November 16, 2011

Grab a cup of coffee or hot chocolate and give yourself permission to read something uplifting and helpful for fifteen minutes. Here’s a variety of posts, covering several subjects dear to the creative heart. Enjoy!

How to Avoid the Power of the Drift talks about the value of planning your life–and the dangers of NOT planning. You won’t “drift” into the writing life of your dreams.

Why We Need Pain to Write is a thought-provoking article from The Writer Magazine online. Pain–yours or others’–is often the catalyst to great writing.

The Week Three Pep Talk from NaNoWriMo by Deb Olin Unferth is full of great practical tips on how to keep going on your novel.

Ten Timeless Books for An Organized Mind gives you a great selection of books on getting organized and getting the writing done. (I already own #3, #5, #6, and #8. I just ordered #4 to learn how to de-clutter my mind!)

Procrastination is an artist’s site, but the issue concerns all creative pursuits. It ends with a great one-minute video showing procrastination in all its glory.

Enjoy!

October 19, 2011

From the director of National Novel Writing Month:

Greetings, NaNo-novelist!

Have you seen the countdown clock on NaNoWriMo lately? The 2011 noveling extravaganza begins in just 13 days!

In preparation for this wild and wordy festival of writing, we’ve relaunched NaNoWriMo.org (and that very hypnotic clock). The site is now built upon the extra-sleek framework of Ruby on Rails, which means the forums are speedier than ever, and slow page-loads are a distant memory. (Though you can still fondly reminisce on those with me in the NaNoWriMo history.)

Come on over to NaNoWriMo.org today to check out all the shiny newness, including an all-star cast of pep talkers, the 2011 batch of web badges, our revamped forums, and special noveling goodies in the store.

You can also find the local chapter closest to you, and catch up on news and events there in the regional forum!

If nothing else, come by to witness the sheer speed of it all. Heavens to Betsy, the speed!

If you know any kids, teens, or educators who would enjoy this challenge, be sure to send them over to NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers Program! Director Chris Angotti has cooked up the best resources yet for our 50,000-plus young novelists around the world.

We can’t wait to see you in NaNoLand!

Counting down to go-time,
Lindsey Grant
Program Director

September 30, 2011

A couple weeks ago I encouraged you to get ready for NaNoWriMo–the writing group that produces a book in November. I hope you have an idea for it now.

I also encouraged you to spend October getting organized so that you have the best chance of succeeding. To me, success includes having a really good rough draft done at the end of November (as opposed to 50,000 words which you throw out later.)

I Hate to Outline!

If you hate outlines, maybe you don’t understand the various kinds–and their purposes. If so, read these two articles and you may well change your mind:

“The #1 Reason You Haven’t Written the Book You Want to Write” talks about misconceptions around outlining a book–plus all the benefits. (I never sold the two books I wrote without an outline. I’ve sold 95% of the books I wrote where I used an outline, even if it wasn’t very detailed.)

“Outlining a Novel Step-by-Step” is a practical guide to this process. It can feel overwhelming when you start.

I Have No Time!

If you need help organizing your hectic life so that you can write, here’s another good article with practical advice for very busy people: “Organizing Schedules So You Can Find More Time to Write.” Although my kids are grown and married, I coordinate around babysitting grandbabies, going to a grandson’s soccer games, overnights, and my husband’s changing work schedule. Every season brings different changes, and we writers need to go with this flow as well if we expect to write through all the seasons of our lives.

I hope you have time this weekend to read those articles. Whether you are getting ready for NaNoWriMo or not, they’re full of valuable information. Make it a terrific weekend, everyone!

February 14, 2011

For the last two weeks, I’ve bombarded you with long posts on how to make changes in your writing life–and make them last.

A Breather

Today I’ll give you a breather and show you some of the treasures I found.

• Feeling overwhelmed as a writer? Read Jordan Rosenfeld’s  How to Talk Yourself Off the Ledge of Creative Despair and you’ll feel better!
• Back-to-Work Blues for Writers: Solutions is for writers who also work outside the home–and some practical realities and help in carving out that crucial time to feel like a “real writer” again.
• Ever wonder about Launching a Virtual Book Tour? For some great tips, read both Part 1 and Part 2.
• And don’t overlook this gem about The Missing Link–NaNoEdMo. This writer needs a month of enthusiasm generated about editing the rambling novel from NaNoWriMo. Guess what? There IS such a month. See NaNoEdMo and sign up for editing your novel in March. Just two weeks away!

Sit back and enjoy!

December 1, 2010

Even if you didn’t participate in this year’s November National Novel Writing Month, you can still have access to their NaNoWriMo pep talks that were sent throughout November to participants. Many of them are excellent!

Here’s what it says on their website: “We recruited an all-star team of authors to share their advice and thoughts on writing. Their pep talks will be emailed to participants throughout November. We hope their insight and encouragement help you on your way!”

Here you’ll find pep talks from some of the finest and best-selling writers of our time. Some are serious nuts-and-bolts advice talks while others are tongue-in-cheek funny. Either way, they’re an encouragement to those of us who are challenged on a regular basis with our writing.

Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite:

From Chris Baty: “Incite change. If your story is losing momentum, juice it up by inflicting some major changes on your characters. Crash the spaceship. End the marriage. Buy the monkey. Change is scary because we have to figure out what comes next. But feeling afraid is ten times better than feeling bored, and your book will benefit from your risk-taking. Go big this week! You won’t regret it.”

From Aimee Bender: “What we hold in our heads before we write is RARELY in sync with what shows up on the page, and if I were standing and saying this in front of you with a megaphone, I would say this next part especially loud and clear: The Page is All We Get. What shows up on the page? Well, that is your writing. The full-blown perfectly-whole concept you may have in your head? Is just thought.”

From Holly Black: “Here are some things I wish someone had told me when I was writing my first book. I want to say them to you in the hopes they will help and encourage you. Even if you’ve heard them before, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded.” And then she follows this with seven tips that are right on the money.

From Lindsey Grant: “You’ve been carrying around a story for a while now and you finally started writing it. Getting started is hard enough, but then you went on to write for a full week, bringing your story to life and making your noveling dream a reality. You’re well on your way, writer, and you have come so far already! Don’t let your inner editor convince you that this isn’t worth your time, or that you should start over, or-even worse-that you should start over some other time. For this novel there is no “later.” There is only now.”

From John Green: “All of us harbor secret hopes that a magnificent novel will tumble out of the sky and appear on our screens, but almost universally, writing is hard, slow, and totally unglamorous.”

From Mercedes Lackey: “I can’t think of anything more intimidating than a blank page. Especially the first blank page of a new project. Now, after twenty-mumble years of writing, I have a lot of things to get me past that…”

From Lemony Snicket: “Struggling with your novel? Paralyzed by the fear that it’s nowhere near good enough? Feeling caught in a trap of your own devising? You should probably give up.” Very funny letter follows!

So if you’re feeling sluggish and need some writing pep, check out these terrific pep talks. It just may be the jumpstart you need!

November 30, 2009

Hallelujah! I felt the breeze on my face as I crossed the NaNoWriMo finish line half an hour ago. Getting the words to validate took three tries, but it finally clocked in at 50,093 words. Phew!

It was a good month for writing, but like many of you NaNo writers, it had its bumps and interruptions. In the second week, I had a personal setback and got sick, and by the time I was better, I was nearly 10,000 words behind. It was catch-up the rest of the month.

Challenges

Like you, we had Thanksgiving last week. Although we had five people staying with us for three days, I got up early each day and wrote. “Luckily” I woke up by 4 a.m. each time and was done writing before our guests were up for the day. (And they were so easy to have around–that made a huge difference.)

The only real glitch came on Thanksgiving Day. I went to boot up my desktop PC where I prefer to write–and nothing. I stared. I prayed. I looked to see if I’d turned off the power accidentally. I fiddled with it. No luck. It was dead and fried, and a tech person assured me it would cost more to fix than it would to get a new PC.  So I finished NaNo on my laptop, and I have the backache to prove it.

I would never venture to a mall on Black Friday, but we found a great deal on Saturday, so this weekend I also set up the new computer and started learning Windows 7 and the Microsoft 2007 Office programs. Thank heavens for online tutorials!!!!! I’m sure I’ll love it in a couple weeks, but right now it’s like playing hide ‘n’ seek. (My favorite commands are hiding and I’m seeking.)

Flexibility Required!

This month, in order to write NaNoWriMo’s 50,000+ words, I typed in my office, in the car, in the living room, in my closet, in bed, in the library, at my granddaughter’s house, and once in a coffee shop, just for fun. The name of the game is flexibility. My novel isn’t quite finished, but I will continue to work on it at a slower pace until the rough draft is done.

How did you other NaNoWriMo writers end up? How was your experience? Are you glad you did it? Will you do anything differently next year? I know you still have twelve hours to write, but after you finish, share! Share!

November 13, 2009

I’m about 1,000 words behind where I wanted to be on my NaNo project. The first week was pretty easy, and I expect the final week won’t be bad either.

But the MIDDLE!

Pep Talk

A couple of times per week, wonderful cheerleader writers send pep talk emails to keep the flagging NaNoWriMo participants cheered up and cheered on. I’m going to share one from this week written by Maureen Johnson. It will apply to any writer. It’s about getting through the desolate middle of a writing project, after your initial enthusiasm has worn off, but before you’re heading into the home stretch with built-up momentum.

You’re in a wasteland called the middle. Here’s…

The Letter from Maureen

Dear writer,
I have a very good friend who is Australian. I’ve never been to Australia, so she is constantly selling me on the merits of her homeland and setting me straight on things. For example, I have always wanted hold a koala. She informs me that koalas smell and spread disease. What I want instead, she informs me, are flying foxes, sugar bananas, rainbow lorikeets, mangosteens, and Sydney sunrises.

One thing that always impresses me in her descriptions is just how large Australia is-and how empty in the middle. Australia is comparable in size to the continental United States, but almost everyone lives on the coast. So it would be like having Los Angles, and then New York, with almost nothing in between. Nothing except for monsters, that is. Because almost everything that lives out there in the middle of nowhere can kill you. 97% of the snakes in Australia are poisonous. The spiders are the size of washing machines, but it’s the tiny ones you have to watch for. It’s all teeth and venom out there. So just put a huge “here be dragons” in the middle of your mental map and you’ll have a pretty good picture of Australia. The cities are said to be wonderful-paradises of culture and wine and song. It’s just that middle 2,000 miles that you have to watch out for.

Perhaps this rings a bell right about now, smack in the middle of NaNoWriMo?

Those first few days with your idea… oh, how wonderful they are! How sweetly it goes! And you wander on, past the city limits, into the bush. The signposts disappear, and the creatures come out. You have wandered into The Middle. Thing is, writers spend something like 97% of their time in The Middle. Once you leave those first pages, those first days… you wander into strange land and you stay there for a long, long time.

It took me a little while, probably a few years of full-time writing, to fully accept that that middle bit was where I was going to be spending pretty much all of my time. This is the thing they don’t tell you. When you see portrayals of writers on television or in movies, what are they normally doing? They’re sipping coffee or cocktails, or jetting around to signings, or solving murders for fun. Lies! I mean, these things do happen, but those are the coastal bits.

Most of the time we are deep inland-sitting at home, or at the office, or some shed or underground bunker. We eat what we find and slurp coffee from anything that is sturdier than coffee. Often, we are inappropriately dressed for any human interaction. This is because we are in the middle. And in the middle, things are rough. You make bargains with yourself like, “If I finish this chapter, I can have a shower!” Or, “If I just get this paragraph right, I can eat those stale Oreos!”

Now, I realize in saying this that perhaps I am not selling you on the writing experience. I’m supposed to be cheering you on! You already know that the middle is a hard place to be. Perhaps right about now you are asking yourself, “What, precisely, is wrong with me? Why did I decide that the best way to spend the month of November would be indoors, strapped to a chair, writing thousands of words a day, alone, friendless, and insane? Why didn’t I just agree to come to my desk every day, bang my head on it for a solid ten minutes, and be done with it? That would have been so much faster.”

Here’s the thing, though…if you’re doing NaNoWriMo, you are a reader, because all writers are readers. Which means that you must admire many authors. Your shelves are lined with the works of your heroes and sheroes. Every single one of them has crossed the wild country where you are now. Every single one of them has been a resident of The Middle. The ground you’re treading is full of the remains of their old campsites. And somewhere around you, just out of sight, current authors you admire are making their own way across The Middle. What’s nice about NaNoWriMo is that you are traveling with a posse of thousands, all of you making your way over the mountains, through the valleys, across the creeks. You are fighting off the beasties.

And once you’ve crossed The Middle once or twice and you’re lounging on the other side, you’ll find you miss it. You’ll realize you long to be out there again, under the sky and the stars. The weather changes a lot in the middle. Some days, the skies are dark and it’s hard to find your way forward. Those days are long and little progress is made. Some days, it’s strangely bright and clear, and suddenly you can see the horizon ahead, and dozens of possible paths present themselves to you. But every day is different, and every day there is a new way to go and a new thing to see.

You will be hooked.

November 2, 2009

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) started yesterday, but I didn’t start till today. I try very hard not to work on Sundays, but I hit the floor running–er, typing–today. Did 2,789 words before quitting to exercise.

The first email pep talk to get NaNo writers out of the starting gate said a couple of things worth repeating. They certainly apply whether you’re doing the NaNoWriMo challenge or not. If you want to hear an additional four tips to get started, check out the short radio spot on their website.

From the organizer Chris Baty: “I wanted to reach out with a couple quick reassurances before we start writing. 

1) Your novel will not be as bad as you fear. All the books we’ve loved started out in a similarly imperfect form. They’re called rough drafts for a reason. No one gets a novel totally right on the first pass. This is true whether you give yourself a month or a lifetime to write the first draft. There’s an adage in noveling that you can revise a bad first draft into a great book. But you can’t revise a blank page into anything but a blank page. Take this to heart during NaNoWriMo. In November, all words are good words.

2) You deserve some fun. Taking care of everyone’s needs while still finding time to buy groceries and bathe every couple days can be a feat. Unfortunately, this means that activities like writing and art and music tend to disappear into the margins of our lives. Think of November as an all-expenses-paid, 30-day vacation to novel-land… For one month, you get to orient your life around your creative spark, rather than vice versa.”

Lighten Up!

I’m trying to keep a lighter attitude during this month’s challenge, and reminders like this help.  They become one-liners to attach to your computer, like You can’t revise a blank page into anything but a blank page and Orient your life around your creative spark.

Here’s to all NaNoWriMo writers this month!

October 26, 2009

 Are you still undecided about whether to try NaNoWriMo this year? If so, the following message might be enough to nudge you into registering. This offer came in an email from the director of NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty. [When he refers to a NaNoWriMo "winner," it just means that you were able to create 50,000 words by the end of November.]

 

“We hope that you’ll be joining us for another month of literary abandon in 2009. For this year’s winners, we’re excited to announce that CreateSpace.com is once again offering all NaNoWriMo 2009 winners a free proof copy of their winning manuscript. What this means: A free proof copy of your 2009 manuscript in paperback book form. They’ll even cover the costs of basic shipping to you. We’ll be posting the code for all winners on the “I Wrote A Novel Now What?” page on December 2. In the meantime, you can read more about the offer in the NaNo forums.

To redeem the CreateSpace offer-and grab this year’s awesome NaNoWriMo winner’s certificates and web badges-you just need to come by the NaNo site and sign up for another season of literary abandon if you haven’t already. And then, when November 1 rolls around, we’ll sit down together and watch our latest high-velocity masterworks spill out onto the page.”

Countdown November 1st!

You don’t have anything to lose, but a lot to gain by signing up for NaNoWriMo. You’ll receive inspirational articles and emails from famous writers to help you keep going. There are forums, local social gatherings, and NaNo videos at the website. Keep up with current events and offers on the NaNoWriMo blog too.

I’ll remind you NaNo writers at the end of next month to go and claim your free bound copy of your NaNo project. You’ll choose your own cover, so keep that in mind as you near the end of November. Make this year’s NaNoWriMo project a keepsake you can hold in your hands–and let it inspire you all year round!

October 19, 2009

A couple weeks ago, I reminded you that It’s NaNoWriMo Time Again. This November marks the 10th National Novel Writing Month, when writers around the world attempt to create 50,000 words in 30 days. Participating the last two years helped me blast past some procrastinating and get moving again.

Help!

Several people wrote for tips on how to actually make yourself write that much. They asked about tricks of the trade, starter exercises, or anything that might help them stay productive throughout the month of November.

In the November Writer Magazine there was a short article about this, and several computer applications were suggested to help you. Here they are, for your perusal. I plan to try a couple of them myself. (Click on the headings to go to the programs.)

Write or Die

This online app at Dr. Wicked.com encourages writers to create a steady flow of prose. You can set a word and/or time goal and choose the severity in the “consequences” mode. (See below for your choices.) The strongest consequences come with kamikaze mode–it starts deleting characters if the user stops typing for too long. (Don’t worry–there’s a pause button if needed.) When you reach the goal you set, a trumpet sounds as your reward! (This online application doesn’t require downloading, which is nice, nor does it require creating logins.) Just don’t forget to copy and paste your writing into a word document when you’re done–Write or Die doesn’t save it for you. You can’t edit in the box they provide–only write new material. The idea is to separate the writing process and the editing process as much as possible.

Here are your “consequences” choices:

• Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.
• Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.
• Kamikaze Mode: Keep Writing or Your Work Will Unwrite Itself

Blovel Spot

This is for people who are comfortable writing a blog. The novel is written in a series of blog posts using blogging software. Each chapter or section is published as a blog post. You can’t go back and edit previous chapters so you don’t slow down your progress. CAUTION: your writing goes public with the blog posting. You may not want your rough drafts out there where people can read them. Also, I’m guessing that most publishers would shy away from buying a book that has been published online. However, this could be a great way to warm up for the day, sort of “Diary of My Novel-in-Progress” sort of thing before you start writing.

Dark Room

This is designed for writers who crave a simple writing environment without distractions. (We ALL need that sometimes!) An easy download gives your computer the Dark Room effect. There is nothing on your dark screen but your writing. No other buttons, no way to play games or check email or hear Twitter tweets. Just you and your words until your writing time is over. (Mac users would need to go here for a similiar version.)

If these helps are enough to inspire you, then click over to NaNoWriMo right now and register. You have nothing to lose–and 50,000+ words to gain! Who knows? These applications may work so well for you that they become part of your personal writing routine. If so, let me know!

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