The Confabulator Cafe

Category: NaNoWriMo

  • The Final Push

    Four thousand two hundred fifty nine words to go [0]. In three evenings. And I am tired. So, so tired.

    This happens every year. I’m going steady all month long, but end up with almost no pad before the final push. I usually end up with my 50,000th word written at the final write-in, at which point I close my notebook, wave goodbye to my fellow-travelers, and stick the whole project in a drawer for a couple of weeks.

    You know how the last twenty miles of a long road trip take the longest? It’s like that. The last 5000 words of each Nanowrimo project are like pushing peanut butter uphill with a bendy straw. I may love the story. I may hate the story. But by gum, there will be a purple bar next to my name. Only the heat death of the universe will stop me.

    I will cook a nice meal— after Friday.
    I will spend time with my family— after Friday.
    I will resurrect my neglected Netflix account— after Friday.
    I will read my library books— after Friday.
    I will take a nice long walk and get some exercise— after Friday.
    Until Saturday, I am still writing.

    [0] As of this writing. As of posting, there will be fewer.

  • Dispatches from the Trenches – Week 4

    NaNoWriMo 2012This is it. The end of the war. And while many of our brave writers have already passed that imaginary line marking the end of their involvement in NaNoWriMo, I am looking at a word count that is just over halfway there.

    I will not finish my 50,000 word count by tomorrow.

    I’m not happy about this. But neither am I depressed. I finished NaNoWriMo last year, but failed to finish my novel. I was determined this year to spend the month editing and finishing last year’s manuscript. But, as you may know, I realized early on that the novel could not be salvaged. I needed to start over.

    So I decided to join in on NaNoWriMo this year. Again. One more time.

    (more…)

  • Downtime

    Image from http://www.caughtatwork.net

    So, obviously, I’m not doing a double NaNo. Or even the NaNo and a half, which was my revised plan.

    The logic behind the plan seemed pretty solid. My day job is to write this book. I should be writing 2k a day already. Everyone else works a day job, then does NaNo, so I should be able to do the same.

    Bzzzzt. Incorrect.

    There was a hole in my logic. The rest of my writer buds went to work or school and did their work there, then switched gears to do NaNo afterwards. I’m not saying it’s been easy for them. I’ve watched everyone sweat through this. The day only has so many hours, and several Lawrence writers pushed themselves so hard they finished before Thanksgiving. (Way to go, guys! I am so proud of  you all!)

    I did pretty well for the first two weeks. I might have finished the first 50k by Thanksgiving too if I hadn’t bitten off so damn much all at once. But I had no downtime. I worked on it all day, then I worked on it again at night. Every waking hour was either writing this book or thinking about the next scene. There was no switching gears for me. No refresh button.

    I lost my freaking mind. I shut off completely and barely wrote a word for nearly a week. So much for being way ahead of the NaNo word-count goals. It took a lot of days of not writing to get behind.

    Had I walked into this with a cool head and said “Hey, I have a book due soon. How convenient that NaNo is here and my writer buddies can help me finish it,” everything would have been fine. I’d have breezed right through the damn thing without breaking a sweat. But I had to go all manic and think I could conquer the world.

    So. Lesson learned. I’m fine now. I’ve got less than 8k words left, and three days to do it in. That’s only a little bit more than what I need to do on a regular work day. I’ll finish on time and walk away knowing my limits and how to organize a proper work day for myself so I can keep those habits forever.

    It’s almost over. Everyone else will go back to their regular lives, and I’ll still be doing NaNo. Every day. Every week. Every month.

    Because first NaNoWriMo taught me how to follow through, and now it’s taught me to stick within my limitations.

    I got this, now. I got this.

  • Looking for a Nap

    So, for the past few posts, I’ve been all over the place. I’ve been happy, I’ve been sad. Mostly this week I’ve just been exhausted.

    Last Tuesday I had my last day of filming for the Doctor Who spinoff I’ve been acting in all summer. It was bittersweet, because while the film shoot was a blast, I’m going to miss seeing those kids. Shameless self-promotion time here. The first episode has aired on youtube, Doctor Who: The Purging of Earth, go check it out. I’ll still be here in half an hour when you come back. I promise. (more…)

  • Escape from Hell is Nigh

    It’s been a weird month. Although I suppose writing a novel that takes place entirely in Hell could have something to do with that.

    It’s also been a stressful month, so at times it’s been figuratively Hell, as well as literally (literature-ally??)

    I knew going into November that it was going to be a tough one. December seemed very far away, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sit back and relax again until then.

    I wasn’t too far wrong, although there’s been more relaxing than I originally thought. It’s just guilt-filled relaxation. The kind of relaxation plagued by panic – I have an eight page final exam due in a week and I haven’t started, I’m almost six thousand words behind on my novel, this house is a filthy mess and I’m losing my shit – so even as I’m relaxing, I’m freaking out.

    I’m almost there, though. Only a few more days of NaNo, and right now I’m back on track word count wise. I could write what I have left in one day if I had to.

    Then I can focus solely on my final for a few days before I spend all of December sleeping.

    Although I still have plenty of other responsibilities in December. My duties here at the Cafe, holidays, family, and I may have some responsibility to my novel to actually see it through to the end.

    It’s been a wild ride that has been loads of fun, but many times I was bucked off. In the spirit of NaNo, I kept getting back on the horse, writing more words, and I think somewhere in there might be an entertaining novel with an almost-plot when I’m done on Friday. I might have to cast it loose to my beta readers to see if it’s worth my time, and I will have to be prepared if they tell me it’s not.

    I’d like to keep writing to at least see poor Kit out of Hell, either way. The poor girl has been working awfully hard for the last 45,000 words. I’d hate to leave her on the brink of escape and never find out if she actually makes it or not.

    We’ll both enjoy the TGIO party once it’s done.

  • Pencils Down: You’re Living a Lie

    Stop.

    No matter where you are in your novel right now, just walk away. There’s no point in finishing. We were sold a bill of goods.

    Now you might be saying to yourself, “No, Larry. I’m almost there. 50K is within striking distance.”

    Well, I’m with you fellow sufferers. I’ve got the end goal in my sight, and I was all hyped for that final push until reality hit me in the face this morning. For those of you who haven’t ventured out into the world today (and I’m sure there are many of you, and can I just say you might want to mix in a shower every now and then) here’s how it went down.

    When I was first encouraged to go on this grand hateful adventure, it was my understanding that the final week would be magical. Scantily clad groupies would line the streets and cheer us on with words of encouragement and promises of . . . affection. It is a well-known fact that the opposite sex finds the supple, sloth-like physique of us writer folk irresistible, and I was ready to claim my just rewards. I had, after all, spent countless hours not at the gym, so I was due.

    Having just returned home from walking my children to school, I am sad to report the streets of my neighborhood were largely devoid of anything overtly sexy. (I exclude myself from this sample group, of course.) It is my concern that this may not be a localized phenomenon, and if that is the case, why are any of us killing ourselves over this?

    If we are not writing for glory, sex, and the vanquishing of our enemies, then what is wrong with us? Is it possible we need to recalibrate our goals?

    I say we put a pin in that for now. No need to do anything drastic.

    On the off chance that this morning was just a fluke, I’m going to cobble a few words together and see if the afternoon provides better results.

    You, though. You should just quit. Groupies love a quitter.

  • Moral Victories

    We approach the end of November and my colleagues are hitting their goals. Every day, it seems a new person in our region wins Nanowrimo. I am very proud of them, but also sad for myself.

    It isn’t that I am doing terribly. When I set out on my Nanowrimo tour of duty, this year, I told myself I wanted to write at least 25,000 words. I hit that goal today. However, it will make me a little sad if I am unable to hit 50,000 and get that winner’s bar.

    Writing, and life, are about little goals, and little accomplishments. While most of us aren’t getting any immediate financial gain out of Nanowrimo, although some write with their sights set on publication, there is a lot of satisfaction in saying that you did it. You prevailed against all the other distractions and managed to meet a goal.

    It’s not just any goal. You can’t write 50,000 words in one day, or even one week. It requires a constant commitment sustained over a period of time. That is what life is really about.

    This year, and maybe the next, as well, I know it will be hard to make 50,000 words. There are too many books to read and too many academic papers to write. If I counted all of the academic writing I have done this month, I would easily be beyond 50,000.

    That is part of the price of my master’s degree, to delay my writing career in some way in hopes that the next couple of years will take my writing to an entirely new level. The Nanowrimo after-party will be bittersweet this year. All of the winners will be proud, and I will be proud of them. I will think to the future, to next month and the finishing of my novel, and to all the subsequent Novembers that are bound to be more fruitful.

    Sluggish from leftover turkey, and eyes red from staring at a computer monitor too long, I will be thankful for the experience of Nanowrimo, and all that writing has given me.

    On top of that, I think the novel is going well. My character has had some setbacks, and he has come back more pissed and sarcastic than ever, working around a corrupt system in order to find justice. I am interested to see how it goes for him, and if he gets the girl, who happens to be a nun.

  • Prepare for Your Weaknesses

    I’m sorry this is running a bit late in the day; my family just took off, and I’m only just now remembering that I have things to do on the computer. My bad, y’all.

    Thing is, I knew that the second my family hit town, I would forget to do anything online. My family doesn’t live too far — only about three or four hours away, depending on much of a lead foot you have — but I miss them dearly. They usually only come for a day or two, so I pretty much focus on doing things with them.

    Knowing this, I decided that I would hit 50K by Wednesday. It was sort of rough there for a while. I got tired. I got frustrated. But Christie and Jason were going along with it too, and all three of us hit 50K. (I got it done at 11PM on Wednesday, but damn it, it got done.)

    Of course, the novel isn’t done. I pretty much decided to validate and jump right back in to dinner prep. Which was worth it, as dinner was well-received, well-loved, and sent our family right into the throes of a food coma so intense, that I was nodding off at 10PM. It was a great night of delicious drinks and pleasant company. We played Cards Against Humanity, wherein we learned that while my mother might be too nice for it, she would occasionally just drop a vulgar card right when you weren’t expecting.

    Frankly, I would delete my whole novel for more nights just so good. Thankfully, no one expects that.

    That said, NaNoWriMo doesn’t end just because you hit 50K; it’d be against the spirit of it. There are still write-ins to attend, friends to cheer on. I still intend to make every effort to finish this novel before NaNoWriMo ends.

    There’s probably more real life to deal with now than there was pre-Thanksgiving. The mountain of dishes alone is staggering. But Week Four is worth the effort.

  • Pantsing Rules!

    Pantsing. Outside of NaNo, it’s not a word you hear in the common vernacular. I looked it up on Urban Dictionary while writing this post, and the definitions you find there are not what I mean. At all.

    During November, Pantsing is short for, “By the seat of my pants,” which means you’re writing your story with little to no plan, allowing your characters and plot to evolve minute by minute, word by word. (an aside: the phrase is apparently rooted in aviation history. Huh! The more you know!)

    I am not a planner. I am also not a pantser. I’m a middle-of-the-road kinda guy, as previously discussed here on Confabulator. If I plan too much, I lose momentum. But if I don’t plan enough, I lose direction. So I dance down the razor’s edge between the two, and see how things turn out.

    My point for this week is that when pantsing works? It’s fucking awesome. Head-exploding, Bill-and-Ted/Jeff Spicoli kind of awesome.Here’s my example from this year’s story:

    Early, I wanted to describe digging through data in an interesting, visual way. Writing SQL queries does not exactly make for interesting fiction. The first idea that struck me was to describe things as a caver, or spelunker. So, I did. My data miners dive into caves of data, and use their spelunking tools to find interesting tidbits of information amongst the various dross of data.

    Not bad.

    Then I thought, how else can I visualize data? Specifically taking encrypted data and decrypting it?

    Weavers.

    The word hit me, and I typed it. Who are the Weavers? How do they work? I had no idea. Not when I typed it.

    Later, it turned out the Weavers are humans that have gene-modded themselves for low-gravity environments: long, thin limbs, big eyes, thumbs-on-feet kinda thing. And their computers use fiber optic cables stretched across vast chambers. The Weavers, floating in zero-gee, constantly rearrange the fiber optic strands to produce different programs in the computer, much like the original computers. They “weave” their programs.

    It’s totally ridiculous and inefficient, but who cares? The imagery is pretty cool.

    With me so far?

    Okay, so an overarching idea in this year’s story is that one of my original Martian settlers takes it upon himself to create huge, incredibly elaborate alien artifacts. The first is so convincingly crafted, scientists and experts completely fall for it. More artifacts are discovered, and humanity’s all: “Awesome! Totally awesome!” Some humans are so excited about the findings, they…genetically engineer themselves to look like the aliens that must’ve created the artifacts in the first place. Weavers.

    Bing! Headsplosion!

    Eventually, the hoax is revealed. Most people are rightfully pissed off. The Weavers, however, embrace their new forms. They even retrofit one of the fake artifacts and create a working Weaver computer.

    One used by my main character to decrypt a super-secret message.

    A message that might prove that her father, the hoaxer that created the fake artifacts, wasn’t responsible for all the artifacts after all.

    That one artifact, in particular, might be real.

    WHOA.

    That, my friends, is the magic of pantsing.

  • The First Finish Line

    What’s the most wonderful time of the year? During NaNoWriMo when I cross that first finish line.

    It’s the end of week 3 of NaNoWriMo and hey – look! I broke 50,000 words on Wednesday.

    While I’m VERY proud of having done this for the second year in a row, I’m not done writing. My plan for this book was to get a good novel-length story told as quickly as possible in order to go back and edit it into something I could be even more proud of.

    So I’m not done writing.

    But because I finished early and there’s no one clamoring for this book (it’s a sequel to last year’s) I can slow down into a nice rhythm of writing about 2K per day. If I do that I will have written about 66,000 words for the month. And that would make me very, very proud indeed.

    See, NaNo teaches you the mechanics of how to be a writer:

    1. Sit down. (Or stand up if you’re Ernest Hemingway.)
    2. Put your fingers on the keys.
    3. WRITE. Make your daily word count and don’t whine about it.

    Everything else, EVERYthing else, is secondary. Just get in the habit of writing, of putting one word after another into a line while making some sort of sense.

    I’ll get more into this in the post-game when that comes up, but my biggest headaches so far this month have been making sure I don’t head-hop and trying to put some variety in my sentences, structure-wise.

    But see, that’s just whining.

    I’m enjoying the fact that I wrote 50,000 words so quickly, just as quickly as last year. I’m very happy with my story and how it’s coming along. I like it and it’s getting exciting. Stuff is happening. My goal this year was to write more in the month than I did last year. At one point I was on track to write nearly 75,000 words. I don’t thing I’ll make that but I could conceivably hit 70K+.

    So I want to reward myself. I’m allowing that I have some other work that needs to be done now that this major milestone has been reached:

    1. I have to revise last year’s novel for passivity and resubmit it.
    2. There are plans to be made for the coming calendar year in regards to writing.
    3. And yeah, some downtime.

    It’s been a great NaNoWriMo so far, but it’s not over. I’ve got seven days left. A week is a long time. That’s at least 14,000 words.

    Pretty sure I’m gonna make the goal I set for myself.