NaNo Toolbox

NaNoWriMo doesn't have to be planned out. You can write by the seat of your pants (called being a pantster) and sometimes, that's fun.

But I've come to the realization that NaNoWriMo can be more than just fun. It can help writers become more experienced in their craft.

The hardest part about writing a book in a month is that every single word is a decision. That's 50,000 decisions you have to make, 1,667 decisions every day. I find my mind gets tired of making decisions really quick, especially if I also have to decide which way the plot is going in the process. Deciding on a few things before you begin writing will help take away some of the burden during November.

The following tools are things I'm finding help me a lot when I start a new project. You don't have to spend hours on them, but even just thinking about it without making a firm decision will help you discover what you want to write when the time comes.

1. A genre. (Pick one or make up your own.)

2. A main character. (Even better if you know what motivates your main character.)

3. A single sentence describing the most important part of your plot.

4. A villain or antagonist.

5. A setting. (Time & place)

6. Minor characters

7. A detailed outline of your plot.

8. Any research you might need about your setting or characters.

9. What the denouement (climax) of the story will look like.

10. Passion about what you're writing. (And yes, this is a decision/choice.)

With these ten things prepared beforehand, I can almost guarantee you'll have lots of fun writing an entire book in 30 days.

This year I decide to go for the uber outline. I've been preparing this story for eight months and have gotten it to the point where I could almost hand over my notes to a seven year old and they'd be able to write it. I certainly should be able to!

Good luck in getting ready for a writing marathon! See you November 1st! I can hardly wait...

NaNoWriMo

It's the time of year when the leaves fall, and when I greatly anticipate the start of November. Next month is a time of literary abandon through the program NaNoWriMo. I'm so excited. I've been outlining what I'm going to write for six months and my fingers are itching to type.

During November, I plan to have a short post for EVERY DAY of the month, mostly pertaining to writing, of course. The schedule is as follows:

Surplus Sundays: Encourage writers to write more than their daily goal to build up a surplus of words going into the week.

Method Mondays: Talk about methods we use during NaNoWriMo or anytime of the year to get the writing done.

Trip Tuesdays: All about location writing. What are some favorite places to write? The most convenient? Every Tuesday I will purpose to write somewhere I've never written before.

Word-war Wednesdays: Kind of self-explanatory, but I'll be challenging writers to see how many words they can write in an hour, then post their results in the comments.

Thick Thursdays: Challenge writers to thicken their plots. I will offer a choice of ways to do this, but it's entirely up to you! I will also post how I chose to thicken my plot.

Fast Fridays: I will attempt to write double my daily word count goal every Friday. Watch those fingers fly! If you want to join in the challenge, awesome! Post how many words you got done in the comments.

Sanctuary Saturday: We'll talk about writers and their writing spaces, how to protect your writing time and space, and what are some good ideas for setting up that perfect ambiance of inspiration.

See you on November 1st with Trip Tuesday, my first location writing exercise! I'm off to the NaNoWriMo forums!

To picture or not to picture

Sometimes I read other blogs because the picture they embed at the top of their post is interesting. It draws me in.

Other times, I see the picture, but then don't read the text because the first few sentences are boring and I'm already looking for a quick and easy intake of information...the picture sets me up for that. I want the post to be just as entertaining as the picture or else I won't read it.

In short, putting pictures before every post on a blog is a great way to draw people in. But if your post doesn't live up to the expectation you create by giving your readers a picture first, then they'll likely drop you like a hot potato.

Kinda like publishing. The first chapter (or prologue if you must) is a promise to your readers of what they can expect. If your first chapter rocks, but the rest of the book is slow, they'll most likely stop reading, frustrated with a story that doesn't stay true to what that first chapter promised.

Of course there are other things that catch the readers' eyes before the first chapter that also act as promises: cover art, what section of the bookstore it's in, what they've heard about the book online, the reviews they've read, which of their friends recommended it, the blurbs and summary on the jacket cover, etc. But these things you don't necessarily have control over if you seek traditional publishing.

It's kind of sad, in a way, that the very first promise I'm going to make to my beloved future readers whom I've dreamed about writing for for years isn't even in my control. The cover art could be completely misrepresentative of the book inside. The blurbs could promise my book will make the readers' hair stand on end, when all I really wanted to do was make the reader feel warm and cozy. Sounds a little awkward, doesn't it? Having to fulfill the promises your publisher and editor have made for you by designing your publishing package?

And yet, maybe we do have control over those things as well. Our publishers and editors are people, too. In fact, they are our very first readers. If we can't communicate the vision of the book to them, the excitement and passion we poured into it, then maybe they won't know how to present it to readers in the way we envisioned.

My pastor (who's also my boss) talks a lot about vision. He says it needs to be clear, it needs to be inspiring, and it needs to be portable: you have to be able to transfer the vision to someone else. And not just to one other person through a ton of thoughtful explaining. You need to be able to port your vision to lots of people, and be able to do that with a simple summary of your book.
Can you sum up your book in an inspiring, single sentence that draws people in?  Can you talk about your book with passion, excitement, and longing? Is your passion about what you're doing catchy?

To picture or not to picture...

Do we present the reader with something that draws them in all easy like and promises great content with little effort on their part? Or do we draw them in slowly, telling them upfront that this book will take a lot of clever thinking to keep up with it, that it will challenge them?

Maybe I should put a picture in at the end. Kind of like an easter egg in a DVD, or a reward for reading all the way through. I know I will never walk out of a movie theater again until the credits have completely played through. I did that once, with an X-men movie, and didn't get to see Magneeto playing chess without his powers. I now expect and even hope for that last picture at the end. Maybe building a reputation that way would draw people in, knowing your work is solid all the way through?

So....here. Have a picture. :)

Food for the Writer's Soul

I was thinking about NaNoWriMo today and wondered, what goodies should I stock-pile as incentives during November?

Chocolates? Maybe.
White tea? Definitely.

But mostly, I love rewarding myself by spending money on ingredients for a fancy meal. Today, I discovered a meal that doesn't cost a lot and is easy to make. And I wish I could eat it continuously without getting full, it's that good.

Cumin-Spiced Chicken with Chunky Tomato Sauce
served with
Creamy Squash Risotto

I used Cub brand cooked squash 'cause I couldn't find frozen butternut squash and it still tasted good. I also used 5-minute pre-cooked rice so it didn't take me as long to heat things up in the microwave.

Husband, friends, and family: If you want to make my day, cook me this. :)
I'm going to use it as word-count motivator during November as a reward for reaching a certain word goal.

If you have a favorite way of rewarding yourself for making your goals during NaNoWriMo, or for writing in general, share in the comments! I'd love to hear them.

Looking forward to tomorrow's lunch of leftovers! :)

World Building - tougher than it sounds?

Every time I sit down to world build, I get frustrated: All I want to do is rush off and work on the PLOT of the story. I know how things are imagined in MY head. Why not let the reader imagine things for themselves, too?

I had planned to spend all of July building up the setting of my work in progress, and suddenly found myself almost two thirds of the way through the month without having done much. I finally gave up and decided I was going to rush ahead and make up the plot.

Within the first five minutes of plotting, I wanted to write a scene where one of my characters exclaims "By Jove!"

While I never intended to leave the word Jove in my novel, it did raise a question.
Jove is a derivative form of swearing by god's name. I asked myself, "What would my characters swear by? What would they bless by? Would they do the traditional Christian thing and say 'Thank Goodness!' even though they're on an alternate version of Earth?"

Suddenly I was world building and didn't even realize it. Funny how the right question will unlock a wealth of information.

I went from making up swear words and friendly exclamations to inventing what sorts of religions these people might follow. Soon after that I was drawing a map of my world just so I could point out to myself where all the religious places were.
Then I felt compelled to name all the new countries I had just drawn (or at least name them something other than colors of the rainbow which I had temporarily bestowed upon them).
Coming up with names for countries led me to realize that country names in our world today are from ancient words meaning things like "Horse people" or "People of the white mountain" (this is my simplification of it).
So I came up with a general genetics map of who has black hair, red hair, white hair and where they live, and which areas are more mixed than others. I also named the countries after things that they're known for, like industry, desert-land, and bountiful harvests. Plugging these words into Google translator and choosing a different language until I got something I liked was tons of fun.

By the end of the first day of me "giving up" on world building, I had a map of my entire world, names for all my countries, some slang words and their etymologies, I knew where everyone lived, what they believe and how they practice it, and, of course, which gods they swear by. I knew the political tensions between the countries, what certain places war over, what the weather is like in different parts on my map, and I had even created three different mythologies which a few characters in my story will draw upon.

I don't know how I could have ever found World Building hard before. Before I started asking questions, (ok, so just the one question) I wasn't interested. I didn't think there was enough to my world to talk about. I didn't want to bore my readers. But now, because I got curious and asked a question, I have a wealth of information.
Not all of it, or even most of it, will make it into my book, but it IS useful. It helps me imagine what I need to in order to build the world around my main character.

So here's to being curious, even about imaginary places!

Vacations! And how they make you feel...

Last week my husband took me to a water park on spur of the moment. It was Wednesday, and within half an hour of leaving work, I was standing at the top of a water slide, looking out over the highway at all the rush hour traffic I was missing and thinking to myself, "This doesn't feel like a Wednesday."

For Independence Day weekend, we had a blast, camped out on my in-laws' lawn, kayaked on their lake and talked with my lovely in-law uncles and grandma and grandpa. We didn't have our phones, our wallets, our computers or anything with us the entire time. Just the clothes on our backs. It was....odd. And wonderful.

I didn't do any writing. But when we got back to our normal, city apartment life, there was a difference in how I wrote. I had new visions of things to come in my book and my imagination was infused with real-life experiences that can't possibly be put into words.

It's important for writing to make life great. Even if I wasn't a writer, it'd be important, but especially because I am. A picture is worth a thousand words, but an experience is priceless and can't be bought with words on a page.

Maybe that's why being a writer is so attractive to so many people. You kind of have to have a thrilling life full of adventure, mishaps, explorations, and interesting things that happen in order to write. If you can find an author who led a boring life, tell me and I'll correct myself.

It's summer! Go out and take a walk. Discover new places. Go on a bike ride down a new trail. Go camping. Cook something you've never cooked before (I'm experimenting with something called a Poblano pepper and Butternut squash tonight). Strand yourself somewhere with nothing to do, no cell phone, or computer, and see what your mind comes up with to do. I've noticed that there are all kinds of ignored corners and fascinations we miss because we're busy with other things.

Are writer's selfish?

I recently had two conversations with people I know are writers. The first one was a new acquaintance and someone mentioned to me they were a writer. So I decided to probe and find out how serious of a writer they were. I asked them what their book was about and this person gave me a single sentence, succinct summary. I was pleasantly astonished and continued to ask questions. I found out they were a serious writer, had paid to take a few writing courses online, and hoped to be published someday.

Knowing how avid writers usually are about networking, I thought for sure this person would ask me about my novel, or at least ask if I've ever been published.

But apparently not. They were quite content to go on talking about their own novel and philosophy on writing, and even acted like they were better than me for having taken an online writing course. I quickly lost interest and stopped asking questions.

I also had a phone conversation with another writer I know. This person I've known for years and we've talked about writing before. Every time we talk, they sit on the other end of the telephone waiting for me to ask questions. It's like pulling teeth to have a conversation. This person also acts as if his writing is some sacred jewel of information that should be leaked out slowly and only to those who prove they really want to know.

So what is it about writers that make us such bad conversationalists about our own craft?

Are we selfish and use awkward silences to force others into asking us about our books? Or are we just scared people will steal our ideas? Should we be?

Or perhaps so few people ask us about our work that we're just not used to coming up with words to describe it. Maybe we're just afraid the other person won't understand our writerly jargon, or will think we're nuts for trying out rubbish ideas.

Still, I don't think any of the above are good reasons to hide what you've put your heart and soul into. A writer survives by building publicity these days and mouth to mouth is the most powerful way of spreading your fame.

But not only is your one sentence book idea spread easily between mouths, your attitude is as well. Be kind. Reciprocate to us poor souls who are more interested in you as a person than in your story. We want to have a two way conversation, not just have you perform for us by talking endlessly about your novel. Don't get me wrong, I love a good story. But I'd rather have you as a friend than an entertainer.