Thanksgiving, and a choice

I've validated my novel and am officially a winner.  I've made the decision not to shoot for 150K by November 30; instead, I will enjoy my time at home and do nutty things like relax and eat a lot of food.  We're having turkey, two kinds of stuffing, green beans with almonds and brown butter, creamed onions with bacon and chives, cranberry bread, cranberry ice, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie.

We'll only have five people at our Thanksgiving, so there will be loads of delicious leftovers.  No Black Friday sales for my family (my dad hates lines), but on Saturday we're going to Harry Potter and then we're going to buy socks and underwear and take them to Portland Rescue Mission.  All in all, it will be a terrific weekend.

Night of Writing Dangerously

Last night was my first time at the Night of Writing Dangerously, and oh boy, did it ever live up to expectations.  I started working on setup around noon, and I have a huge amount of respect for the people who put on events like this regularly - that is hard work, and requires the patience of a saint to organize all the tasks that must be finished before the event can start.  Got lunch with Sarah Mackey and her Edmonton crew at a terrific Chinese restaurant nearby, and then went back to work.  Shockingly, everyone wanted to help set up the candy buffet - we must've had seven people standing at the table and watching eagerly as Cybele unloaded her candy.

The event itself went by very quickly.  I worked at registration, which meant that I got to see everyone's amazing noir outfits as they came in, and then I spent the rest of the night mingling.  Yes, that's right - I only wrote one word at the Night of Writing Dangerously.  However, I met some really awesome people and had a great time - next year, I think, I will be sure to raise $200 so that I can go and be an actual participant, compete in Word Wars, and focus on writing.  Well, and help with setup and cleanup, because that part is a pain.

Had the day off today (thank God - I didn't get back from the event until about 1 AM), so I've been catching up on prep work I needed to do and have even written a bit more of my novel.  Crazy, I know.  I'm flying home tomorrow evening for Thanksgiving - more on that tomorrow.

Best of all, though, I have my first chat with my brand-new critique group tonight!  I haven't had a formal critique group for a while, and I'm very excited, especially since as soon as November ends I'll be slogging through a second round of revisions on The Novel.  Hurrah!

The perils of a second novel

I used to think of myself as a "pantser" (a.k.a. one who goes into NaNoWriMo without any kind of outline), but as I take a truly fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants approach to this second novel, I'm beginning to recognizing the value of plotting ahead of time, even if it's only in your head.

I spent a lot of time just thinking about The Brothers and Sisters of Interesting People before I was ever able to write a word.  That paid off; even when the story went in unexpected directions, I had a strong idea of my characters, and I was able to write scenes quickly because I knew how each character would react in any given situation.

Now, though, I have absolutely no idea who or what my characters are. Background: I'm writing YA fantasy based around Jewish folktales/legends and the Russian story of Koshchey the Deathless.  Basically, there is a kingdom (of course, it's a folktale) that's under siege. The prince's councilors convince him to let them remove his heart to keep it safe and thus protect him from any attacks - without his heart, he will be immortal.  But the heart is stolen away before it can be taken to safety, and it's the story of the quest for the prince's heart. In a totally non-romantic way.  There are dybbuks and mazikim and probably some pilpul and kibbitzing.  I'm using a ridiculous amount of Yiddish, considering I don't speak much.

At first, I thought my main character would be an ordinary girl from our world who unknowingly receives the prince's heart, disguised as a rock, and gets pulled in.  Then I was much more interested in the young guard charged with protecting the prince's heart, who was first a man, and who I've now decided is a woman.  So I've ditched the "ordinary girl".  Then my young guard didn't kill a spider, and it turned out that spider was actually a cursed human, and a pretty awesome one at that.  Now I've got two young women, one of which has questionable loyalties, on a quest together.  If nothing else, at least my novel will pass the Bechdel Test.

Also, I'm only 5400 words in.  Basically, I need to write an awful lot in the next two weeks.  Oh boy.

Halfway through November

I have finished The Brothers and Sisters of Interesting People, currently checking in at 102,055 words.  The ending is absolutely appalling, and compresses a week's worth of events and emotions into about a thousand words, but I'm okay with that - I'm going to rewrite massive chunks of this anyway, and I did manage to stuff some emotional resolution into the ending along with that week.  I didn't write very much today, but I think finishing makes up for that.

We're halfway through November, and now I can focus on the ridiculous Jewish folktale that I'm about to write. I will spend tomorrow's lunch researching and plotting, and will kick off my second novel (only aiming for 50K on this one - the second half of November is jam-packed with fun stuff, and I never intended to write a second novel) at the intern write-in with the 826 folks.  I think I'll go ahead and update my word count manually (by adding that novel's word count to 102K) instead of using the word count validator until Nov. 25, because I don't want to cause the servers undue pain and suffering.

If The Brothers and Sisters of Interesting People was about proving to myself that I could write a novel without an exciting plot, this second novel will be about embracing the fun and craziness, content-wise, that is November.  I haven't done enough of that this year.  I'm actually quite pleased with the novel I've turned out, for a first draft, and I enjoyed writing it, but it was not carefree.  This second novel, this will be free of any care greater than "What is the best Yiddish insult for this situation"?

Yes, I have Born to Kvetch on hold at the library.  My copy is at home, packed in a box with all my other books.

A minorly momentous occasion

A quick post, because my brain kind of hurts--

I hit 100,000 words of The Brothers and Sisters of Interesting People today.  It's not done.  It's...I mean, I guess I'm halfway through the plotlines I had thought of.  I'm going to try to finish it in the next few days (meaning the ending will be rushed), and then revisions will be when I break it down into its component pieces and build it back up into something beautiful.  For now I just need an ending.  This is already the longest thing I've ever written by a solid 10,000 words.

Starting Tuesday or Wednesday, though, I want to start working on another novel, a YA fantasy sort of thing, based on Jewish folktales and full of golems and dybbuks and Yiddish and that kind of thing.  That's been in the back of my head for a while now.  I mean, if worst comes to worst, I'll just write that novel in December.  But I'd really like to get started on it now, while it's really gripping my attention.

Man, my brain really does hurt.  Maybe I should go to bed.

Reconsidering goals

I'm at 70,762 words right now.  It's November 12.  I also decided to commit to my own version of the Sunday Catch-Up Vow; my version involves writing 23,000 words this weekend.  That math means I will be frighteningly close to my stated goal of 100,000 words by Monday.

I'm not really sure what to do.  Will I have finished the novel by then?  I don't really know.  There is a major plot development that has yet to happen (don't ask how I've written this much - I have no idea.  I may have been possessed).  If the novel isn't finished around 100K, I'll just keep writing until it's finished.  Yes, there will be loads of pruning happening after November.

What if the novel is finished, though?  (I know, to have such problems.  Believe me, in years past I would be deeply annoyed by people like me).  I might have to write a second novel for the last part of November.  Yes, that would be a little crazy.  It would be a true NaNovel, though; I'd probably throw in every cliche I could think of, just to get them all out of my system.  I think that sounds like loads of fun.  It would be a good way to unwind after this novel, which is beginning to put me through the emotional wringer.

Of course, I'm only going to write another novel after I finish this one anyway.  I'll be revising The Novel, the one I finished rewriting back in October, and once I finish that set of revisions, I'll write something new - it's the best way to get the taste of revision out of your mouth (tastes like hard work!).  The rest of my life will involve cycling between revision and new projects.  At some point, ideally in the next few months, I also hope to have a job - but I've been writing this much with a full-time internship.  Even when I do have a full-time job and hopefully some semblance of a social life, I should be able to fit in a few hours of writing and revision every day.

Before you ask: yes, I would love to earn a living as a novelist.  However, I'm realistic about a) the economics of such a plan and b) my own personal time-management style.  I know it's dead hard to support yourself as a novelist; moreover, I write best when I am very busy.  Give me tons of time and I produce nothing.  Even if I were someday lucky enough to support myself with my writing, I would still need to be out in the world, volunteering with different groups or working pro bono or something.  

Week Two: characters rebel

It's Week Two of NaNoWriMo, and while my novel is just as fun to write as ever, I have run into a small problem: my characters are misbehaving.  This shouldn't be possible, because I don't believe that characters have free will.  I created them, and I control them.  Somehow, though, they aren't acting the way they should.

The biggest problem? Unexpected hints of romance cropping up early.  Look, I'd already figured out who my main character might (eventually) end up dating.  But he's supposed to be kind of standoffish now, and instead he's being friendly and interested.  How does this happen?  I'm writing every single word that comes out of his mouth!  If I want him to be rude, he should be rude!  Somehow, though, they're not arguing very much - their arguments tend to center around a mutual friend's worrisome behavior - and they already had one near miss, romantically speaking.

Plus, my main character, who was supposed to be somewhat bisexual when I imagined her (mostly interested in men, though), turns out to have lots of chemistry with one of her female friends.  More, arguably, than with the guy she was potentially supposed to end up dating.  This is chemistry I didn't even intend to write.  And none of this is supposed to be happening at this point in the novel.

I just have to keep reminding myself that I control the characters and the narrative.  Once I've gotten the first draft beaten out (i.e. December 1), that's when I can go back and make sure that all the character relationships (and I mean all, not just romantic) progress in a reasonable fashion.  That's what revision is for, and there will be months and months of that once this novel is done.

What just happened?

I can't really believe that today happened.  I woke up at 30K and decided - ambitiously, I thought - to shoot for 40K.  Then I was challenged by Twitter to aim for 42K.   I hit that around 5:30 PM and decided to keep writing.  The thought popped into my head: I could probably get to 50K.  Once I'd thought it, I had to do it (I'm impulsive like that).  So I kept writing.  I don't know where all this energy comes from - maybe it's the fact that I'm not in school anymore, so the effort I would put into homework goes into my novel instead?

Now I'm at 50,539 words (the NaNoWriMo word counter adds about 500 words to my count, somehow).  If you want today's stats, here's how I wrote 20K today:
- I did 34 of my favorite 10-minute sprints, not continuously
- My best sprint produced 653 words
- My worst sprint produced 409 words
- My average sprint word count was 563 words (down from yesterday, but I did way more)
- Total written during sprints was 18,580 words (yes, sometimes I turned off the timer and wrote)

The novel, well, it's finally picking up speed.  It veered dangerously close to thriller territory at one point, but then I gave it a stern talking-to and reminded it that all excitement should come from internal conflict, not external conflict (like men with guns) and we got back on track.  My characters all feel real, and supporting characters are coming out of the woodwork.  I've given one of my main characters a girlfriend that I love, and I don't know if I'll be able to break them up when the time comes - but the story demands it, so I will.

Bring on Week Two!

Hyper-productivity, or, a truly bizarre NaNoWriMo experience

I don't know how it's happening, but I'm doing very well.  I'm at 30,470 right now, which means that my progress chart has a curve that kind of resembles f(x^2).  Um, or some other slightly less extreme function.  Seriously:

I've been doing 10-minute sprints against myself, as I mentioned.  I downloaded an app that shows a timer on my desktop, which is very helpful for motivation (I type much faster when it reads 00:05 than when it reads 9:59), and I do a sprint followed by about twenty minutes of contemplating the next scene/bit of action.  That makes it much easier to write when I go to the next sprint.  I'm averaging 600 words per sprint (best was 710, worst was 477), which is 60 words per minute...but counting planning time, it's more like 20 words per minute.  I'm okay with that.  In total, it was 130 minutes (not continuous) of sprinting, with 7881 words written during the sprints.

I'm going to shoot for 40,000 words total by the end of Sunday night - I spent a lot of time not writing today, doing things like grocery shopping, baking, Skyping, etc., and I wrote 8246 words total.  With a few more sprints, I should be able to write 10,000 words in a day.

Most important, though, as you probably guessed from my productivity, my story is really picking up.  No character surprises, but I knew them pretty well before I started.  For now, though, I think I'll rest my creative brain and my eyes and read a bit more of Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, which is just the coolest book ever.

Getting ahead!

I've listened to some truly embarrassing music to reach this point, but I am well ahead of my goal.  Both goals, in fact; I'm at 22000 words, which is well above the "1667 words per day to reach 50000" metric and also ahead of my "3000 words every weekday, 5000 words every weekend day to reach 100,000" plan.  Why is this?  To be honest, I think it's the terrifying goal of 100,000 words - it seems like such a huge number that I feel like I have to be constantly working in order to have any chance of meeting it.  Also, obviously, it feels nice to be ahead.

How did I get here?  Sprinting.  I'm one of the people running the @NaNoWordSprints Twitter, which helps, and I do sprints when other people run it.  The best tool, though, is a set of good old-fashioned offline sprints.  I use my cell phone alarm, because I didn't bring an egg timer with me, but an egg timer is really best.  Note your word count, set the counter for ten minutes, and write.  Figure out how many words you wrote.  Write down that figure.  Repeat, attempting to beat your own record.  I like to race against myself, because I can gloat as much as I want when I beat my own record - I'm not discouraging anyone!

I'd like to finish the weekend with a word count of 30,000 - in fact, since I'm supposed to write at least 5000 words every weekend day, I should finish the weekend with a word count of at least 32,000.  I'm going to try to sleep in tomorrow (a.k.a. wake up around 9 AM), and maybe even buy some groceries and run laundry, but 5K should be totally doable.  Especially with the music I've got to motivate me.  Can't stress the importance of music enough.

Onward and upward!

NaNoWriMo update, day 3

I have been stricken with some sort of terrible cold, and am currently recuperating.  I didn't make much progress last night - I was glued to election results all night, which meant a lot of opening my document, writing a sentence, and then switching to check the election results again.  Because this isn't a political blog, I will refrain from commenting too much.

Anyway, my novel.  I'll work on it more tonight - I'd like to hit 10,000, as yesterday's slow day wiped out most of the lead I'd built up on day 1.  My brain is not feeling particularly nimble today, so we'll see what I can manage.

Day 1, hour 2

3037 words.  That's good enough for now - I'll write more tonight.  At the moment, I need SLEEP.