NaNoWriMo Halftime Report

On Saturday night, Day 20 of NaNoWriMo 2010, I hit 40,000 words, and have now passed the halfway point. Yeah, I know that doesn’t exactly compute. The official NaNo goal is 50,000 words in 30 days. But I figure a mystery novel should be at least 80,000, so I plan to finish the whole first draft in 40.

This is my second time playing the game, and its been a different experience. Last year, averaging 1700 words a day, my eyeballs were burning after a week. I felt stressed. My back hurt and my shoulders bunched up. I had to force myself to write at strange times, like during the commercials of a TV show. When I reached the end, somewhere around 51,000 words, I was exhausted and didn’t write for a week.

This year is much more relaxed. I’m doing 2000 words a day, usually in two or three sittings. Sometimes I'd rather be grabbing a book or a remote, but the stress is gone. What’s changed? Mostly me, I guess. Last year I learned I could do it, and this year I’m just doing it.

Last year I spent only two days coming up with a story and a four-act outline. This time I devoted two weeks to that task, which helped. But the plotting is still a work in progress. I’ve changed a couple of milestone scenes and added a lot of new wrinkles. After finishing each scene I still have to stop and plan how the next one will play out. 

Anyway, I'm having a great time. Don’t have a title yet, but the basic idea is that Skyler Hobbs and Doctor Wilder square off against a serial killer right here in Portland. What will happen? I’ll find out, along with Hobbs and Wilder, in another twenty days.

Let the NaNoWriMoing Begin

Yep, today's the day. I've spent the past two weeks plotting a Skyler Hobbs novel, and - ready or not - today I'll start drafting.

To get psyched up, I've been re-reading some of my favorite books on writing. These include Carolyn Wheat's How to Write Killer Fiction, James N. Frey's How to Write a Damn Good series (Novel, Novel II and Mystery), Larry Brooks' Story Structure - Demystified and Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. I've also been reading, for the first time, Write with Fire by Charles Allen Gramlich (more on that later).

My goal is to average 2000 words a day, churning out 60,000 of the 80,000 words I expect to need. I'll be tracking my progress daily over on the left.

Like last year, this means you'll be seeing more art and fewer words here on the Almanack (which is probably a good thing), and hey - I'm hoping it will be some pretty dang good art.

Skyler Hobbs and the NaNoWriMo Monster

That's right gang, it's dang near NaNoWriMo time again, and I'm joining in. This time I'm going to do what I should have done last year - write a Skyler Hobbs novel. I spent last week hatching a plot, and this week I'll be hammering it into a 4-act outline. On November 1 I start pounding the keys.

Questions about National Novel Writing Month? Visit the official NaNoWriMo website HERE. The official goal, you may recall, is to turn out a 50,000 word manuscript at the end of the month. I'm doing it a little different this year. I figure the Skyler Hobbs saga should run about 80,0000 words, so I'll be shooting to bang out 60,000 during November, then spend another week or two pushing through to the end.

Anyone else planning to play?

Spawn of NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is over, but . . . it's spawned more imitators than American Idol.

You may have heard of GePoWriMo (Gerald So's Poetry Writing Month), but hold onto your hats, wordslingers, that's only the beginning. Check out this list of links from the NaNoWriMo web site. Descriptions and comments are those of the NaNo staff:

NaNoFiMo.org - National Novel Finishing Month (December). Goal: 30,000 words.

FAWM - February Album Writing Month (February). Goal: Write 14 original songs in a month.

NaNoEdMo - National Novel Editing Month (March). Goal: Commit to 50 hours of novel editing.

Script Frenzy - NaNoWriMo's sister challenge (April). Goal: Write a 100-page screenplay or stage play in April.

RePoWriMo - Refrigerator Poetry Writing Month (April). Goal: Write poetry using only refrigerator poetry magnets.

NEPMo - National Epic Poetry Month (May). Goal: Write 5,000 lines epic poem in May.

SoCNoC - Southern Cross Novel Challenge (June). Goal: Write 50,000 words of fiction.

WriDaNoJu - Write a Damn Novel in June (June). Goal: Write 50K in the 30 days of June. It's perfectly situated six months from November so you have optimum time to prepare for WriDaNoJu and NaNoWriMo.

SoFoBoMo - Solo Photo Book Month (Between May first and June 31). Goal: Create a solo photo book within 31 days.

JulNoWriMo - July Novel Writing Month (July). Goal: 50,000 words for a new or unfinished manuscript.

24 Hour Comics Day - (Changes annually, lasts 24 hours). Goal: Draw a 24-page comic in one 24-hour period.

48 Hour Film Project - (Varies; operates via tours around the USA, lasts 48 hours). Goal: Create a short film in 48 hours.

Book in a Week - (Begins on the Monday of the first full week of each month, lasts one week). Goal: Write a novel.

April Fool's - (April). Goal: Set a word-count goal for yourself and fulfill it by the end of the month.

AugNoWriMo - August Novel Writing Month (August). Goal: Write a novel in one month.

3-Day Novel Contest - (September). Goal: Write a novel in three days. They've been doing this since 1977. So cool!

SeptNoWriMo - September Novel Writing Month (September). Goal: Set a word-count goal and edit, write, or edit and write throughout the month of September!

NaPlWriMo - National Playwriting Month (November). Goal: Write a play in one month.

NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month (Year-Round). Goal: Post every day for a month.

WriYe - (Year-Round). Goal: Set a word-count goal for the year and work towards it between January 1 and December 31.

JanNoWriMo - Goal: Write either 50k or your own word-count goal in January.

NaNoWriMo Bites the Dust

Yeah, I whipped its butt, along with about 30,000 other maniacs.

I topped the 50,000 word mark yesterday afternoon, and it took me another 1,126 to reach a semi-satisfying conclusion.

What that really got me, other than exhaustion, a lot of eyestrain and a print-it-yourself winner's certificate, remains to be seen. Some of those 51,126 words are good, some are bad, some indifferent. They'll have to sit a while before I sort them out, but it feels good to have them in the can.

I definitely have a better feel for plot. No matter how many books I read on it, how many chronological charts I looked at, or how many outlines I made, plot structure was nothing more than an idea until I got my hands around its neck and mashed it into an actual manuscript. 

I became more focused. There wasn't time to wait for ideal writing conditions, so I made do with what I had. I already alluded to writing 700 words while cooking macoroni and cheese. Well, last week I popped out 500 during the commercials of Ugly Betty. If this thing had gone another week I'd probably be writing while cleaning the litter box.

I've done a lot of whining about eyestrain. It really was pretty bad, but I'm sure it didn't help that yesterday, the last day of NaNoWriMo, I also read all 30-odd stories in the Walmart Flash Fiction Challenge (I couldn't resist - and they were all good!). Staring at the computer monitor almost most makes me long for those olden days of typewriter and paper. Almost.

I feel I should be writing right now, and I'm probably right. But I ain't going to. I'm going to put the computer on hibernate and read a good old-fashioned book. But thanks to NaNoWriMo, I'll probably feel a little guilty about it. And that's probably good.

Take that, NaNoWriMo!

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Seven days to go.

As of this moment, I’m 200 words ahead of schedule and looking at a downhill dash to the finish.

Week 3 was way smoother than Week 2. Yeah, I had a couple of major plot questions to work out, but my wife and I went to dinner again (this time during happy hour) and by the time we finished I had the answers.

Still, I barely averted another crisis when my fingers were working faster than my brain. I’d planned a major twist for the middle of Act III, where a supporting character switches sides. Somehow I blew right through that scene, realizing only later that the wrong character had made the jump - and the rest of the plot now hinged on them both having new allegiances. This took some furious brainstorming, but it worked out, and the scene is now stronger.

And I’m finding it easier to get my rhythm. I normally have to chug out two or three hundred stodgy words to clean the pipes, but it now takes only a couple of sentences.

How all this will carry over to the rewrite stage, I don’t know, but I’m hopeful. Maybe I’ll set a 30-day limit on that too.

Before starting this project, I polled members of my critique groups to see if any cared to join me. Only one was tempted, but she had other commitments. Another, mystery writer Doug Levin (he of EQMM Jan 2008 and an issue TBA), suggested my time might be better spent writing a mess of short stories. The more I ponder that idea, the more I like it, so sometime soon I’m hoping to stage my own personal ShoStoWriMo, and commit to cranking out 10 or 15 stories, or maybe 30 flashes. Thanks, Doug!

NaNoWriMo Strikes Back!

Well, just when I thought I had this NaNoWriMo beast tamed, it snuck up and bit me in the butt. I’m behind again, though only by a day.

One problem is my eyeballs. They just don’t want to stay open and stare at a computer all day. Before I start drafting, I like to sit down and figure out what’s going to happen in each scene. This sort of brainstorming involves a lot of talking to myself via computer. And while it gets the job done, it means that by the time I actually start writing my eyes are already half fried. Blogging takes its toll too, of course, but there’s no help for that. I’m addicted.

The other hangup is the plotting. What's always mattered most to me as a reader are great characters and a strong, rhythmic narrative voice. My favorite series reflect this: Spenser, Rumpole, Breckenridge Elkins, Conan, Nero Wolfe. Plot has always been a mysterious thing.

A 50,000 word novel seemed like a great place to get a handle on plot, so I’m struggling to confine myself to a strict four-act structure. I’m still convinced this is a good idea, but the sucker keeps wiggling around as I write, forcing adjustments as I go. At this point I know exactly what happens at the end of Act II (1700 words away), but Act III has only a beginning and an end.

On the plus side, I seem to be building some writing muscles. I’m forcing myself to work at times I otherwise wouldn’t. The other night I dashed off 700 words while running back and forth to the stove to brown hamburger and make a pot of macaroni and cheese to put it in. Both the 700 words and the vittles turned out pretty good, too. I’m hoping the subtitle of next week’s recap is The Writer Rides Again.

NaNoWriMo: Hell Week or Honeymoon?

Week One was a little of each. Not quite as bad as Hell Week at the old Kappa Sigma fraternity house - sleep-deprived, starved, dehydrated, hectored, harangued and thoroughly mindf***ed. Not as good as the week my wife and I honeymooned in Great Britain, bouncing like pinballs from Portsmouth to Gretna Green to Hay-on-Wye and getting our first gawks at London. But it had some of the highs an lows of each, and left me almost as exhausted.

The first two days were the honeymoon, with the words flowing free and clear and well over quota. Then on Day 3 my Left Brain kicked in, yelling "Whoa!", and I spent a couple days in Hell, tossing out my original plot, adding and subtracting characters and scrounging for ways to raise the stakes. Finally came out of it when my wife and I went to dinner and I laid out the problems I'd yet to solve. The talking helped a lot and she had some great ideas, and next day I was burning the keyboard again.

It's easy to write 1700 words a day. The trick is writing words that advance the plot and build character and foreshadow events and all that other stuff necessary to turn them into a story. For inspiration, I have a post-it on my monitor reading WWJRD? And everytime I get lazy or discouraged or bewildered or braindead I glance at that and think What Would James Reasoner Do? And the answer is always pretty much the same: He'd plant his Levi's in the chair and pound the keys until he'd kicked the problem in the butt. So that's what I've been doing.

Other than my wife and JR, my only companion on this journey has been Booksteve, he of the always entertaining blog Booksteve's Library. Thanks, Steve! I made the mistake of going to the NaNoWriMo site and allowing emails from other participants in my region. Portland, it seems, has 2,457 participants and a good percentage of them spend their time dashing out vapid emails and planning late night write-ins instead of actually writing. My box was so clogged I longed for the good old days, when all I got were offers for Viagra and congratulations on winning the lottery in Lower Slobbovia.

So now it's Week Two, and though I know what dramatic events will take place at the Mid-Point, I have very little idea what will happen in the 12,500 words I'll need to get there. Luckily, I have that WWJRD? note telling me what to do about it.

A Bump in the NaNoWriMo Road

After 4000 words in two days, I had to pause for plotting and didn't chalk up a single word that counts. The Story With No Name didn't help either, as it forced me to google up oodles of camel lore. But the road ahead looks clearer now, and I expect to get back on track tomorrow. I'm enjoying the pressure. If any of you others are NaNo-ing, give a shout.

Do You NaNoWriMo?

Is anyone else doing this?

I've heard rumors of National Novel Writing Month (and only in whispers) for the past couple of years, and paid little attention. I didn't even know it happens every November. Then last week Ed Ferguson made mention of it over at Lee Walker Westerns, and I finally took notice.

For a slow writer like me, the idea of turning out a novel in a month has seemed preposterous. But it actually sounds like a pretty cool thing. It will give me a much-needed kick in the butt to churn out a little prose every day, and at the end of the month I'll have 50,000 words of... well, a number of choice words come to mind. But if nothing else, it will be good exercise for the brain and fingers.

Last year (NaNoWriMo's 10th), I'm told 119,000 people signed up and over 21,000 finished. This year is expected to top that.

So I'm wondering... am I going to be pounding the keyboard with a hundred thousand strangers, or are any of you folks playing too?

All the official poop is here: NaNoWriMo.org