Writing

If you take a looksie in the sidebar, you’ll see my NaNoWriMo word count thus far. As of the writing of this post, it’s 5263. I was able to punch out about 1500 words tonight, after slacking for the most part the past few days. I let my analytical thinking get to me - I paused too long between writing sessions, and my brain started nitpicking. “Ah, that doesn’t work. That’s wrong. This could be better.” Blah, blah, blah.

As a way to try and re-motivate myself, I checked out No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days. It’s by Chris Baty, the mastermind (crazy mind?) behind the whole NaNoWriMo thing. After reading about 40 pages, I was ready to leap back into the novel. He stresses repeatedly: don’t analyze, just go go go! I particularly liked a quote from Ernest Hemingway that he used to get the point across:

The first draft of anything is shit.

That’s certainly comforting, because my first draft is pretty crappy! Oh well. After jumping back into it tonight, a new plot line opened up which I hadn’t really expected (at all). It’s kind of cool, really. Now that I’m actually trying to write a novel, a lot of my assumptions about novel-writing from the past have been shattered. In particular, I used to think that when novelists would say, “I didn’t expect that to happen at all with my characters, but it did!”, I’d think… bullshit. You’re a novelist. You knew the whole plot before you started writing! You all do! Novels don’t just “happen”; things don’t just “happen” without you planning it.

Nonsense. I’m finding that if you get in the groove of writing fiction, and just let go without worrying too much, things do happen on their own. You start clacking away on the keyboard, and before you know it, there’s a bunch of stuff staring back at you that you did not expect to happen at all. Things that hadn’t even crossed your mind before. It’s a pretty awesome feeling. I won’t say this is easy - as noted before, my analytical brain is trying to beat me senseless - but this is turning out to be a bucketload of fun, and also rather insightful.

Don’t hold me to that, though. By the end of the month, this could be me, along with many of my fellow NaNoWriMo-ers:

I’ve received a couple of tips from people about how to make the whole novel-writing process go a bit smoother for NaNoWriMo. Here they are, as well as a couple that I’ve thought of.

• Find some music you love, crank it up, and then start writing. (Thanks, Brendan)
• Don’t think about it too much. I really, really need to keep this one in mind. I am THE Mr. Over-Analyzer. (Thanks, Zeitlos)
• Repeat the phrase from Star Trek, “You must return Spock’s brain”, followed by “You must write more.” Rinse and repeat. Or, if you’re feeling feisty, drink some Jamesons. (Thanks, David)

A few that I’ve thought of whilst writing:

• Write late at night, or whenever you’re tired. The tiredness will make you not care much about how very awful your novel (mine, anyway) is turning out.
• In a similar vein as the one above… Laugh. A lot. Whenever you write a sentence or paragraph that you know is dreadful, laugh and move on. Remember: you don’t have time to make it any better. You’ve got a deadline to make. Quantity, not quality. Quantity, not quality. That should be your mantra for the next month!

That last one is really important, at least for me. If I didn’t laugh at the absolutely horrible prose I’m producing (and I’m producing quite a lot of it - I’m already up to 3500 words), I’d cry and give up on the whole thing. It goes against my very nature to not tweak, tweak, and retweak. This is harder than I thought it would be.

Just a bit of an update on my novel-writing for NaNoWriMo. I’m finding that after my initial burst of “let’s go!”, I’ve slowed down tremendously. It’s November 3, and Google Docs is telling me that I’ve only written 2180 words. That’s certainly far more than I’ve ever written in the past when trying to write a novel, but I’m going to have to pick up the pace.

I know what’s happening, too. When I first started writing, I was in “full speed ahead!” mode. Now that I’ve written a bit, the analytical bit of my brain is trying to take over. It’s saying as I write: ehh, no, that’s not quite right. No, that could be better. What’s the backstory for that? Why would that character do that? These are all very good things to be experiencing while writing, but doing so and listening to this mental banter while writing for NaNoWriMo isn’t the time or place. I need to keep this bit from the NaNoWriMo About page in mind:

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

My brain is definitely trying to kick in and make me start tweaking, editing, and ultimately, tearing down and rebuilding various passages. I can’t do this, or I’ll never make the deadline of 50,000 words by the end of the month. After a quick looksie at Windows Calculator, from this point forward, I need to be writing an average of 1850 words per day, every day. It’s time to tell my analytical brain to piss off, and start writing with wreckless abandon. Wish me luck!

Today was the first day of NaNoWriMo. I didn’t get done as much as I’d hoped to on the first day: just around 1000 words. I was really hoping to hit 2000 - 2500 today to get a decent jumpstart. However, even with just 1000 words on the first day, I’ve accomplished more on this “novel” than I’ve ever done on previous writing attempts. How so, you ask? I started writing - actually writing! Not brainstorming, or thinking, or, ahem, planning. Writing! It’s only 1000 words, but it’s 1000 more words than I’d ever really gotten on any novel writing attempts before (and there have been a fair share of attempts, I assure you). In the past, my “gotta’ over-analyze it all” brain took over, and that was the end of the creative process. I never got to the actual writing bit because I felt that I had to get the background setting perfect; the names of characters perfect; everything perfect, before I wrote even as little as a single page. So, even if I don’t hit the 50,000 word mark by the end of the month, I’ll be happy for giving it a whirl, because it actually got my ass in gear and got me to write something.

I’ve found that by jumping in and starting to write, ideas come naturally - certainly easier and more naturally than when I’d sit down with a blank piece of paper and tell myself to “come up with a plot, and a background setting, and a cast of characters, and the life histories of all of the characters, and…” Instead of doing that, this time I just opened up Word (well, technically, Google Docs), thought of a simple scene, and went from there. Doing that for 1000 words, I’ve come up with a general plotline that I’d like to follow, as well as a few characters that will be major players in the story.

I decided against the weird concept of fantasy / sci-fi / comedy. While I’m sure it’s doable, I wanted to go with something a bit more mainstream, as well as something I’m comfortable with. So, the novel will be joining the vast (vast, vast….) ranks of the medieval fantasy genre. The major difference that I’m going to try and put in my novel is a heavy dosage of medieval grittiness. That’s probably one of my major gripes with most fantasy novels I’ve read in the past: they’re too clean. In a bizarre way, they’re too modern. The swords and sorcery are there, but the medieval edginess isn’t. The whole vibe that life was extremely rough during the medieval period and before often seems to be erased with perfect, shiny suits of armor and gem-encrusted swords. I think that in a way, the novel may end up being more historical-based fiction with light elements of fantasy, rather than an all-out fantasy. As regular readers can probably guess, quite a few characters (actually, a whole kingdom, really) is modelled on the Norse people. They’re certainly not copies with a different name (they aren’t highly capable seamen, for example), but I am going to try and get the Norse feel going with them.

More on this tomorrow most likely, after I’ve written (hopefully) a few more thousand words. If you’re taking part in NaNoWriMo this year, best of luck to you!