Chibi marathon

If there's a writers equivalent of a marathon than doing the prep work for Dean and Kris' workshop might be a good candidate. I'm used to diddling around with a short story for a two or three weeks before I polish it and send it out. It sounds lazy but it's not. Since short stories aren't worth outlining I tend to approach them like a jigsaw puzzle. I know the overall picture and I spend a couple hours at a time staring at the pieces until I figure out where one goes. Then I'll go work on something else for a while until I feel like staring at the pieces again. However this time around I don't have the luxury.

It's frustrating and stressful as hell but at the same time it's good to be pushed like this. Spending that much time on a short is kind of ridiculous and being able to finish the puzzle faster will be a good skill to have. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to placing those pieces. I've done enough "impossible" tasks this year that I don't doubt that I can do it. I just need to sit down, focus, and prove myself right.

Cattle prods and penmonkeys

So far I've been doing reasonably well on my NaNo. My benchmarks for each week are to write 3K on the novelette and 2500 on the novel. Since the first week of the month was short I only shot for 1K on the novelette and 500 on the novel. I've made the mark or exceeded it on the novelette both weeks. The novel however has fallen short by about 300 words each week. I am a little disappointed that I haven't made the mark but the words I've put down are good words and I can be satisfied with that.

I know everyone says that it doesn't matter if the words you write during NaNo are crap. It's just a first draft. Well, for me, my first draft isn't just words thrown onto a page. I hate wasting time and I hate wasting words. I want every syllable I put on the page to be the best that I can make it at that particular moment in time. Sure, some of it is lost in the various editing passes that I do before I kick it out of the nest, but about 75% of them are still there. That includes what I write during NaNo. It's another reason why I can justify doing my own thing every November. Yes, my over word goal is half of what everyone else is doing but what I'm writing is good (for the most part). I don't see the point in writing 50K in a month if only 10K is going to survive the first edit. If I was going to do that, I may as well twiddle my thumbs for three weeks because I'd have just as much work to show for it.

However, even with a combined word count goal of 23K for this month, I still have problems staying focused. There's some very important PAC-12 games this month and my DVR can only hold so many TV programs before its little circuits explode. Plus, when you spend every hour that isn't tied up in the day job or in some other vital daily task, you get tired of it. Not in the "I never want to do this ever again" kind of sense but in the "I still like this cereal but I really want bacon for breakfast today" kind of way. To keep myself motivated I parcel out my programs and such as treats. When the writing is going well, I'll reward myself with a TV show while I eat dinner or a chapter from whatever book I'm reading (right now it's Poison Flower by Thomas Perry). If I make my benchmark for the week then I get to watch a football game Saturday night. However, if the writing isn't going well than I have to sit at my computer and forgo social activity and entertainment in favor of writing.

In addition to that I also have little daily reminders that I am capable of doing this. These reminders aren't sweet and fluffy motivational posters. They're more like cattle prods. I have two or three images that the very talented and lovingly fowl Chuck Wendig did for some of his blog posts. If you haven't checked out Chuck's website than you really should. He's awesome. He has a knack for removing all of the bull shit and getting down to the point. He's also a lot more blatant than I dare to be, which I admire.

The handful of images I have I use as my desktop background and rotate through them during the month (I've also been known to do the same when I've got a deadline nearing). It gives me the daily poke in the butt that I need during NaNo to keep me focused on what I really need to be doing. Writing.

With that in mind, I'll bid you adieu because I've got words to make. Good luck fellow NaNo participants!

Idea overloaditis

As I mentioned last month, I worked on the outline for my cyberpunk series. I spent the entire month doing research, brainstorming, and establishing cannon just so I could throw out half of my outline at the end of it. That's bad enough, but it gets worse. It wasn't the original outline that I threw out, that's still there, it's the new half of the outline that I had to throw out. Some of my friends and Facebook followers already know a bit about this but I'll explain for the rest of you. You see, after a month of deep immersion, I had a bad case of idea overloaditis. I was so distracted and wowed by the cool world I was creating that I had too many ideas and I couldn't tell the difference between the good and the mediocre.

 I've suffered from idea overloaditis before but not quite to this extent. The last time I had it I was writing the YA novel and it set me back six months. That's why I intentionally gave myself the entire month of August to contract and recover from it. Plus, since I was just outlining, the damage was negligible. It's much easier to cut three pages of an outline than 30K of a novel.

So, how did I separate the wheat from the chaff? Simple. I wrote the back copy.

I know a few of you raised your eyebrows at that, but you should know by now that there's always a method to the madness.In the back copy you have to boil down that pot of cool ideas to a teaspoon of awesome.  I know that most authors save that for last, but by writing the back copy while I'm outlining, I can focus on the best ideas and discard the rest. It also gives me a great opportunity to get potential reader feedback. My original outline boiled down to this:

"Badger used to be one of the best Ghost hackers around. People paid her millions to hack into corporate and government systems and make their dirty little secrets public. But after a routine job that nearly took her life, she turned her back on the business and people she loved, and disappeared. 

Now as Mara Jeffries, s

he has a carefully constructed life in Seattle. Life is peaceful and she wants to keep it that way. But a desperate message from an old friend threatens to destroy that.

Mara has to make a choice. She can keep her peaceful existence, but at the cost of her best friend’s life. However, if she steps in to help, not only will she have to don the mantle of Badger once more, but the web of secrets she’ll have to unravel may kill her."

It was a lot of blah and "I've seen that before", which was exactly the feedback I got. The above story was going to turn the glorified lovechild of "The Amazing Race" and "Alias". Not cool. However, since I finally had a clue (thanks to the feedback) as to which ideas were mediocre, I went back and tweaked it into this:

"When Kai Tanabe was invited to join The Nexus, he accepted without hesitation. But, the cost of enlisting was much greater than he could have anticipated. He needs to get out fast and only one person can help him do that…

Badger used to be one of the best 

Ghost hackers around. After a routine hack went horribly wrong she turned her back on the business and people she loved. Six years later, as Mara Jeffries, she has a carefully constructed life in Seattle. However, a desperate call from an old friend forces her to return to the life she left behind.

The only way she can get to Kai is to join the Nexus herself. However, once inside, she quickly discovers that the only one of them will be able to get out."

This wasn't much of a tweak -- the second paragraph was from the original -- and the bit about Kai, while not mentioned in the first draft of the back copy, was in the original outline. The last paragraph is what caused me to throw out half of my outline because it completely changed the direction of the story. No more "Alias Race". I ended up moving events from book 1 (the best parts of the global journey) to book 2 and my entire outline for book 2 to book 1. The resulting story is one that I'm pretty proud of and am excited to write. The best part of this experience was that not only did I get a stronger book, but all of the changes were still within my overall arc for the series. (I didn't have to alter cannon! Huzzah!) Plus, I was able to keep my whiz-bang finish.

Speaking of which, I should go write so I can get to said whiz-bang finish sooner rather than later.

Can I rephrase your question?

I’m fortunate to have a league of friends and associates that like to keep tabs on how my work in progress is coming along. It’s wonderful being surrounded by people who are as excited to know a writer, as I am to be one. However, some of their questions perplex me. One of the questions I hear most often is “how is your novel coming along?” It’s a pretty standard question and I have no problems answering it. But it’s also a question that is a bit more complicated than these individuals realize.

I always have at least one work in progress. Usually it’s a primary project and two or three side projects. The primary project is the one with the deadline (self-imposed at this point) and the side projects are various stories and series that I’m playing around with or still developing. Most of my time and creative energy is spent on the primary project and when I need a short break to clear my brain I’ll spend a few hours on one of the secondary projects. The primary project also the only one I talk openly about.

Until recently, there’s been only one novel that I've been public about.  But I finished the first draft of said novel in January and the edits in April. I was so excited and proud of myself that I announced it to the whole world. My friends should know that “the novel” is complete and that I'm on to the next. If they asked "are you going to publish it" that would make more sense. So why are they still asking about "the novel's" progress? Is it habit? Do they doubt that I actually did it? Is their memory so faulty that they don’t remember? I’m willing to write off a few repetitive questions to faulty memory, but not all of them. A few of the update seekers are that spacey, but not all of them; which still leaves me wondering why are they asking for a status update on a finished project?

I can't help wondering if it’s because of how non-writers view the craft. I suspect that these individuals think the creation of a novel is an insurmountable task that can never be finished. Whether this pre-conceived notion is conscious or not, I don’t know. Either way, it would certainly color their perception. To use last week’s jigsaw analogy, it’s as if they think there are an infinite number of pieces to be placed. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them that the puzzle only has a thousand pieces and that all of them are in place, they still think there are more hidden in the box.

Obviously, writing a novel is not an insurmountable task (shelves, both physical and cyber, are overflowing with the proof) and I don’t think it’s a reflection of any doubt that they have in me. They are my friends after all. I think what it’s actually a reflection of is doubts they have of their own abilities. Because writing a novel is something they believe they could never do or even aspire to do, they think that no one in their social circles can either. Even that would be too much to aspire to.

That’s an incredibly depressing thought. I'd like to think that my friends have a more positive outlook, but I'm not so sure. I hope that I’m wrong for their sake.