NaNo Update – I didn’t fool myself

When I wrote about starting Camp NaNoWriMo, I admitted that I was trying to trick myself into writing 50,000 words this month by not putting pressure on myself.

I’m not very smart. You can’t fool someone who knows the trick.

The plan was to start writing and see what happens, having no expectation of what I would produce in 50,000 words. I saw it as an exercise to get myself writing again, not as a way to produce a great novel. The trouble with making myself write, however, was that I found myself writing a story that’s been hiding in the back of my mind for the last couple of years.

Write What You Know

It’s the most common, and most controversial, piece of writing advice. I can’t say it’s something I generally follow, but every story I’ve written has had a piece of myself in it.

When I was younger, I had this obsession with individual stories, convinced that every person had a story to tell. To an extent, that’s true. We all have stories worth sharing over coffee, and then there are people with stories with having Leonardo Dicaprio running across a screen as us.

I’m not worthy of Leo. Or a female equivalent (I’d pick Anne Hathaway).

Then again, I’m young. I have plenty of time to hack into government files, start a revolution, or go on an extended crime spree. We’ll see on that part. For now, the best stories I have a lot like everyone else’s: They’re about relationships. I managed to hit all sorts in my early twenties – good, bad, healthy, unhealthy. Sometimes I wish I’d known someone who could relate. In reality, I probably did, but we don’t like to talk about the bad. We don’t like to admit the bad.

Plenty of books explore human relationships. I’m not pretending that what I have to contribute is new, but it’s human, and that’s what I want in a book about people.

The Challenges

My NaNoWriMo novel isn’t my story, but I’m listening to that old advice and writing about what I know. It sounds easier than I’m finding it, and every time I sit to write I find more challenges.

1. This isn’t a novel that I can write by dumping a large number of words on a page without a plan. I’ve dropped my word count goal signficantly. I feel okay doing this because Camp NaNoWriMo isn’t about writing a 50k word novel so much as it is about meeting a challenge.

2. The main character is not me. Megan is a work of fiction, but she certainly has some of my traits and as well as similar experiences. I’m finding myself worrying about every idea, afraid that anyone who reads it will either assume it’s about me, or that my friends/family will assume other characters are supposed to be them. It’s not. They aren’t.

3. She needs to make mistakes. This problem is similar to problem number 2. Megan will not make my mistakes, but it’s hard not to unload those mistakes on her. Similarly, some part of me keeps worrying that, again, a family member will read it and begin to worry about me, assuming Megan is me and that I made those mistakes.

In reality, these aren’t difficult challenges. I know that many writers, especially those who produce a lot of work, face them on a regular basis, and don’t even consider them struggles. The problem is, I’m not a writer. I’m a girl with a blog and a couple of novels she’s written tucked in a trunk in her bedroom. This is all very new to me, especially since most of my past work has been fantasy. It’s pretty easy to say, “Pssssh, she isn’t based on me. She can blow up trees with her brain. I’m not that cool.”

Continuing

Yes, I’m continuing. I should probably update my word count on the NaNo website… It hasn’t been the most inspiring place for me, so I haven’t rushed there every day. My goal now is more to see what I can produce with this novel this month. I want to write every day, as well as plan and develop every day. At the end of the month, I will probably set this story aside and go back to editing my last novel. I have the feeling this one will need to breathe awhile.

 

Camp NaNoWriMo – Or, A Fantastic Way to Lose Sleep for a Month

I’ve impulsively decided to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo this year, which is madness, so I’ll wish myself luck.

In case you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it stands for National Novel Writing Month, and is held in November each year. The goal is to write a 50k word novel in one month. The “camp” sessions have the same goal*, but take place during summer. I’m planning to join the session that begins July 1.

Now for the madness. I’ve successfully completed NaNoWriMo twice, and while I was quite happy with both novels, I never finished the editing process on either. Two years later, the second is now very close to being finished. It would probably be smarter to dedicate my brain to completing that, but who wants to be logical?

It’s also mad to try and jump in so soon. I don’t have much of a plan, which scares me a little. What if I run out of story too soon? What if I realize halfway through that it doesn’t make sense? Of course, not having a plan could also be a lot of fun. I can make my characters do whatever I want. Outline? What? Outlines are for sissies. It means I’ll spend more time thinking what to write each day than I would if I had an outline in front of me, but  I think it’ll be worth it. The last time I did NaNoWriMo I was in a similar boat, and I was happy with both the result and the experience.

The final reason this whole thing is madness is I’m going on my honeymoon in July. My husband fully supports me doing this, and while we’ll only be out of town for a few days, I still feel guilty that I’ll likely be taking up some of those days writing. He has assured me that I shouldn’t feel guilty, so I’ll do my darndest.

Is anyone else participating? Anyone else nervous? I know that getting through the first two weeks will be the toughest with my schedule, which is a little scary because the first week tends to be the easiest. Knowing that, I’ve decided not to get on myself too hard if I don’t complete the 50,000 word goal. I obviously want to complete it, but I don’t want to spend any part of our honeymoon stressed out.

(Basically, I’m trying to trick myself. If I don’t feel pressure, maybe I’ll speed right toward that goal. Don’t tell me about it. It’s a secret.)

Wish me luck!

 *The camp sessions actually allow you to change the word count goal, but it defaults to 50k. I’ve lowered my goal on the website to 40k to try and allow myself breathing room for that honeymoon, but the goal in my head will always be 50.

Iambic Pentawaaaaa?

Two years ago I decided to challenge myself during NaNoWriMo by writing a novel in a genre outside my norm. It’s the last real piece of fiction I wrote (and also the one I really, really should edit), and it’s my proudest. I don’t know that it’s my best, but I’m happy with what happened when I left my comfort zone. Last week I decided to give myself another such challenge: write a poem.

It doesn’t sound like such a challenge, but if you’d ever seen any of my attempts at poetry, you’d understand. I thought back to the last poem I was assigned to write in high school. We were asked to compose a Shakespearean sonnet, using the same number of syllables as everyone’s favorite Doctor Who character writer.

Thank God she didn’t require us to write that thing in iambic pentameter, I thought, recalling the pride of my classmates when they’d turned in their perfectly flowing sonnets. If someone told me I had to compose a sonnet in iambic pentameter or lose an arm, I think I’d pray they took the left.

Dramatization

As for my poem? I’m 90% certain mine had the right number of syllables.

If you don’t know what iambic pentameter is, it’s a rhythm frequently used in poetry, and Will was a big fan. It’s all based on the stress put on syllables. An iamb is the combination of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Add in the pentameter part and it’s a set of 5 such combinations. Here’s a really well known line of Will’s (From Sonnet 18):

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

But you pronounce it…

shall I comPARE thee TO  a SUMmers DAY?

Get it?

Good for you, because I barely do. Which makes my little challenge to myself quite frustrating. Please, no one take my arm. My problem is that I eventually start pronouncing everything oddly, and I eventually can’t remember how words are supposed to sound.

am I doING it RIGHT? ohKAY, how ABout NOW? yeah? NO?  i THINK i’m… NO, wait. BOOK worm PENguin TARtar SAUCE. words. DAMN you 9th grade ENGlish.

And now, my friends, you know why I haven’t posted this week. I think I broke my brain. I also remembered why 9th grade English was harder for me than any English course I took in college. We all have something we never quite got in school. Aside from half of what they tried to teach me about grammar, this was it for me. I think I’m going to keep trying anyway. If one line comes out well, then it’ll be an achievement. Where’s the fun in challenging myself if it’s not a challenge?

Wish me luck , my friends. And don’t worry. I’m not crazy enough to threaten myself with bodily injury.

The Journal Saga (or The Incredibly Detailed Life Story of the Average Person – Me)

Out of the Well recently posed a question to readers: What is the value of keeping a journal?

The purpose of my journal has changed with almost every phase of my life. My earliest journal existed because diary-style fiction was popular for young girls at the time. An earlier version of myself fantasized about falling into some grand adventure and leaving behind a marvelous journal detailing the excitement for posterity (though I certainly could not have used that word at the time).

As an early teen, my journal existed to hold my loneliness. Friends weren’t a common commodity for the awkward girl who walked around with her head down and arms crossed all the time, but a journal would listen to her ever-so important rants, her questions about boys and fantasies about living a fairy-tale.

In high school, I journaled for release. I could complain and say all of the horrible, scared, mean things that ever crept through my mind, just to get them out and away. My fear of someone getting a hold of that side of me was so strong that I carried it everywhere – class to class, room to room. Though it contained some happy memories, that journal existed to help me deal with some of the anger and confusion that comes naturally at that age.

Its purpose once again changed with the next phase of my education. The college journal held not only personal words, but it existed as a creative outlet as well. Until then, I had always kept creative writing in separate notebooks, but combining the two had a drastic impact on my writing. I like to think that my personal recollections became more creative, and my writing more personal.

Now that I’ve settled into life and a career, my journal has become the constant that it was in high school again. It’s gone from the bulky thing sitting on top of my stack of textbooks to a sleek notebook kept inside my purse. It lets me hide away the grievances that I’m not yet ready to share. It’s a record of my life and relationships, holding everything from details about my wedding day to last week’s grocery list.

Through those phases of life, and all the phases to come, I do not think my journal was ever a complete reflection of myself, but it’s certainly been more than words and poor drawings. Rather, the journal’s purpose has been to house whatever I’ve needed to process or remember, the very best, and very worst of me. I still have them all.

Well, except one. One journal that went into a fire 3 years ago. I never worried I’d regret it, and I still do not. So often, my journal existed as therapy, and in that one case, I went through something bad enough that it was therapeutic to see the memories turn to flames. It’s not something I would ever recommend to anyone else, and this isn’t the time to explain what happened to cause it. What’s worth noting is that while I value every journal I’ve written and enjoy flipping through their pages on occasion, some are still not pleasant to read. I guess that’s what I meant by the worst of me. It’s not just my best and worst traits held in those books, but the best and worst experiences as well.

Okay, and some really bad drawings.

Because pictures are always better…

A friend for my early teenage self

Below is a picture of my journal from sometime in middle school. I have no idea what this entry was about, but in case you were wondering, I still cannot do the Electric Slide.

True Love as a young teen – the kind that can last 2 weeks without the other party’s knowledge

A place to process

I remember being young and thinking it’d be really awesome and dramatic if it looked like there were tear stains on a diary page. Since I couldn’t muster up any tears, I sprinkled the page with water. I remember thinking about that, and that tear stains were not, in fact, awesome and cool, when I wrote the entry below and found myself crying through it. Confession: when I flipped through my old journal and spotted this picture, I started to tear up. I’m not sure of a better way to define the value of journaling than those tears.

This was high school. Notice the handwriting didn’t improve at all since the picture above…

At some point in my youth, I thought it’d be really dramatic to have tear stains on a journal, and I’m pretty sure I faked them on an entry. I couldn’t find the original, but here’s the first time the tear stains were real.

And a for happy thoughts as well

Another high school (maybe early college? I should have looked at the date) picture, that I took entirely because I saw the Avatar: The Last Airbender flip-book stickers. If you decide to read the text, I’ve got a spoiler for you: I married someone else. It was nice seeing that bit of happiness from my past though.

Another high school journal. I was so cool that i was into Avatar: The Last Airbender then. I was not, however, cool enough to be willing to share that knowledge with anyone besides myself. Clearly I’m over that.

A pile of history that’s just for me.

Finally, a picture of the mess I made of my middle school to high school journals while going through them the other night. There are plenty more. The one on the bottom left is actually fiction. I wrote it for a project in my 8th grade English class, and applied my superior knowledge of writing diary fiction that I’d learned at age 9. I’ve never gotten rid of it because of all the time I took sewing the darn thing together.

A pile of journals from my teen years. Once day I’ll organize them.