A deadline is, simply put, optimism in its most kick-ass form. It's a potent force that, when wielded with respect, will level any obstacle in its path. This is especially true when it comes to creative pursuits.
— Chris Baty
Your best friends are also the most likely to see this novel-in-a-month plan as another of your charmingly crackpot self-improvement schemes. Don’t be offended if you encounter some good-natured ribbing; the idea of writing a novel in a month deserves to be laughed at. When the chuckles die down, though, do your best to make it clear that, however ridiculous the whole escapade may sound, you plan on seeing it through to completion. Also make it clear that when you are a best-selling author you will use a portion of your vast fortune to reward your supporters and destroy those who scoffed at you.
― Chris Baty
I tend to celebrate crossing over with a meditative ceremony where I print the book out and neatly stack its pages on the floor. When everything has been properly laid out, I take a few steps back from the work, close my eyes, and offer up my thanks to the writing powers for another bountiful harvest. At which point, I get a running start and dive headlong into my word-pile, rolling around and snorting like a pig. And then I fall asleep for three days. How you celebrate is up to you.
― Chris Baty
Chris Baty, for those of you wondering, is the founder of the whole National Novel Writing Month event. It started in July, 1999 with 21 friends in the San Francisco Bay area. Why 50,000 words? Baty did a word count for the shortest novel on his book shelf, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and used that to set the standard.
Only six of the participants, including Baty, completed the challenge that year. The next year the event was moved to November, to give people something to do during one of the dreariest months of the year. They created a website, and a verification option. There were 140 participants with 29 winners.
It began snowballing from there. In 2006 (the year I did my first NaNo), it became a non-profit organization. There were 79,813 participants and 12,948 winners (I was not one of them). It supports many writing fluency and education programs. It has programs geared for young writers, and you can also participate in Camp NaNo, letting you tackle your writing project in the summer as well.
Last year there was over 400,000 participants, but I couldn’t uncover how many completed the challenge. A few years ago they stopped making you validate your word count to get your winner’s certificate – it’s purely on the honour system now. I remember the years when the system kept crashing because of the sheer numbers of writers all trying to validate at the same time, so I can’t blame them.
I know there are people out there who participate in the challenge without signing up on the official site, but where’s the fun of that? By signing up you can buddy up with friends, participate in the forums, and see what NaNo events are going on in your area. You can win fun little badges, share your project cover, and keep track of your stats.
What do you get at the end of the month? The satisfaction of setting a goal and meeting it, no matter what, and a nifty certificate you can print out for your wall. A sense of community and camaraderie with other NaNoers. And you have access to goodies like discounts to writing software like Scribner and Drabble.
I have completed the challenge 14 times so far, failing only the first year where I ran out of story about 20,000 words short of meeting my goal. To date, I’ve only published two of my NaNo novels. The rest are . . . incomplete, despite the fact they’re all over the 50,000 word mark.
But it’s left me with editing fodder for years to come. :-)
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
WORDAGE REPORT
You know what’s more distracting than kittens? Pain in your jaw. And while the pain killers were great, they made me pretty sleepy, so the last few days of NaNo, plus the blog posting, were a little challenging.
But the pain is mostly gone now, except when I yawn, and NaNo is over. So the next batch of excuses will all be about getting ready for Christmas.
Take yesterday for instance. I was going to get caught up on all kinds of things, but first there was the craft sale my Guild was part of, so I had to go to that (and I had to park miles from the community center where it was being held and walk there in the pouring rain). The rain stopped and the wind came up, so naturally I had to go down to the waterfront and take pictures of the waves. The Santa Claus parade happened that night, despite the cold wind, and I’m pretty sure they “padded” the parade by throwing lights on every damn town and county maintenance vehicle there was because the parade was endless. Then after a really late supper, I remembered that I still had craft stuff to prepare for the granddaughter, who was coming over to do crafts today. And that’s why this post is so late. :-)
NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 1930+578+313+687=3,508
DOWN 478 words from last week
Goals For Next Week:
Finish my NaNo novel (only about another 1,000 words of story to go)
NANO
It was a kind of steady NaNo for me this year, mostly I kept chugging along. My best day was 3,352 words, and my worst was 175 words. But at least I wrote something every day. Many years I’d start out NaNo strong, then nothing for a couple of days, then catch up, then fall behind, then catch up again.
But obviously, slow and steady wins the race and even though I didn't end up with as many words as I did last year, I still crossed the finish line with words to spare. And also, I think for the first time, I finished close to the end of my novel. Usually I have plot holes, if not huge chasms, that I need to go back an fill at some point, or the story is far from incomplete. This year, I just have the dénouement and I’m done. Go me!
Week One: 1415+2097+1526+1677+1694=8,409
Week Two: 1385+2033+940+1252+1870+1303+175=8,783
Week Three: 1429+1258+3053+953+1034+2088+2064=11,879
Week Four: 3352+2674+2267+1585+2062+890+1226=14,056
Week Five: 1418+745+2960+2825=7,948
Total NaNo words – 51,075
Expected Goal – 50,000
EDITING:
X pages
I just realized that when I get An Elemental Spirit all polished up and send it out into the world, I’ll have completed both of my series. If it seems like forever since I started them . . . well, it has been.
I’m not sure if Spirit should be included under editing, or as regular words because it’s pretty much got to be re-written, especially the beginning part. I did it as part of NaNo a couple of years ago, mostly to force myself to get off the fence with it. And while I’m not thrilled with the results, at least it’s something to work with.
Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit.
MARKETING:
On suspension until after Christmas
TECH & TRAINING:
Dropbox is starting to become a “thing” with me. One of those good intentions the road to hell is paved with. I keep meaning to get to it, but I just haven’t yet.
Goal For Next Week:
Figure out how to set up the automatic back up for Dropbox. Set up external hard drive.
POETRY WEDNESDAY:
It was the last day of NaNo and I was already battling numerous distractions, and I suddenly realized, “Oh, this is Wednesday. I’m supposed to have a poetry post up.” So I dove into my archives and pulled out the Trolaan, spiffed up the post a bit, and threw it up there. It was pretty late, but it got done.
Goal For Next Week:
Share a new poetry form.
CRAFTING:
I wasn’t feeling up to doing crafts with the granddaughter last weekend, which was just a day after my dental surgery, but I was up late last night hot gluing hazelnuts to walnuts and then painting them so they’d be dry for this afternoon when she’s coming to make Christmas crafts with me.
The craft sale my stitchery guild was part of was yesterday, and I think they did pretty well. There was a nice variety of stuff, not only at our table, but for the whole sale. I think the person who did the best was the lady selling alpaca products – the blankets were just flying off the table, and one just happened to fly my way. ;-)
Goal For Next Week:
Figure out what other Christmas crafts to do this year.
WHAT I’M READING:
I finished Angels Fall, by Nora Roberts, and since NaNo wasn’t over yet so I couldn’t start my après NaNo book, I started reading The Cabin in the Woods, by Sarah Alderson.
Goal For Next Week:
Keep the reading to a slow and steady pace – I’ve got too much other stuff to do!
GOAL REVIEW:
Despite the fact that the only post that was up on time was my serial installment, at least I got them done, in spite of distractions like pain and tiredness. So I’ll take that as a win. And just an FYI, you don’t want to miss this week’s installment where you see how Izolda plans to deal with the last remaining obstacles keeping her from Nikolai, and set in motion the driving force for the rest of the story. :-)
Next up for publication will be An Elemental Spirit, hopefully some time next year. I haven’t looked at it in a while and I’m really hoping it’s not as in bad a shape as I think it is. I know the beginning sucks, but the rest . . .
Technically I should be putting marketing back on the table, seeing as Magical Mayhem is coming out on Wednesday. I have a couple of ideas, so we’ll see what happens with that.
I still haven’t mastered Dropbox, but now I’ve got some extra time so I need to get back on that.
Last week’s poetry form was recycled from a poetry post I did more than ten years ago, but at least it got done, when I finally remembered it was Wednesday. Funny how the days just seem to slip away from you.
No time for crafts, what with NaNo and all, although I did have a guild meeting to go to where I worked on my afghan. I’ll be doing more Christmas crafts in the week ahead though, because, you know, Christmas is coming.
So last week was a little stressful, but still pretty productive. This one should be even more so. Productive, not stressful.
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