Tag: Writing

Musings

Weekly Musing: NaNo Here I Come

DH Hanni

Next Friday, November 1st, is the start of NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month (NaNo for short.) It’s been around since 1999 when only 21 people participated but this year, over 140,000 writers have signed up. The purpose of NaNo is to write at least 50,000 words during the month of November.

I’ve never participated in NaNo and felt this year was a good time to start. I’ve got a novel I’ve wanted to write for over 2 years and have been doing lots of research for it. While the research is crucial for my understanding of the history of the time period I’m setting the book in, I have hidden behind it. I’ve been too afraid to actually tackle writing it. I have good excuses I tell myself. I’m a new writer so I need to practice more with short stories before I write a novel, right? Oh, my research has turned up something that I think might be good to explore but I’ll need to do even more research. I don’t want to make a mistake since I do have a degree in history.

What also hasn’t helped is I’ve changed the plot a gazillion times. Officially I’ve done 4 outlines. The last one I did was sometime summer of 2012. Since then, though, I’ve added a lot of notes about plot. Snippets of color-coded paper. Notes stored in EverNote. Notes stored in a Word file. I’m organized but not despite a tri-fold board filled with slips of paper listing historical people, events, and places to help keep me straight on the facts.

Now that I have less than a week before the start of NaNo, I am starting to panic. The time has flown since I made the decision back in the summer to do NaNo. I thought I was giving myself plenty of time to do as much research as possible, work on developing characters sheets, and quasi-finalizing an outline. Ahhh but life got in the way. In the midst of all of the prep work, my spouse was interviewing for a new job which he got. The catch: it’s across the country. Now we are in the midst of selling our house so who knows when it will sell (quickly I hope!) so time has been lost dealing with a huge life change. Then all of a sudden it was mid-October and I had yet to do any real prep work for NaNo.

But from what I’ve been reading on the forums on NaNo’s website, that’s okay. Lots of people are first time NaNo participants. Some are working on outlines, some aren’t, and some aren’t even sure yet what they are going to write. Reading words of wisdom from veteran participants has put my mind at ease. Just a little. The closer the calendar gets to November 1st, the more the realization of what I’m about to embark upon gets larger.

I’m not alone, though, as NaNo encourages people to join a home region within their state or country as a means of connecting writers. Ideally each region will have a leader, ML they are called, whose job is to organize the kick-off party on November 1st and subsequent write-in sessions. Write-in sessions are in person gatherings where writers get together and well, write. Writing is a solitary sport but sometimes a group of writers just need to get together. I’m guessing that creative energy gives a writer a needed boost. So while I don’t know any of the other people in my region, I’m looking forward to meeting them.

Throughout the month of November, I’ll be providing updates on my progress towards that 50,000 word goal as well as what it feels like to be a first-time participant. Scary but I am hopeful it will be a great learning experience and yes, even a bit fun.

Musings

Weekly Musing: If Writing Has Taught Me One Thing, It’s Taught Me…

DH Hanni

I love watching and listening to the interviews Bill Kenower conducts on AuthorMagazine.org. Besides asking questions that show he has read the book the author is promoting as well as general writing questions, he always asks at the end of the interview ‘If writing has taught me one thing, it’s….’

This is my absolute favorite question. I look forward to the author’s answer because you can see the hamster running around the wheel in their mind as they ponder it. It’s fun watching the expression on the author’s face change. Up until that question, the author is usually relaxed and exhibits confidence in their answers. They are talking about the book after all; it’s easy to discuss where the idea came from, the process, what you’ve learned. But when that one question comes up, it’s Whoa! The uhs and ums come out. The writer breaks eye contact to stare at the ceiling, perhaps willing the deity of their choice to quickly inspire them. It’s a fascinating bit of people watching.

I love this question because as a new writer it’s illuminating hearing the answers. Many authors cite writing has taught them to be patient, persistent, and to have confidence in their abilities. Others have cited writing has taught them how to be a better person in that they are more aware of the world around them, to treat people better, and to listen more. Another common answer is writing has taught them to be themselves, to be comfortable, and confident in who they are.

I must admit, depending upon the interview I’ve just heard or watched I find myself changing my own answer. I guess it’s because the answers provided get me thinking about how the author came to that conclusion.

So if I ever get the privilege, this is how I would answer it, at least at this point:

If writing has taught me one thing, it has taught me to stand up for myself. Being a writer is what I feel like I was meant to be. Being able to express myself also means exposing myself to criticism. This has been both good and bad but what has amazed me is how I’ve been able to handle it. If someone has a constructive criticism, I can choose to entertain their comments or ignore them, sticking to my story how it is written if that is what I as a writer feel comfortable with. When it has come to the other kind of criticism, I have yet to back down from my work. I know what the intention of my piece is and what the thought process was behind it. If someone finds it offensive, that’s fine but I simply don’t see the need to apologize.

This is vastly different from my approach in other areas of my life. Normally I would be upset and feel a lot of guilt at causing anger in someone. I would apologize even when the cause was not something I did that was harmful. Just a matter of one person taking exception to something even when there was no malicious intent. But as I’ve taken writing more seriously, I find myself slowly able to stand up for myself. I don’t get defensive or unnecessarily apologetic as much. I remain calm and if there is something I should genuinely apologize for, then I do.

It’s funny to think that a profession such as writing, one where the writer is subject to all kinds of comments, criticisms, and analysis, that it could actually improve one’s self-esteem. Writers are told to develop a thick-skin. I used to think that referred to putting on a brave face in public and accepting quite quickly not everyone will like your work. Instead I’ve learned developing a thick-skin isn’t simply referring to one’s work but one’s life as well.

Musings

Weekly Musing: How May I Help You?

DH Hanni

Writing, like any other career, has lots of information and resources designed to help. Information about the mechanics of writing, quotes from famous writers to help motivate and inspire, writing prompts for when creativity is low, etc. Various types of software, books (a gazillion it seems), websites (gazillions raised to the 10th power), and people are available for writers at any level. Since I consider myself a green writer, I’ll only list those resources I’ve found helpful so far for someone at my experience level.

People – One of the biggest sources of help for me has been other writers. Being part of my local writer’s group has helped my writing tremendously in the few months I’ve been attending. It’s a great mixture of published authors, those close to making the leap into publishing, people writing for fun, and optimistic beginners. The group works because of the supportive but honest environment. It’s also been a great information hub for informative books on all aspects of writing from The 10% Solution to character motivation and goals. And then there are the wonderful discussions about books read, favorite authors, and just life in general.

Another group that has been extremely helpful to me has been the local chapter of the PNWA. Each month we meet to discuss a variety of topics from character archetypes to upcoming conferences and to celebrate our successes. This group has provided me a much more formal type of education set in an informal atmosphere and also gives a glimpse into the career of a published author.

Websites – This is a tricky one for me. About 2 years ago when I more heavily considering becomes a writer I went overboard, I think, with bookmarking every website related to writing. But this year I’ve noticed I’ve become pickier about which websites I find useful.

The websites I keep going back to are Writer’s Digest (which I also subscribe to their magazine), Author Magazine , GoodReads, CritiqueCircle(I submitted work here first before joining my local writers group), and WritingForums. GoodReads I go to log what books I’m reading, write a review after I’ve finished reading one, and to see what other people are reading. I enjoy CritiqueCircle because of the daily quote they have as well weekly polls. The other websites I go to because of great information and that connection to other writers.

I’m also using a variety of websites like the local library, Amazon, foreign libraries, and museums for my research. Too numerous to list but as a beginning writer, these have been great tools for me.

Books – Oh boy, where to start on this one. There are the basics every piece of writing advice I’ve ever gotten have recommended: On Writing by Stephen King, The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, The 10% Solution, a good dictionary, thesaurus, and recently, a good synonym/antonym book.

In addition I’ve started a small collection of books on plotting, writing a novel, character development, a thesaurus filled with unusual words, books to help describe emotions and character traits, and a book to help flesh out descriptions in general. I plan to add more books as I pinpoint deficiencies in my own writing.

Software– This is one area I don’t use a lot of specially designed for writers software. I’ve heard of Scrivener, StoryCraft, MasterWriter, and others but those seem be above my current level of experience and goals. At this point, I’m content to use Word but I’m open to trying software that will make my life better.

What I’ve been using the last few weeks that is fun and helpful is EverNote. I’ve tried using OneNote and found it cumbersome. EverNote is great for me because I can ‘clip’ pictures from websites, individual webpages, as well as search terms I’ve entered in. Although I haven’t needed this function yet, I can also search everything I’ve already got saved. EverNote stores this information into different workbooks.

Another neat feature is I can insert notes into these notebooks. EverNote has been awesome to get a visual of whatever research I’ve collected and allows me to brainstorm. With saving search terms I’ve entered into Bing or Google, it makes it so much easier for me to go back to something. Personally it is beneficial to me to have a visual of a place or article of clothing so I can describe it as best I can. In the past, if I’ve found a picture, I could never remember the correct phrase to bring up the picture again. Thus the visual is gone.

Finally, a piece of software I’ve discovered recently is Google Earth. I stumbled upon this via an article I read by a historical fiction author who mentioned using Google Earth. He used it to get an overall view of an area he was writing about. He could zoom onto streets, jot down street names, and compare the current streets with historical documents to see if they were around in the time period he was interested in. If they were, then he could see exactly how streets intersected thus lending more authenticity.

What’s really slick about Google Earth is you can click on a city and get directed to Wikipedia with info about the city. What’s also nice for me since I need visual points of reference is I can map out the distance between two towns and see what the terrain looks like. This is valuable when terrain and weather will play a significant part of your story.

These are just a few of the resources I’ve found helpful so far and I’m constantly discovering more. When I first started writing, I had no clue how much information was out there. It’s still quite a bit to take in and I suffer frequently from information overload. While I’m getting better at weeding out what is useful the biggest challenge for me is getting my hands on those resources which are valuable for a historical fiction writer.