NaNoWriMo apprehension

I am not ready for tomorrow. For a number of reasons.

1) Because of not allowing myself to work on the novel project I selected for NaNo, I mentally shifted gears to a second story. I could just run with that story, but I already put the first in motion for the challenge. Time to shift gears again.

2) I have a full-time job. And yes, many, many people who partake in NaNo also have full-time jobs, but I fear that my writing job will sap me of all creativity for the story. Oh, how I miss the days when a story spoke to me and I had no choice but to write down ideas, dialogue, scenes, description, setting, etc.

I asked a coworker (who is also participating) if she was ready, and she wasn't. She has so much to do with Scare House (she's an actress who works/ed at a haunted house), getting her new apartment in order, work, etc. We're hoping that we'll get bursts of inspiration and double the required word count for a single night, just to catch up.

3) I am a copyediting intern for the Pittsburgh Quarterly. I've been involved with its editors since the spring and it's been great. I got to revamp and update its style guide with fellow editors, interns, and the official copy editors, but it was mostly my project. But go figure it decides to send out pages to be proofed for the upcoming winter issue during the few days around Halloween. So, I'm exhausted from work, only to come home and copyedit for hours. Sometimes I can't do it. Luckily, my editor is a very understanding, very kind lady who told me to do the best that I could, as much as I could. I've already caught many mistakes from cursory read-throughs... but the pages aren't nearly as red (yes, I use a red pen) as they normally are.

And so, I'm not ready for tomorrow. I want a few extra days to finish the copyediting. I want a few extra days of reorienting my mind to prepare for the right novel. I want a few extra nights to finish an H.P. Lovecraft novella, put the unfinished book away for next October, and start up Grimm's Fairy Tales (novel research). But nope, NaNo starts tomorrow whether or not I, or anyone else, am ready.

A simple treasure

I always quote a particular line from a movie. "It's the simple things in life you treasure." Galaxy Quest.

This evening was one of those treasures.

My boyfriend and I reheated some delicious leftover Chinese food, sat on the living room floor by the coffee table, sipped from a couple mugs of Oolong tea, and listened to poetry. A while back, he had bought Poet's Corner, which was composed by John Lithgow. It's a collection of Lithgow's favorite poems. The book comes with a CD that showcases certain poems from the collection, all read by popular actors and actresses--Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Billy Connolly, Jodie Foster, and a bunch of others, including Lithgow. It became a treat to recognize both the actors' voices and the poems. For a few, we exchanged tidbits of information, like how Lewis Carroll wrote the "Jabberwocky" because he wanted to show the fickleness of language and prove that people understand the intent of nonsense words.

Before putting in the CD, I didn't want to listen to it. I'd been reading all day and wanted to sit back and enjoy a favorite show or movie. But my boyfriend didn't feel like watching anything. He sometimes becomes "romantic" and wants to share poetry with me, and this, apparently, was one of those nights. And I have to admit, I was having fun halfway through the small amount we had listened to. It was nice to lounge around with a mug of hot tea on a lukewarm October Saturday, with no electronic distraction other than the sound of classic poetry.

Paper, paper everywhere; where it should be

I'm beginning to wonder if every writer should have clipboards of paper and a dangling pen or pencil hanging in every room of his or her abode.

Recently, I bought a small tablet of waterproof paper. Yes, it exists. Biologists and geologist use it when out in the field near streams and in inclement weather. You can use a pen or pencil, though a pencil works best (especially under water). Amazon.com has a small tear-away pad that you can suction to the wall of your shower. The pad comes with a small suction mount for a pencil, too.

That pad has come in handy. Most of the problems in my stories are resolved in the bathroom. I don't know what it is about that place. I solved conundrums often enough that it required a pad in the shower just so I could get the idea or dialogue or description down without using specific words or nuances. So last night, before getting ready for bed, I found myself listening to very specific dialogue between two characters. They belong to the novel my thesis started, which I haven't touched since August. The character voices were unique and particular. I wanted to begin writing the conversation, but the waterproof pad was out of reach and too small. And yet I couldn't shut my mind off, either, because more sections of the scene started appearing, along with details and actions.

I ended up striding into the living room, where my boyfriend and I were watching educational YouTube videos about the Maya calendar and what happens in a presidential election in the event of a tie, and ordered him to "Pause it. Pause it! Pause it, pause it!"

He finally did after I plopped onto the couch and grabbed a notebook and pencil. What followed was a 300-word sketch of dialogue and notes in the worst chicken scratch I've ever written. I type faster, usually, but couldn't spare the time to grab the laptop, log in, locate the document, locate the proper location in said document, and begin typing.

Thus, I realized that maybe it's a good idea to dangle a clipboard and pencil off the bathroom counter, and have a notebook on my nightstand instead of further away on my desk, and maybe one on my To Read shelf in the little hallway. There are white boards and notebooks located elsewhere throughout the apartment.

I told my best friend of this incident. She said she loves when inspiration strikes like that. It's as if the moment takes over you, as if you're living it alongside your characters. And you need to get the idea down on paper as fast as possible without any distraction registering in your mind. No one else's real-life conversation, no facts broadcast from the TV, no song lyrics, nothing. The entire world must pause until the idea is safely on paper, and only then (when the voices in your head quiet) can life resume.

The appeal of distractions

My friend recently posted on her blog about wanting a knitting project to end, how she's tired of it already despite loving to knit and having it be a release for her. A friend of hers commented on that post and said that she, too, becomes tired with a project and finds her eyes roving over other patterns and thinking of other projects she'd love to do instead.

And it made me realize (for the umpteenth time) that writing is no different. Many, many times throughout my college years, I've been assigned a writing project but wanted to do something else halfway through. Sometimes, I'm excited about that first project. Either it's an intriguing concept or it's a story that has been simmering on one of my backburners for years.

And yet, no matter how excited I am initially, I am bound to covet a different story while writing the first one. I don't know why this happens. Take my thesis, for example. That novel has been waiting patiently for about four or five years before I finally got to writing the first third of it for the thesis project. It was intriguing, it was exciting, it actually challenged me every day because it was written in a different style (first person, present tense) from a perspective I don't usually write (a male) and it had some severe handicaps (blindness, medieval-type era) that affected what I could mention. And yet, I kept having ideas for another novel, an easier one from a girl's perspective that is closer to YA than literary. My grandmother read the first half of the first chapter and loved it, and has been waiting for the rest of it ever since. I even won a small award on that little bit of story. I'd love to finish it for her before something happens. I'd love to get it published and place the finished book in her hands. And yet, I didn't choose it for my thesis.

And now that I'm considering NaNoWriMo, I have to limit myself on what stories I can work on. I chose to work on that YA story for Grandma during November, after I had managed to move beyond a particular scene and expand the story. I haven't been able to move past that point for at least two years. Yet the moment I finished my thesis, there was dialogue for the other story. But I can't work on it now because I have to save it for November. And what do I want to do? Work on it.

And what do I have in my head in the meantime? A third novel that I started about three or four years ago that everyone loved. It needs some drastic revisions, rewrites, and general plot and characterization overhauls, but it's still there... whispering... taunting... luring... I put that story's folder on Google Docs so I could get to it during down times at work. And how much do you want to bet that when November finally rolls around, I'll want to write in this third novel instead of the YA one.

Oy. Anyone else have this problem?

Gearing up for NaNoWriMo

This is the first year I intend to attempt National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for those who are not in the know.

NaNoWriMo is a personal challenge in which a person writes 50,000 words (about 175 pages) of a novel during the month of November. According to its website (http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/about/whatisnano) the challenge begins on November 1 and ends at 11:59:59 p.m. on November 30. The site states, "Valuing enthusiasm and perserverence over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved. Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly."

This means that writers just write a rough draft of a story. They don't have to revise or edit, just write everything out. The goal is to get a story on paper, and then post-November, we begin the revision process. Those who write the 50,000 words successfully can submit the story for "official verification," be placed in the winner's circle, and receive a winner's certificate and web badge.

Writers don't have to sign in to the site in order to participate; they can do it on their own as a personal challenge. And I'm wary about posting the story online in the official forum because it may count as self-publication and, after revision, a publishing company may be averse to "reprinting" it, if accepted.

I heard of this challenge years ago while I was a sophomore in college, or around then. And every year since, though I've had stories in mind, I've never been able to participate. School or work always got in the way. Fifty thousand words is quite an endeavor in itself when one is used to short stories, or when one hasn't ever finished a novel idea. It's more of an endeavor when you squash what should take months into just one month.

I gained a little perspective about this challenge this past year while I wrote my thesis. The story itself is about 160 pages and is the first third of a novel, at least. It is also only 43,155 words. It took me about six months of strenuous, almost debilitating writing. Graduate school does this in general; it punches you down and grinds you under its heel and then builds you into something better. You feel exhausted and depressed because you no longer feel as if you're cut out for that education, and that you're no longer a writer. And somehow in the end it works out.

This particularly happens during the thesis months. But I had amazing support from my thesis director and the other professors on my panel, of which I was able to choose with their permission. My director was incredibly patient with me--she knew that life often takes precedence, especially when it deals with job changes and moving--but pushed just enough to keep me writing and turning in the right amount of work on time.

And I plan to squash all of that into one month without that support. Except for my boyfriend. He loves the idea that I'll be writing a novel again (though he has yet to read my thesis). And I have a few friends who will also attempt the challenge for the first time. Still, I worry that I'll consider the challenge, and maybe begin it, but then drop it a week in. I have to stick to it, this time. Without the workshop environment from school, I'm not as compelled to write a story. It isn't a necessity anymore, just a hobby.

Maybe this challenge, if I stick to it, will turn writing into a necessity again. I have so many stories in my head, it would be nice to get them down on paper before I forget things.

The thing about deadlines

We all hate them. At least, that’s how we were trained to view them. They were something that looms over us, as if always threatening, “You better get that project turned in by such-and-such a time, or else!” We suffer debilitating symptoms of stress and fret over our livelihoods because of deadlines.

But then something changes, and somehow we begin to thrive off them.

At least, that’s what a couple of my grad school teachers said about me. And it seems to be true. Most of the time, I am more likely to do the bulk of the work a day or so before it’s due. And that’s not completely caused by procrastination. I will work on copy edits, for example, over the span of a full weekend after receiving the work on a Thursday and still pull an all-nighter in order to turn in everything by Monday morning. If I had chapters due for a class or workshop, they would be written a day before the deadline.

It’s not as if I like doing this, either. I would love to pace myself and work on little bits at a time. But there’s just something about deadlines that forces me to work. Some imperative compulsion that keeps me rooted to the computer and better able to reject distractions. The way it feels earlier in the week, the project is not yet important enough to deny other things in my life, or I feel as if there’s still more time to work on it. And then as the day draws closer, I realize that there is no time left and then try not to panic.

Sometimes I wonder if I work well with deadlines because of my journalism experience. We’re given an assignment that is due that afternoon, the next day, or at the end of the week. We’re forced to get used to deadlines and actually work off them. It almost creates a co-dependency with an abstract concept. When we’re given a project that isn’t due until the end of the month, we look around as if we’re lost and wonder what we’re going to do with our time between now and then. It becomes as if we can only do work if we’re under a deadline. Is that why I thrive under them? Is that why I can’t seem to break the habit of doing most of the work the day before something is due?

Is that why I haven’t been writing in my stories—because I don’t have any more deadlines? Or someone to hold me accountable for my work?

Lack of workshopping environment

First, to my friends. Thank you so much for reading this. Your support, just by glancing through these blogs, means so much.

Today, I met up with Kim and Rosemary for our annual summer EnP run. We started it a couple years ago when I stayed with Kim and her mom during Chatham's summer residency. Because we were all located in the same general vicinity and hadn't seen each other since graduating from SRU, we thought it would be nice to get together again. We sat on the patio of the EnP in the Waterfront, watched the river and talked about writing and our lives since graduating. It was nice enough that we did it again, and then again. This year makes our third year and an official tradition.

We brought up a topic that I also posted about on Facebook. The lack of workshopping or a writing environment. People will argue that anywhere is a writing environment, anywhere we happen to write. But that's not necessarily true.

There is something about being around writers that makes a person want to write. Writing begets writing, I suppose. When we step into a classroom or into a summer workshop, and are greeted by friends who are on the same skill level and who inspire us to write, to make ourselves better. We have teachers who communicate through emails and who are willing to read our work line by line. And it isn't just "Here are your grammatical errors," or "You have a plot gap here." They mold our craft and make us better. Graduate school destroyed me as a writer. It ground me down and then built me back again into something better. It was hard work, emotional turmoil, and yet I stood taller at the end.

And then, a month or so after graduating, we sit at our computers, begin to write, and realize that we have no  mentor anymore. No students with which to work. Our friends have lives, their own stories, and it doesn't feel right to bombard them with requests for edits or comments. What are we to do?

• Message them anyway and hope for the best.
• Join a city workshopping group and hope for the same level of quality, professionalism, and drive, and that they won't steal our work.
• Message professors to see if they can take time out of their insanely busy schedules to continue to help.
• Take the training wheels off, trust our instincts, and work by ourselves.

John Green once said something along the lines of writing being for introverted people who have a story to tell. I've come to find that writing is a very solitary, very lonely practice. Especially when our environment changes. We work through our stories--if we can find the time, energy, and inspiration to write--edit them ourselves, and send them out to lit mags with the hope that they're good enough.

More often than not, they aren't. But sometimes we get that stray acceptance letter that almost seems like a fluke. It bolsters our self-confidence, pushes us to write again and send out more, and makes us feel wanted and appreciated.

That is why my friends, and anyone else who reads this, mean so much to me. They read my words and come back for more. And after a while, I don't know if I'm writing for myself or for them. And yet, I still haven't figured out whether I'll message them and ask for workshopping opportunities, or respect our differing lives and hope for the best.