your audience?

Will you allow your friends/family/others to read your story as it progresses? Do you plan on allowing anyone to read it at all?

My Milestone Rewards

Primary rewards -- these are all tentative so far:

• 5K: Wear my NaNoWriMo shirt in public. Hee. Shaddup.
• 10K: Go see Walk the Line? This may not work because of timing.
• 17K: Buy a book I like.
• 25K: Nice dinner out?
• 35K: Buy a DVD? Which one?
• 40K: TV series?
• 50K: Nice coat or sneakers?

Auxiliary rewards:

• Whoever (i.e. between Seppo and me) crosses the 15K line first gets to keep the Serenity Visual Companion Book or whatever it was called.
• Watch Prison Break if I'm current on my daily quota.
• Watch 1 episode of Desperate Housewives for every 1000 words over daily running total requirement.

Restrictions:

• No reading recaps or discussions on TelevisionWithoutPity for the entire month.
• No reading Overheard In NewYork unless I commit to using it for a scene idea as soon as I am done reading. This could be fun, actually.
  

Bonus Tip of the Day: Make a Map!

I would have saved this for another day, but I realized that this is more helpful before starting the project, so here it is: make a map. The map could be just your own house and the surrounding neighborhood, or it could be an intercontinental map of your entire fictional world. Since my project takes place in real Regency England, I am going to print out a map of London during those times and put markers on the most pertinent places.

It helps you be consistent with travel times and set your scenes appropriately.

You can also map the timeline of your characters too. I've been told this is really helpful and lets you have flashbacks that don't accidentally change your characters' ages and such. I will try to do this, if I have time tonight.

Let's go, team!

Tip of the Day: Make Friends

If you are concerned that you just can't seem to figure out your character or illuminate them to the user, one of the easiest things to do is write a scene (or several) that has your character interacting with a very close friend or family member. I was so focussed on trying to use my male character from last year to make the plot work when he was in scenes with the female protagonist that I found it difficult to let him just be himself. I found that he only somewhat came to life when he was interacting with his valet or his best friend. The female character was having no trouble because she was already in many scenes with her sisters and friends.

Unfortunately for me, I learned this lesson when very close to the end of last year's project. This year, I'll know better. Oooh, since this year's is going to be a part of the same series as last year (the main female character is the younger sister of last year's main female character), I can even revive some of my older characters. I'm looking forward to this.

Happy NaNoWriMo Eve!

Gulp. We are close. During the month, don't forget to post tips for others as you figure out helpful stuff, not to mention encouraging words for each other. Feel free to post little snippets, as long as you are careful about considering the ramifications of future publication via traditional means, i.e. don't post anything if you want to be super-duper careful and you want to be published one day.

Do we want to be competitive by posting our wordcounts? I think it will help me, at least, because I hate losing. :)

I plan on writing for at least an hour tonight after the clock strikes midnight, but we'll see how it goes with the sleepiness situation.

Good luck!

Declare Yourselves

So, what are your rewards? I have yet to decide, but given that we only have four and a half days before NaNoWriMo starts, we should have something we are aiming for.

As I've mentioned, I've gotten the following items for inspirational purposes:






I also picked up



for a race prize between me and Seppo. Whichever one of us crosses a certain milestone first will get to keep it. The other person will be mocked and taunted. It arrived a few days ago, but we haven't looked at it. We need to choose the milestone for that race.

I bought the Desperate Housewives DVD set after watching the first episode. I have no memory if committing to using it as a prize for NaNoWriMo, but Seppo insists I was going to. It doesn't make any sense to me because I know that I can't use it as an interim prize, as I'd want to watch the series instead of write and that would be a punishment instead of a real reward. And I don't think I would have settled for something so meh for my final prize. I mean, I know it takes a lot of work and I want something FANTASTIC, and I was juuuust interested enough in the series to get the set on a lark. So now I'm confused because I want to watch it but if I really said it was going to be a reward -- what a lame final reward!!! wtf?!! -- I want to keep it a reward. This sucks.

Tip of the Day: End at the Beginning

Ok, I will openly admit that "end at the beginning" sounds like a pile of nonsense. I was having a hard time coming up with a short quip for this tip though.

The idea is that when you are wrapping up your writing for the day, try not to end when you are done with your thoughts. Either leave a little leftover or start a new unfinished thought, so that when you pick up your writing the next day, you immediately have sometihng that you can write about, rather than having to start an entirely new chapter, scene, or idea when you are not yet warmed up for the day. This will help eliminate some of that, "Oh crap, I am staring at this blank piece of paper, but nothing new is coming to me." You are starting with an older idea, so as you get into the groove, you can come up with new material more easily.

Tip of the Day: Stuck? Move on.

Say you are writing a good scene -- the dialog is going pretty well, the plot is advancing where you want it to, and things are happening that make it an interesting read. But you run into the problem where you just don't know what to do with the scene to finish it up and move to the next scene. What do you do?

Drop it and move on. The longer you sit there staring at the blank screen, the more you can freeze up at the thought of what needs to happen and the more you can start kicking yourself for writing yourself into a corner (or so you think at the time).

Leave yourself a note to wrap that scene up and go on to the next part of the story. Do some hand-waving and assume that you finished that scene in a really suave way that will leave readers falling to their knees. Then write the next part. You'll figure it out, maybe even as you write the next scene. As it comes to you, fill in the blanks.

Remember this: books do NOT have to be written in a straight line. Since last year, I've spent a lot of time reading advice from established authors and various writing guides, and almost all say that they need to go back often to fix major problems and things need to get shuffled around. Only one author said she works pretty much in a straight line and makes only one major editing run. Only one. Who are you to argue with the pros who have crafted their art for years and have people pay for the privilege of reading what they wrote? Move on, baby, move on.

Question

I brought this up with Seppo, but I'm running into a rather peculiar issue. My story is about an ex-pat in Japan, and the dialog switches between English and Japanese. But, if it were really written in Japanese, it would be hard for those who don't speak the language to actually understand, I figure. So now, I'm looking for a way to denote when they're talking in Japanese, as opposed to English. I'm using italics for now, while Seppo recommended a different font, anybody else have any cool ideas?

Tip of the Day - Tangible Goodies

It'll be important to set up rewards to work towards. I have my eye on a couple of DVD sets, but it will be a bad idea to use any of them for an interim reward, as it would just distract me. It would be a good reward for crossing the finish line though.

I've ordered shirts and mugs for Seppo and me. I figure I can only wear the shirt when I'm in the process of writing. Last year, I had a hat I tried to use to put myself into the writing mode, but it got too hot.

I'm thinking it would be great to have rewards at the following points:

• 5K: The feeling of writing that first 5K is amazing.
• 10K: Double digits. Insane.
• 17K: A third of the way there!
• 25K: Half way! Holy moly!
• 35K: I hear this is the hardest part.
• 40K: All downhill now, baby.
• 50K: The end.

Now, I just have to figure out what they will be. In order for this to work out well, they HAVE to be things you really would not have gotten otherwise. Either that, or you can work in reverse and say that you can't get the thing you normally would have gotten yourself if you don't hit your milestone on time. But that method kinda sucks for me.

I am thinking that midway through, I could really use a break at my favorite restaurant. The other rewards will have to be determined.

Open

If anyone (i.e. people we know, not the whole world) wants to be on this blog, let me know and I'll issue you an invite to this blog. We can use it to check in on our progress and have word count wars. Even if you don't want to be invited, you can still come here for word count wars.

Who know who you are.

Stop. Rewind. Start Over.

So, something clicked last night. I started reading, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," in order to just take in a feel of the written word again (I realized I hadn't actually *read* much in the last few months), and it occurred to me that one of the problems I have with the current plan is that a lot of the tension and design of the Chimera concept was really based around interactivity. And, that writing a story about that doesn't really... say a whole lot. It's a journey, sure, but there's not a lot of depth to it, in its inherent structure.

I think, instead, I'll go back to my original plan, which was to novelize a concept for an RPG that some friends of mine and I had been laying out. I think it can actually be adapted to be sort of a social commentary on our current state of government, and basically, provide a little richer character development, and interaction. So... yeah, that's the current plan. Wonder how many times it'll change before Nov. 30.

Fnorg.

Gotta say I'm at least a little worried about the prospect of cranking out a narrative. If it were "write 50K works about something or another," I don't doubt I could do it. And as much as I can intellectually understand the concept of, "Don't worry whether it's crap or not," the last time I tried to write dialogue, or even a structured narrative, it was absolutely terrible. Like, unreadably bad. But then again, that was what, maybe 13 years ago?

Curious how it'll go. In some sense, I haven't tried "cheating" by writing yet, because I figure it'll be better to just jump in feet first on Nov. 1. I've got enough of a basic plot/character outline that I think I can just leap into it. It'll be interesting. Maybe not "readable," but I suppose that's not the point.

Tip of the Day - No Criticism

If you decide to let people read your work during NaNoWriMo, make sure to make 100% clear to them that you are in NO WAY WHATSOEVER soliciting feedback from them yet. During the month, there is no room or time for self-doubt. Accepting even the kindest constructive criticism when you've worked so hard to banish your own evil Inner Editor will be to your detriment. Any feedback should be overwhelmingly positive and supportive, even if it's all a lie. Every word you've written is golden and should be enshrined in a museum for the world to gaze upon. Your amazing talents should be exalted in poetry.

Don't let yourself get discouraged during the month. Afterwards, you can gnash your teeth and gripe about the horror that you've written and edit the crap out of it, but during the month, don't you dare let anyone (including yourself) critique yourself. You have stories to tell. You are a storyteller and the idea is to get it on paper before it disappears forever from the world. Get the story down, then later worry about getting the words right and filtering for the relevant pieces so that other people can understand what you've written.

For this month, just soar.

ETA: I mean NEXT month! :D

Tools

I've added two tracking utility links on the right column. The first one is a zipped up xls spreadsheet that I am going to use to track my daily progress. I found last year that the chart is crucial in keeping me on the right pace. This is a spreadsheet meant to be used on your own computer.

The second one is a link to a chart image utility that I used last year to report my progress on my website. It automatically generates a graphic of your current progress and can also link to a detailed breakdown chart. For instance, at the end of last year, my progress looked like this:



And my breakdown chart can be found here.

Putting yourself out there

Another thing that got me across the finish line was the fact that I actually went out and told people what I was gonna do. Then I blogged all the fricking time about it. It got so that I couldn't back down because I would have embarrassed myself in front of all my friends. I made sure that there was no easy way to bow out. Having blocked the major escape routes, I had no real choice but to serve my time. /gratuitous Prison Break analogy

Finally, something resembling a plot

Last Friday night, Seppo and I went to a cafe in Berkeley to grab some after-dinner (more like after-dinner, after-Firefly) coffee. We got to talking about what we could use in our stories and came up with the highly original idea that we should use what we know. More specifically, we thought we should use intense experiences in our lives to bring to life the scenes/plot points of our stories.

Seppo may or may not want to discuss what it is that he experienced, but as for me, I figured that one of the things that I'll never forget is my mother laboring and giving birth to my little brother. During labor, there was a point when things were going wrong when she looked over at me, and in that one moment of clarity and silent communication, we both thought that she was going to die. Clearly she didn't, but at the time, we were both sure it was a certainty. Thank the Lord she came out of it fine.

Today, on our drive home from work, I solicited plot ideas from Seppo. The main woman character and her central conflict are clearly established already, as I will be using a younger sister of the main character from last year's novel. The problem was that I had no idea for a male lead or a plot -- you know, the plot, the thing that makes a story a story. We came up with the setup that the man will be a young doctor that she meets when her sister is giving birth, as well as a central conflict for their relationship, which very naturally led to an inner conflict for him to overcome. One of the problems is that I am not sure if men attended to ladies during the Regency era (1810 and on), so I will have to make sure that that bit is possible.

I am using RoughDraft 3.0 to write and yWriter to outline before and organize after. I am also going to use the snowflake method to help come up with the summary/outline.

Man, I am so much more organized this year than last that I have to wonder if I'm setting myself to run out of gas midway. Heh. All thoughts of uncertainty will be banished. Shoo!

Favorite characters

I am not good at writing characters or good dialog, so I am hoping to be inspired by my favorite fictional characters and others who have left an impression on me, even if I don't like them. Generally, if even if I don't like them, I'm intrigued by characters who appear to have a deeper untold story, without being obvious about it. If I do like them, it's because they show qualities I admire without being annoyingly goody-goody and/or exhibit a good sense of humor.

• Jamie, Claire, and Collum from Outlander
• Characters from Firefly, especially Mal, Jayne, and Zoe
• Hurly, Sawyer, and Shannon from Lost

The question is, what specifically do these characters do to distinguish themselves from countless other fictional characters? What is the mechanism by which their characters are revealed? What lends them a sense of "realness" (or likeability)? If I can figure out the answer to these questions, I'll be on the right track.

What worked for me

The thing that got me across the finish line was that ths was not my Great American Novel (tm), but my Hello Novel. Just as in learning a new programming language, I didn't set out to do something amazing, but to learn the mechanics and syntax and rhythm of writing, so that I can eventually write something good. So I sat down with three of my most entertaining books in my chosen genre, then sketched out when in the story things were supposed to happen.

For example, I might have noted that the two main protagonists should meet within the first three chapters and that they should have a minor conflict upon their first meeting, stretched out over a few scenes. Their personality sketches should be done within x number of pages from the beginning. Or I might have taken note that they should have their major conflict 3/4 of the way to the end, and how many pages are used up in the high-stress scenes. I didn't have any idea what was supposed to happen -- no story arc, but I had a story architecture, in essence.

This was great for me because as I would falter and run out of ideas, I would just look up where I was supposed to be in the story, then make something up that fulfilled that function. It was fun because I was learning the story as I wrote it.

This year, I am going to have a more complete story arc pre-planned.

New writing-centered blog

This is our new blog to post about novelling-related things. Here is a handy list of previous relevant entries.

Considering working on NaNoWriMo:

• musings 10/21/2004

Cheating and starting early:

• confessions 10/22/2004

Starting the project, then putting it off until December:

• weak week 11/1/2004
  
• punt 11/7/2004
  
• email blogging 11/11/2004

Genuine ramp-up to the real thing:

• hello novel 11/17/2004
  
• silly novelist, charts are for twits 11/29/2004
  
• nanowrimo progress meters 11/30/2004

Actual NaNoWriMo: Personal Edition:

• bay wolf 12/1/2004
  
• nanowrimo status 12/1/2004
  
• my favorite italian restaurant 12/2/2004
  
• trending downward 12/2/2004
  
• first milestone 12/2/2004
  
• hard work is its own reward 12/3/2004
  
• obligatory report 12/3/2004
  
• teh r0x0r 12/4/2004
  
• gulp 12/5/2004
  
• fifteenated 12/6/2004
• realizations 12/7/2004
• explantion 12/7/2004
  
• online buddies 12/8/2004
  
• lost 12/10/2004
  
• week two == weak too 12/13/2004
• fruitless toil 12/14/2004
  
• over the hump 12/16/2004
  
• pining 12/20/2004
  
• book update 12/26/2004
  
• the end 12/27/2004
• draft stats 12/30/2004
  

Post-novelling reflections:

• year of the rooster 1/1/2005

Book printing:

• bonkers 1/5/2005
• mishap 1/6/2005
• shipped 1/11/2005

Useful advice:

• reflections on december 1/25/2005

Random thoughts ramping up to this November:

• work it out 6/13/2005
  
• rowing 7/21/2005
  
• future blog topics 8/16/2005
  
• American Red Cross - Preparing for and Responding to Hurricane Katrina 8/30/2005
  
• jibber jabber 10/04/2005
  
• write a novel 10/05/2005