Story Soundtracks, Anyone?

Last week, as I was idly browsing the thank-you gifts for each level at the NaNo Donation Station (because someday, I'll be able to afford to donate more than ten bucks), where the gifts range from everything from a nice shiny halo on the site to writing software to a taco voucher with the head of NaNo itself. The aforementioned software actually looked really cool. I mean, really cool. And if I had a Mac, I'd probably order it in a second (Scrivener, for those who are curious), but I am, indeed, a PC.

Then, I noticed that the folks who donate $2500 get a spot in Lani Diane Rich's "awesome online novel revision workshop." Well, I thought, if that's their big addition to the major donors, it's worth checking out!

You can look over her rather impressive credentials and the workshops for yourself. Me, I went straight to her blog... and it is there that I came across her idea of making novel soundtracks.

Now, the idea of using music with writing isn't a new one. I've used it for years to get me in the mood for a particular story. For this year's NaNo, I've been listening to Daughtry's Leave This Town over and over again. However, I'd never thought about making a soundtrack for my novels.

How cool is that? Gather together songs that make you think of certain characters or events in your novel and stick them all on a playlist, ready and waiting to inspire you and get you thinking about your novel even when you're not working on it. Maybe I'm just not used to making my own playlists, or maybe I'm just not that tech-minded, but the idea never occurred to me.

I can tell you now, though - next novel, I am definitely going to give this a try!

NaNo 2009: Success!

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present...



Thank you, thank you... Yep, this is officially the earliest I have been able to verify my NaNo novel! As a matter of fact, I hit 50K back on Friday or Saturday, which is a new record for me. Let the trumpets blare and the confetti fly!

This is also the first year I've donated or bought anything from the Office of Letters and Light store, the place for all official NaNo merchandise. Times are hard this year, and even NaNoWriMo isn't immune to the economy. They run entirely on donations and whatever they make from their merch, and they were behind enough to try and do a donation drive yesterday.

Now, I don't usually donate money or buy things online, but you know what? I actually LIKE doing NaNo. I've loved doing it all three years I've been able to do it. It's an incredible rush, and I would sorely miss it if it weren't around. I can afford $10.

More than that, though, is their Young Writers Program, where they send materials and project packs to classrooms across the country to encourage young writers and foster a love of the craft. Having been a creative writing major, this is a cause I heartily endorse. Writing was one of those things I really loved in high school, and I wish the YWP would have been around back then.

So, I bought my first NaNo t-shirt and donated $10. Someday, I'll be able to donate more, but for now, I'm just going to bask in the glow of my donor halo and the warm fuzzy feeling of 50K reached and verified.

D'oh!

Alright, so I was looking through my Squidoo lenses, as I often do in the quest to keep them updated and their lens rankings below 100K. Good thing I did, too. Apparently, last time I'd updated my Urban Fantasy lens, I'd suffered an epic brain fart or been distracted by something suitably shiny, because I had a whole brand new section I didn't remember publishing: What Makes a Great Urban Fantasy Series, According to the Personal Preferences of Kit.

That would be all well and good. In fact, it was something I'd planned on for awhile. There was just one problem... All it said was, "There is a lot of urban fantasy out there. Some of it's good, some's not so good, and some earns a spot on the shelf by my bed where I can easily read and reread it over and over again. What makes those chosen few series stand out among the masses?"

... Yeah. That was it. So, Kit, what DOES make a series stand out among the masses? HA! Not telling! Take that!

*headdesk*

Hopefully, it wasn't like that for too terribly long, but it has now been fixed. So what makes a series stand out to me?

Basically, I like a gripping plot with a main character that I actually LIKE and a good sense of humor to balance out the "omg HOW WILL THEY EVER MAKE IT?!" of the tension. (For a more in-depth explanation, read the lens.)

This pretty much spreads to all the genres I read. At some point, I'll have to go through my personal pet peeves, but that's a topic for another post. The lesson here is for all the little Squidooers out there: Make sure to actually READ your lens once in awhile, and not in the workshop - the actual lens. It'll help you catch little things like unfinished modules that have been making your readers wonder what malfunction's going on in your brain.

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad, Right?

Right now, I've got three things I'm working on simultaneously: my comic, my shop, and my NaNo. That's three different schedules to keep, and so far, I think I'm doing pretty good.

Schedule #1: NaNo. This one's pretty clear - write at least 1,667 words a day. For me, it's easier to keep track of pages, so I figure if I hit around six pages a day, I'll be good. More, and I'm doing great. This is definitely my most driving schedule - no days off, if I can help it. I've got 10,000 more words to go until I hit the goal for NaNo, but I'm hoping to keep it going until the book is actually finished.

Schedule #2: Strawberry Syrup. Doing a weekly webcomic takes a helluva lot of commitment. I really have no idea how people who do 2-3 updates a week manage it. For me, the ideal schedule goes something like thumbnail on Sunday, sketch and ink on Monday, finish it up on Tuesday, and post it promptly at midnight.

Okay, so this week, I was fifteen minutes late, but still, it's up, and I'm actually pretty pleased with this week's page. Yay, dark closet scenes!

Schedule #3: The shop. This schedule is a little more fluid. Since I'm still in the process of moving from CafePress, I'm trying to get one or two designs moved each week. After that, I'm hoping to add at least one new design a month. And then, there's the seasonal and holiday designs to keep in mind...

And that would be the one I'm a little behind on. Yep, still haven't got those holiday designs up. If everything goes well, I'll have the first of them up by this weekend, so I'm not too far off schedule there. All things considered, if one of my three has to be off, I'd rather it be the shop. Yes, yes, I know, they say the more you have up, the more you sell, but since I'm not exactly living off the income (and a good thing, too, since otherwise we'd have one dead Kit), it won't hurt to take my time.

Might as well enjoy it, right?

Well, Hello There, Melanthe!

Has this ever happened to you: A character shows up out of the blue one day, plunks down across from your laptop, orders a French Vanilla Latte, then looks you square in the eye and says, "Hi. I'll be showing up in your story soon, and no, my name is not negotiable."



It's one of those fun little surprises that tend to spring out at you during the course of a story (along with the "wow, did I seriously just write that? I might have a knack for this after all!" and "hm, things are going kind of slow- oh, hey, so-and-so just set the house on fire! That'll move things along!" moments). They're particularly fond of showing up during NaNo, when you're plowing through your novel at breakneck speeds, with no time to sit around and ponder the writerly way of things. More importantly, you don't have time to argue with those stubborn characters who refuse to budge until you let them have their way.

Well, Melanthe is one of those.

I knew she was coming. I start out with a Big List of What Must Happen - bullet points, if you will, with the hows of getting from point to point left to the passion of the muse and the joy of the moment and whatnot - so I knew her character was coming. I even had a vague feeling of dread about it, that inkling that she was going to pick a name I wasn't going to like, but I figured, "Hey, I've got a good week or two! I can talk her into a new name!"

Nope. Melanthe.

Sometimes, naming a character can be hard. It can involve hours pouring through baby name books or, if you've joined the 21st century, sites like Behind the Name, looking for that perfect name that just slips onto your waiting character like a favorite t-shirt. But there's something enjoyable about it, about finding the perfect name with the right sound that fits your character in personality and sound, not to mention the world the story takes place in. Which, I suppose, is where I have a problem with "Melanthe." It's just not a name you'd run into where the story takes place.

Never mind the pronunciation problems. "Mel-AN-thee. Like Melanie, with a TH."

She's actually the second character in the story to have creative differences with me over their name. In the other one's case, he's gradually getting used to the one I picked for him. Melanthe? Won't even consider changing.

Ah, well. Sometimes, you just can't fight it. And sometimes, you just have to get through the story and use the find and replace function later. :D

Full Steam Ahead!

Hit 20K on my NaNo today! Which means I am about four days ahead of schedule, which is awesome. I'm sure I'll hit a slow-down sooner or later (here's hoping for later!), but for now, I'm maintaining a nice steady pace.

Don't get me wrong - this thing is going to need a hell of a lot of editing and rewriting. Not just revising - full-out "What the hell was I thinking when I wrote this, how many cliches can I fit in one sentence, I think I wrote better as a fifth grader!" rewrites. But at least I'll have something to rewrite, and that's the important part.

There are a few things helping me stay focused this year. I seem to have settled into a nice schedule of writing from 3am - 6am, which probably wouldn't work too well if half of my late night chat partners hadn't disappeared for the past week or so. Dangle something like a pretty shiny flashing IM box in front of me and just watch that concentration dissolve. Sure, I could turn off AIM for awhile, but I happen to like feeling moderately connected to the world.

Besides, I'd also end up cutting off contact with this year's NaNo Buddy. There's something inspiring about watching Rishi's word count fly by. No direct competition there, but having someone else writing and posting word counts at the same time as you works wonders in the enthusiasm department, never mind having someone to babble to about your story as you try to work out the little snafus that show up when writing on the fly.

See? Instant messaging can be a good thing!

And this week, I will definitely try to get the comic page started today instead of saving it all for Tuesday. Because yeah, that? Didn't work so well.

Anyways, back to work I go!

Music and Writing

Confession time: I have concentration issues. For the most part these days, they crop up when I'm trying to write. If the TV's on, my focus is shot, and I'll be lucky to finish a full paragraph in half an hour. However, silence bothers me, too. So, my remedy?

Music.

Some people can't write with anything at all in the background, but I like to pop on my headphones, set an album or playlist on repeat, and let it drift into lyrical white noise. And whenever I'm writing something, I always end up gravitating towards one particular set of music over all others.

For my 2006 NaNo, Seashells and Horseshoes, the music of choice was Doug Cameron's Dublin Groove CD. Celtic music goes great with high fantasy in my mind, so that one was kind of a no-brainer. My 2007 NaNo, The Missing Sprites of Main Street, was low fantasy. Celtic music and small town suburbia? Not the best match in my brain. So I ended up listening to the .hack/SIGN soundtrack over and over. Nice bit of grit, but still whimsical.

This year, I'm writing the next book in the 2007 series, and for once, I seem to be listening to something with actual lyrics: Daughtry's second album. In a nice little twist of coincidence, turns out I'm writing a story featuring a pied piper to an album named "Leave This Town," something I just realized yesterday. Let's hear it for the subconscious!

So far, it's working out pretty well. The music's mostly upbeat and provides a nice background. Or, if I need a break, something to sing along and/or dance to. Granted, I may decide I'm sick of it halfway through November and switch to something else, but for now, it's Daughtry all the way!

NaNo Launch Is Go!

For the first time in three tries, I had a successful midnight NaNo launch. Maybe it was having a friend over to help kick things off, or maybe it was the knowledge that a great cosmic alignment and a certain former commander-in-chief's bright idea to move Daylight Savings Time had combined to grant all good little NaNoers a magical extra hour to work if they didn't wait til they woke up on November 1st to write. Either way, my story has successfully gotten its start, and as of 3:30am on November 2nd, a grand total of 3,415 words already grace my screen.

For those of you keeping track, that puts me a day ahead. That... is awesome. With some serious willpower and some luck, I'll be able to keep up the pace, particularly since I still have this week's Strawberry Syrup page to do.

Yep, that's right - I'm going to actually try and keep the comic going through NaNo. That will probably be a challenge. Writing a 50K story in 30 days tends to lead to that story completely consuming your brain. If you're not writing it, you're working on background details, or getting to know your characters better, or trying to figure out what in the world happens next. It doesn't stop, and that's part of the thrill of NaNo. You fling yourself wholeheartedly into the creative process and leave yourself at the mercy of the muses for a full month. It can be brutal, but it can also be exhilarating.

So, we'll see how it goes. I'm going to still try for my daily quota when I wake up later today, then get the layout, sketch and ink of page 12 done. Lather, rinse, and repeat with the shading on Tuesday, and I should be all set to go! Should be interesting...