NaNo Update

Still busy around here. The NaNo novel is not faring well amidst all other things. This is what it's going to be like if I'm going to finish 50,000 words:

UPDATE: That animation is a little icky after a while, so, um, if you want to watch it, it's
here

Not pretty.

(Image courtesy of Sheena Banday on the NaNo Icons LJ community.)

I've been busy with clients for the clinic and promise to update on developments there soon....

Posted 10:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

NaNo2005: 10,000 Strong and Growing

NaNoWriMo has entered its second week. If you're keeping up, you should have 13,300 words or so by the end of today. And if you're like me, you're about a day or two behind at around 10,000 words. But that's ok, because that's what weekends are for, right?

November can be such a crazy time! For me, classes are quickly spiraling to an end; at GW we only have three more weeks of class, including this one. Due dates for assignments that are due at or near the end of the semester are looming, and anything else you've been putting off before the holidays is starting to look more and more urgent. What a perfect time to write a novel!

Oh, and in clinic news, my client was rearrested and I was unable to get him released this time (shock!) so he's in jail for at least a week and unless we can get some kind of worthwhile plea deal (which is pretty rare around here) it looks like I'll be having my first trial next week.

Man, I better get busy!

Technorati Tags: nanowrimo

Posted 01:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Gearing Up for 50k

So what do you do after you've finished your first marathon? Hmm... Why not start your next 50k-word novel? NaNoWriMo 2005 started today and lots of people are already off to the races. You don't need anything but a pencil and paper and a few ideas in your head to get started, but if you're like me, you have almost as much fun with the technology as you do with the writing and wow! is there ever a bunch of technology you can choose from for this “event.”

First and most important in the NaNo tech extravaganza are the writing tools. In the past I've relied on Z-Write or MacJournal to write my novels, but I'm definitely using something new this year. Z-Write hasn't really been updated in quite a while and is a little buggy and aged. MacJournal is great, but it's not really made for this purpose and it's fun to try new things. TUAW reviewed some options recently, and I'm toying with using CopyWrite. It's got lots of cool things, but especially the ability to attach notes to individual documents like chapters or character sketches. (Here's a review of CopyWrite.) Ulysses looks cool, too, but way too expensive. And then there's the Scrivener beta, which looks like the swiss army knife of writing programs. It does all that and a bag of chips, or at least it claims to, but it's beta so you have to wonder about the wisdom of trusting it with your novel. Jer's Novel Writer, appears to be free and filled with all the neato cool things like notes attached to docs and also has a supercool margin notes feature that I imagine I'd use all the time. Finally, there's this Avenir thing that looks interesting, too.

But in addition to writing tools, there are writing counters! Last year I used NaNoWriMoProMe, which makes it easy to show your progress on a blog. But I also used the NaNo Report Card, an Excel sheet that helps you track your progress in multiple ways. You can find multiple versions in that discussion thread, one of which is available here. And if that's not enough, there are more blog word-counters here.

What to do? What to do? Oh, I know, I can play w/technology options all day and not write a word!

Posted 08:02 AM | TrackBack

Are You Ready to Write?

It's almost that time again—my favoritest time of year! November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, for short, and it's now less than a month away! The good and crazy folks who run this quixotic “event” have opened up the forums for 2005 and you can sign up now. They also have a new podcast (here's the feed for subscribing), so they're obviously all cutting edge and crazy. The next month will be tough for silly, deluded NaNo novelists as we try to think up some novel ideas w/out getting too anxious and eager to begin.

But maybe I should be thinking about getting a job rather than about the novel I can't wait to write in November—you think? Nah, me neither.

Posted 09:04 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

I Are A Novelist

• Frist draft of 32-pg journal “note”: Check.
• 50k-word NaNoWriMo Novel: Check

The to-do list just got a lot shorter. It feels good to be a novelist, even if the “novel” is incomplete and completely unreadable. By the rules of the NaNoWriMo game, it's a novel. My brain is empty of all cogent or meaningful content, but maybe that's just how these things go.

Although it's a bit old at this point, Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo, was on Talk of the Nation last Tuesday. He talks a bit about what seems to be the “normal” trajectory for NaNo novelists, which is that week one is fast and fun and furious and easy, followed by week two where you get tired and hit a wall and wonder why you're doing this, followed by a speeding up in week three and a beer and skittles race to the finish in week four. I guess that sort of fits my experience this time around. Week one was definitely easy and purely fun; words came quickly and easily, and it was exciting to get going. Week two I started dropping the ball, playing catch up, it became harder to motivate or maintain interest in my characters or plot. Week three, though, was really the worst, I think, because the doldrums of week two only got worse. The point is some advice to myself for next year: Days 10-20 or so are the hardest. Make a pact with yourself to keep writing through them, even if its just a couple hundred words a day. If you don't, you won't finish.

Posted 12:29 PM | Comments (9)

For the Record

This is the first time this month that my NaNo meter (not to be confused with a nanometer) has registered above the goal mark, and so, for the sake of posterity, I give you a sign of the 43,139 words I've written in the past 25 days.

Only 6,861 words to go, with five whole days remaining. I won't jinx it by saying anything about my chances of finishing at this point, but I will say that it feels much better to be at 43k than the 33k I was on just two days ago. Sure it's all crap crap crap, but hey, every word is a good word! Um, maybe I should now spend a few words on that paper I have due on Monday. You think?

Posted 07:01 PM | Comments (2)

Novel Turkey

It has been rumored that the ambivalent novel will not be completed by the deadline of Nov. 30 at midnight; however, after a burst of 5,000 words last night, the novel is almost back on track, and is at least within a plausible striking range. The fat lady has still not sung a note. To the editors of the journal for whom I supposed to be writing a “note,”: Um, sorry. I'd rather write a novel. To the professors who will grade my finals and shake their heads in dismay as they plant my GPA irrevocably in the bottom left of the bell curve: Run run run, fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the stinky cheese man! To everyone else: Happy Turkey Lurkey!

Posted 08:31 AM | Comments (3)

bogging Down

Apologies to any readers who don't give a rolling doughnut about madcap novel-writing, but that's sort of what I'm doing and thinking about these days so maybe you can just skip these posts and not hold them against me? I'll become a law student again soon enough, I'm sure. In fact, that's one possible reason I've never made it past about 36k words in any previous year. Starting a novel is easy, and putting the rest of your life on hold for a few days, or even a week, maybe two—that's not so hard either. But at some point, the backlog of work begins to catch up with you, and the focus required to keep a narrative moving becomes more and more difficult to maintain. Thinking back on my past NaNoWriMo experiences, it seems that it was always around week two or three that I really began to sputter, and I wonder if the reason for that was simply that the rest of my life began reasserting itself, demanding attention, and making each word that more difficult to come up with. As I try to juggle the different demands on my time this month, I find my mind pulled in so many directions that when I do sit down to write, it's hard to concentrate, or even remember the story I'm supposed to be telling. Could it be that a month is, in fact, too much time to give yourself for hacking out a really really bad 50k-word novel? Maybe Sui Generis is onto something doing nearly the whole thing in two weeks... Elsewhere: The WaPo featured NaNo yesterday!

Posted 09:10 AM | Comments (5)

Oh, and....

I forgot to say yesterday: I want to be Chris Baty! What could be better than traveling around the country basically giving pep talks to writers, meeting writers, and writing? Why am I in law school, again? I mean, am I in law school? Is there really only one more full week of class this semester? Do I really have a 25-page paper due at the end of this month? Do I really have four finals to study for and take? Do I really need to apply for jobs for next summer? I mean, really? Is all this necessary? It all seems like such a useless bother.... Does this mean anything, or am I just being silly? Nevermind. I'm behind on my words...

Posted 08:05 AM | Comments (13)

Every Word is A good word

That's the great thing about NaNoWriMo—every word is a good word. When else can you say that? What other time do you get to write anything you want w/out worrying what anyone else will think? Freedom! I went to Barnes & Noble last night to listen to Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo, talk about the “event,” why he does it, etc. It was great hearing him read his really bad dialogue—it was really bad, but that was the point. Mine is also really bad, but hey, it doesn't matter. He also gave some advice that I wish I'd heard may years ago because it makes terrific sense. He recommended that even if you don't write in a straight line from the beginning to the end of your book, it's a good idea to try to get a beginning scene, a middle, and an end. That way, you have a complete frame, and it's a lot easier to fill in the empty spaces later (like after NaNo if you get to 50k words and still want to work on it) than it is to make up that frame. I also have a tendency to reach a point in my novel where I start digging plot holes that go nowhere, but I feel stuck in them, like the only way out is to write my way out, which turns out to be mostly impossible, and therefore I get stuck in the hole and never finish the frame or anything else. This advice may prevent that kind of digging. At any rate, it will help give me some easy words, since I sort of have vague ideas of a middle and end and I'm sort of eager to write them. Maybe the next 10-20k words won't be so bad, after all. The evening w/Baty was kind of funny b/c when everyone got there we all sat around sort of quiet, maybe making half-hearted nervous conversation like “so how's your novel going?” I actually met some great people and we traded writing stories a bit, but as we waited for Baty to start talking, only a couple of people were using the time to add to their word counts. I know I could have easily put down an extra 500 words or so during the wait, but I felt self-conscious about pulling out my computer and tapping away. Then, after Baty had spoken for half an hour or whatever about what great craziness NaNo-ing is, the barriers and self-consciousness just melted away and everyone seemed eager to pull out the writing tools and start racking up the words. Like I said, that's a great thing about NaNo: it gives you license to be just a little crazy, less self-conscious, more free. Don't you wishi you were writing a novel this month? Hey, there's still time!

Posted 08:53 AM

Week Two Woopty Doo

Working on the novel, slowly inching my way, 100, 900, 2000 words a day. I sit down to write .... What the heck should I say? But you know the saying, about no work and all play. These comments at Stay of Execution (from commenter “Matt” of Second Person Singular) perfectly capture one of the best things about creative writing:

...i've never written a page on which something unexpected didn't happen, i've never had any creative work merely assume the form i expected before beginning, there is always serendipity, the unexpected, something ....more than i was aware of when i set out...be it painting, or cartooning, or designing buildings, or writing... and those moments, come to think of it, are usually the most wonderful occasions in the piece, they are the strong points.

It's true. I'm sure if I ever sat down to edit and rewrite these drafts I've tapped out in the course of past NaNoWriMos I would find that the only parts worth saving are the parts I had never even thought about until they appeared on the page. The serendipity of the unexpected is not always welcome, though. I often have this problem where I'm writing along and a character develops some habit or tic or does something that requires explanation, and that sends me on some tangent, and that often creates new scenes and characters that I don't know what to do with. And I think this is where some theories of writing say you should just go with it, follow your characters where they lead you. And that's fine, but I don't see how I'll ever get a story out of it. At some point you have to impose some discipline on that rampant serendipity, give it some shape, put up some fences and force it to roam around in a more limited area. If you don't, you'll end up writing endlessly and creating creating creating something that no one, including yourself, will ever be able to read. The great thing about NaNoWriMo, though, is that you don't have to worry too much about those fences, that discipline. Not this month. I mean, you can if you want, but there's no pressure to do so. It's all about quantity, not quality. Unlike the phenomenal Sui Generis who already has nearly 40k words, I'm falling way behind in quantity, so, um . . . bye.

Posted 07:05 AM | Comments (2)

NaNoWriMoProMe

The NaNo novel is underway, and now I can share my progress with you via the National Novel Writing Month Progress Meter (NaNoWriMoProMe):

The graphic at right (you might have to scroll down) will update regularly as I update the word count—daily, I hope. That way, if I succeed in hitting the 50k mark this year, I do so publicly; if I fail, I do that publicly, too. I don't want to jinx anything, but I've already decided that if push comes to shove this month, the novel has to take backseat to studying, catching up, finishing my note for the journal, etc. That makes it unlikely I'll “win” NaNo this year, but it's still fun trying. Plus, I'm really loving what I've got started so far; I think it has more promise than anything I've tried in previous years. Maybe that will make the difference. I guess we'll see, won't we? SO how's your novel progressing? ;-)

Posted 10:41 AM | Comments (2)

NaNoWriMo Report Card

Hey, have you started planning your NaNo novel yet? You only have about one week to get an outline or some plot ideas in your head before the mad dash begins! As part of your preparation, be sure to check out the NaNo report card (scroll down or do a find—no permalinks on the page). It's an Excel worksheet that has the whole month of novel-writing all set up for you. All you have to do is enter your daily word count (and how many hours you spent writing that day, if you want), and it will automatically calculate helpful information, such as how many words you have left to reach your 50k goal, how many words/day you'll need to write to reach that goal by the end of Nov., and when you'll finish your novel if you continue writing at your current pace. It even plots your progress on a graph and a pie chart! A detail-tracker's dream! The report card provides a little more insight into what NaNo is all about. People take it very seriously, but they also have lots of fun with it. I'm telling you, if you're thinking you'd like to write a novel (or even a long short story), but think you don't have it in you or you can't spare the time, you should just throw all caution to the wind like I'm doing and commit to spending every spare minute in Nov. during which your brain is functional writing. You will be very glad you did. Every year for the last three I get around to about now and I'm excited about trying to write a novel in a month, but I also start to worry and think about all the reasons why I really shouldn't even try. And then, inevitably, the thing that pushes me to launch into the madness yet another time is the memories of WriMo's past, the caffienated late nights and early mornings and stolen moments between classes or other projects, the hours in coffee shops w/L. writing, watching people, writing, thinking big thoughts about my future as a rockstar novelist, writing, hating the writing, writing more, playing solitaire in the hope that some idea will spring into my head for the next scene, writing more, more coffee, more writing, more juggling other stuff that I don't really care about for the month of November, more writing more writing more writing. And maybe it doesn't sound fun to everyone, but it's really a tremendous feeling, for one short month each year, to put writing first among all the other things that compete for my time and attention. Or, if not first, then much much higher on the list than usual. Oh, and this year, there's another reason to write: Writing can be good therapy, and no matter how this election turns out, I think we're all going to need some of that come Nov. 3rd or so.

Posted 09:06 AM | Comments (1)

NaNo NaNo!

NaNoWriMo is creeping up on us, and there's now a brand new website for this year's event! Ryan Dunsmuir has written five NaNo Novels and I think in this short FAQ answer (scroll down) he captures pretty well some of the reasons for doing it:

Now it's a habit.... November without a novel would seem empty, and I'd feel a little like I was missing out. There are always new people to recruit too, which can remind you just how totally ridiculous, yet amazing, noveling is. And if you've ever seen writers as the elite (as in, “how do they DO that? I could never write”) this is the perfect chance to crash their party. All you need is a looming deadline, some peer pressure/support, and lots of caffeine. The most important question to ask in order to reach your word count, and one of the hardest things for our goal-obsessed society to get a handle on, is not to ask what are you writing FOR, but ... what are you writing? You're writing a novel! How cool is that?

This will be my fourth year, and although I've never “won,” the experience has always been incredibly worthwhile. And it is like a habit; it's become one of those things I start thinking about and looking forward to when the weather starts to turn cooler, the days start getting shorter, the leaves change, etc. All of that might mean football and turkey to a lot of Americans, and it means that for me, too, but November is NaNoWriMo, and that's really the best of the fall things. In the same FAQ, Lazette Gifford, who apparently displays “freakish noveling speed,” has a great idea for how to be a NaNo winner:

I usually write an outline in October and tape it to the wall beside my desk. During November I mark off each section as I work through it. Outlines are like cue cards. They jog the memory and keep the story moving along without having to stop and wonder what to do next.

An outline!? I sort of thought that was cheating, but look, it's not (scroll down). Now I'm thinking: Brilliant idea! The hard part is figuring out which of the many different ideas in my head is really anything more than a scene or a short story. Some pre-thinking will be happening in the next two weeks and maybe that will be what I need to push me past the 30k or so words I usually stall at.

Posted 07:29 AM | Comments (5)