NaNo is Still NaNot for Me

Woodland Ford (1930) by Carl Ahrens

By Kim

Back in 2009 Pamela, Julie, Elizabeth and Susan all blogged about NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month). Elizabeth committed to the full 50,000 words and she did it. The others (including Joan, who did not publicly weigh in) all had ambitious private goals and all made great progress.

I was the lone hold-out. I’d written a novel in three months before so, despite evidence to the contrary, I can produce words quickly. In fact, it took me ten minutes to compose a 525 word excuse about why NaNo was NaNot for me. I read it over again this morning, and much of it still applies. Here are the highlights, adjusted for 2011 circumstances.

One: I would kill myself writing 50,000 words in a month only to spend the next year rewriting 49,000 of them. Twice. I’d have plenty of time to do it because my family would no longer speak to me.

Two: According to NaNo rules, you are supposed to work on an entirely new project. I would rather hack off my own arm than abandon a novel within 10,000 words of typing The End.

Three: My office remains just as it was in 2009. Click here and feel my pain.

Four: My family members expect to eat and have clean clothes to wear.

Carl Ahrens (1890) - Color enhanced

Five: NaNo works great for writers who compose first and edit later. I write like a painter paints – in layers. Start with a sketch, add a wash or two, build up details here and there, etc. If the composition as a whole doesn’t work, I don’t want to waste my time crafting scenes that I’ll have to murder later.

Six: My protagonists are both artists, so composing like a painter makes sense.

Seven: The Oak Lovers is mainly a true story. Research is on-going and I have no control over when new details will fall in my lap. Sometimes that information changes a dynamic of the story, making revisions necessary before I move on.

Eight: I don’t want my two children asking why I spend more time with my dead great-grandparents than with them.

Nine: Who picked November? Thanksgiving break! Nutcracker rehearsals and performances! Visiting relatives! Teacher conferences and school programs! What is NOT happening this month?

Ten: Composing requires me to disengage from my life and take up temporary residence in 1920. I’ll tweak dialogue while driving Ashlyn to school or compose one of Carl Ahrens' clever insults while listening to Sasha talk about her day. Something as benign as a phone ringing can shatter my focus. My family all know I’m not “entirely here” when I’m working. It’s mentally exhausting to live trapped between centuries. If I spent a month moving directly from one chapter to another without emotionally decompressing, the men in white coats would come to cart me away by the end.

I have nothing but respect for all the writers who have committed to NaNo. I’m thrilled for the participants who post updates on the Writer Unboxed forum on Facebook. I read your posts, I cheer you on, and then tap into your creative energy to plod along on my own manuscript. My word count at the end of the day might be one zero less than the 2500 or so average I see others composing, but it is still forward progress. I am content.

How about you? Are you participating in NaNo or have you in the past? We’d love to hear your experiences.

NaNoWriMo, the month that was and is no longer

By Julie

Like the leaves from the tree in the photo on your left, November is gone. December is upon us, and for several of us at What Women Write, that means a huge sigh of relief.

At the beginning of the month, Pamela wrote of how as a group, we'd decided to make some writing goals in honor of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, as it's affectionately called. Or NaNo, as it's sometimes not so affectionately called when the weariness sets in.

We thought we'd do a wrap up and weigh in now that it's over.

You heard from Kim last week.

Kim talked about her writing process and how a marathon to write a massive, untamed number of words over the course of a month would have completely messed with not only her mind, but her fictional account of her great-grandfather's life. Nonetheless, we also saw how the group dynamic she experienced at our retreat contributed to a productive month for her, even in the midst of sick children AND animals plus holiday travel.

You also heard from Joan.

She started out with good intentions of completing thirty thousand words on her work in progress, but quickly found that it wouldn't work to do it that way, and a new story wiggled into her brain and didn't let go. In a little more than two weeks, she managed to write more than fifteen thousand words on a brand new idea, one she hadn't spent time brainstorming or outlining at all. Then, she decided it was time to lay the pen aside for the holiday weekend and spend time in the real world, not always easy for us introverted writer types. Word on the street is she had a lot of fun.

Susan says:

I wrote about 7,000 words, and focused on my NaNo goal for about, hmmm, 24 hours. Then life got in the way. In addition, since I wasn't starting a new project and wasn't really following the rules of the challenge, I felt a little freer in creating my own rules, which meant a slightly more structured, but still chaotic, writing life. Overall, November was a very good writing month for me, especially because of our writing retreat – I left rejuvenated about my work and what I was trying to put to paper.

As far as NaNo or NaNot? I'm not on either side of the fence. I can see great advantages if your full-time work is writing, but I can also see how upending your apple cart by attempting to completely change your style can be a detriment. I just say, stay focused and push forward at whatever pace works for you. To those who completed 30,000 to 50,000 words last month? Wonderful job! Keep writing!

And our fearless leader, Pamela, who reserved our retreat space, organized the food, made room assignments, loaded most of us up and chauffeured us, and overall made it a great writing weekend, says:

I didn't really do NaNo in the true sense of the movement. I did take a renewed look at my WIP, set about embracing the story and got better organized with it. All that is a round-about way of saying that I didn't accomplish much in November. :) Though I did take another look at polishing a completed project (along with Joan), and that edit will be completed by week's end. Plus, I managed to keep up with my job. So, hard to complain.

As for me, Julie, my own original goal was to add fifty thousand words to my work in progress, a kind of modified NaNo goal, as the "rules" call for a brand new project.

Two years ago, I set a goal of adding forty thousand words to "finish" a manuscript. Imagine my surprise when I made that goal, only to discover over the next several months that it took another thirty-five thousand or so to really finish it. But I would never have made it to "the end" had I not written the 40K, because those are words I mostly kept – much of the earlier stuff eventually got cut. I truly found the heart of my story that month.

This year, I figured I should up my goal and see where the challenge took me. It soon became clear, though, that 50K would exceed the pace that kept me sane and produced material I wasn't ashamed to read again. I wasn't embarrassed to revise my goal down to forty thousand, telling myself it was kind of like the offering goals they used to post in the country churches I attended at various times in my life – the "Praise the Lord" goal and the "Hallelujah" goal. Had I met the 50K hallelujah goal, I probably would have then proceeded to collapse on the floor for the entire month of December.

I'm happy to report, however, that I squeaked in with 40,253 words at 11:50 p.m. Monday night and am still quite alert.

It wasn't an easy month. Not by a long shot. My final writer identity crisis came in the very last weekend, after the turkey and dressing had been cleared away. My brave husband wouldn't let me give up. He spent time with me Saturday evening brainstorming the story I'm writing, helping me to see it is an important story with a universal message. I'd pretty much declared it worthless and insignificant after struggling to write day after day and being sick to death of it, and that bothered me more than I care to admit.

When I took Barbara (Samuel) O'Neal's Voice Two class a few years ago, it became clear how important it was to me to identify topics that go beyond entertainment and address subjects that challenge readers – ones that get people talking. I am so grateful to my husband for that pep talk and not letting me quit.

My plan now is to let those 40K words "set a while." They'll simmer and stew while I finish deep editing my last story and begin pestering agents with it again. My next goal is to add perhaps another ten thousand words or so to it this month and then maybe even try another marathon of sorts in January and February to complete a rough draft.

And now for a drum roll, please!

Big, huge accolades go to Elizabeth, our solitary "winner" in the true spirit of NaNoWriMo.

She signed up on the site, followed the rules to a T, and clocked in on time for her final count. After watching her work like a speed demon at our retreat, none of us were surprised to see this message to the group early Monday morning:

And . . . 50,928! I'm done!

Elizabeth went on to say:

I found a novel I really like after all, and now I'm far enough in to quit the ridiculous waffling I've been mired in since summer (or earlier) and so I'm going to finish this dang book, and if I don't get an agent with the queries I've got going, then I'll query this come spring or whenever it's done.

We couldn't be prouder of Elizabeth for putting her mind to this task and getting it done. Not only that, but her nine-year-old daughter met and exceeded her own NaNo for Kids goal and plans to continue and finish her story and self-publish it on Lulu.

The way I see it, with a little guesstimating, the members of What Women Write tallied up well over 115,000 new words this month, not to mention a wealth of new knowledge about how we write and how far we can push ourselves.

And that's no little feat.

What about you, readers? Anyone else care to share about their November goals and results? Please weigh in with a comment!

NaNo is NaNot for Me

By Kim

Pamela, Julie, Elizabeth and Susan have all blogged recently about NaNo (short for National Novel Writing Month). Most have not committed to the full 50,000 words, of course, but they have all made ambitious word count goals and are well on their way to meeting them. Even Joan, who has not publicly weighed in on NaNo, has her own private goal and diligently worked toward it on our recent writing retreat near Glen Rose, Texas.

When Julie, Pamela and Joan brought up the idea of doing NaNo as a group, perhaps even posting daily word counts on our blog to hold ourselves accountable, my first instinct was panic. The Bullock household was on the tail end of our own private Swine Flu epidemic, the cats had ringworm, the dog had intermittent bouts of explosive diarrhea from raiding the kitty litter, my husband’s travel schedule was insane, we would be out of town for a week, and then, of course, there is the issue of my office. I produced maybe five thousand words worth keeping in October. NaNo purists would jump on my phrase ‘worth keeping’ and tell me that’s the crux of my problem. NaNo is not about achieving perfection, but about forcing yourself to forge ahead even if the words that came before are nothing but literary vomit.

I’ve written a polished novel in three months before, so it’s not that I can’t produce words quickly. It took me a grand total of ten minutes to compose a 525 word excuse about why NaNo was NaNot for me. Here are some of the highlights (with a few extras added in for good measure):

One: I would kill myself writing 50,000 words in a month only to spend the six months after that completely rewriting 49,999 of them. Twice. I’d have plenty of time to do it because my family would no longer be speaking to me.

Two: You are supposed to start a new project for NaNo. I would rather hack off my own arm than abandon a story I’ve lived and breathed for the last three years.

Three: Have I mentioned my office?

Four: Everyone in my family expects to eat and have clean clothes to wear.

Five: NaNo works well for those writers who like to write first and edit later. I write like a painter paints – in layers. Start with a sketch, add a wash or two, build up details here and there, etc. If the composition as a whole doesn’t work, I’m not going to waste my time crafting a scene that will only be cut when I address the bigger issues.

Six: My protagonists are both artists, so writing like a painter paints can only be a good thing. My ‘comfort zone’ works splendidly for this project.

Seven: The Oak Lovers is, essentially, a true life novel. Research is on-going and I have no control over when new details will fall in my lap. Just two weeks ago I heard from a distant relative of Carl Ahrens’ first wife Emily, and the information and photos she possessed clearly spelled out a close relationship between Emily and Carl’s cousin, Eleanor. This completely changes the dynamic between Carl, Emily and Eleanor, which affects at least four early chapters and may come in to play later in the book. It must be fixed before I get there.

Eight: I have two small children. I don’t want the eldest asking me why I spend more time with my dead great-grandparents than with her.

Nine: Writing a chapter takes little time but requires me to disengage from my life and take up temporary residence in 1909. I’m tweaking dialogue while driving Ashlyn to school or composing one of Carl’s clever insults while listening to Sasha talk about her day. Something as disruptive as a phone ringing can make me lose focus for hours. Everyone who lives with me knows I’m not 'all here' when I’m working. It’s mentally exhausting to live trapped between centuries and I always go into it with a mild fear that I’ll be changed in some permanent way. If I spent a month moving directly from one chapter to another without emotionally decompressing, the men in white coats would come to cart me away by the end.

Ten: I have never experienced the kind of all consuming love Carl and Madonna felt for each other and I wouldn’t want to. It took nearly a year and dozens of drafts of the early chapters before I learned how to mentally fall in love with one or the other of them for every scene. I’ve fallen for characters before, of course, but not ones who were real people. It’s uncomfortable, not because their blood runs through my veins, oddly enough, but because the feelings come from someplace outside of me. They are an affliction as much as a gift, and I always feel a bit lost while under that spell.

I have nothing but respect for all the writers who have committed to NaNo. I’m thrilled for my blog partners and the satisfaction they receive from meeting their goals and breaking out of comfort zones. Do I wish I were among you? Not particularly. I’m perfectly content with the high quality 3,000 words I’ve tallied since November 1. I’ve written new material, and in the end I suppose that’s all that really matters.

NaNo or NaNot?

by Pamela

I can’t believe it’s already November. Seems just yesterday my kids were discussing what to be for Halloween. Now, with thoughts bending toward Christmas, it’s hard to think of shopping when it’s 70 and sunny today in north Texas.

Today is a perfect day to write.

Today is a perfect day to begin writing a novel.

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to write a novel, there are thousands of folks out there who can say, “It only takes a month.”

I wrote my first manuscript in a month. I let the idea marinate for more than a year, but once I committed to writing it, the story flowed and a month later I had about 70,000 words in a file. They weren’t all good words, but they were there. The editing process took a lot longer and now that story is tucked away after I realized that, not unlike parenting a first child, I had learned and made my mistakes on that one. And, even though I love it dearly (again, like my first child!), it probably isn’t meant to be published. (The first-child analogy stops here; mine turned out great in spite of my pitfall-parenting.)

A few weeks ago I posed this question to my fellow women writers of this blog: Who is doing NaNo? Julie, Joan and I had met for lunch, and Julie mentioned she was going to NaNo. Having successfully completed her goal of 40K on a manuscript two years ago, she was ready to NaNo again. Having unsuccessfully participated in it last year, I was ready to try again. Joan had not tried it (although having considered it) and decided she’d up her usual writing goal in the spirit of the event.

NaNo is short-shorthand for NaNoWriMo which is shorthand for National Novel Writing Month. According to the official Web site (NaNoWriMo.org), NaNo is a fun, write-on-the-fly approach to writing a novel. Participants start November 1 (see, you are already a day behind if you haven’t started) with the goal of completing a 175-page book or 50,000 words by November 30. It began in 1999 when Chris Baty and 20 others in the San Fransisco Bay area decided to band together and each write a novel. Ten years later, the idea has grown into quite a literary free-for-all.

The goal here is quantity over quality. You don’t edit as you go, which is something I struggle with. You give yourself permission to make mistakes, take risks and embrace your reckless side. Be uninhibited. Have fun. And take comfort in the fact that there are 150,000 other crazy people in more than 90 countries doing the same.

NaNo organizers track participants' progresses via their Web site (and list fun write-ins by area), predicting an 18 percent success rate. And if you need validation that good does come out of NaNo, look no further than Sara Gruen, whose NYT best-seller Water for Elephants began as a NaNoWriMo novel.

So, we at What Women Write are all participating on some level. I know Elizabeth has already weighed in this morning with her word count for yesterday: 1862! on a new story. My goal is to finish a manuscript I started some time ago but haven’t touched for months, other than to weave it into a short story. I have about 13,000 words, so I have set a goal of completing the story—however many words it takes. Joan is going to add to her WiP (work-in-progress) and so are Susan and Kim. Julie’s goal is adding 50K words to her current manuscript.

Whenever you commit to putting words to paper, it’s more fun when you have support. Maybe you have a family member or friend who enthusiastically gives you positive reinforcement or offers a hug when the words just won’t flow. Support and encouragement can make a huge difference in your writing. If you don’t have a cheerleader or you don’t want anyone to know you are writing, finding online support via NaNo might just be what you need.

I know we’ll have a huge morale boost mid-stride when we all head to a cabin for our inaugural writing retreat. The six of us are going to hole-up for a long weekend of writing. We’ll keep you posted on our progress.

How about you…are you on board for NaNo or some version of frenzied writing for November?