12.07.07

The Big Scary Adventure

Posted in NaNoWriMo, Rants, Shameless Self-Promotion, Writing at 5:19 am

Here we are, a week past the end of November, and I’ve yet to have made any real mention of just how the whole NaNoWriMo experience went down. Now, granted, this might be because I spent 90% of November detailing, almost painfully at times, what I was doing with regards to Blueberries. Still, I think it’s important to have come to some conclusions and discovering exactly what I really actually did and what I learned as a result of those mistakes.

I keep getting remarks about how I’m a more dedicated writer than other people, and how I seem to approach the Black Craft with a greater amount of enthusiasm, seriousness, and general aptitude than the commenter. In a complete and total reversal of my usual rampant egotism, I try to downplay these, but to be completely honest, I do appear to work a bit harder at being a writer than the general public. That’s the important thing to remember– than the general public. I make no pretense at being a professional, here, and I certainly won’t do so until I can do this writing thing on my own without that pesky day job getting in the way. I probably won’t even until after that. So, as with all of the seeming advice that I spew forth on this here blog, I’m not saying any of this stuff to rub it in that I’m a writer, or to declare unequivocally that this is The Way It’s Done. This is just how I did it. Put another way, the Rules I mention below are meant to be broken… by everyone except me.

How I Did It, actually, was The Expensive Way. I sat my butt in one Panera Bread or another and chugged soda while typing furiously. That’s probably my own little Rule #1: Write somewhere that’s dedicated, in your mind, to writing. Every apartment I’ve been in has had very little space for me to set up a “writer’s nook”, but I’m actually working on fixing that here after the first of the year. So, even as far back as when I was in Cleveland, I found it easier for me to write if I put myself in some place that was completely separate from my usual distractions. Back in February, this meant the Panera Breads at Miracle Mile and the other one closer to Penn Hills; this November was no different, though on occasion I took trips into Shadyside for writing sessions with Pez.

Which actually brings me to Rule #2: While writing, isolate yourself. From everything. I found that unless I had the headphones on and my usual trance mix running, even being in my haven did little to maintain my momentum. I’d hear someone say an unfamiliar word halfway across the cafe, or someone wearing a neat coat would walk by, or something would come to distract me. There’s more to it, though– you have to remove the passive distractions you’ve come to expect. Shut off the cell phone, or leave it in your bag/glove box. Don’t connect to the wireless network in the cafe– heck, turn off the wireless card itself (you’ll save battery power, too). Most importantly, if you’re in a writing session with a friend, those long lapses into silence aren’t awkward– they’re perfect, they’re the writing session working exactly as intended. (I had trouble remembering that last one.)

Moving on, Rule #3 is Don’t force yourself to work for hours at a time, and don’t let yourself get too distracted, either. This one is hard because in our world, distractions are inevitable and inescapable at times. Once you finally get into your groove, it’s very easy to declare that you’re going to stay in it as long as possible, and that can mean stretches of relative immobility that rival even the most hardcore World of Warcraft players. (The technical term for this is “catassing”, but I prefer the colloquial “word grinding” as it sounds friendlier and doesn’t evoke, well, cat ass.) This phenomenon, by any nomenclature, is bad because the longer you spend, uninterrupted, on task, the more likely it is for you to just get burned out. As time goes on you’ll find out exactly where the line between brilliance and fizzling out is, and with practice and effort that line will be more fluid, trending towards longer periods. When you find the line, STOP. Take a break, even if it’s just twenty minutes to re-ground yourself in the immersive buoyancy that is the internet and life in general. Get up, refill the drink, walk around, use the facilities. Or, in some cases, pack up and leave your haven altogether. Go window shopping, relax, let that creativity build back up again. Just be sure that you go back at some point and continue.

That’s the big one, the rule I violated to my peril near the end; Rule #4 is Never, never, never stop until your story is finished. Don’t take week long vacations, don’t take days off– don’t even take one day off! The story exists in your mind only so long as you can hold on to it. It’s like an old CD player, almost, listening to an audiobook. You can put the player on pause, theoretically indefinitely. But if it’s left on pause for too long, the batteries die, and your place is lost. The only way to recharge the batteries is to write; if you write while you listen to the story in your mind, you make sure that it has enough metaphorical battery life so that you can hear– and transcribe– the story through to the end. Depending on how much your writing recharges the batteries (another numnber that goes up with experience, too), you could maybe get away with one day off here and there– maybe even two at a stretch if those are the only ones that you take during the draft. But losing more than that in a row, or in rapid succession, drains the batteries until you’ve lost all enthusiasm and motivation. And that story you were listening to, in progress, is gone forever, and you’ll never know how it ends…

To add something to this, not strictly related to the rule, you don’t have to put tons of flowery description in the intiial draft. Right now, I’m not doing that– probably 70-80% of what I have right now is dialogue or long conversations. The longest I go without any speech is probably one and a half or two continuous pages, and that’s only because there was nobody there to talk to and the one character present was a little preoccupied at the moment. I fully intend to go back in a couple of months (once the first draft is done) and put in some more description and prose. It’s easy to remember objects later; people, and interactions, can be tricky. Just get enough of the story down where the plot is solid start-to-finish and it’s a functional, if dry, story that can be read and understood by someone else without your presence.

Related to that, Rule #5: Write your current story first. Over the past couple days, when I’m writing (which has been a struggle, believe you me– long, long story), I’ve caught myself seeing events that happen years after the end of the current story. Now, granted, it gives me something to set up for as I’m approaching the ending. But the problem is, I’m not at the ending yet. The ending is still nebulous– even with the outlining I’ve been doing. But I have to get to it. And, as it turns out, writing sequentially has done wonders for me in terms of seeing the plot through calmly and without creating too many plot holes or inconsistencies. For me, that works well; for you, maybe you have to write non-linearly. What matters is that you concentrate on your current project while you’re working on it, and not fantasizing about the movie deal or the next four sequels, or anything like that.

Rule #6 is a bit more important than its numerical designation might suggest: Write for yourself, and the rest of the world be damned. To give a little bit of teasing to those of you looking forward to this, I re-cast one of my favorite villains from my older work into a minor supporting role in the early portion of Blueberries. She’s probably not going to make it past the first editing phase, but having her stand in helped me discover a little bit more about her personality as well as the personalities of the other players in that scene. Plus, as said, I like her and think she’s one of the most complex villains I’ve written to date, and she worked well in the context of the scene. More than that, though, there’s hundreds of references to (as the song goes) my favorite things nestled here and there within the dialogue and even the character names themselves. I’m not going to spoil any of them out here for you folks, but I’m particularly proud of what’s happened so far with my two adult leads. (Believe it or not, Harvesting Blueberries managed to tie itself into Inconsequential in a very unconventional way!) If the writing’s not fun for you, it’s going to feel too much like work. And while it is work, we write because we love to write! Put another way, as Paul McCartney once said (sarcastically, I hope), “John and I literally used to sit down and say, ‘Now, let’s write a swimming pool.’”

I think seven’s a good number to end this on, so Rule #7 is Always go with your instincts; the story’s not final until Oprah says it is. And I don’t mean specifically Ms. Winfrey, I mean that as a metaphor for “it’s published”. Heck, even after publication some folks have gone on to do some big revisions to their work. If you really know your characters, if you really know them and how they’re going to react, all you need to do is set the stage for them and follow them around with a camera. If they’re veering too far off your outline, you need only prod them in the right direction with a well-timed telephone call or other occurance. Remember, you’re the cinematographer as well as the director. If they start ad-libbing a compelling scene that’s not in the outline, let them run with it. Likewise, if you don’t think a character’s working out right, rewrite the line and re-film the scene in your mind. Don’t do too much of this ‘live’, though– that is, once written, a scene should stay written until you go back to edit or there’s a huge plot hole that’s caused by it. Even then, don’t just wipe out the offending scene– make a backup before you do any slashing and burning. It is always better to write too much in the beginning than to have to go back and pad the plot with inserted scenes later.

To confess a secret, I’ve only put down about 8000 words since the end of November. But, I’ve progressed enough in that time that the last 16 outline points could still keep me on target for my initial estimate of about 120K. More than that, though, I’ve cleared the big physical action-movie climax of the story, and can now focus on the final emotional climaxes and the ending. I’m going to have to take another couple of days as a writing rush to ensure that it gets finished before the end of the year, but it’s a priority. So, that’s probably going to be Sunday; we’ll see. Catch you folks tomorrow, likely with Bailout.

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