Nanowrimo-ing Monkey Blog #1

Hello there Blog-land!  J Monkeys here.  Do you Nanowrimo?  I’m Nanowrimo-ing this year – hard core!  Aren’t familiar with Nano – check out their site.  Or check out PJ’s blog from last week.  Nano is a great (FREE!) program.  I’ve been a Wrimo since 2008 and a winner at least twice.  Of course, since doing the challenge has resulted in words on the page, I’m really a winner every time, but you know, they have rules…

So, for Nano 2012, I’m going to get all of my Saturday blog posts for the month of November done in advance.  I’m trying to set myself up for success, that kind of thing.  But before I get to the meat of Nanowrimo-ing Monkey Blog #1, let me tell you all my goal now, because like PJ, I’m often motivated by the fear of public humiliation.  Between Nov 1 and November 30, I shall write 50,000 words in my current WIP.  In fact, I’m hoping to hit closer to 60k.  So that’s my goal.  By the time this post goes live, it will be the 3rd of November.    At a rate of 2000 words a day, I should have 4,000 words under my belt.  Here’s what I’ve got: 4,587.  Every Saturday for the month, I’ll let you know how far along I am and how things compare to the goal.

Today I’m going to tell you a little bit about my preparation for Nano.  Bear in mind that I’m a plotter, not a pantser.  Many people welcome Nov 1 with nothing more than a keyboard and a smile.  That doesn’t work for me.  I’d find myself on Nov 30 with about 10,000 words if I was lucky.

I’ve been working on a plot for 10 months or so and I’ve got my plot grid finished.  I know the overview of the story.  I know how it starts, what the turning points are and how I think it will end.  Of course all of that is subject to change as things go along, but at least I have a plan. 

I have a set of characters – protagonists and antagonists.  I know a lot about them and what makes them tick.  I know how the relationships between these folks are supposed to develop and the kind of personal growth I want for each of them.  I know what they look like and I have little cards about each of them pinned to the corkboard in my office.

I know the setting for the story – I know when and where it takes place.  I also know why it takes place there.

And finally, I understand the conflicts in the story.  This one has a main conflict of Man vs Man and a Man vs Nature sub-conflict. With a little bit of Man vs Self for good measure.  Nothing like covering all the bases, eh?

All that’s left is to write the story and believe it or not, for me, that’s the hard part.  All of this earlier work is really my favorite part of the writing process – creating the people and building the essence of their story in my mind is what I really like.  Pulling the sentences out of my brain, thinking as each character in turn, reacting the way she would – those are the hard parts.  And that’s why Nanowrimo is so great for me.  Lot’s of support and inspiration to get those sentences out.

Today’s secret: Nanowrimo – it’s not much of a secret, 300,000 people participated world-wide last year.  But of 7 billion, that’s less than 5 hundredths of a percent of the population.

Today’s question: What have you found that helps you get your writing done?

Happy November 1!

Hello all, Suze here. Happy November!

By now, I’m sure you know that today is the first day of National Novel Writing Month. (Really? There’s someone out there who doesn’t? Okay, then, click here for a link) There are going to be more Scribe posts about NaNo throughout the month, so stay tuned. But I thought I’d tell you about a few other reasons that November 1 is significant, courtesy of Wikipedia. Today’s Scorpio-licious Birthdays include:

• Peter Ostrum, 1957. Who the heck is Peter Ostrum, you ask? Well, he’s the actor who played Charlie in the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie. Factoid: the grown-up Peter Ostrum is a large animal veterinarian (edited to add: please see my comment below regarding the importance of punctuation in a sentence such as this!)who owns a vet clinic in Lowville (pronounce that “low” to rhyme with cow, brow, etc.), New York, right near the AMF bowling pin factory and the Kraft cheese plant. Let’s all hoist a fizzy lifting drink!
• Louis the Stammerer, 846. Poor Louis, King of Aquitaine and Francia. Not only did he apparently have a stammer, but he did not rule for long, died at the age of 33, and gave his daughter the unfortunate name of Ermentrude. She had a daughter with the even more unfortunate name of Cunigunde. I guess it’s not always good to be the king.
• Marcia Wallace, 1942. You might not recognize the name, but Marcia played Carol the receptionist on the Bob Newhart Show and still voices Mrs. Krabappel on The Simpsons. Love you, Marcia! Ha!
• Jim Steinman, 1947. You also might not know this name, but you know the music. This songwriter will forever have a special place in my heart as the man who gave me such classics as Paradise by the Dashboard Light, Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad, and You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth. Jim and Meat Loaf, I thank you. Whether my son and husband thank you, I don’t know. Because they seem to run screaming from the room when I crank up your music as I’m dancing with the vacuum cleaner.

Have a lovely day, and if you’re participating in NaNo, quit reading and get back to work! Even if you’re not NaNo-ing, I’ll bet you’ve got other projects you’d like to finish before the end of the year. Why not use the communal energy NaNo generates (well, maybe that’s just the coffee and Red Bull!), pick a project, and take some steps to get it done? Can you share? 

What do I know?

Happy Friday everyone! Casey Wyatt here.

I’ve heard that writers are a terrible judge of their own work. That we lack the perspectiveto know what’s good and what isn’t. And I believe it!

Here’s why:

Some of you may recall waaaaay back in July, Suze challenged us to a double dog dare – a summer NaNanoWrimo style “write-off”. I remember commenting that I wasn’t “officially” entering but I’d try and follow along.

I had a novel outlined and ready to go so I figured – what the heck – I’ll start writing it.  The plot was a totally crazy idea – a vampire stripper forced to flee to Mars.  Who’d want to read that?

I didn’t care. The story had been in my mind since the summer of 2010 and it was high time to get it on paper. And I did. I tracked my progress on my Casey Wyatt blog site thoughout the month of July. At one point, I even typed 5,000 words in one day (I had vacation that week!).

By month’s end – I had completed the first draft at 79,000 words. I finished the book, polished it up and then decided – no one would want to buy the book. And I couldn’t asnwer that all important question – What genre did it belong in?

Urban Fantasy? The story is in first person and the heroine is a vampire.

Paranormal Romance?  There is a love story and hot, steamy love scenes.

Sci- Fi? The book takes place mostly on Mars.

Genre confusion aside – I sent the book to my fabulous beta readers and critique partners. The overall feedback was positive. So full steam ahead, right?

No. Not exactly. I stalled on making changes, hestitated to edit, and dragged my feet. The same thought drummed through my head – no one will buy this story. It’s too weird.  

So I let it sit. Occasionally, I’d make half-hearted attempts to edit and clean the book up. Until November, when I saw a call for submissions on Twitter. I went to the publisher’s Facebook page and took the plunge.

Within an hour I had a request for a partial. Yikes! Now I had to clean up the book. After a panicked e-mail to the ever patient Suze (my wonderful critique partner), I was on my way!

Two weeks later, I had a request for the full manuscript. Two days later – an offer!

The Undead Space Initiative has been sold to Pink Petal Books. (See, I promised to share good news sooner).

The moral to this story – write the book, no matter how weird or strange the story is!! Because, you never know who will want to read it. Just write what you love or enjoy and good things will follow.

Tell me – how do you feel about your finished works? And for the readers out there – have you ever mis-judged a story, either good or bad?

Why I joined a writing group or three

Hi there.  J here.  Welcome to our very first Scribe Theme Week!  Have you been enjoying it?  We have more of them in the works…just you wait.  So I want to tell you why I joined a few different professional writing organizations and community groups over the last few years and what I got out of them.

I began working on my first novel way back in the dark ages of 1996.  I never finished that book and I think in part it was because I loved Little Women as a kid.  I imagined myself as the modern-day Jo March, scribbling away, alone in my cold garret room, my fingers black with ink.  What female writer didn’t have this picture in her head at some point?  What I didn’t know was that I needed a community to get the job done.  Perhaps that isn’t the case for everyone, but it was, and is, for me.

In 2003 I began writing The Cordovan Vault.  I was lazy and wrote in fits and starts, oh so busy with my 50 hour a week job.  This was during my life pre-kids when 50 hours was about the extent that I worked.  I actually can’t imagine how I wasted so much time!  But by January 2006, I decided to take this dream more seriously and I joined the writing group at my local library.  I can honestly say that I am where I am today for taking that first step.

The writing group led me to my first Writer’s Conference, CAPA – U held each May.  I did my first Editor Pitching and learned many important things, especially that I wasn’t going to get anywhere until I finished writing the book.  I also met a woman there who told me about NanoWrimo.

If you don’t know about NanoWrimo, they you need to follow the link and check it out!  This is an online writing contest designed to spark creativity and get words on the page.  I participated the first time in 2007.  The weekly pep talks from published writers were invaluable to me.  Even well-known writers had been stuck, as I was.  They said the only thing to do was push through.  Rewrite later.  I took that advice and made it more than 2/3 of the way through the manuscript before hitting the next milestone.

I met Susannah Hardy in January of 2008, again at my local library’s writing group.  Susannah’s encouragement was critical to me finishing The Cordovan Vault.  She pushed me to finish the first draft, and then to revise it, making it a much better story.  And she’s the one who pushed me to get it published.  THANK YOU, Susannah!    Now we all need to push her, because I’ve read some of her stuff (and you can too!) and her finished novel is wonderful.  You will want to read it.  I guarantee it. 

In late 2009 ish, I met Casey Wyatt (the soon to be published Casey Wyatt, that is!  Congrats!) at my library’s group too.  Casey and Susannah met PJ Sharon, who introduced us to the CTRWA, where we met Katy Lee and Jamie Pope, among a bunch of other kind, encouraging and fun writers. 

Today’s secret: While joining one of the larger professional organizations like CAPA or CT RWA is great (I get tons of support, marketing help, and other opportunities that I desperately need) I have to say that taking the first step and joining the writing group at my local library has been invaluable to me.  If you aren’t ready for a big professional organization yet, maybe a small group is the write (get it?!) one for you.

Today’s question:  Did you ever have a Jo March moment?  Is being a writer what you expected it to be or is it something different?

All By Myself . . . Don’t Wanna Be!

Welcome Scribe fans!  Suze here.  Now that I have Eric Carmen singing in a continuous falsetto loop in your heads, let me tell you my story.

Jack Torrance wrote alone, and you know what happened to him!

Like probably everyone here, I always wanted to be a writer.  Over the years I wrote a few bad short stories, several bad first chapters to different novels, some OK poetry and some intentionally dreadful stuff (“A porkpie hat settles effortlessly to the ground . . . “). That last was just for hahas.  Or was it? Now I understand it was a clever ploy to avoid actually, um, writing.  I never took classes.  Never tried to learn the craft.  In fact, I didn’t even know you could learn the craft.  I always thought “real” writers were born knowing something I didn’t, had some innate ability to put words on a page and have them make sense.

I never got past writing the first few pages of those novels.  Because if I went any farther, I might fail.  Confession time:  I’m Suze, and I’m a Recovering Perfectionist.

Suze, you say.  It’s good to be a perfectionist.  Who wants to read crappy poetry or novels?  It’s the American Way to strive for greatness.  If you’re not a winner, you’re  a loser.  Coming out on top is all that matters.  Well, I’m here to tell you that perfectionism is limiting and destructive.  It holds us back from trying new experiences.  It certainly held me back.  If I couldn’t write Pulitzer Prize worthy stuff, right out of the box, I wasn’t even going to try.

Then, one cold December, I saw the words “Writers Group” on the calendar at our local library.  And I realized it was now or never.  Time to you-know-what or get off the pot.  I told myself I would just go to the January meeting. That’s all I had to do.  When the night of the meeting came, I grabbed a notebook and a pen and walked the block from my house to the library, took a deep breath of frosty air, then another, and opened the door.  I said to myself, Suze, you’ve given birth.  You can do this.

There were half a dozen or so people at that meeting, and I didn’t know any of them.   I sat next to J Monkeys, and as I listened to her talk about her WIP (she had just come off NaNoWriMo in November), I recognized something in her.  She had the same kernel of need in her belly as I — the need to write.  I found a Kindred Spirit that night, a Diana Barry to my Anne Shirley.

Kindred Spirits

I’d had an idea for a novel kicking around for years.  With J cheering me on, I sat down to write it.  And quickly realized that the story I was writing was very different from the story I’d envisioned for so long.  See, I always thought I would write dark, literary, Joyce Carol Oates kind of stuff.  And it turned out that the story that wanted to be told was in fact a light-hearted romantic mystery.  Once I gave myself permission to let the perfectionism and pretensions go, I was able to put a whole novel into words.  The night I typed “The End” on a manuscript, I cried.

When Casey Wyatt joined us, we found another Kindred Spirit.  And it became increasingly clear to us that we needed more than the library group could give us.  The group had gotten a bit unwieldy and we were never able to agree on a focus.  Enter PJ Sharon, who told us about RWA and CTRWA. Once I joined CTRWA, I knew I was where I was supposed to be.

Now, I never miss a CTRWA meeting if I can possibly help it.  The energy in that hotel conference room is nearly palpable — energy that comes from a whole lot of people with a common goal: to write our stories and make them available to readers.

Suze‘s advice to you?  Let go of your perfectionism.  Don’t worry you’re not good enough.  Be brave.  Join a group.  If you can’t find a local group, why not start one?  If you really, truly live out in the boonies so far that you can’t get out to meet other writers, I’ll bet you can find an online group (if not, contact me.  It’s that important).  You’ll never regret it.

Now for you, Dear Readers.  Tell us how you felt when you finally typed “The End” for the first time.  Who helped you get to that point?

True Confession: I Write Smut In Public

Hey – Vivienne here.  I haven’t talked much about my slightly stalled Work In Progress.  It’s a very adult story tentatively entitled The Good Ship Lollipop.  I will likely have to change the title to avoid a lawsuit by Shirley Temple’s family, but I’ll let the eventual publisher worry about that.

TGSL is an erotic novel, set on a cruise ship where college kids (over 21!) and other folks get up to all kinds of hijinks that aren’t suitable for detail on this G-rated blog.  But what I wanted to blog about today is the fact that I’ve written this steamy story while out in public.  And to make matters worse, I had to do some research on various…items…through Google Images while in public.

Why, you ask?  The answer is pretty easy – that’s where I happened to be when inspiration struck.  I started writing TGSL during Nanowrimo to boost my word count.  I was working on a different story which had a complicated plot and I was struggling to pull the story out of my head.   My word count was suffering. 

For the uninitiated, Nanowrimo is a contest/writing exercise where you write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  To stay on track, you need to write 1667 words per day.  I was agonizing my way to 1000 words a day on the more complicated story, so I boosted my word count by writing this more straightforward story.  Sure, I might have been technically cheating, but I like to think of it as creative winning.  The prize is the satisfaction of having accomplished something so crazy, so I wasn’t cheating anybody else. 

Anyway, I found the act of writing smut in public to be quite freeing.  I had previously been too embarrassed to write those kinds of words down, let alone put a story like that together.  Sure, I did my share of strategic laptop placement, and if anyone walked behind me, I was very quick to change the image on my screen to something more appropriate.  And I probably blushed a lot, but I didn’t get caught even once! 

Today’s Secret: Sometimes you might get further if you leave your comfort zone behind.  Write something different or do it in a different place to jump-start the creative juices.

Today’s Question: What is the silliest place you go to write?

The Double Dog Dare

I’m a big fan of NaNoWriMo, for a lot of reasons.  Vivienne talked about it yesterday, and I’m going to talk a bit more about it today. 

NaNoWriMo is a writing challenge where you commit to pounding out 50,000 words (about the length of The Great Gatsby, or a short category romance) in 30 days.   That’s 1,667 words every day for 30 days.  The idea is that you give your imagination free reign, and you forbid all attempts by your insistent Inner Editor to intrude on the process.  Along the way there are pep talks by famous authors, and there are message boards and local meet-up groups to support you.   Traditionally, National Novel Writing Month has been in November (a difficult time for me, as I travel over the Thanksgiving holidays every year).  But now, the amazing staff at the Office of Letters and Light is putting together a summer version:  Camp NaNoWriMo, which is scheduled to launch around July 1.  Please, if you need inspiration, instructions, or just a kick in the pants to get started, check out the free NaNo website.  There’s scads of useful information there, for any time of the year.  I also recommend Chris Baty’s book, No Plot?  No Problem!  

So what’s the Double Dog Dare?  I Dared, then Double Dog Dared, Sister Scribe Vivienne Ylang to complete her novel in progress and to write the first draft of a new novel she’s been thinking about, all by August 12.  {Notice I did not commit any breach of etiquette by going directly to the Triple Dog Dare.  That would just be wrong.} 

The thing about daring someone else to do something is that you’d better be able to step up to the plate yourself.  So I dared myself to pound out the first draft of my next project, the second Bonaparte Bay mystery, by the same date.   We’re going to start on Monday, June 27.  Yup, we’re giving ourselves more than 30 days.  But we are the Author Goddesses/Gods and can set any goals we want.  I’ll be working toward 75,000 words.    Sister Scribe Jamie Pope aims to finish her manuscript by July 31.   

So I Double Dog Dare all of you out there to set yourself a goal this summer.  Make it ambitious, but attainable.   Make it concrete and measurable (not something nebulous like “Find an agent”).  Maybe you want to:

• Start (and finish!) a completely new project.  How about trying a new genre to stretch your wings?
• Finish or redraft a stalled project
• Commit to submitting your work to a certain number of agents or editors and create (and use!) a tracking system for followups
• Get your own web or blog site up and running  (I set up my own site here through WordPress, and it was super simple.  Follow the tutorials and you’ll be fine)
• Find and join (or take the initiative and start) a group of other writers for support
• Locate, create and organize a space in your home to use as your writing space.  (Bonus!  You get to go to the office supply store and buy some cool pens and notebooks and Post-Its and file folders and other “necessary” stuff!)

Whatever the goal is, it’s completely up to you.   Be sure to use the NaNoWriMo model of choosing a firm beginning and ending date.  But the bigger lesson of NaNo is to have fun along the way (see Viv’s post yesterday).  Give yourself small rewards for staying on track.  And celebrate like crazy when you get to the end of your challenge.  

Let’s face it:   Labor Day is coming.   How about having something to show for your summer besides a lot of weird tan lines and a bunch of mosquito bites?  You’ll be that much further along in your quest to move from Writer to Professional Writer. 

Write in and let me know what goal(s) you’ve chosen, and keep me posted on your progress.  Peer pressure and public accountability can be good things.  

Do you accept the Double Dog Dare?

Just Write 2 – Get Words Onto The Page

Hey ~ V here.  It’s easy to say, Just Write.  It’s much harder to do.  Writing can be a lonely job.  Even when I have a nice outline and quiet time to write, I still find reasons to procrastinate.  I’ll let you in on a little secret: I don’t actually like to write, most of the time.  I love to create, I love to have a finished product I’m proud of, and writing is the only way to get those people in my head clamoring for attention to shut up! 

There are some who might say a trip to a psychiatrist could help with the voices, but I’m pretty sure I’m not schizophrenic.  I’m just imaginative.  And I would like to use those powers for good (and someday make a living at it.)  So, I write.  But the actual writing, the deciding what words to use and typing them onto the screen part, is kinda boring, and surprisingly hard. 

How do I do it then, you ask?  Good question!  Well, I’ve heard that “In every job there is to be done, there is an element of fun.  Find the fun and snap, the job’s a game.”  (Kudos to those who can identify the source of that wisdom!) 

So, I find the fun. 

• I challenge myself – let’s see if I can write this whole scene today. 
• I commit myself (again, not due to schizophrenia) – I’ll announce my goals to the public so that I dare not fail.
• I might post my word count or goal on Facebook as a carrot and stick thing.  If the carrot isn’t enough to get me moving (I’m so proud to post a nice 2,000 words written today), then maybe the stick will beat me into doing better next time (Only 200 words written today – frowny face.) 
• I could dare a friend to beat my word count (Susannah Hardy and I have a double dog dare starting on Monday.) 
• I sign up for Nanowrimo.  If you aren’t familiar with it, read up!  Nanowrimo is a GREAT (Free!) challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November.  Over 100,000 people around the world Nano’d last year.  They email you pep talks, give you tools to chart your success, and create local communities where you can go to write-ins with other Nanoers.  And Camp Nanowrimo is starting soon.
• I start dreaming up my next project with the promise to get started on it just as soon as I finish the current one.
• I reward myself with pastries.  Generally, pastries are off limits, but if I’m off to write 1000 words, an almond horn might be just the incentive I need.
• I skip the boring parts of the story and write the exciting parts out of order.  I can connect it later. 

And of course sometimes the fun eludes me.  I might only write a few words one day and a few the next, but I know that if I keep plugging along at it, eventually, I will get to a point where I’m excited again and 10,000 words will just flow from my fingertips.

Today’s Secret:  Find the fun and do whatever it takes to get the words onto the page.