NaNoWriMo Is Approaching

This post originally appeared on my website at http://rbdavidson.com/

National Novel Writing Month is about to start up again, and I plan to participate just as I have for the last two years. 

For those unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, the goal is pretty simple: write 50,000 words (approximately 200 pages) during the month of November. This works out to be about 1,667 words a day. A challenging goal, but one that I am capable of meeting, as my wins in 2010 and 2011 prove.

This year will be a bit different for me than the previous years.  In 2010 I wrote an initial draft of the second novel in my Gods Among Men series, …Demiurge, Unbound,…. In 2011 I focused on creating a draft of the backstory surrounding my most dynamic character, Artemis Arrowsmith.  In both cases I focused on a narrative that flowed from one scene to the next.

This year my plans are more scattered and random. I have some specific scenes in the first book, At The Lady’s Behest Comes…, that need a rewrite, such the opening paragraphs. Also I have decided to alter the opening few chapters of …Demiurge, Unbound,…. And there are a variety of scenes I have yet to create which I need in the second, third, and fourth books of my series. 

NaNWriMo provides an excellent opportunity to jot down quick first drafts of these scenes that I can later rework into useable material.  At the very least, the exercise of writing these scenes will help flesh out details that fill gaps in my rough outline.

In addition, I plan on writing down a lot of mythology that currently exists only in my head.  For example, I can specify:

• Details about how magic works
• The true history about Demiurge and the Lady
• Delve into the wars Demiurge and the Lady fought against the Daemons and the False Gods
• Explore details about the religions that have grown up around Demiurge and the Lady
• Flesh out the cultures of the Gogs and Magogs

And so forth.  This material I will clean up and include on my new and improved website under the World menu. 

And I also hope to use NaNoWriMo as an opportunity to create a series of musings I can later turn into blog posts. I have a variety of subjects in mind, but will let the whim of the day determine what I focus on.

These are my rough plans for the 2012 NaNoWriMo challenge.  I think I have plenty to write about, but the lack of a strict narrative I think will create new difficulties for me, as will the additional demands on my time. Check back in December to see how well I managed. Hopefully I’ll have a new winner’s certificate to post on my site.

Crossing the Finish Line

Above is the certificate I won for finishing NaNoWriMo.  I crossed the line a day early with 50,0042 words.  Considering how many thousands of words I was behind a week in, I’m justifiably pleased with having finished early.  

Below is another picture I can also proudly display.

I spent almost all of this NaNoWriMo writing down the backstory of perhaps my most dynamic character, Artemis Arrowsmith.  This material will appear in flashback scenes in the second and third books. 

Last year I wrote much of the second book for NaNoWriMo.  All told, between what I wrote last year and this year, I have over 300 pages of material for the first-draft of that novel.  I plan to spend the next year turning that into a completed work.  I’ll keep you informed of my progress.

That’s all for now.  Have fun everyone.

My First Query Letter

I’ve been bouncing off the walls since “finishing” my first novel.

First I hired a professional editor, then canceled that.  I reformatted my manuscript into standard format, which was a bigger task than I expected.  (I had to replace all my italics with underlines.  I thought this strange until I saw how poorly italics show up in a courier font.) 

I sent off copies of the manuscript to the writers group and asked for feedback on whether they thought I needed to hire an editor or not.   Still bouncing off the walls, I switched to researching what a query letter to an agent should contain. 

Contrary to its name, a query letter is not about asking any questions.  It is a one page sales pitch designed to first interest an agent in your story, then in yourself.  You jump directly into summarizing in one or two short paragraphs a complex novel filled with characters you’ve spent possibly years crafting.

Last night I finished my first query letter.  And I was still ricocheting like a Racquet ball. 

I needed to focus on writing for NaNoWriMo, where I am already thousands of words behind.  Every time I tried to write I kept being distracted by the thought of the completed novel waiting for the next step.

One of my great strengths and weaknesses is my ability to act impulsively.  To leap, then look.  It is easy to see the disadvantages that such a trait brings with it, but there are advantages as well. 

It allows me to trust my gut.  To move forward into dark and unfamiliar terrain, guided by the confidence of a fool that I will somehow find my way through.  Sometimes this leads to terrible mistakes, but more often it lets me accomplish what dithering and planning would never begin.

So I sat looking at my finished query letter, which I am quite pleased with, and my stomach churned over the fact that I have a finished work ready for submission.  I realized I would have no ability to focus on my next writing task until I acted.  

So I sent my first query letter off to a literary agency, one that gets a “highly recommended” rating from the site Preditors & Editors.

I am calmer now, and I think I can focus again on writing.   The first novel is still in my thoughts, but no longer dominates my mind. I feel like I can now write for NaNoWriMo without the severe distractions that have hampered me so badly this time around.

I’ll post again if I hear something back from the agent, whether the news is good or bad.  Till then, have fun and party down.

A Moment of Reflection

It has been a long time since I added a post here.  This is not because I haven’t been writing, but because I have been incredibly focused on writing.  For over a year, all my energy and efforts  have focused on completing the second complete draft of the first book in Gods Among Men, At The Lady’s Behest Comes…

At the beginning of October I finished the second draft.  This completed a wrenching experience in which I rewrote much of the book from scratch.  Some scenes I rewrote multiple times.  I edited every page, ever paragraph, multiple times. 

Along the way, my editing skill grew immensely.  Enough that since finishing the second draft last month, I performed a complete edit on every chapter, scene, page, paragraph, and sentence.  I managed to cut over third of pages from the second draft, removing over 200 pages (over 70,000 words) from the novel.  Essentially, in one month I completed a third draft.  

I feel proud of the first novel’s current state and consider it complete, for the moment.  (More on that further down the page.)  All chapters are available for download at http://gods-among-men.com/blog/books/book1.  I invite anyone interested to read what is there. 

What’s Next?

It is going to be hard to get At The Lady’s Behest Comes…published.  It is long for a first novel (over 150,000 words, whereas most first novels are around 80,000 words) and it ends on some major cliff-hangers.  But it is a good story with strong characters, and I have faith that eventually I’ll see it in print.

I have contracted a professional editor to review the novel and provide feedback on what I must do to make the work more presentable and palatable to agents and publishers.  I expect that his suggestions will prompt further changes, and possibly more rewrites.  I use to dread rewrites; now I accept them as challenges that improve my skills as a writer. 

And In The Meantime?

November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short.  Last year during NaNoWriMo I wrote much of the second book, …Demiurge, Unbound,…. 

I’m late getting started this year, already almost 5000 words behind where I should be.  I plan to focus on writing a hodgepodge of scenes I need for the second and third books.  This will help me flesh out a variety of characters and scenarios better.  I’m hopeful  that by focusing on scenes I’ve thought about for years I’ll rapidly make up the lost time.

By the end of November, I expect to receive some feedback from the editor I hired.  December and January will probably be devoted to incorporating his suggestions and comments.

After which I will look for an agent.  I expect the process of getting an agent and publisher to dominate much on my non-writing/non-work time next year.

And With Regards to Writing Next Year?

My goal for writing next year is to finish my partial first draft of the second book and begin the process of editing it.  As chapters reach the “presentable” stage I’ll post them on my website, http://gods-among-men.com.  

It would be overly optimistic to expect to finish an edited version of the second book by the end of next year.  I think it likely that I will finish a rough first draft and have final edits of many chapters by then.

And I keep toying with posting MP3 readings of the first book on my website.  I think it would be fun to do, but also quite time consuming.  I’ll likely keep bouncing this idea around in my head and never get around to actually doing it.  But I might well try a few chapters and see what happens.

And Your Blogs?

The blogs served an important function for a time.  They forced me to write regularly and focus my thoughts.  Maintaining them like I did helped push me to write often enough that I developed good work habits.  I expect I’ll focus my future writing efforts on my story, and blog infrequently at best.

That said, I sometimes look back over old posts and find what I wrote there interesting snapshots of where I was at that time.  There is value in putting random thoughts in permanent form, insight to be gained from reviewing previous ramblings.  Perhaps I’ll make an effort to add post more regularly, but I doubt it.

Until next time, have fun and party down.

Brant’s NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up

Before delving into this post, I want to thank Kathryn for all the posts she wrote during the last month.  She put a lot of effort into picking music and posting about how her choices inspire her.  I for one found her posts and choices of music interesting and thought-provoking.  Great work Kathryn.

My Final NaNoWriMo  Status

• My Cumulative Word Count: 57,580
• Average Words per Day: 1920
• I Passed 50,000 words On: Nov 22
• Current Page Count of (Mostly) New Material: 211
• Chapters finished (out of 13 planned): 7 

The short hand of these statistics is that I finished well ahead of schedule and went a long way towards having a (very rough) first draft of my second novel, …Demiurge, Unbound,….

And I get to proudly display the following:

And:

Don’t bother trying to blow up the certificate.  I printed it out and still can’t read it.  The people at NaNoWriMo need to award a better JPG file.

Final Thoughts on NaNoWriMo 2010

The goal of writing 1667, on average, every day is extraordinarily hard to do on a day-in-day-out basis.  I had a significant advantage in that I had been thinking about my story for a very, very, long time and had a great deal of material in my head. 

What slowed me down, kept me from writing well over 60,000 words in a month were the undefined areas where I had to stop and think about what I wanted or needed to write about. 

That is where I am right now in my story: How do I get from the start of chapter 8 to the end of the story?   I have some ideas, and know what I want in the last paragraph of the book, but in between is a mystery.

Writing 50,000 words in 30 days pushed me to write even when I had no idea what was about to pour out onto the page.  As a result, sometimes when I was struggling, plodding along writing what at first felt like drivel, I would have an burst of insight about what a chapter was really about.   Random and aimless text suddenly became focused and directed.  Meaningless sentences became subtle hints to what was coming. 

In those moments writing became effortless and I was unable to type as fast as the thoughts came to me. 

I am now in a quandary over how best to spend my time.   There is value in editing and refining my first book, and there is equal value in pushing on and finishing a first draft of the second book.  And if I finish a first draft of the second book, why not push on and write a draft of the third through seventh books? 

I think what I must do is create a schedule in which part of my time is spent editing and part of it is spent creating new material.  This is not my normal way of working, and transitioning to such a schedule will not be easy.  But I believe the benefits I will gain from such a shift in habits is far greater than continuing with my usual habits.  For this insight, I have NaNoWriMo to thank.

I also discovered I have way too many subplots.  I simply don’t have room for ideas and characters I thought I needed to fill out a book.  I am forced to seriously consider dropping not just planned scenes and characters, but entire plotlines that I just don’t have the space available to write about. 

This is quite an admission, considering I hade originally planned 7 books x 13 chapters/book x 3 section/chapter = 273 sections.   You would think that leaves an abundant amount of space to fill with all sorts of side trivia, but this is not the case.  Simply telling the core story efficiently is a challenge. 

In the seven chapters (twenty-one sections) I wrote so far, several major characters have gotten very little time and attention, and side characters little to none at all.

As a plotter I have come to understand the value of writing by the seat of your pants. I see know that the most carefully detailed plot misses details not thought of until you put words to the page. 

I watched as the wording of each sentence forced changes on me that compounded on each other until my carefully worked out plot was, to a certain extent, undone.  

In the process a better plot emerged, filled with twists and turns I didn’t really think about until the moment I was writing them down.  And because each sentence flowed (more or less) naturally from the one before it, the scenes I wrote are tighter and more focused than many I wrote while trying to conform to a ridged plot.

I think in the future I will stay focused on the central most story and most important characters for telling that story.  I will make certain that the most important events do happen when and where I need them too, but in-between I will let my words wander and carry me where they will.  The details of the plot I will leave for my (almost infinite) edits.

The End of NaNoWriMo

It is finally here! Brant did an awesome job at 57,623 words on his story, which from what I have heard so far is awesome! I hope to write a little more tonight, but so far I am at around 37,000 words and some change. Not bad, all in all. They goal is not to write just 50,000 words, but to get writers' behinds in gear and write that story they always wanted to. And I did that. The competitive side of me is brooding, but the creative side is very happy.

I have one final song that inspires me, and I think the title makes it fitting as an end for this process that comes once a November. It is called Dante's Prayer by Loreena McKennitt, and it is a mixture of love and sorrow that really gets my writing moving. Believe it or not, hardship is my story's bread and butter (I apparently have a small evil streak, ha ha). Enjoy!

Hopefully soon we will be putting tidbits of the new stories on the blog to wet your apetite for more writing. Until then, write on!

P.S.: I know I didn't post songs for days 27-29, so if you are interested, these are the ones that I had picked out.

Day 27: Ubi Caritas, which is Latin for "where there is charity and love, there is God." Used in the creation of my story's hero.

Day 28: Solace by a-Ha, one of my favorite bands. I actually used this when trying to get into character for my story's heroine, who suffered a devastating loss. Also I chose The Heart Asks Pleasure First from The Piano, just because I love hearing the simple intricacies of that song.

Day 29: A Stevie Wonder song sung by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Higher Ground is an energetic song that is my action-writing playlist. But, since Brant isn't a huge Stevie fan, I also chose the 10th Doctor Who's Theme Song, which I think is a great song for the start of an action sequence. Or to get the blood pumping to your fingers.

NaNoWriMo Day Twenty Six

Brant and I had a productive evening last night. After watching fun stuff, I still managed to write over 1500 words and pul my characters forward out of the mire I had them stuck in. My hero made the next move in protecting his country and an unexpected ally came to the fore. Not bad for a short writing session. Hope I can keep up the pace of the story, it was starting to slow down.

Today's song is of a more serious bent than what I chose for inspiration yesterday. Lord knows why most of my favorite songs tend to be in a minor key, but that is beside the point. It is by a brilliant piano composer named Jennifer Thomas, called A Beautiful Storm. I know this is heavy, but it is perfect for what I am doing now on my story. My hero's country is overrun by enemies who are burning it to the ground, he has to sacrifice some of his own land for help, and he desperately wants to help the heroine out with her own loss. Dark works here. And I think this song pulls all that together nicely.

Keep your NaNoMoJo going, and write on!

NaNoWriMo Day Twenty Five

Evening, readers. I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving. I know Brant and I did, we enjoyed familial conversation over a banquet of freshly made goodies. After we were full, watched WKRP's Thanksgiving special, and ate some more, we decided to get down to writing. I was well into my process before I remembered that I didn't share my motivational song of the day.

Today's song, in honor of Thanksgiving, is from an artist I recently fell in love with called Ludovico Einaudi. The song is a beautiful piano solo called Love is a Mystery. A fairly simple piece, which paints a picture in my head of someone running after a lost love. It has changed each time whether the love was caught or not. But I feel desperation in this song, and that makes this a very useful piece indeed.

Keep your NaNoMoJo going, gobble gobble, and write on!

NaNoWriMo Day Twenty Four

Whew! I wrote about three thousand words yesterday, squeezed in a little here and a little there. I also made a cheesecake, two pumpkin pies and three pumpkin breads last night in preparation for Thanksgiving. So now I am almost at the 30,000 word mark and I have plenty of sweet things for the holiday. I think I did well, if I do say so myself. So, I am in for a treat...

The song for today is an instrumental version of one of my favorite love songs, originally by Daniel Bedingfield. It is titled If You're Not the One, and this piano version is done by Myleene Klass. It is breathtaking, and I think I will use it on a soon-to-arrive unrequited love scene in my story. I have already set it in my writing motivation play list on YouTube. The use of playlists on YouTube is awesome to me. No matter where I am when I am able to write, I just pull out YouTube and I have my music right there. I am hoping to pass that 30,000 mark today, so wish me luck. Good luck to you too. And Happy Thanksgiving.

Keep your NaNoMoJo going, and write on!

NaNoWriMo Day Nineteen

Yesterday I actually wrote over 5000 words. I know, I can't believe it either. I stopped up short when I wrote myself into another military strategy session. Why do I keep writing myself into things I don't know? Well, let's move on to something I know a little bit more about.

The song I chose for today is from the movie Braveheart, a great (if unrealistic) movie with an emotional soundtrack. Of course the song is For the Love of a Princess, the love theme of the movie. The vibrato flute and swelling of strings is perfect for many things. From an unrequited romance to a great loss, even lofty thinking. I am using it today for the latter. Anyway, if nothing else, just listen to the song and let your imagination take over.

Keep your NaNoMoJo going, and write on!

NaNoWriMo Day Eighteen

Another day has dawned. I hope you are all still trying as hard as I am. I may not make my quota, in fact on most days I don't. But I am moving along on the story a heck of a lot faster than I usually do. Yesterday I left my heroine on the brink of a discovery about a frenemy nation that will either push her over the edge, or possibly go completely over her head. Also set up the possiblity for a turning point in the relationship between the hero and heroine. I haven't decided yet if their relationship is mutual admiration or something deeper. Honestly (and against my normal grain) I am leaning to mutual admiration.

Today's song choices are a new favorite and a rediscovered classic. First up is Stars by Helen Jane Long. She is an accomplished songwriter and pianist, and I love the lonliness I hear in this song. I think it is perfect for the heroine in my story, who is going through great loss and feels she is all alone.

The second song is a trio of the best songs from the movie Red Sonja compiled into one piece on YouTube. The songs are the Kalidor's Theme, Fighting the Soldiers, and the Love Theme. These are all written by a master in movie soundracks, Ennio Morricone. He also wrote the music for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly trilogy, The Mission, and many others (as Brant and I discovered last night). My favorite out of this trilogy is the first song, Kalidor's Theme. It is simple, and yet stirs the blood. I have decided to use this song as the basis for the berserkers in my story. There are a lot of them, so they deserved their own motivational song.

Keep your NaNoMoJo going, and write on!

NaNoWriMo Day Seventeen

Yesterday I finally broke twenty thousand words on my story. Yey me! But today I am finding it a little more difficult to get anything done. So, why not go to my inspirational and motivational songs, you say. Well, all righty then.

Today's song (finally, a solo!) is called Suddenly Yours, and it is from a group called 2002. It is one of those rarer major key songs that get my creative juices going. I picture coming out of the darkness into the light on this one. The end of the journey, when the beleagured hero or heroine conquers the baddies and gets to go home to their families, hot meals, and warm beds. It is sedate, but it is so peaceful. And I just love the name.

Keep your NaNoMoJo going, and write on!

Brant on NaNoWriMo Day 8

Before I get into my post today, I want to give a shout out to Kathryn.  Most of the posts out of the this blog have come from her lately.   Kathryn’s informative posts about what music inspires her and where she has been focusing her writing on a day-to-day basis have provided me insights of my own, as well as links to some beautiful music.  Great work Kathryn.

My Current NaNoWriMo  Status

• Suggested Daily Word Count: 1,667  (Works out to 50,000 words in 30 days.)
• Words Written Today: 1,800
• Suggested Cumulative Word Count by Day 8:  13,336
• My Actual Cumulative Word Count: 17,807
• Average Words per Day: 2,226
• At This Rate I Will Finish On: Nov 23
• Days Remaining in November: 22
• Total Words Remaining for NaNoWriMo: 32,193
• Words per Day to Finish on Time 1,464
• Current Page Count of (Mostly) New Material: 64 

The short hand of these statistics is that I am well ahead of schedule.   I have a comfortable buffer that I can build on to make certain I actually do 50,000 words in 30 days.

A Song That Inspires Me

Song of the Seahorse by Miriam Stockley is a song which I listen to often.  Its sweeping melody and melancholy lyrics makes me think of many different things, but with regards to my story I feel it captures something essential about my character, Artemis Arrowsmith. 

Song of the Seahorse, by Miriam Stockley

The lyrics dwell on the death of a lover and the how the person feels because of their loss.   This is central to Artemis’ character and the subplots that revolve around her.    The music also captures a sense of beauty and even wonder, other elements central to her character.

A Lesson Learned From NaNoWriMo: JUST KEEP TYPING!

Seriously, don’t dwell on anything.  Just keep typing.

“What am I wanting to accomplish in this chapter/with this character?”  Don’t worry about it, just keep typing.

“Wait…isn’t this character supposed to be dead already?”  Don’t worry about it, just keep typing.

“What color did I say her eyes were a few pages back?”  Don’t worry about it, just keep typing.

“Wasn’t this character a different sex in and earlier chapter?”  Don’t worry about it, just keep typing.

The Result Is An Interesting Mishmash.

On scenes I have reasonably well mapped out in my mind, I blend descriptions and actions and dialogue together in reasonable proportions.   Not great, but workable text.

Then there are areas where I know I want or need a conversation on a subject, but I don’t have the details well thought out. 

This writing tends to be various people talking in an undefined area with characters appearing out of nowhere.  Where are they? Who knows?  What led up to the scenes?  Who knows?  All I know for certain is that there are elements in those scenes that I definitely want to keep somewhere in the overall story.

A Funny Thing Happened While Trying to Write A Story

Along the way, I was forced to deal with the motivations for the character of Demiurge in a more concrete way.  Given that the title of the second book is …Demiurge, Unbound,…, this was unavoidable.

But his origins are located behind a shroud of the distant past, which meant I needed to think about that past in the way he would.  I.e. Discovering the voice of Demiurge required thinking about my story’s mythology as he remembered it.

This led to a multipage “tell” that turned into a surprisingly clean summary of events explaining how the world ended up in its present state.  

Details became clear to me that I had glossed over in my mind, and with those details I realized I needed additional information about the world’s geography that I had never considered before.

The downside:  The new geographic details affect what I have already written in the first book.  On the bright side, what I need to add, while major, can be done by placing a few key sentences in a handful of  areas.  One particularly vivid description in chapter seven in the first book could be the foundation for significant reveals in the second book.

Rather than add those elements to the first book, I noted what I needed as part of my NaNoWriMo efforts.  i.e. I just wrote it in a a major, ugly, info dump.

And while I was doing that, I had a second major insight to the working of my world. 

How magic works and what its limitations are is a subject I have wrestled with often.  Now many of those details are clear to me, and I see how it has affected the path of Artemis and Damon both. 

These insights led me to know how the second book will end, and what scenes will comprise much of the third book of the series, …And Damon Roth,…. 

In particular, I now know why Damon first became interested in Artemis, and what he had to go through to find her.  Once again, I decided to jot down these thoughts as part of my NaNoWriMo efforts.

After these insights, I was able to return to a more linear narrative focused on scenes I had long thought of but had written little about.  Once again, I am writing less mythology and info dumps and more of a blend descriptions and actions and dialogue together in reasonable proportions

Insights Learned During NaNoWriMo.

The pace of writing has forced me to abandon quality for quantity.  To pour words onto the page as fast as they appear in my head.  Misspellings abound.  I use the same word in sentence after sentence, creating a repetitive feel that is, frankly, boring to read.  Grammar, the bane of my existence, is sacrificed for rambling sentences that often make little sense even to me.

Fast and furious writing forces you to make decisions that ripple through your overall work.  Earlier text that you think has settled and needs nothing more must be modified.  Plot strands for the future become clearer and more defined.  

Good ideas also end up on the page as details I hadn’t considered until now become facts of the world.  The story evolves and becomes substantially better.

I must admit to a temptation that this style of writing has inspired in me.  Namely to write my whole seven volume story in one gigantic effort as fast as possible. 

Yes, the final product would be craptacular, but it would also be a complete first draft.  After that I could focus on the long slow editing process where turgid text is replace by compelling prose. 

I’m not certain this would be a better approach that my normal style of write-edit-edit-edit-edit-edit-edit-edit-edit-write some more.  But my experiments with NaNoWriMo makes me wonder if writing the whole story at once wouldn’t yield rewards I can’t fathom at this time.

NaNoWriMo Day Six

Today is a chilly day here in Alabama. I don't know what the weather is like where you are, but I find it hard to even get out of bed today, since I don't have to go to work on Saturdays. To help combat this, I once again have chosen two songs: one to get the fires burning, and another to inspire a certain part of (my) creativity.

The first song is one I stumbled on accidentally. I love the British series Torchwood and found a video montage of it. Attached was the song It's All About Us by TaTu and fell in love with it too. It is very strong and makes me think of unrequited love, which for some reason stirs up creativity in me too. It is a dual action song!

My formal song entry for the day is, strangely enough, from the movie Casper. The movie was fun but goofy, but there were parts of the music that accompanied it that were absolutely beautiful. My favorite of those is Casper's Lullaby, a haunting piece that is my go to when I write of anything ethereal; ghosts, lost love, or even a fallen hero. I hope it gives those of use still writing every day a go-to for a sad, sad moment in the story. I know I have a couple.

Keep your NaNoMoJo going!

NaNoWriMo Day Five

Welcome to Friday, and day five of writing that novel you have clunking around in your head. You haven't started yet? No worries. NaNoWriMo is pretty forgiving, and you can start anytime. I have a great hero song for you today, and creating a hero is an important step to writing a novel (at least in my world). Today's song is an Irish didy, an ode to the fallen soldier. It is hard to pronounce in Irish (aren't they usually?), and is called Seainneam Cliu Nam Fear Ur. In English, that is We Sing a Song of the Brave Lads, and it is sung by Capercaillie. I love the haunting qualities of the song, and the sad images it often brings up in my head. Enjoy, and keep your NaNoMoJo going.

Brant’s NaNoWriMo Musical Inspiration

One of my favorite pieces of music to write by is actually a trailer produced one year for the British science fiction series, Dr. Who.  The song is called All The Strange Strange Creatures. 

A montage of Dr Who scenes played against All The Strange Strange Creatures

It starts off  with a slow creepy buildup before exploding into a sweeping melody that combines both action and a sense of wonder.   Every time I listen to it I see in my mind a montage of scenes from my story.  Iconic moments that I either have written or intend to write.  This music helps me see the epic arc of the main story I am trying to tell.

Day Three of NaNoWriMo

The goal of 50,000 words in 30 days is quite challenging.  This works out to be about 6 pages of new material I need to write per day. 

I decided to use NaNoWriMo to work on my second book, …Demiurge, Unbound,…  Over the years I have tossed various notes and snippets of scenes into the book in preparation for one day turning the confused jumble into an actual novel. 

The end result is that I start off with a slight advantage, about twenty pages of material that I can use with little correction or editing.  i.e. I started NaNoWriMo with about three days of leeway. 

On day 1 I wrote 6 pages of new material, interwoven with the existing text.  Day 2 I managed about 4 pages.  Right now on Day 3 I have already managed about 5 pages (I woke up early and dove into writing first thing.) Right now I already have over 7300 of new (or mostly new) words on paper.  Not a bad start.

In a later post I will talk about how the need to write fast and loose affects my style and is shaping my story.

NaNoWriMo Day Three

Day three. Day two was a crappy day for me at work, and I didn't write as much as I wanted to. Fortunately day one was good enough to cover it. Back to the grind though. This song I put up on my Facebook page last month when I discovered it, and it still is giving me fun ideas to write. It is by Hayley Westenra, who has a beautiful and haunting voice. It is called Dark Waltz, and I especially get inspiration for my werewolf story, Moonlit. Enjoy.

NaNoWriMo Time

Welcome to the second day of National Novel Writers Month, affectionately known as NaNoWriMo. Many in our group wanted to try our hand at the NaNoWriMo challenge of writing a novel in a month, which Brant (using his mathematical skills) said equalled writing about 6 pages a day. To which I exhaled deeply and Lindy sighed. Then Lindy suggested we try motivating each other by sending songs through the email that motivate us.

I jumped on this idea, because I adore using music to create a mood. So, in the span of about 2 days, came up with thirty songs that inspire me in some way. Yesterday I sent the first one out to our entire group, whether they were doing NaNoWriMo or not. It is a song that really gets my mojo going: County Galway, written by John Williams and performed in conjunction with the Chieftains for the movie Far and Away. Brant suggested I post my songs on the blog so everyone that reads us can enjoy the music too.

Now for the second day. I have chosen a goodie. It is another long one that I have been enamored with since I got to play it in my first All-State band. It is the first movement of a symphony written around 1988 for a classic sci-fi trilogy, Lord of the Rings. The movement is simply titled Gandalf. Everytime I hear this I get swept away, especially at the part where Gandalf is riding breakneck speed on Shadowfax. Trust me, you will know when he is riding. It gets my creative energies galloping too.

So, for those of us who have successfully made it to the second day, way to go! Now on to day two...

Dithering in Space and Time

I have been delaying writing my next post, not because of a lack of subjects but because a lack of time has intersected with my propensity to dither. 

Time is Not on My Side

I have previously written about a few of the distractions I am currently coping with.  There are others as well, various personal commitments that individually don’t require significant amounts of time, but which collectively drain away the minutes and hours of the day.

Even poor writing requires time and effort.  Lately I find that when free time bubbles to the surface of my schedule the idea of settling in front of computer to spend hours writing seems to require more effort than I can summon.  It is easy to say, “Not today, maybe tomorrow.”  And tomorrow becomes the day after, and the day after that, then next week, then next month.  Once I managed to let the days go by one at a time for so long that two years passed without me writing a word on my story. 

My self-imposed requirement that I maintain my blogging efforts has forced me to return to the keyboard.  To stare into the unforgiving white page and cover it with words.  It isn’t fiction writing, it doesn’t directly advance my efforts to tell the story that dominates so much of my mind.  But it is writing, and the effort alone counts for something.  Only so many days are allowed to go by before I must express a thought or emotion, describe an event, or simply write something and publish it to the world.

NaNoWriMo Is Not Something Mork Said

This is National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo.  (No, I have no idea why they went with that terrible abbreviation.) The idea is that you are suppose to dedicate yourself to writing 50,000 words in the month of November.  This equates to about 175 pages of prose.  Given my tendency to verbosity, that is a long chapter for me.  I exaggerate, though not as much as those unfamiliar with my writing might think.  One of my chapters qualifies as a self-contained novella.

The point of NaNoWriMo is to write as fast as you can.  To pour words onto the page with abandon.  To not worry about whether you use the right words or write characters consistently or believably or any of the other issues that can slow writing to a crawl.   To just type as fast as your fingers will allow.

To break my logjam, I decided to throw my hat into the NaNoWriMo ring and begin work on the second book in my Gods Among Men series, …Demiurge, Unbound,….  The first book, At the Lady’s Behest Comes…, is written, though much of it is still terrible.  (No, this is not false modesty, just an honest appraisal of the vast bulk of the novel that has not been properly edited.)

My reasoning when I started was that, while I have plenty of ideas and requirements  for …Demiurge, Unbound,…  precious little of it has actually been written down.  If I were to generate 50,000 words on that novel in a short period of time then at least I would have something that I could edit and improve on later.  Plus, I thought the effort would help me practice  pantzing character interactions, something I had been planning to do anyway.

So How’s That Working Out For You?

I think it is safe to say I will not achieve the stated goal of 175 pages by the end of the month.  Ignoring the fact that I started late, the truth of the matter is I have too little time.   My slow typing speed alone is enough to prevent me from putting 50,000 words on the page in the remaining time.  With dedication and effort I might reach 20,000 words, but even that seems unlikely to me.  Still, it is a goal worth trying for.

In the process of writing on …Demiurge, Unbound,…, I was struck by a thought.  It was a glancing blow which, no doubt, will heal in a few days, or perhaps a few weeks.  In the meantime, the aftereffects of this thought bothers me enough that I continue to pick at it in my mind.   If I am not careful it will leave a scar.

The thought was simple enough: Why limit myself to the end of the month?

I want to be clear here.  I am not trying to break the idea behind NaNoWriMo.  (Seriously, whoever came up with that abbreviation needs to avoid both writing and marketing as their chosen profession.)  I am seeking to expand the idea and incorporate it into my writing methodology. 

A Time to Edit, And A Time to Write

I have been struggling for some time to discover how best to tell my story.  To call it a “work of a lifetime” is is not quite correct.  At the rate I am currently churning out finished pages it will take considerably more years to finish writing Gods Among Men than I likely have left to live. 

I am faced with the clear fact that I must write faster or Gods Among Men will never be complete, meaning actually written down.  I don’t think it ever shall  be complete in the sense that I will be fully satisfied with my telling of the story, but it is possible for me to write the story arc in its entirety from beginning to end.  To construct a first draft that expresses the plot, describes the characters and their relationships to each other, and reveals the world that consumes so much of my waking thoughts.

I want to go beyond arbitrary deadlines (50,000 words by the end of the month, so many words each day, etc…)  and avoid the bog of infinite editing.  I want to bring the phase of endless planning to its long overdue end and find a structure that forces me to move the story forward at a steady pace.  A way to whittle down the mountain of complex plot and characters and construct a draft that has all the elements required to tell the story, even if it is not told particularly well.  I want a structure that forces me to write and removes the excuses that allow me to dither and delay putting words on paper.

Oops, There Goes Another Rubber Tree Plant

To that end, I am going to perform an experiment pulling together several threads of thought that I have been toying with for some time now.

In essence, I am considering broadening my idea for writing character vignettes.  Instead of limiting myself to out of context scenes, which I was having great difficultly doing, I would instead spend time each week crafting a first draft of Gods Among Men.  To write as quickly as possible and tell my story from beginning to end.   I would not edit any of the new material at this time, just strictly focus on the flow of the story and the character interactions.

To keep myself honest, I would regularly post what I have written.  Perhaps not every word; I reserve the right to keep the worst tripe safely hidden until I can replace it with something better.  Still, if once or twice a week I am required to post something then by incremental steps I will make concrete what currently exists solely in my overactive imagination. 

This also allows me the opportunity to practice the various skills in which I am less than adequate at the moment, most notably character interactions.  Also, it would let me write my mythology out as part of the story in which it fits.  To weave the relevant details into the dialogue and descriptions in a way that hopefully would be both clear and natural.

I would continue to edit my existing chapters as well, polishing that text until it is of acceptable and perhaps even publishable quality.  But, while I am improving on what exists, I also need to create new material that completes the story arc the existing work begins.

I have Issues. Yeah, I Know, You’re Shocked 

There are two questions which I must resolve before I begin this effort. 

The first question is whether this blog is the proper place for this material, or should I start a separate blog dedicated to posting my fiction, à la Kathryn’s blog about her story, Moonlit. 

As originally constituted, this blog was about writing in general and the efforts of the Magic City Writers’ Group.  I am the most prolific of the posters on this blog, but I am not the only person contributing to it.  And, while I have often indulged myself by posting material relevant only to me and my story, the effort I am proposing may be inappropriate for this site.  Which raises the question that perhaps I should move all of my story specific material to my own private blog.   But doing so would require a fair amount of effort, and would mean that I would have to maintain two blogs instead of one.  In a word, yuck. 

The second question concerns the content of what I post.   Namely, should I also post completed or recently edited sections from the first book, or constrain myself to just new material as it it written.  My purpose is to create a complete first draft of the whole story, which would suggest posting only new material. 

But the new material would be confusing to those who have not read the earlier material, which includes everybody other than me.  (The writers’ group has read only the early chapters, and even Kathryn has not read the last several chapters.)  In addition, the blog (whether this one or a new one) shall over time become a reference source for me.  A place I can go to find scenes and other materials that I have stored with tags to make them easier to find.  These facts suggest that I should include the older material for the sake of completeness.

No doubt I shall dither and dally over this a bit more before making my final decisions.  I am interested in the opinions of others on these questions.

Until next time, have fun.