nanowrimo

On Challenging Yourself as a Writer

Nephele Tempest

The weekend is winding down, and with it the month. If you’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo, you might be basking in the glory of having hit your 50,000-word goal, frantically writing to finish up, or drowning your sorrows in hot chocolate because you know you’ll never close your 15,000-word gap by midnight. Regardless of your status, congratulations on your efforts. For those of you not caught up in NaNo frenzy, you might be polishing off the last of your holiday leftovers, plotting for the next holiday on the calendar, or enjoying a good book and ignoring the season entirely.

Whatever you’ve been doing this weekend, or even this past month, I urge you to wake up bright and early tomorrow morning to kick off the new month with my December Writing Challenge. Those of you who frequent this blog know my December challenge bears little resemblance to NaNoWriMo. No lofty word-count goals or frenetic write-ins at the local coffee shop. Instead I ask you to commit — to yourself, to your writing, to your own personal writing goals — as a way to get in shape for the coming new year. Forget waiting around for 2015 to kick off resolutions; December 1, 2014 is the first day of the rest of your writing career. I challenge you to make the most of it.

Details for the challenge will be going up first thing tomorrow, December 1st, so be sure to swing by and check them out. Happy writing!

Friday Links

Nephele Tempest

Happy Friday! Apologies for the rather quiet week. I’ve had my nose to the grind stone and I’m not quite sure where the time went, but here we are at week’s end once more.

This weekend happens to mark the halfway point for the month, and therefore for NaNoWriMo. Participants should be closing in on 25,000 words (or more) by the end of Saturday. I hope those of you playing along are having a wonderful time, and managing to keep those internal editors at bay.

My weekend plans revolve around books, as I intend to actually take the weekend off and give the 24 in 48 Reading Marathon a try. Anyone joining me? I’ll be Tweeting about it (@NepheleTempest) as it occurs to me, so keep an eye out.

But before all of that, we have Friday Links! I think I’ve got a nice batch this week, including some great recommendations for diverse reading. This is something I’ve been touching on periodically over the year, so expect an update soon. Meanwhile, you might want to check a few of these titles out.

Whatever your plans for the next couple of days, enjoy!

How Publishing Works: A Book Designer’s Perspective – An informative look at what happens to turn that manuscript into a physical book.

Pep Talk from Chuck Wendig – Aimed at NaNo participants, but pretty inspiring for anyone working on that first draft.

Read Her Like an Open Book: My Favorite Books of 2014 – This blog focuses entirely on books written by women, and the author has compiled 25 of his favorites from the year.

How to Write Women of Colour and Men of Colour if You Are White – A really thoughtful, intelligent post for any writers seeking for ways to address this concern in their own writing.

And last but not last, this great Book Riot video features titles of South Asian Historical Fiction (a few of which have already made it to my TBR list).

A NaNoWriMo Checklist

Nephele Tempest

You’ve decided to take the plunge and participate in NaNoWriMo. You’ve done some prep work and created a few characters, come up with a setting, and done a bit of background research on cool careers or other things you might include in your book. Now what?

November 1st looms, so now is the time to take care of a few last minute things and get ready to start typing. Here’s a quick to-do list, both for these final days leading up to your novel-writing marathon, and to keep in mind as the month progresses.

Stock your kitchen and your bathroom. Make sure your fridge, freezer, and pantry are filled with healthy, easy-to-prepare foods. Yes, it’s important to lay in a supply of coffee or tea, chocolate, chips, and cookies, or whatever your favorite snack foods might be, but brains work better on a healthy diet, so make sure you add nuts and fruit and other tasty treats that will charge your creativity and keep you from crashing. You also want to make sure you have sufficient toilet paper, tissues, aspirin or other pain reliever of choice, etc. Nothing like discovering you’re out of something vital when you’re on a writing tear at 2 a.m.

Inform your friends and family of your plans. Make sure they know you won’t be quite as social as usual during the month ahead. Assign temporary chores to your kids and spouse to keep the household running smoothly (with promised bribes to be delivered in December if necessary). Arrange a signal — closed door, special article of clothing you’re wearing — so they know when you’re deep in NaNo territory and not to be bothered for anything less than fire or spilt blood.

Show your internal editor the door. You’re not going to want to edit at all in November. What goes into your novel document, stays in your novel document. No erasing, no deleting, no backtracking. If you change a major plot point, put a note in brackets mid-text and continue as if you’ve already altered the early part of your story. Don’t waste time making changes or worrying over the beauty of your sentences. Your internal editor is more than welcome to come back once NaNo is over, but for now, they should take a hike.

Mark your calendar. Whether you have a paper planner, a wall calendar, or an electronic calendar, you want to mark that baby up with your NaNo goals, with the obvious 50,000-word goal in bold on November 30th. It’s a good idea to try and work ahead if you can, to leave yourself a cushion in case something keeps you from your writing for a day or two, so aim for more than 25% of your total goal the first week. Add in any local write-ins or NaNo events you plan to attend. Check off those goals when you hit them, adding gold stars or stickers or big, fat exclamation points — whatever makes you smile.

Organize your tools. Are you going to write your entire NaNo novel on your computer? Terrific! Make sure you’ve got a system in place to back up your work, whether you have your entire hard drive backing up, you’re saving to the cloud, or e-mailing yourself the document at the end of each day. There’s nothing scarier than losing several thousand words when you’re up against a 30-day deadline. Even if you prefer typing, you should get a small notebook and pen/pencil to keep with you at all times. That way if inspiration strikes while you’re standing in line at the DMV or waiting at the dentist, you can scribble your thoughts even if you don’t have your laptop handy. Finally, make sure you have a comfortable seat. Add a lumbar pillow if necessary You’re going to be spending a lot of time typing — best to be cozy. And don’t forget to get up and stretch regularly!

The countdown has begun. In less than 48 hours, you’ll be off and running. Good luck, and happy writing!

Friday Links

Nephele Tempest

Happy Friday! I’m currently in Surrey, B.C, Canada, for the Surrey International Writer’s Conference, but by the magic of the internet, I’ve left you some links to keep you busy this weekend. I hope you’ve all set aside some time for reading and/or writing, and that inspiration proves kind. Happy writing!

Opportunities for Writers: November and December 2014 – A list of places to submit your writing with upcoming deadlines. Did you resolve to submit your work in 2014? Better hurry up if you haven’t crossed it off your list!

45 YA Titles for Your October – December Radar – A terrific roundup of young adult books releasing the last quarter of the year.

Roxane Gay and Lena Dunham on Online Criticism – An interesting conversation between two writers, each with a recent collection of essays and a whole lot of experience with the interwebs.

NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month kicks off November 1st, and the updated 2014 version of the website with all its tips and support strategies has gone live. Head over and check it out!

October Books: A Reading List for the Month of Harvests and Horror – Great reading recommendations for October, including the requisite scary stories for Halloween.

Ready to NaNo?

Nephele Tempest

It’s the middle of October, which means November and NaNoWriMo are only a couple of weeks away. For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, a period during which thousands upon thousands of writers of every ilk and intention, all around the world, put fingers to keyboard and start furiously writing in the attempt to turn out an entire novel (of approximately 50,000 words — so not really a full-length novel according to most genres) in 30 days.

If that sounds a little insane, it’s actually only a little less than 1,700 words per day. That’s a lot for some writers and less than normal output for others. The real idea behind the challenge, however, is to force you to write, full out, with no time off for editing or mulling over or second guessing. You turn off the internal editor and just see what you come up with. At worst you have a really shitty first draft on December 1st that needs a whole lot of work. Maybe you just keep small bits and pieces and end up turning them into something else. Or perhaps you have the bones of something new and wonderful. What you don’t have is an empty page.

I encourage writers who want to give NaNoWriMo a try. It can be a fun exercise or a social endeavor, a way to finally push yourself to get a lot of writing done or a kick start on your next project. The key is to remember you will end up with a first draft, not a polished manuscript. December 1st rolls around demanding more writing and lots of editing. So give yourself permission to go a little crazy.

Whether you’re an outliner or a discovery writer, you’ll have a better chance of hitting your 50,000-word goal in a month if you do at least some prep work. So what kind of things should you be thinking about between now and November 1st?

  • Characters – Who do you want to write about? Dream up some interesting characters and figure out a little bit about who they are and what they might want.
  • Setting – If you can figure out where you want your book to be set, you may be able to do a little research ahead of time so you’ll have the information to write about at your fingertips.
  • Careers – Here’s another aspect of your story you can research ahead. If you’re planning to give your characters interesting jobs and/or skills, you want to be able to describe them or fit them into your story with a certain level of authority. So look up things now.
  • Plot – This is the tricky one, of course. Maybe you have an idea already burning in your brain, or maybe you have a hundred of them. Pick one (or maybe one and a backup if you’d rather) to flesh out a bit. You won’t start writing yet, of course, but that doesn’t mean you can’t fill a few note cards with ideas for potential pivotal scenes in your book — things to write first, or to write toward.

Finally, be sure to check out the NaNo site for information and tips. They provide pep talks throughout the month of November, plus all sorts of advice. There are local groups and online forums and places you can go write with other participants in coffee shops. Even if you’ve participated in NaNoWriMo before, you can make it a new and fresh experience each year. Good luck, and happy writing!

Friday Links

Nephele Tempest

Happy Friday and happy first day of NaNoWriMo! If you’re participating, I wish you the best of luck. Remember that this is just a first draft you’re writing this month. Plenty of time to revise later. In fact, please remember this fact come December 1st. While you might be tempted to start submitting your finished project, what you have at the end of NaNoWriMo is merely the framework on which you should build your final draft. Revise, revise, revise.

Even if you’re not working on a NaNo novel, there are great pep-talks available at the website to encourage you with your own project. I’ve included a few in this week’s links. Enjoy and happy writing!

Pep-talk from Rainbow Rowell – Advice from this author of two adult and two young adult novels.

Pep-talk from James Patterson – Words of wisdom from the multi-published author of numerous works of suspense.

Five Series You Probably Missed as a Kid (But Should Read as an Adult) – A great assortment.

Google Channels Pixar to Change Storytelling as We Know It – Maybe a bit of an exaggeration in the headline, but still a fascinating look at some new tech.

How to Enter the Telegraph Harvill Secker Crime Writing Competition – Written an adult mystery? Unpublished and unagented? Check out this contest.

NaNo Prep: The Last Gasp

Nephele Tempest

We’ve been preparing for NaNoWriMo all month, and now the event itself is in sight: Friday you start working on your NaNo novel. If you’ve been following along, you have a protagonist, some goals and obstacles, a list of potential scenes to write, and you’ve done research on a few of the details you’d like to include in your story. So what next?

The truth is you now have more than many authors do when they begin a book, and that’s because your goal is to write fast. 50,000 words in 30 days is an achievable goal, but having a bit of a road map will certainly make it easier for you to just plow ahead and write every day. So now I’m going to offer up a few ideas for how to get ready for NaNoWriMo that have nothing to do with your actual book.

Eliminate unnecessary distractions

Are you the type to waste time on the internet when you should be writing? Check out software such as Freedom that will allow you to block your internet access for a set period of time while you get your words down. Daydream too much because your desk faces the window? Turn it around for the month of November so you’re staring at a wall.

Reschedule unnecessary appointments

Do you have a visit to the dentist or your annual physical on the calendar for November? Move it to December and free up a couple of hours for writing. Let your hair grow a little long and skip the trim, if you’re due to visit the hair dresser or barber. And if you absolutely need to keep an appointment where it is, make sure to bring a small notebook so you can scribble in the waiting room while you’re there.

Stock up on supplies

Prep your kitchen with plenty of fixings for quick meals so you don’t forget to eat when you’re deep into your writing. A pantry stocked with dried pasta and canned tomatoes, jars of peanut butter, dried or canned beans, tuna, plus a freezer full of frozen veggies, chicken or veggie stock pre-made and frozen in ice cube form, and a couple of frozen casseroles, will keep you going on days when you’d rather not take time out to shop. Also, lay in a supply of snacks, both healthy and treats. Think granola bars, trail mix, licorice, nuts, dried fruit, chocolate covered espresso beans… whatever makes you happy. And finally, your favorite caffeinated beverages, such as coffee, tea, hot chocolate, etc.

In the non-edible category, you want whatever writing supplies you prefer. Even if you compose on your computer, it can be handy to switch off to a notebook sometimes, especially if you’re on the go, so pick up some notebooks and a supply of pens. If you like printing pages to reread what you’ve written, make sure you’ve got a ream of paper and ink/toner for your printer.

Plus don’t forget basic household items like tissues, paper towels, toilet paper, shampoo, dish soap, etc. Keep shopping trips to a minimum this way.

Writing friends

Cheerleaders can be helpful when you’re scratching your head, wondering why you ever took on such a huge challenge. If you haven’t already done so, check out the NaNoWriMo site for information about how to locate fellow participants in your area. There will be periodic meet ups on the local level, where writers get together in coffee shops to churn out words and talk about their progress.

There are just a few days remaining before the big event begins, so take this time to prepare mentally and physically. Good luck, and happy writing!

Further NaNo Prep: Setting Up Markers

Nephele Tempest

If you’ve been following along this month with the weekly prep posts for NaNoWriMo, chances are you’ve got at least a few good pages of notes and plans for your upcoming novel. By now you should have a protagonist, an idea of what they want to achieve, something pretty major getting in their way, and some research under your belt for settings and other important aspects of your story, such as your protagonist’s career, useful tools of their trade, etc.

Today we’re going to look at the shape of your novel. You know any good novel has a steadily building action that leads to the climax and the resolution. You’ve probably seen the little graph that goes with that idea, the ever-growing mountain peaks followed, finally, but the sharp fall off at the end. Characters are meant to make progress, with some back sliding along the way to keep things exciting, until ultimately they reach the end of the book and their happy ending — or everyone dies. You know, whatever floats your boat.

Chances are you’ve already got some scene ideas kicking around in your head, the things that are going to happen to your character on their road to resolution. This week I want you to jot down just a sentence or two for each scene you’ve already thought of, and then dream up a few more. These don’t need to be anything fancy, and you certainly aren’t going to start any actual writing — that has to wait for November 1st. You just want something to help jog your memory when it’s time to write the scene in question. It can be as simple as “George argues with Mary about where to go on vacation,” or “Paul thinks about calling to ask Sue out.” Just try not to be too cryptic; you want to remember what you planned to write when you look at your notes in a couple of weeks.

There’s no set number of scenes you need to come up with before you start to write, but you should try to come up with at least a couple of dozen. That way, when you sit down to bang out your daily words, you will have at least some idea of where to go. You might not know how to write the scene, but you will at least have a scene that needs writing.

Nor is there any set way to keep track of your scenes. If you use Scrivener, you can use the notecard function. If not, you can put each scene onto a physical 3 x 5 notecard, list them in a notebook, or just keep track of them in a separate file on your computer. Depending on the subject matter, you might end up rearranging your scene order while you’re writing, so any means of shuffling your ideas or renumbering them can come in handy.

These scenes don’t need to be comprehensive. In other words, once you start writing, you will no doubt write many scenes that you haven’t jotted down in addition to those you have. The idea here isn’t to come up with a complete outline of your novel, though you certainly can do so if you wish. The idea is more to set up markers along the way, so you have places to aim for in your story once you start to write. Like running a long race and looking for the next mile marker, you want to have something to shoot for as you type along. Focusing too much on how many words you need each day can start to make you a little punchy, so it’s helpful to have places in your storyline that you can see coming up next on the horizon. It feels more specific and more helpful than telling yourself you need to hit 10,000 words by the end of the day. Ultimately, if you want a workable first draft of your novel, you need to focus on the words themselves and what you have to say.

More NaNoWriMo Prep: When and Where

Nephele Tempest

Welcome to the next stage of preparation for NaNoWriMo participation. If you’ve been following along, you’ve got a protagonist with some sort of goal, and something major standing in their way. Where do you go next?

The key to NaNoWriMo is that you need to prepare yourself on two fronts, at least if you’re seriously looking to bang out part or all of a workable first draft of a novel. You want to produce something that serves as a stepping stone, not something that discourages you or makes you want to throw out your idea altogether. But you also want to hit that word count: 50,000 words by the end of November. Even if that doesn’t constitute a completed first draft — published novels for adults weigh in at 80,000 words and up, with few exceptions — it will be considered sufficient for the purposes of NaNo scoring. Your finished product on November 30 might actually need another few chapters before you reach your story’s end, or alternatively you might have a very loose draft that resolves your plot points but needs plenty of filler to flesh out the manuscript.

Preparing ahead of time means that, while the words you type in November might not be golden perfection streaming effortlessly from your fingers, they will at least be working in the right direction. You want to come up with 50,000 words that help your story start to take shape. So the next thing you want to prepare is a setting to go around your protagonist.

Chances are you’ve already thought about this at least a little bit. Who your character is and what they want — and often the obstacle making their wishes a challenge — affect setting greatly, so you likely considered things like genre, place, and time period over the past few weeks while you were coming up with your protagonist and his road block. But now is the time to really flesh out those concepts, and determine what might require a little research.

Many writers do some preliminary research before they begin writing a book, especially where information might be necessary for plot development. If you only know a little about criminal law, but you’re writing a thriller that involves a murder, chances are you’ll have to do some leg work in order to make sure your twists and turns are viable. Likewise, if your character works on a boat and you’ve only gone sailing once, you probably have to read up in order to make his or her actions and activities feel realistic and plausible. Writing about war? What weapons come into play? Is this modern warfare  with men in tanks or foot soldiers wielding rifles with bayonets?

It is, of course, possible to get mired down in research, and so often writers set themselves a specific research goal and then fill in smaller details once the writing gets underway. However, with NaNoWriMo, you’re writing against the clock for an entire month, and the last thing you want to do is pause mid-stream to look something up. For NaNoWriMo, you’re better off doing more research up front so you don’t need to take away from writing time once the starting gun goes off. This has the added benefit of providing you with lots of information to write about, helping to up your word count. It can get pared down during the editing process later, if necessary.

Will you still come across details that need to be filled in while you’re writing? Of course. But once November starts, try to avoid research unless you really cannot move forward without the information. Instead, insert some filler enclosed in brackets so you can easily find your place once December rolls around, make a note so you remember to go back and tackle it, and keep on writing.

So this week, start making lists of details for your story. Where does it take place? Real world? Imaginary? Combination? How much of that place will you use in your story? A planet? Country? Town? Estate? What is the time period, and how does that affect your story? Daily life? Transportation? The work people do? How your protagonist can go about the business of achieving their goal? Consider careers, clothing, food, education, technology, forms of entertainment. Remember that in past centuries — even past decades — many activities took far more time than they do now, which can heavily influence the timeline of your story. Likewise, in the future, we can assume certain aspects of life will have continued to speed up, such as air travel and forms of communication.

Whether you’re writing an epic fantasy, a WWII-era mystery, or a contemporary love story, the world of that novel needs to be described for the reader and brought to life, and your characters must inhabit it in a realistic fashion. Use this week to dream up your own vision of the world you plan to share in your NaNo novel. Happy writing!

NaNo Prep: Creating Conflict for Your Characters

Nephele Tempest

Welcome to the next installment of NaNoWriMo prep. Last week you spent some time creating your protagonist, figuring out who they are, where they came from, and a bit about what makes them tick. So now it’s time to move on to the next phase: creating conflict.

Conflict drives a story, pushes your character forward, leads to action. But dreaming up a conflict can be a complicated process. If you tend to be a more plot-driven writer instead of a character-driven one, you may already have an idea brewing, but more likely you have just a sense of what sort of book you want to write more than an actual conflict developed. So where do you start?

Begin with the character you’ve just developed. You have a fairly good mental image of your protagonist at this point, so try delving a little deeper. What do they want? What motivates them? Do they have a secret wish? Something they dream about? Or are they very upfront about their goals in life? What are their ambitions?

Now, a dream by itself doesn’t create much of a conflict. That’s up to you. Once you know what your character wants, you need to find something or someone to stand in their way. Throw up a major obstacle for them, an antagonist whose desires are in opposition or a situation that throws their dream into jeopardy. There can be many smaller obstacles, as well — in fact, you should strive to create as many as possible while still maintaining a degree of believability — but for now focus on the primary roadblock. Whatever goal your protagonist hopes to achieve, your job is to make it a seemingly impossible challenge.

Something to keep in mind: your character’s deepest desire may not be the thing that sends them off on an adventure. They don’t necessarily need a goal that involves a quest, like rescuing the princess who has captured their heart or searching for buried  treasure. Some characters want a happy, peaceful life. They’d prefer to be left alone. In this case, the adventure and whatever catalyst pushes out the door is actually the conflict; something forcing your character to take action against their very nature so that eventually they will be free to return to their cozy home.

Once you’ve determined your character’s ultimate goal and the primary obstacle standing in their way, you’ll have the initial building blocks for your NaNo novel.