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  • Thoughts Post-NaNoWriMo 2013

    I managed to finish NaNoWriMo by November 24th, but two weeks later my muse is still a withered husk lying crumpled in the far corner. I had an easier time of it this year compared to last, due in large part to pacing myself more and a wonderfully supportive writing group, but it was still far from easy.

    Thanks to NaNo and the Lawrence writers, however, I’m slowly beginning to understand what it means to be a writer. I’ve never been the type of person who had to write. I feel like a bit of a hack to admit it, but I have none of the overflowing passion that flings me from my bed to my keyboard every day like I’ve read in so many author interviews. I wish that I did.

    I love stories and I’ve always gotten great enjoyment from writing, but I also used to wait until my muse was fit to burst before I did anything and then rode the wave for however long it lasted. I could go months and even years between writing stints that way.

    It wasn’t until early last year that I became serious about writing and I’ve found that, while still great fun, it’s also a lot of bloody work. NaNo just compresses that workload into 30 days. Even without the frantic pace, it takes continuous effort to push back distractions, sit down every night, and really write.

    I’m writing this now, with no inspiration and dead tired after a long shift at work, as a testament to that. Thanks to NaNo and thanks to the Lawrence writers who have helped me learn what real writing takes.

  • Frozen (Review)

    I judge books by their covers and movies by their previews.

    Going in to see Frozen, I was leery. Where was there room for a talking snowman in my beloved fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson? Why was a boy saving the day in my girl power tale? Based on the previews, I expected nothing more from the film than a comedic snowman and a boy saves the princess and they live happily ever after love story that only Disney can achieve.

    I wasn’t sure if I was going to actually see the movie in the theaters.

    But then it released and everywhere I turned I heard nothing but rave reviews. People whose opinions I trusted lauded the movie.

    So I gave it a chance.

    If you haven’t see Frozen yet, what are you waiting for? Go. Shoo. Stop reading this immediately and get to the theater. I’ll be here when you come back. (more…)

  • Won and Done

    I realized I missed posting about NaNo last week. The holiday threw me off. I was out of town on Thanksgiving and had house-guests the day after. I kept meaning to create a post and back-date it, but the week got away from me. I caught a cold, had to work on my final exam, and all of the regular life stuff this week.

    This year, I hit 50k words a few days early, and unlike previous years, once I hit 50k, I was done. I didn’t keep writing. I tied up my character’s story, and then I put it away. I may not get it back out. While I did manage to balance work, class, editing internship, being ML for the region, and writing, as well as regular life stuff that included cooking for Thanksgiving, I never really got into my story. I never had the magical moment of it writing itself. It did take some twists and turns I wasn’t expecting, and the world is just as magical as I had hoped, but I never really felt it. Perhaps it was because I was too busy to really appreciate it and had too many other commitments to get sucked into it. I hope so. I hope writing hasn’t lost its magic for me.

    At any rate, I have bragging rights. I can say I have won NaNo eight out of nine years now. I got to hang out with my writing family so many times this month. I had a lot of fun. I really did. Just not so much with the writing part.

    In January, we here at the Confabulator Cafe are talking about having a writing month just for our group. I’m looking forward to a more relaxed chance to write with the gang. My editing classes are done, my editing internship should be drawing to a close, and I will have all of December to relax and do whatever I want. Perhaps I can capture the magic of writing in January. If anyone can help me with that, it’s my amazing group of writing friends!

  • Victory NaNo Get

    Well, another season over, and another victory under my belt.  I think year was also the earliest I’ve ever finished.  Not that 7 pm on the last day is any big celebration, but at least I made it.  It was pretty questionable there for awhile.  Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve never been that far below par.  Granted, it wasn’t all that big of a deficit in the grand scheme of things… but to someone who never misses a daily par, missing a handful of them is pretty stressful.  I don’t think I would have forgiven myself had I managed to fail NaNo my first year as ML, and the one year I actually decide to pre-order a Winner’s shirt.  No idea how often I’ll ever wear it, but after three years I figure I deserve something from the store.  Besides, this year’s theme was legit.  I’m really glad they chose Video Game Graphics this year- especially after last year’s awkward Venn Diagram theme.  But… I digress.  I won.  Yay, me.

    (more…)

  • NaNoWriMo 2013: Mixed Success

    It’s time for a NaNo wrap-up post, and I’m mildly dismayed to say that I did not win. I came close, though:

    Ashley - NaNo 2013 Statistics

     

    The Bad

    You can look at that and see that the mixture of apathy and frustration are to blame — I had so many days where I had no words, or under 1,000 words. The end result was day 30: 10,500 words to go.

    (more…)

  • Looking Forward to Next NaNoWriMo

    November has come and gone, and with it, I say goodbye to the last NaNoWriMo of my Master’s Degree. The last two have been tough for me. I’m the sort of guy that harbors some professional jealousy. Don’t worry. It is perfectly healthy. In fact, it drives me to write more and write better. The last two years have not been good for my professional jealousy. It’s hard to watch everyone else winning NaNoWriMo and not be able to do it yourself. It’s hard to watch them write thousands of words more than you.

    That being said, I’ve been fairly happy with the writing that I’ve done the last two years. This year’s project Mama’s Little Boy seems promising, aid I am hoping that Heaven’s Edge, last year’s project, will eventually become a dystopian noir trilogy.

    It’s going to be awhile before I can get around to editing. January, I have another literature class, “Classics in Detective Fiction” and my thesis as soon as I determine what it is going to entail. Hopefully, I will have some time this summer to edit and maybe finish the first draft of Heaven’s Edge. By the time all of that is done, it will be November again, and next November will be full of magic and possibilities. I am already considering the novel I will be writing, The Dreamcatcher.

    I won’t go in to the plot, right now. I don’t want to spoil it for you or for myself. That’s just not the way I work. But rest assured, it is all percolating somewhere deep in my subconscious. But next November, I will know where I am going, and I will have November to take me there.

    By the way, I would like to throw out a cheap plug for the anniversary double issue, lucky number 13, of Bete Noire Magazine. If you go buy it, you can read my story “Flute of the Dead.”

    You can find it here, and thanks for reading! https://www.createspace.com/4546097

  • Faith Failures (and recoveries)

    NaNoWriMo 2013 is about to draw to a close, and in a few hours I’ll be putting another notch in my belt. Nine years, nine wins. Not bad, eh?

    This year was definitely a challenge. I really fought to stay motivated. I’ve already discussed the fact that I have quite a few very legitimate distractions this year, but to be honest, I don’t think my personal life played that much of a role in my struggles.

    I think I lost faith in my own writing.

    Anyone who pursues creative ventures, whether it’s painting, or music, or writing, knows exactly what I’m talking about. At some point during the creative process, you start to think, “I can’t do this.”

    And it’s not just about the current work in progress. We all know that NaNo manuscripts, or “zero drafts” as we affectionately call them, aren’t usually very good.

    No, it’s more of a complete loss of belief in your ability to pursue whatever creative art you’re currently struggling to complete: “I can’t write. Not now. Not before. Not ever. I am not able to do this. This is no longer for me.”

    I don’t usually entertain these types of thoughts very often, luckily. But this year, it’s been a month-long struggle. “This story isn’t any good. It’s a sequel to a story that isn’t particularly good. Maybe none of those stories are good? Maybe I need to stop doing this.”

    I know that Faith Failures happen. They are part of the process, and they are typically transitory. So I soldiered on, as much to lead by (poor) example as to succeed in my own goals. But I wasn’t feeling very good about it.

    Luckily, our region does a fun exercise during our TGIO party: we read aloud excerpts that are submitted anonymously, and then try to guess the author. So last night I decided to review this year’s manuscript to try to scrape together a few paragraphs that might suit for TGIO. And I realized (as I always do, but never seem to remember): “This isn’t all that bad. And here, here, and here? These spots are really quite good!

    Some years you’re on a rich vein of gold. Some years you’re panning for a few nuggets. Or maybe even slivers. But the lesson I have to come back to is: you can’t find the gold if you’re not looking.

    And I always find gold. Some years more, some years less. But always some. And it doesn’t take much at all to renew my faith, for at least one more year.

    Goodbye NaNoWriMo 2013. NaNoWriMo 2014, I’ll see you soon.

  • NaNoWriMo #6 part 5

    Woo-ha! I got you all in check.
    Woo-ha! I got you all in check.

    So this is the fifth and (almost) final post about NaNoWriMo for me this year.

    I won as I noted last week. I’m over 60,000 words for the month and I’m happy with that. The book is about 60% finished and I know what’s happening next and what happens after that. I know the end.

    I’d hoped to be around or even over 70,000 words for the month but that didn’t happen due to some unforeseen though preventable circumstances. I lost access to my computer for five days and I took up handwriting the manuscript. Because of this I have a newfound respect for anyone who’s doing this every day, every year. (Hi, Aspen!)

    Writing a novel is a helluva lot of hard work. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. If you’re still writing then what the hell are you doing taking time away to read this? Get back to it! When you come to the final write-in tonight – sponsored by the library, no less! – you can relax if you’ve won. If you haven’t, bring your stuff and we’ll cheer you. We’ll run sprints with you.

    Keep going until it’s done. Don’t give up.

    Finally, I need to say thanks to all the crew who helped and inspired me to keep going this year. I didn’t make it to as many write-ins as I intended but that’s more an issue with my work schedule than anything else. I worked at home a lot and always worked as if I were in a room with all of you.

    Okay, last thing: I’m coming back to post regularly in the Cafe starting in December. I need a day and time from the Boss but I’m feeling like I can be here again especially while I’m finishing up writing the first draft of the current work in progress. And then editing it.

    So thanks for reading these updates. I’m glad you did. I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks.

  • Something NaNo That Way Goes

    Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

    I’ve never been so far behind on my word count before, and to be honest, I’m not a big fan of the idea.  Before this year, I’d never been more than 1,000 words behind par before.  And even then, that period of time would only last for a few hours.  The fact that I’ve spent most of the month solidly behind par?  Well, it makes my soul weep.

    I got stressed out one of the first weekends, when several aspects of my life decided to converge at once, while I was sleep deprived, to wreak havoc.  Normally I rely on my weekends to give me something of a buffer, so that my weekdays can have some slack to them.  This… did not happen.  And then the start of that week was filled with more obligations and duties… and then Chris Baty came to town, and that’s too unique of an experience to pass up, of course.  And then… well, by then, I was so far behind on my word count that I decided to treat it the same way that I deal with most of my biggest problems- ignore it for as long as possible and hope that it doesn’t get worse in the meantime.  Pro Tip- when the problem in question is a daily word count, ignoring it does not make the problem easier to deal with.

    All the same, I’ve been making steady progress.  I’m not too worried, honestly.  My stats graph has yet to dip past December- right now, it’s saying I’ll finish on December 4th, which will be quite easy to tighten up.  Especially since my Thanksgiving holiday will (should?) be of minimal intrusion, which is nice.  Not that I don’t love my extended family, but there are only so many rounds of cards I can play before I want to scream.  I carpooled down with my brother who, darn the luck, has to leave Thursday night because he works in the morning.  Shucky-darn.  I get Friday off as a part of the holiday, probably with the idea that I spend it on family togetherness and yadda yadda yadda.  I’m spending it with the family of me and my novel, and it will be glorious.  I may not have the novel finished by Saturday, but you can bet your (insert funny noun here) that I will be winning on Saturday.

    I’m already starting to pad my novel with scenes that didn’t even make it onto the drafting table because they made no logical sense and/or they were too trivial and/or the pacing was all wrong.  I need words at this point, and if awkward non-sequiturs are going to flow faster from my fingertips than the conflict and fight scenes I’ve written myself into, then that is what I am going to type.  I’m assuming this will be the boost I need to take myself over the finish line, but if I need to start scraping together all of my pages of doodles and notes for extra words to count, you can better believe I’m doing it.

    Winning over everything.  See you at the finish line, with a snazzy badge on my profile.

  • Sitting Pretty in the Winner’s Circle

    Crap. This is going up pretty late. Sorry guys.

    But hey, I had a valid reason for forgetting.

    Okay. I lied.

    Basically, I “won” on Saturday and now words are a thing other people do. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of how you are supposed to treat NaNo. Learn from me. Don’t give up just because you passed 50k and you’ve validated and your bar turns purple.

    At some point I will finish my novel. It’s close. I can probably knock it out in less than 5k. But I don’t want to. These are the hardest words to write on this novel, because they have to wrap everything up. Even though I don’t plan on doing anything with this story (I have no plans to edit it into something more readable), I want to finish it right. And that requires effort.

    And I’m not ready for that commitment.

    If you need me I’ll be eating ice cream from the carton while convincing myself that I have no responsibilities.