Trans/plant/portation

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…

I’ll just put it right out there: this could be one of the toughest days of NaNoWriMo. For the whole month. I’ve been squeezing in my writing time, getting attached to my story and characters, and I’m just about to hit 10,000 words and now, what? Now I have a weekend day. A Saturday of amazing proportions and I could do all kinds of things like go to the market, visit with friends, anything and everything and yet, it’s still NaNoWriMo. This is the day that I could pat myself on the back for making excellent progress, and break all of my good habits. And I shouldn’t let that happen. 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…

Here I am, pushing my way into a new novel, and like all project beginnings it takes quite a degree of commitment to stay focused, when there is a lot of white space on the screen and not nearly enough little black letters. In my writing, there is strength in numbers, as I tend to write more than I need and then winnow it down in the rewriting process. I also didn’t like being at school when there weren’t enough people around, like in the afternoon when most folks had left, so maybe I just feel more comfortable in crowds than the average person.

And even so, I have my limits. Some things, like the persistent plucking of an errant guitar string, will get on my nerves after not too long a time. Too bad the inept musician lives right upstairs. 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…

It’s All Saints Day and this was the best day to be a Catholic school kid, because it’s a holy day of obligation, so I for one enjoyed the day off from classes, especially as it meant some quality time with my candy bowl. It seems fitting, then, that I began my month-long quest with a snack-sized Almond Joy and Nestle Crunch bar. Instead of going for the standard 50,000-word mark this year, I’m shooting for 60,000 words. Fingers crossed! Read More…

I’m gearing up to write a novel for National Novel Writing Month this year—for 2010 I plan to write a young adult speculative fiction story that will have LGBT themes and some homages to the 1970s, adventure tales, and classic time travel sci fi—so I had to put together my “to do” list before All Saints Day rolled around. For this novel, named PARALLAX, my list looks like this, in no particular order: Read More…

There are some basic rules new writers hear again and again—skip the passive voice, show, don’t tell, and never start a story in a dream or morning routine. Then there’s the never start a story with a piece of dialogue, and the cast out ye adverbs admonition. If these no-nos are the signifiers of poor writing, then surely agents and editors are on the lookout for them and once spotted, our work is targeted to the real or virtual trash bin. And Microsoft can call its icon a “recycling bin” all it wants, but nothing ecologically positive happens with it, so they should stop confusing the next generations about what recycling means. Read More…