My History with NaNoWriMo

Yeah, I so jinxed myself. I managed to catch my first cold of the year, and this one came with epic levels of fatigue. Yaaay, fatigue! But it seems to be going away finally, even if I am still keeping a bag of Ricola lozenges nearby.

October promises to be a busy month, though... For one thing, I will be preparing for - drum roll please - NaNoWriMo 2010! I haven't decided what I'm going to write yet, which isn't exactly unusual for me. Well, as usual or unusual for something that's only been done three times.

In 2006, I went the whole "PLOT AND PREPARE!" route, complete with snowflaking an entire story throughout the month of October so I could just plunge right in and write on autopilot. It worked, more or less, and I made my 50K with days to spare. That particular story is still waiting for me to swing back into high fantasy mode so I can finally finish it.

All October of 2007, I focused on one story, hammering out the characters and the world setting and all that fun stuff. On October 31st, there I was, ready and waiting for midnight to strike so I could plunge into my story. Midnight came... and I discovered that was not the story I'd be writing that year. Completely refused to be written. Wasn't happening, no way, no how. So, on November 1st, I pulled out my notes on an older story idea I never got around to writing and dove in head-first... and loved what came out. Another winner, too. It has since had its first draft finished and is waiting for me to get off my tail and put it through some hard editing.

2008... didn't happen. It was a rough year, and I opted out of NaNo.

In 2009, I was itching to get going on NaNo, and October was spent planning the sequel to 2007's story. No snowflaking this time, but I knew the basics of what I wanted to happen. Think major stops on a road trip, but leaving the in-between as a surprise. Smoothest NaNo yet. The story itself hasn't been finished yet, but it's getting there! It's somewhere around 85K. With any luck, I'll be able to finish it before November.

This year? I have no idea what I'm going to do. XD I haven't decided on what I'm going to write yet, but I've got some time. Should be interesting!

The Return of Productivity!

Today was what I consider to be a productive day. I finally got over the slump in my story (still working on that NaNo story - it's now just shy of 77K!) and hit a part I'm really enjoying writing again. Occasionally, I hit a part in a story where it's just about torture to keep putting words on the page, either because I need to recharge or just because I'm not really interested in that part of the story right then. That would be what the last twenty pages before today's spree were.

A few of the NaNo emails have addressed this issue in the past, so I know it's not just me: somewhere in the middle of the first draft, the author wants to do anything besides keep writing. If the story could just magically finish itself, that would be great. I figure there are a few reasons behind it: boredom or a short attention span on the part of the author, it's a part the author just doesn't want to write, or that part just honestly is not that interesting.

In the case of the last one, that's a problem, because chances are good that your readers will feel the same way. At best, they'll skim along until things start getting good again. At worst, they'll put your book down and find a better one.

Approaches to fixing this vary. Some writers take a step back, do a little reworking, and fix the problem. Sometimes that works for me, but I have heard revision horror stories where a writer just keeps trying to fix the problem right then and there and ends up never moving forward. Personally, I'm a big believer in finishing the entire first draft before starting in on the revision cycle. This also means I keep a notebook or stack of Post-It Notes nearby so I can write down the big revision ideas to implement later. After all, chances are that I'll be doing multiple revisions anyway, no matter what I do to the story, but I can't actually revise until there's something to revise!

In other news, my hand has decided it's capable of drawing again, so I've gotten started on this week's Strawberry Syrup page. You have no idea how ecstatic this makes me.

Hello, March!

Well, the Olympics are over, snow is still on the ground, and it is officially the start of a new month. Time for this month's To Do List! In no particular order, here are my goals for March:

• Finish 2009's NaNo.


• Get Strawberry Syrup back on track.


• Get my hands on a copy of Rachel Caine's Midnight Alley. *shakes a fist at the local bookstores*


• Sit my butt down and actually update my Squidoo lenses.


• Add more stuff to my Zazzle shop.


• Get stuff sent out.


• Keep up with my writing routine.

I'm keeping it simple. Got a few minor goals to round out the major ones, and then a few "if Kit works really hard and the stars align" goals to aim for. I've already made a good start on that first one today. Why yes, there is a reason I spent a good chunk of the afternoon researching common town names, last names meanings, the native tree life of Michigan, and topics for high school essays on Hamlet.

More seriously, I have finally, finally cleared out the debris from that roadblock and moved into the actual writing phase again. Kinda sucks that I'm going to have to quit sometime tonight to get that next page of Strawberry Syrup started... I don't even want to think about how much my drawing skills have deteriorated after not using them for a month.

Breaking Down the Roadblock

Operation Roadmapping: Success!

It probably sounds like the dullest and least creative thing ever, but outlining the story thus far and then making a little chart with the events for each major plotline actually helped a lot.

Yes, I made a chart. I get all analytical like that sometimes.

Anyways, by charting the plotlines in separate columns and then using a different row for each day of the week, I could visually see whether my plots were balanced enough and what needs to happen next - which was the whole point. Even if I eventually change things around (which, given the nature of rewriting, I probably will), for now at least I can get moving again.

... Which I'm going to go do now! :D

Roadmapping

While I'm letting the stories and whatnot I've been working on for the past month stew and get a little distance on them, I've been going back over 2009's NaNo. I'm pleasantly surprised by it (this being the first time I've read the whole thing through from the beginning). Sure, there's plenty of work to be done, but it's not headdeskingly bad. There is hope!

Of course, before I can do anything serious editing-wise, I need to finish the sucker. Unfortunately, as I got to the end, I realized why I lost steam in the first place: I had no idea what the next scene should be. Not a good start.

Fortunately, I have a few things to try. Option one: outline. Yeah, I know, that's usually something you hear people doing before they start writing. Well, if that's what works for them, that's great. I've tried it before. Snowflaked my first NaNo novel back in 2006. Still need to finish that novel, actually, whenever I swing back to high fantasy mode and feel like trudging through one giant mess of prose. While I never had to think about what came next, I also wrote on autopilot... which meant I didn't realize things were getting horribly horribly tangled until the very last major plotpoint. There is going to be a lot of major restructuring in that one.

No, this time, I'm using the outline to track where I've been and hopefully see what needs to be the next scene. I'm mapping out POVs and the three main plotlines while I'm at it, and I won't be outlining any further than I've already written. I'm using it as a chance to keep all those little threads from getting hopelessly snarled and back into a nice, neat braid again. Really, all I'm looking for is a next step.

I'll let you know how it works out.

The Right to Write

One of my favorite writing exercises is pretty simple. I grab a book, flip to a page, and write down the first noun or verb I see. Repeat two more times. Then, write something using all three words. It's a good little exercise that can come up with some interesting results, especially if you do it shortly after getting up, before the Inner Critic and Editor have had their morning coffee.

Anyways, today the book I was using to find words was Novel Ideas: Fantasy, an anthology of short stories and novellas that eventually spurred the author on to full novels or series. I haven't read them all, having found it a fantastic source for my exercise and not wanting to know context for the words, but today, I flipped to the intro page of Orson Scott Card's story Lost Boys.* Well, the only Lost Boys I knew of involved Kiefer Sutherland in a pair fangs, so of course I had to read the intro... where Card described a night of storytelling at a university Halloween party where he decided to tell a ghost story that ended up with half the people present pissed off at him.

Long story short, Card decided to give personalizing a fictional story a try by telling it in first person as if it were fact and had happened to him, even to the point of using his own life and real names. He then added fictional characters and events, like his "eldest son" Scotty and the bodies in their crawlspace. When he later decided to write it as a short story and present it at a workshop, the other writers were furious. One even went as far as telling him he had no right to write a story about losing a son like that unless he actually had.

That got me thinking. Is there anything a writer doesn't have the right to write? It goes right back to that old stand-by of "Write what you know." But people tend to interpret that as, "you can only write your class, race, gender, and lifestyle." Which means people shouldn't write about different family set-ups, professions, or religions, either. Which, frankly, would make for a pretty bleak reading selection, particularly for a fantasy lover like me.

Instead, I prefer to think of it as having a deeper meaning. Humans were granted an amazing imagination, and we "know" a lot more than we give ourselves credit for. We all know the basic emotions: love, joy, anger, sadness, grief, desperation, fear, embarrassment, etc. Writers can take those emotion and extrapolate them into what their characters are feeling, and through their words, they can inspire their readers to feel those things, too. Imagination is a powerful thing.

Am I saying screw the research and just write whatever the heck you want? Not if you want it read by other people. Do the research, listen to people who have lived through something similar, pay attention, and then put that wonderful imagination to work.

So did Orson Scott Card have a right to write that short story from the first person? In my opinion, absolutely. As he wrote in his afterward, he may not have lost a child to death, but he knew intimately what it was like to have a child who couldn't really live the way all parents want their children to. The emotions in his story came from a very real place, and it resulted in a powerful story. That people would get outraged over the fact that he hadn't had a child die seems ridiculous to me. It's fiction - the truth is in the lies.

* This is the story that he later turned into the full-length book, Lost Boys: A Novel. Obviously, a lot changed, but the key idea seems to have stayed the same.

Discovering Kirtles

Well, my beta reader for my story got back to me last night, and overall, it was a pretty positive critique. One comment, though, suggested I hadn't really set my setting as well as I might have. Seeing as it's high fantasy, this was a serious concern.

On reading back through with fresh eyes, I realized that I really had left the environment somewhat sparse... along with character descriptions. I blame one of my old creative writing teachers for that - he preached the "never describe your characters" philosophy, and he was very convincing. It made sense that the readers would paint the picture in their head, and I see it working in some of my favorite books, but still - there are some details to sketch out their appearance.

So, I spent most of Wednesday working out what details I need to add and where. One of those details is clothing (kind of an important part of a high fantasy). Of course, "skirt" and "shirt" didn't seem to quite do it, so I grabbed a few references and hit the Google image search.

And that is how I found... the kirtle.

I am familiar with a lot of medieval clothing - chemises, shifts, petticoats, bodices, surcoats, tunics, all that fun stuff. I had never in my life heard of a kirtle. Turns out, it's a dress. Yeah, shocker, I know. This particular dress can be long-sleeved, short-sleeved, or no sleeved, worn over a chemise or shift and worn under an "overkirtle", outer gown, surcoat, or any number of other other gowns. Sources vary on whether it can be the top layer all by itself.

Basically, perfect for what I need, if not for the fact that it's probably going to leave readers going, "what the heck is a kirtle?"

For those of you who are curious, THESE are kirtles.

Yeah, they look kinda like something a first grade teacher would wear to me, too.

Fine Tuning

Last week, I said my little revision project should be just about done by today. Well... it is. It has been tweaked and poked and prodded down to 25 pages, the plot kinks have been worked out, the characters have all been given important roles, and I'm fairly certain each and every scene is necessary (very important in a short story, I'm told). Which means it's time to break out the polish and make this sucker shine.

So what does that mean? Well, mostly it's playing around with word choice - making the characters pop and the language flow while keeping it interesting and enjoyable to read. On the list of things to do with the story today: figure out my most common words, hunt them down, and add a little variation.

Sometimes, you have to use the same word. There are only so many ways you can refer to a door without whacking your reader over the head with a thesaurus or straying into purple prose territory. But for, say, verbs, you want to take a hard look at some of your favorites, the old stand-bys you toss in while writing that first draft when you don't think too hard right then.

There's usually nothing wrong with the word itself, but it doesn't hurt to take a second look and see if there isn't a verb that would work better, one that paints a more precise picture in your reader's mind.

For example, "He headed across the street."

It works, but that is about the least precise way of saying that. How did he cross the street? Did he walk? Run? Sprint, slink, sneak, saunter, stroll, jog, waltz? Pick the one that best fits the image in your mind.

The word I'm currently reworking is "peek." Yeah, of all the words to toss in, I had to use "peek." The MC "peeks" several times - out from under the covers and around a few corners. Light and the sun "peek" out from behind the clouds. Everything's "peeking." It's a wee bit repetitive, so time to search out better words and cut the use of "peek" down to maybe two. Three, if it's absolutely necessary.

Also on chopping board: "peer," "bolt," and "glance." Yeah, your time is coming. Let the hunt begin!

In an Editorial Mood, Part 2

There are some dangers to getting very involved in a project. One of them is losing track of time - or day of the week (watching the Australian Open, which is about a day ahead of my time zone, hasn't helped there). But, I think it's paying off.

Draft #3 is well on its way, with two pages worth of material already cut out. Unfortunately, those two pages were eaten up by two scenes that needed to be added to make my protagonist a little more proactive. So length-wise, I'm right back at 27 pages. Ah, the joys of editing...

On the bright side, there are plenty of places where my prose can be tightened. I'm a rambley writer by nature (yeah, I know, shocker there), which makes it a matter of how much rambling can I cut without destroying all personality in the piece.

Yeah. We'll just pretend that's as simple as it sounds.

Alright, back to work I go!

In an Editorial Mood

Followers of my webcomic, Strawberry Syrup, were disappointed this week: no page. There is a very good reason for this, of course; sometimes, real life steps in and demands my attention. (It's for reasons like that that a webmangaka needs to have a buffer built up, but, of course, easier said than done.)

Anyways, this particular slice of real life involves a short story I'm attempting to revise, rewrite, and polish up into something I can actually send out, and what I want to send it out for has a deadline of March 1st. Right now, I am focused on making the story flow, tightening up the prose, and getting it down to 25 pages without losing all personality. The story itself is one that I wrote five or six years ago, back when I was still an undergrad and had the writing prompt of, "Someone has a secret."

Me being me, I churned out a YA fantasy about a girl who finds a new reason to be afraid of the dark. While it was received well by the class, looking back at it I cringe at certain parts: the purple prose, the plot holes, the craft failures. But I liked the basic story, so I considered that original work a first draft and started rewriting it for my own enjoyment last summer. Not having an actual reason to really finish a YA story of that length, I ended up setting it aside before finishing the rewrite.

Well, now I have a reason, and Draft #2 has been finished. I'm now working on Draft #3, which will be the last draft before I send it out to my little circle of critiquers. Basically, the idea is to make it the best I can possibly make it, and then see how people say I can make it better.

If I don't run into any major snags or muse blockages, it should be done by this time next week. Here's hoping!

EPIC FAIL

Yeah, starting off the New Year was an epic fail in regards to Strawberry Syrup. This would be the first time I've missed an update due to something other than illness, uncooperative muse, or hiatus. Those of you who read Monday's post probably saw this coming: I missed this update because my hands and wrists protested the Soul Caliber IV marathon. Painfully.

Yeah, I'll be resisting the urge to draw anything until this weekend at the earliest.

So, since drawing is out of the question for the moment, I've been sifting through the internet's selection of children/YA magazines, looking for something I might be interested in submitting to. Most of the stories I write fall into the middle reader or young adult range. I'm not much of a short story writer and the only one I've found so far that accepts novellas is currently backlogged with accepted material, but we'll see if I can't come up with something.

Continuing with the whole writing idea, I'm going to set my NaNo 2009 aside for a bit. It's just dragging, and working on something shorter might actually help. Give the ideas a chance to percolate, return with a fresh eye, all that fun stuff so I don't feel like I'm slogging in circles through knee-high snow. Sometimes, taking a break is actually a good thing!

Coming Out of the Fugue

Slowly but surely, I'm getting back to work here. Last night, I finally got back to work on my NaNo story. Yes, yes, I know, NaNo's long since over and I won, so what more is there to do?

Finish the story, that's what.

It's currently at 172 pages, double-spaced, and there's probably another hundred pages to go before I consider it a fully finished first draft. At this point, I'm thinking I'll just keep plowing through until I reach the end, then go back and sort out the the plot holes, contradictions, and time line issues in Draft #2, then do the fine-tuning in Drafts 3 and 4. I seem to work best in multiple drafts.

Now, let's see if I can get the comic to cooperate...

Top Distractions

Yep, life is distracting. It is very distracting. It doesn't even have to try very hard - just wiggle something shiny outside the window, and there goes my concentration! However, there are a few things that grab my attention more than others.

• The TV. If that's on, forget about writing! Whether it's Criminal Minds or HGTV or some SyFy movie (oh, how I love the cheesy bad SyFy flicks), it will just keep nibbling away at my concentration until I either have to put off writing or turn off the TV. Needless to say, TV stayed off for most of November.


• Facebook. Oh, Facebook and your many, many time-draining applications. It started with Pet Society, then spread to CafeVille and, most recently, FarmVille. The last two are particularly dangerous, as you have to check at certain time or else your food or crops will spoil or wither and die. I can't even say they're really all that GOOD of games, they're just addictive.


• RP Chat. Yep, I do some RP. Back in 2001 or so, I started a message board RPG dealing with mythology. Although the actual game is pretty thoroughly dead, the characters have lived on through AIM. While I am loathe to call this a distraction, as I do so love my characters, it does qualify.


• TV Tropes.com. Sweet Lord, this is the distraction of distractions. It is an endless maze of amusement and fascination and the ultimate time-sucking black hole for writers, lit majors, movie geeks, and anyone else with an interest in books or film. I am not kidding - this place is dangerous. You look at one entry, and suddenly you've got ten more opened in tabs to read through later, and each of those gives you three or four more, and before you know it, it's 5am and you're wondering where the hours went. I had no idea this place even existed until my brother revealed that someone had done a page for Strawberry Syrup.

So that's my list of top distractions. I'm sure there are more, but there's a shiny object demanding my attention!

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.

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...

Almost Time for NaNo!

It's that time of year again, when thousands of aspiring novelists gather together their hoard of snack foods and energy drinks, find a quiet place, crack their knuckles, and hunker down to hammer out 50,000 words in 30 days.

It's time... for NaNo!

National Novel Writing Month (better known as NaNo or NaNoWriMo) starts promptly at midnight on Halloween night and lasts until midnight on November 30th. At the website, you can sign up to be part of a community of other NaNoers where you can share your trials and tribulations, your successes and breakthroughs, your surprises and wrong turns, and find inspiration and encouragement from hundreds of other writers just like you. It gives people an excuse to write every day, and for those of us who need the extra motivation, a deadline and a daily goal (1667 words a say, if you want to hit 50K on November 30th itself).

I've done NaNo twice before, in 2006 and 2007, and I'm proud to say I won both years. Here are a few things I learned that new NaNoers (and even some veterans) might want to keep in mind:

• Pick a schedule and keep to it. In past years, the schedule that worked out best for me was doing my NaNo-related stuff when I got up. I'd read through the day before's work as I ate breakfast and woke up a little more, then dive in for the next 1667 words. TV stayed off, no checking of email, deviantArt, blogs or forums, and certainly no IMing until I reached my daily goal. After the first week, my family learned to leave me alone during that time, which was a major help right there.


• Keep track of your progress. I made myself a spreadsheet to keep track of mine, including day, how many words I should have, and how many I actually had. If I was ahead of schedule, my actual count was done in green. Red, if I was behind. Kind of the whole "do your homework and get a sticker" idea. It seemed to work for me.


• If the spirit moves you, run with it! If you hit your daily goal and the story's flowing and you don't have anywhere else to be, go with it! Keep writing! Whenever possible, you want to get ahead of schedule. After all, you never know when something's going to come up that'll cut into your writing time. (Thanksgiving and weekends tend to be the big ones for me)


• If it makes your feel better, plot it out. For my first NaNo, I dutifully plotted out my story, convinced that I'd get stuck somewhere along the way and be completely lost and suddenly I'd be 30,000 words behind. I have to say, having it plotted was kind of nice (I used about half the steps of the Snowflake Method for the outline), and it definitely made the whole experience go smoothly. Ideally, this should be done in October, before you start, but you can always take a little time once you get a better idea of where your story's going and do some planning then.


• Winging it's fine, too. Some people like to be surprised, to stick a group of characters together and let them work their own way out. If that's the way you work best, go for it! For my second NaNo, I spent October planning on one story and ended up doing a completely different one on November 1st. Fortunately, it was one I'd been thinking about for awhile, so I had some idea of the characters and major plot points (my preferred way of working - I like to know where I'm going, but have a little room to play along the line).


• This is a first draft. No one, I repeat, no one ever has a perfect first draft. It's okay if your prose is rusty, your analogies cliche, and your dialogue stiff - the whole point is to get something done so you can work with it later!


• Save the editing for December. Or, better yet, give yourself a month off after you finish your manuscript and look at it then. The last thing you want to do in NaNo is get bogged down in endless rewrites. I only ever look back as far as the day before. As I read through, I might do some minor editing and what not, but other than that, it's plowing ahead. I also keep a list of changes I'll want to make after November's done, but that all gets saved until after I've got my 50K nice and secure. Besides, a little distance is a good thing when polishing a piece - it helps you see that what you thought were sparkling gems of wit and beauty are actually worn out and kinda cheesy.


• Visit the forums. Half the fun of NaNo is the community. If you get stuck, need a break, or want some people to commiserate with, the forums are the place to do it! Just remember to get your writing done, too.

Ultimately, this is supposed to be a fun, enjoyable experience. Of course, writers as a group tend to enjoy suffering through the process, so ideas of "fun" may vary. ;)

Here's to a good NaNo, everyone!