The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: NaNoWriMo

  • Reread, Revise, Repeat

    The truth is I have very little idea what I’m doing.

    I came into NaNoWriMo a little bit of a cheat. I had a novel that I’d already spent a lot of time on, and I wanted to finish it, so I used NaNo to do so. Since then, I’ve been letting it cool. I am a big believer in the advice that after completing a manuscript you should get a little distance from it before you dive back into editing.

    The idea is you’re trying to see your story with fresh eyes. If you’re like me, the time away also gives you the opportunity to stop hating your characters. By the end of my novel, I was barreling toward the finish line because I didn’t want to spend one more day with those people in my head. I loved them when I created them, but familiarity does indeed breed contempt, and the gang and I had spent far too much time together.

    Since completing the manuscript, I’ve sent it out to some beta readers, and I’m just now beginning to get some notes. They’ve been mainly positive, but there are also a lot of good suggestions for improvement.

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  • Kill Your Darlings (Week of March 10)

    We think74203 it was William Faulkner who first said that a writer must “kill your darlings” but it’s been repeated endlessly ever since so that may be apocrypha. But any time there’s a discussion of the mechanics of a writer’s process, there should be some mention of David Mamet. He’s never visited the Cafe (at least as far as we know) but he’s influenced every storyteller out there today in some way, large or small, whether it’s realized or not. Mamet’s famous memo to the writers of The Unit is worth a read, at the very least.

    The Cafe regulars this week discuss our particular processes in approaching a zero draft (or first draft or sixth as the case may be) and turning it into something readable. We are forced to confront our worst writing, thankfully before anyone else sees it, and thus our own weaknesses. It can be painful but it’s certainly necessary. Like hernia surgery.

    We’ve got your table over here. Our servers are on the ball and ready to attend to whatever you need. Just flag ’em down. You don’t need a red pencil.

  • In 2012, I Took Every Challenge

    From a writing standpoint, 2012 rocked.

    I sent out a novel for the first time. Even though it got rejected twice, the “revise & resubmit” was pretty much the best thing that could have happened.

    I finally (finally!) understand passive voice in my writing. I don’t always see it, and I don’t always correct it, but its so much better now. I’ve also gotten more confidence in my writing. I’ve taken more challenges, I’ve tried new genres.

    But most of all, I just wrote more. I usually wrote NaNo every year. But beyond that, I didn’t do much. A couple pieces of fan fiction here, a drabble there.

    In 2012, I wrote 256,213 words of fiction alone. I’m sorry, I bolded that to brag. In years previous, I would probably write NaNoWriMo, maybe a handful of one-shots. This year I went for pretty much every challenge that came at me.

    Crossover challenge with a minimum of 20,000 words? Hell yes. Shipping challenge, another 20,000? Here, let me write 40,000. Wait, lets do both months of Camp NaNo! Why the hell not? Oh, and don’t forget how into NaNoWriMo we all are.

    Sometimes I drowned. August got stuck watching my son while I locked myself in the bedroom to finish Camp NaNo August. (I did more or less the same thing in Camp NaNo June, but my husband was home to manage the child.) But I damn well got it done. (Okay, except the two flash fiction assignments I totally dropped the ball on. Whoops.)

    With the flash fiction assignments, short story ideas, and the handful of ideas I wrote without any sort of prompting, its been a great year. Unfortunately, it means that 2013 is going to be a year of an awful lot of rewriting and editing. But I got so much done in 2012, that I’m pretty amped about 2013.

    And hey, this month I’m jumping in with Sara & Ted to finish my NaNo novel in January.

  • Let Me Play and I’m a Happy Man

    I’m not usually a guy who engages in literary exercises. If I’m writing, I want the words I produce to count toward something.

    Now I understand there is value in learning, and no word written in pursuit of craft is ever wasted. I get that. But I also know myself well enough to realize that I get impatient when words on the page aren’t leading me toward completing a work in progress.

    It’s not a great trait, but we all work with what we’ve got. (I also don’t like to read books about writing, though I love to buy them and have a bookcase full, but that is a blog post for another day.)

    So after laying this groundwork, you’ll understand why I was less than enthusiastic when October rolled around and one of our assignments was to interview a character for our upcoming NaNoWriMo novel. I admit that I had an advantage over some of the other Café contributors because I’d planned to use the month of November to complete a novel I was already writing. But that didn’t stop me from doing a whole lot of internal bitching about the task.

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  • Ephemera – Will You Edit your NaNo Novel?

    This past week, the Wrimos said their final words on their Nanowrimo adventures for 2012. Words were written, lessons were learned, sleep was missed out on, and way too much caffeine and junk food was consumed – even if it wasn’t for Nano. For one last summary on the experience (and then we’re back to regularly scheduled programming so you won’t have to hear about it for another year), we asked our Wrimos what their plans were for their novel written in November. To edit, or not to edit?

    Christie Holland

    I’ve never edited a NaNo novel before. But this year, I’m considering it. Editing it actually means “completely rewriting it,” but that’s okay. I’m excited to keep working on it.

    Ted Boone

    I absolutely intend to finish this year’s novel (still have 25-30% story to tell, by my best guess) and then edit it. I’m probably more surprised by this answer than anyone, as I thought my story idea this year was sort of a throwaway, but as things progressed, I really grew to love the idea and the characters.

    Jason Arnett

    Definitely going to edit. I love this year’s book even though I’m not done writing it yet. I think I’m to the point as a writer that what I write is deserving of at least a couple of attempts at getting it out to the public.

    Kevin Wohler

    I’m going to keep working on my NaNoWriMo novel. I didn’t get to 50,000 words, but that’s okay. I like my main character and I’m convinced she has a good story to tell. Most importantly, I’m starting to see the true bones of the story. Much of my writing has been fat, which will need to be trimmed. Now that I’m done with NaNo, I’m going to ignore word count and focus on time spent with my novel — whether writing or editing. I want to finish it in 2013.

    Sara Lundberg

    Nah, not this year. It needs way too much work. I’ve been doing NaNo for enough years now to realize when I have something worth putting more work into, and while this novel definitely had its moments, and I might revisit the idea someday, overall it’s best that this one gets a proper burial in the Novel Graveyard.

    Larry Jenkins

    Hell, yes, I’m editing it. The zero draft is finally done, and I’m ready for someone else to read the damn thing. Beware, writer friends. Some of you may be dodging an email from me very soon.

    Ashley M. Poland

    I’m planning to edit this novel. It’s not going to be easy nor do I think I’ll do it right away — I’ve already got the rumblings of another novel in me — but I think there’s something redeemable buried in this draft. Not sure what it is, yet, but I’ll find it with another draft or so.

    Jack Campbell, Jr.

    I never leave anything unfinished. I usually edit a piece several times before I submit. Sometimes, that process takes years, but I don’t believe in trunking anything. There is always something to salvage, something that can work for me. My most recent story acceptance, “Waking” was originally written in 2002. I completed the final re-write last year.

  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • Post-NaNo Stress Relief

    NaNoWriMo 2012If you read last week’s Dispatches from the Trenches, you know how NaNoWriMo turned out for me.

    In a nutshell, it didn’t. This is not to say it was a disaster. I didn’t have a meltdown. I merely realized that it wasn’t working for me.

    Instead of doing more recap of the downside of my personal experience, though, I’d like to talk about what went right.

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  • Looks Like We Made It

    Well, for somebody who burst on the scene of this year’s NaNoWriMo with the super-sekrit plan to pull a double, I damn near didn’t make the single. Considering I’d planned the whole thing as a lesson in pacing, that almost makes it a “fail.”

    But it’s not. I learned from it. I learned how far I can go before I hit overload and melt into an obstinate crankypants who spends a rebellious week watching movies all day on the Hallmark channel instead of writing. Yeah, that’s right. I did that. Shut up.

    Because then I picked myself back up and moved forward at a normal pace. So, for three out of the four weeks, I wrote every day. And for that last week, I pretty much did what I’m supposed to be doing year round, but never figured out how to do before.

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  • Wrimos are Never Alone

    I survived another NaNoWriMo: my seventh year hitting 50k, my fourth year as Municipal Liaison. I submitted my completed grammar final last night and the boyfriend and I are still on speaking terms.

    I’ve even gotten a little bit of Christmas shopping done.

    I am relieved and amazed I made it through the month. I’ve never had so much going on in November before. Not since the very first NaNo I signed up for in 2005, where I was finishing my second to last semester as an undergrad (taking 12 hours), working nearly full time hours at a job, and trying to put together grad school applications (which included studying for the GRE). That year I wrote roughly 1,000 words and then promptly and enthusiastically surrendered.

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