National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo - some people think its madness to try to write 50 000 words in 30 days, but I am a NaNo participant, and I thought I'd share what I've learned.
I've been registered since 2011 and I've registered six projects - four got to 50K, none of which have been published. One got very, very close. 2018 saw me log 10K on a novel that was completed to 55K, has sold and will be published in 2020. I finished it in the November, but I stopped logging at 10K. No idea why. This year's attempt is something that's been kicking around in my head and I'm not sure how we're going to end up. I'm 8.5K in on day 5. So here's my opinion on NaNo: The good:
So, I'm going to be on radio silence for most of the next 25 days. My goal is to work around my shifts at work, my still unwell doggo and my running/fitness goals, and crack out 50K. Wish me luck. November - what's not to love - jacarandas in full bloom, warm spring weather and best of all - it's national novel writing month or NaNoWriMo.
This year I'm NaNoNOTWriMo-ing courtesy of a temporary contract extension in the day job and a tricky timeline rewrite in the centre of my manuscript. The suggestion from my crit group to improve a single chapter means rewrites both back and forward from that spot and sadly, the continuity of "who knows what and when" is doing my head in. Cue a collection of post-it notes spread across one side of my desk to set it in stone. Now I just have to ensure I've incorporated it all. Good luck to those wielding their pens towards the 50K goal - I wish you speedy words, plenty of writing time and no unforeseen disasters. It's always a little bit quiet round here during National Novel Writing Month. Finally, late last night I managed to finish the 50K words and was designated a winner. I didn't participate last year, so this year I wasn't sure how things would go. Here's my wrap up of ten things that make for a better experience when you attempt NaNoWriMo:
When I'm outlining, I always have my premise, my setting and my world building done long before I find my characters.
All year around I collect cuttings from magazines, most bought at second hand markets or stores - I use a variety of magazines, not the ones I tend to read. Nothing gets you into the head of a farmer better than reading Australian farmer. Both of these cuttings come from Runner's World. On the right, this lady was originally heading up an article about "Dressing up to Run". Focusing on the picture, I see a leader from a futuristic world who is determined to preserve her way of life. On the left, I'm more interested in the narrative and the background than the man in the picture. Astronauts on the international space station should exercise for 2 hours a day to preserve bone density and muscle mass. Without gravity, sweat pools on your skin and doesn't come off until you wipe it. The setting is the bonus here - its clinical, shiny, technology, crammed but not cramped. All useful to know when writing people in space. So, NaNoWriMo prep is done. Now its time to stop faffing and write the book. See you next week with an update... I love writing futuristic and sci-fi and one of the most important aspects to this is world building. How can you make the world you're describing futuristic enough to satisfy the reader without making it so incredibly complex, they are lost in the story.
Here's a couple of my techniques: 1. Photos out of context. These flowers (above) caught my eye in a decorative garden. If I'd zoomed out, the photo would have depicted a world renowned park in Melbourne. Zoomed in, three's a bit of an odd flora look to these guys. So, how could they be important to the story? Are they dangerous? Contain a cancer containing chemical? Do they only grow on a certain planet? Do they watch you??? The possibilities are endless. 2. Revised history. Everyone knows about the moon landing in the late 1960's. What would have happened if the astronauts had discovered something unexpected, or brought an infection back to earth with those moon rocks? What about if the US Prohibition had been on something other than alcohol? How would civilisation develop over the next 500 years, if cake, or technology, or cauliflowers had been banned. Thinking that through, its feasible that a cauliflower underground exists on future Earth, especially if future scientists discover some pharmaceutical in the leaves of the cauliflower, or the larvae of the moths that eat them. (I promise never to write the cauliflower underground but you know what I mean). 3. The Time Capsule This could be for a race, or a town or an individual. You open a package from the past and forever, your life is changed. The package arrives at your isolated space base and it tells you two things - the first is that your parent has died, the second is that in their bedside drawer filled with memorabilia there were two sets of booties, one pink, one blue, two birth certificates, obviously two children. But you're an only child. Where is your sibling? Fast forward 500 years and there are two races at war. What if those siblings, separated at birth, were the founders of those races? How would that differ from them being completely different peoples? As you can see, there's no shortage of ideas. I'll be writing futuristic for NaNoWriMo, so this is the kind of thing I'll be doing in October. Do you prep for NaNoWriMo? To NaNoWriMo or not?
Once upon a time I thought the concept of writing 50K in 30 days was nonsense and not something I could ever achieve. Then a really good friend introduced her novel to me in our critiquing sessions. While I was still working week to week for the critique group, she had an entire novel drafted to bring. She was working differently to me and I could see the potential. I tried NaNoWriMo, and now I'm hooked. Now, I'm an outliner - between a plotter and a pantser - I need to know where we are going and then my imagination just takes over. So I tend to spend October in NaNoWriMo prep as recommended by Alexandra Sokoloff but i also throw in some elements from Karen S. Wiesner's First Draft in 30 days. It's not just notebooks either - I wrote a futuristic prohibition society without colour or texture in its fabrics - the photo above is detail from the quilt I made in the October before writing that book. In the novel, the heroine has this quilt and in a pivotal scene, she and the military man sent to bring her in end up horizontal on this quilt. So, do you NaNoWriMo? Woohoo, sorry for the delay in announcing this - but I made it - 50000 words in 30 days. Which is a very special feeling, no matter what else is going on in life. The work is still untitled, needs a lot of work and won't see the light of day anytime soon, but its out of my head.
When it was all over, I collapsed in a heap. Not really, but there were a lot of chores left undone during the month on November. It's taken me this long to get through the backlog. And I've discovered a huge hole in my pre-Christmas planning. I used to get organised in November and hit the shops long before the school graduations. This year, not so much. However, I'm getting back on track now. Things I learned during 2013 NaNoWriMo: 1. Its a lot easier to hit the target if you stay on track early in the month. A lot easier. Going to write that on every page in November in my diary so I don't forget for next year. 2. 1667 words/day is really not that hard to write if you sit in the chair and write. 3. Nut grass has the ability to completely take over a garden bed and grow taller than your dogs if there is a lot of rain in November. 4. I need a much better grasp of the effect of a planet's atmosphere on gravity, respiration and life in general if I want to write futuristic. Right now, this story has what I call "magic fairy dust" which allows my humans to stay tethered to the planet, and breathing. Must fix that in the next draft. 5. Writing, even when its not going perfectly, makes me happy. Writing 50000K in a month makes me think anything is possible. Especially when I ignore housework. Hope your December, and your Christmas preparation, is going well...... I'm off to brave the shops. Well, my NaNoWriMo draft is not going to plan. Instead of the start at the beginning, work to the end of last year, this story is revealing itself in bits and pieces from different point of views and my lack of progress is frustrating to say the least. It's a futuristic, involves a family business (which is an interactive show) under siege from an unknown person. The heroine is in the family, the hero is a new hire.
So this morning I've pulled out my trusted Once Upon a Time Storytelling Gard Game and Once Upon a Time Dark Tales Add on and randomly picked eight cards - five storytelling and three dark to help me out. The aim is to take inspiration on the story from the hints on the cards. Here's what I got (they're hard to read in the photo). 1. He lived the rest of his life as a beggar, which was perfectly just. 2. They ate it at the feast and it was delicious. 3. And he was reunited with his family. 4. Haunted. 5. Tiny. 6. (Interrupt) Troublemaker - I interpret this as unexpected troublemaker 7. Enemy 8. (Interrupt) Monster - interpreted as unexpected monster. I find it fascinating that of eight cards picked randomly from a deck that I have trouble fitting my hand round, six fit my story. The two that don't - Tiny and Monster. When I say they don't fit, they don't fit yet. Hopefully my subconscious will get to work over the next eleven days and give me the inspiration to include those elements in my story. Oh, and for anyone following the story of my Alphasmart Dana. Cost of repair $500 approx. Cost of replacement $250 approx (not exactly the same) or I could buy a wireless keypad for my iPad, buy a workprocessing package and use my iPad to write (approx $100). Needless to say, I'm going to be retiring my Dana... It's November, which means its National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. We're now 12 days in and I'm a little behind my target word count. Last year I sat out on our deck in the quiet every night after the washing up was done and pumped out 1700 words on a story that had been percolating for a very long time. The scenes literally wrote themselves. This year, I am struggling. The words and scenes were really stilted and (dare I say) boring when writing from the heroine's point of view. Switched to the hero's point of view and very quickly reached my 1667 words for the day. Major revision of my heroine on day five. Day ten, the man who's missing popped in to give me a scene. On day one, I thought he was probably dead. Day eleven was good to me as a result of this revelation. But on day twelve tragedy struck..... My Dana, longtime writing companion, is faltering and expert advice suggests it may be terminal. Purchased in 2007, the support unit used words like "Such outdated technology" and "Not worth fixing". Those of you who don't know the Dana or Alphasmart (Alphie) they are a range of very robust, very basic word processors with auto on and direct to your file, and a tiny screen that makes editing almost impossible. Perfect for writing dirty first drafts. Even more perfect for slotting into your handbag and slipping it out any time you are waiting for anything to get some words down. Once you're home you connect to your computer via cable, hit send and it adds all those words to your manuscript. That's the part I love the most. Watching it hand over the words. Luckily I was able to retrieve everything from the Dana, and I now have a work-around to let me continue to use it until it dies altogether. Please, God of Technology, don't take it until after the 30th of November. Are you doing NaNo this year? How are you going? |
Fiona Greene AuthorWhen you set out on a journey and night falls, that's when you will discover the stars." Archives
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