novelling

Nanowrimo: The Rebellion

Published on by Sara Norja

So, it’s nearing the end of October, and we all know what that means: Nanowrimo is right around the corner!

This will be my sixth year of doing Nano – even though this year, I’m not going to do it the traditional way. But November would feel empty without a big writing project! Thus, I’ve figured out a way to do a Nano-ish thing in November despite my stupidly busy schedules.

My Nanowrimo history
So, I’ve done Nanowrimo every November since 2008. I loved it from the start – as I’ve mentioned before on this blog, Nano totally revolutionalised the way I write. I used to be a bit of an edit-as-you-go writer, but Nano 2008 taught me that the way I write best is if I just pound out a shitty zero draft first, and save the editing for later.

Little did I know that I’d still be editing that 2008 novel now in 2013…

This is what I’ve done each Nano (so far, I’ve succeeded at the 50K challenge every year):
2008: Urban fantasy inspired by Beauty and the Beast.
2009: Steampunk-meets-Ancient-Rome fantasy about trains and a woman finding herself.
2010: Urban fantasy set in Helsinki – written in Finnish! I wanted to prove to myself that I can do 50,000 words in a month even in Finnish, a language that relies on suffixes and complex conjugation rather than handy short words like prepositions. It was tough to meet the word count, but I did it.
2011: Continuation of 2008 Nano – all-new text, plot continued from 2008 because I really didn’t get very far plot-wise in 2008 despite having 50K words.
2012: Started out as a fantasy travel story starring a woman from a secondary-world religious community going out to find her true path; I ended up abandoning this story halfway through because it was too difficult emotionally, and made up the rest of the 50K with a lighter-hearted novella about a fiddler and a giant-killer’s daughter.

Why am I rebelling?
NOTE: If you’ve never done Nanowrimo before, I absolutely recommend doing it the way it’s meant to be done – plan beforehand if you like, but don’t start writing till Nov 1st. It’s so much fun to get excited for your story, and then start writing in a frenzy!

Strictly speaking, I was a Nano rebel already in 2011, because I was continuing a previously started story. But that didn’t truly feel like rebellion, because all the scenes I was writing were new, and I did the full 50K words.

But now I’m going the actual rebellion route. Reasons: the aforementioned busyness. I’m all too good at trying to do too much stuff at once (I haven’t fallen over in exhaustion yet…!), so this year, with all my duties and planning the future etc., I don’t think I have the energy to plan and write a whole new 50K-long story.

However: what I do want is to get a proper second draft out of my 2008/2011 Nano novel. I blogged about rewriting this novel last year in August-October, when I was unemployed. That was great – I managed to get a messy zero draft into a readable first draft.

Now, my challenge will be to start off a second draft of this thing. I’m using the impetus and excitement of Nanowrimo as leverage to make myself start editing. I like the group support of Nanowrimo, and I need to have a creative project in November! So, editing it is.

My plan
This is pretty much me thinking out loud, but here are some things I’d like to get into shape during November (we’ll see how it goes):

  • Plot – I want to iron out any inconsistencies and make sure the whole thing makes sense
  • Characterisation – do my characters behave consistently? Do I have enough character development?
  • Narration – are my two narrators distinctive enough?
  • Scenes – do the individual scenes work? Are they dynamic enough? Where to add a scene, where to cut or combine?
  • Language – does the prose flow well? Does the dialogue sound natural?

I’ve never got this far in the novel-revising process before, so this is scary and exciting. I expect I’ll post more Nanowrimo-related stuff as November approaches and during the month itself, so keep an eye out for my ramblings.

Huzzah! she shouted

Published on by Sara Norja

I thought today was going to be a horrendous day, because I had to get up after barely six hours of sleep (for the third or fourth time running) and there was a panda zombie staring at me in the bathroom mirror.

It’s been much better than I thought. Firstly: there is snow! Huzzah! Beautiful, soft snow, been falling all day and looks like it’ll continue to fall all night. Because I don’t have a car and currently don’t have to rely on public transport to get to work, I can concentrate all my energy on being overjoyed by the snow.

I got another really nice rejection today (poetry) – so nice to feel encouraged by rejections to send more stuff to the publication in question and to send the rejected poems elsewhere.

I had a lovely half-hour nap after work because I feel like I’ve got a cold coming on (urgh). Naps usually don’t work for me, but I think this one did. Except that I’m far too chirpy now, at midnight. *sigh* Well, the nap got me through folk dance class, anyway. At first I was totally zombified and irritated by myself, but then eventually I managed to succeed somewhat at a lift that had been totally impossible before, and that felt good. My neck and back may not be entirely busted yet. \o/

Then I came home and wrote my final words of Nanowrimo, and now am a Nano winner for the 5th time. HUZZAH! Stubborn Sara made it. Next year… I will try to be more gentle with myself.

Poetry sale to Chantarelle’s Notebook

Published on by Sara Norja

My poem ‘October’s End’ will appear in Issue #29 of Chantarelle’s Notebook. Am very pleased that this poem (written way back in Oct/Nov 2009) has found a home. I’ll post a link when it’s up!

In other writing news, I wrote 6000 words of Nano on Sunday in a (rather successful) attempt at stress relief. Thus, I am now more than back on track (46,129 words). I already got some written today during an extended cafe session, but now could go for some more writing before bed.

After Nano is over, it’ll be the first time since the start of August that I won’t be working on a novel. Weirdness.

Drastic changes: they can work

Published on by Sara Norja

On Wednesday, I finally decided to do something I’ve never done before in my five years of Nanowrimo: to abandon the story I was working on and start a new one.

Now, when I say ‘abandon’ I don’t mean entirely – no, I’ll probably work on the 31K of the first story eventually. Could work as a novelette or novella rather than a longer thing. But for now, in this dreary November when my brain is on overload, it just wasn’t the right story to write. I’m really glad I got it started – a lot of interesting things there – but I’m even more glad that instead of choosing to just plod along with the first story, uninspired, I chose to start a new one.

Of course I’m keeping all the words of the first story, Nano-wise. So, that means I should fit this new story into less than 20K. Hahahahaha. Erm. We’ll see. Because apparently, I’m pretty darned excited by this new, folk tale / family relationships / castles / changelings / folk music inspired story. Have written about 7500 words in the past three days, thus managing to finally – YAY – catch up on word count again. Currently at 38,621 words. Trying to resist the temptation to write any more tonight, because it’s past midnight and I should be somewhat awake at dance training tomorrow morning.

Anyway, I’m going to try to persuade my new protagonist Katherine to get her story finished in less than 12K; or, more importantly, within November. I don’t want to have an unfinished Nano-thing pestering me in December. December is for poems and short(er) stories, dangnabbit.

Nanowrimo, day 1

Published on by Sara Norja

Heyup. Have officially passed the word count for the first day of Nanowrimo 2012! Fifth Nano year, here I come.

Exhausted from real-life things. But gosh, it felt rather awesome to escape into my own world for a while – to start something completely new, something utterly unknown!

My Nanovel this year is high fantasy. Something of the sort, at least. It’s about a woman and her journey to discover new things, it’s about languages and friendships and travelling players (maybe), about conflicting beliefs and epic landscapes and loves. Vaguest description ever! I do know more about the story than that, but frankly, I’m so tired now that I can’t do a coherent description.

But I’m enjoying it. Even though this is the least I’ve ever planned a novel (I have a few pages’ worth of scrambled notes, but that’s it). Pantsing ftw, this year! Who knows what’s going to happen to my main character? I certainly don’t. But I hope I’ll enjoy the process of finding out.

FINISHED FIRST DRAFT

Published on by Sara Norja

IT’S CAPSLOCK TIME.

I just finished the official first draft of DV. *FIREWORKS*

It is rough, especially towards the end when I started having serious lack-of-time problems; it’s a first draft. But for the first time ever, I have revised a novel. I now have a novel-length narrative (279 1,5-spaced pages in Open Office; 13,2587 words according to yWriter) that is actually coherent enough to show people, in theory. HOLY CARP.

And I finished it with three days to spare before Nanowrimo, too! With the power of sheer pig-headedness and love for my story. It’s been a crazy writing week (getting most of my words before this weekend written in 20-min bouts on the train to my temp job), with word counts occasionally rising far above e.g. the Nano daily word count of 1667 words. Today, yWriter tells me, I have added 4248 words. Hard to believe I could actually have written that much today, but then again, the clock tells me that I’ve been working around 5,5h.

Erm. Yes. Um.

I did it. *blink* Now DV will be laid to rest till December or so. And this coming Thursday, on to new writing challenges with this year’s Nanowrimo!

On being a stubborn fool

Published on by Sara Norja

Apologies for the lack of updates this month! I’ve mostly just been plodding along with my novel revision. And then I, previously unemployed and with plenty of time on my hands, was suddenly inundated by a strange event: getting a job. Well, two jobs, in fact. One of them a two-week temp gig (next week is the second week), and the other a longer thing.

I am extremely relieved and pleased to be employed, but it does put a bit of a damper on writing. 😛 So, what with working all day long last week, and having plenty of evening activities, I’ve fallen behind on my novel revision schedule. Am currently starting chapter 18, when I should actually already be at chapter 20. There are 31 chapters in DV, and my goal was to revise a chapter per day in order to get the novel revised by Oct 31st.

Why this deadline, you say? Well, because of Nanowrimo, of course! I love Nanowrimo, have participated since 2008, and will cry bitter tears if I don’t get to participate this year. I want to finish my novel revision so that I can start a whole new novel on Nov 1st.

Is this foolish? OF COURSE IT IS. Even more foolish now that I’m lagging behind on revision and have lots of other things to do as well, oh, and getting-better but still chronic neck/shoulder/back issues. But curses, I want to meet my deadline! I want to start Nanowrimo on Nov 1st, with a fresh (and almost completely unplanned) novel to explore. I want DV to get at least a month or two to simmer before I go back to it.

So, I am a stubborn fool. I know it; but I want to meet my own deadline, dangnabbit. My dad lent me a mini laptop, so now I can write on the train to and from work next week. I’ll try to be as efficient as I can with the revision. And try not to panic when I consider that the final 10 chapters of DV contain far too many scenes that are currently just outlines in yWriter, not even drafts. The quality of this draft will certainly deteriorate towards the end. OH WELL.

This stubborn fool will now try to acquire her much-needed lunch, and then will be off to a friend’s birthday party. Writing is important, but I also want to treasure my loved ones.

The cutting pain

Published on by Sara Norja

Cutting out characters is a terrible thing. And yet sometimes, it has to be done. This is one of the cruel truths of writing fiction.

I finally started the proper edit/rewrite of my novel (DV for short) this weekend. I’m calling it the first draft, because really, my Nanowrimo efforts (from 2008 and 2011) made up more of a zero draft.

I really like the concept of a zero draft. (See e.g. Justine Larbalestier’s post on the concept.) It’s awesomely freeing – just get the words out and don’t worry, because see, it’s not even a first draft yet! This is part of a “Nanowrimo” way of writing, I think, and it really works for me.

I used to be one of those people who never got longer works finished because I ended up editing and rewriting the first couple of chapters for ever and ever (hello, high fantasy princess story from my teen years!). Then I did Nanowrimo for the first time in 2008, and it changed everything. Seriously. I went from a writer who couldn’t get anything finished, who had trouble getting lots of text out, to a writer who can rattle out first (zero) drafts without worrying too much. What does that mean? It means I can now get the crap out first, and I’ve become comfortable with editing. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and the “Nanowrimo method” has helped me get over perfectionism in the first crucial stages of a project. Yes, I still want to get my text to the best possible level. But I now realise it can’t be perfect from the start, and that it’s much easier to edit a hundred pages of quickly-written zero-draft text than it is to edit an empty page.

This method also helped me immensely when writing my master’s thesis, so it’s applicable for all you non-novelists out there too! 🙂 I realise not everyone will like the Nanowrimo method of writing, of course not. Use whatever works for you! But as for me: I’m really happy writing like this. First the frantic zero draft; then, the first, second, third, etc….

I should admit that now is my first time ever really finalising a novel. All my other attempts are still firmly at zero draft level. So this is all new (and a bit alarming)! Still, I’m pretty sure the layered method of editing will work for me. I’m excited to see what eventually emerges. Writing a novel is difficult but wonderful.

Difficult brings us back to the original point of this post (I really rambled there, didn’t I?). Mainly, cutting characters. The thing is: my main POV characters, who are siblings, originally had a younger sister, Marianne. She’s’s a cute little button of a teenager: likes Jane Austen and gothic novels, has snappy exchanges of dialogue with her siblings, and is really adorbs. I like her.

But I think she has to go. While she’s a cute character, and I really like the three-sibling dynamic in a couple of scenes, there are several reasons for removing her, such as:

– concentrating on just the two POV siblings makes several themes of the book clearer,
– Marianne appears in a couple of rather pivotal scenes but as a background character – she doesn’t really have significant motivations of her own,
– she distracts from some elements I want to highlight,
– even though she’s cute, she’s not really that vital.

So, yeah. Objectively, Marianne must go. It’ll make for a clearer, more focused story. Subjectively, though? The horror! I’m just in the process of rewriting some scenes from the start of the book that included her, and my heart bleeds whenever I delete her name and lines. She had such cute lines! And I’m not sure they can be switched to anyone else. Oh the sibling banter!

I feel like I’m murdering poor Marianne. I’m pretty sure I’m doing the right thing, and I can always resurrect her or a character very like her in a later story or novel – but ye gods, I feel like a cruel writer-monster!

Kill your darlings indeed.

Synopsis breakthrough

Published on by Sara Norja

I woke up this morning at 7am to my upstairs neighbours continuing the renovation they were supposed to have finished during the summer. I think it’s Deeply Wrong to do anything loud that early on a Saturday morning, and hence felt/feel extremely resentful. Grouch grouch. I reluctantly got up a little before 8, after heroically attempting to doze till then, because my neighbours were making far too much noise for further sleep to be possible. Also, oh joyful coincidence, today was also a morning of extreme aches and pains, so there was no point in lying in bed either. *sigh*

However! Due to the astonishingly early hour, I was able to propel myself to perform a task I’ve been struggling with for ages: working on the synopsis for the novel I’m currently revising.

Three hours (definitely didn’t feel like that long, I was in such an obsessive mindflow state) and around 4,000 words later, I’d finished a synopsis from the POV of Gwen, one of my two POV characters in the novel. I solved a ton of plot problems and inconsistencies while doing so. I FEEL AWESOME.

Now I need to write a similar synopsis for Edward, my other POV character. After managing to do so for Gwen (whose storyline I’ve had more trouble with), I’m actually really looking forward to rattling out Edward’s synopsis. I think I need a break first, though – my chronic-pain neck is currently scolding me for neglecting to exercise during those typing-filled three hours. I’m sorry, body of mine, I was in the flow and did not notice the pain till now…!