Tag Archives: NaNoWriMo

Nano Reflections

06 Thursday Dec 2012

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Last year I posted about NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month for those of you NaNoWirMo2who prefer their English unabbreviated. I talked about why I was not doing it and why that made me a heretic.

This year, in order to stay ahead of the curve and reveal my contrary nature, I opted to go ahead and do it. Because not doing it once and claiming you are doing so because it is cool not to is fine but there is no sense in repeating the pose for a second year. No sense in doing what people expect, always keep the audience guessing. 🙂

Actually, the main reason I opted to do it was to give myself a kick up the backside. Earlier in the year I had promised a publisher a complete anthology of short stories (well, one novella and some shorts) and had promised him delivery by a certain time. In the meantime, the deadline has whooshed past and I was still sat there with barely anything written and all of that painfully extracted over the course of several months. So, when November loomed I looked at my barely begun novella and decided that this would be my Nano project.

Of course, I still had the same problems as last year, which were my main reasons for not doing Nano. Work life balances getting all out of synch and all that. This time I even had a regular job to occupy me. I knew that 50K was unlikely to be a target I could aim for and still stay sane, married, healthy and employed. Instead, I opted for a lesser target. As things stood on my WIP I had just under 10K written already and I had predicted it to be about 30K when complete (various additional stories were planned to take the whole project to more than 50K, some of which had already been written and just needed tweaking). I therefore set myself two targets:

1) Write at least 20K words in order to get the total up to more than 30K

2) Complete the novella

By the end of NaNo I had written 20777 words which definitely achieved the first target and had put the novella to just under 30K words (close enough to be not worthwhile worrying about). However, I had not finished the novella…. the reason being that I realised that it is going to be a much longer story than I originally thought. I am almost at the end but there are at least another few thousand words to go and I am pondering additional scenes which may take it even higher than that.

So, I am counting my first NaNo experience as a win. I acheived one of my goals and only did not achieve the other because of changes in the goalposts. Not only that, but the process has reinvigorated my enthusiasm for the project which had been mired in the doldrums for far too long. In the course of writing I created a new character who I enjoy writing (he was intended to be an incidental local colour character, present for maybe a scene or two, but I ended up taking him further than that) and thought of some new plot ideas which I hope work. Of course, I have also produced something that is grammatically messy, likely filled with examples of bad writing and worse plot cliches but at least I have produced something and there is nothing that cannot be fixed in the edit.

Would I do it again in the future? Maybe. I suppose it would depend on the circumstances – am I working full time? Do I have a project that is languishing? I do think it was a good motivation tool and so worth doing on that basis alone. Not sure I would ever get to the point where I would ‘win’ NaNo but I am confident that it will be useful nontheless.

Guest Post: Dr Hansen’s REmedies for curing Writers’ Block

16 Wednesday Nov 2011

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I would like to introduce to you all my first guest poster (you may applaud). For this slot, John Hansen is supplying some words of wisdom on Writers’ Block, that insidious syndrome which afflicts all writers at some point in their career. Since it is now about half way through NaNoWriMo I imagine a lot of writers out there are feeling the sting of this affliction.

As authors, we all become ill, at some point in our lives, with the highly contagious writers’ block epidemic. This irksome disease is often transmitted through mad and unsuccessful attempts at writing stories and, sadly, there is no vaccination for it, nor can one build up immunity to it. It lurks in words and soon-to-be-formed pages, watching, waiting, prepared to infect yet another helpless writer. And as much as we, as writers, try to prevent writers’ block from infecting us in the first place, a vaccine has yet to be developed, but it will never. So if we cannot prevent writers’ block that begs the question: how can we cure it?

There are a number of successful home remedies used to cure writers’ block, but you requested Dr. Hansen’s opinion and it’s Dr. Hansen’s opinion you shall get.

  1. Don’t force yourself to keep writing – This, surprisingly, is a very common mistake. When some authors get writers’ block, they seem to think that by forcing themselves to continue writing, they will overcome the writers’ block. This is not true at all since that is not how writers’ block works. It’s like saying that if you break your leg, the best way to heal it is to force that leg to be constantly active as if the pain would suddenly go away because of this. It just doesn’t work.
  2. Relax, take a deep breath – So if you shouldn’t force yourself to write, what should you do? Well, first of all, don’t worry too much about writers’ block. It will go away soon, I assure you. Instead of cursing at yourself to come up with the next sentence and the next sentence and the next sentence (this does not make for quality writing), I advise you to sit back, turn away from your computer and take a deep breath. Don’t get worked up over writers’ block – that never helps – just calm yourself, clear your thoughts and pay no heed to the blinking cursing on your computer screen that seems to be sneering at you.
  3. Walk out of the room – The best cure for writers’ block seems too easy to be effective, but it is. After your have relaxed, stand up, stretch your legs and walk out of the room. I recommend walking around your home for a few minutes and then return to your computer afterwards. This will help to rejuvenate the creativity within in you, dispel all that anxiety, and a little fresh air – not the stuffy atmosphere of your room – will clear your head of those irksome cobwebs.
  4. Splash water on your face – You wouldn’t believe how well this works. If writers’ block has you so stressed out that you can no longer concentrate, simply go up to your sink, fill your hands with cold water and splash it on your face, again and again. This will help to revive your sleepy muses and invigorate your creativity. Cold water does wonders. After several splashes of that icy water, you’ll be ready to conquer that gosh darned writers’ block, guaranteed.
  5. Find something to distract yourself with – A great way to rid yourself of writers’ block is to find something else to occupy your time for awhile, even as short as a minute. Talk to someone, watch a funny YouTube clip, visit those beloved online forums, admire your blog site stats – do anything you want; it doesn’t matter as long as you are distracting yourself from writers’ block with an alternate activity. The advantage of this is that it will help to clear your brain of all thoughts, worries and whatever else lurks within the confines of that messy head of yours and will allow for a fresh start when you return to your computer.
  6. Don’t be afraid of failing: just write! – Once are finally ready to conquer those malicious words, it is time to return to your computer. Do not let your computer’s imposing presence deceive you; you are its master, you are its keeper, you control it and all of the words it will form. As frightening as it may be, to overcome your writers’ block don’t stray away from your computer; just strut right up to it and write. And write. And write. Once you have done this, you can kiss writers’ block goodbye. At least for the day…

John Hansen is the author of several short crime stories and an unpublished crime fiction novel. He has a very interesting, unpredictable (sometimes good, sometimes bad), creative, disturbing, random, insightful and humorous mind. You can him at home, cursing at either his computer. Or sometimes you can find him on his couch, staring at the blank TV screen as if it is some magical, awe-inspiring promiseland. But in most cases, it isn’t. John’s blog, The Incessant Droning of a Bored Writer (http://incessantdroningofaboredwriter.wordpress.com), is a book blog with an edge of mystery/thriller/crime fiction that includes book reviews, author guest posts, author, agent and publisher interviews, (somewhat) insightful posts about writing written by yours truly, along with its fair share of cool facts, randomness and all around insanity. Be sure to subscribe to it if this post was of interest to you since you’ll get much more like this!

The traditions of my people

30 Sunday Oct 2011

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I’m all for traditions – customs, rituals, holidays, celebrations, whatever. I love them and like to see them maintained. Events which happens every year and does so because ‘it’s always been that way’ touch me in a special place in my heart. So, I thought I would dedicate this blog post to one of the solemnest and most important traditions of my people.

The coming month will see my people fasting and praying, working hard to appease their gods. They will go without sleep, without food and spend long hours in angst filled contemplation on the human spirit. When this time of trial is over, they will emerge from it as better people – stronger and more capable of dealing with the every day stresses and strains. It is a sacred time, a testing time, a time of enlightenment.

What am I talking about? Why, NaNoWriMo of course… 🙂 Possibly the most important celebration of geekdom and social mediadom ever, eclipsing even ‘International Talk Like a Pirate Day‘ in it’s importance. I may be exaggerating here, of course. As you know, nothing could possibly eclipse Talk like a pirate day… Well, except maybe Talk Like a Dalek day….

National Novel Writing Month has been around for quite a few years. In fact, it was first run in 1999 when it had only 21 participants. This makes it, in internet terms, an ancient tradition which harkens back to the days BF (Before Facebook). It has since grown in size to 200,000 recorded writers taking part in 2010. The goal is simple: write 50,000 words and report them on the NaNoWriMo website between the 1st and the 30th of November. It is possibly the largest (well, certainly the most well known) writer productivity challenge in the world. It is a great way to learn discipline – to try to dedicate yourself to writing every day not just when you feel like it. This is a good thing and should be encouraged, which is why I consider NaNoWriMo to be an important tradition in Geekdom.

However, I have a confession to make. I am a heretic. I do not follow the ancient tradition of NaNoWriMo as a true follower of the Path of Geek should. I spurn my geekish ancestors and bring shame upon those who follow the true path with my progressive and non-orthodox ways. I have never signed up for NaNo nor even made any effort to increase my writing output in November. It is shameful, I know, but I do have a very good reason and it is all to do with timing.

I’m a teacher. As such I tend to get some wonderful summer holidays to luxuriate in and get lots of writing done. Six whole weeks of it, in fact. Sheer bliss. However, once September comes, the school term starts and things get a lot busier. OK, at the moment I am what we call a ‘gentleman of leisure’ (which is another name for scrounging layabout) and so am not expected to be working in a school at the moment. However, past experience has taught me that November (which lands just after the first half term holiday of the school year) is often a busy time for supply jobs to start rolling in and that means I have no guarantee of free time between now and December. So, rather than commit to NaNo and risk failing because a big job comes in that sucks up all my free time, I prefer to keep writing as normal and be there in spirit for those who are suffering the months of privation ahead.

Of course, I am also supporting in other ways – including doing at least one guest post in the coming month so that someone doing NaNo can free up more time for writing…

So, to those who are about to write, I salute you. I’ll be here on the touchline with the half time oranges and the mixed metaphors…