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Writing Words - writing it is the only way of getting it written
According to the plan I made months ago, today would mark the official start of the NaNoWriMo season. According to the same plan, I would have finished editing my 2007 novel by now, send it to a few trusted first readers and wait for their reactions.
The plan also says that I have to think about my next novel from today on because I have to be ready to pour it out in three months. I managed to pull one out of my hat last year, but it's a wild, unruly beast and making it presentable takes more strength than I currently have. I have no intention of creating another monster like it.
So this is the part of the plan to which I have to stick. I have to be brutal: no plan, no novel. No excuses.
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This month's NaBloPoMo theme is home.
It is a pity that my writing priorities lie elsewhere at the moment, as home has always been a theme close to my heart, and is my #1 theme right now.
When I started writing I wasn't sure what my themes would be, and I found that discouraging as I had read somewhere that identifying your themes was important. I kept writing, though, and the more I wrote, the clearer it became what my themes are.
Themes are concepts that always find their ways into your stories. They are most likely concepts that you struggle with on some level, and you try to understand them or find an answer to them.
If you ask me where home is, I could give you a few answers. If you told me to pick one of those answers and stick with it I'd be stumped. I couldn't pick one. That's why home - and particularly the question what home is - will keep coming up in my stories, until I find the answer.
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Sometimes life is just too much to handle to keep this blog active: Vacation, new challenges at work, a novel to edit, the best band in the world to see - I shall call them Foo Zeppelin.
I'll get back to a more regular posting schedule when things have calmed down a little.
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I've had one of the dreaded "why oh why am I doing this to myself" days. I'm sure every fiction writer has them, even though I hope they'll occur less often after publication.
When the why of why blues hits me, I temporarily change sides and join the people who tell me that I will not make it as a writer and that I'd best concentrate on the career I could actually have. Since I moved to the UK for a much better job, they even have a genuine point, and sometimes I can't help thinking that I should focus all my energy on the day job.
I know the routine now and go through all the motions - it's a lot less painful that way. In the end I reach the conclusion that I will never write another word, only to change my mind again 5 minutes later.
I think I have to give up writing occasionally to remind myself how much it means to me.
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A comment I wrote earlier on one of Morgan's posts made me look up a neat tool which will help writers who need to structure their writing to get their story out: yWriter.
I tried an earlier version of yWriter a few years ago and was quite impressed with it. With the help of this tool, you can organize your story in little bit-sized chunks. You can create and rearrange chapters, subdivide them into scenes, add information about viewpoint, goal, conflict and outcome and many other things.
yWriter was written by a programmer who is also a writer, and that shows. It is a tool from a writer for writers. If you like the planning side of writing a novel, but find it difficult to tell the entire story, you should give the program a try. If you find it is not the right tool for you, it doesn't matter. Here's the best thing: yWriter is free.
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I don't believe in writer's block. Sure, I've written myself in many a corner and had to find a way out again. I've also had moments when I would have preferred to wash the dishes to writing. I believe, however, that you can only get over these things by writing.
I am trying to apply this approach to editing, too. It does not work as well, though. When I don't want to write, I tell myself that I only have to write a few words. I just take it one sentence at a time, or, if I am having a really bad day, even just one word at a time
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No. 13 of Kerouac's 30 Essentials for Prose is: Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition.
I seem to have taken this in whole-heartedly. Punctuation especially is rather experimental at times. Which does not make editing easier. I must make a note to remind myself to use commas even when I'm tired.
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Turns out it is a lot easier to edit a novel that was planned before writing. My NaNo2007 novel was hardly planned at all, and it shows. There are huge gaps in the story, and some of the characters lack depth - they are shadows of real people, and the sun is going down on them.
You will always end up introducing characters to your story you never thought about before you actually started writing. I think it's a little problematic when there are to many of them, though. A good story is character-driven in my opinion, and you need strong characters for that. Some of my key characters are much to weak to move the story forward at this point
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I am good at producing first drafts. I am not quite as good at editing.
I went away over the bank holiday weekend, and I only started editing my novel on Tuesday. One thing has become obvious: it's impossible to edit a 266-novel without a print-out of it - at least for me
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Yes, there has been no wordcount update yesterday, and I'm not sure yet there will be one today. The reason for that is simple: my laptop died yesterday. I'm not sure what exactly the problem is, but Windows won't boot anymore. I am using Linux from a CD as operating system, but I can still access my hard drive.
I thought this would be a good opportunity to tell you about my back-up plan and get you thinking about yours. Many writers save all their work on their computer without having a back-up strategy. Just imagine your hard drive dies and all your work is on there. That would be a catastrophe
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I have six days left and I am back on track. Yay!
Writing the third part of my November 2007 novel has turned out a bit of a roller coaster. Which should not surprise me, writing a first novel draft always is. That's what makes it scary and exciting, and sometimes it makes you a little sick, too. And when you get off the ride, you feel great and a little amazed that you did that to yourself voluntarily.
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I had a discussion with my flatmate the other day about being a poet. He told me he wrote poetry because he was a writer but couldn't face sitting down and write a novel. He said what he liked best about poetry was that he would be done with it in three minutes.
I don't know much about writing poetry, but one thing I do know: Writing a good poem takes longer than three minutes. In my old writer's group, we had a few people writing poetry. When their work was up for discussion, we would spent up to an hour talking about one poem, and they were short pieces. After that, the poets went back and edited their work. That's why I think writing a good poem is just as hard work as writing a good story. If anything, writing poetry is even harder than writing a novel - there is no room for even one misplaced word in a poem, whereas you will get away with a few glitches in a longer text
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NaNoWriMo - I may repeating myself here, but NaNoWriMo is one of the best things since sliced bread.
April Fools - What I like most about April Fools is that you get to set your own goal. Last year I had my personal editing month in April, and I edited my NaNoWriMo 2006 manuscript (224 in total, and I had gotten through 24 of them during NaNoEdMo the month before), including writing new scenes to fill the holes. It was the first time that I enjoyed editing as much as I enjoy writing the first draft
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I don't have much time to write at the moment and it's been a while since I have posted any of my writing prompt responses anywhere. But I love writing prompts and there are a few sites that always inspire me to write. Here they are:
1. Sunday Scribblings - Before I moved to Britain, checking the new Sunday Scribblings prompt was a must in my Friday routine, and I took an hour or two every Sunday to read some of the blog posts inspired by the prompts. Should revive this routine
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My favourite Irish authors:
1. Robert McLiam Wilson - I love Eureka Street, I have read it over and over again and I keep finding new bits every time
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I am waking up again. December, January and February are not my most productive months in the year. I have this theory that I must have been a hibernating animal in a previous life and somehow I did not manage to shake the habit.
The thing is, I am not happy with my low output in winter. There was a time when my hibernation period started in November, but that was before I discovered NaNoWriMo. So there's proof I can do it, I can write in winter no matter how tired I am
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I am ridiculously behind on my online reading list. For one thing my list is much too long, and it would take ages to read the entire thing every day. There are a few blogs I try to check at least once a week, though, no matter who busy I am:
1. Neil Gaiman
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It's my best friend's birthday today, and instead of writing a card I write a blog post (okay, I admit that I forgot to write a card in time to be delivered today, and besides I don't trust Royal Mail ...).
You may ask yourself what my friend's birthday as to do with writing. Fair question, and the answer is nothing. The thing is, though, his continued support and encouragement have helped me to keep pursuing my dream. When everyone else thought I was just wasting my time, he was there to tell me it didn't matter what I did as long as what I did made me happy. He's been there to listen to writing-related problems, help me brainstorm when I got stuck and to tell me to get on with the story so he could read how it continues
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Sure, watching TV keeps me from writing, but sometimes it can be very inspiring. Well-written TV shows will teach writers just as much about writing as good books do.
I will never tire of watching and learning from these shows
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The beginning of a novel is crucial to a book's success. The beginning must hook the readers and reel them in immediately, otherwise the story will not be read by many people.
Take me, for example: The main factor that influences my decision whether to buy a book or not is its beginning. If I don't want to know what the story is after the first sentence, I'll but it back on the shelf and go on to the next
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