Taking Time

November first. It's hard to believe the calendar has once again spun round to this date and yet, ready or not, here we are.

For me the past seven years the month of November has been defined not by the anniversary of my birth or Thanksgiving, but by National Novel Writing Month (otherwise known as NaNoWriMo). Every year that I have participated, I have come away a "winner," having written the required 50,000 words (and a grand total nearing 400,000!).

Each time I showed myself what pure magic transpires when you dedicate the time and space to stringing words together to tell a sustained story. These years of participation have taught me so many life altering lessons...about myself, my writing, about telling stories.

This year will be different. I will not be writing a novel this month.

I won't lie, there is a sadness that has intertwined itself with this decision and there were many moments when I asked myself, "Are you sure? I mean, are you really sure?"

But the answer I always fell back to was the same.

Not this year.

There are a handful of solid and rational whys, but the most important one has to do with the writing itself.

So while I won't be participating in the grand adventure that is NaNoWriMo, I will still be writing and working towards the goals I have set for myself.

I raise a glass to all of you who have taken on the challenge and wish you all the best. You're awesome and the world needs your story!

Godspeed, dear NaNoWriMos

A Brief Sort of Update

The last week has been a whirlwind of good, bad, and just about everything in between. One of those good things was "winning" NaNoWriMo 2015. As you might recollect, I started this year's endeavor promising myself I would simply try. If that didn't work out, I told told myself I could quit.

The good news is, I didn't. I wrote every day until the end and in the process created a delightfully complex and interesting character that I am sure I will come back to some day. Her name is Georgia and she was both fun and challenging to write for.

But the really good news is that I had loved doing the work. The other good news is that I re-instilled some necessary creative habits. I am going to do my damnedest to stick with them.

Halfway Point

At the beginning of the year I started using stickers as a way to motivate and document my writing days. It was an idea I'd adopted from Laini Taylor (see here). Let's say the last few months have had more blank spaces than Taylor Swift.

But not November.

November has been exactly what I needed it to be.

It has been the kick in the pants I needed to do the work, to reestablish routines.

It has been fun.

It has been surprising.

It has been challenging.

I have been inspired and delighted. 

25,230 words in and I am so happy. I look forward to sitting down each day to see how this story progresses, to see what my characters have in store, what twists and turns they'll take me on.

This story is very much about music and love songs and how they shape and define our ideas about love, from the time we are small children to the time we fall in love for real and for the first time. There is a soundtrack I've been building to slowly accompany these words and each day I look forward to seeing what song will find its way to my story.

So far.

To NaNo or Not To NaNo (that seems to be the question)

This past year my blogs have been few and far between. I've narrowed the cause to several likely culprits, some more serious than others. It's been a challenging year and one that has caused me to pause and focus inward, to withdraw from public view, to be quiet. Instead of sharing my life and my loves here, I've kicked it old school with a journal and the satisfying scratch of pen on paper. I've been writing selfishly, not publicly.

It's been a time filled with reading*, writing, traveling, listening to music. I've been to some amazing concerts and the happiest place on earth (Hogwarts, duh!). I've been inspired and challenged by some amazing writers. I've walked hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles. I've laughed to the point of tears and cried to the point where I felt hollow. It's been a year that has changed me.

Now, somehow, it is the very end of October with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) visible on the horizon. Months and months ago I had grand plans to be at a different point in the editing process with the project I've been working on. I wanted to have this version done by the end of September so I could spend October planning what I would work on in November.

But then, life. And this time it wasn't a question of time. I had time. I had more of it in some ways than I had been expecting. What I didn't have was the mental and emotional space to do the work. After much internal debate, I decided to give myself a break.

A few people have asked me if I was planning to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. My answer has been, "Probably not." I have said things about how I don't want to start something new when I still have so much work on my current project. I've talked about how I don't want to make the same mistakes I've made before when it comes to the issues of Story and Plot. I've said that I will use this time to edit.

Probably.

What a wishy washy kind of word, lacking in conviction and commitment.

Last week, while I was writing in my journal and thinking about what it would be like not to participate in NaNoWriMo for the first time since I started (2009), I came across an idea. It's one that I've imagined before, a kind of experimental type of piece and the more I wrote about it the more excited I became and the more I thought that maybe participating would be the best thing for me and my writing, the best way to get me back into my daily habits of writing/editing.

I told myself to give it a week and see if the idea grew any roots.

I reminded myself of this Ben Folds inspired post I wrote in 2012 when I was debating the very same should I/shouldn't I question.

Seven days have passed and there hasn't been a day I haven't thought about this idea and all the ways it might be exactly the project my writing life needs.

Here is an unsolicited truth about me: I don't give myself permission to fail.

That truth has been a double edged sword my entire life. It's held me back just as much as it's pushed me forward.

What does it mean for NaNoWriMo? In the past it has meant that if I start, I can't quit halfway through. I'm either in or I'm out. If I sign up, I'm going to find a way to finish, to hit 50k no matter what.

This year, I think I'm going to do something different. I'm going to try. And if that turns out to be a mistake, I'm giving myself permission to fail.



*A list of a few favorites from this year include: Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen, Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough, The Wrath & the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh, George by Alex Gino, Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple, After You by Jojo Moyes (see this blog re: the first book), The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness, Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff, and Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. Yes, this list is YA heavy, but some of the most interesting story telling is definitely happening in this category.

Walking among the fallen.

Taking Flight

Magpie comes a calling
Drops a marble from the sky
Tin roof sounds alarming
"Wake up child."

"Let this be a warning,"
says the magpie to the morning,
"Don't let this fading summer pass you by.
Don't let this fading summer pass you by."

                  from Magpie to the Morning by Neko Case

      

While yesterday bathed in sunshine, this morning has slipped into a heavy coat of fog. Out the window the trees are hazy, distant, their lines are soft and blurred before they disappear into the endless gray of sky. What a difference a day can make.

Yesterday I walked and walked and walked. I listened to song after song, matching my footsteps to the kicked beats of bass drums. I let the winter sun tell me it was spring. I watched the black bird bounce from barren tree branch to barren tree branch. I sat on wooden benches. I stepped on soft, wet grass, concrete. I closed my eyes to dream.

I bought an hour glass, a symbol to remind me to sit in the chair, to put fingers on keys, to build words into stories.

It worked. I came home and lost several hours to the process of working. It was one of the most productive writing days I've had in ages.

Progress.

Today I wake up compelled, inspired to try again.




*Months ago I went to social media to help me generate a list of songs about birds for my book. This was not one that came up, but yesterday it found me and knocked me flat. It is perfect in so many glorious ways.

Signs of life.

Death, Doubt, and Beginning Again

I look around and see all the discarded words that have collected in corners, like the tumbleweeds of dust and dog hair that gather in a house with hardwood floors. I look at them and I see a rare blend of hope and despair, of potential and paralyzing doubt.

I haven't posted a blog in nearly two months and until today I hadn't opened my novel since November 29th, 2014, the day the odometer rolled past 50,000 words.

My intention was to update my progress, to share the triumphs and missteps as I worked through this latest revision, but then there was a death in the family and I found myself on a plane, derailed from the track I was on, thirty thousand feet in the air when I expected to have my feet firmly on the ground.

Something changed then, in life and in my writing.

This wasn't a death that wrecked me. Certainly it made me sad for all the usual reasons and a few that surprised me, but it didn't send me tailspinning into despair.

Every word I wrote the rest of November I had to fight for. Nothing came easy. I had no energy to put one word in front of the other and I found myself floundering. Somehow I carried on even though all I felt like doing was watching Hallmark Channel Christmas movies.

I found excuses to write, strange motivations and some of them downright obscure. When the Ferguson verdict came through and I was forced to watch the coverage via Fox News, I wrote about it from Holden's perspective, imagining how it would have affected him and his African American best friend. What were their thoughts? How did the current events make them feel? What conversations would an eighteen year old have with his friends?

December returned me to Portland and the chaos of work. I let my writing go, opting to lose myself in other people's stories and I read some truly remarkable books (like Jacqueline Woodson's National Book Award winning Brown Girl Dreaming, A.S. King's brilliant Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, and Jandy Nelson's amazing I'll Give You the Sun.) These were three very different books by three very different writers and I found myself feeling...inadequate. I found myself questioning the very reason why I should bother writing when there were others in the world telling such brilliant stories, stunning in their voice, the manner of their telling, their words so far beyond my skills.

There were moments when I felt like giving up completely.  There were days when I thought it might be better if I spent my time reading other people's novels rather than bothering to write one of my own.

But I've been writing as long as I can remember (I started my first book series in the fourth grade) and even at the lowest point of self doubt, I knew I wouldn't/couldn't truly give up. I just needed a break, a chance to rebuild and refocus. I needed to refill from the well.

Today, I go through my files, scavenging for buried treasures, reviewing critique feedback, notes, ideas, thoughts.

Today I begin again.

A brilliant reminder

Making Word(s) Count

Sunday mornings are my favorite writing time. The house is quiet. The coffee pressed. A fire dances behind its glass cage. The sun filters in through windows, brightening walls. My headphones are bringing me songs to make me think, to make me feel, to make me sway my head or tap my feet. Sunday mornings feel like they are made from time so full of potential.

28,514. 

That's how many words I've written in the first half of November. I'll be honest, not all of them have been easy. In fact, some of them have been pretty damn painful. But I've written every single day. Some days it's in the 500 range, others it's as high as 3,000. I usually build myself in 2-3 days of extra words so that if something comes up, I can take a day off without falling behind. I haven't had to do that yet. Taking a week off to write and run away to the Pacific was certainly a good choice. The last couple years my schedule didn't allow me that luxury.

It's amazing what you can do if you give yourself the time. November teaches me that lesson over and over again.

I know there are entire chapters written simply for word count. It's highly unlikely they will make the first round of edits as I start looking at words with a critical eye and I'm completely okay with that. I look at this month as more of a brainstorming/practice time. When it comes time to edit, that's when I'll dig through to see if there are any hidden gems. And the truth is, if the only new scene I keep is the one in which Holden figures out what Jezebel's name is, I'll be satisfied. This latest version is hands down a million times better than any other version I'd written before.

I have no idea what the rest of November holds for me. There will be more words. More surprises. More challenges. And I will welcome them all.

Sometimes the most important part of writing is walking.

Starting Over

There are so many reasons to love November. The extra hour, birthdays, Thanksgiving, the first chills of winter with their excuse to build a fire, NaNoWriMo.

I set out on my first NaNoWriMo journey five years ago yesterday. I had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time. I only knew that my writing life had stalled and I needed to do something to kick it in the ass.

It worked.

I wrote some 53,000 words. Some of them brilliant, some of them terrible, all of them worth it. That first manuscript is tucked in a filing cabinet and will likely never be revisited. It was an exercise. It served its purpose. It taught me I could do it. Maybe someday I'll dig it out and see if there's something in there worth mining for, but I doubt it.

The next year I started a very different kind of story, featuring two characters who came to me quite clearly, Holden and Jezebel.  They demanded their story be told.

I love them both so dearly, but I have struggled and struggled to get their story right. I know who they are. I know what they mean to each other. But how do I wrap that up in a strong plot? How do I tell their story?

I write and I write and I write about them and I study the craft of telling stories and every time I think I want to give up and lock their manuscript up in the filing cabinet with that first novel, I come to the same inevitable conclusion.

I can't.

In July I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo and other than a few chapters from Holden's point of view, I wrote the entire month about Jezebel's history, where she came from, how she got to be the way she is at the start of their story, about where her journey needs to take her.

I spent October taking a novel writing class and working through some of the issues of my manuscript. As each day passed and the start of November grew ever closer, I struggled to know what to do about NaNoWriMo.

Write something brand new? Take the month away from Holden and Jezebel?

Or keep telling their story. 

There are so many problems with the existing manuscript, the one that has evolved countless times over the last four years. I've often thought it would be easier to start over from scratch.

Yesterday, I did just that. I started over. I wrote three scenes containing 100% new words, 2,901 of them. There are some pretty big changes and there are some subtle nods to the original. The only thing that hasn't changed is the friendship between Holden and Jezebel.That will always be the core of both their stories. One can't exist without the other.

Today begins another writing day, one that I hope will be as productive as yesterday. I'm nestled into my favorite writing chair with a mug of coffee, a fire burning, an emotionally evocative soundtrack, and an extra hour of morning.

Pitching is For Baseball

They say (some poets) that April is the cruelest month. For me it has long been October. Some would guess, knowing I work retail, that I would feel that way about December. The truth is, I love the chaos of those holiday days, where everything is fast paced, where there's nothing left to do but ride the wave all the way back to the sandy shore.

October is a different beast all together. It's all the work with very few of the rewards.

It's a necessary evil with pretty colors on the trees and crunchy leaves under feet.

Historically, October is not a good month for writing. I let it go for extra hours at work and for some extra hours at home, knowing that NaNoWriMo claims so much of my free time come November.

But this year I decided to do something different. Probably because I'm insane.

I'm taking two classes.

The first is through the University of Iowa, which has one of the best reputed MFA Writing Programs in the country. The class is called How Writers Write Fiction. There are weekly video classes and weekly assignments and lots of message boards to engage in. I'm liking it, but I'm not loving it.

The second is called Crafting the Kidlit Novel and it's definitely geared more to the market I'm writing for. This class has truly challenged me, which probably means it's good for me.

The bulk of what I've worked on during the first week has been pitches. And I absolutely suck at it. I even suck at doing pitches for books I've read. I am absolutely terrible about describing books in a sentence or two. I'm awful. It's a skill I currently don't have and one I clearly need to work on.

Working on a dozen different pitches for my work in progress (WIP) really got me thinking about conversations I have with customers about books. I recommend books a lot. Not quite every day, but definitely most days. Usually I get them to tell me about a book or author they loved, and then I can find a book they might like and simply put it in their hand. If they ask me what it's about, I'll ramble on for a minute or two, trying to stumble on the words that connected what they were looking for with what I gave them. But even that isn't easy for me.

After several lousy attempts at my own, I don't feel any closer to getting a good pitch for my WIP than I was three days ago.

But I'm also not ready to give up. I feel like this is a necessary struggle.

Summering

"It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense." Mark Twain

It's been so quiet around this blog that at night you can hear the crickets chirp. And I think that's okay. Crickets really are quite lovely and remind me of lovely things, like sleeping with the windows open, warm nights, swimming pools, the way the grass feels under bare feet. I'm a big fan of summer and this has been a great one.

June-->July-->August has been a lot about traveling and a lot about writing. I started in the Midwest, touring North Dakota, Minnesota, and a bit of Canada. More recently, I've been at the Oregon Coast and exploring more local haunts. I logged a lot of miles in the car, spent time visiting family and friends, and kicked off Camp NaNoWriMo.

I've been doing Na(tional)No(vel)Wri(ting)Mo(nth) every November since 2009 and have "won" every year. They started doing "Camp" a few times each spring/summer as a way to participate on a smaller scale and at a time that might be more convenient. I had a friend who was really interested in doing it and wanted someone to do it with so I agreed to sign up.

I have to say, it is A LOT harder to commit to that much writing time when the outside world is so very inviting and when you are doing so much traveling.

I gave a lot of thought to the project I wanted to work on. I've had a few story ideas percolating in the back of my mind, but the more and more I thought about it, the more I knew I needed to continue working on one I'd already begun.

So this summer was a return to the story of Jezebel & Holden, two characters who've been with me for the last four years, two characters whose story I've been struggling to get right.

A couple months ago I passed around some work-in-progress pages to a few critique partners for feedback. While it got me excited to rewrite in earnest, it also showed me that I was still struggling with some of the same background issues with Jezebel's character I'd always been fighting against. There were too many problems I still hadn't solved.

As July 1st approached, I realized what I needed to do, what I needed to work on more than anything else, was figuring out Jezebel's real story, what exactly happened to bring her to the where the story begins. I had to go back to move forward.

So I wrote 50,000+ new words in which I explored Jezebel's life Before. They were more a series of short stories where I asked myself a question about a particular event in her past and then wrote about it. Some of these were tough questions. Jezebel didn't have a particularly pleasant childhood.

I had some serious, major story breakthroughs that gave me some answers and some directions and a great deal of understanding I just didn't have before. I did also cheat and write a few of Holden's scenes and another scene from a character who is central to the story, but whose voice I'd never heard.

Camp NaNoWriMo, though it was painful (and at times exhausting) to sit myself down in a chair and write, proved to be exactly what I needed. I'm really grateful and glad I did it.

August has brought me back to editing and rewriting. I've been spending time rereading Wired for Story by Lisa Cron, asking myself some important questions as I try to finish this novel once and for all. It has been a slow, careful process. I'm getting a few new pages ready to send out for critique and am hopefully on a better track these days.

2014 Camp NaNoWriMo

Home

It's been several weeks since I had the time, the space, the motivation to write a blog. There has been so much going on in my life. We bought a cute house that suits us very well and left a home we'd spent the last nine years in. It's been an interesting time, to say the very least.

I've learned a lot about myself through this process. I am the kind of person who needs a place to call home. I moved around quite a bit as a kid. By the time I was in 4th grade I was on my 4th elementary school in three different states. This last house was the longest I'd lived anywhere in my entire thirty something years.


To be honest, I didn't think I was ever going to be able to leave it. I didn't think I wanted to leave it.

But it was time and it was right so we packed up our life of nine years and moved the eight blocks over to our new house. And within 24 hours we were unpacked and I was home.

And it surprised me how quickly this new house felt exactly like home.

So I've been thinking and remembering.

I am adaptable. While I may not always welcome change, it's usually not that hard for me. I make a home wherever I am. As long as I have the people who love me, the walls don't matter. The cliche is true. Home is where the heart is.

And now that I'm sleeping through the night, now that I have a porch with a comfortable space to write and a cup of coffee, I'm ready to look forward. I've got writing to do, and lots of it.

I've run out of excuses and the odds are in my favor.

I have time. I have vacation coming up over the next two months that will give me the extra time and space to do what gives me the greatest joy.

You see, there is a part of my home that is simply me. And sometimes it's me with my fingers tapping against the keys, eyes on the screen, imagination running wild. 

Home Sweet Home

Teenage Daydream

I went for a long walk last night, hours after the sun had set. I put on some headphones, selected a playlist I'd made over a year ago and put one foot in front of the other. I walked past a high school and saw some boys hanging out on a picnic table, listening to music of their own. Out of the blue I was overwhelmed with a memory from my own time in high school. It was a night that felt quite similar, the air was cold, the sky open. I was walking alone. I had gone to see the school play. I can't even tell you which one it was. It's funny the kinds of things our brains hold onto and the kinds of things it lets go. The memory that hit me so hard, so fast, was one in which I ran into the boy I had an epic crush on at a time when I was least expecting to. I came around a corner and there he was, right after I'd been thinking about him. It felt like magic, like it was meant to. We talked. And like always, he left me wanting for more than our few words. I went home, wrote about it in my journal, and fell asleep dreaming of him.

For the rest of my walk it was hard to escape my teenage self. Further along I could hear laughter over the sounds of my music and I looked to see where it was coming from and saw a bunch of kids out in the front yard of a house, running around and goofing off. It made me smile and drew me to other memories and other emotions.

I've been thinking a lot about books, about why I'm drawn to the kinds of books I'm drawn to, why I read (and write) so much YA. I recently read Jojo Moyes new book One Plus One (which sadly for you, doesn't come out until July) and while it didn't affect me in the same way as Me Before You) it was still emotionally resonant even though I have very little in common, at least on the surface) with any of the characters. I'm currently reading a MG (Middle Grade) novel (which is a genre I read maybe 1-3 books a year). This book is hitting a very different emotional nerve that links back to a much earlier part of my childhood than I usually think about.

The truth is, I like all kinds of books about all kinds of different things. But the books that pull me in again and again and again are the ones with compelling characters who have interesting stories to tell.

I tried writing several other novels, writing pages, a few chapters. I even finished one manuscript. But it wasn't until I started writing about high school that I started to truly feel like I had something I wanted to say, something that I needed to say. I still feel that way.

I read two books in the last week in exchange for sleeping.

Sometimes Life Doesn't Give You Mashed Potatoes.

Holy {bleep}! Wow, I knew that it had been a long time since I had written a blog, I just didn't realize it had been quite that long. The path from January 7th until today, February 10th has been a long and not exactly pleasant one. I survived the holidays and made it to my "Christmas" holiday and had an absolutely amazing time visiting with friends, eating amazing food, and walking miles and miles and miles along the Oregon Coast. And then pretty much upon returning home and feasting upon Thanksgiving in January (though it was with a definite LACK of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE: MASHED POTATOES), I fell ill.

Really ill. So ill that I went to the doctor (gasp!). It took two weeks for me to begin to feel like a human being. And now, another week later, I'm not quite myself, but I'm much better. That little Winter Blast the last few days, transforming Portlandia into Icelandia, didn't do me any favors.

But I'm here now. And I've found myself with an hour to spare and a cup of coffee. It feels right.

I've had so many thoughts, so many ideas about what I want to do in my writing and in my life.

And now, on this gray, desperate, February day, I am committed to making time to transform those thoughts and ideas into action.

Wish me luck.

I am tired of using this amazing laptop for work work. I want to use it as a tool in full support of my imagination.

And I'd still really like some amazing mashed potatoes. With homemade gravy. I guess I'll have to work on that too. 

I've been obsessed with my new favorite app that transforms photos into watercolors.

Writing home

For more than a year I have been searching for a new place to write near home. One within walking distance. A place with good light and nice people. It had to have comfortable chairs and enough tables that I didn't have to worry about fighting for a place. The coffee/espresso had to be of a certain quality. And there had to be options for real food, not simply a pastry. It had to be clean. This proved to be a bigger challenge than I ever anticipated in a town like Portland and a neighborhood like mine.

Around a month ago a new place opened up across the street from Starbucks. This would the 4th coffee place to open up within the distance of a single city block. (I had been able to find faults in the other three). It is, rather fittingly called the fourth estate coffeehouse. From the first time I walked through their door, I felt like this could be the place for me, the place where I could sit and write and think while drinking (and occasionally eating) delicious things. There is bright light from windows. There aren't any fluorescent lights. In fact, there is a skylight above my table that balances the light just right.
In short, I think I'm falling in love.

I am able to write at home and I have a great space in which to do that. But writing is so often a solitary pursuit and so it's nice to get out into the world where unpredictable things happen, where you can watch two people navigate the waters of a first date, where you can watch the newspaper reading habits of someone else. You can observe the gentleman who always holds the door open for others. You can wonder what that other laptop people are working on. Is it Facebook or a brilliant novel?

Over the past week, I have been slowly reclaiming my life from the grips of the retail holiday season. I have slept, I have read, I have cooked and eaten good food. I have watched movies and gone for long walks. And now, I dive back into writing to see what is worth pursuing from November.

I didn't talk a lot about what I did for NaNoWriMo, but I will tell you that if I can do it right, it's going to be a tough and beautiful story. A story of friendship and a story of family...in all the forms it takes. For the first time in my life, I wrote a scene that made me cry as I wrote it. I've heard other writers talk about this, but I'd never before experienced it. It was, at once, both awesome and terrifying.

I'll confess I am a little nervous to see what I wrote, but I finally feel ready. I feel the time is now.

My fourth estate Stumptown latte.

Writing/Time

I can't remember the last time I sat down with my laptop for the express purpose of writing. But this morning is free, this morning is mine. I have no place calling my name until the afternoon and there is nothing I'd rather be doing.

I've missed this time.
I've needed this time.

November feels like a dream. I can only remember glimpses and moments. I remember those days at the beach as if they were a fantasy my mind created. Those memories feel like a fog, thick and present and impossible to hold onto, so easily carried away by the breeze.

Now, somehow, it's the 18th of December. We are a week away from Christmas and time like this, time to sit and think, write and sip my coffee while listening to music, time like this feels like the greatest luxury. It is a gift greater than money, greater than jewels, greater than any item on my wish list.

There hasn't been much of an opportunity to look back at those 50,000+ words I wrote last month. But I've been missing Violet, her story, her world. I'm glad to have some time to spend with her, even if it's only an hour or two.

50,000

This morning I have prepared all the necessary things. I have started a fire. I have brewed some french-pressed coffee. I have turned the heat on (because if I don't my fingers literally turn blue as I type). I have opened the curtains in the library so I can watch the sun filter in through the tree's bare branches. It is a perfect, lovely morning in so many ways.

I am thankful for this time I have to write.

Last night I crossed 50,000 words on this NaNoWriMo project. That's the minimum number of words required to "win." I wish I could say it was as exciting as it was when I hit that number for the first time in 2009, but it's not. 2009 was the first time I learned I could do it. I could string together a novel's length of words telling one story. That was a moment I hope to never forget.

While the thrill of crossing that line might not be as exhilarating as it first was, I feel just as proud. This month has not been an easy one. I gave up most of my personal life to be able to do NaNoWriMo this year and, as always, it was completely worth it. (Have I mentioned my husband is pretty fantastic?)

I'm far from done with this. I've mentioned before that the process I'm experimenting with to write this story means that I'm not writing it in chronological order. I have a lot of post-November work to do. It's as if I've cut out all the pieces to make a quilt, but still need to stitch them together into a beautiful pattern. I'm still learning how to do that and I am loving the challenge.

Today is my last "free" day, a day that is all mine, until the calendar rolls over into December (and then, it's December...). Today I will write the final scene. I've had a pretty solid idea of where the story will end up from the beginning. It will be interesting to see what happens when I actually try to translate the idea into words.

My Evening with Neil Gaiman (left) & Amanda Palmer (right) mug

Status Update

One week ago I left for a birthday/writing/vacation/adventure with my absolute favorite person in the world. (That would be the fantastic husband who takes excellent care of me during the month of November, along with every other month). It was heavenly. We arrived at Newport on one of the most beautiful days I have ever spent in Newport. 60's, sunshine, windless. We removed a few layers and went for a quick hike to the top of Salal Hill, which overlooks the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. We spent the rest of the afternoon on other coastal adventures, eating good food, walking along the Pacific, taking some deep breaths, and slowing down.

I couldn't have asked for a better time and place. I wrote thousands and thousands and thousands of words. I imagined (in my pre-trip ambitious mind) I would write more...but the weather, it was so very lovely and I could not resist the pull of the outdoors. But my story still progressed at a brisk pace. My characters became alive in new and interesting ways. They said and did things that made me feel proud of them and proud of myself.

In terms of NaNoWriMo, I arrived home way ahead of the game, ten full days ahead of schedule, which worked out well since I would need to spend time catching up on work and life chores. But it was totally and completely worth every minute of it.

I haven't written a word in two full days and now I simply can't put it off any longer. I've missed my characters, I've missed this project.

Devil's Punchbowl State Park

Where I wrote many, many, many words.

A Neil Gaiman reminder to myself.

Discovered on a walk.

It's Been One Week

The view from here.

One week and 15,299 words later, I have made it through the first bit of NaNoWriMo. There have been good days, better days, and one truly awful one. But no matter how I feel, no matter what I think I'd rather be doing, I have been sitting down and writing.

As I've mentioned before, this project (and the process) is considerably different than any other writing I have done. That is both quite satisfying and quite terrifying. One of the things that's really different is that I'm not writing the story chronologically. That's always been my process in the past. But this time, I have such a richer understanding of the characters, their motivations, and the plot points I'm trying to reach, that I can write the story in a much different way.

While jumping around can get a little tricky, especially when you're nearly 50 pages into a project, this has been a good challenge for me as I think about my Story, the story I'm trying to tell and how I'm telling it.

And all this plotting has in no way taken the joy I got from writing as a pantser. No matter how well I think I know the overall story arc, there is plenty left to discover as I travel from point to point. The Story has to be translated from ideas into actual type-able words. That's where the real joy comes from.

One of the things I love about NaNoWriMo is that my birthday falls exactly a week into it. I get to take the day off for writing (and other fun adventures) and I get to enjoy hearing kind words from friends and from family...and this year, I got some words that were especially meaningful and quite timely...for that I am more grateful than I can say.

In only two days I will retreat to the Oregon coast and wrap myself up in November and create as much of this story as I possibly can, knowing that when I return to reality, there will be a great many other demands on my time and my attention.

I'm very much looking forward to the time away.

With Two Days To Go

Last weekend I went away to the Oregon coast...one of the best places in the entire world. I ate amazing food, drank wine, slept, read, walked and wandered. I visited my favorite lighthouse, the Yaquina Head Lighthouse.* I wrote. I didn't get as much accomplished as I planned to, but I got done what was needed and balanced the time with conversation, laughter, and a roaring fire. I ignored all social media, turned my phone on "Do Not Disturb"...and it was heavenly.

At once I feel incredibly prepared for this year's NaNoWriMo and incredibly inadequate. This year's project is ambitious, to say the least, and I am constantly questioning whether or not I possess the talent to execute this vision. But the voice in my head keeps telling me that this is truly one of those stories that only I can tell...and therefore I must.

Today I hopped on the NaNoWriMo website to take care of updating my profile and to officially commit to participating in 2013 and they asked for a title and a cover...something I've never done (in advance) before. I had taken a picture while I was at the coast and after I'd texted it to a friend, he replied (knowing a thing or two about this project) "Book jacket art." So I spent 20 minutes this morning on my iPhone with a few apps and made up a cover. I didn't know if I'd be able to come up with a working title on the fly...but then...I did. And I like it. It's definitely a good place to start.

Two more days until the real writing begins...

My working cover art and title for NaNoWriMo 2013

*This lighthouse is an integral part of my 2013 story...something I began researching over 10 years ago.

Whispers of a Plot

When writing is good, when the story starts to stitch together, there is nothing better.  Last Sunday, I got to have one of those writing sessions that make it all worth it.

I've been trying to take a completely different approach to this year's NaNoWriMo. I want to be prepared. There is much discussion in the writing community about pantsers vs plotters. To date, I have been pretty much a pantser. And I love it. I really do love the thrill of writing to see what happens next, that moment when the story reveals itself in interesting and fascinating new ways.

NaNoWriMo taught me how to sit in the chair. And that was an absolutely priceless lesson.

But...

Over the past year I've been studying ideas of Story and Plot and I've read a book (Story Engineering by Larry Brooks) that is very much against the idea of pantsing. And I can definitely see his point.

You can do it anyway you like, but if you completely pants it, in the end, you end up with a lot more work and A LOT more editing...which is where I'm at with my last two NaNoWriMo projects. Every writer has to find their own process, their own unique way of working. There is no right way...there are easier ways, and more challenging ways. Ultimately, what I think I'll end up with, for myself, is a balance between the two. I will plot a skeleton and then pants the hell out of it.

For this year, I'd already come up with the general idea, the "story question" I want to answer. I started sketching out some of the main characters and exploring some of the main ideas a few months ago. And I've continued my reading about writing.

Recently there have been a lot of blog posts from agents, writers, and other assorted members of the literary community about NaNoWriMo and I've been enjoying their ideas and their insights. Through one of them, I stumbled upon one that referenced a book called The Plot Whisperer by Martha Alderson. When I checked it out (and purchased it) I also came across a companion book called The Plot Whisperer Book of Writing Prompts: Easy Exercises to Get You Writing.

I purchased that one as well and last Sunday I did the first prompt and came up with nearly 1700 words that gave me so many brilliant little insights into what November's story is actually going to be about. That one exercise, that single prompt to have my protagonist make a decision started so many thoughts and ideas that I spent the whole day thinking and plotting.

This year's project will be, by far, my most ambition and challenging project to day...and I don't think I've ever been more ready.

Research