The Blog to Nowhere

Whoot! I'm officially a NaNoWriMo 2009 winner!



So I had no life there for about two weeks. All I did was write. Wrote at work, wrote when I got home, wrote on the weekends. I think constantly writing is good, if you can manage it. I’m a social hermit and my job can be slow at times so I got a lot done. That might not be the case for other people. I think it depends on your story, too. If you have a good idea it’s easy to rattle off 1667 words or more.

For awhile there, in the middle of my story, I had no idea where it was going. I just wrote whatever came to me and hoped I could tie it all together in the end. But by doing that, I think it did change my ending. I suddenly had all these dangling elements and I wanted to use them somehow. If some random person did read my story (heaven help them), it probably seems like I had planned stuff from the beginning but most of it I came up with on the fly. I did a lot of my research on the fly, too, which guarantees a lot of my facts are probably inaccurate. I took a lot of liberties with my setting, but the general idea is still intact.

The mental space you have to get into, “Must write or die” was kind of refreshing. I stopped thinking about whether what I was writing was stylistically engaging or not. I always stress over that, about whether the sentence I just wrote was boring or not. I also freak out if I use he or she to start a sentence too many times. It shouldn’t matter as long as you get the point across. The reader isn’t going to care if three sentences in a row all start with “He” or “She”. I hope to carry this over into my other writing. A lot of fics get bogged down because I think too much.

I also found it’s a lot easier playing in your own world with your own characters. A character isn’t out of character because it’s completely up to you how a character behaves. You don’t have to adhere to something that’s been pre-determined, which also messes me up when I’m writing fic. I don’t know how believable my characters are though. I watch way too much TV and everyone probably sounds like their spouting dialogue from a script, not speaking like normal people do.

Now that I’m finished, I had a chance to read over what I wrote and it doesn’t seem as bad as I thought. What now though? Leaving my novel to gather dust on my hard drive doesn't bother me, but it feels like I should do something with this thing.

Blasted past 35,000 around Wednesday or Thursday I think. Currently working towards 40,000 (which shouldn't take too long). I’m tempted to try writing all weekend, every free hour I have, to hit 50,000 by Sunday, which would mean I hit the goal in half the time. I don’t see that happening though. With Doctor Who (and Top Gear) back on Sunday, that’s going to be a major distraction. I’m happy I hit halfway before the halfway point, so that’s a good achievement for my first time round.

I haven’t been involved with the NaNo community, though I did register with my region, so I haven’t really been seeing how the rest of the city, and the province, is faring. But I’ve lurked enough to notice that most people seem to be moving along at a decent pace, though there are some who haven’t even cracked 10,000. Depends on your life I suppose. Some people are busy with work or school or other things. Me, the social hermit that I am, I have no life so I can get quotas done.

I think I’m at a point where I getting very tired of writing though. I’m not just tired physically, but the thought of sitting at a computer and trying to write more plot is sort of making me… angry. I’m starting to resent my novel. “It sucks. The plot sucks, the characters sucks, I suck, etc.” I’ll be happy when this is over. I can stop writing for a bit and just veg out playing video games. I have a pile of games I need to finish.

Aw, Castle supports NaNoWriMo. Okay, I know Castle isn't a real person, but it's still nice to hear. Or read, rather.

I'm doing all right at the moment. Writing at work is going very slowly. I'm very paranoid about writing when other people are in the room, so I can sneak in about an hour and a half of writing before my office buddy shows up. I also try to write at lunch, but I'm usually too busy eating to get much done. But office buddy has a meeting every Thursday afternoon, so I'll be able to write to my heart's content, well, within reason at any rate.

My word total is hovering under the 12,000 mark. So in terms of quotas, I'm ahead of the curve. That's the first week done and only in the first four days. I don't plan to take any days off, except for maybe a few hours on the weekend to catch up on TV, so as long as I don't run out of story, I'll be cruising right along. I'm at a point where I don't care what I'm writing as long as I get words down. What I have so far isn't very flowy or stylistically engaging, but it's words and thus, I am happy.

Off the topic of writing, I failed horribly in the Legend of Seeker department. I was all ready to watch the first season in time to watch the second and that never happened. Made it through the first two episodes and then I stalled. I probably won't be able to catch up until December, after NaNoWriMo is done. But one thing struck me as I watched the pilot:

How does Kahlan keep her white dress so clean? She's running around in the woods and it's spotless most of the time. Is that part of her power, too? ;-)

Back to writing. I think NaNoWriMo is perfect for obsessive compulsive people like me. All that's running through my head right now is, "OMG! Gotta make quota!" And I will always try to because I can't stand the thought of not making quota. I'm either very motivated or very sad. It's probably the second one. :-)

I think I am really considering participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I have the time, I haven’t started any fics so no need to put off any projects for a month, and there are no video games to distract me this time. I just need a plot and I’m ready to go! Shame I don’t have one yet…

But I was reading over NaNoWriMo’s website and they spell it out plainly. The whole endeavour isn’t about writing the great (insert country of origin here) novel. It’s just about writing and getting over that creative road block of thinking too much. My Creative Writing prof called it your internal editor. It’s that annoying little voice who’s constantly shouting at you, saying what you’re writing is crap and you need to redo it. If you’re trying to reach a word count and a daily quota, then you got to tell your internal editor to shove it. This is about quantity, not quality. And that may seem silly, but it’s a good exercise to me. To just write and not worry about whether it’s good or not sounds very freeing.

It’s just the implementation of writing those words that’s making me hesitate. I know my goal shouldn’t be “Must reach 50,000 words by November 30!” especially since this would be my first time, but the thought of trying and totally failing just feels, I don’t know, frightening. I like to get stuff done and not finishing something this monumental would just be wrong. I’ve been trying to work out a writing process: 50,000 words over 30 days equates to about 1667 words per day. So I thought, “Hey, I’ll just write 30 chapters that are each 1667 words long!” But as I think about this, that just seems stupid. I would just be following a formula, not going with the flow. There would be no room for spontaneity. Having an outline is good, but mapping out each chapter sounds a bit too rigid.

To avoid having to build any worlds, because I’m lazy, I’m going to take a suggestion from newnumber6. Set the story in the “real world” as it was, but have one fantastical element that’s secret. So that inevitably means venturing into the world of the supernatural. Of course, everyone and their dog is writing a vampire/zombie/sea monster novel these days, but I really don’t feel like coming up with anything new. Vampires are easy and I can see why they’re suddenly all the rage. And I will admit beachkid and I, when we were in our high school Creative Writing class, did try our hand at a vampire story. Maybe it’s time to revisit those characters.

Work’s über slow right now anyway, so I could probably get away with writing at work. Plus my office mate is like the nicest guy ever. He totally gets that there are lulls during the day and he could care less about what’s on my screen. Writing looks like working, right? It looks a lot less conspicuous than say, an internet window browser.

So how did everyone's NaNoWriMo or variations thereof go? Any goals met? Exceed? Missed horribly?

I do believe I fall into the last category. I did manage to write a little every day, but the operative word there is "little". I was doing perfectly well until I bought the Xbox 360. When it came to deciding which I would rather do on a weekend - write or blow away aliens in Mass Effect - Mass Effect always won out, probably because it's so damn addictive. It suffers from just-one-more-mission-and-then-I'll-totally-do-something-else-itis. But hey, my brother-in-law works for BioWare, maker of the game, so it was like I was supporting him in a way. ;-)

Even with setting a tiny goal like mine, there's horrible pressure to actually meet it. I always felt bad when all I managed was a sentence or two, but I really, I only had myself to blame. I think if I do a proper NaNoWriMo next year, I'll be prepared, set strict goals, and lock up the Xbox for the month.

I really want to try NaNoWriMo this year, but the more I think about it, the more I think I don't have the time. Which is sort of ridiculous, since I never go out after I get home from work, but after sitting in front of a computer for 8.5 hours a day I really don't have the energy to crank out 1666 words, daily quota if you want to make the 50 000 word mark.

I may just try to write something every day and not officially participate this year. I started a fic and I'd rather not put it off for a month just so I can write something else. It'll be a good experiment I think. Will my fic take off if I'm constantly plonking away at it or will I end up writing crap because I have to write something? I remember the student paper at the university had an article about NaNoWriMo and writing an average of 1666 words per day. The guy found he started to write completely useless stuff just so he could make quota. I guess that's the challenge a NaNoWriMo writer faces. Quality vs quantity.

If only I didn't share an office with two other people. I could happily write away during work hours. :-D