NaNoWriMo 2014

I've registered for NaNoWriMo again this year, but again this year do not hold much hope for getting very far. Too many other significant things going on in my life. But here is my word count so far:

(Graph should update itself until end of November.)

Interview About My Writing Process

CBC's Joe Mahoney interviews me about my writing process as part of a blog hop, April 7, 2014 at http://sfeditorca.blogspot.ca/2014/04/writing-process-blog-hop.html

NaNoWriMo 2013 Update #1

Coming up on November, so NaNoWriMo time again. Here is an interesting set of posts on whether it is better to plan out one's novel in detail, or to just start writing and see where it goes.

On planning: http://theaccidentalnovelist.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/weekend-workout-prepping-fo-nano-or-not/

On just going with the flow: http://theaccidentalnovelist.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/nanowrimo-2014-team-pantser/

I'm usually some combination of both. I often have an idea that has been perculating in my head for years, often decades, where I have daydreamed various scenes here and there while walking the dog or shoveling snow. So I have a general idea of what the novel is about, who the main characters are, and where the novel is going, but with really only fragments of scenes here and there and big gaps between. No real structure or outline. So NaNoWriMo is a chance to get what I have down on paper and to see if I can connect the dots. The end result is often very different than where I started, and I occasionally write myself into corners by writing blindly; but on the other hand, I often generate new scenes and characters I would never have thought of if I were using a disciplined outline. By writing myself into corners, I force the protagonist to come up with a way to extricate himself, which I would never have thought of in an outline, because I would have known better than place him in that corner in the first place, if I had had a plan. So my hero is much cleverer and a much faster talker than he would have been otherwise.

It's true that I have had to cut whole sections of the novel that haven't worked out, because by going in that direction I precluded something that I realized had to come in later for the novel to work, or that went against character, or otherwise didn't work out. But at 2000 words a day, I could afford to dump a ten or twelve page section and try again; whereas if an outline had called for that scene and it had taken me a month to write, I would be far more reluctant to give up on it, persisting to the point of such frustration that I might be tempted to abandon the whole project as undoable.

I'm also quite a slow writer and tend to write longish novels, so has taken me two to three NaNoWriMo to get first complete draft. Now is the time for outlining, to make sure that I haven't lost track of any of the bits I started with (I lost two of the main characters there for awhile, and had to go back an account for their absence) and that everything works logically. I was actually surprised to find that my subconcious had indeed planted many of the clues in early chapters to foreshadow the unfolding of the mystery, even though I had had no idea what that mystery was when I set out.  So having a first draft, I can go back and get a plan for the revision; I can use what my subconscious provided as raw data and use the resulting outline to tighten everything up so that the structure really works.

Or at least, that's the plan.  Come Friday I start work on my new novel (opening scene clearly in my head, though getting that scene down on paper is a whole other thing) so will have to see how far on the back burner the previous novel gets pushed.

NaNoWriMo 2013

Well, gearing up for NaNoWriMo for November 2013. Not hopeful I will achieve a lot, given that I am both teaching and editing during November. I will feel too guilty if I work on my own novel when there is a significant stack of others' manuscripts languishing on my desk awaiting my editing. But I routinely daydream/work on the opening scenes of this novel as I go to sleep each night, so would like to get those down on paper, so I could move onto the next set of scenes without fear of forgetting the details of what I have so far. We'll see if I can achieve a modest goal of say, 10,000 words. That ought to cover the protagonist's arrival and first night at his new command, at least.

I started this novel when I was in grade 9, so that's over 45 years ago. Current version is probably somewhat different than the original: for one thing, book now starts in the middle, and uses flashbacks for the slower original opening chapters. But basic concepts haven't changed. Ironically, hero is 64, which I thought was pretty innovative back when I was 15 and tired of all the coming of age fantasy novels that dominate that genre. Now of course, everyone will just assume I made the protagonist that old because I am myself coming up on that age. So funny. Hopefully, I am a somewhat better writer than I was at 15, but still like the cast of characters and world building from back then. Just now I maybe have the requisite skills to actually get my ideas down on the page.

Nanowrimo Summer Camps, etc.

I have a couple of times tried to write during National Novel Writing Month, but November is a busy time of year for me, so I've only managed to meet the 50,000 word quota once. Now, The Office of Letters and Light has introduced Summer Camps in April and July. By complete coincidence, my wife had organized a 21 day writing retreat for me in late April and early May, so I had already planned to devote much of April to my own writing. Synchronicity demands that I therefore sign up for the April Camp Nanowrimo.

I probably won't take advantage of many of the writing supports offered by Nanowrimo, as I suspect the various forums would serve more as distraction than stimulus, and also because I'll be away on retreat and therefore offline for most of April. But I really appreciate the daily deadline implied in the word counter and the calculation of how many words one has to do each day to make one's target. The summer camp has the advantage of allowing one to set one's own target. I think I need about 30,000 words to finish off the first draft of my first novel, so that's what I am aiming for. Once I finish the first draft, I can grind away at editing at my leisure.

So am really looking forward to April, though that puts a lot of pressure on rest of March to clear the decks by finishing everything else off.

Meanwhile, I currently have five short stories (around 23,000 words in total) in circulation; target is to get another seven out before New Year's for an average output of one a month. As usual I am behind, partly because of usual responsibilities of job and family, partly because I had taken on way more editing jobs than I had proper time for. But these great manuscripts keep dropping into my lap, and it is very hard to say 'no'. My publisher has insisted on taking some of these off my hands before my slowness ruins the press' reputation for promptness, but I have been equally insistent on keeping some of them to myself, being convinced that only I can see what needs to be done to have them realize their fullest potential. So at last count, I have six science fiction/fantasy novels on my desk that I have to get to before I start on my own work. In my view, it's not fair to hold up others' writing careers to attend to my own writing. Once I can send their work to press, or at least off my desk and back to the author for the next round of rewrites, then I can turn to my own work with a clear conscience.

I did get three nonfiction pieces out this year as well, but those count for the day job so fall in a different category in my mind. I gave a co-authored paper at a Miami conference and took "Best Presenter" award; I had an article published in Obsolete Magazine I was rather pleased with, and I have another one sitting with a new journal, so will see how that goes.

At some point, will have to manage to work in some leisure reading. Someone asked me about my favorite reads for the year, and the trouble was I really hadn't read anything other than the books I was editing. Some of those were very good indeed, and I wanted to recommend them, but couldn't really until they are published. (Indigo Time, The Runner and the Wizard and My Life as a Troll come immediately to mind, but there are a lot of great books that come across my desk. Candas Jane Dorsey's Black Wine was absolutely brilliant, for example, but I didn't get to edit that past the acquisition stage because it basically didn't need anything, either because it was already thoroughly edited when originally released by Tor, or just because she's just that good. (Why Tor never reprinted it is a complete mystery to me: the damn thing had sold out even before its official Canadian book launch, so that ought to have told them that there were more sales to be made....Not that we're complaining! More for us!) So I certainly get to read a lot of great books in my editor's hat, and increasingly they are by my favorite authors (Dorsey and Duncan, for example) as our press grows and attracts bigger names. But sometimes its nice just to read a book without going into editor mode. Though, if I'm honest, there is nothing better than being an editor, because whenever I hit something in a book I don't like, I get to change it....

National Novel Writing Month

Have registered for NaNoWriMo again, though an dubious I will be able to manage much. I'm at a conference this weekend, out of town again next weekend, have a major report to deal with this month, etc. etc. But I've reread part-1 of my novel (NaNoWriMo 2007, plus another 70,000 words since) to where I've left off, and will try to start moving it forward again. Another 50,000 would definitely finish it off.

Writers Retreat

Well, daily postings of words written didn't work out, partly because I did not have reliable access to Internet, partly because it was difficult to generate reliable word counts. The first couple of days I wrote only three to five hundred words of final copy, because I kept having false start after false start, so spent a lot of time rewriting the same scene or otherwise spinning my wheels. This is a fairly common pattern in my writing, where it takes several days immersed in the task to get any traction. By the third and fourth days I was getting a bit more written, but I was also throwing out more of what I had written up to then. I would produce a chunk of something, kind of like it, but realize that logically it could not come here -- the protagonist had to know X before Y made sense, or that if I went with A in this scene, I would have to abandon B in that one. And so on. Slowly, slowly, it started coming together. I started having 1500 word days (my minimum target) and more importantly, some of the pieces started to fit together; some of the scenes I had thrown out I could bring back, though this time it was that character saying X rather than the protagonist. And so on. In the end I came away with three more or less finished chapters, or about 15,000 words. That averages out to about 1500 words a day which is what I set as a minimum (the level one has to maintain to successfully complete NaNoWriMo). I had hoped for more, of course, but I often have unrealistic expectations and the key here is that I managed to cover all the scenes I had written in my head; that is, what I have written down has once again caught up with what I had worked out.

Not that what came out on the page what as all like what I thought it was going to be. I find the writing process fascinating. My characters often refuse to speak dialog I hand them, and say something completely different. I used to think that was a metaphoric kind of thing when authors would say that, but now that it happens to me on a regular basis, I totally get it. (Not all authors subscribe to this view of course: I recall the late Phyllis Gotlieb saying in effect that her characters did damn well what they were told and that was that.) But I am largely writing this novel freefall. I have only the vaguest outline, and just throw my characters into one situation after another and then sit back to see what happens. So, this can be an awful lot of fun, because my characters keep doing and saying things that take me totally by surprise. The most amazing to me is how characters discover clues and reinterpret events I've already written to solve mysteries I hadn't actually known I had written into the book. Some tossed off line I just had someone say because it seemed like a funny bit of repartee turns out 60 pages later to be a vital clue to what's really going on. And even more astounding, my characters seem to be undergoing development, and have motivation and characteristic speech patterns I hadn't actually thought about consciously. So that part's pretty cool! Hopefully the same excitement I feel writing this stuff will be there for the eventual reader. (Well, I am talking first draft here -- obviously drafts two through seven will more consciously refine all of that so that it does work for external audiences.)

On the other hand, the down side of not knowing precisely where I'm going is that I get lost a lot. I write something for this character, and that character responds, and the next thing I know is that the conversation has written me into a corner from which there is no escape. So I often have to back track, throw scenes that don't make sense out, or at least put them aside until later when I may be able to salvage some of the dialog or action. Other times I have to stop and realize the characters are acting on a scene I cut two months ago and that they do not in fact know any of what they just said. Or that it wasn't this character that figured X out, it was this other guy. And so on. So exciting, but highly inefficient.

But that is the nature of this particular novel. Others novels I have in my head have much more developed outlines and often very much more developed scenes -- I've had one novel in my head since Grade 9, and I know exactly what happens and why -- but those are for another time. This novel was my practice book to see if I could (a) finish a novel (in contrast to all the previous 1 chapter false starts), (b) manage the basics of plot, dialog, action, character, and (c) enjoy the process in spite of the frustration that comes when things don't flow. This story had an okay general outline and a couple of vaguely developed scenes here and there -- just enough to give me a general direction and tone -- but not enough invested in it that my emotional investment in it working out would lead to paralysis if it didn't work out entirely as I imagined. I know I am not yet a competent enough writer to pull off my two or three more 'literary' novels; and I have too much invested in my two deeply developed novels to try to commit them to paper before I am ready. So I chose the simplest storyline with the most straight forward characters and just went for it.

And I am enjoying the process more than I ever thought possible. And so far at least, I am pretty happy with what I have written.

Writer's Retreat: Day 0

My wife, bless her, has sent me away on my annual writer's retreat. I am approximately 90,000 words into my novel, and figure I have about 60,000 to go, so I won't likely finish this trip, but I would very much like to take a significant bite out of that remainder -- I'm hoping if I get close enough to the end, I can keep nibbling away at it even after the retreat and actually finish this year. What the retreat gives me is the opportunity to intensely re-immerse myself in the material again, get some momentum, and hopefully start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So I'd like to set myself a quota of about 1500 words a day minimum (i.e., before I can go play) and am hoping that I can crank it up much higher than that -- say, 4000 words a day, if I can really get inspired. So, just as I did for NaNoWriMo, I'm going to post my word count here each day as a motivational tool.

Most of today went to travel: took the Canadaline to the airport, waited for my flight, flew to LA, took two hours to get to the hotel... by the time I dealt with some leftover issues from work via email, it was almost time for bed. So I wasn't expecting to get anything done today beyond some tentative outlining. I am a bit worried that I could stall out immediately, because of course I had stopped at a point where I was having a lot of trouble with the next couple of scenes. They are not working and I'm not quite sure why. So since they are not jelling in my head, I'm terrified when I sit down to write tomorrow, nothing is going to come out. Hopefully the NaNoWriMo philosophy will once again assert itself and I'll just plow forward, damn the torpedoes of internal critics, and something will fall out.

In the meantime, the itinerary calls for a good night sleep tonight. (Feels a bit like the night before an exam, but also like Christmas eve; I'm pretty excited!

Day 30

Well, I finished today at 56,501 words. Unfortunately, due to timezone error, the wordcounter stopped counting my words at 11PM instead of midnight, so my chart is a little under the actual total, though that's okay. The official number is still good!

And I'm almost exactly half-way through the novel, the heroes have finally solved the first of three major mysteries, and I have stopped at a good point to pick the story up again when next I have time.

A very positive experience. But now time for me to go to bed.

Day 29

I won! Okay, along with thousands of others, so it is not a competitive win, but WooHoo!

Now, I just have to keep plugging away until I finish the actual novel. I seem to be about half way through the outline, which sounds about right: first draft is likely 100,000, then up from there as I add bit more description etc, then down as I cut redundant scenes etc. -- first novels pretty much have to be under 100,000 to sell. I'll spend today and tomorrow still writing, having budgeted November to this task, but then I will have to go back to real life. Specifically I promised to spend the first couple of days of December cleaning house, then there is a long vacation with family, then the new year and a ton of research work waiting. But I will try to squeeze in some novelling time too. I do not wish to lose momentum on this novel, and I have at least 12 more in the files awaiting similar treatment. Well, time will tell.

Big thank you to Line Noise for comments and encouragement throughout the process (I've based about half the character of Crane on him as a result); to M.D. Benoit for giving me the final push to go for NaNoWriMo this year; and above all to my wife for putting up with it while I abandoned other responsibilities to take this on.

My wife has mentioned several times this month that she can't remember seeing me so engaged and happy before. And I'm a guy who loves his day job... Still, Dave Duncan was exactly my age when he quit his day job to write, and he's now up to, what, 42 published novels? Makes a person think!

Day 28

At 49,742 when I called it quits tonight...just over 250 words to go and two days, so feeling pretty confident I'll make the minimum quota.

Quit because it was bedtime, and one important lesson I have confirmed through this exercise is the importance of stopping mid-idea.

In the past, I would make the mistake of working for as long as the words were pouring out, fearful that if I turned off the faucett when it was running, it might be a long time before I could get it turned back on. So I'd keep working as long as it kept coming. correspondingly, if I'd get to a tough patch, I would take a break, rather than continue to spin my wheels until despondancy set in. But the inevitable result of this combination would be that whenever I went to start on the next day's work, I come back to a problem area. I'd have finished up whatever was working for me, and had either to start the next section from scratch -- so I'd spend hours staring at the blank page wondering how to begin and what to put next -- or be stuck facing the same problem that had defeated me the night before. Demoralization, procastination and angst were therefore the constants of this process.

In contrast, I have learned (it may have been Candas Jane Dorsey who first suggested this to me, but can't be sure) that if you stop at some arbitrary deadline (dinner time, bedtime, kids story time, etc.) in the middle of a sentence you really really want to finish, that it's driving you crazy you didn't get a chance to put down before you forget it, then what happens is that when you do eventually get back to the page, you start by furiously writing down all that pent up stuff you didn't have a chance to get out last time. So you hit the page running, as it were. So in contrast with the procastination that plagued my thesis and dissertations, I found more recent writing (and particularly the current experience with NaNoWriMo) one of hardly being able to wait to get back to it. Instead of constantly facing problems when I start each day, I start the day with momemtum working for me rather than against me. It is sooo simple a principle!

As a result, I really only had one day with a very minor writer's block. hardly even worth mentioning. A very great contrast to my previous experiences!

Day27

Another productive day as I sprint towards the finish line: 3,519 words today, total: 47,301 (94.6% to target).

I've had to ignore the need for revisions: I notice, for example, that my characters only nod, shake their heads, or shrug while talking -- obviously some need for editing there! And my dialog is filled with "said bookism" -- the dreaded tendency for some writers to use descriptive words (shoulted, exclaimed, argued, agreed, snorted,cried, etc etc.) instead of just "said". Drives me crazy as a reader, and so bit shocked to find myself doing it -- but I'm letting it go in this draft because it's easy enough to fix later when I have time to reflect on which terms should go and which stay.

Watched an episode of House tonight and wonder if my style in this novel has been influenced by it -- the fact that yet again today my heroes have come up with yet another completely wrong theory as to what is going on sort of parallel's the formula of the House series where the first 8 diagnoses always turn out to be wrong.

keep writing myself into corners, and then out of them...but each time end up diverging just a little bit more from original outline. And yet it oddly seems to be coming together...like it turned out in today's scene that the character's previous occupations were a key to their being able to resolve their current crisis -- but I never saw that particular crisis coming nor planned that far ahead -- I just randomly chose occupations for them as I typed frantically to reach that day's quota and pulled their backgrounds out of a hat. So how does that work exactly that 8 chapters later that turns out to be crucial. But no one will believe it and just assume I manipulated it so it would work out as necessary plot coupons. (Plot coupon == where the kid goes on adventure, finds cup of swords, sword of hearts, and mystic key, all of which turn out to be exactly what he needed to kill the giant in the end.)

Still enjoying the writing process too much...but I guess I can't give up my day job just yet...

Day 26

Whoohoo! Very productive day, at 4094 words, bringing my total to 43,786. Two more like today, and I'll make my target. Oh wait, I only have a couple or three more days, so I have to be this productive again tommorow and Wednesday. Let's see, I'm at 87.6% of target, with 86.6% of the time elapsed...so for the first time I am actually 1% ahead of schedule!

The last few chapters have been almost entirely dialog, however, I will clearly have much revision to undertake to introduce necessary description to bring this up to standard. But that is for later. I just have to keep pressing ahead, even knowing that some of this dialog will undoubtably have to be trimmed at a later date. And I like how the characters are developing, their interactions and how the plot is thickening, albeit not quite fast enough. (At current pace, novel is going to be 100,000 long since I'm only half way through the outline, and still have two more characters waiting in the wings...maybe 3).

One aspect that I am rather proud of is that the heroes are constantly confused about what is going on...I recently reviewed a book I criticized because the characters would take one look at the alien technology or one look at the situation, and immediately intuit the right answers to all the mysteries. Bugged the hell out of me. Like a guy walking into a Jumbo jet and flying it after 10 seconds. Yeah, that could happen. So my characters keep operating on the best information available to them at the time, and then they allow themselves to build up these increasingly sinister hypothesis, most of which are dead wrong. They get there in the end of course, but by then have completely changed their perspectives on everything and everyone.

Day 25

Only 570 words today...spent time writing other stuff (see review below) and working daughters second birthday party (for four friends from old school). But I've been told that writing even a few words each day keeps momentum up, whereas missing is a sure way to lose it. So, something better than nothing, but bit disappointed haven't broken 40,000 yet. But hope to catch up tomorrow and Tuesday. Just have 11,000 words to go, so 3,000 words a day is not impossible in the final sprint to the finish.

Day 24

A disappointing 1,023 words today, about half what I was aiming for. A combination of not getting as much time at the computer as I had hoped, a mini-writer's block as I found I had written myself into a corner, and not being very confident with how I wrote myself out of said corner. Lost some momentum because I'm less sure that the direction currently travelly in is going to work. I'm alergic to wasted effort, so hestitant to continue until I've thought through whether this is actually where I want to go, before going there.

But hopefully back on track tomorrow.

Odd how all my training and experience the last 20 years or so is how to CUT word count -- most academic journals have ridiculous word limits -- generally 6-8000 to describe your research, but in some cases, as little as 750 words (I've nver managed a submission to those journals) so I'm always trying to find ways to cut down on wordiness, Which, as I cut down a scene from yesterday by finding shorter ways of saying the same thing, I realized is not helping me with NaNoWriMo.

Day 23

2908 words today, total to 38,110 (76% of target; 76% of my time used, so finally caught up. Mary has promised to take the kids and give me some time tomorrow, so I should break 40,000 words.

Still too much talking heads, but I went and got get my characters stuck on a long space voyage where pretty much all they can do is talk at each other until we make planet fall. Hopefully the pace will pick up a bit there(. I'm debating whether to blow up the planet they're about to land on, for example, but then they'd be stuck on the damn ship again....)

But so far so good!

Day 22

Wrote 2661 words today; at 35,202 or 70% of target, with 73% of my time gone. Closing the gap, but on the other hand, the weekend looms, the deadline approaches, and I'm not sure how much time I'll have next week to finish this.

Still, I do have enough of the novel written that I'm positive I'll eventually finish it, win or lose NaNoWriMo. I'm still generally happy with the way novel is developing, though bits here and there need revision. Too much dialog, not enough action or description. but no angst about it being awful, yet.

Day 21

Still moving forward. 3032 words today. Transitional scenes to get everyone in place for next bit of action, but again worried that they are too wordy, slowing the pacing. (And again, that sort of reflection is for later. Just need to get everything down on paper and keep moving forward.) Dr.s appointment does not bode well for tomorrow's productivity, but I need a couple more days like to day to catch up. I'm 65% to target, but have used 70% of my time. I need to average about 2000 words a day for next nine days to make target, but I know that Friday and the weekend are not looking promising for productivity. Still, might make it yet.

Day 20

2013 words today, plus a fair amount of revision to previous section -- which doesn't push the word count forward but plugs some of the holes in the plot. Bit disappointed didn't hit thirty-thousand words today -- still 500 short.

I keep having to remind myself to check what each of the characters is doing at any given moment...I get a couple of the leads in dialog and forget that there are a couple of others in the room who may have quite different priorities and motivations. What are they thinking, doing, have to say?

Worst of all, I keep having the hero do this or that, and have to remember that I need to motivate him for these adventures -- why not just say, "On second thought, maybe I should just resign now and do something else," rather than continue to take these outrageous risks. Thankfully, once I thought to put the question to myself, I was able to come up with anwsers and hopefully write more interesting scenes as our hero finds himself constrained by this or that factor into digging himself deeper and deeper into the thickening plot.

Of course the OTHER problem I'm having is a tendency to have the characters say everything they're thinking -- once I've figured out their motive for doing this or that, damn if they don't insist on mentioning it /explaining themselves to each other, or at least the reader. I strongly suspect that I am insulting the reader's intelligence by constantly making everything explicit immediately. So far I only have one scene where the characters figure something out and the reader has to wait three scenes to have it explained. But toning down explicit explanations (or making implicit stuff clearer) is a task for revisions, not NaNoWriMo.

I'll also have to make some decisions about the swearing in the novel at the revision stage. I have some when the characters get upset, but that's a bit of a problem for the SF market where a big chunk of the market is under 12 and book purchases are funded by disapproving parents. further, a lot of common swear words are anachronistic in my future. So, I can either tone the swearing down (somewhat changes the characters) or change it to swear words not currently in our vocabulary (one of the characters uses 'crank' and 'cranking' a lot which sounds a bit rude in context) or just go with the ageless ones. Similarly some of my threat vocabulary seems bit cliched and anachronistic.

On the whole though, still pleased with general direction, quality of the story. Nobody else may care for it, but its the sort of book I would like to read.

Day 19

Another productive day: hit 27,500 words. (Couldn't believe that word count came out an even 500, but that's not an estimate or rounding thing, its the actual number.) Bit concerned the pacing is a bit slow, since its taken a lot of pages/time to set the situation up, but that is a matter for revisions after the first draft is complete. And I do kind of like how each step in itself is almost logical, though the end result is completely in(un?)credible.

Picked a working title: The Flight of the Illynov. It's a bit of a pun since its about the voyage of the spaceship Illynov, but also it is fleeing the collapse of the frontlines. I don't know though, doesn't have the elegance of "Slow Fall to Dawn" or "We all Died at Breakaway Station", two of my favorite titles. Comments Floght of the Illynov its potential as a title gratefully accepted.