NaNoWriMo in Review // 2019

Back in 2016, I wrote 606,606 words, which is the most I have ever written during a NaNoWriMo. I had a lot of fun at the time, and even pulled three 50K days, but it also sucked in the aftermath. My wrists took forever to recover, and they are still a lot more sensitive. My brain crashed. I just majorly burnt myself out.

NaNoWriMo 2017 was discouraging for me. I had never written the bare minimum before. I had never existed outside the identity of Over Achiever. Granted, I had set editing goals for a Camp NaNoWriMo, which I hadn’t met. While it was still discouraging, it had been different. In 2017, NaNoWriMo didn’t feel like it was my element anymore, didn’t feel like it was mine. It felt like someone had crawled inside my body and taken over the controls.

Last NaNoWriMo was a victory for me, up there with my first NaNoWriMo, when I discovered that I could easily write more than 50K. It was also a better victory for me, because I learned that I didn’t have to write as much as humanly possible, that taking care of myself was also important. But the best thing about NaNoWriMo 2018 was that I got my writing mojo back; I got back into the swing of writing every day (or almost every day), and I learned more about my writing process than I had known before, lessons that helped me when I moved on to writing my next book, and the one after that.

I know everyone’s writing pace is different and success is all relative. I think I used to feel like I had to prove I could be, if not the best, then one of the best. Now I’m just happy doing what feels comfortable and relaxed and fun.

This NaNoWriMo, I worked on two separate projects, ZOMBIE FARMHOUSE and BLACK MARKET TIME, and collectively I wrote 81,818 words (I can’t resist pretty numbers, okay). I didn’t finish either project. I still have a fair amount I have to write if I’m going to meet my self-imposed deadline. But I am happy with what I wrote.

I talked about Zombie Farmhouse a bit before, in this post, but as a quick review, it’s about eight insane people attempting to survive the zombie apocalypse. Victoria Jackson and I came up with the characters and scenario when she visited me from Australia, and she asked me to turn it into a book.

There’s something especially freeing about writing something just for fun. I’m still going to do my best; I’m still going to edit it, but I don’t have any plans to try to publish it traditionally. This frees me up to experiment with writing style and technique, to write without any fear whatsoever, because there’s absolutely no opportunity for failure. I may eventually publish it on my blog, but I’m not even holding myself to that.

I’ve talked about Black Market Time a bunch as well. It’s changed a good deal over the years, and it’s changed even more—significantly more—since I resurrected it several months ago. I’m not going to lie, even though I am satisifed with what I accomplished in November, I am a little disappointed that I didn’t finish it, mainly because that means it’s now kicked my butt for three separate NaNoWriMos. The longer it goes unfinished, the more I am afraid that I will never finish. Considering what progress I did make this November, that fear is a little bit ridiculous, as it is fairly obvious now that this project is not only turning into a book-shaped thing, but it is becoming something I truly love. But I have found that the hardest part of writing, for me, is overcoming irrational fear, and I have to write quickly before my fears have a chance to accumulate.

I thought about sharing excerpts for each project like I did last year, but for whatever reason, I don’t feel ready to do that yet. I think maybe when both books are closer to completion, I’ll do a more in-depth post about each one of them. Right now I’m pretty focused on finishing their first/second draft hybrids by the end of the year.

Over the next few days, I’m thinking I’m going to give myself a sort of working vacation. I’ll read through what I’ve written so far, to get a better feel for where I’m at, catch up on some other reading, posts some blog posts, and watch extra TV. I don’t want to take too much time off, because ideas are still coming for both stories and I don’t want to shortchange myself, but I can also see that I need to stock up on words.


What about you? How was your NaNoWriMo? What are some projects you’re excited about?

Wait, It's Almost NaNoWriMo?

It’s pretty characteristic of me to know for a whole year that NaNoWriMo is coming, and then to be shocked that it’s almost here. *wails* I thought I had more time! Also, I can't believe this is going to be my sixth NaNoWriMo.

Last year, I worked on a couple projects: PLANET EYES, which I finished and queried, and BMT, which fought me, and which I did not finish. This November, I am going to tackle BMT as a NaNo novel for the third time. (At this point, medical professionals swarm me, straightjacket and cattle prods at ready. As I’m dragged away, you hear me screaming that I can do it, no, I really can do it.)

Last November, I had a small breakthrough where I figured out all the things that were driving me nuts about the story. I even made a list. It was a very long and detailed list, and while it was helpful to know the problem, the project stalled at that point. Knowing the problem doesn’t constitute knowing the solution.

Over the past year, I picked up the story off and on, only to find myself burning out repeatedly. I loved the concept of BMT, or at least, I felt like I still loved it. Everything else I had started to hate. When I opened the Scrivener file, my brain would grind to a halt and refuse to produce words, any words, until it had recovered from the shock.

During that time, I was more heavily focused on several other projects, the primary one being the book I plan to start querying soon. Then, almost out of nowhere, I had a breakthrough and I was sure, sure! that this was the breakthrough I had been waiting for. And I did ride a little momentum, but again, I lost traction after a few scenes and felt myself spinning away endlessly.

In August, I took a break from writing to do a seven-books-in-seven-days reading challenge with my sister, and after that, it felt like my brain switched into high gear. I had yet another breakthrough, this one building on the one from before. I switched out the narrator, reimagined the characters and the direction of the plot, and just like that, I was able to write about 20,000 words.

This NaNoWriMo, I plan to finish the first/second draft hybrid of BMT, and if that means drinking seven cups of coffee a day, then so be it. *starts screaming uncontrollably*

I don’t exactly have a set word count goal, but I guess if I had to pick something, I would say I want to write no less than 50,000 words, preferably more than 100K. I’m not trying to push myself to perform some fantastic feat of literary showmanship—I just want to complete at least two drafts.

Aside from BMT, there’s another project I want to tackle this month. From now on, I will refer to it as ZOMBIE FARMHOUSE, because it doesn’t haven’t a title yet. It will probably be the most ridiculously unpublishable thing I’ve ever written. I’m so excited.

When Victoria @ The Endless Oceans of My Mind came all the way from Australia to visit me this summer, she introduced me to a game where you write jobs (like doctor or janitor) on slips of paper and put them in one bowl, and attributes (like, is afraid of lightning, or, has killed seven men) in another bowl. Then you draw pieces of paper, one from each bowl, until you end up with a list of people (like, a neuroscientist who believes she’s a mermaid, or, a surgeon who doesn’t believe in germs). You have a scenario—in this case, you’re trying to last the night in a farmhouse besieged by zombies—and from your list of people, you have to pick the team you think will help you survive. This is not necessarily as easy as it sounds.

We played several rounds of this game, but one in particular had us laughing uncontrollably, and Victoria told me I should turn it into a book. So that’s what I’m doing. There’s a chance it will be even worse than I could have ever hoped. There’s a chance I may even publish it on my blog, if I feel like risking my writing career. Who knows? But I have character and story notes, I have an outline, and I am ready to see what happens. *cracks knuckles* Plus I love zombies. I get the feeling zombie books don’t sell as well now that the market is saturated, so this is the time to do it, while I’m unpublished and don’t have to worry about deadlines.

If I end up running out of writing material mid-month, I’ll think of something else, but I don’t want to overwhelm myself. I really liked how last year went. I got a lot of writing done, but I didn’t get stressed out like I did the year I wrote 606,606 words, so I’m going to try to do that again. Here’s to another relaxing year. *raises mug* *accidentally spills coffee on keyboard*

What about you? Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? What are your projects and goals?

On NaNoWriMo And Being A Real Writer

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about NaNoWriMo and how much I love it and how sometimes it can be a bad thing. There are several thoughts running concurrently in my head, so it’s hard to tell which one is the primary narrative—the more accurate version of the truth, if you will. That’s the thing about telling the truth. Two separate, conflicting accounts can tell the story from divergent angles without compromising accuracy. I remember reading about this teacher who held up a book for the class and asked them what color it was. On their side it was one color, on his side, another. That stuck with me.

One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is how there are too many writers, too many people trying to get published. I could joke about how I feel personally affronted by this, but I do get discouraged when I consider the thousands of people I’m competing against for an agent’s attention. I used to think that because I understood grammar and punctuation, I would be an immediate shoe-in; I would float above the detritus, a diamond in the rough. My book would be snatched up; within months there would be promises of riches, the light of future book deals so bright the sun itself would look dim. [Insert more nauseating poetry here.] Realizing the path to publication was not that straightforward was no easy feat.

I didn’t just learn this in myself, in my failed attempts to get published, while people talked over me to my parents asking if I had a backup plan for when writing failed. I saw it in my friends, the ones whose novels I had critiqued and loved, who didn’t get picked up by agents for any number of reasons unknown to me. In the fray, it seems that horrible books get published while good ones languish; I try hard not to be pessimistic; I try hard not to begrudge anyone their joy.

I have read literary agents’ complaints in reference to NaNoWriMo. They are swamped, they say. When November ends, hundreds of writers query them with unedited manuscripts, a veritable deluge. I have been told, don’t query during December, you are more likely to be rejected. It is sad that there is a month devoted to ignorant hope.

One day, months ago, my sister and I were talking about how, when people produce an art form, the kind that is meant to be experienced by others, they can think that means they have the right to be published or signed to an album or displayed in a gallery. It’s difficult for writers to understand and accept the simple truth that just because you wrote a book, doesn’t mean you ought to be published. It’s hard to do that kind of work, with little-to-no promise of greater success, harder still to accept that completing the work doesn’t come with some greater, automatic and far-reaching reward.

I’ve seen the argument, particularly from literary agents, that NaNoWriMo is not some shining star. It encourages wannabe writers; it says, “You, too, can write a book. We’re all writers here.” The truth is that there is a difference between writing a book and writing a good book, and it’s often the case that those who have written bad books are also blind to this fact. NaNoWriMo gives free license to droves of writers who will never make it; who could not possibly all make it; there are too many, and not everyone has the natural talent, or the skill to learn—there is no use lying about it and saying it is otherwise. Maybe I am one of that number. Consider the times I have sung the praises of NaNoWriMo. Real writers should be able to write outside of November, I have heard.

For a long time I held it as a firm belief that NaNoWriMo is what jumpstarted and sustained my book-finishing abilities. I had never completed a full book before: that statement is true, depending on how you look at it. Before November 2013, my drafts were truncated and juvenile—one barely surpassed 40,000 words. They failed to finish a complete the thought. Both ended, not when I had reached any sort of natural conclusion, but simply when I had run out of words and didn’t know where else to go with the story. They lapsed into cliffhangers and were never polished to a high shine.

November 2013 was a reset button. It taught me a lesson I so desperately needed—you are not required to edit as you go along, and your draft can be as messy as you need. I learned about momentum, and how you can change the plot and the characters and the setting mid draft, if you so choose, because you are going to edit later anyway.

For the first time I managed to edit a manuscript and query agents. I got two requests for a full, one for a partial, none of which is saying a lot, and they all ended in rejection, but it was a taste of what could happen. I was only eighteen, and already I felt my face pointed in the right direction, NaNoWriMo at my side, a guiding hand on my shoulder.

It’s difficult to describe the feeling I had when I sat down to query, after years and years of wishing, how I sensed the enormity of my dreams. Before then, being published had been a nebulous concept with no real anchor to reality, something that I had hoped and prayed would eventually (somehow, who knows how) happen. The whole experience, start to finish, also switched my perspective from viewing publishing as something that would be handed to me to something that I would have to fight for, in the face of rejection, with no real promise of success.

When you consider the number of abortive drafts I have stashed away, it’s safe to say that for the longest time, I never got anywhere with my writing. I would start an idea and usually get a page or so in, sometimes closer to thirty, twice to eighty, all of this handwritten. For one story in particular, I stacked my blank notebooks, one hundred pages each, and dreamed of filling five. I had large handwriting.

I have a box in storage at my parents’ house, a relic of my pre-computer years, crammed with writing—loose paper, notebooks, folders, detritus from a mind I no longer recognize as having been mine. I remember so little of my writing in those days, so little of the act itself. The box was big enough to hold at least one of me, at my present size, so heavy I couldn’t lift it. Long before I moved out, it had begun to break under the weight of its contents. How that box even came into my possession is a question I can no longer answer; it was a fixed point in my childhood, a towering Ozymandius. Once I hid it in my closet.

November 2013, and the subsequent Novembers, were new awakenings, fixed points around which my life revolved. There is no way of knowing, but most times I suspect my writing would not be how it is today had it not thrived around that structure. I no longer need it as my own personal crutch; this month I finished a draft independent of November; I am free. But I am still caught in the question, that was the true question—NaNoWriMo the distraction, the red herring, the straw man. Good writers can thrive in November; they can thrive anywhere; they are dandelions growing upwards through concrete. But what of me?

Who is to say I am separate from the populace at large, the writers who will never make it, for lack of talent, or lack of research, or lack of luck? I have spent so long trying to learn humility as a writer; I get up and I fight pride and I go to bed. To be one of those people (poor her, she wanted it so bad, but she was never published—she was never good enough, who can bear to tell her?) is a rancid thought. I exist to write; I know that now. I will write whether I am printed or not.

What about me? I love NaNoWriMo; I expect I always will. My relationship with it has been a constantly shifting entity. First I learned confidence, then I pushed myself too hard and for the wrong reasons. And then last year, finally, I felt like I returned to the true meaning of Christmas NaNoWriMo. But always writing has been a form of self expression for me, a way to process and synthesize my experiences into something better. Without steady writing, in one form or another, there is a solid chance I would go insane. So far, NaNoWriMo has been my preferred tool for finishing drafts, the timeline and the sense of community vital to my experience.

If you’re only writing to make money, readers can tell—publishers can tell. You have to be comfortable with writing for yourself, first and foremost, and if you’re not there yet, that’s okay. Take your time. Write during NaNoWriMo, or write when it’s most comfortable for you. Publishing is not some great reward, the final stop at the end of a long and arduous journey. It is not even a measure of success or failure. It is a happy byproduct of writing. Even if your books never make it to shelves, you are a still a writer, and what you are doing is still valuable. In your rush to put words on paper, for your own sake, don’t forget that.

Post-NaNoWriMo Self Care

Since it’s already the new year, I know it’s a bit late in the game to be discussing post-NaNoWriMo self care. Additionally, it’s a little weird to be covering this topic, as it’s something I’ve never considered in the past, apart from my general practice of taking December off.

I’m just now discussing post-NaNo self care because I wanted to experience it for myself before jabbering about it to you. Talking about this year in reference to previous years is difficult because it’s like comparing completely-unrelated entities. Somewhere, over the course of 2018, my brain rebooted itself. So I can’t really say that a new approach would have been a game changer last year, only that it was a game changer this year.

This November, I paced myself, and yes, I wrote 121,121 words, and yes, towards the end I was starting to feel tired. But I had just gotten into the hang of writing every day, starting in late October, which you have probably already heard me talk about ad nauseam. I didn’t want to unlearn a good thing. So I allowed myself two days to read a book and absorb its beautiful, interesting prose during my normal writing time.

By December third, I was ready to go, but I was nervous about what I was going to write, since I wanted to let HIRAETH sit for a while. Then it occurred to me that blogging is totally a thing, that I do. So I could, you know, blog. (Sometimes my sheer brilliance astounds me.) I spent the next few days drafting and editing a small flurry of blog posts. After that, I spent a week with DRACONIAN, which was as long as I could stand, at which point I was already way tired of not working on HIRAETH. I also recognized, and I’m glad I did, that I was starting to get increasingly apprehensive about adding 10,000 words to HIRAETH to get it up to weight. The fear that I was going to mess the whole thing up with any additions, even necessary ones, was getting stronger, and I needed to act quickly.

Having added all that I needed to, I think I can say with confidence that there was no reason to be afraid. So we can all breathe a sigh of relief. I also know some of you are going to want to punch me for saying this, but you’re not allowed to punch me today, because it’s my birthday. As someone who is accustomed to drafting quickly, to whom 20,000 words isn’t that challenging, it was a strange experience to be daunted by the prospect of writing 10,000.

But, back to the topic of breaks. In years past, I think I have viewed my various writing projects through too narrow a lens. My custom was to take a month off between drafts, which was all well and good, but I didn’t work on other projects in the meantime. Part of it was that I needed some vacation time, which was fine. But a bigger part was my perceived need to stay exclusively in the world of my story. Maybe I had a more limited attention span at the time, and I just don’t remember how bad it was, or maybe I was imposing unnecessary strictures on my writing, but I was afraid that it would throw me off too much, editing multiple projects simultaneously—even though, as of November 2014, I knew that I could manage simultaneous drafting.

For those of you who are maybe not so knowledgable about writing, let me clarify why I was taking breaks between drafts. When you’ve finished a draft, it doesn’t matter which number, it’s advisable to let it sit for a while. Taking a step back lets you clear your mind a little—when you return to the draft, you see issues you had missed before, because after looking at something for too long, you stop seeing the details. If you’re trying to find a good rule of thumb for how long your breaks should be, you’ll find that numbers vary. Some authors recommend two to three months. Others say two weeks. Some authors, especially when on deadline, do drafts back to back, without any breaks at all. I have always felt like a month is the most natural amount of time for me, but I have no scientific backing for this. A month is as long as I can generally stand to wait, is maybe what I should say.

There’s nothing wrong with being monogamous in editing. But I think it contributed to my poor mental state over the past few years. I put all my hope in TIME IN A BOTTLE, because none of my other projects were even close to done. So I felt like I needed to get published with TIB, otherwise it would be at least a year before I was ready to start querying again, which felt like too much time for my teenage brain. The same with DRACONIAN, only worse, because it took so long to finish that one, and also because even though I was excited about it, I was also so discouraged by that point that I didn’t have all that much confidence it would work out. It put too much pressure on my individual novels. I could have used my various writing breaks to spread out the weight, to ease the collective load, like I sort of ended up doing with HIRAETH, which worked out amazing.

While HIRAETH is cooling its heels, I’m turning to blogging again for a change of pace. Turns out that when I’m tired of writing, I’m usually tired of a specific kind of writing, so switching things up is sometimes the same as taking a break.

I have also begun what I expect to become my next main project, which completely took me by surprise. The only thing I will tell you right now is that I have already written two thousand words of brainstorming and random scene drafting, as I work to get to know this thing. It’s a scary space story. HIRAETH is a scary space story too, but scary in a different way, I think. This one feels chilling. Not going to lie, even though I’m excited about this one, I don’t love writing rough drafts, and I am already looking forward to editing.

Oh, and let’s not forget my favorite type of writing. As I mentioned in my last post, I have begun work on the query letter and the synopsis for HIRAETH. *bangs head against keyboard* You know those people who write the summaries that get put on the inside flap of a book jacket? Those people are my heroes. They deserve free Starbucks for the rest of their illustrious lives. I don’t know what sort of magic goes on in their heads, but I am in awe of them. I will be posting more about query writing tomorrow, so I’ll leave it at that for today.

Long story short, I didn’t really do anything specific in the name of post-NaNo self care this year, but I did what I needed to maintain momentum and prevent burnout, and I’m happy with the results.

And also, it’s my birthday today, so feel free to use that as an excuse to treat yourself.

Routine

The people at Starbucks probably think I’m homeless, because I’m there at least once a day. Soon I will have to start paying rent.

This routine started out as my reading getaway. I would go there for an hour every morning, sit with my latte, and read on my phone. Once I’d grown accustomed to that, I switched from reading to writing. I used to struggle with horrible, often crippling anxiety, and this was one of its last strongholds. I was afraid to a) write every day and b) write in a coffee shop. Both of these fears were bizarre because a) I used to write every day, and b) I have known for several years now that I do my best writing at coffee shops.

At least part of my fear had to do with the fact that, with how tight my schedule is, I have to go straight from Starbucks to work, which means I need to bring my laptop to work with me, where it could get stolen, or stepped on, or, I don’t know, put in an oven or something. In the end, I decided that I had to just get over my fear, because NaNoWriMo was too important to risk not being able to write every day. (Now I’m so chill about it, I’m like, well, my laptop is going to have to be okay, because there is no way I am not going to write today.)

Starbucks is expensive, so you might be asking yourself why I go there so frequently, even just to read on my writing vacations. For a while, I tried to make Starbucks only a treat, a twice-weekly occurrence, but now I’ve been doing this writing routine for over two months, I understand why it’s important for me.

There are very good arguments for not limiting yourself to a routine, one of which being that you can train your brain to perform only under specific circumstances, which is suboptimal (one of my awesome coffee beans mentioned this to me, and I thought it was really cool). I say that that’s fair, but also that it doesn’t apply to me, or rather, without a routine, I don’t get as much writing done. It’s not a bad thing if you don’t have a schedule or if you don’t write every day; it’s just not for me. 

There’s nothing like going to the same place for an hour or two (at least) every day for the sole purpose of putting words on the screen. My brain knows what’s expected of it, so it (usually) performs. There are times when it’s a drag, and all I want to do is bash my head against my computer screen until the baristas kick me out. But one thing about going somewhere, for a set amount of time, to do a set thing, is that you tend to do the thing, even if you don’t want to. Or, at least, I do. There are times when I find myself with half an hour left before it’s time to head to work, and I don’t feel like writing more, but I tell myself to write anyway, because there’s not a whole lot else to do. I make sure to limit my available entertainment options when I’m at Starbucks for that reason. That practice is why posts like this exist.

So why Starbucks? Why not just establish an at-home writing routine? First of all, there are innumerable distractions at home. I could make food. I could eat food. I could wash dishes. I could go outside and play with the dogs. I could count the number of books I own. I could have an existential crisis. Etc. It’s not as bad at the new apartment, since we don’t have internet or reliable cell reception, and there’s something about the ambiance there that’s more conducive to concentration. So I do write there, but when I write at home, it’s spontaneous, incidental; it happens because I feel the words bubbling up inside me and need to let them out immediately.

With my routine, even working full time and allowing myself most evenings to read, I managed to write 121,121 words for NaNoWriMo. Most of that writing happened on my days off and in the two hour window I grabbed every morning before work. Pre-Starbucks, I struggled for three years to integrate some semblance of order into my writing habits, my closest thing to success being when I wrote at my old church, which was like writing at home, but with more distractions. Another victory is that I have a long-standing routine of going to a different café, actually a patisserie, and writing for several hours every Thursday, which for several months was the only writing I was getting done. It made for an excruciatingly slow pace, but it was also better than nothing, and it was the highlight of my week.

I think what it boils down to is this: writers love writing, but we also hate writing, and usually we will put a fair bit of energy into avoiding our work. If you are in an environment where distractions are possible, they will become probable. If you don’t go looking for them, they will come looking for you. But an environment that forbids distractions is, inherently, a game changer.

“But Liz,” I hear you saying, “there’s internet at Starbucks. Isn’t that a distraction?” Sometimes. It’s useful for Spotify, so I can have a wider music selection. And I’ll scroll through Twitter while I’m waiting on my latte or when I need a quick mental break. But I’m afraid I’ll look like a bum who spends all day on social media. I don’t generally advise worrying what other people will think about you, but in circumstances like this, if it helps me stay on the straight and narrow, I guess it works.

Maybe the dedication for my first book should be something like this:

to my vanity, without which this book would not exist 

I feel like that would go over well.

I completely understand if you’re reading this post and recoiling in horror because the thought of a Starbucks routine is as low on your list of appealing options as it could possibly be, right down there with “finding a dead body”. If you can’t get work done in an environment where people might read over your shoulder and sometimes old men get too chatty and the background noise can border on obnoxious, that’s okay.

I won’t lie. These were issues for me at first. (No one cares about your fake best friend, Sharon. The whole shop doesn’t need to hear about her implants.) This enterprise has been an exercise in stepping out of my comfort zone, across the board. I still have to block out the noise with my earbuds sometimes, but the background chatter does well to neutralize my tinnitus. I still write notes in my draft aimed at anyone who might be snooping, sweet nothings like, “This is a rough draft, don’t judge,” and “No one loves you,” and, “I will burn your house down.” I get squirrelly about the whole reading over my shoulder thing, because there are stages in my writing where I would show you my draft, but then I’d have to—well, you know. (I think it’s a testament to how confident I am with HIRAETH that I was rarely worried about that. Although there was that day when I was editing a fairly gory scene, and the chatty dude next to me clammed up real quick and moved to the next chair over. So I guess there are perks to this arrangement, after all.)

But there’s nothing like casually eavesdropping on people’s conversations (because when they’re talking that loud, you know they want to be heard), nothing like working alongside other people, learning the faces of regulars, getting to know the baristas by name and realizing they’re the closest thing you have to friends. *awkward laugh*

Now that I’ve established this routine, I don’t want to go back.


What about you, coffee beans? What are your writing routines? Do you like to write at coffee shops? Where do you prefer to write? What do you do to combat the whole reading over your shoulder thing?

My Writing Process Doesn't Exist

Fair warning, coffee beans, this is going to be a long post. So buckle in and make sure to keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Now that I’ve edited two complete novels and am close to finishing my third, not to mention my various editing dalliances and numerous rough drafts along the way, I feel like I have a bit more perspective on my writing process than I did when I started this blog. That means it’s time to confront some of my overconfidence.

There’s nothing like finishing your first novel to make you think you know what you’re doing. You wrote a book. You conquered. Now you are equipped to sit sagely, handing out advice, telling others how to climb their own mountains, banish their own demons, etc, etc. It becomes uncomfortably obvious that you don’t actually know what you’re talking about when your own advice doesn’t help you write your next book.

I’ve noticed a pattern with myself. Every time I write something, big or small, I end up thinking I know who I am as a writer, how my process works. But this is a stultifying, dangerous perspective, because it limits my ability to move forward.

When I finished TIB, I knew that I was a writer who drafted in chronological order, who wrote quickly and edited quickly, who needed a minimal number of drafts. I looked at my success and told myself, okay, whipping out a book each year is easy. Knowing that I hadn’t pushed myself as hard as I could with TIB meant I could probably even manage two books per year. (Wow, Liz. Wow. I did not raise you to be this arrogant.)

Through that experience, I learned a great deal about the mechanics of my editing process, which I consider to be, in many ways, divorced from my writing process. How I approach the editing itself has never changed. I rewrite everything word for word. I subtract in the second draft, add in the third. My brain works well with that sort of structure. But the way I go about editing—the broader picture, how I approach the draft as a whole—differs.

There were things I learned through the TIB experience that I thought were steadfast aspects of my writerly identity. I got up early—4:00 am early—every morning, and wrote with my Earl Grey in bed, listening to music. I wrote after school, until supper, and after supper I wrote more. Weekends I worked late into the night after watching Star Trek. I was a writing machine.

After TIB, I picked up DRACONIAN, and I thought, with all this new knowledge and, gasp, expertise that I have garnered, surely this will be a breeze. Spoilers. It was a breeze in the way that a hurricane force wind that rips your clothes off and lands you a free trampoline in your demolished backyard could be considered a breeze. What’s worse is that the whole experience was deceptively fun at first. Drafting it was straightforward. Even the first round of editing wasn’t so horrible, though it took longer than I had planned. I was still pleased with my story, still confident that I knew what I was doing.

Then disaster struck. It was inevitable, a land slide that started ages before, whose rumblings I chose to ignore. The whole time I was working on DRACONIAN, I was querying agents for TIB. I think I sent out letters for six months to a year. I don’t remember the exact timeline, but it was a while. I received a stream of rejections for even longer than that. One came five months or so after I marked it off as an assumed rejection. I could give you more accurate numbers, but opening that Excel spread sheet is a walk in a different sort of park, the kind where you need to carry shivs and mace and everyone looks at you like you would be fun to murder.

I received an onslaught of rejections. Had I so desired, I could have printed them out and folded enough origami swans to have like, fifty origami swans. (Seriously, how am I not published?)

I experienced some life changes around this time. I graduated high school, got my first job. Then I moved to Virginia and started rooming with my sister. Like, literally rooming. Our first apartment was a single room, with a bathroom and a shared kitchen. All of these various events made my 4:30/4:00 am mornings first improbable, then impossible. I think it was easy to let that routine go, to not fight for it, and then to tell myself that I was failing at writing because, see, I wasn’t able to get up early in the mornings anymore.

What made the whole situation more unbearable is that I had a beta reader, on what I think was the third draft, who hated my book and tore it to shreds. I had it in my mind that you are allowed to ignore beta feedback you don’t think will make your story better, but you aren’t allowed to ignore feedback out of spite or because you’re hurt by it. I figured that I had to overcompensate for my emotions by listening to everything she said, no matter how untrue it felt to my story. Eventually I reached a point, some ten thousand words before the end, when I finally realized that if I looked at another one of her critiques, I was probably going to delete my entire draft.

When I handed my poor, battered book-child off to my next critique partner, this time my sister, she pointed out that all the edits I had input in the name of responding well to criticism had caused my book to take a massive step backwards. I don’t want to write a harangue on beta readers, because they are a necessary part of the process, but it really shook me, the whole experience, has made me a lot slower to seek out feedback from strangers, even vetted ones.

In 2017 I got DRACONIAN to the point where I felt it was as close to done as I could make it, so I started querying. I think I sent out around twelve query letters before realizing they all had a pretty glaring typo in them, which I had somehow missed even when I tried to fix it. I think that, more than anything, shows me how horrible my eating disorder brain fog was. And I was still trying to function like I was at 100%.

I didn’t hear back from most of those agents. One super sweet, super kind agent gave me some light, personalized feedback on my first fifty pages, and she said basically what I had been fearing, that, among other things, my world building needed more work.

I didn’t make any sort of set decision, but it just kind of happened naturally. I always meant to send out more queries, did the research on more agents, prepped more letters. I never sent them. (Don’t despair. I haven’t trunked DRACONIAN. I have another editing update that I plan to post soon.)

The lesson from that whole experience, as I saw it through the lens of how I felt as a writer post TIB, is that my writing process worked, but that I was broken. I couldn’t stick to the roadmap, so something must have been wrong with my vision.

I’m not going to argue that there was one single thing that I did wrong in the process with DRACONIAN that, if avoided, would have altered the entire course of events. There were so many things that went wrong, and there were additional factors that were out of my control.

But let’s move on to HIRAETH. I drafted HIRAETH out of order, just threw everything on the page, and none of it made sense, but all of it was exhilarating. The adults had exited the building; I could do whatever I wanted. I could make as much of a mess as I needed to in order to draft the thing, because I didn’t have to clean it up in any sort of hurry. My only plan for the story, at that point, was to share it on this blog someday, maybe, if it was good, if I felt like it. Zero pressure for me to perform. That release made it fun for me, made the story a refuge, something secret I got to keep for myself.

What I’ve learned, I think, is that my writing process doesn’t exist. With TIB, I wrote how I felt I was supposed to write, in order, quickly, with more confidence than was my due. With DRACONIAN, I thought that I could apply the same mold and get the same results. I thought I could ignore everyone saying your sophomore novel is the one that makes you want to quit, because I thought I was special and therefore exempt.

Here is something that you should know. You are allowed to write however you want, and you don’t have to have any set way you do things. Whatever works for you in the moment is your writing process. You can write at home for one book, at a coffee shop for another, in your unsuspecting neighbor’s basement for your next. Whatever gets the words on the page.

I think it’s maybe a bad idea to label yourself as a panster or a plotter, to force yourself into that dichotomy. If that works for you, awesome, and if you want the label, then wear it proudly. I spent so long telling myself that I was a panster that I never even let myself try plotting, except with the understanding that it was something I would hate. It’s hard to explain that brain space. Your subconscious takes over, turns your preconceived notions into rules which you follow to your detriment. You don’t like something because you tell yourself you don’t like it.

I outlined HIRAETH. True, I did so after the fact, when I had a handful of random scenes I was juggling, when I had to bring some semblance of order to the words on the page, but that was something I would have never even let myself consider before.

That’s what I’m trying with BMT, outlining, writing out of order, pantsing, a little bit of everything. For the first time in four years with this book, I think I finally see a hint of light at the end of the tunnel. (Although it’s weird, because I keep hearing these choo choo noises. Anyone know what that’s about?)

All this being said, it wouldn’t surprise me if, three years down the line, I decide to write a new post about how wrong I am in this one. So this is nothing definite, just something I am mulling over. But writing it down has helped me put my thoughts in order, and I hope reading it will help you too.


That’s it for today, coffee beans. What are some misconceptions you have had about your writing process along the way?

NaNoWriMo Shenanigans // Part Two

And now for part two of my NaNoWriMo update. If you're looking for part one, you can find it here. 

After finishing draft two of HIRAETH, I had plenty of NaNoWriMo stretching out before me and, in the spirit of the month, I wanted to churn out a ton more words. But I had a serious book writing hangover. I wanted to be working on HIRAETH. I wanted to be reading HIRAETH. I wanted to crawl inside it and let it seep into my blood. Other books felt dumb and boring in comparison. So I did what any rational person would do—I decided to tackle the project that has, every time I’ve touched it, given me the worst case of writer’s block ever. It’s name is BMT.

This book and I, we’ve known each other for four years. I spent a whole year daydreaming about it before we got together. We’re that couple that everyone gapes at and then asks themselves, “Why are they even together?” BMT has begun to feel like a running joke to me. Am I feeling bad about my writing? I can always pick up BMT and feel worse. Do I want to turn my brain into sad writer soup? I know where to turn.

It was almost NaNoWriMo suicide. Every day, I felt my gaze wandering from BMT to other projects, other words. I wanted to cheat on that book so bad. I did have a quick fling with a short story, but it was over in a day, and then I was back, staring at BMT’s ugly mug. Sometimes I think that my continued dedication to wrestling this book into submission is proof that I really do dislike myself.

I ended up editing a lot of what I had edited in 2016 and 2017, just running the story through my fingers, trying to get the threads, trying to figure out what went wrong, where it went wrong, where it always goes wrong. I drafted some stuff, too, in an effort to break from my normal chronological headspace and write out of order like I did when I was drafting HIRAETH in 2016. (To clarify, I wrote a full rough draft for BMT in 2015, but most of it is rancid garbage and so I am trying to start fresh.)

Eventually I had to rip off the bandage and look at the ugly, infected sore I’ve been dancing around for four years. I hate this book. I hate almost everything about it. Nothing works. The colors are wrong, the feel is wrong, everything is wrong, wrong, wrong, but there is just enough right, hidden beneath it all, that I have not been able to walk away, still don’t want to walk away. I wrote a super long list of all my problems with the story, everything that makes me want to stop writing and, instead, knit sweaters for snakes in the Arizona desert (you know, so they won’t get cold at night). Then I took that list of problems, and I brainstormed ways to address each issue. It seems obvious that I should have done this years ago, so maybe I lose some writer cred in saying I didn’t think to do it sooner, but I didn’t think to do it sooner.

Some of the issues were easy to address. For instance, I needed to establish clear rules within which my time travel world was going to operate. My story has been plagued with inconsistencies and plot holes spawned mainly by my inability to put up a fence around my playground. I’d waffled, writing one scene where time travel works one way, another where it works differently, and this zig zag running made it difficult to head in any set direction. It was starting to feel like that whole “sound and fury, signifying nothing” scenario. The quote feels especially apt, because most days I end up feeling like BMT is more than just a little melodramatic.

Here’s another fun confession. Lazy writers make ugly art, and I was making ugly art. I spent so much time avoiding scenes that I knew I needed to include, and it left my story flimsy and overwrought. I avoided those scenes because some subconscious part of my brain that I wasn’t willing to look at or address kept telling me they were too technically challenging to write, that I wasn’t the sort of writer who could write scenes like those, so there was no point in even trying, and the hilarious thing is that I think I spent so much more energy trying to write around those scenes, trying to write out of sinkholes I wrote myself into, than I would have if I’d just done the work. Lesson learned. Don’t be a lazy, fearful writer. Do the hard thing. It probably won’t kill you.

The topper on this sad wedding cake of a relationship is that I don’t like the characters. No, that’s not accurate. I don’t like the color beige; I don’t like the smell of lilacs. I hate the characters, every single one of them. I can’t expect any reader to love these characters if I don’t even want to look at them. I can’t write this story if I don’t want to spend time in its world. I’m still brainstorming solutions for this issue, because it’s extensive, and I may need to do some character transplants, if that’s a thing. But I’ve named the monster—I know what it looks like. Now all I have to do is cut off its head.

There are more issues, but I think everything else can be dealt with by plotting and planning and taking notes, and since I am no longer allergic to outlining, even though it isn’t what comes most naturally to me, I don’t expect that will be much of an obstacle.

As for what the story itself is about, I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll summarize it here: When Ember’s attempt to use black market time to save her boyfriend fails horribly, she kidnaps a time traveler and sets off to undo her mistake before time runs out.

Here, have two completely out of context snippets. Also, please note that Vince and Fred are stand in names until I think of something better.—

She turns to Vince. “Tell me about the scanners.”

He glares at her.

Her hand rests on her gun, still tucked into her shoulder holster. “You know, the sooner we save Fred, the sooner I set you free and you can go to a hospital. I would get to work, if I were you.” As she says it, she sees the thought she has tried to hide from herself, only lets her mind touch it for a moment before wrenching it away, back to the task at hand. If she lets him go, he will tell her grandfather, and it will ruin everything. She does not think she will be able to let him walk away from this, even if she wants to.

—

“Tell me how we’re going to find him, then.” Ember tries to focus on the word he used, disintegration, how it sounds too much like decomposition. Until now, the solution has seemed fairly straightforward to her. Grab Fred from the time vortex, pull him out. She hasn’t considered that they might be working with a very small window in which saving him will matter.

“Finding him should be easy enough,” Vince says, and she has to focus on his words to understand them, her thoughts are so distant and scattered. “The scanners are always on, always tracking and recording activity in the vortex. So they will show when he entered and where he’s been since he did. We can extrapolate from there where he’s likely to end up next, and how long he’s likely to hold together. A lot of it will be guesswork, but we’ll have a starting point and a framework to go on.”

Ember nudges him aside and takes a seat at the desk. Almost without thinking, she traces her hand across the screen, feels the fuzz of static beneath her fingers. For an instant, as she watches the hundreds of blips, she feels as if she could will them all to safety, clear out the time vortex with nothing more than wishful thinking.

She doesn’t know why they are all there, but there are so many blips, more than she could have ever guessed. The longer she looks at them, the more they seem like bacteria on a slide, stained blue and viewed through a microscope. They move in imperfect circles, intersecting, bouncing off each other, every blip its own center of gravity, like they’re hitched onto one point in time, and they’re spinning around it in ever widening revolutions. It’s not as clean as that, but that’s how she prefers to look at it. Which one is Fred? She massages her temples, tries not to think about how good a strong cup of coffee would be right now.

She turns away from the scanner, her pulse a jackhammer in her throat. “Okay, so tell me which one he is.”

—


And that’s it for today, Coffee Beans. Have you ever spent a long time working on a project you don’t like? Have you ever conquered writing a story with characters you can’t stand? Teach me your ways.

NaNoWriMo Shenanigans // Part One

How did my NaNoWriMo go, you ask? Let me tell you, it went better than I thought. I realize that sounds anticlimactic, considering how disappointing last year was for me. If you’ll recall, my goal was to write anywhere between 50K and 100K words. I ended up with 121,121. Definitely not something to turn up your nose at. Compared to last year, when I felt like I was digging words out of my brain with a spoon, this NaNo was a cakewalk. Even in the best month, not every writing day is going to be amazing. Most days are just average. But this month was full of more amazing days than I think was my fair allotment.

I’m going to cover this NaNo update with two posts, because I worked on two major projects, and I have a lot to gush about. I also figure I’ll share a snippet or two per project, because I’m feeling magnanimous.

You might recall that, way back in November 2016, I drafted a story I have oft referred to as my Super Secret Novella Side Project (SSNSP). My plan had been to whip that thing into shape and share it on my blog, back when it was supposed to be, you know, a novella. Then I got sick, and it sat untouched for a long time. When I finally picked it up and started working on it again, it was only as (brace for it) a side project, something I pulled out when my main WIP was stalling. Somewhere along the line, I decided that while it would make a decent novella, I also wanted to expand on it and explore how it would play out as a novel.

I may have, from time to time, referred to SSNSP as GITM, though I can’t remember. Either way, GITM is a meaningless title, a stand in with little relevance to what the story has become, so feel free to forget it immediately. When I began drafting it in 2016, I’d wanted to write a story with a glitch in the matrix sort of feel, so that’s what I called it, but it very quickly veered off course to something I like a whole lot better. Right now, it still doesn’t have an official title, but I’m changing the stand in to HIRAETH, which is a great deal more applicable.

When I started work on it this November, it was a feeble, 20K word story, gap-toothed and malnourished. I already had a chunk of it edited, but my main challenge was to beef it up and give it a good, thorough scrubbing.

About halfway through the month, I finished the draft, which is a weird sort of draft 2 hybrid. Let me clarify. My first draft was 100,000 words or so of mayhem, in which I drafted the story multiple times, back to back and in no particular order, trying to get a handle on what I wanted to say. Then I went into an editing frenzy and hacked away at it, keeping only the scenes and, in most cases, paragraphs that I thought had potential. I had the gall to call it a second draft, but it was only an 8,000 word, semi-coherent, extra-detailed outline. That round included zero editing, only chopping, so it doesn’t deserve a draft number, in my opinion. Then I started adding to it and editing as I went, that being the process I finished this November. I’m choosing to call this completed draft a second draft, because that’s how it looks chronology-wise, but I’ve been told it’s very clean for a second draft, and it certainly feels that way.

Currently, it is still a feeble book-thing. It weighs 42,000 words soaking wet, which, translated into normal-people-speak, is not even 200 pages. I love it. I love it to pieces. I have already read it twice through, just for fun, and I don’t normally do that sort of thing, because it’s hard not to see flaws everywhere I look. This book has been the easiest, most painless piece of writing I have ever pulled from my brain box, and it’s a breath of fresh air on the heels of DRACONIAN.

I still need to feed it some protein powder to give it muscles, because it’s a scrappy little thing, and my goal has gone from being a nice person and sharing it on this blog, to seeking out traditional publishing. I’ll need to insert some scenes, at least 8,000 words worth, (which feels like coming full circle) and I have some anxieties about that, because the pacing feels tight, and I don’t want to throw off the balance I think I’ve achieved. But I also have to make the science in it accurate and sufficiently nerdy, and I’ve got some ideas. I’m ruminating. I already got one set of beta feedback, which made me cry happy tears.

Here’s a quick rundown on what it’s about, without giving too much information: The crew of the Hiraeth, the most advanced spaceship Earth has ever produced, is tasked with terraforming a planet lightyears from home, but soon the mission devolves into chaos as the ship begins to break down, and, one by one, people start to go mad.

I could gush about this thing forever, but I think I’ll end up turning into one of those moms who talks up their snot-nosed little Johnny so much everyone secretly hopes Lassie will push him into the well. So I’ll just leave you with this snippet.

—

Objectively, you know that there are six thousand windows on the Hiraeth. Until recently, you had not realized exactly how many windows that is. It is a staggering number. You can avoid them a great deal during the day, if you stick to the inner portions of the ship. Where they present the most trouble for you is when you are on the flight deck, which contains the largest window of them all, and when you walk to your quarters at night. For whatever reason, the ship’s designers thought the captain would want a view of the outdoors, and so they built your quarters on the outer ring. You must walk along a corridor of windows to reach your room, and once inside, you are faced with another. It is almost as if they thought you would want to look out at the stars.

Over the past couple nights, you have considered relocating your quarters, but for a long list of reasons—the first being convenience and the last being your desire to maintain an appearance of normalcy—you have decided not to do that yet.

With every window you pass on the stretch of corridor, like an endless house of mirrors, you feel eyes on you. It’s subtle. If you force yourself to focus on other things, you can even forget it for a while. But then, inevitably, you remember—you feel it again. It’s less a sense of being watched and more of being observed. Not like being seen, like being looked at. So there it stays, in the back of your mind, an adrenaline drip building up in your blood.

—


That’s it for today, Coffee Beans. If you participated in NaNoWriMo, what projects did you work on? What are you excited about (writing or otherwise)?

Life Update #1 // November is Coming

How? How is it almost NaNoWriMo already? Of course, NaNoWriMo is awesome, and I can’t wait. But how so soon? TELL ME. I’m still having trouble realizing it’s only a few days away. I’m not prepared.

*takes deep breath* I am calm.

It occurs to me that I never updated you on my last NaNoWriMo and how it went. I mean that not in an “it just occurred to me” way, but more of a “this occurs to me on a regular basis and I have already drafted multiple posts as a result and then failed to publish them” way. Since work on my current main project is reaching a period of semi-burnout, which I would like to keep as brief as possible, I figure it’s time to take a break and tend to my sorely-neglected blog. There are so many posts and updates I want to finish and share with you. My Out of Coffee, Out of Mind drafts folder is starting to feel like a diary of sad dead ends.

Before we discuss this coming NaNoWriMo, let’s deal with the previous one, since that’s what’s been bugging me the most. Last I spoke with you on the subject, I had plans to write a ton of words, albeit not as many as I have in NaNoWriMos past. In case you didn’t notice, I didn’t succeed. Or rather, I hit 50,000 words, so in all respects, I did win NaNoWriMo. *throws confetti* I don’t mean that in a disparaging way. I am not trying to be down on myself for the number of words I wrote. There is nothing wrong with 50K, and those who write only 50K are still winners in every respect. But for me, it was a sad achievement because I have done better in the past. I was used to overachieving, I enjoyed it, and I had looked forward to doing it again.

Last November was hard. It was sandwiched between difficult months. On one end, I was struggling with the leftover brain fog from my last bout with an eating disorder, and on the other hand, I was fighting another relapse. Almost as soon as November began, I realized that I was too close to a complete mental burnout to try anything more than the minimum needed to win. In comparison with what I have done before, it felt like I barely participated. When I saw all my fellow overachievers from years past going pedal to the metal, I’ll admit, I did cry a little. I had been part of something that meant a great deal to me, and I had lost that, even if it was only temporary. There was this huge gap between what I wanted to create and what I was able to create. The muse just wasn’t there; my vocabulary felt stunted, my attention span limited. It was like a bruise that I didn’t want to poke. So that month, taking care of myself meant taking a step back and only writing what I needed to keep up my winner’s streak.

That’s not to say I didn’t love what I was writing. Over the course of the month, I fleshed out several ideas, drafted a bunch of blog posts, wrote some poetry, and ultimately, did whatever I could to get the creative juices flowing. I didn’t finish a novel, or even come close. That would have been asking too much of my brain, especially given the story ideas I had chosen. My biggest triumph that month, aside from choosing to take care of myself, was drafting the beginnings of a story that, while emotionally difficult to write, felt more rewarding and more promising than anything I had worked on in a while. Funny thing is, it came to me while I was watching a video on poisonous mushrooms, and it came all at once, in a deafening rush. Even though I have yet to tack down the nitty gritty details, I have all the bones of the thing—I found its skeleton, hidden in the back of my mind, complete and tangible. Actually writing it was surprisingly difficult, given the existing framework, like moving sand with tweezers, but it was difficult in a “I am trying to paint what I am seeing and I am trying to paint it well” way, and less of a “I don’t know what to paint” way. I picked it up yesterday, fleshed out more ideas, got excited and bought a writing journal for it. Every time I touch it, I get an electrical shock.

As for what I’ll be doing this November, I’m not sure. Naturally, I know that I’ll try for at least 50,000 words. Over the course of the last month or so, I have developed a routine where I try to read for an hour each day at a coffee shop. During November, and the days leading up to it, I plan to turn that reading time into additional writing time. Since I’m working forty hours a week now, I don’t know if I will have as much time to overachieve as I have had in the past, and I don’t know if it would be healthy for me to try just yet. This has been a hard year. So I don’t know if I’m going to attempt more than 100,000 words.

With regards to what I’m going to write, I don’t know. I have several options. I might cheat this NaNoWriMo and edit an existing project instead of drafting a new one—I have several novels I’m trying to polish, and I’m not excited about setting them aside completely for a whole month, although it might be good for me to take a vacation from them. I could also pull out my trunked novel and, for nostalgia’s sake, give it a complete revamp. Last November’s promising story is still begging to be finished, so that’s a possibility. There’s another novel I really want to work on as well, one that’s begging for a complete fresh start, beginning with a new rough draft. Those are my options, I think. I have so many balls in the air already, I don’t want to add any more just yet.

But I doubt I will know for sure until November first.

NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up // Part Two

If you missed my first NaNoWriMo wrap-up post, you can find it here. As promised, today I'm going to be answering some frequently(ish) asked questions. 

How, what even, why? 

I'm glad you asked that question. Let me explain. 

I am a very determined person. 

Also, I am nauseatingly competitive. 

Did you even sleep? 

Yes, actually. Because I was sick for over two weeks, I made sure to get a little more sleep than usual each night. 

How much coffee did you drink?

Too much, and simultaneously, not enough. 

Surely no one can write that many words in one month. You must have used filler/purple prose to pad your word count. *squinty eyes* 

First of all, that's a statement, not a question. You had one job. *shakes head* 

Second of all, no. I don’t write concise rough drafts, because my thoughts wander when I’m writing. It takes me multiple tries to say what I'm trying to say, and I sometimes write in circles just to figure out where I’m going and who my characters are, but every word I type is written with the idea of moving the draft forward, not upping my word count. I never write words just to write words. 

I've been accused of cheating before. *sad face* And I feel like I shouldn't have to say this, because it should be apparent, but I'm going to say it anyway, because apparently it isn't (see what I did there?), but while my word count may be discouraging for those who struggle to reach the 50K, being accused of cheating is just as discouraging. I'm sorry if my word count makes you feel bad, I really am, and I don't mean to rub it in your face or put you down. I promise I'm not sitting here judging you for writing less than me. If anything, I'm judging me for not writing more. 

For the record, I didn't just wake up one morning, suddenly able to write 606,606 words in a month. I wasn't born dipped in talent and sexy. I had to work up to this. (I still look like a potato though.) Five years ago, a 3K day was a phenomenal day for me, and I haven't forgotten how magical that felt. I think I was more excited for my first 3K day than I was for my first 50K day. 

So remember to celebrate your own achievements, and please don't feel bad to tell me about them, because I would be more than happy to celebrate with you. 

Are your hands about to fall off? 

Maybe. My wrists have been sore off and on, but it’s nothing compared to last year. I'm thinking my wrist braces really made a difference. 

How many books/projects did you work on? 

I started writing my Scottish Romance, but I only got 15K in before it turned into a cynical story about why love is a destructive force, so I decided to pull the plug on that project. I also pulled the plug on another project after a couple thousand words because it felt like the sort of story I would enjoy writing at a more relaxed pace (which is odd for me). I wrote the prequel to DRACONIAN, the sequel to TIB (and planned another sequel), my ghost story, the third book in my literary trilogy, and then I went off plan and wrote two spontaneous novels: the first book in a duology about assassins and a horror novel about space travel (which was supposed to be a novella, oops). 

How did you manage to pull off three 50K days, and how many hours did it take? 

My first 50K day took 12.5 hours, including breaks and driving time. I only wrote for about 10 of those hours. In contrast, my third 50K day took 10 hours, including breaks, so only about 8 hours of actual butt-in-chair (except I tend to sit on the floor, for the most part, so butt-on-floor). I made sure to get 20K written before noon and to read during breaks, since Facebook and Twitter drain my brain cells. I also walked around a bit and made sure to stay hydrated. Most importantly, I didn't let myself procrastinate. 

Just as a caveat, because there were several newer writers in the forums expressing hopes of pulling a 50K day themselves: If you want to do a 50K day, then go for it! By all means! But also keep in mind that it is strenuous, both physically and mentally, and you might want to work up to it. If you can't write more than 30K in a day comfortably, I would recommend waiting and getting that under your belt first. You don't want to pull a 50K day, only to burn out and have no energy left to write for the rest of the month. Plus, you'll enjoy your accomplishments more if you're not about to pass out from exhaustion. 

Did you have work?

Excluding Black Friday, I worked Fridays through Sundays every weekend. Fridays were lighter work days, so I made sure to write on those days, but I didn’t push myself on Saturdays and Sundays. In retrospect, I think this was the main reason why I didn’t burn out. 

How fast can you type? 

My cruising speed ranges from 110-170 wpm, depending on pain levels and mental energy. I can only sustain 170 wpm for about an hour (hence the 10K hour I managed). 

Are you happy with your results? 

Yes. I mean, my drafts are messy, with faces not even a mother could love, but at least I have something to work with now. And editing is my jam. 

How much do you plan to write next year? 

I’ll have to get back to you on that one. There’s a chance I will have less time next year, so I don’t want to get my hopes up for an 800K year, just in case. 

Oops, too late. 

Any advice for writing lots of words? 

Keep typing. Once you sit down at the computer and start writing, make sure to maintain that momentum. I know that if I pause to think, my mind wanders like an untended hamster and I end up accomplishing very little. If I’m running low on ideas for advancing my plot, I spend a couple paragraphs discussing my characters’ motivations or back stories until the thought mill starts running again. (I know this sounds like unnecessary filler, but if I don't do this, I never figure out my characters. Last year I didn't allow myself to do this, because I got super paranoid and worried that people would accuse me of padding, and it hurt my drafts majorly. Pro tip: It's not filler if it advances the story.) 

What about you, my little coffee beans? How was your November? What are some accomplishments you're proud of? 

NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up // Part One

Well, it’s December. When did that happen? 

I guess it’s time to talk about how NaNoWriMo went. 

For today, I’m just going to touch on the highlights, but I’ll go into more detail on Wednesday, if my brain doesn’t die. At the moment, I’m crunching to finish DRACONIAN by the end of January, and this after writing 606,606 words in November (oops, spoilers), so we’ll see how this goes. Send help.

Before November, I listed my goals. I passed my main goal of 500,005 words and came in at 606,606. 

Click to embiggen

See those low-word count days? Aside from the first weekend, on Saturdays and Sundays I wrote 1,100 so I could get the badge for writing every day. But since those were work days, which leave me a little extra tired and spacey, I decided to give my wrists a break and not push myself to write. I’m weirdly fond of how wavy my graph looks. It has character. *hugs graph* *gets confused and starts gnawing on keyboard* 

While I didn’t get my dream goal of 800,008, I’m cool with that. I felt like I paced myself well, broke most (if not all) of my records, and came away feeling accomplished but not burnt out. I socialized, hung out at my church a lot even on my days off because I like my fellow staff, worked custodial on the weekends, enjoyed Thanksgiving, watched a couple movies in theaters, took care of my wrists, and got enough sleep. The month didn’t feel like a chore, or even too much like a marathon—it felt like fun, which is what it’s supposed to feel like. That’s not to say there weren’t days I felt like quitting, because there were, especially toward the end, but I don’t feel disappointed with myself like I did last year. 

As for personal achievements, I managed to write 10K in an hour, reached a typing speed of 170 wpm (not consistently, of course, because pain), and got not just one 50K day, but three. 

And another bonus, last year I tied for 9th place in the faces chart. This year, by some strange twist of fate, I got 1st. Someone hold me. 

Yep, zat is me, Lorna Doone 11. 

Sadly, after flying off fifty million times throughout the month, the J key on my keyboard is officially broken. (Just the key, not the actual button—I can still type with it. See: jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj.) It’s sitting on my bedside table right now, waiting for me to buy superglue to, hopefully, stick it back on. *squints disapprovingly at keyboard* 

And that’s it for today, my little coffee beans. On Wednesday I plan to talk about the projects I worked on and other assorted wrap-up stuff. In the meantime, how was your NaNoWriMo? Did you participate this year? What were some highlights?

You're Almost There

It’s the last day of NaNoWriMo. *distant sobbing* I know you’re tired. I’m tired too. But I know we can do this. I know we can push ourselves and finish strong. 

I don’t want to use up precious writing time, so I’m keeping this brief. You are awesome and inspiring. Remember that. Your wrists may be sore and your mind may feel burnt out, but you can rest tomorrow. To dredge up an overused metaphor, NaNoWriMo is like a marathon, and when it comes to long distance running, this is the final stretch. This is where you start sprinting. 

So sprint. 

A Day in the Life of NaNoWriMo

Note: A little while ago, Cait @ Paper Fury suggested I write a “day in the life of NaNo” post. This is my attempt to provide a completely factual, not at all embellished account. Ahem. (It’s written in second person, because at this point in the month, I am insane and don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Not that I ever know what I’m doing.) 

The sound of your alarm clock bursts through your dreams like an unwanted character in a story that was going so well for you until this moment. For several seconds, you deny the existence of this alarm, until you realize this is no way to live. The protagonist in your novel would never be so lazy. You need to be more like her, or you else will turn into a potato. And that is also no way to live. 

Eventually, you come to terms with the fact that it’s morning (see also, the final stage of grief), and pull yourself out of bed. You hear a sound in the other room, a sort of muted screaming, and remember two things: a) it’s NaNoWriMo, and b) the muse fairies don’t like it when you put off feeding them. You leap out of bed, adrenaline rushing through your veins like caffeine, and zombie-shuffle as quickly as you can to the stash of chocolate-covered coffee beans on the counter. As the muse fairies strain against their cage, you jam your hands into the un-yielding leather of your third set of gloves this month. The chewed remains of the other two pairs lie abandoned in the far corner of the room, a testament to the dangers you are willing to endure, all in the name of NaNoWriMo. 

After you finish feeding your muse fairies, you rush to the shower to wash yourself. This is a good place for you. You don’t have to hear the crunching of the coffee beans, like breaking bones. You don’t have to hear the shrieks as the fairies fight each other for more than their fair share. The shower is quiet. The shower is peaceful. The shower is safe. You can brainstorm here, under the rushing water. You can think or not think, as you so please. No one will judge you or try to chew off your toes. 

But eventually, you have to step out of the warm shower into the cold air, and it is like crossing that painful bridge between sleeping and wakefulness all over again. Then it’s time for you to eat. You toast your bagel and scoot to the far end of the counter, away from the muse fairies, all slouched against the bars, holding their distended little stomaches and wiping what looks like blood off their mouths. You notice with a sinking sensation that the number has fallen again this morning. One is missing. You were warned that this would happen, that muse fairies were not exactly….nice beings. But still, actually seeing the evidence of this for yourself has turned out to be more jarring than you had expected. And considering the number you have lost already and the remaining days in November, you are starting to worry you will run out of fairies too soon. 

At least, you tell yourself, at least the number is not dwindling because they are escaping again. Your toes ache just thinking about it. 

With this in mind, you pull out your laptop and begin typing away at your story, watching the fairies out of the corner of your eye. After you’ve written a few words, to give your mind something to think about, you brew your pot of coffee and don those stiff gloves once more. It’s time to harvest the muse fairy eggs. They look so tiny, so innocent in the palm of your hand, like drops of metallic paint. You don’t want to think about what’s inside. 

Steeling yourself, you slip them into the pot of coffee and watch them dissolve as you wonder with a sinking feeling if the pursuit of success has turned you cold to the harsh realities of the world. Shaking your head, you refuse to allow yourself to dwell on this. Instead, you grab your favorite mug, pour yourself a cup, add the creamer, and sit down to breathe in the scent of nostalgia and words. And you write. Because this is what makes you feel alive. This is what helps you forget the things you regret and the people who want to kill you. 

(You have a passing thought that maybe you are getting a little too into this story. But you stow that thought away in your mind closet with all the other thoughts you do not have time for this November.) 

After an hour or so of concentrated writing, your fingers clicking to the beat of whatever song happens to be playing in your ears, you rise to stretch your legs and get the blood flowing. As you wander about the kitchen, studiously avoiding looking at the fairies, you notice the floor should be swept. The dishes have piled up. The cat waits at the door, her eyes big with the need for attention. All these things cluster at your consciousness, nibbling away at your prospective word count, threatening you with heaps of guilt should you choose to ignore them. So you break and ply the broom, load the washer, pet the tiny animal, and dispose of the disemboweled mouse it has gifted you, again. 

While you perform these mindless tasks, you tell yourself you could be thinking about your story. Instead you find yourself thinking about anything but. You find yourself thinking about movies you want to watch, the responsibilities you have let slide, the books you own but have not read. You get the sudden urge to walk the dog, to admire the foliage, to breathe the fresh air, and most of all, to avoid, avoid avoid the weight of putting worlds on paper. Because it hurts someplace deep to take the kitchen knife of your mind and slice open the skin of your consciousness so you can explain yourself in metaphors and melodrama. Already you can read the reviews—too trite, too sappy, too shallow, too vague, too not-what-I-wanted, too never-enough. And the quitter hiding in your heart is telling you it only wants to spare you future pain by calling it a day now, once and for all. 

Instead, you drag yourself back to your chair, pull your coffee cup close, breathe in the steam, and write. Word after word. Line after line. Building on each other, towering, toppling, tracing the outermost reaches of your imagination and finding there are no limits. Somehow you convince yourself to forget, for this moment, this day, this month, that the stories you are crafting are ugly, wasteful creatures, worth printing only to shred. Somehow you write another thousand words, and another thousand, and another, intertwined with stolen moments on Facebook, on Twitter, on the NaNo forums, on the places that handle your mind with novocaine fingers. 

At some point along the way, your eyelids begin to droop worse than ever. Lunch has passed. A long lapse in the day, a long lapse in judgement, an hour, sometimes two, of nothing but you and the screen, you and the show you are watching, you and the story you bury yourself in to escape the story you must bury yourself in. The coffee never works to make you feel awake, but now it feels like it’s having a negative effect, as though every drop of caffeine sucks the life out of you and gifts it to some other creature. And the muse fairies haven’t laid more eggs today. They are odd little creatures like that. Sometimes they don’t lay eggs for days. Sometimes they lay a new batch every hour. No matter how often you let them gorge themselves on those chocolate covered coffee beans, they decide the flow of inspiration. 

You slide out of your chair and pace around the apartment, knowing you could read on the porch swing and get some fresh air, a chance to bond with the cat while refocusing your mind. But you are so tired. All your body wants is to shamble around mindlessly until the guilt once more builds strong enough to drive you back to your chair and your life. You tell yourself tomorrow will be kinder, because tomorrow you will be going into town with your sister. You will work your job while she works hers in the safety of the church that has become an extension of your ingrown comfort zone. You find focus there, friendship, fewer distractions. 

Eventually your sister gets home from work, and you sit together, eat together, watch shows together. Write together. She doesn’t help you feed the muse fairies because she doesn’t like creatures with sharp teeth. She has her own menagerie of muse butterflies in her office, but you don’t ask about those. Every writer is different. Every writer has their own private source of inspiration. During November, it helps not to compare. You and your sister will not share the same discouragements, but you remind yourself that you also won’t share the same encouragements. That is okay. 

When you finally can find no more words to pull from your brain, no more thoughts to scribble out with your fingertips on keys, you go to bed, drained but content, eager for another day, another autumn moment to paste on the scrapbook of your hard drive. And you drift off to sleep, listening to the scritch of muse fairy teeth on metal. 

Well, that’s it for today, little coffee beans. What about you? How does a typical NaNo day look for you? What do you do for inspiration/procrastination?