NaNoWriMo

On the Fourth Day of Na-Not

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Improving isn’t only about fixing our weaknesses. It’s also about learning to play to our strengths.

–Bryn Donovan

Catchy title mostly because I needed something to put in the space for a title, and picture (uncropped, because I forgot) of lovely birthday loot from the lovely E. Catherine Tobler, because it is pertinent to my interests. Notebooks, pens and sticky notes are always good gifts. I haven’t put anything in the notebook yet, because I’m still in the stroking the paper stage and figuring out what wants to be on those pages.

This is going to be one of those blabbery entries, because it’s only my list, and time is ticking. I have Critique Partner Vicki’s chapter to crit, a chapter from Collaborator Melva to read and then we figure out where the next scene goes. Then there’s Ravenwood to polish, which is cooperating rather well, if I do say so myself. All of this can let Her Last First Kiss simmer on the back burner and sort out a few things without breaking my brain.

That’s one of the things I like best about working on multiple projects. There’s an energy I find in switching gears. When I was a kid, my mother would tell me that  the more I did, the more I’d want to do. I hated when she would say that, but now, I have to admit she’s right. The more I do, the more I want to do, especially with writing. I like that. When I would force myself to try and follow the NaNo method, I hated writing. The word count goal loomed over me, and I couldn’t see the story.

I’d thought that not doing NaNo meant cutting me off from the support system that I liked about the whole thing. While attending my first NaNo event a couple years back was a fun way to meet other local writers, I have a fabulous local RWA chapter. Not only other writers, but other writers in my chosen genre. Not only for one month out of the year, but all year round. Not only that, but writer friends I’ve known long enough that our friendships could vote, get married, and join the military without parental consent. Not necessarily in that order.

I am a talker. Those who have known me for more than about five minutes know that, and when talk turns to stories, the reading, writing, viewing and analysis thereof, well, the more I do, the more I want to do there, as well. So, November, when there is writing talk seemingly everywhere, is a good month. A really good month. For someone whose brain normally sounds very much like “storystorystorystorystorystorystory” this really is the best time of year, participation in a program or not. That’s been an interesting lesson to learn. Not sure what Mom would have made of that, but still important to keep in mind. Blogging is kind of talking, blabbering through my fingers onto the keys that are rapidly losing their letters. My E and N keys are wearing way, and it may soon be time to take out the Sharpies and reinforce the markings. Or stickers. Or not bother because I know where the keys are, and, apart from the missing H key on the old laptop, they aren’t going anywhere.

Anyway. Talking. That’s part of what I do, part of the process. For many extroverts, talking and thinking happen at the same time, and I’ve found that to be true in a lot of my experiences. There is an infamous fifty page letter in my storied (pun intended) past. I am not entirely sure, now that I’ve accepted my love for snail mail as part of my natural order, that it will always hold the title for longest non-manuscript document I have ever sent. I have no regrets. I love that I’m  excited about writing, my own and those of others. I’m excited to sit at the keyboard, steal away moments to scrawl in various notebooks in a rainbow of colors, let it be crazy and messy and off the leash. There’s plenty of time to smooth it all out later. For now, letting the story spill out is all that matters, because nothing else can be done before that.

Now it’s November…

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I’d meant to get this up yesterday, but life intervened, turning the day to family things, but that fits with what I meant to write anyway, so I am going to consider that a point of illustration. Anyway, it’s November now, and I am not Na-No-ing. Old news, and for those wishing I’d shut up about that already, I will, in a bit. Which is to say, probably December, because there’s no denying NaNo is everywhere. I’ve done it, I’ve won it, I’ve lost it, I’ve gone a few rounds with it, lost a few books to it, and have some interesting scars to show for the battle, but, in the end, there is one thing that NaNo gave me that I will always treasure. It gave me the knowledge that I am enough; the way I work is enough. I don’t need to conform to somebody else’s process or beat myself up for not doing so. As a writer, this is what I do every day (the writing, not the beating up, though that, too, some days. A lot of days. Working on that.) so a special month dedicated to it? Good for some, but I’m working on some things over here, so not for me at present.

This week, I’m looking at three things. First is Her Last First Kiss, which is hopping around between bullet points and research topics as the puzzle pieces come together. This is what I do, dive headfirst into the primordial ooze of a story and splash around until order forms, and then have a blast organizing the whole deal. It’s going to be rough, it’s going to give me fits, but, in the end, I can do what I do, and there will be a rough draft. Then I get to smooth is out and make it pretty. I can do this. I have done this. I am doing this now and will do this again with the next book and the next book and the next, repeat until dead.

Second is the novella with Collaborator Melva. This is our beach ball that we are passing back and forth, no pressure, just fun. We each get to play to our own strengths in this one, draw from each other’s, and stretch enough to make it a reachable challenge.

Third is my postapocalyptic medieval, Ravenwood, which may get retitled (and probably billed as medieval, never mind that the Plague does count as an apocalypse, but probably more on that later.) A call for submission has come up, and I do have a completed ms sitting right there in my flash drive, so a good once-over and off it shall go. I won’t be devastated if John and Aline come riding back my way, but if they do find a new home, I will be thrilled.

For the first time in a long time, I feel on firm ground where writing is concerned. This has come as the result of a LOT of writing. Some good things, some bad things, more free writing notebooks than I would care to count, filled with whinges about how hard writing is and things I wish I’d done and things I wish I hadn’t done. It comes from a ton of reading: the year I devoured every Barbara Samuel (and psuedonyms) I could find; my big fat YA summer-that-stretches-into-autumn (David Levithan, may I have your book babies, please and thank you?) and my current foray into 90s historicals and  one dead laptop (well, really two, counting the one RLRH inherited) and one new one and recapping TV shows. It’s working on the next incarnation of From Fan Fiction to Fantastic Fiction (coming in 2016, because this fall got crazy) and, by dint of that, taking a closer look at why I love what I love and how I can use those elements in my own work, and picking others’ brains and trusting myself and diving into piles of stationery and notebooks and picking up old habits that worked in the past but I gave up somewhere along the way because of “supposed to’s” and “should” and and and and and…well.

Fall has always been the time of year when I get my super powers back. I feel more energized with the shorter days, when the world gets tucked in for the night, nice and early. When hot chocolate and cider flow, and Thanksgiving is soon to be upon us, and there are sweaters and boot socks and colorful leaves, and a crisp snap to the air. It’s time for curling up with a good book (or ten) under an afghan, with cup of tea at hand, and, since I am me, a notebook (or ten) on the other hand, because I have to multitask even when reading. It’s November. I’m back. I got this.

Roots and Wings

annabowling 2 Comments

Leap the fence. Seize that chaos. Whet your own edge. Go weird. Go buckwild.

— Chuck Wendig

This is the first year I’ve felt 100% okay about not doing NaNo. No regret, no obligation, though I do give a hearty shake of the pompoms to all participants. This year, I am too excited to be working on Her Last First Kiss, immersing myself in the world of my hero and heroine (and the mutual friend caught in the middle, though I still don’t know if he gets a POV or not. We will find out.) to have much brain space left for the “oughts” and the “should” and the “everybody elses,” which is a good thing, and a goal I have been working toward for quite some time. So, that’s a win right there, in my book, pun intended.

The last few  years have seen miscarried manuscripts, at various stages of viability. Some are still waiting for the bad juju to burn off, so that I can see what’s left. Others and I have parted ways, mostly amicably, while yet others are like the one night stand one passes at work with downcast eyes and a pretended interest in the pattern of the carpet until one is out of the other’s orbit. (Vampire story, I am looking at you.) All have been necessary steps along the journey, and those that are still viable will get a second look once the HEA has been inscribed in stone on this one.

For me, discipline is key, but the kind that works for me. When I have a schedule made out, then writing/researching/editing time is from hour X to hour Y, and that is mine. I am at work, whether that means a notebook in the park or fingers on keyboard. All those miscarried manuscripts have taught me that  “um, I don’t know, England?” or “figure out why later” are not going to work for me, and the sanest thing I can do is hit pause, find out the specifics and then move forward. I love adding detail, adding layer on layer to make my story people into their own being, not my popsicle stick puppets, building locations I can see and hear and feel and breathe, so that I don’t have to stop and beat myself up because I don’t know the exact process of choosing a tanist :exchanges wary glance with time travel manuscript: or when house numbers came into general use :waves goodbye to novella idea that wasn’t strong enough to carry a story in the first place:

I’ve found out, the hard way, that my default setting at present, is Georgian England. Not that I can’t or don’t use other settings -far from it- but if I don’t know at the outset when and where a story takes place, that’s probably it. Part of this comes from being a child of the Bicentennial, and being a child of the Bicentennial while living in a town that was, literally, burned to the ground during the Revolution and rebuilt from a pile of ash. I can identify with that. The dress, manners, speech, and aesthetics of the Georgian era are second nature to me where historical romance is concerned. Love to read it, love to write it.

Studying the stories I love most to read tells me what I want to put into the stories I write. Deep emotion, the choices my characters make and the consequences thereof affected by the time in which they live. I love stories of identity, where the character breaks away from what others tell them they “should” or “ought” to be and instead, discover who they actually are, and live in that. Again, this is relevant to my interests.

I haven’t written a story like this one in a while, and it’s scary at times, but going back to my roots, the stories and characters that I love, fills me with anticipation rather than pressure. Piecing together my timelines, planting family trees and slapping down bullet points in notebooks and fresh documents lets me approach the work with enthusiasm, and without the feeling that I’m forcing anything. Challenging? Yes. Very much so. This timeline has me with one foot on the ledge already. There’s a gray area in a choice a character makes – maybe it’s not “likable,” but I’m not here for “likable.” I’m here to tell the stories that come to me, and, in this story world, that’s what happened, and I’m glad it did. When the characters start making their own choices like that, that’s when I know the story is real and alive. That’s when it goes from idea to book in progress, and this is definitely that.

That Time of Year Approaches Again, And This Time, I Have a Plan

annabowling 4 Comments

By that, I mean NaNo, and, once again, for me, this year will be NaNot. I love the sense of camaraderie and support, and the mere idea of meeting other writers to get together in person and get some story down, no censors, no edits, etc, gets my motor running. Focusing on word count, however, shuts it off all together. So, not the best program for me, especially when my focus is getting not one, but two, manuscripts to The End.

This time, instead of whingeing about how NaNo and I are not a good fit at present, I’d rather focus on what does work for me. Working on multiple projects is a big part of that. If one isn’t working out, I can switch gears, focus on the other and trust that the first one will take steps to sort itself while my conscious attention is targeted elsewhere. What I do for relaxation when I’m not working on novel, novella or articles, is also writing-related, so, basically, I either do not have an off switch or I taped that sucker in the on position at some point.

Which brings me to my next thing – if I’m that busy, why don’t I have elbenty bajillion new release? I could cite the domestic tornado chains that have whipped through our family of late, and that’s part of it, but that’s not a part I can control. What I can control is the fear. Fear that I’m not good enough. That I missed my chance. That nobody wants to read the kinds of stories I have to tell, so shut up, step away from the computer and wet Swiffer the linoleum because people track stuff in on a regular basis, and that all shows on light colored flooring. Well, they (and I) do, and it does, but here’s the rub (pun intended) – housework makes my story brain chug into motion. The trick is getting that motion all the way from Once Upon a Time to They Lived Happily Ever After (though with a few bruises and smoke rising from the ruins of collateral damage.)

One thing I’ve learned from failed (and won) NaNo attempts is that I need to focus on the story, not the writing. Counting words completely derails my brain, reminds me that adverbs are bad, keeps an eye out for the size of my vocabulary pool, seizes on minutiae, and I can’t hear the voice of the story and characters anymore. This is why we can’t have nice things, and by nice things, I mean completed manuscripts. If I shut the inner critic, with her clicker that logs every word in some mental spreadsheet, away, I can let the metaphorical horse have its head. Get the bones down, take notes, as it were, on the movie that plays in my head. Most times, that’s going to be in bullet points, present tense, riddled with (figure this detail out later kinds of notes to myself) and a big ol’ jumbled mess that probably makes sense only to me. Also to Critique Partner Vicki, who is used to this by now.

The other big takeaway I’ve had is that I write best in layers. Get the bones down, add some muscle, add some sinew, add some veins and capillaries and aortas, add flesh and all the rest, and we’re good to go.  Probably not in that order, so good thing I am not employed in the medical sciences. What I’m going for at present is a bare bones draft, done my way. Can I get a scene outlined every weekday? Not counting words, but putting down my bullet points, from the movie screen in my head, onto the page. Laying the foundation, beginning to end, putting the jumbled mass of notes into order (organization! See, already fun, right there. I love organizing things.) I used to number the scenes in my outlines; not sure when I stopped doing that. Whoops, yes, I do, but probably time to give that another go and see where it takes me.

After a long examination of how I work best (at present; process can be an ever changing entity, which only proves that it’s alive) I’m comfortable with my layers, and not so comfortable with the big stack of partial manuscripts that piled on each other in the interim. This doesn’t mean that every partial will make it all the way; some aren’t viable, or need big changes, like transport to a setting that does not make me gnash my teeth and fuss against the bonds of the “shoulds” that come with that particular territory. Instead, it’s time to blaze the trail that gets me where I want and need to go.

Roadblocks and Detours, pt 1

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I’m intoxicated and turned on by people who are really honest about themselves. 

-Neil Patrick Harris

This is not the entry I’d originally planned on, which fits the theme rather well. I am writing now on Housemate’s laptop, because mine now flat out refuses the internet except on increasingly rare occasions. I wrote the actual entry for today on that computer, put it on jump drive and planned to to a really easy copy and paste, only…there’s always an only…there is no Word on this computer. Wordpad refuses to cooperate, and there’s gobbeldygook before and after the actual document. I know when to give up on things like this, because I have enough crazy in my life and want to save some brain for actual writing.

I’d thought of bringing up the window and retyping the original post here, but I’m not going to do that, because, well, I don’t want to. This is my space where I can talk about what writing is like for me, and right now, it’s aggravating. I don’t want to retype what I already wrote. Going over and over and over the same thing because I once put those words on the digital page and therefore am obligated to…no. Not doing that. Well, maybe in part, but I’ll paraprhase, because I am cranky.

Paying attention, this year, to my own process, not what “should” work or what others think I “should” be doing, but what actually works for me (and by that, I mean gets and keeps me writing) has reminded me that, when something doesn’t work for me, that’s because it’s not right for me. Not that it or I am wrong or bad, but merely that square pegs do not fit in round holes, and no amount of pounding and cursing and forcing is going to make that happen. Put the square peg in the square hole, round peg in round hole, and we can all get on with our days, happier and more productive, and with a lot less cursing. Probably.

There’s a new session of Camp NaNo going on (coming up?) and…I will not be camping. Am not camping? Either way, for me, it’s a no this time, because Her Last First Kiss needs me exactly where I am, on the floor with my legal pads and sticky notes, elbow-deep in the guts of a story and cast of characters that are taking me on the sort of adventure I’ve wanted to get back into for years. Breaking up the fallow ground of what a story “should” be and letting the characters lead me. Taking a shovel to that ground and digdigdigdigdigdigdigdigdig until I hit the vein of the story, of the characters, of the journey we’re going on together.

It’s an interesting one, to be sure. Wrangling domestic tornadoes and dealing with persnickety electronics remind me how much I want this, and exactly what I am willing to do to get this story, and the novella, all the way to The End and out in the hands of readers. Some of those things are things I didn’t expect.

I’m not reading a lot of historical romance at the moment, which bothers me, but doesn’t. I am inhaling a ton of realistic YA, my story brain craving the deep emotions and intimate voices. I’ve seen four episodes of the first season of Game of Thrones, which makes my heart sing and do happy dances from the sheer beauty, the high stakes, the fact that nobody is safe and nobody is nice and the story world is wide, wide open for anything to happen. I still prefer my romantic couples not to have met in the womb, but watching this gets me excited and invigorated. I want that energy to carry over to historical romance, those rough edges, the sense of high emotional stakes and a grand scale. This morning, I finished reading We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, and wow. Brilliant, brilliant book, and, though it absolutely has its feet in a contemporary setting, it read like a historical, a little brown about the edges. GoT has the same feel for me; yes, it’s fantasy, but it “reads” like historical for me, and that’s where I’m watching from when I go into it.

All of these things go into the idea soup that feeds what I’m working on now, and what I’ll be working on after that. I need to take in what I mean to put out, easy as that. Trying to please every reader is not going to work out, but pleasing my readers? That, I can do. So I do what I know works for me. I write in layers. I talk. I have big furry messes of sticky notes and legal pads and cross things out and write things in and oh no, well, that changes everything, let’s backtrack and get it right…and that’s where the magic happens. I’m not beating my head bloody against a brick wall, but telling my stories, my way, and that’s actually fun. Even if I have to jump around among four machines to get a single document into gear. I know why I’m here; I’m  a storyteller, and the stories need to get from my head to readers’, so that’s going to happen, whatever roadblocks present themselves.

I like to write a lot about identity, about characters who get to a place where they don’t let others tell them who to be, but find confidence and strength in who they actually are, who they actually were all along. Works for me.

Telling the Story

annabowling 3 Comments

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
– Terry Pratchett

Well, that’s one week of Camp NaNo in my rearview mirror, and I seem to be doing all right so far. This is a bit different from past NaNo endeavors, in that I’m not focusing on writing. Also, that I’m ahead of my goal. How’d that happen? This time, I’m telling myself the story. I’d discovered, last week, while talking with a critique partner, that I’d never bothered to write down the outline for Her Last First Kiss. Huh wuh? Nothing? Not a thing? Cue frantic flipping through notebooks both dedicated (those are new, so it didn’t take long) and multipurpose ones. Check any computer files that might possibly have been misfiled under a different name. Do a computer search for hero’s and heroine’s  names. Nope, never did.

I’d classify myself as more of a puzzler than plotter or pantser, but I’m not labeling at this point. What I am doing is telling the story. The fact that I’ve been able to hold so much of it in my head, so clearly, for so long, is a good thing, but the stories we keep in our heads and nowhere else don’t get a lot of circulation. The scariest thing in the world would be to get to the end of my life and think “I could have been a successful writer.”  Scratch the could be and replace with “am.”  Successful, right now, means showing up and getting this story down. That’s all I have to do right now. Tell the story. There’s time enough after I get to the end of this draft to make things all pretty and get fancy with finishing touches. For now, the emphasis isn’t on how many words there are in the file but on getting the story told. How did we get from Once Upon a Time to Happily Ever After? With romance, we know the Happily Ever After Part is a gaurantee, like we know in a mystery that the detective will find out who committed the crime, but along the way? We can do anything. I think that’s pretty exciting.

In telling myself the story, I am discovering it. Though I do like to have an outline when I write the book, in the telling the story portion, surprises come up when they will, without me trying to shoehorn them in because that’s where they should fall according to beat sheet or pinch point or any other paradigm. Not saying those things aren’t useful; they are, and I love finding out how other writers work. Some of that stuff finds its way into my own process, and some remains an interesting tidbit that works better for others. Floating bits of unrelated things (this is one of the places where that puzzler thing comes in) bump into each other and bond, and, without my having put much thought into it, they make sense.

I really had no idea why my hero impulsively bought my heroine a cheaply made china dog, but then when she tells me (only writers understand fictional characters telling us what really happened) that she knew her father was leaving the family when he took his favorite hunting dog, there was that “oh” moment. So that’s what those things were all about. Okay, that gives me some structure. I know that my hero (I really should be using their  names here, but want to keep that private for a while longer) and heroine had a conversation in which she mentioned dogs, though she doesn’t have any, and that it made an impression on him, which is why he picked that china dog (very clear in my head, and it’s actually kind of ugly) because he knew it would make her happy.

This process rather fits this book, because neither my hero nor heroine have that firm a grasp on what they’re doing. The whole falling in love thing isn’t for them, both believing they’re locked out of that game. They made plans. Love wasn’t in them. Funny, but it tends to find its way in ,anyway. Which is a lot like the process of discovering a story.

Also, we have ducks:

i1035 FW1.1

Typing With Wet Claws: It’s Not Easy Being Mews Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is finally feeling like spring here. That means that it is not freezing all the time, and I can watch birdies through the living room window while Anty and Mama have their breakfast. Uncle gets up a little later, and I have his breakfast with him in the kitchen. Everybody gives me kitty food when they get their people food, so I am not going to complain.

This week, Anty began Camp NaNo. That is a time when humans who write try to do a lot of writing in a short amount of time. That is like NaNo, except it does not make Anty as stressed, because she can decide how much writing she wants to do. Really, how much writing she wants to tell people she does, because she does a lot of writing. It’s the counting the words she does not like. She likes the actual writing fine. I am glad I do not have to count things. My job as a mews (see what I did there?) is to sit very very close to Anty and send out love beams. That is inspiring, I think, although I do not know how effective it is when it comes to making her put more kitties in her stories.

Yesterday, she put a dog in her new book. Only a china dog in this scene, but I looked at her outline. There will be a real dog later. She said the characters put the dog in there; she didn’t. I am not too sure about that. I know that characters are people who live inside Anty’s head, so maybe she should talk to some of them about having cats. There are horses in this book, but that is mostly because horses dragged the people carriers around in the times Anty’s stories are set. I have never met a horse, so I do not have a firm opinion on this, other than that it would not be too hard for Anty to maybe mention a barn cat or two when one of the horses is in its stable. I think that is fair recompense for all my hard work. If that is okay. Anty is most dominant in our pride, so I cannot tell her what to do, but I can make suggestions. Also look very very cute. I am good at that.

tools of the trade

tools of the trade

Anty has been doing a lot of writing this week, which keeps her busy, and that is a good thing. As you may be able to see in the picture of her keyboard, we have some casualties. There is now no letter at all on the E key, the Q key now looks like a broken O, and the L is pretty much a scratchy line. Anty says she may write letters on those keys with a silver Sharpie, but she knows what keys are where, so I do not think she is going to do that anytime soon. Also, people need to kiss on TV more, so that Anty can write about that and have more posts up on Heroes and Heartbreakers. She is part of this post on bloggers’ best reads of March, which has lots of ideas if you do not know what to read next. A word of warning: Anty’s pick is a very thick book that makes a loud sound when it is dropped. Loud sounds are scary. At least she read it by the bed, so I did not have to go far if I wanted to run under the bed for some reason. She is considerate that way.

goth laundry?

goth laundry?

This week also means it is time for Anty to get ready to go to the NECRWA conference. I have talked about that before, so I will not repeat myself here, except to say that the whole getting ready thing is not exactly cat-friendly. She does open the closet a lot and take clothes out, which I find very interesting. Sometimes, she puts them back in and sometimes she does not. Ever since she took the bright colors she does not like very much out of the closet, she has more fun playing with clothes. Most of her laundry looks like the picture above. Some of it is Uncle’s, but the stripey things and anything with a skull on it should be Anty’s. Sometimes new clothing comes home when Anty goes out hunting, and it does not smell like our things, until she washes it and wears it, and then it does. Until then, I am suspicious of all new items. I am not entirely convinced that the Skirt of Doom is not going to come back, even though I was the one who made it go away in the first place. Never you mind how. I was never sure if it was on Anty, part of Anty, or, worst of all, if it had Anty. Sometimes, a kitty has to do what a kitty has to do.

Anty needs the computer back, and it is lunchtime, so that is about it for this week. Until next week, I remain very truly yours,

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)

So I’m Camping

annabowling 4 Comments

Put something on the page. The story will come.
–Mairi Norris

Yesterday, I remembered I’d signed up for Camp NaNo. The day before, I’d remembered I’d signed up for RWA’s The End, and had been meeting my goal there for the last two months, so this one couldn’t be any different. This means that I am doing two writing challenges at once. I’m using the same project, Her Last First Kiss, and this is very much a rough draft I’m using for both.

Initially, I wasn’t going to do either. Word count and I are not friends. Not that it doesn’t matter how long a work is, but if I focus on that aspect during a rough draft, I am not going to get anywhere. I know myself well enough by this point that how I work doesn’t allow for that. Let me tell the story first, and then we’ll work the rest out later. So, how, or more importantly, why did I find myself participating in two -no, I tell a lie (and thank you, research on the vernacular of Northern Ireland for that one,) it’s actually three, as CRRWA is tracking member word count for this year, though I haven’t reported in there yet- at the same time?

Part of it is the way real life has swept through recently, and carefully made plans get shoved to the side when there is caregiving that needs to be done right this minute. As a person whose only reason not to have started a notebook notebook (that is, a notebook devoted to keeping track of my other notebooks) being that I have not yet found the perfect notebook to used for such a purpose, I like to have things well planned out, both in life and in writing. Good plan, but it doesn’t always work that way, in either area.

Which is basically how I found myself, yesterday, moving my laptop around the coffee house table, trying to evade the sunlight streaming in (because I have not yet comprehended that my favorite seat in that section will result in me being unable to see the screen due to aforementioned sunlight, which counters the whole going there to write thing, but I am both stubborn and determined) onto my screen and figuring out where I record my progress on two out of the three. I was going to do this, and that was that. I love this book and these characters and their story more than I’ve loved any project I’ve worked on in a long time. Years, really, so this is happening, and on my terms.

I spent some time staring at the blank Scrivener screen, stymied by where a new chapter goes, and how many scenes should be in a chapter, anyway? To which my writer brain screamed a loud, insistent, STOP. No math now. None of it. Close Scrivener. Open Word. Blink at blank Word screen. Close Word. Stick in earbuds, open hero notebook and take out pen. Write bullet points. What happens next? Wite that. How did hero react to that? Write what happens next after that, all the way to the end of the scene. When that’s done, open Word again and transcribe. Kind of comfortable, that. Punch word count button and enter number in appropriate blanks, then go play Sims. That, I can do.

That would be the blue one...

That would be the blue one…

Getting distracted from what works is all too easy for some writers to do. There are a lot of shoulds floating around out there. This person’s career is taking off. That one’s tanked. That other one had a great career, it tanked, and then they came back with another name or subgenre and all of that in the time I’ve been stomping around in the woods with a bucket on my head and both feet stuck in rotten logs. But those are their journeys, and this one is mine. I’m the one who gets to say how I do it, because I’m the one who knows this story the best, and I’m the one who’s in the best place to see what actually gets the story told. If there happen to be bullet points in pretty notebooks along the way, I’m fine with that. I’d rather have fun getting the story told than bash my head bloody against a brick wall to reach a particular number.

It’s not about the numbers for me, or even about the words themselves. It’s about this hero and this heroine, two broken people who find wholeness is within their reach after all, both individually and together. I can’t think of anything more delightful to do with my time. It’s on.

A Camping I Will Go (NaNo style) And Other Tales

annabowling 8 Comments

I’m doing Camp NaNo this year.

I hadn’t planned on it. In fact, I’d planned on not doing it, because NaNo wordcounts give me the heebie-jeebies, and as I told the delightful Shannon Kauderer at today’s Saratoga Romance Writers meeting, tend to leave me in a fetal position under the dining room table, sobbing uncontrollably. Shannon reminded me that I can set my own word count for Camp NaNo, even zero, and that the moral support, which is what I’d liked about NaNo in the first place, was the main point. So, this year, I’m camping. Also, Shannon has mermaidy green curly hair and charm for days, so that may have had something to do with the fact that I am now officially signed up. Not focused on word count; it’s all about the story for me.

ready to work

ready to work

Good thing, that, as Shannon, the regional municipal liason for NaNoWriMo (and camps) was the guest speaker, presenting her workshop on the Snowflake Method of plotting. I’ve taken this before, when Shannon presented at CRRWA, then, as now, with the delightful SueAnn Porter as my companion, so I knew what I was in for, and surely, I’d whip through this, no problem, be all set to charge forward.

Not exactly. The first step, creating a one sentence description of one character’s journey, had me stymied at first. Lots of writing, lots of crossing out, lots of squeezing in teeny tiny words above those crossed out lines, and I finally came up with this:

A disreputable rogue finds the love of a lifetime in the one woman he can never have — his best friend’s mistress. 

Hm not half bad there. Okay, the meeting itself went rather smoothly. I felt right at home in the, warm, welcoming and professional group, and definitely plan on visiting again. I am not only saying that because I won the drawing for these lovely blooms right here:

Free flowers, that's how to welcome visitors.

Free flowers, that’s how to welcome visitors.

It was when SueAnn and I hit the parking lot that things got interesting. Flat tire. SueAnn figured we could limp along to the nearest service station, but reversed her decision and direction and we headed back to the parking lot. There was a quick fix kit in her trunk, which we both gave the old college try, but the green sludge in the squeezy bottle refused to go into the actual tire.

actual green slime

actual green slime

In my family, the words “dripping green slime” are a way of expressing barely contained anger, but there was none of that as SueAnn and I waited for AAA to show and swap flat tire for spare tire, which turned out to be the smaller donut sort. With weather thankfully warm for the day, we waited as only writers can – picking apart bad endings to good movies and TV shows, and fixing them. By the time AAA did show, we had a couple more stops before I could head home and charge straight into writing.

at least we tried

at least we tried

Adventure over? Not a chance. SueAnn wanted to get the real tire fixed and back on, which makes sense as she’s off on another adventure with Mr. Porter after she drops me off at home, so we had a short detour to the place from which her tires originally came.  There, we met an individual SueAnn has asked me to dub “Ridiculously Handsome Tire Guy.” We do not have a picture of Ridiculously Handsome Tire Guy, but SueAnn put him at “Derek Morgan level” (Shemar Moore in Criminal Minds) found herself distracted enough to momentarily forget how to speak English, which she assures me is indeed her native tongue (but sorry, SueAnn, “tire” and “photograph” are not synonyms, no matter that the gent in question seemed to catch her drift even so) and drop her purse. Somewhere out there, she’s sure, a romance novel is missing its cover model.

ridiculously handsome writer's dog

ridiculously handsome writer’s dog

Quick stop by Chez Porter to feed Bailey and make sure he got to :ahem: visit the great outdoors (and pose for a photo op) and then time to brave the traffic to drop me home. What do I do immediately upon arrival? Yep, head for they keyboard. A day spent talking writerly things gets me excited to go home and put all that theory into practice. The more I live with that one line blurb, the more I like it. Should be a fun time at camp this year.

Update: Flowers now exiled to office, as incessant sneezing makes me suspect I may be allergic. Balcony door now open to let in the evening air as I snuggle under a blanket to further explore story doings.

NaNot Ramblings Wrap-up: So That Was November…

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Talk about writing exactly as much as you, personally, need to talk about writing.
–Seanan McGuire

So here we are, December first, and NaNo 2014 is a memory, hopefully a good one for those who did and did not participate. I was a not this year, but I’m still counting it as a success. My plans for sneaking into write-ins resulted in exactly zero attempts at doing so; I was too busy keeping my head down and eyes on my own paper, which was a big surprise. I also visited the forums a grand total of zero times. I did meet a NaNo friend to write at a coffee house once and have plans to repeat the experience later this month. My source of community this month was emails and instant messaging with writer friends, notably a critique partner I will call CP, either casually while each worked on our own projects or dedicated chats scheduled in advance.

I found that nattering in detail with one trusted writer friend gave me what I needed to go into the head down, eyes on own paper mode. Some days, that was so  I would have something about which to natter. It’s a delicate balance between the thinking and talking happening at the same time while at the same time (yes, repetitive phrase, I know, but shush, gremilns. You can come back when it’s time to edit.) not getting so many other voices and expectations in my head that they drowned out the voices of characters and story.

It’s a journey of discovery, to be sure, and one that isn’t over merely because November is done. Fall and winter are my most productive times of year. I’m not sure if it’s the shorter days, the feeling of the world being safely tucked in for the night around four-thirty or so that makes me want to have most of the work done by then…but then sneaking in a bit more writing while doing the rest of the evening’s stuff.

The routine is getting set in place once more, and I think the writing will be better for it. I am a morning person. This means that, despite anyone else in the household spending the morning at a leisurely pace (if not heading out the door to an early shift) nine AM needs to see me dressed, made up, computer packed and feet out the door to home office away from home office at the coffee house one block over or Panera on the other side of the park. Tush in chair, tea at hand, notebook and computer at the ready and let’s do this thing. I’ve been juggling a couple of different projects at different stages, one of which does not want to be talked about at all, apart from discussions with CP – some stories are like that- and one which may want to drop a line here now and again. Some stories are like that, too. Both are perfectly fine. Stories come as stories come. If I had to pinpoint one thing I learned about my own writing from my NaNot month, it was this: I need to get out of the story’s way. Don’t try to cram it into a box where it won’t fit, but follow its natural form. Easy to say, but took some effort to learn.

I know how to do this. I have done this. I can  do this again. I am doing this now. The hypercritical gremlins that like to live in writers’ heads have their places (usually in the editing process) but it’s better, at least for me, to get that story down as wild as it comes from my brain and fix all the rough spots later, when it’s done. I had a gym teacher, Ms. Napier,  back in junior high who loved athletics like I love historical romance. When she took us girls on a cross country run, even those of us straining and panting as we hobbled along at the rear of the pack, she had one bit of wisdom for us: we were not allowed to quit if we could see the finish line.

It’s like that here. Can I see the end of the story? Yes. Then onward, fleet like a gazelle some days, eating the ground with long, confident strides. Panting and stumbling other times, still others prone on the floor, dragging myself forward by my fingertips, but an inch forward is still forward. I’m liking the way it works. Now bring on December.