chronicled & illustrated

Last week in the middle of the NaNoWriMo home stretch, when I was at around 38,000 words out of 50,000, I decided to write a short story. I have a December 7th deadline to enter a provincial writer’s federation contest. So, since last Saturday, I’m writing a novel and a short story with two imminent deadlines. It’s going pretty well and it’s teaching me some new things about writing.

In NaNoWriMo, the idea is to write full tilt for a month and sort out the details (and everything else) later. This short story is a completely different kind of writing. Instead of writing as many words as I can in a short period of time, I’m trying to finish a story in as few words as possible (in a short period of time). To say it’s a different mind set is to say the least!

Because I’ve never written a short story under 6,000 words (usually they’re more in the 8-9,000 word range), I found that I have to think of this more like poetry than prose. In poetry, especially, every word counts. It should be the same in a short story, but my tendency is to tell the story with all those lush details that flesh out characters and setting and back story and not worry to much about the word count. This is a good exercise and discipline for me.

The way I’m going at it so far, is to start over each day. After writing a novel this month, the idea of 3,000 words seems like nothing, but—here’s the rub—these have to be the exact right words in the right order!

At a certain point, I will know enough about the story to keep the draft from the day before and pick up from that point to the end, but right now, starting each day fresh is keeping the story lean, if not mean. Hopefully that will make it lean and seen (as in published) in the future! In the MEANtime, my mind is a slightly blown having these two writing techniques going at the same time, so if this blog post doesn’t make that much sense, you know why.

View of Little Tobago
Originally uploaded by nuanc

I started off this month with a feeling that I had enough NaNoWriMo experience that I might be able to offer other people tips on how to get through it. I actually have evidence that a couple of people did get a little encouragement or a helpful message at the right time from these tidbits, so that’s good. I like that. You don’t do something like this 5 times without learning something.

But now, the 26th of November, I’m bushed! I do not feel chipper anymore. I do not have the energy to make little graphics for the blog or to even think up anything helpful to say to anyone. If I had any energy, I’d go looking for tips just to help me get through the next few days. I don’t know if my age is showing or if blogging every day has added just that much extra work or if it’s that short story I masochistically decided to begin over the weekend, or the other dozen things I could name that have nothing to do with writing. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. November is almost over.

I’ll get through it and I’ll get my winner’s certificate for what it’s worth, but this experienced Wrimo will be positively plodding her way to the deadline!

Illustration: I took this shot of my older son and my stepson with their heads together while on a superb vacation in Tobago

You know what that is, don’t you?

Shameless Padding.

I resorted to it today in my writing. Man-oh-man, am I ever distracted. I am really feeling the pull of everything else in my life! And right when I was on such a roll!

Is that a coincidence? Maybe not. Maybe it’s self-sabotage. Or maybe I’m just simply tired of writing every day.

The good news is that the novel itself doesn’t seem to be the problem. I like the story and it’s unfolded nicely.

But today I was attempting to write what feels like a crucial scene. It’s also a scene that I didn’t know was going to happen in this way, so I haven’t had a lot of time to think it through. As I was writing, I started wondering if I wasn’t getting off track. Maybe the characters should have come to this place by a different method. If that would work better in the long run, why am I, I wondered, wasting time writing something that I KNOW is going to have to be rewritten.

My solution to this problem was to write what I felt I did know and then move right on into Shameless Padding. I wrote the last page and a half as notes to myself about how I thought it might work better. AND I counted those words. You better believe I did. It was good. I think having done that will move things along better tomorrow and the next day. That’s why it’s shameless.

Of course, I’ll make certain that my word count by the end of November is well above the 300+ words so my padding or my shamelessness won’t show!

This has to be a quick post. I’ve got a publishing meeting to go to and by the time I get back, this post might not be dated the 19th but the 20th. So, here’s the preliminary post which I hope to pay more attention to later. Why do I care? It’s the magic of signing up and saying: I’m going to post every day. It works to motivate—even when that motivation leads you to do something kind of silly. Like posting quickly when you don’t have time to think about what you want to write. Maybe it’s all just run-off from NaNoWriMo. Write, write, write; don’t think!

It’s been a good few nano-days. My writing’s on a roll and that is a very good feeling. It’s also something I want to remember for next time. It takes not only time but effort to get a novel to a point that it’s clipping along at a steady pace. In order to get anything big, unwieldy and complicated rolling, it takes up-front preparation. That’s what those painful days in and around the end of the first week and beginning of the second (okay, all of the second!) are all about. You just have to keep at it, get through those times and do not EVER let it stop you!

passssst
Originally uploaded by nuanc

Oh boy! My novel FINALLY picked up some speed today. It’s been going in that direction for the last two days but today was truly the first day this month that I felt as if I could just keep going, as if I couldn’t type fast enough to get the words down. In fact, I wasn’t surprised when I got to the end of the chapter I was writing that the word count was 3,163 (to be exact) words more than yesterday.

It’s momentum. What a great feeling! An exhilarating sled run after a long hard slog up the hill. It’s gratifying after all the work put in so far—the feeling of having to paste myself into the chair and duct tape myself to the desk, all the draggy days, the suppressed doubts (because they never actually Go Away, do they?), and the endless setting up of characters until you are quite certain that it’s going to be a book about nothing whatsoever except six single characters milling around in search of something to do!

At this point, however, my main characters have finally come together into a situation that not only brings up aspects of what has happened in the last two novels set in this world, but also sets up new mysteries and, later on, when it’s time, a resolution. No. I don’t know exactly what that will be, but I CAN tell now (as opposed to three days ago) that I’m on the right path to discover it. And so are my characters. How nice to be on the same page as one’s characters.

If you’re not there yet, keep going! You’ll find that momentum sooner or later as well. It’s worth it!

winds of change
Originally uploaded by nuanc

I got to a stopping point in my writing today slightly before I got to the word count I wanted.
I could have pushed it, but I felt it needed to rest. The story is at a crucial juncture and, to tell you the truth, I am not quite sure what’s going to happen. If I had continued today, my fear is that I would have gone off on a tangent.

Sometimes in NaNoWriMo we have to just keep writing even though we know we don’t know where we’re going. I do it if I’m falling too far behind in the word count or if I am uninspired. But sometimes it’s okay to wait. I’m close to being on track with the word count and I am feeling inspired. With both of those things working for me, I’d rather let a little time pass and give it some unfocused, C-mindful simmering before I write what comes next.

That C-mind stuff is what happens in the shower or while chopping vegetables or taking a walk or even cleaning the house (not that any of us are getting that done this month, right?). It’s what happens when we’re into our novels enough that the characters and the situation are with us even when we aren’t directing our minds toward them. When we’re engaged in an activity that doesn’t require our full attention, our minds will sometimes drift across the landscape of story we’re working on and come up with the best ideas! It’s one of the most fun things about writing.

That’s what I’m hoping for tonight.

In the meantime, I took some photos. My camera has literally been on the shelf since I got back from Houston just before Halloween. This evening I heard the wind coming up and I looked outside. It was just before dusk and the cornstalks in the garden were doing fantastic things in the gusting wind. I got a new flash when I was in Houston and it is supposed to not only help me with the low light but also capturing motion. One of my frustrations is that I haven’t had time to learn to use it!

Happily, I took the time to get the camera and go outside. I got the shot above as well as some other blurry ones that I love. I still don’t know what I’m doing with the flash but that’s one of the great things about digital: you can see the mistakes you’ve made immediately. Instantaneous feedback! It felt good to shoot some photos, so much so that I’m vowing to take a few everyday through the rest of the month. It’s not as if it takes that much time and it feels great to *focus* on something other than writing.

Sorry.

I also uploaded an excerpt to my nano profile page.