From character flaw to superpower in one easy lesson

It’s November, which means it’s National Novel Writing Month, that crazy, stressful, sometimes blissful time of year when hundreds of thousands of people all over the world decide to write a 50,000-word novel in just one month.

Did I mention crazy and stressful?

And yet, every year I do it again. Which means that it’s also that time of year when I feel an urgent desire to quilt. Or crochet. Or even garden (and I hate gardening). Basically, when I have to write, I desperately want to do something – anything – else!

I mean, sure, I like writing (or else this wouldn’t be my seventh Nano, right?). Yet I have this odd character flaw, that I’m a real grass-is-always-greener kind of person. If I’m writing, I’d rather be quilting. If I’m quilting I’d rather be scrapbooking. And if I’m scrapbooking … you get the picture.

Yet I always force myself through the wordmines of Nano each year, because I’m basically lazy, and the added pressure of the Nano deadline really works to make me finish a first draft in just one month. Any other time of year it takes me at least two.

This year, case in point, I was working on the first draft of another novel (the third in the Twiceborn series), which was meant to be finished before November, but I just hadn’t been able to push myself to get it done. I only had about eight scenes to go, but I had to set it aside in order to begin my new Nano novel. (And yes, I did consider skipping Nano in favour of just finishing the damn book already, but since Nano is my big chance to get a whole first draft in one month, I didn’t want to give up that opportunity.)

I told myself I could work on both at once, but I’ve never been able to do that before. I have enough trouble coming up with one novel on the fly, without trying to cram a completely different story into my limited creative brainspace.

So I was plugging away on my Nano novel, but feeling more and more guilty about the unfinished one, when I decided, dammit, I was going to give it a go.

And lo and behold – what happened? Instead of being harder than writing them individually, it was actually easier! I wrote faster and with more dedication, knowing I had to make my wordcount on both of them each day.

But it was more than that – it was that whole grass-is-always-greener thing coming into play. Suddenly what had been a character flaw started working in my favour. When I was working on one, my subconscious would be mulling over the other one, getting excited about the next scene coming, and I’d happily switch. Then when I got tired of that one, or ran out of inspiration, the other would be calling to me.

Yesterday I wrote nearly 4,000 words on one and 2,500 on the other. (And yes, my shoulders are killing me, thank you for asking.) To quote the great Vizzini: “inconceivable!”

So I seem to have acquired writing superpowers. Just in the nick of time, too.  I hope they stick around for a while. As long as I don’t also find some writing kryptonite, November should be a very productive month.

What about you? Are you doing Nano? If so, have you found any ways to make yourself more productive?

Follow the spark

Once upon a time, a writer wrote a book full of twists and surprises, about dragons and werewolves, mothers and lost children, loves and betrayals. The first draft was completed in the rush of blood called NaNoWriMo, and for once the writer was so pleased with her story that she stuck with it and started the laborious process of revising and beautifying.

The plan was to finish this process loooong before Nano rolled around again the following November, which would leave her plenty of time to plan the next novel, which would be a continuation of this exciting story.

Can you guess what happened next? Or rather, didn’t happen?

Yes, that’s right, I didn’t finish the revision. I still have seven scenes to go. As November loomed closer I began pushing myself to plan the next novel while still madly revising – not an impossible task, certainly, but every time I tried I ran up against the same problem. I knew, in very large terms, what needed to happen, but everything I loved about the first book was missing. The twists and mysteries were what made the first book exciting for me, but they’d all been revealed, and the second book would be a much more straightforward “kill the baddies, win the battle” affair.

And I couldn’t think of any way to make it interesting enough that I wanted to write it.

I’m sure, ultimately, I will be able to, but with mere days left in October I knew I couldn’t come up with anything in time. It looked like I’d have to sit Nano out this year.

Then, on the 30^th of October (why do I do this to myself?), I thought: Self, don’t be such a piker. Why don’t you just write something else?

Oh, sure. Last year I was so organised. You should have seen me! I had characters, plot twists – scenes planned out on index cards. Me, the ultimate pantster, and I even had an outline! I was so proud of myself. No more flailing around in the dark! And Nano had gone so smoothly as a result.

And now here I was, getting ready to buy a ticket on the express to Flailsville again. What was I thinking?? I didn’t even have an idea. What could I possibly find to write about in one day?

Well, said the little voice, you always said you wanted to write a version of the fairy tale Toads and Diamonds. Even as a kid, though I’d loved it, it seemed to end too soon. But what happened next? Maybe I should write it and find out.

A little spark of excitement flared. Okay, get out a pen and piece of paper, and write down half a dozen different ways you could approach it. Change the sisters to brothers? Set it in an unusual location? Tell the story from the “bad” sister’s point of view?

Soon I had a bunch of ideas and a whole lot more excitement going on, and that’s what decided me. Write the book I felt I should write, or the one I now really wanted to write?

Easy decision. Writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. If you’re not bursting with excitement at the beginning, the chances of making it to the end aren’t good. When you have two (or more) ideas to choose between, go with the one that sparks for you. 

So that’s how I came to be 13,361 words in to Attack of the Fairy Tales, a novel I had no inkling of a week ago. I’m living in downtown Flailsville again – crazy place, but a lot of fun sometimes.

So there’s my writing tip for the week: follow that spark!

The long and the short of titles

Over on Magical Words, Will McIntosh raises an interesting point about story titles: that you have a lot more leeway in naming short stories than novels, because a short story is usually part of a collection (either magazine or anthology) that people are reading, and most will try each story regardless of whether the title grabs them.

With a novel, however, the title is one of the holy marketing trinity that makes a browser pick up a book in a bookstore, or click on it on a website (the other two are the cover and familiarity with the author’s name). A good title is a selling tool that hints at what the reader can expect to find in the novel while making it sound enticing. A lot to expect from a handful of words, no?

Some writers don’t worry too much about finding the perfect title, knowing that their editor will probably want to change it anyway to suit what the marketing gurus think will sell. Many publishing contracts specifically say that while the author may be consulted on the title, final say lies with the publisher.

Other writers obsess over their titles, feeling that their knowledge of the book makes them the best person to find a title that perfectly encapsulates it – and who wants to get stuck with an awful title? Better at least to have some suggestions ready when the publisher starts to talk titles.

But what makes a good title?

Till last November I always thought I had a knack for titles. The “perfect” title usually leapt into my brain along with the story, usually something drawn from the writing itself. Easy peasy. (I say “perfect” since very few of my stories have been exposed to the rigours of the outside world, so they could be atrocious titles in reality, but at least I haven’t had to strain my brain too much to think of them.)

Then I started last year’s Nano novel. Step one: open new file. Check. Step two: name and save new file. Er …

*crickets*

Despite being unusually prepared story-wise, nothing leapt to mind. Oh well. “Nano novel.doc”. Brilliant, I know.

Never mind, something will occur to me as I write the story.

Nope.

I’ll think of a title when I finish writing it, then.

Nuh-uh.

I’ve now been working on the revision for two months, and it’s still called “Dragon novel”. It’s like having a six-month-old baby called “Hey You”, because nothing better’s occurred to you yet. Very frustrating.

So. Back to the elements of a good title, courtesy of another post on Magical Words:

You want something punchy, and short enough to fit on the spine of a book and still be legible (a very practical consideration that I hadn’t considered!). It should raise a question in the reader’s mind, so avoid common words – uncommon words, or unusual combinations of words are intriguing, like A Game of Thrones, or Fahrenheit 451. And make sure you don’t have to read the story for the title to make sense.

All of which are good tips, though sadly not helping with “Dragon novel”. There are a couple of huge secrets at the heart of this novel, and every title I’ve thought of is too spoilery. I guess I’ll just have to keep plugging away at the revision and hope that something brilliant comes to me eventually.

In the meantime, have you come across any intriguing titles lately?

Made it!

Phew! Finished my NaNo novel at 3 pm this afternoon. Soooo relieved. An entire first draft in a month, a new PB for me. I estimated I’d need about 60,000 words to tell the story, and it came in at 60,088. Not bad!

The ducklings all finished their novels too, though you will be shocked to learn there was some “cheating” involved this year. The girls both set their goals a little higher than turned out to be achievable. Not to worry – just change your goal to something lower! It’s not really cheating, of course, since that’s allowed in the Young Writers’ Program, it just feels like cheating to those of us who have to make 50,000 or bust!

I bought “Nano carrots” again this year – a much-desired book each, that they couldn’t have until they reached their “goal”. (Maybe next year I’ll have to specify which goal if they’re going to keep changing them to fit.) For a while it looked as though Drama Duck was going to have to wait till Christmas to get hers, but she put in a final effort this afternoon and managed to stagger across the (adjusted) line.

Baby Duck finished before any of us. His goal was 1,000 words, and he did more than that in Chapter 1 of his magnum opus, so he stopped writing and read his Nano carrot instead. It may take some effort to get him going again, but his idea is interesting so I’d like to see him finish the story.

All in all, a successful November. I hope, if you were doing NaNo this year, your novel went well too.

And now – oh joy! – I get to do something other than write again. Like maybe read some of these:

Or do some more of this:

Or even this:

Yay! So happy!

Life is full of purple satin

Let’s face it: there’s never a perfect time to undertake a large project, is there? Like, say, writing a whole novel in a month. Life will always get in the way, whether it’s family emergencies, dramas at work, sickness, or just plain old daily grind. We all try to fit so much into our lives, it’s hard enough to carve out time for another big project even if everything goes smoothly.


I lost a great deal of time this November to making dance costumes for Demon Duck’s class of thirty kids. It was my own fault - I stupidly volunteered, underestimating, as usual, the time it would take. Funny how I always think I’m some superhuman production machine when these things come up. Ten bubble skirts and twenty singlets with fake satin braces sewn on them? Sure, no problem!

In the end, with the dress rehearsal mere days away, I had to put my NaNo novel on hold. For three whole days I did nothing but sew *@#%^$!! singlets, till I was so sick of the sight of purple satin I could scream, with not a single word added to my wordcount.

But eventually even this torment had to end, after 17 metres of satin, 600 metres of thread and about 60 hours of swearing, and I had to face the novel again. The idea of giving up was hugely tempting at this point. After all, that was 6,000 words I had to make up, and time was already tight because I wanted to finish the whole novel by November 30th, which I estimated meant writing 60,000 words instead of 50,000. A big job, and one I’d never managed before. To have lost three days, when I’d been determined not to miss any, was a huge blow, but that’s life, isn’t it? Just chock-full of damned purple satin.

I’m hopeful there’ll be a happy ending to this story. I have three scenes still to write, and three days left to do it in. It’s tight – tighter than I’d hoped – but should be do-able. I’ve passed 50,000 words, which is kind of a psychological barrier, and feel the end just over the horizon.

I’m glad I forced myself to go on. If you have a goal, it’s no use giving up at the inevitable setbacks. Giving up seems so much easier, and so tempting. Maybe there’ll be a better time later, you think, and you’re desperate for sleep and sick of the whole thing anyway.

But there’ll always be purple satin, in some form or another, and you just have to pick yourself up and keep going. However much the to-be-read pile beckons, or however many tempting crochet projects you find on the internet in those too-frequent breaks from novel writing!

Writing a novel is only glamorous and exciting for about the first week. After that it’s work, like any other task that takes hours out of your life. Like making *&#!!%* purple satin bubble skirts. Often interesting, occasionally exciting, but still work. It requires some stick-to-it-iveness. (I’m sure there’s a real word for that, but my brain is too fried at the moment. Tenacity? Stubbornness? Something like that.)

Every time this month I’ve sat down to add more words to this novel, I’ve thought “I can’t do this”. The temptation to give up never goes away. But every time I push myself to do just a little more, and slowly the story grows. Tortoise-like, I inch my way toward the finish line.

Have you ever felt like that with a big project? What kind of purple satin has life thrown your way?

Imaginary medicine

Recently I took the ducklings to the dentist. In the grotty old carpark out the back is an equally grotty sign, advertising for a chemist shop that no longer exists:

CHEMIST: Prescriptions made up

This tickled Demon Duck’s sense of the absurd.

“Hey, look Mum – ‘prescriptions made up’. What’s this prescription do? We don’t know! We made it up!”

In other efforts of the imagination, I progress with my NaNo effort. Yesterday I would have said I was progressing well. Today has been more of a struggle.

I’m trying a new approach this year. In the past I’ve started writing with no more than a premise, a handful of characters and a couple of scenes worked out. This can bring great delight, as your imagination throws up exciting ideas and connects elements in surprising ways. It can also, of course, create a huge amount of stress, as you struggle to work out the plot on the fly. I’ve never managed to write more than about 500 words an hour this way, and often considerably less, so it’s always been a stressful slog.

This year I have much more of the story mapped out – perhaps as much as three-quarters – with many scenes neatly noted on plot cards. This has meant a more cohesive story and a writing speed hovering close to 1000 words an hour, or double my usual. Go, me! This is more like it!

Sadly, today I arrived at one of the holes: “memory scene involving characters A and B”. I hoped by the time I got here something brilliant would have occurred to me. No such luck.

After procrastinating most of the day I decided to skip it and write the next scene I knew instead. Lord, it was like pulling teeth. Eventually I got something half the length of my usual scenes, that took twice as long to write, and lay limp on the page like cold spaghetti.

And I still have to write another 900 words to make the day’s quota. I’m well ahead, but I’m determined not to lose any of my buffer. This year I’m not stopping at 50,000 and outlining the rest of the book; I want to write my way all the way to The End.

My poor imagination is feeling bruised already. I could do with one of those imaginary prescriptions!

'Twas the night before Nano

’Twas the night before Nano and all through the house
Every writer was panicked and glued to their mouse
The outlines were dodgy and full of plot holes
And 50k words seemed impossible goals

Okay, so now you know why I write novels and not poetry. But yes, Nanowrimo starts tomorrow, that month of mass insanity where writers all over the world egg each other on to write a 50,000-word novel during November. I’m equal parts excitement and terror. 50,000 words in a month – even though I’ve managed it four times before – is very daunting. Or maybe that should be “because I’ve managed it four times before”. I know exactly what I’m getting myself into!

On the other hand, knowing what’s ahead is also kind of exhilarating and I guess that’s the reason I keep coming back – the excitement when marvellous plot twists come to you seemingly from nowhere, the buzz when the writing’s going well and, above all, the rush of making it to the end. (And maybe the joy of collapsing when it’s all over!)

This year we have four Nano-ers in our house. The girls will be doing it again for the third year, with Drama Duck aiming for 15,000 words and Demon Duck going for 5,000. Baby Duck is joining the fun for the first time, with a goal of 1,000 words. I don’t think he’ll have any trouble. Some of his dinnertime monologues about lego or Skylanders are waaaaay longer than that.

If only he could find a way to write a story using lego bricks he’d be set.

No no Nano

Stop the presses – it’s November and I’m not doing Nano. I’ve done NaNoWriMo for the last four Novembers in a row, so not to be pounding out 1700+ words a day in a panicked scramble feels weird. Like December without Christmas.

I have all this time on my hands. Ha! I wish. Those pesky renovations. There’s always another wall to scrub or a ceiling to paint. That was one reason I decided not to participate this year. Another was that those last four manuscripts haven’t got any further. As with quilting projects, I’m great at starting new novels. Not so hot on the revising and finishing thing. Character flaw, I’m looking at you.

NaNoWriMo, in case you don’t know, is a group madness that overcomes tens of thousands of people all over the world every November. They agree to write a 50,000 word novel in a mere 30 days. There are no prizes; nobody sees your novel, or checks your wordcount. It’s purely a motivational thing. There are forums where you can chat with other like-minded novelists, finding answers or inspiration. How far can a horse travel in a day? Someone will know. What’s a good name for an alien artefact? There’ll be lots of suggestions.

There are also local groups which hold writing get-togethers if you’d like to meet writers in your area. Parties too, when it’s all over! You can become online “buddies” with others and send encouraging mail, or just chat. Your wordcount and your buddies’ will be displayed in your own little corner of the Nano website, which is a feature I really like. Watching those wordcounts creep up is very motivating. I hate getting left behind! (Who, me? Competitive??) Updating your wordcount at the end of every day and seeing the little bar edge along is very satisfying.

The girls are both doing the young writers’ version. It’s basically the same thing, but on a separate minors-only website where they get to choose their own wordcount goal. Obviously most kids go for something a leeetle smaller than 50,000. Drama Duck’s goal this year is 8,500 words, and she’s already reached it. Demon Duck is shooting for 3,500.

So at least there is some nanoing going on here, just not by me. I miss the excitement and the buzz of doing it alongside so many others, but reason had to prevail. As a kind of non-Nano consolation, I’m trying to outline a novel this month instead. I’ll still have to write it later, but outlining doesn’t take as much time as writing, and can be done while painting or cleaning, so it’s a more viable option this month. It doesn’t come as naturally to me as just making stuff up on the fly, but I figure it’s worth trying at least once. Doesn’t mean I’m permanently converting to the dark side!

It’s hard, though. Not as hard as writing coherent scenes while desperately improvising the plot, but answering the “what happens next?” question for a whole book-sized plot even in outline is brain-straining stuff. The “big idea” that makes you want to write the thing in the first place has to be broken down into hundreds of smaller ideas that all link together in a meaningful and apparently inevitable progression.

People are always asking authors the dreaded “where do you get your ideas from?” question. I think they assume the whole book falls into your head fully formed, so when they ask “where do you get your ideas from?” what they really mean is “how do I get the complete plot of a bestseller to fall into my head so I can simply transcribe it on to paper and wait for the money to roll in?”

Get the idea and the book writes itself. If only it were that simple! That bit about 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration should be in giant flashing letters. Only the people who sit down and actually try to turn their idea into a book realise that getting the initial idea is the easy part.

Everything else requires effort. And, pants it or plan it, it’s still work!

Nano carrots

“What the hell’s she talking about?” I hear you say. “That’s just a photo of a pile of books.”

Work with me here, people. You’ve heard the expression about the carrot being a better motivator than the stick. Well, I explained this one to the two eldest ducklings this month, along with a practical demonstration.

They both signed up for the Young Writers’ version of Nano again this year. In order to avoid a repeat of last year, where Demon Duck stopped writing after a week and I had to take 1500 words of dictation from her on the last day to get her over the finish line, I bought her a book she’s been begging for.

“This is your Nano carrot,” I said. “You don’t get to read it till you finish Nano.”

Hers is the Young Samurai novel, and she finished her 3,000 words before school this morning.

Drama Duck had no trouble finishing last year – she was done a week before the deadline. That suggested to me that her wordcount goal was too easy for her, and I wanted to encourage her to tackle a bigger project. Out came Nano carrot number two, the new Rick Riordan novel.

“If you make your goal 8,000 words instead of 5,000, you can have this book when you finish.”

And hey presto! She marched up the stairs last night, having finished her wordcount, and swiped the prize off the pile in triumph.

The third one, of course, is for me: Jackie French’s new novel Oracle. I read a good review of it in the papers a couple of weeks ago, and I’m looking forward to it. Adventures in ancient Greece are always fun.

And yes, I get to read my Nano carrot too. I put in a big effort yesterday, because I knew today would be crazy, wrote nearly 4,000 words and just scraped across the finish line. Thank goodness. It was a real struggle this year.

Just to add to the challenge, our computer guy arrived in the middle of the day yesterday and took over my computer for a couple of hours. Aaargh! What’s a girl to do when she’s thrown off her computer?

Why, go and sew something to relieve her feelings, of course.

I’m so in love with this bird fabric, this is the third thing I’ve made with it, and I’m not done yet. The whole of that particular range is so delicious I could eat it. (If, you know, I had one of those weird disorders where people eat stuff they’re not supposed to, like coal or chalk. I would eat only the most bright and beautiful of fabrics.)

Isn’t it gorgeous? I think this will be a pillow for my bed. Yum yum. Someone pass me a knife and fork.

Dear Blog

Dear Blog,

I’m sorry I haven’t spoken to you in a while. Don’t give me that sad puppy dog face – I still love you, honest. You’re great. It’s not you, it’s me.

Me and that Nano guy. I’ve been seeing a lot of him this month. Between him and end-of-year madness and the Carnivore travelling a lot, things have been rather busy around here.

I know you think I take you for granted, only seeing you when I feel like it. Not like that Nano guy. My God! He’s so demanding. It doesn’t matter what you do for him one day, he expects you to show up again the very next day and do it all again. And the next day, and the one after that … I tell you, I’m exhausted. I’ve come that close to breaking it off with him – not once, but several times. This year his demands seem so much harder than previous years. I really thought I couldn’t stick it out for the whole month.

So here we are, with only three days left in November. I know you feel neglected, but hey! Get in line! What haven’t I neglected this month? You’re no Robinson Crusoe.

Just. Can’t. Wait. For November to be OVER. I’m at just over 45,000 words tonight, so I’m pretty sure of getting my 50,000 words in. But AAARRGH!! I still don’t have a handle on this book I’m writing. Still blundering around in the dark. How can I be this far through the story and not really be able to say what it’s about? If I manage to get a coherent plotline out of this mess it’ll be a bloody miracle.

So, anyway, dear blog, I promise I’ll be back soon to lavish love and affection on you. We both just have to hang on for three more days and life will be back to normal. Kind of. Well, there is Christmas around the corner, you know, which on top of everything else involves every person I’ve ever met suddenly deciding they have to catch up with me before then as if they all think the world is going to end on December 25th.

So, yeah. Maybe “promise” is too strong a word, but you know I could never leave you. In the words of the immortal Arnie: “I’ll be back.”

Love,
Me

And they're racing!

No, not the Melbourne Cup, which ran today. I’m so uninterested in horse racing I forgot all about it till it was over. Still don’t know who won. Probably some horse.

No, I’m talking about the really important race that runs every November: NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. Though really they should be considering changing it to IntNoWriMo, since it is an international event these days, with people all over the world taking part.

I was very tempted not to join in this year, through fatigue and general lack of ideas. But Drama Duck and Demon Duck were both keen to give the kids’ version a go again, and of course they wanted me to play too. Still I seesawed back and forth. The night before it started I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to do it. My idea was so weeny and had such gaping holes in it where there should be things like plot and character.

Yet there I was yesterday, typing like a demon. And I achieved a personal best – 4039 words in one day. I can still hardly believe it. If you’d asked me that morning if I thought I’d ever be able to write so many words in one day, let alone that day, with only my skeletal idea to prop me up, my answer would have been a resounding no.

Now it’s day 2, and I’m still going strong. Just waiting for the wheels to fall off. A story arc would be nice, maybe some character motivations – even a title. I’ll just have to put my trust in the process and hope that these things will come in time. So far they always have, but it’s damn scary when you’re on this side of the process, waiting for the magic to happen.

Just don’t ask me what it’s about, okay? I have Absolutely. No. Bloody. Idea.

Isn’t Nano fun??

Nano round-up

You may have wondered about the long silence here. No, I haven’t fallen into a hole. I have merely become incapable of stringing words together after my mammoth efforts in November.

I reached 50,000 words with three days to spare, which is a new record for me. Even better, I didn’t stop immediately, but managed to add another 3,000 words to the total, fulfilling my promise to myself not to miss a day of writing in the whole month. This despite Real Life throwing all manner of obstacles in my way towards the end.

The Carnivore needed me to edit the accounting training course he’s just written, which is painfully convoluted stuff for a non-accountant. Moreover I am now convinced that all accountants are complete whackjobs.

Drama Duck needed me to help her write her campaign speech for the elections for school captain next year, and design a poster for her as well. She finished Nano comfortably on the 22nd of November.

Demon Duck needed me to help her finish her Nano novel. She’d written 1500 words on her own but had given up. When she got home from school on the 30th of November I forced her to sit at the computer with me. She dictated and I typed and we got another 1500 words done, which was enough for her (revised) goal and finished the story off too. She kept saying how much fun it was to write this way – maybe I need a secretary too!

End result: I didn’t complete the first draft. One day I would love to finish the whole story in November, but this year it wasn’t to be. I have a broad outline of what needs to happen and I’m pretty close – less than 10,000 words probably. I’m a bit sad that I didn’t get there, but hey, that’s life. We have three happy, still more-or-less sane novelists in our house. We braved Nano and lived to tell the tale.

The worst thing about Nano being over is I now have no excuse to avoid The Christmas Conversation with my mother. She likes to start The Christmas Conversation about mid-October. Me, I’d rather chew my own arm off than spend two months fretting about what I’m going to get everyone for Christmas. Doing Nano gives me a convenient excuse to stick my fingers in my ears and go “la, la, la, not listening” every time she tries to have The Conversation.

Now, alas, my shield has been ripped away and the sound of the telephone strikes fear into my heart. But I must be brave.

And I really must start my Christmas shopping!

Three wells make a river

My grandmother used to say this all the time. Like clockwork, whenever anyone said “well, well, well”, she’d pipe up: “Three wells make a river!”

I introduced Baby Duck to this expression recently and he’s quite taken with it. But I’ve found something better than three wells: how about seven bongs?

No, not those sort of bongs.

Drama Duck has perfected the fine art of wordcount padding. I’m such a proud mother. So young! So gifted!

Her Nano novel is set in a high school. Every time the bell rings she writes “BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!”

And it rings A LOT. I tell you, the child’s a genius.

Not that she needs the padding. Tonight she’s up to 4648 words out of 5000, and the story’s just getting started. Demon Duck’s on about 1600 words (out of 3500) and starting to wonder if she can change her goal to something smaller. She’s discovered that making up stories is harder than it looks. And also that middles suck.

I thought I wasn’t going to write a word today. Me and my new mate Phil are doing great as far as speed of transcribing goes. The problem is thinking of the damn words in the first place. I was completely dry this morning. Couldn’t think of a single place to take my story, and thrashed around most of the day trying all my usual tricks to jumpstart my creativity. I barely managed the minimum wordcount by introducing a new monster to attack the heroine’s party. When in doubt, bring on the monsters! Now the best friend’s been poisoned by a star spider and they’re stranded in the middle of the Sea of Stars with no ride home. How am I going to get them out of that?

That’s tomorrow’s problem. And, yeah, middles suck.

Delight, despair, delight, despair: lather, rinse, repeat

Or: when it’s good, it’s very very good, and when it’s bad it’s the most torturous way to spend your time ever invented. That’s Nano for you. A real rollercoaster ride.

Things I have learned on this year’s Nanoing adventure:

-- I use the word “stuff” waaaaay too often, even for a novel featuring a pair of thirteen-year-olds. And “that”. My God, if I had a dollar for every “that” in this manuscript, I would be writing this post from a beach in the Bahamas. Or possibly the deck of my new yacht.

-- If Nano isn’t challenging enough, new levels of difficulty can be created by inserting a character into your work who only speaks in rhyme. All I can say is, thank God for online rhyming dictionaries. Sometimes my brain is just too overwhelmed to come up with a decent rhyme.

-- It’s a lot of fun to read each completed chapter to an appreciative eleven-year-old audience. She’s following the story with great interest, and I enjoy listening to her speculate on what’s going to happen next. (By the way, said eleven-year-old has passed 3500 words out of her 5000. Demon Duck is languishing on about 1000 out of 4000.)

-- I’m beginning to suspect I don’t have a good enough imagination to be a fantasy writer. This in spite of apparent evidence to the contrary: I have space-going whales, a tree as big as a planet and flesh-eating pirates whose ship is made of organic balloons. Sounds like a good imagination, doesn’t it?

The trouble is, I find those parts difficult to write, and it seems to me they come out kind of flat. Whereas the “real world” sections have voice and personality and I zip through them with (comparative) ease.

The writers among you are now probably chanting “that’s what revision’s for!” and sure, I know this stuff is fixable (ten points if you spotted that “stuff” – I swear that word is following me around). But surely a fantasy writer shouldn’t have so much trouble with the “making stuf things up” part?

But still, in spite of these quibbles, things are going well (touch wood). Wordcount today is up to 29,528 words, which means I’m a little ahead of schedule for the month. Story-wise I think I’m about halfway through, though it’s hard to tell when you’re writing by the seat of your pants. My attitude to outlining is a little like my attitude to dieting. I can see it’s a good idea, but I never quite get around to doing it.

But probably the biggest news is my new technological best friend – a Philips Voice Tracer, purchased for me at great expense by the Carnivore, bless his little cotton socks. In the old days this would have been called a dictaphone; I’m not sure what the proper terminology is these days.

Regardless of its name, it’s made a big difference. I’m a very slow writer. It can take me five or six hours (or even more with bouts of procrastinating thrown in) to write the required number of words every day. I’m not sure why, but even trying as hard as I can I can’t write much more than 500 words in an hour.

Desperate for a way to reduce the hours I spend slogging away at the computer, I decided to try speaking the story and typing it later. I tried this once before, years ago, and found it unsatisfactory – I was too selfconscious. But, longing for some free time and a bedtime before midnight, I decided to give it another go. We only bought it on Saturday, so the jury’s still out on it as a long-term strategy, but so far I’m very pleased.

Last night, for instance, I couldn’t start writing till 9:30 – kind of late if it’s going to take five hours to get the wordcount. But with my new mate Phil’s help I knocked out 2000 words in two hours. True, the prose is a little uninspiring – a lot more “she went here, he said this” than when I’m typing directly, but that can be fixed, and if it gets the story out quicker I’m all for it.

Because after you’ve found out what the story is, you get the fun of revising it till it gleams. Maybe with Phil’s help I can finish the whole story, not just the first 50,000 words, by the end of November. That would really be something to celebrate. I could face Christmas with a clear conscience.

Aaarrgh! The dreaded C word! Just don’t ask me if I’ve started my shopping yet …

The universe conspires

Whenever I start a new book I find the universe starts throwing all sorts of useful things my way. Sceptics would suggest that it’s just that I’m more receptive to noticing related things when my mind is working on a subject, but I prefer to believe in the beauty of serendipity.

For instance: remember there was a lighthouse in my story? Guess what we visited on our holiday. There’s nothing like a location visit to get you in the mood. Then last Saturday there was a feature article about a very similar lighthouse with a gorgeous photo, so that got torn out and pasted into my novel notebook.

In my story the characters travel to other worlds on the sea of stars through a magical gate. I knew it was all dependent on tides and moon phases, so I had a great time researching those. I discovered tide clocks – too cool! Who knew such things existed? I know, probably everyone else but me.

Then I found a photo of a really beautiful tide clock and a few more pieces of story clicked into place.

I decided to use Fingal Bay, which I know well, as a basis for my imaginary setting. In looking up information about the lighthouse there I discovered that the present day sandspit used to be a permanent part of the headland till a big storm destroyed it.

Click click click. More ideas.

A photo of an actor in the paper – perfect for my villain.

In the travel section, a photo of a Japanese torii gate standing alone in the middle of the sea – wow. Gates, sea, lighthouses everywhere I turn.

On Tuesday I attended an author visit at the local children’s bookshop. The author was Martin Chatterton, who was very entertaining. No gates or lighthouses, but a very useful piece of advice – when he’s thinking about what he will write he likes to imagine scenes he’d like to see in a movie.

I don’t know why that struck me so much; it’s not a new thought. Lots of authors, including me, say that writing is like watching their characters act out a movie in their heads. I think it was more the “imagining what he’d like” angle, as if he were encouraging me to dream up the most colourful fantastical thing I could – and then stick it in my novel.

Which is what fantasy authors are supposed to do, I suppose, but I’d never thought of it quite like that. Maybe I get too bogged down in plot and motivation and mechanical-type things, and forget the whole “sense of wonder” part.

Whatever. My mind is open to all and any delights the universe wishes to throw my way. Bring it on, universe. I’ve written 10,000 words and I’m ready. At this stage of the game anything can happen.

And probably will.

3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Nano!

And they’re off and writing! I achieved a respectable 2401 for the first day of Nano. Drama Duck managed a whopping 1010 (she’s only committed to writing 5000) and Demon Duck also did well with 300 (for a target of 3500).

Elsewhere in the household, the Carnivore did some actual paying work and cooked a lovely baked dinner, bless his little cotton socks. Baby Duck mooched around complaining he was bored. To which my reply was “well, go and be bored somewhere else – I’m writing!”.

He also explained to his father this morning how chocolate milk is made. His theory is that you take a bowl of Coco Pops and add milk. You then end up with chocolate milk plus a by-product of Rice Bubbles. Thinking all the time, that boy.

I’m reasonably happy with what I’ve written so far. You can read the first scene over on my page at Nano (under "Novel Info"), if you’re interested. I read the first chapter to Drama Duck tonight and she was eager to hear more – a good sign, I hope.

Anyway, I’m off to bed. I have a big day ahead, with plots to thicken and cryptic utterances to … um … utter. Wish me luck!

This is going to get ugly

This year’s Nano just got a whole lot harder. Demon Duck announced tonight that she is going to do Nano too. Holy shrieking tantrums, Batman.

Demon Duck is – how shall I put this? – not the most placid of persons. I can see it now. November will be full of daily crying jags, fights and bitter complaints that everyone else is hogging the computer.

And that’s just me.

Wait until she gets started. The you-know-what will not just be hitting the fan, but knocking the fan right through the wall, destroying everything in its path before coming to rest, a twisted wreck, a mile down the road. The world is not ready for the terrifying collision of NaNoWriMo and Demon Duck’s, shall we say, underdeveloped strategies for coping with stress. Sorry about that, world. But what can I do? Her big sister has been planning excitedly for weeks.

I could refuse, on the grounds that I won’t get any writing done if she is storming down the hallway every five minutes to throw herself on her bed and sob. Unfortunately, the fact that it is true won’t win me any points in the Being a Good Parent Stakes. Instead, I will have to grit my teeth and Encourage the Budding Novelist.

Just one more thing they never tell you in antenatal classes. But don’t get me started on that.

So. My feelings about Nano are something of a mixture. There’s the usual oh I can’t wait, all tangled up with its old friend what the hell are you thinking??? There’s the twins this year I’ll be more prepared and I still have plenty of time, but now they are shadowed by their gloomy cousin Good Lord, now I’m support crew for not one, but two junior Nanoers and his sidekick this is all going to End Badly.

The sensible thing would be to do a lot of preparation. Plan and outline to the nth degree, know exactly where my story’s going before November arrives. There are people in my writing group who write like that. They even use spreadsheets to order their scenes.

I’ve been thinking about the eternal plotters vs pantsers debate as I write Dragonheart. I started with a one-page outline in very general terms that covered the initial situation, the main conflict, half-a-dozen characters and “it ends like this and they all live happily ever after”. I did more planning than I’d ever done before, considering character motivations and some worldbuilding details. The first few scenes were clear in my mind. So not a complete pantser.

Once I got stuck into the frantic terror of Nano I wished most desperately that I’d planned in more detail. Worldbuilding’s all very well, but what would the characters actually do? My brain was bursting with the effort of dreaming it all up on the fly. I resolved to be more organised and never put myself through this again. How much easier it would be if I had a scene outline for every scene, not just the first few, and all I had to do was flesh it out. Plotting was definitely the way to go.

Or was it? I’ve talked about muse bombs before: those little gifts from the subconscious. They start off as little details, mere window-dressing on a scene, but on reflection they morph into something huge and wonderful in the story. The closer I get to the end of Dragonheart, the more I can see how enormously these features have influenced the shape of my story.

They didn’t exist in the outline. Lots of things didn’t, of course; it was very basic. More importantly, they didn’t exist in my brain at the outset either, and I don’t think any amount of planning would have unearthed them. They grew out of the story as it unfolded, when I arrived at that place in the telling.

Another one appeared the other day. 83,000 words in, you’d think I’d know everything about my world. But a perfectly innocent sentence came out of a character’s mouth and I looked at what I’d just typed and went “Oh my God – how did I not see that before?”. My whole magic system got turned on its ear.

I know the plotters say that an outline isn’t set in stone. You can change it as you go along. But if you’re going to end up changing 90%, what’s the point of going to the effort of nutting it out beforehand? Dragonheart would be a very different story without the ideas that joined the party along the way, so I don’t think major plotting is the best way for me. Even though it might stop me feeling that my brain is going to explode out my ears.

That’s not to say that I won’t do any planning for Nano. I’m thinking that a happy medium might be to plan the first quarter of the book fairly tightly to get me off to a good start.

After that anything goes. And probably will.

Now I just have to find me a flame-retardant suit for when Demon Duck gets started.

Alas! she loves another

Dear Dragonheart,

We’ve been going steady for a while now, and I know we’ve had our ups and downs. I had a couple of flings with short stories, and there was that long separation a few months back. Things were a bit rocky there while we were getting reacquainted but then, I don’t know, I changed, or you changed, and suddenly we were in love again, just like that first flush of romance when it all began.

You were once again the only story for me, and I’m sure you felt the same. We were meant for each other, and it seemed that nothing could ever part us again. Only ...

Don’t get mad. It’s not you, it’s me. Me and my BAD AS (Bloody Awful Deficient Attention Span). I just have this problem with commitment.

I’ve started seeing someone else. No, no, nothing’s happened yet. We haven’t even held hands. We’re just talking. But this new story’s so luscious, so full of ripe promise, that I’m all giddy and starry-eyed just thinking about it. It’s making it hard to honour those vows I made you, to see it through to the bitter end.

You’ve got to help me, Dragonheart. Be scintillating. Sweep me off my feet with the dizzying turns of your plot. Pull all those hanging threads together into an ending so wondrous that I can resist the lure of the New Story. Work with me here, baby.

Please?

Love,
me

Sooo. Remember how I decided not to do Nano again this year? Yep. I lied. Thought of the most splendiferously brilliant idea the other day, and now I just want Dragonheart to be over so I can go play with my shiny new idea.

Of course, I realise it’s only shiny because it’s new, and by the time I’m halfway through I’ll think it’s the most appalling drivel I’ve ever written, but still. Even knowing that, the first flush of romance is still exciting.

It may even be a good thing for poor Dragonheart. I’m at 82,000 words now, still struggling on, but the ending can’t be too much further, can it? I’m toying with my new idea, doing a little research, but only after I write every day on Dragonheart. I’m determined to finish it now I’m this close, and if I can manage it by the end of September that still leaves me a month to plan before Nano kicks off.

Besides, Drama Duck wants to do Nano this year too, so I can hardly leave her to do it on her own, can I?

The sacrifices I am prepared to make for my children ...

Five things I learned on holidays

1) Holiday houses never have enough teaspoons.

2) Fishing is no fun if all you’re doing is baiting hooks and casting lines for children.

3) Children only enjoy fishing if they catch a fish in the first 30 seconds. Makes you wonder why you bothered baiting all those #@$?!*! hooks.

4) Going for a brisk walk along the beach every morning will only do pleasing things for your hip measurement if you don’t also spend the rest of the day lazing around eating cheese and biscuits and drinking wine.

5) Actually fishing is no fun full stop. I only know how annoying it is to take children fishing because the Carnivore told me. I was lazing on the lounge eating the cheese and biscuits while he was out suffering. Look, it was tough, but someone had to do it.

I should probably add a sixth point: I discovered I’m even lazier than I'd realised, hence there were no blog posts while I was away. I did a few pages in my art journal, but failed to finish any of the sewing projects I took, or read any of the books. I was a complete vegetable, though I did manage to drag myself off the lounge long enough to thrash the whole family at putt-putt golf. A most satisfying holiday!

So I’m back, all refreshed and ready to dive into the challenges of the new year. Baby Duck starts school on Monday, so once I get over the tearful goodbyes (mine, not his) it will be full steam ahead on Dragonheart, my fantasy novel which has been languishing since Nano ended.

And yes, I’m aware there was a fairly awful movie around a few years ago of that name. The best thing about it was that the dragon had a Scottish accent, since it was voiced by Sean Connery, who never bothers to alter his accent even to play a Russian sub commander. It’s only a working title. No doubt something stupendous and far more suitable will occur to me in the fullness of time. In the meantime I’d appreciate it if you kept the sniggering to a minimum, okay?

Life unplugged

I’ve been enjoying time away from the computer since Nano ended. Done a little sewing, some reading, nowhere near enough Christmas shopping – but mainly spent time just hanging with the family. Depending on how desperate the Christmas shopping situation becomes I may go back to my Nano novel tomorrow. Or … I may be completely slack and leave it till January. (Anyone who knows my capacity for slackness will now be putting their money on the January option.) I still have at least another 50,000 words, probably more, to write before the first draft is finished.

I made it to 50,000 words on Friday the 28th and promptly collapsed in a heap. Heroic notions of continuing on till the stroke of midnight on the 30th to see how many words I could get done were left by the wayside. It just felt so good to stop! And it’s so much more fun to gorge on other people’s finished beautiful stories than wrestle with your own ugly uncooperative creation.

So I’ve been vegetating. And speaking of vegetation, this is what I see every week as I sit waiting while Baby Duck has his swimming lesson. It was even prettier a few weeks ago when the jacaranda was in full bloom, but I didn’t have the camera with me.


It feels like summer when the flame trees flower.