What I learned from NaNoWriMo – Part 2

If I looked back over everything I’ve ever written, which is a task I truly would not care to do, I think you would find one common theme among almost all of it: I write about me and my life. A lot. 

I only learned the term within the past year or so, but you could probably call most of my main characters Mary Sues. Even projects I’ve worked on since starting this blog. They’re about me. They’re about my life. The characters are people in my life. It’s actually pretty damn embarrassing. 

But it was all I knew how to do, for some reason. I couldn’t get out of my own head enough to create a character that wasn’t me or somebody close to me. 

But I think doing NaNoWriMo, I’ve finally managed to write something where that doesn’t happen. The main character is not me. Oh, we have a few things in common, but inherently, she’s not me. And the people around her? Not really anyone I know.

This story, by design, had to take me out of my comfort zone. There were things in this story that have never happened to me, characters who were nothing like anyone I ever met. But I can still see touches of my life through it.

And I think that’s what a real writer does. 

Instead of writing about things that have happened to me, or things that I want to happen to me, I took feelings that I’ve had and applied them to different situations. I took bits and pieces of people I know and but them back together with a bunch of other stuff to make new characters. I took situations I’ve been in and changed them up enough that it was no longer my personal story. 

And most of all, I didn’t let my characters get the things that I want for myself.  Not even a little bit. 

The funny thing is that I wasn’t really conscious of this until the story was done. It wasn’t something I’d really thought about all that much. But now looking back, I realized how much I did that in the past, and I could see that this story was different. 

I do feel like I’ve matured quite a bit as a writer by doing NaNoWriMo. Perhaps I would have gotten there on my own, but I think it took me actually following through on a project and finishing a story to do it. I never got far enough on anything else to notice how bad that habit really was, and how much it was making my writing suck.

This was a real breakthrough for me. But it is still not the more important thing I learned while doing NaNoWriMO. There is one post coming. Stay tuned.

What I learned from NaNoWriMo – Part 1

It’s easy to pinpoint what I learned doing NaNoWriMo in 2007: It was writing something of length. I think the longest thing I’d written up to that point was mayb 8,000 words or so, which is hardly impressive. I honestly didn’t know if I could write a novel before that. I didn’t seem to have the attention span for it, or the determination to see a story through to the end.

But NaNo’s built-in goals kept me writing. I lucked out on having a good idea that had a definite story. I knew where it was going, and I just had to get it there. So in 2007, I learned that, at least with the help and structure of NaNoWriMo, I could write something that was long enough to be a novel.

But 2008 was different. In 2008, I had many things working against me. I was going to school on top of work and my family, and I wasn’t exactly playing by the rules, as I was going to be writing the second half of my novel. I called it a sequel to get around that, but in reality, yeah, it’ll all be one novel when I put it all together. But it does have a definite break in the middle where you could split it, so I’m OK with bending the rules.

I knew 2008 was going to be hard. I wasn’t honestly sure if I would have time to finish, and even though I knew where the story was going, I was afraid it wasn’t going to work out as well as it worked it my head. The closer November got, the more unsure I was about the whole thing.

As you know from my last post, I did finish, and it was a good year. But I learned so much this year, more than I ever thought I would. I’d heard people talk about how you learn something new every year you do NaNo, but I didn’t really get it until I finished my second year. I’ve learned so much. And I want to tell you all about it.

Stay tuned …

NaNoWriMo 2008

That makes me 2 for 2. Go me! I finished early the day before Thanksgiving. And the story is finished, too, not just the wordcount. This was a really good year.

I have much much more to say, and that’s coming. Just wanted to get this in before I delve into everything that happened this year.

This is hard

OK, seriously? Rewriting is HARD. I did the first chapter, and I’m pretty happy with it. I thought, hey, that wasn’t so bad. I’ll  move on. But chapter two brings on the two characters that I really need to overhaul, and I’m just not sure what to do with them. Maybe I should skip ahead and come back to them later. But I don’t know. I really would like to be able to do it chronologically.

Nobody ever tells you how much harder it is to rewrite than it is to write. Well, maybe they do. I’ve never taken any real classes in creative writing. But nobody ever told me. Rewriting for me was always just fixing typos and adding in some missing commas. Or moving a paragraph from page 2 to page 3. Not completely changing the nature of a character or taking out entire chapters or reworking the structure of a 50,000 word piece.

I’ll get through it, one way or another. Someday. It’s just hard.

Rewriting

Last year, I created a scuplture. I did not start out with a vision, but chipped away with wild abandon, discovering the vision within the stone. When I was finished, I stood back and marveled at what I had done.

Looking back now, I see its flaws. I see where the lines don’t meet, where I’ve chipped too far and revealed too much. I see where I haven’d chipped enough. I see parts that just don’t seem to fit at all. It’s beautiful, in a quirky kind of way, but it just doesn’t seem right. I can see where the vision failed, and where I didn’t have it in sight.

So I broke it. I took it apart bit by bit. I’m throwing away the parts that don’t go. I’m fixing some parts and making some new from scratch. When it’s done, I’ll put it all back together, and hope no one can see the breaks and no one can tell the difference between the original stone and the new. And hopefully, the vision that I found will finally be realized.

Yes, I can!

Looking back at last year’s NaNo, I wasn’t sure about the opening. I like it, but it seemed like I jumped into the middle of a story a bit. So I decided to write a new first chapter that would lead up to the original first chapter.

Now that I’ve written it, I don’t think I’m going to use it. I might lift a little out of it to flesh out the original opening a bit more, but as a whole, I think the first version is stronger. But this gives me a little more to work with for character motivation.

But the really good thing is that I wrote 1,698 words. That’s a little more than a NaNo goal for one day. Both kids were up early today, and I’ve fed them two meals so far, and if this were a weekday, I’d still have plenty of time to get ready for work. And I’d have time left to write some more.

And that tells me that I’ll be able to do this again this year. I’m doing more planning this year so I don’t get too stuck anywhere, so as long as I try to get ahead early on, I really think this year is going to be fine.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep working on some revisions for last year’s novel. It will help me get back into writing mode, and back into the story, since this year’s novel is a sequel. And maybe when it’s all over, I’ll have something I can actually attempt to publish.

Cross you fingers for me.

NaNoWriMo Preparation

November is almost here and that means it’s almost time for NaNoWriMo. I’ve had my novel planned since, well, last November. I had a story planned for last year, but I spent so much time on the events leading up to the real story, that I ended up never getting to the real story. But what I had written pretty much stood by itself, so this year, I’ll be writing its sequel, which will be the story I intended to write in the first place.

I didn’t do much prep last year. I just dove in and started writing. But since I do have a specific goal this time, I’ve started doing some preparations. So far, I’ve:

- Purchased colored index cards

- Written descriptions of the three main characters on the cards

- Noted a few key scenes on the cards

- Researched names and renamed a character

I’ve also started thinking about what changes I need to make to my 2007 novel. The story is pretty much how I want it, but I need to make a few specific changes to a few scenes, introduce some thematic imagery that I missed, and decide what to do with the main characters parents. They were supposed to be cold and detached, but they ended up being flat and bland. I may cut one of them or reduce the role of one of them. I may send the father away on business for most of the story just to get rid of him. I also need to make some character changes to the secondary main character. By the end of the story, he’s the guy I wanted him to be, but it’s shaky in the beginning.

So since I can’t start writing the new novel yet, I’m actually considering trying to do a first rewrite in the next few weeks. I’ve put it off all year, but I think it might help me to sort out some of those issues before I get into the new book. Editing and rewriting terrifies me. It’s not so bad when you’re looking at a short story, but we’re talking about more than 50,000 words. That’s a lot of words.

Plus, I edit much better on paper than I do on the screen, but there’s no way I’m printing this puppy. I can’t afford the ink.

Still, I think I’m going to give it a shot and see what happens. I do think it will help me to have those changes made before starting the new story. And it’s less I’ll have to do later. I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d ever do a rewrite, but I’m going to have to do it eventually. Here goes nothin’.

A haiku

Out of the darkness
My heart reponds to your soul
New life has been found

On a Poetry Kick

I’ve had some inspiration lately, and I really really like this one. Enjoy!

Rainbow

 

Blackness drowning out the light

Ghastly din blares out the sound,

Then a purple glow returns the sight,

And music fills from all around.

 

Air is thick with beating drums,

Pink and green a joyous wonder.

Hearts feeling, no longer numb,

Applauding with resounding thunder.

 

Swathed in white, a final bow,

All colors bleeding into one.

Stayed as long as time allows,

But surely it cannot be done?

 

Do not fear, for this lovely arc

And its colors have left a lasting mark.

Hello, sad and neglected blog

Yeesh. I’m a terrible writer. I can’t even be bothered to blog for what, four months? That’s sad.

Fact is, I’m just not a very disciplined writer, and I’m a terrible procrastinator. Do you know how easy it is to waste all your time on message boards and playing the Sims? Not to mention trying to raise these kids, work and go to school.

So writing. Where do I stand?

I was recently discussing on a message board the idea of stay-at-home-wives. People who stay home and cook and clean and plan parties and volunteer and do … well, I don’t know what all they do. If I stayed at home, I’d probably watch TV and play video games all day. I loss at having no structure. I have trouble creating structure for myself. And there lies the problem with writing.

There are no deadlines, no goals, no “have this to me by Tuesday or you’re fired!” Sure, I could create those for myself, but self-created goals are flexible, changeable. I just don’t have it.

I think this is why NaNoWriMo was magical for me. It had the structure, it had the goals, and I had a place to constantly report my progress. It held me accountable.

So I’m looking forward to doing NaNo again this year. I’ll be writing the “sequel” (it’s really part 2 of one novel, but for Nano purposes, I’m calling it a sequel) of last year’s novel. I’m already churning out ideas and I think I’ll be able to manage the time for it if I cut out all the message boarding.

And so what if I only ever write novels in November? Writing as a full-time endeavour sounds lovely, in theory, but with all the life going on around me, it’s just not that easy. But taking one month a year to be a writer? I can live with that.