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NaNoWriMo Day 24 (11/24)

Chris Leave a comment

Thanksgiving  and my cold now appear to be over and I can ago about my business, finally. Time to write up a storm. As soon as I catch a friggin’ Miltank, anyway… Thing won’t freaking show up and its been half an hour! So annoying. At least I’m failing to get some Black Friday shopping deal. I mean, sure, I can’t get what I want, but at least I didn’t get up at the crack of dawn (or earlier) and wait in line for a couple of hours to fail to get what I wanted.

Trying to make the time to write over the holidays has always been a tricky endeavor for me. I try to balance spending time with my family with spending time on a commitment I’ve made to myself. This is further complicated by the fact that I recognize that chatting over dinner isn’t enough face-to-face time with my family and the fact that my family is fairly supportive of my writing. It’s a fine balance to find and, combined with the unfamiliar environment and laptop writing, I wind up being only about half as productive as I normally would be. At the same time, though, I usually come back ready to write and be super productive, giving me a few days of increased productivity. Like I said, it’s a fine balance.

Even if I didn’t do as much this holiday as I usually do, I’ve always enjoyed the act of driving places. Being able to climb into my car and just go has always been reassuring to me. Knowing I’m never stuck where I am and that freedom is only a tank of gas away does a lot to calm a lot of my less conscious anxieties that’ll just build when I’m getting particularly stressed. During the actual drive, once I’m on the highway or interstate, I can just relax and cruise, let my mind wander as the forefront of my mind is occupied by navigating through traffic on the interstates or watching the scenery as I drive the old state routes.

I prefer the state highways when I can take them. I dislike feeling rushed or hurried and taking a state route somewhere feels like the epitome of my “I’ll get there when I get there” attitude. There are some really wonderful hills and almost deserted back-country state routes in Wisconsin. Route 12, once you get past the Wisconsin Dells, is probably my favorite drive. Sprawling vistas, forests blanketing hills, and some beautiful rock striations when they have to cut through the hills rather than of around or over them.

Now that winter is closing it, it’ll be difficult to find a pleasant drive or get anywhere far away without using an interstate. Even through the state routes are still the only real access that a lot of the small towns in rural areas have to the rest of the state, they’re not always well plowed or sanded/salted. With my tiny little 4-door Mazda sedan, a little patch of ice is all it would take to wipe me out. I’ll miss the almost-silent sound of asphalt beneath my tires (as compared to the loud scream of concrete), but I’ve still got some time until the snows start. Maybe I’ll go for a drive tomorrow, when I need a break from writing. There’s a lot of unexplored state and county routes around where I live now.

 

Daily Prompt

When writing a story, it is important to create conflict for your characters. A story without much conflict wouldn’t be very interesting to readers. There needs to be something going on, something at stake to hold people’s attention. However, as we all know through our own experience, a life full of enough conflict to make an interesting story can be completely exhausting. As a result, you character will probably spend some time trying to find peace. Today, write a scene in which your character either finds some peace or takes refuge in their favorite way of creating inner or outer peace. Try to include some reflect on why they’re trying to find peace or make it harder for them to find peace because the conflict of their life keeps intrude on their quiet place.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today’s inspiration is one of my favorite “feel good about the world” songs, “Great Big Life” by Kyle Andrews. I enjoy almost all of Kyle Andrew’s music, as a lot of it sounds positive and upbeat, even when dealing with more complicated or negative issues. Another of my favorites by him, “I Don’t Want a Lump of Coal” sounds almost as upbeat as “Great Big Life” but is about being left by your significant other right around Christmas. He does a lot of the more typical love songs, but also songs about heartbreak and he mixes them so it’s not entirely clear which is which until you take the time to really listen. Even then, some of them are entirely up to how you interpret them. He has some albums that stick firmly to the softer rock/alternative genre while some entire albums start to dip into a more electronic or pop sound. He makes for great light listening, perfect for background music to just about anything.

 

Helpful Tips

If you’re trying to finish your NaNoWriMo project by doing a couple day-long marathons around the holiday, it can be hard to sit in one place for very long and trying to move someplace with a less stagnate environment (like a coffee shop or library) can be distracting given the higher-than-usual number of people out and about. If you’re still determined to try, make sure to break up your writing session with breaks. Write for 45-90 minutes at a time, with a few couple-minute breaks mixed in to prevent you from getting too distracted. Do a little bit of research or look up some music. After your 45-90 minutes is done (and you’ll know its done once you start pulling up Facebook or some other social media), actually get up from your computer and go make a cup of tea. Leave your phone behind and let you mind wander as you wait for the water to boil. If you want a cold beverage, find a window to look out for a bit or have a conversation with someone around your place. Once the tea is make and ready for sipping or the conversation has ended, get back to work. As fun as breaks for facebook or video games can be, you also need a break from your screen and electronics just as much as you need to let your brain rest from writing.

NaNoWriMo Day 23 (11/23)

Chris 1 Comment

Well, today is Thanksgiving in the US. A day to visit family, eat a lot of food, and not get a lot of work done unless you’re one of those unfortunate people who works in the food service or retail who have to spend the morning catering to irate last-minute shoppers or thrifty/greedy bargain-hunting consumers who left the comfort and warmth of their homes and families behind in order to get the deal on some electronics or household items without having to camp outside a store all night. Having done the camping thing before, to get a game console for one of my siblings, I can’t fault people who would choose to go out the day before if it were an option, but I still think its pretty awful to have people who need to work on holidays.

It’s a complicated issue since it involves income inequality, consumerism/capitalism, and a whole bunch of other things that can probably get wrapped under the inequality and consumerism/capitalism. I don’t feel like I should be commenting on this too much since I have a job with holidays, make enough money to live comfortably as a single adult, and participate in some parts of the consumerism and capitalism. I’m a part of the problem, if not the biggest part of the problem, so I don’t want to criticize.

Now that I’ve gotten that little rant out-of-the-way, I can complain about the cold that just won’t leave, won’t let me work, and is putting a serious hold on my travel plans. My head-fuzziness is back, so I don’t really trust myself to safely carry out all my original plans, so I’ve had to make some new ones. I also didn’t get much writing done yesterday, maybe 1000 words, and I don’t think I’m going to get much done today. If all I do today is rest, eat, and go to bed early, I think I’ll count myself accomplished. Tomorrow, though, we will see… This cold seems to take rather drastic leaps in different directions every time I sleep, so I’m hesitant to make projections about how tomorrow will go.

I really would like to keep writing. I’m at the exciting part where I introduce conflicts and start to really establish the main themes of the books. I’ve made little hints and set a lot of the stage of this moment during the past 15,000 words, so I’m excited to start writing it. I have an idea of where its going, but I really want to find out how its going to get there. I really hope I feel well enough tomorrow to just sit down and crank out the next several thousand words. That would be nice. I’d enjoy that.

 

Daily Prompt

Fear can drive us to do some rather ridiculous things. Fears related to physical harm can spur us to take action when we otherwise might not, they can cause us to flee what might be a dangerous situation, and they can drive us to perform better than we thought possible by giving us an extra bit of energy to burn. Fears related to emotion harm are much less clear-cut or cause-and-effect. Fear of rejection and abandonment can cause us to avoid attachments of any kinds. Fear situations that have hurt us before can cause us to avoid anything new or out of the ordinary. Nearly silent fears of our own inadequacy can turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. Today, write about a fear your character experiences and what it makes them do, either to escape the fear or confront it.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today’s inspiration is actually one of the first book series I ever got hooked on: the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. This series about anthropomorphic animals living in a wonderful high-fantasy setting is probably the biggest reason I came to love reading and eventually came to love writing. I didn’t do a whole lot of reading after I learned how to, preferring smaller books that wound up being a few years behind my reading level by the time I was given Mariel of Redwall and Redwall by one of my Aunts as a present. Intrigued by the Mouse with a sword on the cover of Redwall and the commercials I saw on PBS for the animated series, I dug right in and couldn’t get enough to read from then on.

The first author I ever met was Brian Jacques, only a year or two before he passed away. Even now, I can feel the influence the books had on me. Their dedication to making the world feel real and their abundant, wonderful descriptions of food struck a wonderful balance of just enough description to draw you in without losing the pace of the story. I still get sad when I remember that there will be no more Redwall books and I’ll admit that I’ve been unable to read the last book in the series because it’s too emotional. As long as I never read it, there will always be one more book I’ve never read and I’ll be able to put off having read them all.

 

Helpful Tips

As urgent and important as National Novel Writing Month can feel, its important to remember that the rest of your life is important as well. If you don’t manage to finish your writing this month, you haven’t really failed. Sure, you failed a goal you set for yourself, but you tried and trying is often more important for something as long-term as writing. If you can become good at trying, no matter what else happens when you try, I can guarantee you will eventually succeed. The would is full of writers who didn’t start writing right away. People who never even imagined themselves to be writers or that it would even be an option for them. Eventually, they started trying. Eventually, they succeeded. You may not make a million dollars or be the next JK Rowling, but that’s not the point of writing anyway. Write to tell stories. Write because you have something you want to say. Write because you love to use words. Finishing a story is success and whatever happens afterwards is just gravy.

NaNoWriMo Day 22 (11/22)

Chris Leave a comment

The disastrous foil to all my plans has arrived and left me struggling to keep going. My cold is lingering and while it isn’t that bad (I can still think just fine and I’m not running a fever or anything), the constant popping of my ears, croaky voice, and over-full sinuses are uncomfortable enough to make focus nearly unattainable. Yesterday, even though my symptoms were worse, I could medicate through them and be fine, if rather tired. No such luck today. Today I can’t get them to abate at all.

I was actually going to write the rest of this post about whether I was too sick to write properly or if I was just using it as a convenient and convincing excuse to avoid trying to write today (and possibly even as an excuse to try finishing the my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo) but I couldn’t get the paragraphs to make sense. It’s pretty clear I’m too sick to coherently evaluate my options which means reason gets thrown out the door and all that’s left is emotion/desire.

After checking in with those two, it was really nice to find out that I was going to feel sad if I didn’t write today and even more sad (at the lost opportunity, not at a perceived failure) if I didn’t at least try to finish on time. This was matched by an intense desire to just write anyway because it’s not like I need it to make a lot of sense right now anyway. I just need to get the words out right now.

If I’m too incoherent to lose what little focus I’ve got, then I can probably just disconnect my computer from the internet and leave my comic books and video games downstairs. It’s not like I’m feeling restless or anything. I’d be perfectly content to sit in this chair (well, a more comfortable version of this chair) until I no longer felt sick, so I might as well write while I’m waiting. We’ll see how it goes, I suppose.

 

Daily Prompt

There are a lot of things we do not like or enjoy doing and would never consider doing every day for the rest of our lives or having as our main source of income. At the same time, there are often people out there who enjoy these things or find them fulfilling. For today’s prompt, have your character meet someone who enjoys doing something they extremely dislike and use the interaction as an opportunity to expand your character’s worldview.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today’s inspiration is the wonderful composer, Theophany, who created these amazing re-orchestrations/remixes of some of the music from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask that fully capture the various emotions that game carries into each moment. My favorite song from the so-far two-disc series  (Theophany released Disc 2 a year ago today, which was four years after the first disc) is The Clockworks. If you like The Legend of Zelda and beautiful music, you will love Time’s End and Time’s End II. I definitely recommend checking out the music and, if you like it, buying it from the artist. It’s an officially licensed album and set up with a “minimum $3” cost, so feel free to kick in a few extra dollars to support the next couple albums!

 

Helpful Tips

If you’re writing sequentially and can’t figure out what comes next in the story, try moving what is currently happening to a new place. Take the group of friends talking at a restaurant and have them go for a walk. If you change the scene, it can often lend itself toward new action or a new character’s introduction, both of which are great ways to move stories forward. Don’t worry about making it smooth or finding a good place for them to go or to be going to, but make the change and see what shakes out.

NaNoWriMo Day 21 (11/21)

Chris Leave a comment

Well, I’ve officially pushed myself to the point where the minor cold I’ve been fighting all month has fully developed. I’m actually going to need to make sure I get enough sleep every night because I can’t just caffeinate my way through a cold. Nor can I DayQuil my way through one, not really. If I had any sense, I’d take the day off tomorrow so I can sleep before I spend the rest of the week traveling for the holiday. Truth be told, I have so much sense that one of my graphic designer friends made me a little icon that I can send to people with a label that says “Mr. Good Plan Certified Good Plan.” I have some pretty stellar friends.

That being said, I managed to get my writing done last night after my D&D session. I had started it before the session, but 2400 of the 2800 words I wrote last night happened during the last two hours of my day. It feels nice to be back into the writing game, able to throw up something close to my old numbers. The quality’s still a bit lower than I used to produce at this speed, but I’m also pretty exhausted. I don’t typically get 4-6 hours of sleep every night during any month other than NaNoWriMo. Usually, I just write 4 or 5 nights a week, whenever I’m not filling an evening with video games or reading, and there’s no word count goal for every day. That means I don’t wind up staying up an extra hour or two just to finish for the day. I just stop writing when I get sleep and go to bed.

I’ve actually had a few friends and one coworker ask me why I’m subjecting myself to this much stress and exhaustion, beyond the feelings of fulfillment. Which is a fair question. I’d feel just as fulfilled if I was writing at a less demanding pace and I’d also feel a lot less like crap. Trying to meet a goal like updating my blog every day and writing 50,000 words in a month is about more than fulfillment, though. It’s a challenge. Its something I’ve never done before and I want to see if I can. I want to push myself to my limits and see if I can push those limits out further.  I want to remind myself of what I’m capable of doing if I’ve set my mind and aligned myself toward one goal. If I succeed at this, I’ll have updated my blog every day and written not just 50,000 words in a month, but written almost 40,000 of those words in only two weeks. A couple of years ago, for one of NaNoWriMo’s “Camp NaNoWriMo” events, I wrote 40,000 words in four weeks. Now I’ll know that, next summer, I’ll be able to do twice that many words.

Assuming I succeed, of course. I’ve got a head cold now, so all bets are off. We’ll see how things go after I’ve slept in tomorrow.

 

Daily Prompt

By the very definition of the phrase, no one enjoys being told something they don’t want to hear. Some of us handle it with more grace than others and some of us willingly subject ourselves to these things if we think they’re in our best interest. Despite our grace or our willingness, the end result of being told what we didn’t want to hear can be unpredictable depending on the subject matter itself and what seems like something that shouldn’t be a big can quickly become one. Write a scene in which your character is subjected to something they didn’t want to hear and then have them react differently than expected.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today’s inspiration is my favorite D&D comic and my favorite place to go for esoteric rules and game-breaking character builds for version 3.5 of Dungeons and Dragons, Giantitp.com. Giant In The Playground, as the website’s banner reads, is the host of the Order of the Stick comic, which is one of the longest running D&D comics I’ve read and the story is amazingly well-written, with plot-twists at all the right moments and epic scenes that draw you in despite the fact that it has a rather slow update “schedule.” The characters are represented by stick figures, but you can easily tell the artist puts a lot of work and effort into the comic by the detailed backgrounds and how consistent everything is from one panel to the next. If you like D&D comics, good story-telling, excellent villains, and can appreciate jokes made about weird D&D rules, this comic is right up your alley!

 

Helpful Tips

One skill that is essential to develop is you want to be a writer is discipline. All the inspiration and motivation in the world won’t do you any good if you are not disciplined enough to sit down and write regularly. If you keep it up long enough, you’ll move beyond the need for inspiration and motivation (though they’ll always be welcome). Like any habit you’re trying to establish, writing during the same time period every day can help you get more done every day. During my more prolific times, I would sit down and write from 8 until 10 every evening. Two hours, at least, of writing every day. I’d get about 2500 words written a day on average and it only ever got easier to sit down and write every day. On Weekends, I wrote from 10 until noon every morning, getting a little less done on most days but more frequently letting my writing time leak into the rest of the day. Creating a schedule will help in the same way, even if your writing time isn’t at the same time every day. Discipline is the key to consistency and consistency is the key to writing success.

NaNoWriMo Day 20 (11/20)

Chris 2 Comments

Well, I certainly got a lot written last night. I wrote a little over a thousand words during the day leading up to Dungeons and Dragons (most of it happening right as D&D approached) but then blasted through almost three thousand in the hour and a half I wrote between the end of D&D and midnight. I was on fire. I had a few places I struggled to figure out what happened next, but I think those transitions from scene to scene will smooth out during editing. At this point, while I’m still behind, I’m a lot less behind than I was yesterday since I essentially made up for a day I skipped in the past and then a little more. I still have a long way to go, of course, but a good deal less than Friday.

I really hope I can keep this up. It’d be really nice if this was me finally getting back into the flow of writing now that I’ve been working at it every day for almost three weeks. That feels like a long time to be getting back into something, but good habits take a while to form, right? Maybe my persistence is finally paying off! Or maybe its all the caffeine I had today finally making itself useful for something other than allowing me to ignore how sleepy I feel. That’d be nice.

I’ve got a bit of a difficult week coming up here. First off, I’m super excited for my players to progress in the dungeon I created because plot, monsters, and lore are all in there somewhere and I really enjoy bringing all three of those things to my D&D sessions. Secondly, I’m going to try to see the Justice League movie with my roommates and I’m not entirely sure its even worth seeing on a $5 Tuesday at the local Marcus Theater. Especially since that’ll be time I can’t spend writing. I’ve also got to go pick up a key from my friend so I can check in on her cat while she’s out-of-town, figure out if my girlfriend and I will have time to see each other again before Thanksgiving, and then decide if I’m going to drive down to Chicago Thursday morning or Wednesday night. I’m leaning toward Thursday right now because I probably won’t do any writing Wednesday night if I drive down before writing. If I wait until Thursday, then I’ll only have to struggle through one night of writing (Thursday) since I’ll be home sometime Friday evening.

Then it’s the weekend again and who knows what interesting things will be happening then. Probably lots of them. I’ve had quite a few interesting weekends lately. Somewhat less productive, but definitely interesting. I’m more confident than ever that I’ll be able to catch up, though, so I’m alright with that.

Also, forget a new keyboard, I need a new computer chair. Mine has awkwardly placed armrests that cause me to hunch my shoulders and is constantly dropping downward, like some ghost was pulling the height-adjustment lever on me. Good job, ghost. Great joke. I’m now awkwardly sitting with my knees way up and the edge of my desk cutting into my wrists. Super cool.

 

Daily Prompt

Sometimes, the things we take the most pride in are small things, little victories that are meaningless to everyone else but prove to us the extent of some small ability we recognize within ourselves. They’re the kind of things that make your friends smile indulgently as you give them the play-by-play action report on something as small or seemingly insignificant as finding a way to get some extra burn time out of a candle or accurately predicting your arrival time. Today, show your character experiencing this kind of pride and the way that the people around them react in response to your character’s seemingly insignificant accomplishment.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today’s inspiration is one of my favorite modern poets, Shel Silverstein. Almost all of his pictures make him look grumpy or kind of scary, but he wrote some wonderful children’s poetry that is not only fanciful, full of delightful imagery and actual images–he was also a cartoonist–but is also incredibly clever and more nuanced than a lot of other modern poetry I’ve read. There are layers upon layers to what he writes, shadows of bigger meanings that never fully materialize, and little hints of some deep meaning hidden behind the bright images and neatly composed words. He’s the kind of poet most people will either love or hate depending on what you take away from his poems. If you want to enjoy some particularly arranged words that often feel light and fluffy until you really think about them, I highly recommend starting with his book (my favorite) Where the Sidewalk Ends.

 

Helpful Tips

While it can be super scary, it is super helpful to get an outside perspective on your writing. If you have a friend who is willing and has the time to keep up, having an alpha reader (or several) can help you figure out the direction of your story and maybe come up with some new scenes to better develop your characters. Sure, you can get a lot of this just by talking to someone about your story, but it is a lot easier for them to provide feedback and a lot easier for you to explain what’s going on or what you’re looking for if they’ve already read everything you’ve written.

Outside of National Novel Writing Month, I would almost say its a requirement of anyone who wants to write something that people will enjoy reading. I’ve tried both methods: writing entirely in a void and writing with regular feedback or someone you can question about particular scenes you’ve written. Writing in a void was super productive. I wrote more and faster than I’d ever done in a similar amount of time. However, it was very clear that the quality of the writing was much lower and I eventually learned that I’d made a choice early on that made it difficult for some people to actually enjoy the story. With regular feedback, it takes more time to write the same amount and it can be hard to wrangle my alpha readers sometimes,  but the quality is drastically higher and it is easier for me to experiment when I’m getting more immediate feedback.

I can’t honestly say this will be true for anyone, but I do know that most of the people I’ve worked with have been way more productive when they have a supportive environment, regular feedback, and people who express a genuine interest in what they’re creating. It sure feels nice when people care, doesn’t it?

NaNoWriMo Day 19 (11/19)

Chris Leave a comment

I’m still behind, despite my plans. And because of my plans. I am getting more done every day now, so that’s good, but I’m still far enough behind that the number of works I have yet to write is rather prohibitive. But I’ll finish. No matter what. I really can’t say that I should have spent my time other than I have, it’s just hard when so much that’s going on right now is a high priority for me.

It feels dumb for me to be complaining about not having time this month. I’ve got too many good things I’m trying to do all in one month. Sure, my depression and my anxiety show up now and then to screw up a day or two, but it’s mostly a good, if tiring, trek through my days as I rededicate myself to writing, fill my spare time with all sorts of wonderful video games or books, and try to keep things running smoothly with my girlfriend.  I mean, my choices are between writing until D&D starts at 6pm or playing Pokemon until 6pm. The horror.

That being said, writing is a lot harder than playing Pokemon. I’ve discovered that the story I’m telling involves allegorical references to my previous job, a lot of people I’ve known throughout my life, some of the troubles I’ve faced growing up, and a lot of the things I struggle with from day-to-day. This book is almost literally born from my pain. Most of the major bad things that have happened to me and a lot of the things that have hit me the hardest are going to be a part of this story in some way or another. It isn’t all that fun to write, but it’s shaping up to be a good story. More significantly, I can already tell that this is going to be an important story, if only for me. I think I’m going to keep at this one until I finish it, NaNoWriMo or not.

 

Daily Prompt

Self-sacrifice can be a good thing. If someone does it for the benefit of society and the benefit to the whole far outweighs the negative to the individual, convention says we should all sacrifice. At the same time, the mantra of “sacrifice of yourself so that others will benefit” is easily perverted to something like “you are not worth as much as everyone else is.” Write a scene where your character struggles to mark the difference between the two, maybe in reference to whether they should do a particular thing that is self-sacrificing or maybe in reference to whether or not they are giving too much of themselves in general. This is a great place to examine your character’s motivations.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today’s inspiration is an “old” YouTube video by a guy who does mostly comedic reviews of video games. A lot of his early stuff is childish humor mixed with teenage idiocy, but most of his recent stuff is actually pretty decent. It came out right around the time Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild came out and was probably one of the best reviews I’ve seen of the game because it actually let the game speak for itself. It was clever, it was silly, and I laughed the entire time I watched it through when it came out. I definitely recommend giving it a watch. That being said, you probably shouldn’t watch it if you don’t care for swearing.

 

Helpful Tips

Writing can be draining. Don’t be afraid to indulge a little in the things that make you feel good. If you want a candy bar, make yourself a deal that, as long as you get today’s writing done, you can have a candy bar. Wanna bury yourself in a pile of stuffed animals and lack the last dozen you need to complete the pile? Buy yourself one for every week you write every day. Not getting enough sleep from day-to-day but also trying to find healthier alternatives to just chugging coffee? Create yourself a caffeine schedule so that you’re coming off the last of it as you’re getting ready for bed and don’t worry too much about using a crutch for right now. Self-indulgence can be bad, but as long as its only for this month, you’ll be alright. Just, you know, probably don’t try to use drugs and alcohol to fuel your writing. I literally cannot find a single person that has worked out for in the long run.

 

NaNoWriMo Day 18 (11/18)

Chris Leave a comment

I totally forgot to even write this update until just now. The combination of frustration at the failure to deliver a bunch of stuff I ordered and the enthusiasm that infects me every time I get a new Pokemon game, I’m lucky I managed to write as much of my novel as I did yesterday. I got a full day’s worth in, thanks to a super productive half hour I spent at work, waiting for the weather to clear up a bit before driving home. I punched out and wrote over 1000 words. As a result, I’m actually considering doing my writing time every day right after I punch out at work to capitalize on the lack of distractions and the nagging feeling that I should be using my time productively.

Today, I’m off to a slow start. My packages arrived and I’ve been rather completely distracted once again. This time by Saga comics and, once again, new Pokemon. Today’s Pokemon distraction is a bit more logistical though, as I’ve begun the careful process of catching every Pokemon I can and evaluating their potential as team-Pokemon. It’s all very exciting. At least, its exciting if you like plotting data, doing research, and the different ways the strength of individual Pokemon is measured. I’m certain it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but data aggregation and application has always entertained me to some degree or another.

At this point, all my distractions have been set aside and now it’s time to get to work. Hopefully I can make good on my decision to catch up in a single weekend. D&D tomorrow night and time with the woman I’m seeing tonight indicate that it’ll be more difficult than originally anticipated. No regrets, though. I’ve got another weekend and four more vacation days I can use. Plenty of time.

 

Daily Prompt

Over-confidence comes in a couple different flavors. Previously, I suggested writing about over-confidence stemming from taking an ability of skill for granted. This time, write about someone using bluster and false confidence to conceal an inability of a self-perceived lack of skill. Show your character trying to cover up their lack of ability with bravado and hot air rather than admit that they are unable or show what they think is a weakness.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today’s inspiration is actually Sudoku. Anyone, in this day and age, will tell you that the brain is like a muscle and, if you want it to be strong, you need to spend time working it out. A lot of people then follow this up by talking about reading or writing or using your creativity or imagination. The flip side that most people don’t talk about is that this also applies to the analytical and logical part of your brains as well. If you have nothing to do with numbers but spend all of your free time improving your vocabulary, you’re going to wind up with the mental equivalent of someone who keeps skipping leg day. Sudoku is one of my favorite ways to stretch a side of my brain that I don’t use a whole lot in my day-to-day life. The main focus is on logic puzzles, but it also helps with your ability to mentally hold something in place (as you track which numbers could be in each box) and your ability to distinguish individual numbers in large number sequences. The last one might not seem like much of a skill, but it definitely makes it a lot easier to parse through large sets of numbers.

 

Helpful Tips

Anyone can write a lot of words in an hour. If you take one of those writing tests, the online ones that measure how many words you can write in a minute, you should be able to do at least ten times that many words in an hour. Probably even more than that. The main barrier to not being able to write that much that quickly is that you need to figure out what to write first. If you’ve got a long time to put toward writing, you could plot out what you’re going to write that day, maybe one sentence per paragraph. That way, when you finally focus on just pumping out words, you can just fill in the gaps rather than worry about finding the right path forward. You’d be surprised at just how much faster you are, even after taking the time to plot it all out.

 

NaNoWriMo Day 17 (11/17)

Chris Leave a comment

I made the executive decision last night to go right to bed when I got home rather than try to write. That means I’ve fallen even further behind, of course, but I went to bed “early” because I’m spending all afternoon/evening today writing, then all day Saturday writing, and then almost all of Sunday writing. If I’m well-rested (or at least better-rested) going into this push, I’ll be able to focus and write more quickly. In case that doesn’t work, I’ve bought a case of energy drinks and created a rationing schedule so I don’t give myself a heart attack or over-caffeinate myself. I’ve also got tea for when I need a little something but don’t want to make the 5-6 hour commitment an energy drink requires.

I have crafted a weekend with no excuses to do anything but write. Spend time with my s/o? We’re going to make dinner and work on projects, maybe play a board game or two. I can’t focus and need a break? No Breath of the Wild of Destiny 2 for me, I’ve got a new Pokemon game that can be played for a few minutes and then set aside, paused because I closed the screen on my 3DS. Need something to eat for lunch? I’ve got pre-made soup from Costco. 10 minutes and my meal is done. Sleepy? Caffeine! I’ve got it all figured out. All I’ve gotta do is get through one last work day and I’m ready to sit down and crank out 20,0000 words in a weekend.

In other news, I can finally play Skyrim on my Switch! I’ve been looking forward to this immensely because I’ve always enjoyed playing Skyrim, but with easy it is to mod on my computer (and how I feel like its impossible to play WITHOUT mods, now that I have them), starting the game is now a bit of a longer process. I thought about picking it up for the Xbox One for some casual couch-playing, but then I heard the new Nintendo console was going to have it. Here we are, a year later, and I can FINALLY PLAY IT. At some point. I should probably not buy it this close to Christmas or else I’m not going to have anything to tell my family when they ask me what I’d like. Which is totally not a thing that has happened before.

Also, waiting until AFTER NaNoWriMo, at least, would be for the best. I can’t really afford another distraction and I just know I’d tell myself I was just going to create a character only to realize, 8 hours later, that I know owned a plot of land in every major city using only money I’d stolen from pick-pocket tutors. Yeah, they actually have a lot on them and aren’t any more immune to being robbed than any other NPC.

 

Daily Prompt

As a middle-class, heterosexual, white man, I have a tendency to look past a lot of the problems other people face, not because I’m trying to ignore their issues or struggles but because I don’t see them in my own life. It takes a lot of work to remain cognizant of my own privilege and I’m not always successful. A lot of protagonists in modern and almost all characters in historical settings would have had similar issues or would regularly encounter people with similar issues. For today’s prompt, write a scene where your character struggles to understand the problems faced by someone less privileged than them or where your character has to interact with someone who doesn’t understand their own privilege (the interaction can be a positive learning experience or a negative trial your character overcomes, you decide).

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today’s inspiration is my favorite book on writing, Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird.” If you want a really great book on what it means to write and some wonderful suggestions on how to frame things in your mind, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Lamott writes about her own issues, but uses them to address concerns and issues everyone faces. I almost feel like her book is a higher authority than some other similar books (Like Stephen King’s “On Writing”) because Lamott isn’t some millionaire writer, she makes enough to get by most of the time and thus still faces a lot of problems that we not-yet-pro writers face. I mean, how many writers starting out can relate to drug-fueled binge-writing sessions? Or struggling to make writing only a part of our daily lives rather than letting it dominate our lives?

There are dozens of really good quotes in this book, but the one that has helped me the most is “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” I feel like every writer needs to hear that at some point in their life. I bring all of my experiences, good and bad, into everything I write and I can often go through my stories and point out where each character came from and what happened to bring that character to life. I used to feel somewhat ashamed about how often people could find themselves (shown in a positive or negative light) in my writing. I don’t, anymore. Writing that honestly has helped me move on in many cases and, in one case, even helped repair a friendship I had thought damaged beyond recovery.

Ultimately, we can only write about what we know or have learned and, as Lamott said, “If you people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

 

Helpful Tips

The irony of my upcoming tip is not lost on me.

If you’re having a difficult time getting your mind in order to write or you’re struggling with feelings of illegitimacy (which I still get sometimes, so its pretty common), I suggest looking for people writing about what it means to them to be a writer. As my inspiration shows, people writing about writing can help change your perspective on what you’re doing or give you a little flash of insight that can push you through a rough patch. If you do a simple google search, you will find thousands of results, some of varying degrees of usefulness. If you ask your writing friends, though, I’m sure they could make some suggestions.

Anne Lamott: “Bird by Bird”

Stephen King: “On Writing”

Thomas C. Foster: “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” (not exactly writing about writing, but it was still super helpful for me).

NaNoWriMo Day 16 (11/16)

Chris 3 Comments

I took yesterday off as planned. Got my extra sleep, got my errands run, took the time to make myself some delicious healthier food (hotdogs are super easy to make in a toaster oven and they taste alright if you buy the good ones, but they’re not exactly a good meal to eat four out of seven days a week), and then sat down to write around one in the afternoon. Twelve hours later, I’d written a few hundred words, play Destiny for a couple of hours, and finished reading the entirety of “To Green Angle Tower.”

I want to just say “whoops” and laugh it off, because that would be easy and I’m already stressed enough knowing I’ve got 15 days to write 39,000 words, but that would be a disservice to myself and the book I read. One day, once NaNoWriMo has ended and I’m trying to keep the daily updates to my blog going, I’ll write a full review of the book and then probably a reflection on it. Heck, I’ll probably do the entire “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” series. There’s so much to unpack and talk about in the series!

Anyway, I honestly don’t regret taking the entire day off to finish reading this book. While I had planned to write and I do also wish I had spent more time writing, this reading break came when I really needed it. That last book I’d finished, aside from a couple of comics here and there, was John Green’s “Turtles All the Way Down” and that, being a highly emotional read for me, had been skewing my perspective. It had me very focused on the things my own story would say and how that it might be read by people. Finishing “To Green Angle Tower” was an excellent reminder that what a book says relies so heavily on the reader that the writer can only tell a story and see what comes out at the end if they want it to be any good. Every so often, I remember a famous book that I strongly dislike because it was written to make a point about something specific. It’s the literary equivalent of a guard standing outside a town in a Super Nintendo game: it has only one thing to say and will mindless repeat it every time you try to engage it.

I don’t want to write a story like that. While I wasn’t so far gone that I had already scripted the story’s message, I’d invested too much into what it was “supposed to” say that it was making it hard for me to write. Today’s writing is going to focus on stepping back from that ledge and getting back to figuring out the story I want to tell. I’ve already done a lot of productive thinking about it while I was staring at my ceiling, waiting for the roiling emotions stirred by the end of a beloved book to calm enough for me to sleep. I think I know what I’m doing, now. I can’t wait to get back to work!

 

Daily Prompt

Sometimes, the most important details can be the ones we don’t know. We see it often in fantasy novels, in stories using the “hero from humble origins” trope. A low-born young woman or man rises up to overthrow the cruel king or lord, stumbling from failure to success as they grow from a child into an adult. They learn wisdom, gain strength, and ultimately triumph, seeking no reward for their efforts but the chance to return to the peaceful life they once knew. Then, as the story wraps up, they learn of some hidden nobility or royal blood in their family tree and are called upon to take the place of the leader they overthrew. The clever part of this that we see in good stories is when the author hints at their background, foreshadowing the moment when they would rise to power. For today’s prompt, write about something similar for your character. Show a the moment that the learn the truth about their hidden past and come up with a few ways to hint about that you could insert into an earlier part of the story.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today’s inspiration is “To Green Angle Tower” by Tad Williams and will be the source of a lot of future quotes and references. I cannot count the number of times I stopped reading, went back, and reread a passage because I enjoyed it so much. The characters, some of whom still felt remote and unknowable through the middle of the book, had become alive and real by the time I reached the appendix. If you want to read a good high fantasy book that is incredibly clever with its references and inspirations, I cannot recommend the “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” trilogy emphatically enough. I suggest getting the recent reprints because I love tall books, even if they’re a bit harder to shelve. Not having to read a couple thousand pages of tiny text will be super helpful.

 

Helpful Tips

If you are feeling particularly stuck at a scene that just refuses to move along, there are a lot of ways you can make progress happen. The easiest would be to kill someone. Nothing progresses a story and gets characters moving like a nice injection of death. If you’re looking for something with a lower impact, have a character lose something. It can be a possession, a companion, a source of comfort, or even a limb. If you’re still trying to build things and not yet ready to start taking them away, introduce someone or something. Adding a new character or location can refresh the existing dynamic between your characters, giving them a nudge to start progressing toward their goals again. Adding things or removing them is easily the fastest way to get a story progressing again, so don’t be afraid to make liberal use of your power to move things on or off stage as you’re setting the scene.

NaNoWriMo Day 15 (11/15)

Chris Leave a comment

I’m really lucky to have the life I do now, even if my mental illnesses make it hard to focus on that. At the drop of a hat, I can throw sense and practicality aside in order to spend an entire month writing in as much of my free time as I can make myself use. I have a job that lets me adjust my hours so that, if I sleep in an extra three hours because I stayed up too late trying to write, I can just stay a little later. I’ve got the means to buy a specific brand of energy drink so that I can keep myself more or less focused when my 4-5 hours of sleep a night starts to catch up to me. I’ve got friends who understand that I might need to bail last-minute or that I might be a little slow on the uptake when I’m spending time with them because I’m trying to get my writing in without giving anything up.

All of that is even ignoring the more basic things like having a nice computer and the ability to buy myself a new keyboard so the infernal, insanity-inducing space bar squeaking will finally stop. Or like having the ability to spend so much of my time focus on one project to the exclusion of all else. I only need to work 40 hours a week to make ends meet. I was able to go to an expensive college that taught me so many of the skills I need and use every day to accomplish projects like NaNoWriMo (though a cheaper college have done that as well).

Sometimes, when I’m very stressed or worn out or feeling particularly put-upon, reminding myself of all of these things help. Right now, I’m feeling all three. Its been a long month that is now half over and I’m currently sitting at just over 20% of my goal. I’ve got no one to blame but myself for being so far behind, but my upcoming schedule doesn’t make it any easier. I’ve got some time off that I’m considering using, to help me catch up and get a proper amount of sleep for friggin’ once. I’m going to get at least two more days of it this year and I’ve got about four saved up already, so I think I can afford to take one or two off this month. Probably today and then one day during the last week of November.

It would be really nice to sleep. And I’d be able to get a day or two of extra writing done if I take the day off, even AFTER running some of the errands I’ve been putting off…

 

Daily Prompt

One of the major steps toward growth is overcoming our boundaries. If we only do what we know we can or what are comfortable doing, then we don’t grow. Only by pushing up against the very limits of what we could do or by stepping outside of our comfort zone can we truly expand our capabilities and grow stronger as a person. Today, write about a time when your character was pushed to their boundaries and whether or not they decided to try to push beyond them. If you can fit it in, also write about what happened because of their decision, really show us what that moment meant to them in the long run.

 

Sharing Inspiration

One of my favorite current (you know, still alive and writing) authors is Brandon Sanderson. He is incredibly prolific and writes an insane number of books every year. There is much room to debate the quality of his works, but one that easily stands above his other works is the Way of Kings series. Sanderson is already a master of unconventional worlds and he out does himself with this series. In a land ravaged by irregular “High Storms” (typhoons of horrific wind and rain that pass over the entire land as they vent their fury on the people trying to live in their path) the entire ecology of the lands that get the worst of it has evolved differently. Everything seems to have a hard shell or tough carapace, some armor to protect it from random seasons and terrible storms.

If you’re looking for interesting characters, a complex plot, and a world unlike anything you’ve read, I definitely recommend picking up Sanderson’s The Way of Kings series, which is now comprised of three full-size novels and numerous bits of errata scattered around (at least one is basically a neat little novella all on its own). That’s actually why I chose to write about this today, because the third book (Oathbringer) came out yesterday.

 

Helpful Tips

Writing is a lot of effort. It takes a great deal of patience and toughness to keep typing the words out every day. One thing that can make it easier is to make sure you’re getting at least some creativity from outside sources  every day. If you’ve got a book you stopped reading when you started NaNoWriMo, pick it up again. If you’ve got a new video game, spend some time playing it. While it is important to remember not to over-do your relaxation and recharging, it is just as important to remember to not ignore them entirely. Even a little reading every day can keep you more creative when it comes time to write. There’s going to be plenty of editing work to be done after the end of NaNoWriMo, so who cares if your story winds up being super similar to the book you were reading? Just write and figure all of that out later.