Writing

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.

NaNoWriMo Day 14 (11/14)

Chris Leave a comment

Well, I wound up only spending 2.5 to 3 hours writing last night instead of the 5+ I had planned, but I got over 2000 words written, so I’ve finally started to make up for lost time. If I turn my 1666 daily words into about 2400 daily words, I will still finish in time. Heck, if I count the words I’ve written for this blog, I’ll only be short by 2044 at the end of this post. I’ll be using the day 13 total since I usually write these posts around midnight and schedule them to post in the morning so I’ve got the chance to review them before they go up. This is relevant because I count any time before going to bed as still the previous day for the purposes of calculating numbers and statistics.

I finally feel like I’m at least sort of back on track now. I’ve righted the course by spending my evening trying to write (even if I missed the mark for the majority of the time I had set aside). That being said, I almost fell asleep while writing because my caffeine wore out around 11pm and my ibuprofen (I’ve developed some really awful neck tension and pain) wore off at about 11:30pm, so the last bit was a real struggle to stay focused on writing sensibly. I kept almost mixing in references to things from Star Wars, Rick and Morty, and The Oatmeal comics because that’s apparently where my mind goes when I’m stimulating my imagination while falling asleep.

I seriously wrote two entire sentences about how many schmeckles a job would earn before I realized my eyes were closed and schmeckles are a currency from a particular episode from Season 1 of Rick and Morty (the Meeseeks episode). I definitely enjoy the show (Mostly. There are some parts I don’t enjoy because I feel like it crossed a line simply for the sake of transgressing rather than trying to make a statement about anything), but I wouldn’t want it injected into the story I’m working on. It’s entirely the wrong kind of story. This story is… just Fiction, I guess? YA but for adults? I’m having a hard time classifying it, honestly. Its like The Great Gatsby but about 20-somethings in the modern age and our particular brand of existential crisis/identity issues (which, depending on your analysis, makes it fairly similar to The Great Gatsby).

I’m willing to bet that, once I go through what I wrote tonight while in a more cognizant state of mind, I’ll find a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t make sense or just kind of repeats itself. That’s usually what happens when I’m falling asleep and still trying to write (thank goodness I’m still allowed to edit…).

I’m going to be mostly busy tonight, but I should have time to cram some writing in if I work at it and focus well. Then Wednesday night is weekly night for Destiny 2 and Thursday is… probably a Skype call with a friend. And writing where I can fit it. Same for Wednesday. I can probably put off Destiny until 6 or 7 and write between the end of work and the start of our weekly play time. I’ll figure it out. I’m officially in “shut up and make it work” mode, so I’m confident the daily writing will get done.

One last gripe: as much as I love f.lux, I really hate that it notifies you of approaching wake-up times. Yes, I know I get up at 6am every morning, but I find it distinctly unhelpful to get a pop-up notification that my wake-up time is in 5 hours.

 

Daily Prompt

Everyone’s relationship with music is different. We all have different preferences for the kind of music we listen to, but we also have different views on what music is appropriate where. Today, write a scene about your character’s musical preferences and how they encounter music in their lives (for instance, I like chill and meander-y music because I often use it to help me relax when I’m tense or stressed). Feel free to expand into the Musician vs Listener territory, and how being either of those changes the relationship and how music is encountered.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today’s inspiration is actually my go-to writing beverage. No alcohol or coffee for me. Sure, I’ll have an energy drink if I’m feeling particularly drained, but that’s more a pre-writing thing than something I enjoy consuming while writing. My favorite thing to drink is Tradewinds iced tea. It comes in giant jugs at the grocery store and is made of pure tea for the unsweetened variants and sugar for all the sweet variants, instead of high-fructose corn syrup. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with corn syrup (there’s a lot of anecdotes and hearsay, but little scientific evidence that I’ve encountered, so feel free to let me know if I’m wrong), I just prefer the taste and texture of drinks make with sugar instead of corn syrup. It saves me a lot of time because I don’t need to brew it or mix it and a nice cool beverage keeps me alert and focused more than a warm beverage does. Find your drink of choice and make sure you’ll well supplied!

 

Helpful Tips

If you’re stuck at a point and not sure how to proceed, I recommend talking out loud to yourself or a stuffed animal (or action figure or pet or whatever, something with a face.) Sure, an actual person could give you a response instead of just passively looking at you, but sometimes we’re not entirely ready for our work to be seen (or heard) by actual people. You get a lot of the same benefits, but without the anxiety that often goes with sharing your creativity with the people around you. Just sit down, talk about the problem, follow your trains of thought from beginning to end, and you’d be surprised at just how many details work themselves out once they’re off the page and in the air.

NaNoWriMo Day 13 (11/13)

Chris Leave a comment

Well, I didn’t do much writing yesterday again. I’m seriously starting to wonder if I’ve doomed myself since I can’t seem to make myself actually prioritize my writing. At the same time, I did some wonderful prep for my D&D campaign that lays the groundwork for many sessions to come along with figuring out some of the murky details for the plot arc my players are pursuing. I also fleshed out the DMPC I’ve created to round out the party (weekly attendance is at three right now, so I’m just adding a safety on top of adjusting their encounters) and created a few instant encounters for the environments they’ll be heading through. I should be good on prep for the next half-dozen sessions if we stick to 3-4 hour sessions (instead of the 5+ hour sessions we’ve been doing lately).

I really enjoyed the session, even if it dragged on longer than expected. It gave me the opportunity to insert a random new element to the world and challenged me to come up with something effectively homebrew (rules for an entire new creature type along with the source of said creatures) on the fly. One of my players did the unthinkable and rolled three 1’s in a row on an attack roll, so I gave him the option of accepting the instant accidental death (house rule on three 1s in a row on an attack roll) or taking an unknown other result that could be worse than death but would give him the opportunity to possibly avert the problem. I decided that the sword he used, a longsword with the “vicious” trait (it does damage to him every time he hits something with it but deals extra damage to what he’s hitting), animated and started using vampiric style attacks to suck out the life force of whatever living creatures were near it.

Thankfully, they managed to kill the no-longer sword-shaped aberration (it looked like a 15 foot long caterpillar made of metal) and thus the whole crisis has been averted (for now). However, the addition of this powerful creature to what was already a tough fight (12 zombies and a mummy for a level six party) wound up dragging the session out so that, as 11pm passed and 12am approached, they finally wrapped things up and returned to their basecamp outside the dungeon to recover from their drained life force and wounds. And they leveled up!

This is why I love Dungeons and Dragons. As a DM, it can force me to be creative at a moment’s notice, encourages player participation in story-telling, and a good player will always take the unknown but interesting if they have a choice. I get to incorporate things from other stories I loved (the no-longer-sword-shaped aberration was an idea i got from a comic I love) and I get to see the reactions to my story-telling as it happens. The suspense and wonder, the dread and weary joy, the fear and bravery. I have, and probably will again, write entire posts about why I love Dungeons and Dragons. There’s just so much there to enjoy if you’ve got a good set of players and a good Dungeon Master.

Even if I don’t finish my NaNoWriMo writing goal this month, I’ll still have written more this month than in the past several thanks to my daily blog updates. I’ll have done story-telling I enjoyed every week. I’ll have fully committed myself to creating once again. I still plan to try and I’m confident in my ability to pull the necessary words out of my ass over my holiday next week if it comes down to that, but I think I can already count this month as a win no matter what else happens.

 

Daily Prompt

As a human, we can be wildly emotional. All you have to do is turn on daytime TV to see stories and reality shows of people doing incredibly irrational things as a result of entirely emotional decision-making. People who struggle with mental health issues often have first-hand experience in how emotions can entirely overrule reason and common sense.  Even if your character isn’t strictly human or not even sorta human, the emotional side of every race/species depicted in story-telling tends to overrule the intellectual side. Write a scene in which your character’s emotional response to an event overrules their common sense or intellectual side so that they wind up acting when they probably shouldn’t. It can be anything from them leaping into action to protect someone, entirely blowing their cover, to them being unable to hold their tongue when they are being chewed out by someone.

 

Sharing Inspiration

One of my favorite musicians, who I listen to for just about every reason in the world (though the most common are because I need to de-stress and chill out or because I need something to make me contemplative but still action-oriented), is Andrew Bird. The absolutely breadth of genres he’s played over the years is surprising and his evolution as an artist is inspiring. He mixes wonderfully calm and meandering music with vocals that match the music but will make you think once you start to hear them past their part in the musicality of the song. He plays the violin, sings wonderfully, whistles, and plays the guitar, often using electronic delay and repeat recorders (they record what he plays when he holds down a pedal and then loop it back until he stops it again) to combine all four of those things at once during live performances. He’s a wonderful showman and an amazing musician. My biggest critique of him is that he can be hard to understand sometimes, when he’s singing, because he tends to blend the vocals with the instrumentals so much. If you need a little push, I recommend looking up his music (live recordings, if you can find them) starting with my favorite song, Take Courage.

 

Helpful Tips

If you’re struggling to get your writing done because you can’t focus when you sit down with a couple of hours to work, try breaking your time up into 5-15 minute chunks (10 is usually a good number). Set a timer to go off in ten minutes and challenge yourself to write as much as you can before the timer goes off. Once the timer goes off, record your results, take a short break to get a drink or check twitter (no more than a minute or two, timer-enforced if need be), and then start another. This time, challenge yourself to beat your previous record by as much as possible. Keep repeating this process until your reach or surpass your daily goal. These little sprints will help keep you focused and productive, giving you the bursts of creativity we’ve all felt where we write a couple (or a few) hundred words in only a handful of minutes because we’re very aware of how much time we’ve wasted. This way, though, you get the benefit without feeling like you’ve been failing.

 

NaNoWriMo Day 12 (11/12)

Chris Leave a comment

I finally got back to writing more than “just a bit” yesterday. I had trouble focusing, so I didn’t get nearly as much done as I wanted to, but it was still my best day since last weekend. I had planned to write into the night, but I decided that I would be better served by actually going to sleep at a reasonable hour for once. I also didn’t get much done in the evening because my neck got super tense and it hurt too much to focus on anything but how sore and stuff it was. Even after ibuprofen, stretches, and my rice sock (microwave it for a couple of minutes and its a nice source of heat for a stiff neck), it still hurt. So I just played video games for two hours (which wouldn’t suffer because I couldn’t focus through the pain).

I didn’t do any of the other things I had planned for yesterday, though. No job application preparation (there’s an opening for a Dungeons and Dragons game designer with Wizards of the Coast and I would lose nothing from just applying) and almost no social interaction outside of my roommates. A lot of plans changed at the last-minute yesterday. Which is part of why I was having so much trouble focusing. Today, I’m going to cram as much writing in between Dungeons and Dragons sessions as I can and hope I can make it to bed before 1am…

But hey! I’m over 35% caught up to where I should be, now! If I keep this up, I might actually catch up soon! I hope your NaNoWriMos are still going well, or have improved.

 

Daily Prompt

As humans, we all have our own little rituals. The order of our preparations for going to bed. Whether we pour in milk (or possibly even some other liquid) or cereal first when preparing a bowl of cereal. How we get out of bed and prepare for the day. We rely on these rituals for comfort and familiarity. They become so much a part of our lives that we begin to sue them for contemplation. When our otherwise demanding bodies are engaged in a rote task, the mind is free to wander where it will. Write a scene in which your character does this. Show them busily engaged in a ritual of theirs but still using the time to focus on some problem that has been tumbling through their life.

 

Sharing Inspiration

I have a little figurine on my desk, between my monitors, of a character from one of my favorite web comics. If you like good-story-telling and art whose attention to detail is beyond easy comprehension, you need to check out Erfworld. The writer drops so many hints at what is going on in the comic and what might happen in the future via the art that the entire forum, not just sections of it, is basically dedicated to analyzing every page that comes out. I like to keep this figurine in front of me as a reminder of what amazing storytellers can do, regardless of the medium, and because I really like the character himself. He’s clever, but not infallible. He’s a good person who genuinely cares, but can make tough decisions when he needs to. I suggest reading the comic if you have the time, along with finding little things that either inspire you outright or remind you of things that inspire you. Little reminders that you see around can help propel you to the finish line.

 

Helpful Tips

It may not be something you are consciously aware of, but the way your keyboard sounds or feels as you type can have a huge impact on your ability to type for extended periods of time. If your keyboard does not feel good as you hammer away at the keys or if it makes some upsetting squeaking noise every time you press the space bar, it might be time to experiment with new keyboards. Either ask your friends to try some of theirs or check out some computer stores like Best Buy. They should have a variety of keyboards for you to try.

If you’ve got any extra keyboards around, try writing with those for a session or two. You don’t always need a fancy, backlit or mechanical keyboard, sometimes a new angle for typing or the change from an often-used keyboard to a fresh keyboard can make all the difference. The same goes for mice! Don’t be afraid to try changing out your writing hardware if its starting to grate on you or isn’t working properly.

NaNoWriMo Day 11 (11/11)

Chris Leave a comment

I didn’t get much done last night. All of my effort and pushing caught up with me. Despite a steady influx of caffeine and a manageable but still significant amount of productive anxiety, I struggled to finish my cleaning chores. I had a lot, since I had been putting off cleaning my room for a very long time (a few weeks, at least), and I had piles of new books that needed to be sorted and shelved. Not to mention all the laundry and bird-dust that had accumulated. Cockatiels are lovely birds and can be quite companionable, but they don’t shed feathers so much as they just generate heavy dust and fluff. In only a few short weeks, they can coat any near surface in mausoleum-grade dust.

I did some writing though. Prepped my prompts, inspiration, and tips. Wrote a few hundred words. I’m still super far behind, though. I’m pretty sure that, by the end of the weekend, I’m supposed to be at 20,000 words. I’m at a little under 30% of that. If I did nothing but write for these two days, I could get there. But I’ve got plans. More D&D (and I actually get to PLAY this weekend! Not just run the game) and a Saturday just chock full of social engagements. At least, it’ll be full from some time in the afternoon onward. My plans are still rather loose at the moment.

I don’t mind that I’m going to have to work my ass off to finish in time. As I said during my book club meeting at work (and this is totally stolen from The Oatmeal’s “How to be Perfectly Unhappy”), I don’t need to be happy or feeling good. I need to feel challenged and fulfilled at the end of a project. I don’t do this because I enjoy every moment of the process. I’m exhausted. I’m not sleeping enough and my neck is just one giant rock of tense muscle. I definitely don’t enjoy the feelings of nagging obligation that keep me from my bed on cold, peaceful nights. I don’t do this because its fun, I do it because it makes me feel fulfilled.

It was nice to talk about my vocation at work today, to talk about what I care about more than almost anything and why I care about it. I was fully myself today with my coworkers, no longer the quite but steadfast worker who chimed in with a contribution every time the discussion began to stymie, but someone who had a commanding presence and spoke at length with a great deal of passion. It was also received very positively. I had a coworker remark that if I wrote nearly as well as I spoke, he was looking forward to the day that he’d be able to buy a copy of my book.

Throw in the blog comment I got yesterday (I love getting comments and talking to readers) and a comment I got from one of people in my support community and I’ll be riding this feeling of fulfillment for a week at least. As tired as I am, I feel more fired up and excited to write than I have since I came up with the idea for the support community.

 

Daily Prompt

One of the best ways to extol or even just show the features of a character is to set them up with a foil. If you’re not certain, a foil is a character that contrasts with another character and thus emphasizes particular characters or qualities. If your story has a solo protagonist, a good foil can be rival or a villain with whom they have a strong relationship or history. If you have multiple protagonists, a good foil would be another protagonist contrasting with them as a result of the situation they’re in together. Today, pick one of those types of foils (or both, if you’re feeling particularly ambitions) and write a scene that emphasizes your character.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Every so often, someone does something wonderful, weird, and down-right inspirational on the internet. One of my favorite instances of something like this is the YouTube video titled “Wazer Wifle!” It is a rap with accompanying music video made using footage and mods from a Fallout game about a gun from the same game.  It is super catchy, right up my weird and nerdy alley, and it shows that someone once cared enough about a game I like to make a music video and entire rap about it. It always reminds me that if someone could make something as popular as this, maybe I can as well.

 

Helpful Tips

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your set up if you’re struggling to stay focused or get through your daily word count. Once I figured out that candles help me focus (as a result of the fact that I used to use them in my meditation), I started buying large, unscented pillar candles so I can set them all over my room when I can’t focus. Then, I can turn off all the other lights and just exist in a warm cocoon of flickering light that matches the current f.lux setting of my monitors. There are other ways to experiment as well. Hemingway once said to “write drunk, edit sober” and, while I wouldn’t recommend doing that, I am also aware that I write my fastest when I’m half asleep and barely able to focus on the keyboard. Just try different things until you find what modifiers can help you do what.

NaNoWriMo Day 10 (11/10)

Chris 5 Comments

Sometimes, writing rescues me. A lot of the time, it isn’t my prose, but the poetry I write that helps me the most. When I write a poem, I am taking something I’m either currently experiencing or have experienced enough that I can call it up at will and put it outside of myself. I take the emotions stumbling around my head, capture them in specifically worded and arranged phrases, and then can look at them more clearly. See them for what they really are (which is often just something simple blown out of proportion by my mental illnesses).

Last night, I wrote. I spent almost two hours trying (and failing) to write part of my NaNoWriMo project and then gave it up as a lost cause. I was too full of thoughts, emotions, and anxieties. So I turned my mind toward a poem and a little phrase that had been spinning through my head all afternoon and evening, “broken words and broken moments shower me with shattered words.” From this I eventually produced a poem that felt a lot like the mental equivalent of scraping the contents of a can of cranberry sauce onto a plate without breaking or damaging the cylindrical shape it had held for so long. I may never post it, because it’s really only important to me, but it was a lot easier to write after that was done, even if it cost me another two hours to reach that point.

I’ve spent a lot of time wishing that I wasn’t like this. That I didn’t get caught up in horrible, obsessive thoughts until it starts to seem reasonable to knock myself out as a solution to the noise inside my head. I wish I could handle minor changes to things I’ve planned without spending the next dozen hours wondering what the implications of this change could mean for me and my life. I wish I could actually feel better once I get those thoughts out of my head instead of feeling drained and empty until I suddenly realized that I’m as mentally clogged as a shower drain full of hair. I don’t think I have anything else in my life that I wouldn’t give up if it guaranteed that I wouldn’t have to deal with those kinds of thoughts anymore.

Today, I am tired. It was a long night and today promises to be long as well. I can’t change everything I want to change, but I can keep fighting it with my poetry and learning about it through my prose. I hope that, whatever struggles you’re facing this month, that you can do the same.

 

Daily Prompt

Writing, like any other kind of mental effort, is skill that improves the more you use it. Like a muscle, you need to find ways to use it in new and more difficult ways if you want to become stronger. National Novel Writing Month is both a test and an opportunity to train. You will come out of this month stronger for having tried, whether you fail or succeed. Write a scene for you character that mirrors this. Show them striving or training to improve themselves in one specific area. Show them fail or succeed and then realize that the outcome wasn’t the real goal, but that doing the best they could was.

 

Sharing Inspiration

I like to find things that help create the emotional state I’m trying to write about. A lot of the time, I use music. In a broader sense, all of the stories I read do something similar. However, if I need a strong emotion quickly and can’t find a song, I like to look for poetry that fits. It is a lot easier if its something I wrote in the past because it reflects my actual emotions from the past and is easier for me to pick up and carry for a short time, but any poetry with the right emotional resonance will do the same thing. For this story, one of the poems I lean on to help me get into the mind of the protagonist is Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” I suggest giving it a read and seeing what it makes you feel like. Or finding your own poems to make you feel the right thing for what you’re writing.

 

Helpful Tips

If you’re staring at the screen and are unable to figure out what comes next, there are a few things you can try. You could try just writing whatever random thoughts come into your head until they (hopefully) align themselves with the story. You could try skipping to a new scene and writing from there. You could, of course, go find a writing prompt and use that to jump-start your writing. Typically, I find that running out of steam and not knowing where to go from there is a sign that you made a wrong turn earlier. I almost always know where it was because something didn’t quite sit right with me, so I head back to that point and explore other options until I find one that feels better. Don’t be afraid to go back and change something, or move in an entirely different direction, if you feel that is what your story needs. Just remember to save what you’ve already written.

NaNoWriMo Day 9 (11/09)

Chris Leave a comment

 

So, last night didn’t go exactly as planned. I wound up working from home after an appointment and then, instead of going right into dinner preparation or laundry folding or even bill paying, I loaded up Destiny 2 and started playing that. Whoops. I still managed to get some stuff done, though, by applying willpower and making a commitment to not play for so long that I lost all opportunity to spend my time on anything else. I got my bills paid, ate dinner, and wrote a bit. Laundry is going to have to wait until tonight (and I am not allowed to play video games at all tonight).

I did still get some writing and review (just reading, not editing) done, which was good. Writing my NaNoWriMo project is important to me, even if I never look at it again once it’s done. Primarily because I’ve been away from consistent writing for long enough that I wasn’t entirely sure I could still manage a challenge like this. Heck, nine days into it and I’m still not sure I can handle it… Secondarily because I’m using this writing project to work through some stuff I’ve been dealing with this year. I have no idea where the story is going or how I’m going to wrap it up because everything the protagonist is going through is a metaphor for something I’m going through. I’m hoping that, if I just keep writing, I’ll figure it out for both my story AND for me..

I want to say that I’m confident I’ll accomplish both of those things, but today I am unsure. I wouldn’t exactly say I’m lost because I know exactly where I am, but I am not sure I even suspect where I’m supposed to be going. “Directionless” would be an apt descriptor. I really want to just sit tight and figure out where I should be going, but I’ve been doing that for most of this year and gotten no where. I really need to just start moving and figure out if I went the right way once I get somewhere. Better to fail early and quickly than to spend a lot of time planning and fail too late to fix anything.

 

Daily Prompt

Having a character act in a void can be fun because it makes you focus on what they’re doing and who they are, but it also can make it harder for the reader to feel immersed. By the same token, adding too much description and sensation to the story can distract from the action taking place with the characters. However, if you set the scene beforehand, using narration, you can get the world established enough to immerse the readers but without distracting from the action that takes place later. For today, focus on creating scene settings. Just set up a few important locations for your character until you hit your word count for the day and then wrap up that one.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today, my inspiration is good friends. It’s a hard thing to share because it takes so much time to build, but having friends and other creators you can talk to can really get you fired up about your project. I couldn’t count the number of times I was able to work through a challenging bit of a story because I had a friend and fellow creator to talk to. The number of times my friends have given me the support I needed to keep going when I wondered if I should just give up is a (sometimes) frighteningly high number. Talk to your friends, find the people around you who love to create, and embrace this aspect of you, them, and your relationship as a whole. The joy and excitement that builds between you will provide you with all the motivation and willpower you need to get to work.

 

Helpful Tips

While the idea of filling every spare moment with writing is not only appealing but also something I’ve advocated here, that strategy might not work well for you. If you’re struggling to actually get something accomplished during your hectic flurries of writing scattered around your day, try making time for writing using a schedule. Specifically, MAKE the time. Scheduled writing time is not something you will ever find because there are so many other things that feel far more urgent. It is something you will need to set aside and wrap in iron so that it cannot be used for anything else. Set up a period of time you can make clear and use it for writing. It doesn’t need to be the same time every day, but actually schedule it into your day, ahead of time. Take the time on every Saturday to figure out what the next week’s writing times will be. A schedule adds a degree of accountability (if only to yourself), and can help eliminate distractions if you actually dedicate the time to writing.

 

NaNoWriMo Day 8 (11/08)

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I’ve got this song stuck in my head, “Older” by They Might Be Giants. Except, instead of the lyrics going “You’re older than you’ve ever been and now you’re even older,” they’re going “You’re further than you’ve ever been and now you’re even further.” I didn’t write much again. D&D ran a little late and things were going so well I was unwilling to end things early. 6:30 to 11 isn’t super late, but it’s definitely later than we’ve played most days. Usually we’d play from about 6:30 or 7 until 9 or 9:30. The longer sessions are definitely nicer as a the DM, but they’re also harder to incorporate into what is a rather busy month for me…

I shouldn’t be complaining. I had a lot of fun, my players had a lot of fun, and one of the characters almost died because he got kissed by a demon (not the first time it has happened to him). I’d like to spill some more details about what they’ve been doing compared to what I’ve been planning, but all my players could theoretically read this blog post and I don’t want to tempt them with meta-gaming knowledge.

Tomorrow night, after my bills are paid, checks deposited, and laundry is folded, I will sit down and write until at least midnight. I should be able to pick up some decent progress there. I will also attempt to do the same thing Thursday night and Friday night. If I can do that, I might be able to recover my numbers to the point where I’m no longer floating around the 50% mark (pretty sure I’m below even that right now…).

I know I can do this. I wonder if that knowledge is making me over-confident? I suppose we’ll see.

 

Daily Prompt

Every character has strengths and some of them are even fully aware of these strengths. Today, write a scene in which a character not only knows and relies on their strengths, but also gets over-confident and fails because they took their ability for granted. Show them failing when they should have succeeded, not because the task was simple but because they approached it without due care.

 

Sharing Inspiration

If you’re having a hard time coming up with interesting characters, one of the best places to find inspiration (and make sure it stays only at inspiration) is on forums of table top RPGs. My personal favorite, for use as both a DM and a writer, is ENworld.org.  There are just so many wonderful resources for world building and so many well-crafted NPCs and characters lying around that it is almost impossible to browse the forums without being inspired to take your character creation to the next level.

 

Helpful Tips

 

One of the keys to “originality” is to take stuff that already exists and combine it in new and interesting ways. Find five characters you like and mash them all together, trimming off the extra bits and filling in the gaps until you have one fully solid and new character. You can even do this with plots, cultures, and even entire worlds. Mix and match until you’ve got something wonderful and new. There’s nothing wrong with taking notes from existing works or creators, just make sure that all you’re taking is notes and not entire characters or places.

NaNoWriMo Day 7 (11/07)

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Well, I’m officially further behind now. Another evening of video games (Destiny 2 and Overwatch) means little writing was done. I did a bit, thankfully, so I’ve managed to hold on to my “write every day” goal, but tonight looks like it won’t be any more productive. I’ve got D&D this evening and I realized this morning that I never actually prepared the dungeon my players are investigating. Sure, they started it last session (which was a while ago), but starting a dungeon is WAY easier to wing than doing a whole dungeon.

Because of my daily blog updates, I’m guaranteed to get writing in every day. That’s certainly helpful, but it also means that I need to write 2200 words a day to stay on schedule. More, now that I need to catch up. Given that I’ve got a lot of commitments coming up, I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to take much time on the weekend to catch up either. Part of me wants to give in because, even after 5500 words, I’m still kind of hating my story, not mention the whole “half the words I should have written by now” thing.

That being said, I feel its important to acknowledge that I hate my story because it’s about aspects of life that I find challenging. All of my reading and video game escapism is to escape exactly the things that I’m writing about. I have to go into my head, where all my worst problems exist in their strongest forms, and get close enough to them to write about them without getting so close that I get caught up by them. It’s a very fine line and, as I found out Sunday, getting caught in them has consequences that last for days.

Writing can be dangerous. I can’t try to ignore my problems if I have to walk among them. My mind is my strongest ally and my most dangerous foe. It provides me the weapons to fight back while supplying the energy my problems need to wear me down. I am my biggest problem.

This reflection on living with mental illness has been brought to you by National Novel Writing Month: “an incessant reminder that everything has a cost.”

Gee, this would up being way more maudlin than I intended.

 

Daily Prompt

Most people enjoy action. A good action sequence can take place in almost any kind of story because there’s so much than can cause an action sequence to unfold. Chase scenes, fight scenes, races of all kinds, sports, shootouts, head-to-head combat via video games, and more! Write an action scene for your character today. They don’t need to be the primary actor in the sequence, but they should be observing it.

 

Sharing Inspiration

As a not-typically-cheerful person, I’ve often struggled with our culture’s focus on the common interpretation of what the founding fathers called “the pursuit of happiness.” As creators in general, we’re often not prone to being the most cheerful sorts. We all have our bouts of melancholy or severe/crippling periods of depression (Ha ha ha…). When I start to feel like the pressure to embrace this undefinable idea of “being happy,” I often turn toward The Oatmeal for my dose of cynical–often scatological–humor to remind me that life isn’t always about being happy and that, sometimes, all that matters is to feel energized and content. I suggest you check it out (this comic, specifically) if you’re struggling to feel alright with being unhappy.

 

Helpful Tips

Writing can be a difficult task when so much competes for our attention every time we sit down at our computers. If you’re having trouble focusing, I definitely recommend turning off the internet for a while. Disconnect your computer from the wi-fi or landline, turn your phone on airplane mode, and turn off any other devices. Turn off your second monitor (if you’ve got one), load up some CDs or setup your iPod, and then just get to work. Eliminating distractions can help you push to reach higher word count goals in less time.

NaNoWriMo Day 6 (11/06)

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I actually got a lot done yesterday, at the coffee shop. Boosted my numbers by about 2000, which is pretty good for writing in a public space surrounded by my friends. Typically, in a situation like that, I wouldn’t get much done at all, being too busy chatting with my friends or people-watching. But it was good. Then, when D&D got cancelled last-minute (one player had homework he needed to finish, and that takes priority), I saw the entire evening stretching out before me, tantalizing as it offered the opportunity to not only catch up, but get ahead.

So I spent the entire evening playing Destiny 2. Even the period from 10-12 that I’d planned to fill with writing. So I’m still a bit further behind that I’d like to be on day 6. At the same time, I spent most of the night awake and sick because of what is likely food poisoning. I’d love to spend my time today writing, but its been hard to focus because I’ve spent so much time feeling pretty miserable. I’ve been reduced to reading and browsing the internet and even that is hard because of all the awful stuff happening in the new. Also, the book I can’t bear to leave alone is going through a super sad and tense bit that makes it simultaneously hard to put down and hard to continue reading. If you haven’t read it, I definitely recommend the “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” trilogy by Tad Williams.

Maybe I’ll just play video games or brainstorm up a bunch of writing prompts. Or maybe I should clean my room and fold laundry. I’ve got plenty to do, I’m just pretty worn out so its hard to pick something to do. Food poisoning can be really draining. Yes, that was a joke.

 

Daily Prompt

Few characters can survive on their own. Even beyond the worries of physical survival, it is difficult to show a character acting in a world without someone to react to or play off of. A good book is going to have a mix of characters whose interactions can help fuel the plot and protagonist(s) growth. Write a scene where your character spends time with someone else and either/both characters grow as a result. Show a new relationship developing or an existing one growing stronger.

 

Sharing Inspiration

One thing that gets me really excited to write is consuming other stories, through things like books, movies, TV shows, or video games. If you want a good story that’s relatively easy to work through (in terms of time), I cannot recommend either the manga “Fullmetal Alchemist” or its anime counterpart, “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood” (and seriously just watch Brotherhood, don’t watch the other one… It isn’t worth it). The storytelling is absolutely stellar and the art is phenomenal. 10/10.

 

Helpful Tips

This probably counts as a little bit “cheatier” than most of the tips I’d post, but those of you doing your NaNoWriMo are probably constantly reminded to “write now, edit later.” I don’t know about you, but I’m not very good at doing that. Going back to re-read what I wrote the day before is an important part of getting myself into the right headspace to continue writing. Part of that, of course, winds up being some small amounts of editing. However, your goal for this month is to just produce 50,000 words, not 50,000 post-editing words. I use the strikethrough font styling to show words I want to later remove because, that way, they still show up in my word count. I don’t think it really matters so much for me because I’ve always finished with enough words over the goal to remove all my strikethroughs without jeopardizing my win, but if I wound up throwing out an entire section or chapter because I realized it wasn’t going to work? That could easily save me 1000-5000 words.

Remember: the delete key is forever and some things don’t need to be erased to be improved, they might just need a little more time.