The Fountain Pen

It’s November and NaNoWriMo is in full swing. A co-worker of mine is participating for the first time this year, and chatting with him has given me occasion to reflect on writing, my process, NaNoWriMo, and why I’m not participating this year. To be honest there is a small part of me that wishes I was in amongst the crowd of people furiously pounding away at their keyboards desperately trying to keep their word count up so they don’t fall too far behind. I loved the sense of camaraderie, knowing that you are not alone, and that people are there to cheer you on. In looking back at the two times I did NaNoWriMo I have a few things I can say I learned.

A Rough Draft is Important

I don’t know when or why I decided that I was too good for a rough draft, but it was somewhere during my school years, probably sixth grade which was the first year I can remember actually getting to write short stories for our English classes. One thing that NaNoWriMo helped me see is the value of having a rough draft. Due to the relentless pace most of what I had to write was below my standards, but I needed the word count, so I was happy to prattle on and on about the most stupid stuff, just because it got me closer to my goal. I knew I was going to have to edit it out later, and I would make notes in the margins to that effect. But something happened that I did not expect.

Somewhere along the way my mediocre prose started showing promise. That wasted conversation that I thought was good dialog only insofar as it was extra words, suddenly turned into character development. My story started having a stronger structure to it and a greater sense of depth due to the all the other silly things I was adding in. The dialog was still too verbose, and I still had to remove the kitchen sink during editing (which I’m sure I’ll get to one of these days) but forcing myself to write things I would have normally rejected before writing allowed me to see the promise and potential I would have otherwise prematurely aborted. It’s easier to cut things out of a rough draft than to insert new things.

My Inner Critic is My Enemy (sometimes)

I am a perfectionist’s perfectionist. I wish that were mere boasting. Some years ago I took a personality profile (the DISC Profile) and among other metrics it will ascribe three adjectives and mine were “perfectionist”, “perfectionist”, and “perfectionist” (this compared to another guy taking the test with me only had one of his come up “perfectionist”; lucky guy). Some people have hailed it as a blessing, and I see their point, I on the other hand am intimately familiar with how much it is a curse, especially when it comes to writing.

I have this critical voice inside me analyzing everything I do, say, and think, and that works against any kind of a rough draft process. I’m usually editing while I’m writing, which worked great all through school, because you can do that with essays and research papers; writing fiction is different. Rather than write about what already exists, or make a logical argument for a particular philosophical position, fiction is a work of creation. I spend my professional day writing code, and it too has aspects of creation to it, but the main difference is I have been trained to accept that refactoring code is an acceptable practice. Somehow my inner critic remains silent while I’m writing code, and is satisfied with writing a draft copy and then to iteratively revise it.

I am finding that while my inner critic will motivate me to make sure my writing is the best it can be, there is a time and a place for it, and the rough draft is the wrong time and place. The same holds true for the brainstorming and outlining processes, and I am trying to convince myself that the rough draft is just an extension of that process.

I Need Structure

Despite my need to quell my inner critic I cannot escape the fact that I need structure to my stories. The first time I did NaNoWriMo I had a detailed outline. I had six pages of plot points one after another, in an outline format, each one taking up no more than one line. I never got through the entire outline because there are probably three books in that one outline, however, when it came time to write I knew exactly what I wanted to happen, in what order, and I had a clue as to why. The second time I participated I drew up a looser outline and got stuck after just a few days, and I only wrote 13,000 words. I got stuck and I’m still stuck with the story.

I’m finding that even with the short stories I write that if I do not have a clear picture of how the story unfolds I get stuck in a hurry. I used to think I struggled with the plot and finding good plot points, but now I think it’s more that I’m working against my natural tendencies. When I do any programing I have some kind of an outline document or project specification that I go by, and all the architecture is done there; all the hard questions, all the little details, all the bugs and assumptions are thought through first before I even start programming. It works wonders for me with programming, and I’ve come to accept that I need the same level of detail when it comes to writing fiction.

This doesn’t mean I don’t give myself the freedom to write an impromptu story without much more thought than a brief exchange with a buddy over IM, but it does mean I will be less frustrated with my stories and make better progress if I first know where I intend to go, with whom, why, when, and how. I don’t have to follow the plan exactly, but having one at least gives me something to start with.

Relax and Enjoy

When I am frustrated I can’t be creative. If I am stressed or anxious my creativity cramps up and nothing happens; I’ll fight the story, I’ll fight with the characters, and nothing will feel natural. I’ll only write a few words and end up discouraged. Conversely when I am relaxed I have found that the words flow without effort and I can easily double my word count; not only am I more productive but I’m happier with what I write and I’m less likely to want to attack it with a red pen. I’m still trying to figure out how to pull this off consistently, but more than anything else it’s an attitude. Either I decide to enjoy the process of writing and see where it takes me, or let myself get frustrated and give up.

The reality is bad days happen. They are not a reason to give up, instead I should adjust my expectations of what I’ll get done, and spend more time trying to figure out how to unwind and then re-start. I found that it was important for my momentum to at least do something on the bad days, but it was more important that I let myself have a bad day and then do whatever was necessary to have a better day next time. In the end perseverance paid off, and if I worked at it I could spend more time relaxed while writing then uptight; it is oxymoronic but I have found I do have to work at relaxing, but the creative benefits are tremendous.

Creativity Begets Creativity

I’m still not sure how it works out, but I have noticed that when I engage in a creative process it sparks ideas and inspiration along the same vein and suddenly I have an overabundance of things I’m excited to work on. It has held true when I try my hand at graphic arts, game design, and at writing. If I just get out and write, even if it’s less than mediocre prose, I’ll often get hit with all kinds of inspiration for stories, more than when I just sit and brainstorm for ideas. This is one thing that makes doing NaNoWriMo worthwhile, for if in writing for one month solid I can also fill a notebook with story seeds I will have gained something I could not otherwise possess.

In the years since I have done NaNoWriMo I have not always had an idea that I thought was worth pursuing, and yet during NaNoWriMo I was constantly fighting with myself to stay with the story I was working on and just make notes on the other stories that kept invading my brain. What I learned, and forgot, is that during the dry spells I need to just write, even if it is an exercise or a disposable story; doing so I will often come up with a better idea I will be excited about and then I can work on that. In order to write I must write.

Create a Writing Habit

NaNoWriMo taught me a lot about myself as a writer. More than anything else I think that is the biggest gain from the process. Even if you will never make it to 50,000 words fight through to the end and see how far you get. The best thing you can do is get it done, keep some notes about how it is working out for you, or how it is not, and regroup later to figure out how you write. There is one thing, though, that NaNoWriMo cannot teach me, and this is the main reason why I am not participating this year.

My first attempt was in 2004 and I’ve not yet finished the full rough draft of that story. I hit the 50,000 word goal, but I still have more than half of my outline left. I was so tired of writing that I took a few weeks off, then a few weeks turned into months, and then when I did want to get back to it I forgot where I left off. One day I hope to return to the story and finish the draft, and then edit the beast. The pace NaNoWriMo set is not a reasonable pace for me. Sure I can write more than 2,000 words in a day; I just wrote a 2,300 word short story, on a whim, all in one day, and had it complete before my daughter woke up from her nap. But the main issue is one of time and priorities.

I have a few important responsibilities in my life, and they will always take precedence, and I cannot always make time for a two hour writing session. I need to establish a more long-term writing habit. I still don’t know what that will look like, and I’m toying with things here and there. I doubt writing only one night a week will keep things fresh in my mind, but I know I probably cannot commit to an hour a day. This is the biggest weakness in me as a writer right now. I do not make the time for it, and while I can convince the people around me to cut me some slack for a month while I try to write a novel, I cannot do that every month indefinitely. Once that problem is solved maybe I will once again join the frenzied fray of frantic fiction folks flinging furious fingers for fun.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I was lucky last night; at least that is how I look at it. My wife’s car needed some work done on it, so we took it over to my parent’s place as it is better suited for work (our drive way is sloped, and I’d rather not trust an emergency brake with my life). I knew last night would be a hard night for writing; my parents are friendly people and we get along well enough that we usually miss our intended departure because we are engaged in conversation. Last night was not much different, with the exception of my ability to show off my writing software to my mother (who writes), and that they left me alone for about an hour so I could try to hack out something, and that is where I got lucky.

I dodged a bullet, but it grazed me. My writing time was divided last night. I planned my story some on the way to my parent’s house, spent some time writing while I was there (thank goodness I have some really good headphones), and had to wait until I was in bed before I could pick up again. I have never worked in such spurts, and I felt certain I would fail to meet either of my goals (either 2,000 words for the night or 6,000 words total). I don’t know how I did it, and I am a little proud of myself, but I managed to make it to 6,000 words before I went to sleep; I was grazed by that bullet in that I worked longer than I should have and did not finish until Midnight (I am drinking tea this morning!).

Characters

I ran into an interesting situation last night, one I am not sure how readers (or editors) will react. I hope that I can state, without sounding mentally ill, that I talk to myself from time-to-time. My main characters takes after me in this regard and is one who would think things through by having a mental dialog with himself. The quandary lies with showing the reader the thought process of my protagonist without sounding too awkward. There are times that I will just narrate that he thought of something, but as I found last night, it seemed completely uninteresting to just state that, so I decided to have my character spill his thoughts upon the page in a sort of dialog with himself. This is one thing I have not heard anything about from other authors or from writing teachers, and I cannot recall reading anything similar either. I could be violating some “rule”, but I decided it is far more interesting to show my audience (will I actually have one I wonder?) what is going on in the troubled mind of my character rather than just tell them his mind is troubled. (If you’d like to chime in your opinion on this, feel free to leave a comment.)

Tense

One thing I recall I have been instructed on over and over again is to maintain a consistent tense. I should not interweave past, present, and future tenses in the same scene, or so I am told, and I fear that is one of my weaknesses. As I was writing last night I realized I most probably have mixed my tenses as I have been attempting to close my first chapter (I almost pity my readers, for my first chapter will probably be around 8,000 words). I know that I will need to carefully re-read my story, when I am done, and fix this little mess I am leaving for myself. I could try to catch it as I write, but I think I’d rather get my word count done than spend time making sure my grammar and my structure are sound. No one said I need to have a finished ready-to-publish “novel” by the end of November, just 50,000 words. :)

One last thing, I managed to come up with a “side” quest help fill in that early hole I was facing. Since I did not reach it yet and I have begun to fill it in I am quite happy!

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I could not let myself go to sleep so close to my goal, so I managed to punch out 400 more words and actually hit my 2,000 word mark! It was a good feeling, but not great; great would have been three or four thousand words. I was too tired last night to properly think through my first attempt, my first leg of my month-long journey, but this morning I hope to capture the few things that ran through my head.

Word Count

I was surprised to find I took me ninety minutes to get the first 1,000 words, but only forty-five minutes for the second 1,000 words. In the first hour I only managed 600 words! The start was much harder than I thought, and at first I wanted to attribute it to my general fatigue. I was tired enough to go to bed when I got home … 4 hours early! As I was plodding along (that is the word for it, plodding) I began to realize I have a hard task in front of me regarding the first chapter. My outline and my desire forces me to establish quite a few details. Plans I have for the middle of the book have their genesis in the first scenes, thus I found myself carefully considering the mood, the setting, and the message I was communicating. It was no wonder things were going slow.

Regarding my outline, I completed the first two points, and may have covered enough of the third to consider it done. I had no expectations regarding the amount of words I would consume for each point, but if I only manage 1,000 words per point, I will not make it, as I do not have 50 points. Either I will need to add points or I will need to elaborate more on each point (without burdening the reader of course).

Perseverance

I in no way felt like writing last night, yet I knew I had no option; I did not want to start today 1,700 words behind. This caused me to force myself into putting something down, even if I don’t like it (actually, I didn’t do that, instead I edited phrases as I went). The advantage here is I managed to get 2,000 words done, even when I did not feel like writing. I count this an accomplishment, for when I do feel like writing I will hopefully increase my productivity, and when I do not feel like writing I know I can still produce something (and in the case of yesterday’s work I don’t feel like I need to much revision).

Tonight is my local kick-off party, and while I will be two hours late I still hope to go. Hopefully I will meet some friendly people and still be able to hammer out a couple thousand words. I am not the only author to write in the fantasy genre in my region, so it might be even more fun. Here’s hoping I keep on track. I had a decent start, now I need to continue it for 29 more days.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was only this morning that I realized why my plots have failed, up until this point that is. I usually start out with an idea, then I start adding to the idea, and I start answering some questions about the idea (so I can better fill it out). Somewhere along the way I don’t like what I see, and I scrap the entire plot and start all over again, meaning I lost time. This almost happened last night, but due to not having time to play around with a plot I ignored the part I did not like, and low-and-behold I made some additions and an adjustment and now I really like the plot!

Specifically, the hero of my tale would set forth to retrieve The Package for his master. On the return journey the hero will find out The Master will use The Package for evil ends. I had set the hero to take The Package and flee to another kingdom thereby securing peace for a time. Yuck. I was not liking it, and I could not figure out why The Package (who is human) would go along with this in the first place. Then it struck me. The Package, through circumstance, will have no choice but to flee, for his life. The hero will take The Package to another kingdom, and from there The Master will be defeated.

It took me until this morning to realize the import of this. I should not throw away my plots because I do not like them. There was a time that I was not happy with the end, nor with The Package, and those were two rather large pieces of my plot. Without The Package there is no quest, no quest means no story. Instead I was able to add a new ending (my original “ending” is there, but it no longer ends the tale) and give a better purpose for The Package. It is my hope that in the future, when I work on plots, I will remain calm when I do not like something and come back to it later. In this case it worked great!

Maybe a little pressure, a deadline, actually will help me.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)