The Confabulator Cafe

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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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  • Fanfic++

    I am a huge advocate of new writers cutting their teeth by trying out fan fiction. Fan fiction can be a great playground. For starters, so much fanfic is truly awful, so the bar is set really, really low. Whatever your fandom, somebody, somewhere, has a fanfic forum where you can, if you choose, post your work, get feedback, and cultivate a stable of beta-readers. You will be practicing foundational skills such as plot development, dialogue, character motivation, story and emotional arcs, etc., without having to do all that tedious world-building first. OK, so it’s not “original.” When you think about it, what is?

    So without further ado, I would like to thank everybody who made this year’s Nanowrimo novel possible. I stand on the shoulders of giants.

    The concept for a race of randomly and inexplicably immortal humans is lifted whole cloth from Robert Adams Horseclans books, which I purchased by the dozen in the mid-1980’s from the how-can-you-read-that-crap shelf at the used bookstore for around seventy-five cents a pop. The idea that maybe they don’t rule the world because been there, done that, hated that job, is entirely mine.

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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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  • The Aftermath

    NaNo is over. Which… doesn’t really mean much for me.

    You may have figured this out by now, I’m sure I must have let it slip sometime during the past month, but I sat NaNo out this year. And you know what? I’m okay with that.

    I kept a full schedule with a second job involving technical writing. I spent time with friends. I watched some TV. I even read a couple of books.

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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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  • Rhythm, Routine, and Ass in the Chair

    I didn’t finish.

    Let’s get that out at the start. I didn’t reach 50K. But truth be told, I’m kind of ambivalent about it. I really wanted to reach that goal, but all things considered, this was a great NaNo experience.

    As one of my fellow Café contributors, R.L. Naquin, likes to say, it was about learning to write every day. In the past, that’s been a difficult routine for me to maintain, but I feel like I finally discovered the value of it this year. If you put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, every day, it starts to add up. Even the slow days count for something.

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  • Failure and other F-Words

    Did I succeed or did I fail? It is a matter of perspective. Given my course load for grad school and the responsibilities of being a single parent, I set a small goal of 25,000 words for Nanowrimo. I managed that. So success?

    It doesn’t feel like it. It was tough watching other people’s word counts climb as I spent my time writing papers on thematic conflict and duality as a literary mechanism. It felt bad not making it write-ins, being on the outside of all the inside jokes.  Failure to meet a word count is bitter pill to swallow when your girlfriend is the municipal liaison, the person whose job is to badger people about their word count. Although in fairness to her, there was no badgering.

    I don’t like watching other people succeed at something, knowing I can’t do it myself. It builds a sort of artistic jealousy that is fairly common in writing. It is generally a good thing. Your friend sells a story and you think it could have been you. Another reveals a new book cover, and it could of been you. You use it to drive you. In a race, no one tries harder than the person in second. In this case, person after person finished writing a novel, and it could have been me.

    This isn’t competition, and I am happy for everyone who made it. Happiness and jealousy are often handmaiden’s in the arts. In the end, I just have to hope that the next couple of years with writing as a secondary focus to my education will be a worthwhile sacrifice, and that the experience will make me a better writer.

    I certainly hope so. As much as I have enjoyed my classes and think I am producing good literary criticism, my creative writing is getting left behind, and I don’t like it.

    The good news is that I think what I did writing of Heaven’s Edge is promising. It has a ways to go, but I think it has a chance to be a fun book. I look forward to finishing it, even without Nanowrimo.

  • The Post-NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up (Week Ending Dec. 15)

    http://www.nanowrimo.org

    It’s December, and that means the 2012 National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is officially at an end. To all the writers — both ours here at the cafe and those all over the world — who participated, this coming week will likely be one of reflection and relief.

    Now that the word sprints and write-ins are finished, it’s time for each of our writers in the Cafe to look back at the past month and take stock of what they have done. This week, our writers are going to give a post-NaNo report, summing up what this past month has meant for them.

    We hope your own NaNoWriMo experience was productive and inspiring. May your coming year be filled with more writing, editing, and — hopefully — publication!

    Until Next Week,

    The Cafe Management

  • NaNoWriMo Standings – Final Tally

    It’s December 1, and that means it’s over. We are finally finished (for better or worse) with  National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

    So let’s take a moment and look at the final tallies of those who participated. We had a lot of winners, and even those who didn’t hit 50,000 words should be proud of what writing they did finish. Every word is a victory.

    As of last night at midnight, here are our final standings. We’ve also asked our Confabulator Cafe writers to include either their last line, the last line they wrote, or just a really good line.

    Jessi Levine (58,381 words)

    Ashley M. Poland (55,339 words)

    Christie Holland (53,308 words) — Municipal Liaison

    Paul Swearingen (53,075 words)

    Ted Boone (52,341 words)

    Some people can’t be helped. They can’t escape their demons, their addictions, their needs and desires that society deems unhealthy or inappropriate. Some people never fit in.

    Jason Arnett (50,532 words)

    Not the actual last line of the book, but the last line I’ve written:

    Blood dripped off the heel of the hand and Albert had to be grateful he couldn’t feel what must have been tremendous pain.

    Aspen Junge (50,325 words)

    Sara Lundberg (50,198 words) — Municipal Liaison

    R.L. Naquin (50,009 words)

    Alma reappeared, looking flushed and excited. “Wonderful. Let’s begin!” Her eyes had a generous dose of crazy swirling around in them, and I worried she might pee herself in front of everyone. I kind of felt bad, in a way. She was such a pain in the ass, but she had no real idea of what she’d gotten herself into. And odds were excellent that I was about to ruin it all for her.

    I liked it better when I hated her. Feeling pity made my teeth hurt.

    Larry Jenkins (40,324 words)

    Idle hands may be the devil’s playground, but Nadine’s activities didn’t exactly speak to her virtues.

    Kevin Wohler (26,535 words)

    The Rat King began to laugh again, a helium-filled laugh that made me think of a cartoon more than a flesh and blood creature. I could see Abby continue to struggle, but his claw dug into her arm and held her tighter. I noticed that she was getting more and more agitated by the second, and as she struggled the scepter began to pulsate with energy.

    Jack Campbell, Jr. (25,651 words)