NaNoWriMo Update 1

I probably shouldn't say this so early, but hitting the quota for National Novel Writing Month today was easy.  It took less than an hour and a half.  That'll be tough to carve out on my busiest days, for sure, but the fact that this is about output and not quality is really very freeing.  (To see the current total, look to your right where the tracker is to keep me honest.)

To some extent, these blogs (one post a day spread among 4 different blogs) are also an experiment in output, but they were more about any daily output, not 1667 words of it.  And it's only really this year that I've started to be more consistent with the daily part.  (I admit I do cheat sometimes since Blogger fixed the scheduling feature, so I can designate a time I want it to say it was posted, so it doesn't look like I did three posts on the same day after getting behind, but I think I've kept it in the same month, and you will notice a regularity there.)  Maybe I needed 3 years of fiddling with that to get into enough of a habit to be able to make NaNoWriMo work for me.

Extensive planning is allowed, and maybe such activities would have helped me focus better and have some themes and chapter divisions already picked out that I could write towards, but my decision to participate was somewhat last minute, and I didn't want to try to cram all that thinking into a short time and set myself up for disappointment.  I sensibly decided to settle for some free-writing to get some topics and ideas down.  On October 31st, I did enough brainstorming to make this some sort of bloated epic.  (I'll settle for hitting the goal of 50,000 related words.)  Now I don't even have to strain to come up with the topic for the day's "chapter."

The result will be a lot of haphazard info dumped onto pages without any thought for novel structure and final form.  According to the rules, that's okay.  Yay rules! 

In conclusion, it looks like my results will be about what I predicted, the kind of kitchen sink draft my essay professor and my fiction professor suggested as an exercise in completing something all in a set time and worrying about editing it later once I saw what kind of story and themes naturally shaped themselves in the drafted material.  I may even hold off trying to dump it all into the computer until the end (or until my hand gives out) to prevent the urge to edit/tinker.  This might mean I won't be able to upload the scrambled novel and get the official completion badge, but I can live with that, if need be.  If I succeed, I'll know, and you'll know, and that's probably enough for a first try.

Just testing whether the looming specter of personal humiliation is a reliable muse

Some advice I liked from the NaNoWriMo website.

2) Do not edit as you go. Editing is for December and beyond. Think of November as an experiment in pure output. Even if it’s hard at first, leave ugly prose and poorly written passages on the page to be cleaned up later. Your inner editor will be very grumpy about this, but your inner editor is a nitpicky jerk who foolishly believes that it is possible to write a brilliant first draft if you write it slowly enough. It isn’t. Every book you’ve ever loved started out as a beautifully flawed first draft. In November, embrace imperfection and see where it takes you.

Except for Joseph Conrad's novels.  He only ever wrote one draft.  Maybe this is why so many of his works are so perfectly depressing.

3) Tell everyone you know that you’re writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who’ve had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.

Hey, everyone, I'm writing a "novel" as defined by NaNoWriMo this November.  Don't write to ask how it's going because I probably won't answer your email, and then I will feel guilty about this.  : )  I'll post updates here.  See you then.

National Novel Writing Month - possibly a lovely birthday gift

I think I'm going to try it this year.  In preparation, I asked friends for suggestions for good books to read that have voices I can learn from for the kind of book I'm considering writing, and I've been reading them.  I hope to get through several more this weekend while also trying to get ahead for blogging, since it will be second priority to this sustained effort in November.  (I really need to start getting realistic about my abilities and energy reserves one of these days.)  Anyway, I already have a title, which for me is one of the hardest things to come up with for a piece of writing.

Last year, I might have done it, but in August of 2011, I smashed the tip of one of my fingers on my writing hand, and the nerve and fingertip were still very angry at me in November.  (And continued to be so until 6 months later in May, when I could finally type without pain again).  Now the nerve is just slightly miffed, and I am not teaching on top of my regular full-time job, so I think I (and my trusty companion prescription-strength ibuprofen) can mechanically make this work.  (Voice recognition software stands ready to hear me read in what I've written--likely by hand, since that only irritates one hand while typing angers both hands.) 

The last post(s) I write for this month (probably posted early next month will likely be when I force myself to look at each book I read in prep and figure out what I might be able to learn/thieve/borrow from each.  If I don't make myself stop and reflect, I'll just tear through them at speed.  While this strategy is a good one to get more voices into my head, so I can have lots of voices to guide me/choose from as I write, there needs to be something intentional in the mix, too.  Wish me luck on translating that all into a novel in one month.  : )

I think it's kind of a lie to call it a novel, even.  I really just plan to write short stories/chapters/vignettes without really caring if they will all fit the overall themes and without editing.  In the end, I hope to have a huge pile of stuff I can pick through and edit into something more coherent and unified.  Sound like a plan?  Anyone else who's always wanted to try it want to join me? 

Since the blogs are about discipline, I will still try to get my 8 posts a month, but if they are short or more erratic, it's because I consider the big writing to also be evidence of discipline.  : )  If the bloggings are slim in November, now you'll know why. 

Hindsight is 20/20, and I want to punch it in the face

Once upon a time, I fell on the ice on a sidewalk.  It was next to a part of a building that was for rent, and the owners didn't want to pay to have the parking lot lights on.  It was a cartoon fall, one second walking cautiously, the next hitting my back and head on the sidewalk and looking up at my feet in a, "How did those get up there?" sort of way.  From the ground I could see that the whole untreated sidewalk was a single sheet of ice.  (Isn't that always how it works.) 

Emergency room, nothing broken, physical therapy, trouble getting the bones and muscles to realign correctly.  Pain increasing in the hip.  No money for more PT.  No time.  No energy.   

I decided not to sue.  I was in pain from several injuries, working full time, attending school part time, fighting with the Federal Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, increasingly bad insomnia from the pain and nerve activity, and the resulting really poor judgment. 

Today the doctor said scary words like cartilage tear and flattening and overhang and arthritis and tests and injecting dye into the hip.  Now that I'm contemplating an MRI (not very well covered by my insurance) and (please God no) possibly surgery and recovery (also not well-covered) and my third story apartment and the huge layoff my company will be having next month, I want to go back and force myself to sue the building owners for negligence.  Now that I have a better job and have graduated from school and given up on OWCP, I could probably handle it.  Back then, I just couldn't, even though I should have.  I simply didn't have the energy or time to do the thing I should have.

Retrospect sucks.  Like a bog.

Why writing memoir is hard

I really admire people who can pull off a successful memoir (success = skillful execution) because I don't know how they do it.  I am long-winded by nature (I think in multi-volume, epic plots and can't do much with short stories to save my life).  It is extremely difficult for me to figure out how to take, say, a 450 page spiritual autobiography and turn it into a svelte 200 page memoir. 

How do you know when to start?  How do you know what to cut? And most importantly, how do you know when to end it?

". . . You're searching, Joe,
For things that don't exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings--there are no such things.
There are only middles."

-"In the Home Stretch" 

by Robert Frost

 

I read that and blessed dear departed Mr. Frost again.  He was amazing.  He puts things in words I've been wanting to say but can't until I stumble across a new (to me) poem.  Did he ever write a memoir?

Anyway, that quote explains the reason why it's so hard for me to write a good, succinct, complete memoir.  I don't feel like things ever end/stop in my life, and I'm not at the place yet where I can see enough of the bigger picture to see how to craft a stopping point that I am comfortable with (comfortable = no "if I leave that out, it feels dishonest" moments).  

 

I'm not sure where things begin, either, but that's a lesser concern because I feel like it's the ending I need to stick first.  All my other questions can be answered and addressed if only I know where the end is.  

 

Maybe this is some subtle form of procrastination, but I don't think so because anything that generates hundreds of pages is obviously not afraid to get work produced.  

 

Maybe this is why it's easier to write an autobiography when you are old (or have it written for you after you are dead).  Death is an ending it's hard to argue with.  However, I don't think it would solve the problem of knowing when to begin if you wanted a short work.  :)  Sigh.

Content to be in the middles, 

Tmia

Reading Tokyo Vice

And now for something completely different.  Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan

I'm reading Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein.  If you're interested in Japan or investigative journalism or organized crime or those who fight it, you might want to check this one out.  Adelstein is an American journalist who spent years in Japan reporting on crime.  Needless to say, in an insular place like Japan, this opportunity is kind of rare. 

The prelude section starts out with the yakuza threatening the author's life.  I'm particularly proud of the fact that I realized this particular organization is the one based out of the capital city of the prefecture my sister taught English in while she was living in Japan.  She didn't recommend visiting that area when we went to see her.  (She didn't want us to become statistics, and there were plenty of other wonderful places to visit that weren't infested with yakuza.)

Knowing that the author survives gives the book its own kind of tension.  Does he pursue this story mentioned in the prelude?  How does he not get killed?  What led him there?  What led him to later combat human trafficking? 

I've been interested in the topic of the justice system and the Japanese underworld pretty much since I read my first manga touching on it maybe six years ago.  I am intrigued by the lens Adelstein provides the opportunity to look through, and I'm looking forward to the insights into culture, justice systems, and humanity I gain through the book.  I just hope it doesn't get too gritty . . .


Do you know of any good nonfiction books about aspects of Japanese culture?  Do recommend.

To kill or not to kill

I am being a big, huge coward right now.  I am not only not writing a story I really want to write but am actively avoiding even thinking about it because someone in the story does something that is worthy only of death, and I just don't want him to die. 

It's not that he doesn't deserve it, and it's not that I feel sorry for him.  He's an adult who made his own choices, and he chose to betray everyone who loved him.  I just feel bad for the people who must pass judgement on him.  They are the ones most cruelly betrayed because they really love him.  To ask them to condemn and execute him is really hard on me.  (It's like that bit in Barrayar.)  But coming up with any other outcome seems fake and forced and thoroughly unfair. 

He doesn't want pardon; he wanted to betray everyone and then die.  It's not that he hated them.  He was mostly trying to get back at someone else entirely, but he had to go through them.  He's consumed by bitterness.  His revenge plot was thwarted (yes, I think he was relieved about that, but despair can warp you).  You can't leave dynamite like that sitting around for so many reasons both general and specific.  The only appropriate ending in this fantasy world is death.

But I still want pardon, somehow, or mercy or grace that isn't forced but flows organically from the plot, the story, the characters, the world.

I really need to just start writing and see what happens, but I'm afraid I know how this ends.


Have you ever read a book like that, where you start liking people and suspecting that things just won't end well, and you drag your feet reading it?

Graceling: a book that took self-control to stop reading

I just read Graceling by Kristin Cashore!  I am ecstatic!  I am on an adrenalin rush!  I want to go write something great right now!  I loved this book!

Some reasons why it's great:

• It's a standalone novel.  Yes, an entire story and world in one book!  I have no patience for series right now!  Bring on the standalone novels!
• There is action.  Much is kicked.  Fighting is integral to the plot and characters.  Hooray.
• The characters rock.  I love me some grouchy characters.  They tease each other.  You can tell they have known each other for long times.  They relate to each other like people.  I like them.
• It has a sweet, funny, heart-twisting romance.  Wow.  Just, wow.  (No, really.  Woooow.)
• My sister will like the ending.  Yes, I said it, ST!  You will not hate the ending!  (Maybe a little.)
• It's in great company.  In a spot on review, Publisher's Weekly said, "Tamora Pierce fans will embrace the take-charge heroine; there's also enough political intrigue to recommend it to readers of Megan Whalen Turner's Attolia trilogy."  PW is so right!  I love both of those authors for those reasons among others, and I found similar things to love here.  Now I want to go re-read Turner's stuff . . .

If I were looking for a good example of world-building and seamless, organic plotting, I could start right here.  Too often, characters behave in certain ways because of cliches and tropes that have been established in certain kinds of genre literature.  They don't act like people; they act like characters.  A great author can take those tropes and cliches and 2-dimensional characters and turn them around so that the very same actions/set-ups/character relationships have meaning and are integral to the plot and world, so that there are people populating the world, and they do things the way real people in the real world do. 

For example, sometimes you might find yourself rolling your eyes because the young, male character says something wise and tender beyond his years, and you think of the times you've seen that (so many times) in YA fantasy books or romance, and you get to thinking about those guys and how it doesn't work for those words to come out of their mouths because it's obvious they're present in the story to play that role of the wise, supportive male character who will help the female character become empowered (blah blah blah), and then you remember the circumstances the actual character you are reading about in Graceling grew up in, and of course he said that, of course he would say that and think that; it's who he is, and you know why, and it practically breaks your heart watching them interact. 

I'm explaining this badly.  You should probably just go read the book right now.

It's impressive.  For every cliche (meaningless action or set-up), the author negates its status as a tired, pointless device by showing you how it is a necessary part of this world and by revealing enough about the characters that you know things really would be this way if this world existed.  It's just wonderful. 

I am adding her to my list of authors I will read no matter what they come up with next.  (In this case, Fire!  Also a standalone but vaguely related to this world.)


Have you encountered any authors who made you excited like this lately?

How to begin an ending

I just finished reading a fantasy series that was firmly grounded in the real world, and at the end, I was crying.  I'm pretty sure I wasn't crying just because it turned into an alternate history series. 

Alternate history "What ifs" are difficult to pull off, and I think maybe the twist shouldn't have worked in this particular case because the series was so well-grounded in the time period, and it used foreshadowing and built momentum for the inevitable ending so thoroughly that I should have felt let down when history changed, but I didn't.  Instead, I felt a keen sense of loss because the alternate history the books ended on didn't happen in the real world, and I wish it had.  I look forward to rereading the whole series knowing the ending to see if that changes how I read as I go along. 

Some books and series don't have much reread value once you know the end; others do.  Sometimes it's because the writing is so excellent, the ending didn't really matter that much.  Sometimes the characters are so great, you just want to spend time with them again.  Sometimes, though, you read because the momentum of the plot propels you toward the ending, and once you reach it, that's all.  Now you know what happened and can go on with your life.

I've been observing this as I'm trying to figure out how to start a particular story.  In the end, someone dies, but it's not the person you spend most of the book thinking it will be.  In most western (genre) fiction, spoiling the ending means saying who dies or who did it in the beginning.  If you know that, why read the book? 

I've heard and viewed and read alternate arguments about Japanese storytelling (novels, anime, manga).  Knowing what happens in the next episode or at the end of the book doesn't matter to them; it doesn't spoil things, necessarily.  How things lead up to it are equally if not more important. 

I've been considering starting the novel with the end, partly in deference to my sister, who wants to know who makes it to the end so she can avoid getting attached to those who don't, but partly because I don't want to be accused of one of those crappy twist endings that irritate modern readers so much.  Other people argue that if I tell it well enough, it shouldn't really BE a surprise, but since I'm the sort of reader who never thinks ahead to try to figure things out, I would be surprised unless I'm so obvious about it that it's lame.  Sigh.


So, any books you really liked reading but will never read again because you know the end?  Any that have particularly great reread value even if (maybe because) you know the end?