We hit the magical day of 16 yesterday, the day that many psychologists say new habits are forged. Congratulations, intrepid writers with recently created finger callouses! I’ll go ahead and admit it now: missing a single day doesn’t hurt your chances of forming habits. But hey, we’re over the basic threshold, so don’t hold my secrecy against me.
Well, hidey ho, we’re at the halfway mark of the NaNoWriMo challenge. I am going to suggest something that I promise is not wacky, although some people may think it’s clear out of left field.
Stop writing this afternoon, and pick up a book. Read More…
We’re on the back stretch now, and if this were an actual horse race, there would be almost as much distance to travel backward as forward, so stopping now would be close to useless. However, NaNoWriMo is an extended writing event, so we can take an easy trap door out of it at any point if we want to. Before we all push the Quit Now button, however, I want to point out a few things:
1. You will never be in the middle of this novel in the same way again. Read More…
This is about where the guy who’s been eating potatoes and only potatoes starts to sound a little freaky in his blog:
Potatoes originated in the mountains of Peru. These varieties are wild and beautiful and come in an assortment of colors. One color you can often find here in the US are purple potatoes. My question is, if you ground them up in a blender and put them in your hair, will your hair turn purple? Tune in tomorrow for the answer!
Hopefully nobody’s dyeing their hair over NaNoWriMo. Yet. Read More…
One-third of the way through the month, and that wasn’t so bad, was it? Only six more days until a bonafide habit has been established. So the work is all for something, awesome. But it’s Day 10, so that means we’re well into the weeds of this project, and if the manuscript draft is a third of the way through, we’re at or nearing a transition. Exposition is over, and we’re in the meat of the story. For me, that means I’m focusing on scene work. Read More…
If there’s a moment when the realization that everything one has been writing sounds hollow, forced, and insipid, this is it. This is optimal burn-the-paper-and-run time. The Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, that’s what this is for many people. But as I carefully considered my story line before November began, thinking about what would be a familiar yet novel idea, generating likable characters and figuring out transitions and the mechanics of the arcs, I shouldn’t back away now. No, it’s not because I’m more than 50 pages into the thing. It’s because when I had my wits about me on October 17, I knew there was a good book here, and I just need to trust myself. Read More…
Today I’m focusing on character. I mean, I’m writing writing writing and trying to bang through as many words as I can, especially as my productivity was down a bit yesterday. I’m still ahead for the 4-day mark of NaNoWriMo, so all is well. Day 5 reminds me that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and if I’m a little above average one day, then I shouldn’t sweat it when I make less than stellar progress on another day. It will all even out by the end of the month. Read More…
Three days of writing accomplished and I’m at 6,500 words. In a typical writing project I wouldn’t be concerned about the number, but at three days in, I would start examining what I’d written for pacing. On the 25th page, is it still interesting? Here’s the text just before I left off last night: Read More…
I know, I said yesterday that reviewing one’s previous day’s progress was a good thing. And I stand by that. But that was in the context of getting back in the writing groove, hanging on to the tone and set up so that transitions will come easier when November is over and the work of rewriting begins.
Other than the urge to start rewriting, there is one other clump of weeds that threatens to ensnare the intrepid writer when looking at past sections of text: the realization of plot creep. For example, there are two entire paragraphs that I didn’t intend sitting in the middle of yesterday’s words, smug and defiant, knowing they have at least another 28 days to zombify—I mean, to remain in the text. And perhaps by then I’ll have bolstered them with other related sections and then they’re as good as carved in marble. They are a crafty couple of paragraphs, and maybe they’ve started plotting my demise. Anything is possible. Read More…
Whether I feel like I’m cruising through a bit of writing or struggling against it, I’m always more soaked into the story at the end of one working block than when I sit down the next time. This is mostly okay, in that each new stint at the keyboard brings in some freshness and more opportunity for the ideas and characters in my head to steep in my subconscious a little more. And yet, though there are those positives, I still feel a pull to go back to what I wrote the day before to steep myself in the tale all over again. It’s difficult to do this without rewriting things at least a little bit. Read More…
Trans/plant/portation 