Now, let me be clear, THIS DOES NOT MEAN EDIT.  Ex]  I just finished a chapter on the novel WIP last night.  Today, I happened to think that chapter could have gone a completely different way.  As in, the character would wake up in a different setting, with different characters.  I think I like that path better than the current one.  I have decided to rewrite the entire chapter along that new path.  This will be the THIRD time I have completely redone this specific chapter.  I have completely rewritten two previous chapters already, as well.  If this happens to you, don’t get frustrated!!!  This story is BRAND NEW territory!  You are an EXPLORER!!!  So explore it!  Think of yourself as an astronaut who actually gets to explore the quantum string theory.  Write out one possibility.  If the next scene or chapter doesn’t spring to mind, you might have the wrong universe.  Try a different possibility.  If things start flowing again, you’ve probably found the right one.  The wrong turns are PART of writing the story.  Without the wrong turns, you wouldn’t be sure the RIGHT path is actually the right one!  So welcome those U-turns.  Don’t think of it as going backwards, but as an exercise in getting to know your story on an even deeper level.  ANYTHING you write in that world is expanding it!  So even if you decide to rewrite a chapter, keep the old version in a separate folder called “Discarded Scenes” or some such.  You never know if you might, indeed, use something later on down the road!
5. WRITE EVERY DAMN DAY.  Most career authors say this, and do it.  We as new authors or aspiring authors tend to cringe at that advice.  “Yes but THEY don’t have day jobs anymore.  Or kids.  Or [insert frantic excuse here.]”  The thing is, a lot of them DO have other jobs, or kids, and a house, and a spouse, and pets, and on and on.  And most of them work a LOT longer and harder at writing than any of the rest of us do at our “regular” day jobs.  So buck up, people.  Tighten those bootstraps and get to work.  It doesn’t take long to bang out even 100 words.  I can tell you personally, ESPECIALLY on this second NaNo, writing on a consistent basis did WONDERS for my motivation on the project.  Since NaNo ended, I haven’t written hardly at all, and not only has it made me pretty cranky, but now when I DO go and sit down and try to write, it is SO.MUCH.HARDER to get myself started!  SO MUCH HARDER.  The self-sabotage and procrastination and resistance is an ALL TIME HIGH.  If you can write something, ANYTHING, every single day, you can leverage yourself out of any resistance rut you might have recently fallen into.  It will take a few days to get into the flow, but once you’re there, STAY THERE.  DO NOT FALL BACK IN!  Writing six days in a row and then taking one day completely off worked really well for me during NaNo 2, but I was also writing over 1000 words/day.  If you write less than 500/day, I’m not sure you’d need the break unless you get really burned out.  Do what works for you, but above all else, for the love of your story – WRITE EVERY DAY.  Something.  Anything.  DO IT.

 

QUIRKS:

1. (A few days into NaNo) My brain seems to operate best in 600-word sprints, after which I need a short mental break.
2. I write better and it comes much easier if I listen to blasting epic music through headphones… simply playing it doesn’t work.  Has to be on headphones, and loud.
3. Wine helps.  A LOT.
4. (Nine days into NaNo)  It’s becoming surprisingly painless to hammer out 1300 words in one sitting….
5. There IS such a thing as a writing coma.  And when you come out of it, you will have no recollection whatsoever of anything you did while in the writing coma.  But usually… whatever you wrote will be pretty damn good, considering.
6. (Three weeks into NaNo) My average writing speed seems to be about 300-400 words in 30 minutes.  Not stellar, and everyone else I know writes faster than that, but I just can’t break that standard.  Is it my subject matter?  (aka epic sci-fi?)  Maybe.  It’s annoying as crap, but I guess I’ll have to just learn to work with it…
7. (Last week of NaNo)  My average writing speed increased to about 500-600 words in 30 minutes.  Closer to the average, but still on the lower end.
8. My record sprint word count was 1829 in a little over an hour.  When I reread that section, it was the worst section of the novel I’d yet written.  But, I did not despair, that’s what EDITING is for!  (See Lesson #3 above… YOU JUST GOTTA MOVE ON!)

That’s all for me today… if you participated in NaNoWriMo this year, or even if not, what are some of the craft “lessons” you’ve found have finally clicked after so many years of writing?

 

 

Related articles

• NaNoWriMo Review (writerkimberlyhill.com)
• Looking Back At NaNoWriMo 2013 (petergermany.com)
• NaNoWriMo Winner! (motsdecris.wordpress.com)
• My NaNoWriMo Experience (measurelifebybooks.wordpress.com)

NaNoWriMo BOOT CAMP! Lesson Four: SURVIVAL!

WHAT’S SCARIER THAN A HORDE OF HALF-DECAYED ZOMBIES SHUFFLING IN YOUR DIRECTION WHEN YOU’RE FRESH OUT OF BULLETS AND JUST SO HAPPENED TO LEAVE YOUR AXE AT HOME???

NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH!!!!

Forget about all that undead nonsense and unpack that Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit you’ve been hiding in the back corner of your basement, cuz NOVEMBER IS COMING and it HAS NO MERCY and you’re going to need those camp rations during your battle with words if you want to live to see December!!!!

So get your sorry ass into this Boot Camp and learn what it takes to stagger triumphantly up out of the darkness into the bright, bloody dawn of December 1st, 2013 a WINNER, victorious and exhilarated… you might be exhausted, you might be forgotten by family and friends, you might not have the faintest idea what year it is anymore, but you WILL have a copy of your 50,000 words clutched in your desperate, grubby hands and by god you WILL.BE.A.WINNER!!!!!!!!!

***

1) KNOW YOUR MISSION OBJECTIVE! 

Are you going for the full 50,000 words or not?!?  DECIDE NOW!  NaNo Police will not tap NSA resources to spy on what exactly you are doing during these 30 days!  Aiming for only 20k words?  DO IT!  Want to edit a novel instead?  GO FOR IT!  (The going conversion rate is 1 hour of editing = 1000 words, btw, then use a random word generator to create the words you need to plug into the Validator at the end of the month.)  Just want to FINISH a currently unfinished draft but aren’t entirely starting from scratch?  SURE!

BUT FIGURE IT OUT NOW.

AND THEN DO IT.   NO EXCUSES!!!!!

2) TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

Not only will they be super impressed when you come back at the end of the month and tell them you accomplished your goal, but their occasional inquires as to your progress will keep you accountable.  There will be no quietly sneaking away from this one unnoticed, thank you!

3) SCHEDULE YOUR TIME!

THIS MONTH IS ABOUT MAKING TIME FOR YOUR WRITING!  YOU MAKE TIME FOR WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO YOU!

Pick a time you will commit yourself to writing no matter what each day, whether it’s morning, noon or night.  AT LEAST an hour, preferably two or three hours.  Tell outsiders you have “an appointment” at this time of day if you need to, but do whatever you have to in order to get that time free for yourself!

Assign other household duties/errands to other family members for the month.

Warn all affected that you will not be doing housework, cleaning, or cooking for the month, and showers may become optional.

As such, give your house a deep clean pre-November and stock up on frozen foods and/or rely on that handy-dandy slow cooker!

Spend extra time with your kids if you have them pre-November, and then tell them you’ll have to be absent more than usual for 30 days, but that afterwards everyone can participate in the celebration!

 4) PLAN THE DAMN NOVEL BEFOREHAND!

Are you a pantser?  No you aren’t.

Even pantsers aren’t really usually flying by the seat of their pants!  See here, here, and here  and read this for broad, basic things you can be thinking about pre-November to get the ideas flowing and some rough things nailed down, EVEN IF YOU ARE A PANTSER and EVEN IF YOU MOSTLY HAVE NO IDEA YET WHAT YOU WILL BE WRITING!

At the very least, look into Variable Plot Outlining before you get started in November.  Having a direction to aim for, even if it covers a very broad range, is extremely helpful when attempting to write quickly!!!!  (It prevents panic attacks, true story!)  There is no time to be THINKING about what you will be writing, there is only to time to WRITE!  So yes, we are all actually writing by the seats of our pantses during November – and it is an infinitely smoother process when you have devoted some forethought to the basic premise of your novel idea!!!!

5) WRITE HOT HOT HOT! 

Enabled by #4!!!!

As in, DO NOT THINK about what you’re writing – JUST WRITE!  Don’t try to figure out what happens next – JUST WRITE!!

DO NOT EDIT IN ANY FORM!!!!

Whatever comes out, comes out.  Might be crap, but crap is better than a blank page!!!

6) CHOOSE YOUR SQUAD!

No one can fight a battle alone!!!

Officially sign up: November NaNo!

Join your local area forums!!!  Talk to people!!!  Add Writing Buddies!!!  Message them, email them, for pete’s sake get out of your house and meet them at a coffee shop to get some face-time!!!!

You’ll see them writing and be inspired.  You’ll hear of their struggles and be comforted.  You’ll get brainstorming buddies.  You’ll hear stories of how they’ve done this eight times before and gain confidence that it can actually be done.  You’ll know you are not alone as a writer… you are never alone!!!  (And this will also add to your accountability, see #2!)

7) BE THE BEST YOU CAN BE!

Having a goal and an insane deadline doesn’t inspire you??

THEN COMPETE!!!!!

Compete with other participants!!!  Either officially in a declared Word War or Word Sprint, or unofficially in secret as you stalk their user profiles and endeavor every night to come back the next morning with a word count higher than theirs!!!

Competition is extremely effective.  All friendly, of course, but let that be the kick-start you need to make yourself put butt in chair and fingers to keyboard!!!

8) START STRONG AND DON’T LET UP!

November 2013 starts on a weekend.  This means there is really NO EXCUSE!!!!

Start strong and I mean start REALLY STRONG!!!  Block off the entire first weekend of November to just WRITE!!  Rocket that word count past every other single person participating in this thing!  Get 20k words in the first three days!  Kick that NaNoWriMo ass right off the bat and show it who’s boss!!!

This will allow you some breathing room later in the month when that pesky holiday arrives with all the relatives in tow!!!  PLAN AHEAD!!!

NO EXCUSES!!!

And so what if you miss a day?  So what if your word count seems dismally low to the point of no return?  Get back on that damn horse!  Try your best to write at least a little bit every day, so that you are never completely out of the race if given one entire day of hard writing.  But, if it happens, forgive yourself, too.  Write as much as you possibly can that month.  Do your very best.  That’s all anyone can ask from you, including yourself!

9) TRACK YOUR WORD COUNT!

Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of numbers and graphs.

Enter your word count on the official site everyday and watch your bar creep ever higher!

Make yourself one of these:

handmade Word Quota Tracker – BOOYOW, what NOW, NaNoWriMo!?!?

or download a NaNo calendar, or buy yourself some goodies to get inspired:

the OFFICIAL NaNoWriMo Notebook!

the OFFICIAL NaNoWriMo Mug!

10) FREAKIN’ CELEBRATE!  … WHEN IT’S OVER

A lot. 

I like Victoria Lynn Schmidt’s idea in her “Book in a Month”… plan some type of celebration at the end of the month, if you manage to reach your word goal.

Give yourself a reward – a big one!!  Something you really, really want.  Something really fun.

It’s the carrot in front of your nose, the thing that makes all the sweat and blood and tears worth it!  (Aside from the next bestseller you just wrote in freakin’ 30 days, of course!)  But I’m willing to go a step further.  Celebrate each 1/4 mark with little things.  Celebrate the halfway mark with something a little bigger and then party like it’s 1999 at the end!

NaNoWriMo actually has a Kick Off and a TGIO (Thank Goodness It’s Over) party, so you’ll be in good company!

11) THANK YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY

For putting up with you in November.  Let them have some cake, too!!

(Also see this post of mine, and this one from A Girl Who Writes for more survival tips!!)

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

YOU HAVE JUST GRADUATED NANOWRIMO BOOT CAMP!!!!

YOU ARE NOW MEMBERS OF THE ELITE, THE PRIVILEDGED, THE FEW –

YOU ARE THE FRONT LINE, THE LAST STAND, HUMANITY’S ONLY HOPE!!!!!

YOU MUST HOLD THE LINE!!!!

GO FORTH AND WRITE!!!!

NOVEMBER IS COMING……

WILL YOU BE READY!?!?!??!

NO EXCUSES!  NO WHINING!

JUST WRITE!

NaNoWriMo BOOT CAMP! Lesson Three: THE CENTER OF THE PARADOX!

SO, you want to be a rebel, eh?!?!

You just HATE outlining, do you??

You just can’t for the life of you figure out WTF is going to happen in your novel past  Act 1??
You shudder at the very mention of ACTS and STRUCTURE and turn up your nose at all that “rubbish”??

Think you don’t need to give any thought whatsoever as to the make-up of your novel before plunging into the 30 days and nights of literary abandon then???

BULLSHIT!

GET YOUR SORRY ASS INTO THIS BOOT CAMP AND FIND OUT HOW YOU TOO CAN LET KICK-ASS NANO NOVELS POUR FORTH FROM YOUR FINGERTIPS ACCORDING TO A PLAN – BUT WITHOUT AN OUTLINE!!!!!!!  *GASP!*

***

PREP WEEK THREE: ESSENTIAL TRAITS OF MEMORABLE STORIES

REQUIRED READING: “6 Secrets of Writing a Novel Without an Outline” by Steven James

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW A SUPER-SECRET SECRET???

YES???

Well step on up cuz I’m about to lay it on ya! …..

YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE AN OUTLINE TO KICK ASS AT NANOWRIMO!!!!!

What what WHAT!?!??!

THAT’S RIGHT!!!

But you DO still need to have some sort of PLAN!!!!

YES.

Shut up, sit down, do it!!!!!

Even for pantsers, this IS NOT HARD!

Trust me, YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!

And at the end of NaNo you can look back upon your 50k words and heave a great sigh of relief that you do not have to spend the next YEAR editing a mound of CRAP!!!!

So, what is this magic pantser formula??

All you have to do is FIRST, look over the guidelines for key scenes and know how to create empathetic characters, and THEN check off each item on the following To Do List:

Keep your scenes and characters in line with this list and you will probably not get lost off along the brambles!  But if you do  happen to get lost, explore a bit, leave a marker flag, machete your way back to the path, and then keep on writing!!!  If that little meander takes you someplace good, run with it, if not – AXE IT!!!

We only have 30 days here, people!

No time for dillydallying!!!!

If you want FABULOUS, EXPERT advice on writing awesomesauce without a recipe and way more details on all of the To Do List items, READ THIS ARTICLE by Steven James!!

DO IT!!! 

“In storytelling, what will happen informs what is happening, and what is happening informs what did. You cannot know where a story needs to go until you know where it’s been, but you cannot know where it needs to have been until you know where it’s going.  It’s a paradox.”  — Steven James

That’s all there is to it!  Now, you have ONE WEEK, that’s SEVEN ENTIRE DAYS, to ruminate on these essential elements of memorable stories!!!!!

DO THIS, and avoid shooting yourself in the foot during your 30 days of literary abandon!  Avoid curling into the fetal position in the middle of November because you can’t remember what few things you’re supposed to be keeping in mind as you sling out words and characters and actions haphazardly onto the page!! Now you have a PLAN, fellow writer, a MAP TO AWESOMENESS – SO FOLLOW IT!

Then report back here 0800 next Thursday morning for your next and FINAL lesson!  HOOAH!

NO EXCUSES!  NO WHINING!

JUST WRITE!

NaNoWriMo BOOT CAMP! Lesson Two: CHARACTERS AND GMCs!

NO, I do NOT mean a GMC car!!!  You don’t know what else I could possibly mean by GMC?!??!  You think your characters are just bodies to occupy your awesomely fantastic setting or move through your utterly original and mind-blowing plot!???!?

WRONG!!!!!

WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!

Failing on the CHARACTER LEVEL will make your entire book FAIL!!

THAT’S RIGHT!  I don’t care how awesome your setting is or how mind-blowing your plot!!!!

Without fully realized and FLAWED characters, your book will go nowhere but in a box under your bed!!! 

And THAT IS NOT where you want your book, is it!?!?!?!?  IS IT!?!?!?

NO IT IS NOT!!!!!

“But it’s so haaaaarrrrddd??” you say?!?

BULLSHIT!

GET YOUR SORRY ASS INTO THIS BOOT CAMP AND FIND OUT HOW YOU TOO CAN WRITE CHARACTERS WHO WIGGLE THEIR WAY INTO READERS’ BRAINS AND NEVER EVER EVER LEAVE!!!!!!! 

***

PREP WEEK TWO: ESSENTIAL TRAITS OF MEMORABLE MAIN CHARACTERS

REQUIRED READING: “Plot and Structure” by James Scott Bell
“GMC: Goal, Motivation, Conflict” by Debra Dixon
REQUIRED WORKSHEET: “GMC Wizard” by Shawntelle Madison

Thanks to the wonderful and talented and fabulous Cecily White for most of today’s points, as they are a general summary of her presentation on this very subject at the recent Springfield, Missouri’s Writers’ Hall of Fame workshop (which I attended!).

She was able to put these concepts together in a way that was simple and easy to understand – just the kind of thing needed for a BOOT CAMP!!!

SO YOU HAD BEST PAY ATTENTION!!!!!  Because she knows what she’s talking about!!!!

NOW LET’S GET TO IT!!!

***

THE CHARACTERS

THE PROTAGONIST’S FLAW OR FEAR DRIVES THE CONFLICT!!!!!!

A strong, perfect hero who makes the right decision every time is BORING!

Readers want someone to ROOT FOR!

Without some kind of FLAW or FEAR, your hero has nothing internal to overcome and therefore has stunted character GROWTH!

Readers want to see your character GROW and CHANGE over time… the protagonist cannot do this without some kind of internal fear or obstacle! (In addition to the external obstacles, of course!)

YOUR PROTAGONIST’S CHARACTER ARC SHOULD LOOK SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

1) INTRODUCE THE CHARACTER
— include scenes that reveal their biggest flaw or fear from the beginning
x DO NOT give the reader competent characters who can handle anything!

2) TORTURE THE CHARACTER
— find the line they won’t cross
— ask them to cross it repeatedly, make them hurt
— force them to make decisions! (ideally they will make bad decisions for good reasons, but don’t make them make bad decisions for illogical/bad reasons – if you’re going to do that, at least hang a lantern on it!)
— allow them to fail repeatedly
— take them out of their familiar and drop them into an unfamiliar!
— even two characters on the same side should have goals in contrast in some way to add further tension and conflict (ex] their end goal is the same, but one character favors action before planning, while the other favors meticulous planning before action, etc)
x DO NOT let the character succeed every time! (Although you should let them succeed just often enough to keep them moving forward…)

3) BLACK MOMENT
— flaw is exposed at a crucial moment
— they fail to act as a result of this flaw (see SECTION SIX of THE TEN ESSENTIAL SECTIONS OF YOUR NOVEL)
— they must then deal with the consequences of this… and ALL SEEMS LOST! (insert dramatic wailing and gnashing of teeth!)

4) DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
— character realizes the need for change in themselves
— consciously recognizes their flaw or fear and takes steps to improve

5) CLIMAX
— the character overcomes their flaw or fear and wins!!!! (insert dramatic celebration and cheers!!)
— leading to a Happily Ever After (HEA) or at the very least Happily For Now (HFN – everything may not be bunnies and rainbows, but at least there were some positive steps in the right direction!)

***

THE GMC: INCORPORATE INTO EVERY.SINGLE.SCENE!!!

YES.  IN EVERY SINGLE SCENE.

Shut up, sit down, do it.

FOR EVERY SCENE OF YOUR NOVEL, EVALUATE THE FOLLOWING:

GOALS:
— What does your character want out of that scene?
— What is their end goal?
— What is their biggest desire and fear during that scene?

MOTIVATION:
— What makes those goals/desires/fears urgent during that scene?

CONFLICT:
— What’s getting in the character’s way of achieving those goals or desires?
— What’s bringing out that character’s greatest fears?
— internal vs external conflicts (aka emotional vs physical, etc)
— should highlight the character’s vulnerabilities (Superman and Kryptonite, Iron Man and Pepper Potts, etc)
— should echo with that character’s unique experiences

THE END!

That’s all there is to it!  Now, you have ONE WEEK, that’s SEVEN ENTIRE DAYS, to think up those AMAZINGLY AWESOME FLAWED characters and brainstorm their corresponding GOALS, MOTIVATIONS, and CONFLICTS!

DO THIS, and avoid shooting yourself in the foot during your 30 days of literary abandon!  Avoid curling into the fetal position in the middle of November because your characters are boring and cliche and have no idea what the hell they’re doing in your story! Now you have a PLAN, fellow writer, a MAP TO AWESOMENESS – SO FOLLOW IT!

Then report back here 0800 next Thursday morning for your next lesson!  HOOAH!

NO EXCUSES!  NO WHINING!

JUST WRITE!

NaNoWriMo BOOT CAMP! Lesson One: PREPARATION MATTERS!

OH, so you thought NaNoWriMo started in NOVEMBER, did you!?!
WRONG! NaNoWriMo starts NOW, RIGHT NOW!

The secret to success in this venture is PLANNING!!!

PLANNING, people.

“But I’m a PANTSER!” you say???

NOT THIS MONTH YOU AIN’T!!!!

Writing 50k words of aimless story you’ll just have to rewrite later DOESN’T COUNT.

You don’t want to go through the agony that is NaNoWriMo and then just have to turn around and SCRAP most of what you just sweated and bled!!!

Only newbies jump into NaNo without at least a loose, rough SKETCH of their proposed NOVEL!

And you are NOT a newbie, are you!?!?!?  NO YOU ARE NOT!!!!

You are a story-slinging, world-building, character-creating badass muthafucka who eats 3,000 words for breakfast!!!!!

YOU CAN DO THIS THING AND YOU CAN DO IT WITHOUT CRYING EVEN ONCE!!!

“But it’s so haaaaarrrrddd??” you say?!?

BULLSHIT!

GET YOUR SORRY ASS INTO THIS BOOT CAMP AND FIND OUT HOW YOU TOO CAN KICK NANOWRIMO’S ASS!!!

***

PREP WEEK ONE: THE TEN ESSENTIAL SECTIONS OF YOUR NOVEL

REQUIRED READING: “Book in a Month” by Victoria Lynn Schmidt
“Plot and Structure” by James Scott Bell

In Ms. Schmidt’s extremely helpful and amazingly awesome book which you should all go purchase and read especially if you are going to do this NaNo speal, she mentions how A-list movies generally have no more than ten to twenty scenes in the space of the entire movie, while B-list movies tend to have thirty to sixty.  WTH does this have to do with this novel-thingamajig you’re supposed to write in 30 days??

A GOOD NOVEL should have only around ten total “scenes”, no matter the word count.

What what WHAT?!?!

Correct.  Shut up, sit down, do it.

Now, for novels, we won’t call them “scenes”, as that can get confusing.  We’ll call them SECTIONS.  These sections can carry across scenes, events, and even across chapters.  The point is that you are basically dividing your novel up into ten main parts, each one of which has a certain purpose and certain information it should convey to the readers.

BEFORE NaNoWriMo begins, it is incredibly helpful if you already have at least a very vague idea of what these ten essential sections of your novel will be.  If you really haven’t the foggiest clue what you’ll be writing come November, you can still have the knowledge of what these potential sections SHOULD LOOK LIKE, so that when you get to them, you’ll know, and you’ll know what to include once you get there.

James Scott Bell, in his equally amazingly awesome book “Plot and Structure”, further breaks down the whole purpose and idea of the Two Doorway novel structure, which is just plain old essential if you want to create a book that actually makes any sense as far as books go.  As he says, you can mess around with structure, but be prepared to never sell your novel.  (Hey, this is a Boot Camp, we deal in harsh truths here!)

***

So, the basic skeleton of your novel should go something like this – and notice there are only NINE main sections here, so use the TENTH for your free-for-all:

SECTION ONE: THE INTRODUCTION

PURPOSE:
1) Introduce readers to all main characters
2) Introduce readers to the world (DO NOT OVERLOAD, however)
3) Illustrate characters’ roles within this world
4) Establish the problem/trouble and the characters’ roles in regards to the trouble/problem

SECTION TWO: THE INCITING INCIDENT or THE FIRST DOORWAY

PURPOSE:
1) Illustrate what happens so that all involved characters are then unable to return to their normal life, or to the way things were before this incident.
(This is The First Doorway… the characters have crossed a threshold and cannot go back to the way things were, no matter how much they might wish it.  They are involved now, they HAVE to continue down the road that will lead to the climax… whatever this event is that drives them through this First Doorway can also be called The Inciting Incident – or at least it can as far as I understand it…)

SECTION THREE: THE FIRST TURNING POINT

PURPOSE:
1) The initial problem or trouble intensifies for the first time
2) A plot twist or character reveal is ideal here
3) This will be what ends Act 1 and propels both characters and readers into Act 2… so make it GOOD!
4) Leave readers wondering at the end of Act 1: Have the bad guys won already?!?  (This can also be thought of as The First Setback)

SECTION FOUR: THE TEMPORARY TRIUMPH (Act 2, Part 1)

PURPOSE:
1) Events and happenings occur which make both characters and readers believe they are finally getting the upper hand on the bad guys!
2) This can be a physical or emotional (aka Internal or External) triumph, or a mixture of both
3) You need to be sure, however, that this triumph is foreshadowed in some way in Act 1!
4) Make note for possible subplot interplay here, however, subplots are NOT for NaNo, so just leave some crumbs for your Future Self to follow!

SECTION FIVE: THE REVERSAL!!! (Act 2, Part 2)

PURPOSE:
1) Both characters and readers realize their triumph was temporary and fleeting as the bad guy one-ups them yet again
2) Build tension and conflict like that story-slinging badass you know you are….

SECTION SIX: THE SECOND TURNING POINT or THE SECOND DOORWAY (Act 2, Part 3)

PURPOSE:
1) This will contain the events that then make the final conflict inevitable (after this, the heroes MUST confront the bad guys, there is no other choice!)
2) The hero’s decisions must ultimately cause this turning point!
3) This event must be foreshadowed as well, either in Act 1 or the 1st half of Act 2!

SECTION SEVEN: THE FINAL OBSTACLE (Act 3)

PURPOSE:
1) This is the final hurdle the heroes have to overcome before finally reaching the bad guys for the big confrontation
2) Can be internal or external or a mixture of both

SECTION EIGHT: THE CLIMAX!

PURPOSE:
1) The big showdown between protagonist and antagonist
2) This confrontation must be bigger and badder than any other previous confrontation, of course
3) This is the realization of all the agony and tension and conflict that has been building to this point (whether that was internal or external or both)

SECTION NINE: THE RESOLUTION

PURPOSE:
1) Show the fall-out from the big climax
2) Tie up any loose ends remaining
3) This should actually be kept relatively short and sweet

THE END!

That’s all there is to it!  Now, you have ONE WEEK, that’s SEVEN ENTIRE DAYS, to plan out the TEN ESSENTIAL SECTIONS of your NaNo Novel!

DO THIS, and avoid shooting yourself in the foot during your 30 days of literary abandon!  Avoid curling into the fetal position in the middle of November because your novel is going nowhere and you don’t know what to do!  Now you have a PLAN, fellow writer, a MAP TO AWESOMENESS – SO FOLLOW IT!

Then report back here 0800 next Thursday morning for your next lesson!  HOOAH!

NO EXCUSES!  NO WHINING!

JUST WRITE!