The Confabulator Cafe

Category: NaNoWriMo

  • NaNoWriMo 2013: Day 6

    Hello, sweethearts. We’re entering day six of NaNoWriMo. I haven’t done anything yet today, because I’ve had a slow morning. You see, yesterday I was too busy drinking to really focus on meeting word count goals.

    I’ve also been too busy working, cleaning things (sometimes), doing stuff with my kid, staring at my novel, having feels, running, et cetera. It’s so easy to find all sorts of things that have to get done in November!

    Everything was pretty much the worst in the first four days. I swear to god I used to be able to write, and now I don’t remember how the fuck a plot even works. What the hell are words? Why does anyone write for fun — it’s bullshit.

    By day five, writing stopped making me want to drink all the moonshine in my freezer. I even enjoyed it a little bit on day five. And I love the social spirit of NaNoWriMo, which is 90% of why I do this every year. I’m even sort of looking forward to the next couple of write-ins. And at least I’m kicking my nemesis straight in the ass.

    Knowing my luck, by the time anyone sees this post, he will have updated his word count and be ahead.

  • Yesterday’s NaNo Word Count Was What?

    I only wrote 139 words yesterday.

    We’re starting day six of NaNo, and contrary to what you believe, I’m not panicking. I’m actually doing really well. “But Amanda,” you might say, “you only wrote 139 words yesterday.” Don’t worry, I hear the confusion and the worry in your imagined voices… and I thank you for it. However, don’t worry about my word count.

    I’m doing just fine. This week is hectic for me. I have deadlines and karaoke and three days of nothing but my birthday. So I planned for it. I spent the whole weekend with my fingers flying across the keyboard. To stay on track, I don’t have to write another word on my novel until Sunday.

    That isn’t how you do NaNo though. (Well, everyone can do it differently, really). You do NaNo one day at a time. The point is to learn how to bang out some words every day of the week. So I’m going to. My word counts may just be a bit lackluster. (more…)

  • You’ve Lost That Nano Feeling

    Nano Battle Report, Day Five.  Behind on word count, though not insurmountably so.  Have only been caught up on one day so far.  Never fear though, I shall intrepidly plow my way through this.

    First, a reflection.  Last year, I planned a whole month before Nano.  I made an outline.  A good outline.  One that I was quite pleased with.  And when I started writing, I followed said outline.  It took me exactly where I needed to be: 30 days, a beginning, middle, and end, and 50,006 words.  The plan and outline strategy worked so well that I decided to do something completely different.

    Different is going through some growing pains.  My story this year isn’t as focused as last year.  In fact, lots of it are quite rambling and stream of conscious.  I have several different stories going on at once, a man living a string of fantasies that may reflect real life, or they may become real life, or they may have nothing to do with real life.  I haven’t decided yet.  Mostly because the fantasies are much easier to write then the real life bits.

    Next year, remind me to outline.

  • Attack of the NaNo Machines

    November is a pretty special time in our household. November means NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This month, I will see a lot of friends, and spend a lot of time working on the first draft of a new novel.

    This year will be a little interesting. I am a dedicated pantser. I don’t go into most projects with any sort of plan. I have a concept and generally an opening line, but that is about it. This year, I’ve decided to expand a previous short story.

    I wrote “Mama’s Little Boy” based on a news report I read about a guy who kept his dead mother in the attic. He didn’t tell anyone she died because he wanted to keep collecting her social security check. It was one of those cases where real life was just as twisted anything I could come up with on my own.

    I was pretty happy with the short story, overall, but several people mentioned in a writing workshop that they wanted to know more about the story. I decided to expand the original short story into a novella. The interesting part about this is that by using my original short story as source material, I am basically using an outline, which is a first for me outside of screenwriting, and makes me more than a little nervous.

    I’ve expanded the story significantly, and changed toe structure of the story. So far, I am a little over 6,000 words in, and I am relatively happy with it. By the end of the month, hopefully I will have a serviceable first draft that will amount to something after the re-writes. Given that I am still working on my Master’s degree this November, my plan is to end with a novella of around 25,000 words.

    After graduation, I am going to get some of these novels re-written and see what happens. First, however, I need to finish this draft of Mama’s Little Boy, and make it through this November with both an original novella and an A in my classes.

    NaNoWriMo Progress: 6338 words and counting.

  • NaNoWriMo 2013 Excerpt from The Demon Within

    NaNoWriMo has come once again and many of us at the Café, myself included, are already busily typing away trying to get to that coveted 50,000 word goal. Sadly, the frenzied pace of full-time job, word counts, and daily living leaves me little time for actual, coherent writing, so instead I’ll treat you to weekly postings from the trenches. Please note that “treat” here is a subjective term. This is pure, unedited and unfiltered writing here folks. I can’t be held liable for damages caused to your psyche or personal property due to reading this material.

    I’m writing five, 10k-word short stories this year for NaNo. This excerpt is from The Demon Within (working title), about a barbarian bred for fighting demonic hoards who gets exiled for being tainted by one.

    (more…)

  • Value Proposition

    Here’s why NaNoWriMo is so important to me: today I did not feel like writing.

    That’s not an unusual day. In fact, out of the 365 days in a year, I’d say that ~300 are days that I do not feel like writing. And out of those ~300 days, at least half (and probably a lot more) are days where I don’t write, because I don’t feel like writing.

    But during November? The fact that I don’t feel like writing doesn’t matter.

    I’m going to write today. I’m writing right now. I’ve finished 1,000 of my requisite 2,000 words/day (I’m a minor overachiever this year), and after I finish posting this brief entry to Confabulator, I will go back to complete the other 1,000 words.

    Do I want to? Nope. Still not at all in the mood. I’d rather be doing something else.

    But NaNoWriMo gives me freedom.

    I know, it probably seems like it’s the exact reverse, right? Freedom would be allowing myself to choose: write or don’t write. Right?

    Wrong.

    Freedom, in this case, is rising above something small–like reluctance, or self-loathing, or ennui, or a bad day, or a silly distraction–to focus upon something that is much more important. Something that will enrich my life in the long term. Something that will make me proud, and provide a sense of accomplishment. Something that I’ve always wanted, but never gotten, until NaNoWriMo set me free.

    This year, like the last eight years of my life, I’ll write a novel. Despite myself, I’ll achieve that goal, one more time.

    And it will be glorious.

    NaNoWriMo is like a personal trainer, forcing you to battle past hurdles that seem insurmountable, so that you can become stronger, leaner, faster. And, afterwards, you’re given an entirely different perspective on the hurdles that were preventing you from succeeding in the first place, and you can recognize how trivial and silly they were in the first place.

    NaNoWriMo lifts me to a higher place. It forces me to prioritize one goal above all others, and pursue that goal relentlessly until I achieve it.

    That’s why NaNoWriMo is important.

  • NaNoWriMo #6 part one

    2013-Participant-Square-Button[Looks around.]

    Um, hi. It’s nice to be back. Been a while. How are you all doing?

    So yesterday I started my sixth NaNoWriMo story in six years. I’ve won every year I’ve played but twice I didn’t actually ‘finish’ the novels I was writing. The first one (my third novel) just kind of petered out because I was pantsing too much, had no idea where it was going to go or how it would get there. I’ve thought about it often ever since because I love the story (it’s a first contact tale) and the characters. I’ll get back to it eventually.

    The other NaNovel I didn’t finish was the one from last year. At 56,000 words I gave up. There were too many issues with it and I was focused on the book from the previous year (my fourth if you’re trying to keep track). That story was so good and the feedback that came back was excellent and I spent time editing it and polishing and revising and re-writing and everything one is supposed to do to a novel. This year it’s spent time out on submission (where it currently is) and I’m collecting rejections.

    Last year’s book was a sequel to that one. It’s also the story I’m re-writing from page one this year. I changed the POV and added some really sinister villains and figured out HOW to tell the story that I wanted to tell. It simply took me longer than I thought because I wasn’t totally finished with the first one in the series. (Well, I’m not sure it’s a series yet. As of this writing it’s a book with one sequel. We’ll see.) Anyway.

    Because of circumstances, I didn’t get to start writing until Friday evening November 1st. And it was a bit of a struggle. Normally I’m a morning writer so that probably contributed but I think it was really just nerves. Once I got past the first thousand words things seemed to go better. Today (Saturday) I knocked out 2600+ words really quickly and most of them were all right, a few were really good and some will definitely be edited out.

    But the point is that the flow came back. And it came back strong, like a Colorado river in springtime. Lots of whitewater. This year will be different for me because I’m going to have to spend more time writing in the evenings rather than the morning because of my job. I’m okay with that but I’m hoping it’s not going to be a real struggle. I suspect not because I’ve got a lot of practice writing. Once upon a time I could tell you how many words I’ve written but not any more. It’s gotta be near a million, but I don’t know.

    As I write this, I’m anxious to get back to writing on the novel (it’s called The Silent Well if I didn’t mention that earlier) and I’m hoping to get another 500 or 1,000 words down before I go to bed. So I’m going to sign off here to eat some dinner and try to dig back in.

  • Post-NaNo Blues

    NaNoWriMo went fine, and I’m still working on the novel — but now I’m trying to throw off the post-NaNo funk. (Ted wrote about this last week, and I pretty much just nodded along.)

    While writing is often a solitary experience, I am not a solitary person. I thrive on company, even if all we’re doing is drinking coffee and doing something inherently unsocial, like writing. Maybe it comes from small housing and lots of siblings; I’m just no good at being alone. I only sort of joke that I want to move my friends into one of those polygamist houses I once saw on Sister Wives — for the ease of company, not the sex, obviously.

    (more…)

  • Energizer Bunny

    Funny thing about this year’s NaNo? I’m still going.

    Last week I wrote about the abrupt stop of the NaNo train. That happened, just as predicted. But I seem to have jumped off, unscathed, and still on my feet. Granted, the first of December wasn’t my best day: I went backwards more than two thousand words, fixing terrible, terrible writing I’d done earlier in November). But since then I’ve kept up a slow but steady forward pace of my own, averaging roughly 500-1000 words a day.

    Some of that is due to the fact that, surprisingly, I really like this year’s story. I wasn’t expecting that. I went into this year’s season without much enthusiasm; I didn’t really think my idea or my characters would pan out. But now my gut is telling me I might be wrong. And more importantly, it’s telling me that I owe it to myself and my story to see it through to the end.

    (more…)

  • The NaNoWriMo Postgame Report

    http://www.nanowrimo.org
    Though I didn’t write as many words as last year and I’m setting aside the manuscript to work on something else, I still won. So NaNoWriMo isn’t going to be over for a while.

    Brought to you by:

    Caffeine and Sugar: the fuel of frenetic and writers everywhere. Caffeine and Sugar bring the inspiration!

    Enough of that silliness. Can you tell I’m a little slap-happy?

    Oh, boy, was this an interesting NaNoWriMo.

    Let’s start with this bit from a post on my blog:

    I let it sit for a while, got some very positive feedback that was encouraging and finally got around to editing it. Recently I sent the book to a publisher and got a great note back asking for some changes and to resubmit it.

    That note came about ten days or so before the beginning of NaNoWriMo. It changed the whole month for me. I set some very modest goals of hitting the 50K mark by the end of the month, to average 2K words per day, then to write every day.

    (more…)