The Confabulator Cafe

Category: NaNoWriMo

  • Life Is Laughing at My Intentions

    I love monsters. I love pancakes. I see no reason why we can't move forward with this combination.
    I love monsters. I love pancakes. I see no reason why we can’t move forward with this combination.

    I don’t even know where to start.

    Okay, let’s start with last Friday. I took the day off from NaNo. Ran some errands. Did the laundry. I know. Crazy.

    Saturday, my husband and I went out into the world, claimed a spot at a coffee shop and wrote our fingers to the bone. Go us!

    Sunday, not as much. I wrote some.

    Monday, full of good intentions, I met a few Confabulators for breakfast and then writing. I was about 2300 words behind. Not bad, actually. I could make that up in no time at all.

    We talked a lot, which I needed. I ate pancakes, which I also needed. We wrote some. We talked. And then it happened.

    BOOM!

    Line edits for book four landed in my inbox. I think Sara and Jack probably thought a friend had died or something the way I sat wailing and holding my head in the restaurant. Line edits. And I have a week in which to get them done and sent back to my editor.

    Seriously.

    Originally, I thought I could do both. I should learn to multitask. I really should. And maybe I could multitask–write one book for part of the day, then edit another the rest of the day–if the two books weren’t chronological pieces of the same story. Writing book five while editing book four is too hard for me. I get confused about which events go into which book.

    Last night, depressed over my stagnant word count (I’m now about 8k words behind and the gap is growing), I considered going back to another story I’ve been working on. I had to set it aside for this one. Maybe I could switch over? My brain might multitask better if the stories were completely different.

    I sat and edited for nearly eight hours straight yesterday, and I’m only a third of the way through. The thought of writing more words in the evenings after that makes me want to cry. Also, I think my eyes are bleeding.

    So, no. I’m not writing right now. It’s not likely I’ll win this NaNo. We’ll see what happens. Maybe I’ll do a half NaNo or 40k. That’s still halfway to the end of the book.

    On the bright side, I’ve figured out how to avoid the dreaded NaNo Week Two–ignore it.

    So. Next week. Will I be desperately behind on word count or exhausted from a stubborn need to catch up?

    Who knows?

    Every NaNo is a new adventure.

  • NaNoWriMo 2013: Day 13

    My outlook on NaNoWriMo hasn’t really improved in week two — which doesn’t surprise me, really. I finally had a bit of an aha! moment in the chatroom the other night, which gives the story some direction. I can see it hitting 50K, maybe even my lofty (impossible) goal of 70K overall.

    That said, my stats look like this:

    Ashley Word Count - Day 13
    Par? What’s par?

     

    This is pretty atypical for me. On an average year I tend to hit par within a couple of days and then stay on top of it. My writing tends toward large bursts, so I keep up alright, and usually give myself a safe buffer to work with. In years past, I’ve been done before Thanksgiving so that I could focus on creating awesome food — which I do much better than writing, apparently.

    Some of my reticence with the writing is still feels and bullshit, which I’ve already mentioned. I even had a friend give me permission to stop writing for a while longer if I wasn’t ready. I wanted to yell, “But I haven’t in months! How much longer is that supposed to take‽” I’m really rather tired of myself at this point, but I still feel small and angry in the time between when I start to type and when I finally get involved in the writing.

    I’ve also developed this nagging fear that I’m rewriting the same story over and over and over again with tweaks to the setting.

    • There’s always a character at the cusp of making a large decision that affects other people more than it does them.
    • There’s always a character who has dual identities that are sometimes at odds.
    • There’s always some sort of social class dichotomy in the setting that keeps characters at odds.
    • There’s always some sort of dystopian/social unrest element that moves the story.

    It seems like no matter how many changes I make, I keep coming back to these things. I like writing them, but if I’m just rehashing the same shit over and over again — is there a point to pursuing this? I generally believe that there’s nothing truly unique to be told — we’re all writing Star Wars, guys — but I could at least tell slightly different stories from the ones I’ve already told.

    I’m not engaged in my main character. I’m literally plotting a climax that kills every single main character.

    I recognize that the purpose of NaNo is do something rather than to complete something, which is 10% of why I opted to do it this year. But it’s hard to write this while thinking, There’s nothing of value in this narrative. I don’t know when I got like that.

    That said, I’ll keep plugging at it because I really can’t fail at this too. I also want to beat my nemesis. He hates his story too and is slightly more prone to apathy than I am, so I think I can pull ahead of him soon. The stats have my back; he had a 3K lead at one point, but as of this writing he’s only about 1200 ahead of me:

  • Tuesday Blues

    I don’t know what it is, but there is something about Tuesdays that are hell on my wordcount. Last week, if you recall, I only managed to write 139 words. This week I pulled in a much more respectable 439. So by this logic next Tuesday I’ll write 739 words.

    I’m still ahead on my word count, but only by a day and a half. That’s a bit scary.

    It’s also pretty impressive because in the past week I had two days where I did not write a single word on my novel and another two days where I was behind on my word count.

    It wasn’t week two blues if you were wondering. Nope, I planned to be ahead so I could take off time to celebrate my birthday. (In case you were wondering, my loving family purchased me amazing blankets and sheets… in addition to books). Now that my birthday high has settled down, it’s time to get back to writing. And I did. I pulled two three thousand word days in a row.

    But yesterday I just wasn’t feeling it.

    Hopefully today I will write more. I need to remember to take my computer with me to work. If nothing else, I need to develop an outline for where I’m going with this novel from here on out. Maybe start thinking about an ending.

    I’m over halfway done guys. And that’s both amazing and terrifying.

  • This Year vs. Last

    I can’t help but compare this years Nano to last years.  If I was less lazy, I would go to the Nano website, look at the chart for last year, and compare it to this year.  But I already know what it will show.  Last year I was either ahead or close to on pace to finish my novel on time.  This year, I am not.

    Last year, I wrote with a purpose.  I had a specific goal in mind.  Maybe some day I’ll even share that goal.  This year, my story doesn’t really have a purpose.  Or rather, it does, but it’s vague and hard to grab onto and more general then specific.  I’m finding this to be a much harder way to write a story.

    Actually, the writing is fine.  It’s the giving a crap about the story that’s the problem.  Without a specific focus to achieve, it’s hard for me to write, even when, like now, I’m sitting at my computer with nothing better to do.

  • NaNoWriMo Week 2: Keep it Rolling

    I am a panster. I say that often, and I say it with pride. Most of my literary heroes, such as Bradbury and King, are pantsers. I write from the seat of my pants, and often I have no idea where it will take me. This year breaks with my past process because my NaNoWriMo novella is inspired by a short story that I had already written. I withdrew it from an anthology short-list in order to take a chance expanding the narrative into a longer work.

    I have a short outline, created from the sequence of the story, with a few bullet points added in for scenes I felt I would need to write in. In reality, I have yet to use it. I’ve discovered new things about my character and the things that happened to them. I have yet to feel lost or confused or frustrated. The writing is going well, yet in large bursting chunks. I don’t think I have written a word outside of the sanctioned write-ins.

    There are just too many things to do. Last week I read The Turn of the Screw, analyzed Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, read the 1818 text of Frankenstein, and began a unit on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This week will involve an essay on ambiguity in The Turn of the Screw, reading Dracula, and various discussions involving both. If your eyes have glazed over, trust me, I am with you. I also worked three evenings this week, in addition to my normal day-job schedule, and submitted a third-person bio for a short story titled “Flute of the Dead,” which will be appearing in Bete Noire Magazine very soon. Yet, the hardest part has been shutting off my narrative for Mama’s Little Boy while working on my literary criticism. When I am working on a piece, it sneaks into my head at weird, random times, which can be distracting when trying to closely read other works of Gothic fiction.

    That being said, I’m not too far behind the 50,000 pace, and am in good shape for my targeted 25,000. Most importantly, I am enjoying the writing, and have never gone to the keyboard with any sense of dread, outside of the normal dread that comes with being a working horror writer, anyway. I’ve been having a lot of fun. It’s been good to see so many friends and so much interest from the Lawrence community. A special thanks should be made to the Lawrence Public Library and the Lawrence Journal World, both of which have brought us a lot of good exposure this year.

    It’s been a good month so far. I can’t want to see what the next week brings.

    NaNoWriMo Progress: 12,608 words.

  • NaNoWriMo #6 part two

    2013-Participant-Square-ButtonI was supposed to post this yesterday but things conspired to help me forget. Nothing bad, though, just life which gets in the way of everything that needs to be done, right?

    At the beginning of this I set a daily word count goal of 2000 per day and as an average I’ve hit that. However there’ve been a couple of days when I didn’t make that mark. Luckily there’ve been several days when I far exceeded that mark and thus I’m at 21,767 words in nine days. Not too shabby, eh?

    Yesterday, instead of posting here as I was supposed to, I wrote over 3100 words which made up for one day where I only wrote 1300 and one day I wrote 1700 plus a little extra. At the end of the day I checked my progress this year versus the last couple of years and I’m on pace, or just a little behind, where I’ve been. The conclusion I came to is that when I’m in NaNoWriMo, blasting away at the story that will eventually be shaped by revision, rewrite and rethinking into a novel, I’m pretty consistent.

    So that’s the process part of where I’m at this year. How about the story? I can hear one of you ask. (more…)

  • Slogfest

    Slogfest (or: 13,470 Words Written, Each One a Challenge)

    Sometimes inspiration just isn’t there. Anyone who pursues a creative project knows that some days (heck, MOST days) the inspiration to create is completely missing from the equation. And even when we’re inspired, we’re not necessarily motivated. That’s where I am so far this year.

    I have an interesting idea for my story this year. Good, overarching concepts, interesting twists and turns for my characters, some fantastic new settings, some “big idea” high-falutin’ philosophical themes to tackle, and more. But forcing myself to write every day is just that: forcing myself to write my required daily words.

    I have some valid excuses, perhaps more than any other NaNoWriMo in the past. For those that don’t know, this year I am:

    • getting divorced
    • still cohabitating (peacefully, but still) with my soon-to-be-ex.
    • trying to sell our house
    • prepping a brand new course for spring
    • writing a sequel to my favorite, most marketable manuscript

    So, no pressure. No stress. Right?

    😉

    Look, I’m not complaining. Really, I’m not. The words are coming. Often at 11:30pm each night, just under the wire. But they are coming. And they’re not bad. They’re not brilliant, but the bones of the story are forming up nicely. I’ve made some interesting discoveries, introduced some twists even I didn’t see coming. I’m having fun.

    But it’s a forced fun. Which is…odd. Like having ice cream shoved into your mouth: you like it, even though you didn’t put it there.

    Okay, that wasn’t a good analogy. You see what I mean by not being inspired/motivated? Yeah, there we go.

    I’m hoping for a better post for next week. Maybe the light bulb will go off! Maybe the rocket will be lit, and off I’ll go! But even if not, I promise I’ll have between 37,000 words written when next I post.

    That’s NaNoWriMo. Good, bad…whatever.

  • I Survived Week One of Nanowrimo

    Nanowrimo Day 8

    Current word count: 12,180

    The first week of National Novel Writing Month is in the bag, and somehow I am still alive and still writing.

    I knew it would be a challenge, making time for everything I have committed to this month. So I’m not surprised I’m already showing some frays at the edges. I will probably have to hold it together by shear force of will by the end. I feel as thought I should apologize to my friends and family while I still have the mental awareness.

    Sorry in advance if I neglect, avoid, and/or yell at you over the next three weeks. Please forgive me when I morph into a sobbing pile of hormones and emotion. Over and over again.

    (more…)

  • Something NaNo This Way Comes

    Whelp.  It’s already November 7th.  We are one-fifth of the way through the month.  If you’re as obsessive-compulsive about keeping up with par as I am, you’re one-fifth of the way through your word count goals.  It’s pretty beautiful.  Last year, I had a lot more buffer by this point in the season… but then again, my first year I was pretty consistently lined up with par the whole time.  So, no cause for alarm yet, I suppose.

    I’m even happy with my idea this time around.  Hopefully the third time is the charm, and this will be the novel which I actually finish writing once November ends.  My first NaNovel quickly fell apart, what with all of the ridiculous plot holes and glaring inconsistencies.  My second NaNovel is a lot more solid, but the climax of the novel calls for a lot of action and violence- something which I am utterly horrible at writing.  This time around, my NaNovel is soft SciFi, and the villains are working through subtle manipulation instead of brute force terrorism.  So, hopefully, this type of conflict will be far enough in my comfort zone to be able to finish it.

    Okay, yes, there is something to be said for using NaNoWriMo to reach outside of your comfort zone, and write something you’re not familiar with.  But that’s for people who have finished works under their belt.  Let’s get the cart connected to the horse before we try and pop wheelies and do horse stunts, hey?  And anyway, this is only my third NaNo.  Check back in a few years, and we’ll see how things are going. (more…)

  • Who’s That Girl?

    MrsKravitzOh, look, Abner! It’s that weird girl who used to be at the Cafe all the time. Do you think she’s back for good?

    No, Mrs. Kravitz. I’m not back for good, yet. I’m back for NaNo. Now close the curtains before you see something really upsetting.

    I know. I said I would be gone for a month or so. That was–what?–eight months ago? Nine? I don’t know. It’s all a blur. I’ve published  two more books  since then. Seriously. And I wrote a book without it being NaNo, for the first time ever. And I went to Disney World. And I showered.

    I haven’t forgotten you, though. I promise.

    And here we are for NaNoWriMo once more. This is my fourth time around. I sold all three of my previous NaNo books, and they’re out in the world. This one is already contracted and due to my publisher February 1st. So, you know, no pressure. (more…)