the last leg

Here I am, less than 4000 words away from the finish line and I find myself unmotivated.  I have almost 3 full days to complete this, and I could easily knock this last 4000 out of the park in one sitting but I find myself having a hard time staying focused.

My story has been a random, uninteresting series of events.  Well not completely.  There have been a few ah-ha moments where things work out.  I guess I never really found my voice and I didn't plan out specifics, not to mention the original idea I had got away from me and I ended up somewhere I didn't expect.  But you know what, I just went with it.  Every time I had a crazy idea, I just went with it.  I scrapped whatever I had tentatively planned for my characters and just went where the wind blew me.

The good thing about this is once I got going, I had to be really creative to make it work.  I challenged myself.  However, the bad thing was it was always tough to get going during each writing session.  I moaned about having lack of momentum or even a consistent thought at times.  It's been an interesting process.

Regardless, it's taught me a lot.  I remember reading an interesting blurb by the guy who created NaNoWriMo and him describing how some years he had amazing tales while others were train wrecks and I wondered how someone who knew what to expect for the challenge would not be prepared for each subsequent year.  Then I realized that some years, when you commit to an idea, it unravels itself like a ball of yarn falling down a staircase.  It wasn't what you had planned, but it happened anyways and you don't have the luxury to go back and start over or even edit.  Is there a great idea in my story, yes; does it need a lot of work, hell yes.  But either way, I got to challenge myself and write a story that is different from the rest.  And in the end, it was exactly what I set out to do.

the visit

Would you believe that I have not written a word since the last entry?  You see, I had company come into town and while I adore my friends, there was a little NaNo monster in the back of my head that kept saying, "you should really put some words down."  Of course it didn't happen and now the NaNo stats page is telling me I need to write just under 2200 words a day to reach my target.  Luckily, I have a whole week to get it done and I am hoping to have a couple big word count days.

But it leaves me thinking that if there isn't some sort of pressure applied to me, I tend to get lazy.  If the company had come and I had a busy work schedule and various other commitments, I know I would have made time because I couldn't make it up later.  This time, my brain knew I had a week with only a few occasional commitments and I could easily make up the words needed.  It was the same way in College with my assignments often being completed the night before (unless it was a big project, of course).

I realize now that if I am to seriously begin work on revising one of my stories in December, then I'm going to need real targets with real accountability.  Not sure how that will work now, but this is my chance to give it some devoted time and with no need to have it completed by any specific date, I wonder how often/much I will actually get done.  The only thing I can do is plan, make it public and somehow make myself accountable.

But for now, I look forward to this final week of NaNo and send my characters into some crazy situations,

the procrastination

Procrastination, I am terrible for it.

Tonight, my last loyal NaNoWriMo buddy came over to raise our word count and hang out.  After playing a game that could only be described as Where's Waldo meets cats, he got down to business and started tapping away at his keyboard while listening to (and I'm taking a wild guess here) the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings.  Then there was myself, determined to find the last few cats or anything else that could further my distraction.  Facebook was an obvious choice, but my friends tend to stop updating once the clock strikes midnight so I went to OhNoTheyDidnt and discovered the same problem.  Back to Facebook and then every other bookmark found at the top of Chrome.  Only then did I even consider opening up my story.

Once that was done, of course I had to check Facebook again.

Eventually I started writing.  Well reading.  I needed to remind myself where I had left off.  In previous years because of my busy work schedule and desire to still maintain somewhat of a personal life, I needed to be more disciplined with my writing schedule.  This meant I had to write a little bit each day.  I also took better notes and planned things to some degree.  This year, because there was less pressure, I did less of well, all of the above.  Now I write every few days and tend to forget where specifically my characters were and what they were up to.  If they were children, child services would've taken them away long ago.

At this point, I'm ready to write.  But my writing buddy is excited to share a bit of his story with me.  Of course his story sounds so much more interesting than anything I have come up with so I eagerly listen to his recent plot developments.  Then we bounce a few ideas around, I ask a few questions and after a short break, he's back to tapping away at the keyboard.

Now where was I?  Of yes, writing!

Finally, over an hour after we started 'writing' I am finally putting words on the screen.  Of course, it comes and I get into my story and find my groove.  But of course after awhile I realize, it's almost 4am, and I really should get some sleep.  But not until I update my word count on my NaNoWriMo profile (click it...) then check Facebook and a few other sites.

And the funny thing is, this blog and the above are simply me procrastinating again.  This time, avoiding sleep.

the midpoint

In the traditional NaNoWriMo world, the first week is always the energetic with big word counts and good momentum while the second week is typically more challenging with bigger hiccups and plot concerns.

The first week tends to be so easy because you take the time before November 1st to consider your story and get some exciting ideas.  Once you start writing you are completely open to start building your blank characters in any way you desire.  You describe them through details or their adventures and you start building your plot.  Often you need to do quite a bit of story-telling to set up specific events that progress your story forward and it's easy to richly describe things that are so vivid in your head.

By the time the second weeks arrives you tend to get stuck on ideas.  Generally you have gotten the ball rolling and your partially developed characters are waiting for instruction but you tend to realize that you are moving more quickly to your story finale than you are towards your word goal.  So if you're like me, you need to stall.  This is where your characters can have side adventures that sometimes work out well and sometimes can go nowhere.  Furthermore, coming up with these good detours can be a heavy weight on your shoulders, especially since you are quite proud of the material you have put down so far.

This year has not been like that at all.  My first week was difficult.  I couldn't find my voice, I wasn't sure who I wanted my characters to be so I wouldn't even try to develop them.  It was kind of all over the place and I found myself stalling before I even got going.  Then the second week hit and I galloped forward without specifically heading towards my finale.  My characters came to life and I got to start explaining some shit and building my story.  It was a true NaNoWriMo miracle.

Now by the 15th (yesterday) you want to be sitting around 25K because for obvious reasons, it's the halfway point.  And I can happily say, that I was just ahead of it.  So what did I do?  I had a mini write-a-thon with my sole remaining NaNoWriMo friend.  (Since one never got started and one who enthusiastically started gave up where he always does).  Happily, it was a great evening of writing and I am now just shy of 30K (not to mention that my story is coming together nicely).

From here it is all down-hill.  I have completed half of what I need in less than fifteen days and with fifteen days remaining it seems even easier to repeat that success.  Before I know it, this glorious month of writing frenzy will be over and I can pat myself on the shoulder and feel inspired to go back and finally work on one of those drafts from years before.

When I first started this month I was really struggling to find my creativity. My creativity levels were at an all-time low and since I had barely challenged myself in the last year it was difficult to get those creative juices flowing once again.  Somewhere along the lines I abandoned the idea of writing the perfect story and instead focused myself on writing a fun one and because of it, the amazing little creative coincidences that I love so much have been popping up everywhere.  (Don't get me wrong, the inconsistencies that I know I am putting into my story at times still haunt me a bit.)

Now if I can keep up this pace and meet a few short-term goals in the next week, I should be able to aim for the unofficial goal of 60K that I set for myself early on.  For now, I'm going to keep moving forward and see what surprises my characters bring me.

the good intentions

Since I am currently not working, I thought NaNoWriMo would be easier this year.  Boy was I wrong.  I have no idea where my time goes, but I never seem to have enough.  Perhaps I'm too social, perhaps I'm not disciplined enough, perhaps I'm just lazy, who can say, but I have had a tough time keeping up with my daily word count.  In fact, there have been two points already where I was so far behind, I forced myself into two separate 7,000 word days.  This mean that 14,000 words have been written in just TWO of the days this month.  By the way, I am currently at 18,000.  So you can see what kind of troubles I have gotten myself into.

Regardless, I am caught up now and plan on more writing tomorrow.  I am at a very exciting part of my story so that's good.  Another part of me has let go of the story and its details.  I realize now that if I keep this tale on too short of a leash it will get away from me all together, so I've just been writing and writing and going with whatever.  I have little attachment to characters and have a feeling one of the kids in my story may bite it before their due time just for theatrics.  I also need to give my character a kick in the ass, a big one. And a death, just might do it.

Anyways it's late and I know I promised a portion of my story cleaned up for you to read, which is still coming.  But for now, I'm just going to go pass out.  Good news is that I am all caught up and have a full day of writing ahead of me tomorrow.  Let's see what I can get together tomorrow.  Oh and if it's another 3-4 days until I post again then I apologize in advance.  Please know I have good intentions.

the reboot

Today I faced a familiar crossroads.  I spent over an hour trying to get word count on paper and only managed a piddly 600 words.  And it was all filler, and it was all terrible.  From there I sat for a moment and considered my options:

1. Continue writing this miserable piece that has no action, no excitement and has the pace of a clunky wagon (the kind used in the Oregon Trail video game.  And yes, mine is being pulled by dying oxen...)
2. Reboot it.  Swap the first-person perspective for the much preferred third-person POV and start the whole thing off with an exciting scene.  Get the future reader interested, hell, get ME interested.  Have shit get real right away.

Of course you can probably guess which path I took.  I put my 5600 words to the side, opened a new document and started writing. And guess what?  In under an hour, I already had 1600 words!  That's the best effort I've done this entire month.  It was easy to write, it was exciting, it had plenty of detail and it spun my storyboard right-round (like a record).  Plus, some of the stuff that I have already written can easily be put into this new edition (with very minor editing) so I would say that I have about 2500 words of solid material instead of 5600 words of clunky dialogue and filler.

I realize that I need to work on my first-person perspective in the off-season (along with dialogue and editing of course) but for now, I'm pumped and the story is coming along nicely.  In fact, I hope to post a sample bit of writing tomorrow!  Just want to clean up something that makes sense and can stand alone.  A treat for the few people that are following my journey.  

the march

Once I had finally emerged from my warm bed, woke up and set the mood with candles (dangerous, I know), I finally looked over the work I had created the night before.  My plan for today was to convert my poorly written first-person text into my preferred third-person narrative.

Then I realized a new problem.

Immediately I discovered that by converting everything back into third person, I began to a lose a lot of the wonderful perspective I had created through my character's eyes.  It wasn't as simple as changing a few 'I' and 'my' into 'he' and 'his'.

So, I made a deal with myself.  I decided to persevere and continue with my first-person challenge and tell the story from inside Theodore's shoes. But only for an exchange.  I allowed myself to re-write the short bit of dialogue that fell on the bottom half of the second page.

Now perhaps I will regret this decision later on, but this process is meant to challenge me and after having successfully completed NaNoWriMo on three separate occasions, I think I need to be challenged once again.

End of day 1:
3,096 / 60,000 (5.15%)

the beginning

In the last few years, I can certainly admit that my creative side has been suffering.  I simply did not set aside enough time, energy and patience for the process to really work properly.  And being an expect procrastinator, it was always easy to tell myself that I would do it later.

Now every November for the last three years I have participated in an event called National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo.)  The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel in only 30 days.  And every year for the last three years, I have been successful.  Usually by the time November 1st comes around, I have a solid idea on how to start my story and it takes off.

This year.  Not...so....much.

To challenge myself further, my personal goal has been increased to 60,000 words and a swap for my usual third-person limited thriller for a first-person sci-fi story.  Tonight, with two of my friends, we threw an impromptu kick-off party and while they took off running out of the gate, I found myself stalling from starting.

In fact, I usually do a bit of pre-planning before November comes around.  I will come up with character bios, plot settings, story archs and goal targets for my story.  This year I ended up procrastinating so much, I only came up with very limited character bios an hour before Oct 31 was over!

Once I started writing, like actually getting going, I did a decent drop creating my slightly altered, modern world.  Created some history, hinted at changes, set up intrigue, etc.  Then I found myself casually slipping from my first-person style back into my usual, comfortable third person.  And by 1,400 words, I hit a crisis point.  I was finding I was concentrating so hard on the keeping my writing in first person that not only was I second guessing my understanding of what first person actually is, but also found myself not concentrating on the actual story.  In other words, I was making what it meant to be a fun project, far too stressful and probably too challenging for where my creativity actually is.

Back in year one, I was incredibly nervous to complete this challenge.  I had never completed a story more than 10,000 words before.  In fact, I abandoned so many short stories in my time that the idea of writing 50,000 words in a single novel seemed impossible.  But because I had planned everything out quite well, set aside large chunks of free-time and committed myself to following all the tips/tricks/guides of the official handbook to NaNoWriMo, my success was guaranteed from day one.

In year two, I planned less, but still gave myself a solid jumping point.  This year, my story was stronger because I was no longer worrying about if I could do it but instead on how well I could do it.  So when year three entered I decided to add a slightly supernatural element to the story (but again leaving it open-ended at the start) and found decent success.  However, there was a pitfall in year three that I had ignored.

My stagnant creativity.

Being creative is like being physically fit.  If you work out frequently, your muscles grow strong and are more capable of doing physical things.  Being creative is same idea.  The more time you spend being creative, the easier being creative will be.  Going into year three, I knew that my creative time had slowly been cut back for one reason or another but I still was familiar with the process that slipping back into the routine (albeit it took some time) would happen.

Unfortunately, I was so exhausted from that process of going from a metaphorical couch potato to marathon runner overnight, that once I was finished that story, I went right back to being a creative couch potato.  Another excuse I will offer up is over the last six months, my professional life got infinitely more challenging and stressful.  Now while that was great for my professional career and experience, it was damaging to my creative side.

Now going into year four, I've raised the bar but lowered my skill.  So it was time to re-think things.  Writing more words will not be challenging.  But constantly second-guessing my style while losing focus on the story is too much of a burden to carry this year.  So now, I'm breaking a golden NaNoWriMo rule and will pull out my inner editor and re-write the 1,400 words already completed so they are in the third person limited style.

It is my writing style.  It's where my voice naturally goes. And once this month is over, I plan to use it to edit year two's story.  No use making everything harder on myself when my creative muscles are overweight and underused.

A small part of me feels disappointed in myself.  I set a goal and when it got tough, I gave up and went an easier route.  But this is a project that I look forward to every year.  It encourages me to be creative and gets me writing again and at the end of the day, that is my basic goal.  At the end of the today, I can say that I have suffered a small level of failure but in the big picture, it can only help me succeed.