Giving in to NaNoWriMo.

I officially signed up for NaNoWriMo last night. Yes, I know I'm half way through the month already, and I've only been writing for a week, but their little word count graph was just too much to pass up. I'm currently at just below 16,000 words, and need to step up my daily writing to finish 50,000 by the end of the month. My current goal was 2k per day, but now I need to do 2.3K to catch up. Will I succeed? I dunno. Finals are coming up in a few weeks, and I have a massive research paper in my Art History class, so I may be doomed to failure. However, it's important to me to know where I sit, and shooting for a goal will help motivate me, even if it may not be possible. So here goes.

I'll try to link my graph somehow....

First, a wonderful little recipe....

I don't have much time today, but I wanted to share a recipe, then a bit about TSS (my book The Sometimes Sword). As some of you know, I'm a huge fan of a site called Terribleminds.com, run by the strange Chuck Wendig, a freelance game writer, screenwriter, and published novelist who makes me chuckle more often than anyone else. His blog contains a ton of different subjects: interviews, writing advice, lists, etc. Recently he has taken to posting recipes that he proudly deems "NSFW". I highly recommend them, as they are as hilarious as they are tasty. (Caution: if you aren't into crude language, stay away. Also, did I say "as" enough in that sentence?) The latest recipe was a sausage and apple pasta with a butter cream sauce which he titles "This Recipe Will Autumn Your F*@!ing Socks Off". And yes, before you ask, it did. My socks, and my stomach, were quite satisfied. I don't know that I've ever tasted something that immediately resulted in a loud "Wow". Seriously, go look it up.


To the point of this post however, I really wanted to chat briefly about TSS. It's times like these that I can actually be grateful I'm not a published writer with a reputation, deadlines, and so on. I've been thinking a lot lately about my writing, to the point that I seem to have confused myself. I need to stop thinking about what I should be doing so much, and just write what I enjoy. Some of you might have seen my blog post describing my reasons in shelving The Sometimes Sword indefinitely, and while I still think my reasons are warranted, I think I may have jumped the gun in deciding to move on.

Those of you who have read any or all of TSS know that there is a lot left to do in order to make it a smooth, cohesive novel with a satisfying middle and ending. Part of the reason I felt like it was a waste to continue on with it was the the sheer amount of work that needed to be done to it, and not knowing where to start. It's overwhelming to look at a 400 page book and try to figure out what's wrong with it and how to fix it.

Like I said above, I am so glad I'm still an amateur, in that I can change my mind when I need to and go back and forth between books without a publisher telling me I'm a moron. As of right now, I am once again picking up The Sometimes Sword, but in a different way. Instead of trying to fix existing material, I will begin stripping away entire sections that aren't up to scratch, then rewriting them the way they need to be. This will include the entire ending, and the first few chapters of the book for sure. I intend to rebuild them from the ground up, altering the very framework of the book in the process. This will mean a lot of material going into cold storage, and even more brand new material added in its place.

First order of business is demolition. I am planning a time with my alpha readers to sit down for several solid hours and take the book apart. Becky and I did this to a small extent a few weeks ago, but I want to dive deeper and identify the good and bad. I want go over specific sections and determine what needs to be chucked out. If it ends up being whole chapters or the entire last half of the book in the trash, so be it. (If there are sections that have a good premise, but are written badly, we will create a framework in which to rewrite them.)

Next I want to begin arranging scenes that might be good (but in the wrong places) into a different story, establishing a recognizable arc, character and plot wise. I want to examine theme with everyone, and make some diagrams for fluctuations in character development and conflict. One of my main focuses in doing this will be to establish a defined moral, or why the story is significant. (Why should the reader care about this? What will they take away? etc.)

As far as my new book goes, I am still going to continue work on it as I can. I am excited by some of the ideas and characters I've created, but I can't let TSS die. I've worked too hard, and my readers have worked to hard to not meet my goal of submission by January. So going forward, I will have two projects, but TSS will take precedence.

Difficulty writing, and what I need to do about it. (Suggestions are welcome.)

Lately I've been having a hard time sitting down to write. I've written about this before, I know, but it has since become worse, to the point of complete stagnation in my writing. As some of you know, I recently decided to shelve The Sometimes Sword, of which I was on the third draft. You can read about it here. I have started work on a new book, but I find myself wondering sometimes if I'm really cut out for this. I have always heard (and I have said myself) that a writer has to slog forward, and just do it. It's good advice for sure, logical and all that. But it misses an important point. What if you can't slog forward, because you can't seem to put your fingers on the keyboard? What if every time you sit down you feel sick, and ashamed? What if so many doubts clog your brain that you can't seem to recall any words other than self-recriminations?

Can I really call myself a writer when I let two, three months go by without actually, you know, writing? Thankfully as of today I started once more on writing the actual words of my new first draft, but how long will that last? How long until I look at what I've done and start hating it?

My goal right now, and it feels so inadequate, is to write at least once a week. This is a far cry from 5 pages a day like my last book. But with school and work I'm mentally exhausted every night. (I hate you Philosophy 1200.) It feels like writing would be a bad idea most of the time. I rationalize that the stress isn't worth it, that I as an adult can choose to do what seems to be the easiest thing in the evenings, and if that's not writing, then so be it.

Somehow, I know that's all wrong. I know it is. But it persists. Does anyone have suggestions, or even similar thoughts? I want to hear about them, and maybe what you are doing to overcome them.