Musings

Weekly Musing: NaNo Check-in #4

DH Hanni

As I suspected, Week Three of NaNo saw me hit a bit of a wall. I still kept up on my productivity, with the exception of a couple days due to travel, yet I feel the quality of the writing wasn’t as strong. The ideas didn’t come as easily as the previous two weeks. It was though by no means as difficult as the first two days of NaNo were for me.

The problem I ran into this week was I did not truly understanding what story I wanted to write. I thought I had a clear idea; however the characters are partially to blame for the change. Instead of one plot, which saw my main character on a quest of a personal nature, it changed to my main character going through a series of adventures.

A new character also sprang up so there was considerable time spent on her backstory. This then snowballed into the realization I had provided very little backstory or context of the world these characters live in. But instead of concentrating on that I decided to jot down notes in EverNote to remind myself of what I needed to think about more for the next draft.

But the characters aren’t completely to blame. I share a huge bulk of the responsibility for the rambling plot, plot holes so big you could fly a Boeing 777 through them with room to spare, and continued inconsistent characterizations. That is a pitfall of pantsing it like I am this month. At the same time it is in keeping with the spirit of NaNo. Just going for it and realizing there are now over 300,000 other people going through similar experiences.

I did hit a milestone this week; on Monday I passed 40,000 words! And while the celebrated 50,000 words mark in within my reach, I am by no means close to being done with the book. I can’t say how much more I have as I am fighting to just come up with a plot to stay with long enough to construct an ending. I guess I should just stick with what I’ve got. After all, it can be fixed later.

Musings

Weekly Musing: NaNo Check-in #3

DH Hanni

Just about the end on Week Two of NaNo and it went much, much better than Week One. On NaNo’s website, they have pep talks about slumps people go through in the second week due to the excitement of week one wearing off. Apparently I’m a bit odd, which I already knew, because I didn’t notice a slump. I don’t know if it is because I changed what novel I was going to write from one I had planned out to something completely new, but I didn’t feel any anxiety. I’ve just been letting the characters do what they want to do. The only thing worrying me at the end of the second week is I don’t have an ending.

Day 8: A pretty good writing day. I reached 10,000 words the day before which was a really good motivator heading into the weekend.

Days 9 – 10: November 9th was set aside by NaNo as a day to write as much as possible. I used it and Sunday as a personal challenge to write 6 hours each day. I discovered I was averaging about 2300 words in 3 hours so I thought I could probably push my total word count to 5000 each day.

Saturday I did it in 3 hour blocks with a nap in between. I only managed 3800 words which was good but also a bit disappointing. It was a lot of physical and mental fatigue and I lost a lot of steam at about the 5 hour mark but pushed through an additional 30 minutes. I also discovered that stopping at the 3 hour mark I lost a lot of story momentum.

On Sunday I changed up my strategy and decided to do write for 6 hours straight. The word count only went up to 4000 words so still below a target of 4600 words. The straight writing session was easier because I could keep going through with a thought yet at the same time I got more distracted. It wasn’t even the internet that was a distraction, it was just my mind wandered to everywhere but on my story.

Day 11: The novel felt like it was coming along quite well. I discovered it was becoming much easier to get into writing. I spent less time trying to figure out where to start since I developed the habit of leaving the previous day’s work at a good stopping point. I also discovered that I can’t quite completely squelch the Inner Editor but it has been at bay. The only thing I’ve been doing is taking notes and inserting comments to help remind me where I should expand descriptions.

Day 12: I passed the 25,000 word mark! Half way there to the 50,000 goal for the month! That doesn’t mean the novel is half done, though. Still don’t have an ending and the characters keep changing their minds about what they want to do and who they want to be. But at least I earned my reward of a nice lunch, a NaNo T-shirt, and cupcakes. Hmmmm, cupcakes.

Days 13 – 14: During this time period I passed 30,000 words count, another milestone down! I feel that the quality of the writing has been hit and miss but that’s not bothering me. What’s also not bothering me is the fact that I brainstormed a different opening and am considering aging up my main character. I’m still fumbling around with who these characters are as people. I think if someone read it the way it is, not only would they be confused as to what’s going on, but the inconsistent actions by each character. Might come off as a world full of bipolar schizophrenics. I figure when I revise it, that’s when I will get characters hammered out better and fix some of the gaping plot holes that currently exist.

So heading into Week Three I wonder if that’s when I’ll hit that wall I was supposed to have hit this week. I’m hoping I’ll get something nailed down for an ending to shoot for. I also think I may be surpassing 50,000 words before considering the novel finished. The overall experience for me has been a freeing one. It’s shown me that yes, I do have the work ethic and that I can get into a good routine. I can make the daily goal of 3 hours writing work even on days I am running around doing errands, filling out paperwork to sell my house, looking at houses for my new home, and being sick.

Musings

Weekly Musing: NaNo Check-in #2

DH Hanni

First official week of NaNo is under my belt and it was a roller coaster experience.

Day 1: This day was hectic mostly due to personal reasons but I got my writing in. I barely exceeded the advised daily average of 1,667 by 11 words. Cool and at least I’m on target.

I went to the kick-off meeting in my area and enjoyed it. Although I was quite tired by that time of day, I was happy to bring what I’d been working on. The kick-off meeting consisted of introducing ourselves and describing what we were planning on writing and any other information we wanted to volunteer. After introductions, our ML (Municipal Liaison) had as an ice-breaker a game where we had to talk to each person there and figure out if we at least one read book in common. The catch was we couldn’t use the same book with anyone else.

After that game, we did an exercise that I saw as very beneficial. On a notecard we were encouraged to either draw our Inner Editor (or Heckler as one guy referred to it) or write down phrases it says to us as we are writing. We then put that notecard into an envelope and sealed it with instructions to not open it up until after NaNo. It’s a symbolic gesture. For the month of November, that evil, evil little bastard is supposed to go somewhere. I hope to die a horrible fiery death.

After our notecard Inner Editor/Heckler banning, we wrote for an hour. Some of us, like me, were lost in our own world while others socialized in between paragraphs. I went home exhausted but I had gotten in my personal daily goal of 3 hours in.

Day 2: It was a bit of a disaster for me. The scope and breadth of what I wanted to write got to me. I had everything somewhat plotted out, my character sheets ready to go, 2 years of planning, and I choked. I absolutely hated what I had written the day before. It didn’t feel like it was enough and not where I wanted to start the book.

That’s when it went downhill.

I went to a write-in at a local library not knowing what to expect. A nice little group of about 10 people showed up. Some I recognized from the night before. Again we did introductions but then we talked about writing, how many NaNos we had done, how day 1 went, etc.

Then we got down to writing. We decided as a group to do word wars. Being new to all of this, I didn’t know what a word war was. A timer is set and you write as many words as you can in that time. That first five minutes, my brain froze as I decided I wanted to redo what I had written on day 1. That’s a big NaNo no-no. And it showed. I managed to only keep 3 words which wasn’t a sentence of 3 words, just 3 words. We did more 5 minute word wars then expanded the time to 10 minutes. In total, I only wrote about 600 words that day.

I decided that format wasn’t the correct environment for me. Small bursts of writing with periods of socializing in between didn’t bode well for my brain. I need time to just stare off into space to collect my thoughts then write.

I went home quite, quite dejected. I had a full on meltdown, crying to my husband that I wasn’t cut out for this and perhaps writing novels isn’t what I’m meant to do. He pointed out that perhaps the project I wanted to do isn’t appropriate for a timeframe like NaNo. We talked some more and I bounced the idea of starting with a different novel altogether. He thought that might be a good idea, a way to clear my head and gain energy. The biggest help he provided was helping me realize that since I’ve never written a novel before, I should be using NaNo as a way to learn what writing one feels like. Epiphany time!

Days 3 – 7: I did something which could be considered another NaNo no-no and that was to start a new project. Not only is it a new project but a different genre. I switched from historical fiction to fantasy, a genre in which I have dabbled in. The only thing I was certain about was my main character who was one I has used in a short story but had always been curious to know more about. I wanted to explore more of her background, who and what shaped her before the short story I wrote about her took place. Sounded like a perfect NaNo project.

Since that decision, I have been able to write with that sense of enthusiasm and abandon NaNo encourages. And my daily word count has increased. That’s not to say I haven’t had some moments of ‘What now?’ but the creative juices are flowing. Of course, daily rewards of candy help, too.

Here’s hoping next week is just as productive. I have a crazy idea of doing some marathon writing this weekend. 6 hours each day on Saturday and Sunday. Here’s to lots and lots of caffeine and excessive word counts!

Happy NaNo!