Winner!!!

I did it! Tonight, at 9.10 PM on the last day of NaNoWriMo, with a mere 2 hours 50 mins to go before the cutoff time of 23:59, I uploaded my word doc, let the nanobots count it and got delivered to the Winner's Page where I collected a cool certificate! OH, and a dinky icon thingy to post here:

And this was after a major RL hiccup on Wednesday night, which meant I basically did NO writing at all from Wednesday afternoon to Friday early evening. Then I did the last 2900 words in about 2.5 hours ... and its a good feeling.

Now, of course, the real work starts. The second half of the novel needs to be written. Then the rest period followed by edits, rewrites, revisions etc. The fun part ... :-)

NaNo Write-In!

Today I joined a fellow Wrimo and we nano'ed away for a couple of hours ... broke for lunch - delicious homemade soup and fresh bread - then nano'ed some more ... it was FUN!! We got some good writing done but it was far too short.

Next year in November, I think we need an SA NaNo Weekend!!! :-))

And word count update: 43,734 with 5 days to go ...
Elle

NaNo Buddies and NaNo Winners.

One of the coolest things about the NaNoWriMo experience is that for one month - a full thirty days - you become a member of a very exclusive group of people. People who are, in one important aspect of life, Just Like You.

Writers. Wordfreaks and geeks. Storytellers, storylovers. People who understand when you say things that would make non-writers think you're ready for the nuthouse--or at the very least, overdue for a long vacation. Things like:

Yesterday I discovered that when Robert was six, he liked pulling the wings off butterflies.

or

Julia told me she just hates bread-and-butter pudding

or

Robert is simply refusing to fall in love with Julia. He wants to go hang out with Jane, and I don't even know yet who Jane is, except that she's a fat grade school teacher. What is he seeing in her that I don't know about yet?


This all sounds perfectly normal except for the minor detail that none of these people exist anywhere except within the confines of your mind. Then it becomes downright scary (to outsiders) and fascinatingly familiar (to insiders). And when you're doing NaNo, you have about 80 000 plus insiders ready, willing and able to share your fictional joys, sorrows and frustrations. And best of all, you don't have to explain yourself - they just know exactly what you mean when you moan about unco-operative main characters and annoyingly intrusive minor characters.

But the really, really BEST thing about NaNo is your personal group of Writing Buddies. The people you are most closely linked to and whose word counts you follow the way racing fans follow racing results. And today, I am proud to be able to share in the joy of my NaNo buddies who have reached the goal post - they have completed 50 000 words in LESS than a month.

Shirl hit 50K on Sunday morning (SA time) and Kelly also hit 50K on Sunday morning (EST time). Congrats and huge applause to both of them. :)) My other buddies are all hanging in there, astounding me with the awesomeness of their commitment despite things like houses full of guests, chemotherapy, broken hearts, and prolonged battles with the infernal internal editor!

Way to go, all my wrimos!

And my word count? 30,366 as of Sunday morning. I'm exactly on target - in fact, I'm about 360 words to the good!! :-)

NaNoWriMo 2007 Update

Two years ago (2005) on the third day of Nano, I posted that I was an Official NaNo Dropout. Last year (2006) I was in a black hole and didn't even register for it. Duh me! Today is day fifteen on NaNoWriMo 2007 and my word count is:

23, 327 words and counting ....

Woo hoo!! In two weeks!!! Unbelievable. I'm ecstatic. I'm enjoying it SO much this year, which is why I'm not blogging too much here or on my other blog. But I'll be back, sooner or later.

Til later!

Just a Quick Note!

Today is the eighth day of NaNoWriMo and praise be, I'm still in the running!

It's been both harder and easier than I imagined. Yesterday I wrote to a dear friend, who has been my stay and support through all my writing ups and downs over the last few years. Here's what I said to her (somewhat edited for brevity's sake!)

NaNo update: well, its quite amazing. Doing this has really changed something for me - not that I'm suddenly producing deathless prose at the drop of a hat, of course. But I can say this: (although with much trepidation, seeing as its only the sixth day of NaNo and I'm still writing in fits and starts, feeling my way forward very, very cautiously - and I'm behind the schedule - BUT at least I'm writing, which is more than has happened in a long while.)

As you know, whenever I've tried to start a new writing project in recent months, my first step has always been to create a story outline, then to try and make character sketches and only then to start writing, once I feel fully organized and in control. I spent ages on plotting, story-telling, character design, making notes and coming up with plot ideas etc. Well, you know exactly how far that has got me, lol!

On Sunday evening, I realized that at this point in NaNo, I didn't want to - in fact, I couldn't - do that anymore. In the actual NaNo writing, I've started letting the characters do the talking and acting and reacting and thinking ... so it felt like to now go and impose any kind of structure beyond the existing outline would actually arrest that process.

And I started remembering that THIS is what it felt like back in the day - back in the days of (Unpublished Novel No. One), and (Unpublished Novel No. Two). It was free-flowing, unstructured, coming from someplace I had no conscious control over, even though I still agonized over which words to use. I'd completely and utterly lost touch with that creative flow and NaNo has now become a process of finding that again. I have no idea if the voice I'm using is any good, or if it sounds stilted or true or artificial, or anything - but for better or worse, its me. My writing voice.

It's a wonderful and quite scary feeling... as in - will I be able to keep it up? When will I know if its any good? Aargh - all the usual writerly panicky things! ;-)

If anyone's interested in my progress, the link to my NaNo profile, which includes a regular update on my word count (right now it's 8998) plus links to my awesome NaNo writing buddies and occasional excerpts from the Opus itself, is HERE.

Paul Potts is my hero.

If a pudgy, gap-toothed cellphone salesman can make his dreams come true, then so can you. And so can I.

This shy guy, who says that singing is what he believes he was born to do, took his dreams and his heart in his hands when he entered 'Britain's Got Talent' in March 2007. He rocked the socks off everyone and walked off both the winner and the possessor of a recording contract. His first CD called One Chance was released on July 16th this year and hit the top of the charts on July 22nd.

Paul Potts. An ordinary hero. And my inspiration as NaNo draws near.... :-)

Oh My Gosh!

This morning I was browsing the NaNo forums and wondered when the Cape Town kick-off party was being held. Found the thread, found the place, found the date and time and thought: Hmm ..... 28th October, when is that?

"What's today's date, guys?"

"Um, the 26th Mom."

YIKES!!

That means the kick-off is this Sunday and NaNo itself starts ... *gasp, faint* ... next week on Thursday.

It was a shock. For some reason, I was drifting along thinking I had a few weeks still to go - and now I find there are only SIX DAYS left, if you count today!

I have GOT to get organized. :-)

Scrabbling for Words and Software.

I've been playing Scrabble since I was two bricks and a tickey high, as they say. And very seldom have I achieved that glory of all Scrabble glories - using all seven letters in one turn and scoring that additional 50 points! But last night, I did it. Not once, but TWICE. In a row. On my first and second turns!!

Woo hoo!

My first set of letters included IRESUE and a blank: REISSUE was the word.
Second time around included NRLARE and another blank, which led to LEARNERS.



Two very sad faces stared back at me over the board, but not for long. My kids are nothing if not triers! Later during the game, I got another two seven letter words - but there was simply nowhere to play COVETOUS and GRAVITON. Dang!! However, we played very happily all the way to the bitterly contested end of the game ... it was fun. And yes, I won but only thanks to my extra 100 points!! :-)

Final Scores: Me: 240, Son: 159, Daughter: 156

And in other Nano news: yesterday a friend linked me to an amazing site where I downloaded some awesome free writing software called yWriter.

It looks really impressive so today I'm going to spend several hours organizing my Nano book into this software. Two things I really liked at first glance are the fact that each scene carries labelled tags to help you remember the goal, conflict and resolution of each particular scene, not just for each chapter. This is very in line with the way I learned to write (as taught by gurus McKee and Swain) so that pleases me a lot. And second, there is a place within the software for character stuff.

The best thing about yWriter, as far as I can see, is that it organizes all your stuff into one place. At present, I have folders and folders full of different drafts, character work, outlines, notes, and attempts at chapters, and its a mission to remember where I put what and when, if I'm trying to track down something from way back when. You can import and export files with yWriter, so you don't have to retype anything to use it.

Features include: (from the website description)

Organise your novel using a 'project'.
Add files to the project, each containing a chapter.
Add a summary to each file, showing the scenes in each chapter.
Print out summary cards, showing the structure of your novel.
Display the word count for every file in the project, along with a total.
Saves a log file every day, showing words per file and the total. (Tracks your progress)
Saves automatic backups at user-specified intervals.
Allows multiple scenes within chapters
Viewpoint character, goal, conflict and outcome fields for each scene.
Storyboard view, a visual layout of your work.
Re-order scenes within chapters.
Move scenes from one chapter to another.
Automatic chapter renumbering.

Til later, Nano dudes! I'm off to play!

To Thine Own Self (And Thy Own Muse) Be True.

Browsing round the internet in search of a snappy quotation from which to extract a snappy title for my Opus In The Making (otherwise known as my NaNo book), I came across a site (blog) called Real Live Preacher. The beginning of an entry caught my eye:

"The Man In Black.

I saw him hitchhiking on the shoulder of the I-35 the other day. He was walking with his back to the traffic and his thumb stuck out......... He was wearing black, of course. So melodramatic. I had to laugh. "

I read the rest of this wonderful essay, which you can find HERE. It was terrific. A huge inspiration for NaNo writers everywhere - in fact for writers per se, never mind NaNo. Now, go read it first, please, because I want to muse (ha ha!) out loud on this essay and if you haven't read it yet, what I say might spoil it for you.

Back? Good.

Apart from the wonderful concept of meeting your muse/sender of dreams/voice of your unconscious/higher power or whatever, I loved the dialogue this guy writes. Dialogue is my weakest point writing-wise and I just adore great dialogue. And this particular interaction was so cool, so real and inspirational. Because in the book I'm planning for NaNo there's a character who plays a role that's sort of similar in some ways to The Man in Black (but not, he's both more and less than this guy). And I've been wrestling with a voice for this guy, trying to figure out how to present him so that he doesn't come over as preachy and too-good-to-be-true. So I'm bookmarking this post because I find here elements that I can use in developing this character.

I also found another blog this morning that made me laugh. It's called God's Blog: The Big Guy in the Sky and it's HERE. Very irreverent, but highly relevant - and sadly, updates very irregularly. But fun!

Now, off to do my daily NaNo prep writing. As many words as I can in an hour. Just to get into practice.

Yeah!!

Go Bokke!!!!!!!

We Interrupt This Blog To Bring You Breaking News ...





...but first you need to know that

1. I am NOT a sports fan
2. I am specifically not a RUGBY sports fan
3. I was born with a severe lack of patriotism. I could care less who South Africa plays against in the Whatever Nations Cup and Whichever Nations Trophy.

However!

There's a kind of madness abroad in South Africa today and against all odds, I'm getting infected with Rugby World Cup Fever. I can tell I'm infected because
1. I know the name of the match (just told you!)
2. I know where it's being played (Paris, France)
3. I know who it's being played against (the Brits) and I know when it's being played (tomorrow evening at 9pm South African time). These are things I am usually oblivious of until long after the event.

Rugby World Cup Fever has gripped South Africa. My daughter had a free 'civvies' day at school today - they dumped the uniform and all the middle schoolers were allowed to wear jeans and any kind of green/gold top they liked, green and gold being the colours of 'Die Bokke' (die Bokke being our boys - the Springboks). People have the green and gold rugby flag in their front windows, hanging on the back of their cars, draped over their shoulders as they walk through the malls. World cup chat is on the radio, television, the internet, in schools, businesses, shops - in fact it's everywhere today. Even the politician are getting in on the act - one of our smaller political parties arrived in parliament wearing rugby jerseys and tabled a motion to immediately congratulate the Springboks on all their successes to date. It was passed unanimously and the house erupted in cheers and good will.



And that's the most interesting thing of all: Rugby fever, unlike any other cause or concern facing this land today, is uniting South Africans. Even non-sporty, non-patriotic, busy-emigrating South Africans like me... I look at people in the streets with their flags and smiles and green-and-gold clothes and I feel a pride and a oneness that I've not experienced in a long long time.

Those are OUR BOYS out there!

Absurd, but there it is!! And when they win, I'll probably be out there screaming along with the rest of them:

Go Bokke!!!!!!

Dismantling the Writer's Block

The four main causes of writer's block, according to David Taylor, are:

1. Not being ready to write - is it a novel, a short story, a what? and what does that look like, what's its format like?

2. Being afraid to write - due to the sure and certain knowledge that you will never be JK Rowling or Billy Shakespeare; or due to previous humilating failure in some sphere of writing; or by fearing that although you managed in the past, the 'magic' is now gone.

3. Composing in your head - and this is probably the one I'm most guilty of! Coming up with a good thought and the most perfect way to express it right there and then! It's not really possible and yet, when I'm thinking-writing, that is exactly what I do, and when I can't find the perfect way to say it, I make the stupid assumption that 'it'll never work' and stop trying. Duh!! What should happen is this:

a. Prewrite - dream, research, read, think, compost, vegetate, think think think ....
b. Planning - also called outlining
c. Composing - this is the wonderful, messy, shitty-first draft stage! (Hello NaNoWriMo!)
d. Editing - this is when you turn it into prose that sings!
e.Proofing - and this is where you make sure it not only sings, but dances and juggles flaming torches as well!

4. Starting in the wrong place - and this is so close to 3 that I'll own it as well! That all-important first paragraph has stymied me more times than I care to admit. :-(

Now, on to the solutions (and thus some of what you can expect to see more of on this blog - if there's anyone reading it, of course!)

1. Freewrite - sit down and just type for a predetermined period of type - type anything at all, just keep the words flowing...
2. Copy other writer's work and flow from there
3. With research materials next to you, read them and use writing to explore them further - explain, speculate, relate, add to, explicate, argue with, rant ....
4. Write letters (I do this a LOT already, yay! go me!)
5. Write a dialogue about your writing project - ask and answer questions about the topic
6. Write invisibly - make your font white and just go for it!
7. Write about writing - about how you feel and why etc

And don't reread old pieces of writing (you might fear you'll never achieve those heights again); don't edit yesterday's work, and don't talk to anyone else about your writing - you end up all talked out with nothing written! And that has happened to me before today, so I know it to be true!!

And my BackSpace key is still just a hole on the laptop, but my clever clever son is going to apply some magic glue soon, so hopefully it'll be fixed soon!

Walking the Cat and other Procrastinatory Pursuits


Finally, this blog will have a real reason for being. :-) In November, the annual NaNoWriMO event takes place and together with my buddy Kells, I have signed up to participate. The goal is to write a 50K novel in 30 days ie around about 1600 words per day, on average. As organizer Chris Baty says, the trick is to forget about writing a bestseller and concentrate on producing prose that won't actually make anyone vomit!!

Hee hee hee!

The main problem here is that I've had a nasty case of writer's block for longer than I care to remember so I'm really not sure I can do it. BUT: today I found a site that addresses this issue - it's HERE.

There are many reasons for writer's block, which is defined as either being unable to start or finish a specific piece of writing - and my block falls into both categories. I have two novels 'almost completed'. I have another two novels that are about three chapters long. I have lots of ideas and thoughts and dreams floating around in my brain.

The trick over the next while is going to be to get my brain out of block mode and into writing mode. That's what this blog is going to be all about. I'll be using it to hammer out some of the unblocking exercises - these involve a lot of freewriting, copywriting, researchwriting, dialogue-writing and writing about writing itself, which is what THIS post is all about.

I have to interject here and say that the Backspace key on this laptop just fell off so each time I make a mistake I have to aim for the little bump in the middle of the Backspace space. Gotta get that fixed asap - it's driving me mad!!

Later, writing dudes! :-)