NaNoWriMo.org

I am not a person easily given to irritation. It takes a lot to push my buttons. Injustice is pretty much the only thing that can get me into a raging fury. (That and when drivers use the highway entrance ramp as a parking lot.) There’s a ginormous lot of space between my mellow and my raging fury, and I generally don’t stray too far from the mellow.

The husband might disagree with me on this point, but we’re not going to ask him. ; )

(Also, keep in mind that I’m talking about the emotional scale of mellow to irritation to outright anger. On other emotional scales–such as happiness, giddiness, excitement, anticipation, blah de blah–I can go from zero to passionate in two seconds flat.)

For example, as I wrote the above paragraph, I heard an odd noise and went to investigate. In the bathroom, I discovered a pile of cat vomit on the toilet lid. ON THE TOILET LID. Am I angry about this? No. Am I even irritated? Nope. What I am is utterly perplexed as to how this happened. And slightly amused that the feline in question at least knew the right room to go to. If only she could’ve lifted the lid….

Anyway, all of this to say I am not what anyone would call an irritable person. So when I find myself feeling grouchy about something, you’d think I’d know enough to pay attention.

Well, I’ve been working on a fantasy short story entitled “Out of the Darkness” for the past 8 weeks. And for the past 5 weeks, every time I’ve sat down to work on this short story, I’ve gotten ridiculously grouchy.

Of course, the grouchy affected the writing of said story. I kept getting stuck. My heroine didn’t want to do anything. My supporting character was such a nuisance, I considered having MC kill him just to get rid of him. My antagonist refused to show its (yes, its) face.

The stuck-er I got, the greater the grouchy every time I sat down to work.

Yesterday, after 5 weeks of self-torture, it finally dawned on me whence came all my troubles:

I did not want to be writing this story, plain and simple.

I wanted to be writing something else.

The something else in question happens to be the novel I’ve been saving for NaNoWriMo since last December. (Visit my NaNo profile page here!)

And that’s really all there is to it. My inner artist child was throwing a fit because instead of letting her get her way, I was making her sit down and do all this work on this stupid-kenupid short story.

Whaddaya know. My grouchiness was a temper tantrum.

The cure for my ills was contained within the realization. As soon as I identified the source of the ridiculous grouchy, something loosened inside my creative brain. BAM! Heroine gets some gumption. Not to mention some smarts. BAM! Supporting character actually says something useful. BAM! Antagonist finally arrives on-scene with a screech, sparks flying.

Last night, I finally typed the two most important words of the story and called it DONE. Inner artist child capered most bizarrely at her sudden, short-story-less freedom. Yay, now we get to think about the NaNo novel! We hearts the NaNo novel! We LUVS the NaNo novel! BANGERANG!

And so forth.

So. Lesson learned: When irritable about a particular piece of writing, ask self if the source of irritation might be nothing more than a temper tantrum. If answer is yes, tell inner artist child to suck it up and get the work done. Playtime is just around the corner.

And that’s WILAWriTWe!

It sounds like summer thunder.
One stark, still-shattering strum.

It tastes like ash, bitter black, and smells like panicked fear.
It feels like winter’s heart, and a summer morning.
For half a heartbeat, it masquerades as marvellous.
It’s nothing.
Senseless violence.
It’s death.

I’ve been thinking about that old project a lot lately, and one day it occurred to me that I’ve got a Director of Marketing these days who’s a huge comic book nerd, and he’d never heard the story. I had never even mentioned the premise to him.

So I shared it with Joshua the other day. We were chatting online and I said, “Did I ever tell you about my old Fantasy Justice League story?” He was immediately intrigued (naturally), but before I got too far into the story I got called away from the conversation. I suggested we could pick it up again when we got together for Social Writing the following night.

That left Joshua with 36 hours to mull the concept of a Fantasy Justice League. So Saturday night I was sitting in the bookstore/coffee shop, chatting with some of the other writers who’d shown up early, then Joshua arrived, grabbed a seat right next to me, and said, “Okay. Tell me more.”

I dove in, describing the premise, the characters, some of the stories we wanted to tell….

And he kept trying to tie them back to actual Justice League characters. It probably could have been done, but I don’t know a thing about the Justice League. It took me three days to remember that our catburglar character was explicitly based on Catwoman!

But no, for the most part Dan and I weren’t trying to recreate existing superheroes. We were trying to take traditional fantasy characters and elevate them to superhero status by their antics. But from the moment I first said “Fantasy Justice League,” Joshua had been working on building a much truer representation than I’d imagined.

So by the time I ran out of description for my project, he started describing his. He had a stand-in for Superman ready to go, and good ideas for Batman, and there were half a dozen others who barely needed any adaptation at all.

That might sound like there would be intellectual-property concerns (and the big comic publishers are known for being a litigious bunch), but superheroes have never been a terribly original crowd. They’re all archetypes, and making a genuine transition to a unique fantasy setting (with all the character tweaks that entails) should be more than enough to clear the “transformative” hurdle.

But the interesting thing was to see how effectively the concept of “superhero fantasy” resounded for both of us, and how distinctive the end results looked. Either project would sound like “superhero fantasy,” but even with the eventual Justice League gimmick thrown in there for both of them (that is to say, a large band of the “superhero” types ends up joining forces), the two projects would produce very different end results.

There’s an awful lot to learn there, for new writers. I know a lot of writers get really excited (or anxious) about coming up with the perfect “story idea.” I know writers who are terrified of sharing their “story idea” for fear someone will steal it.

But when it comes right down to it, stories don’t live or die on the ideas. They live or die on the telling. “Fantasy Justice League” is an undeniably cool story idea, but it’s not a novel. It’s a genre. Joshua can tell his version of the story and I can tell mine.

If it takes off, it could become the next “nicey-nice vampires” — a new fad genre bursting into popularity. In the next year we could see a thousand different renderings of “Fantasy Justice League.” Some would be fascinating. Some would be terrible. Some would barely fit within the genre. Some would be direct ripoffs of other stories.

But the cool thing about it is that each one would be its own thing. The magic of writing is that there’s only a handful of actual stories, but there’s no limit to the number of tellings. There’s always room for another voice, another perspective, another twist.

Watch for some superhero fantasy from the Consortium. Maybe we’ll be ground zero for the Next Big Thing. Or if you find it happening elsewhere, be sure and let me know. If nothing else, we’ve got a couple projects to contribute to the flood.

And in the meantime, write your stories. Don’t hoard up your ideas, don’t wait for something new, just tell the story that’s interesting to you at the moment. Everything else flows from that.

At the time, I referred to it as one of her favorite games to play with me. That hasn’t changed much in the last five months. I’m surprised how often I’ll come home and she’ll say, “Hey, Dad, let’s play karate! I want to show you my new kick!”

Invariably, it’s a terrible kick. Poorly designed, poorly executed. I don’t tell her that, but I let her try it out and then I calmly, patiently push her over.

Another of her favorite activities is to discuss general anatomy. That’s not euphemistic of anything. She likes to hear about the heart and stomach and lungs and the vascular system and how all the different parts work together. Especially at bedtime, when sitting through a little lecture gives her an excuse to stay awake a while longer.

And she finds bones fascinating. (Still no euphemism!) Last week at bedtime she asked me how bones work, and since we’ve focused so much on organs so far, I started off with their protective properties.

I asked her to point to some bones and she clutched at her rib cage (those are her favorite), and I asked, “What’s inside there?”

“Lungs!” she said. “Like balloons. Ooh, and my heart!”

“Right,” I said. “And are those important?”

She nodded, so I threw a little fake punch at her heart, and her eyes got really wide. Then I said, “What happened?”

She thought for a moment. “My bones protected them!”

I repeated the same process with her brain, and she got to learn the word “skull.”

Then I was about ready to call an end to the day’s lesson when she caught my sleeve and said, “Wait! What about the stomach?” I looked at her and raised an eyebrow, and she drummed on her tummy a couple times. “No bones.”

I said, “Ooh, good point! Stand up.” She stood up. I said, “Karate stance.” She giggled and took her karate stance. Then I did the same thing I’d done before. I threw a slow punch at her stomach.

And she did what I’d trained her to do. She blocked with her hands. I hit them and looked up at her, and she just stared at me for a moment. Then she raised her hands, fingers spread, and stared at them with wide eyes.

Then she thrust them out at me, like she was showing off a new toy, and she shouted, “Bones!” She laughed and looked at them again. She sank down on the edge of her bed, marveling, and shook her head in slow understanding. “So that’s why!”

I kissed her goodnight and left her trying to count the bones in her hand. I couldn’t stop grinning. She’s such a smart little girl. I was halfway to the door when she stopped me with a word.

“Dad?” she said.

I turned and met her eyes. “Time for bed, honey. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

She nodded sharply, but I could see the question burning in her eyes.

I chuckled. “What?”

She picked up her leg and showed it to me. She pointed to her kneecap. “What does this protect?” Before I could find an answer, she frowned in thought and said, “Just the tunnels? Veins, I mean.”

I smiled back. “Yep. That’s about right. I’ll tell you more tomorrow. Good night.”

So we left it at that. Of course, bones are useful for more than just protecting the fragile bits. They also serve a major structural purpose. They hold us up and fit together in such a way as to move us around.

For such simple pieces, they serve a variety of purposes and work together in ways that are going to take a little while to explain (especially to a four-year-old). Still, she’s asking questions. That’s the important bit.

And in case you’re here for storytelling advice instead of cutesy stories bragging about how brilliant my preschooler is… well, those are on their way. Last time we got together I was talking about the important of reader questions, and how they build the structure of your story. Come back Thursday and we’ll talk about the bones.

Alas. Send her your well wishes, and know that she’ll be back to educate us all just as soon as she possibly can.

I’m moving the site to a new webhost. We actually started last week, and it shouldn’t take too long, but if you have trouble accessing the site or getting updates in your RSS reader, don’t be too surprised.

It’s possible this transition will interrupt RSS subscriptions. It’s not supposed to, but RSS can be fickle sometimes. If you don’t see any new posts from me for more than a week, swing by the site and make sure it’s a laziness problem on my part, and not a technical problem on Feedburner’s.

If you find new posts on the site that aren’t in your RSS feed, the easiest fix is probably just to resubscribe. Feel free to drop me a line and let me know if you do have problems. They aren’t unexpected, but it would be nice to know for sure.

I don’t. I received a proof copy of Gods Tomorrow on Friday, and have spent most of the three days since then freaking out, and trying to get everything in place for the official launch a week from tomorrow.

I did find time to write up the introduction to this week’s Creative Writing series, which will go live tomorrow, so I thought I’d go ahead and post today with a little explanation of my new plans for the fall weekly schedule.

Mondays

Mondays, like today, I’ll post casually if I’ve got anything to say — usually a business news or technical update, maybe a link to an interesting article, or even a report on my current work-in-progress.

I’m not planning on having something ready every Monday, which shouldn’t be a problem because Mondays are never super popular with readers. (Saturday and Sunday are even worse, which make help clarify some of my other choices.)

Tuesdays

Tuesdays I’ll tell a little story. It’s the same thing I’ve been doing on Thursdays for a few months now, providing a 500- to 800-word story by way of introduction to the week’s topic.

Wednesdays

Wednesdays still belong to Courtney. Her WILAWriTWe is still the most popular part of Unstressed Syllables, and I have no desire to interfere with that. Keep tuning in for WILAWriTWe Wednesdays, and she’ll keep charming.

Thursdays

Thursdays I’ll post the articles that used to go up on Fridays — background and informational lectures concerning the week’s topic. This week I’m going to talk about narrative structure, so Thursday’s article will look at the role of deliberate narrative structure: the way you order your scenes and the effect it has on readers.

Fridays

And Fridays will get the old Saturday posts, writing exercises or more general application of the information provided in Thursday’s lecture. Since I’m basically talking about plot outlines this week, you can expect an article on Friday telling you how to build a plot outline and challenging you to try it out.

Weekends

Weekends, as I said, have never had great readership on any of the websites I’ve ever worked with. Also, I hate working weekends. I spend enough time away from my family going into the office all week, I have a hard time locking myself in the guest bedroom Saturday morning to pound out a blog post.

So weekends I’ll take a break, and give you a chance to get caught up on the week’s reading if you got a little behind, and then we’ll start again fresh Monday. Or, more often than not, Tuesday.

The good news is that, even with me cutting back on coverage, you can expect a lot of interesting news over the coming months. We’ve got NaNoWriMo a-brewing, a grand adventure into self-publishing, and my reckless entrepreneurial experiment ticking quietly away (remember the Consortium?). Among them, I should find an interesting story or two.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

Well…actually, that’s not true. There’s definitely another thrill that matches it:

Holding a printed copy of your finished book in your hands.

In my case, right this moment, that means a glossy trade paperback printed through Amazon’s CreateSpace, with gorgeous cover art by some of my incredible friends (chief among them, of course, Julie V. Photography). That’s fun.

That’s a lot of fun. And, of course,  holding the same book with a Random House logo on the bottom of the spine would have a magic all its own. Fundamentally, though, it’s not too different from holding a copy you printed off on the printer at work after everyone else had left for the day, hole-punched and clipped in a three-ring binder.

From Humble Acorns….

There’s something incredible about holding a finished book in your hands, and the most remarkable thing about it is remembering a time when that book didn’t exist at all. When it was just a scene or two of draft, when it was barely an outline, when it was a “What if…” conversation carried out just to fill the long hours of a road trip.

Sometimes the steps in between feel tedious. Sometimes the reward seems to small for the unbelievable effort required to just keep putting words on the page. Every writer gets there from time to time — I certainly have — but the fear is unfounded. Finishing a book is always worth it.

And, in my experience anyway, finishing a book is done before the book is even started. It’s such a big task to get a book written, that most writers have to get a proper foundation in place before they get started, or they’re doomed from the beginning.

That’s how I’ve approached NaNoWriMo every year: with a foundation. That’s also how my dad and sister did theirs, by my insistence. I gave them homework, made them spend October working their butts off just to get ready to spend November working their butts off.

They weren’t always thrilled to do it…but both of them conquered NaNoWriMo on their first try out the gates. Both of them wrote first novels, and both of them have gone on to write more since.

The Curriculum

So what goes into that foundation? Over the last few years, I’ve developed a pretty solid curriculum of prewriting. It builds on itself, and guides a writer (me, more often than not) through all the critical questions that need to be asked before a story can be formed.

If you don’t do prewriting, you’ll end up facing those questions anyway. The difference is whether you find yourself unexpectedly stumped with the question, completely unable to proceed, while you’re in the middle of writing a scene and 1,000 words short of your target for the day…or if you face the question with all your attention during a dedicated bit of time three weeks before you even have a daily word count target.

Take my word for it: the latter way is easier.

So these are the critical pieces of my curriculum:

• Character
• Setting
• Plot

Maybe that sounds too simple and straightforward, but those are the pieces you need to have figured out before you start writing the book. Now, “figured out” in this context doesn’t mean “perfected,” or even “nailed down.” It just means you have some idea of the shape of them.

More importantly, you need to know how they’re going to work within your story. What will each of the pieces do, and when, and where? For that, I’ve got specific assignments.

• A mock Table of Contents makes you think through a possible order and progression for your story.
• A handful of character descriptions makes you start thinking through the personalities involved, how they’ll interact, and how they’ll be affected by the story events.
• A Conflict Resolution Cycle worksheet gets you thinking in terms of actually creating story (instead of just imagining it), by forcing you to consider the building blocks of scenes.
• A short synopsis helps you focus your scenes and story into a single idea, to find the thrust of your plot, so you’ll be able to keep all your scenes pointing in the right direction.
• And, last but not least, a long synopsis (or scene list, or detailed outline) gives you an opportunity to build your whole story in stepping stones, figuring out where you narrative will go, and creating anchors for you to build chapters on once November starts.

Your Prewriting Assignments

Honestly…it’s a lot of work. It really is. But as Courtney can attest, it makes November a lot easier. Knowing where you’re headed makes it a lot easier to get there.

In case you’re already convinced and you feel like getting started, I’ll provide more detailed descriptions of my NaNoWriMo prewriting assignments tomorrow. Some of them already have whole articles dedicated to them in the distant recesses of my almost-one-year-old-archive, and all the others will probably be getting articles over the course of the next month.

In the meantime, start thinking about your story idea, because today is the first of October. That means your novel starts one month from today.

Next month, you’re going to write a novel.

This week’s Tech Writing article on headers and footers in Microsoft Word, will run next week. I should still be done with document styling by the end of September.

Come back Thursday for the introduction to a month-long Creative Writing series on National Novel Writing Month! See you then.

I don’t know if any of you are interested (and it doesn’t hurt my feeling if you’re not), but if you are, you should get it now. The 40% discount expires at 11:59 tonight (so, just under eight hours from now).

After that, I expect affiliates to start sending a bunch of strangers to buy it. If you want to be one of them (the affiliates, not the strangers), you can find a link for that, too, on the Products and Services page.

Photo credit Julie V. Photography.