NaNoWriMo: The End

So, it's December 3rd, and National Novel Writing Month is over. If you made it to 50,000 words before it ended, congrats! There is no feeling greater than having met your word count goal, and hey, you also have a novel to show for it, too! Talk about accomplishment!



If you didn't make it, don't feel bad. You started, and that's what counts. I tried to start so many novels before I did NaNoWriMo, and none of them got past the first page. Starting a creative endeavor can be the hardest thing you'll ever do, so if you got even a couple of pages in, you're still way ahead of the curve.

Of course, every ending is another beginning, and NaNoWriMo is no exception. If you didn't finish your novel, you now have as much time as you like to see it through to the end. If you'd like, make your own deadline and stick to it. You can even ditch the deadline completely and work on it in your spare time. If you finished your novel, let it sit for a bit and then go back through and edit it. Flesh out the parts that weren't as strong because you didn't have time to do the research. Cut out the weak bits that didn't exactly fit but still contributed to your word count. Take that crappy first draft that's now in your position and work it into a strong second draft. Before you know it, you'll have a manuscript that, if you so choose, you can shop around to literary agents and publishers, or self-publish as an e-book.

Whether you decide to forge ahead with your novel (like I did) or let it rest on your mantle as the sign of a job well done, my kudos go out to all of you who participated in this month-long event. Congrats, you're a real writer now!

NaNoWriMo: The Halfway Point

Today is Nov. 16th, roughly halfway through National Novel Writing Month. Time for a pep talk!



For those of you still participating in this event, way to go! You're already a cut above the rest by sticking with it this long, regardless of what your word count is right now. Those of you who started strong but gave up due to [insert excuse here], it's not too late! Put the boots on and launch back into that word count with renewed ferocity. And to the rest of you who never crossed the start line, it's not too late for you, either! You'll have twice the work ahead of you than most NaNoWriMo-ers, but it's not unheard of to make that 50,000 word goal in half the time.

The halfway point was hard for me. Sure, I had kept with the daily word count goals I had set for myself, but I was still only halfway there. Real life was already doing its best to derail my progress and the last half of the month would bring with it the additional complication of the Thanksgiving holiday. An already uphill battle for a guy who had previously only done 3-page short stories was going to be even more difficult.

I had every reason in the world to stop. My friends wanted to hang out with me again. Family wanted to spend time with me around the holiday. Work drained my energy during the day, leaving me running on fumes at night. And then there was that ever-present noise in my head, telling me that I wasn't good enough, I'm not a real writer, I should stop trying so hard and give up now.

You know what I did? I kept writing anyway.

My friends understood that I had a passion and needed to stoke that fire in me. Family had to sleep, and there was always that time late at night or early in the morning when they weren't awake yet and I could lay down some more words. At work, I would write on my lunch break and during my commute to and from the office. I stole every possible moment I could from the day to meet my daily goals, and I'll be damned if I was going to let the world keep me from crossing the finish line.

As for the noise in my head? It was always there, and always will be there. Self-doubt is nothing new to writers. Even the seasoned vets still hear that voice drilling doubt into their brain. The trick is to hear it without giving in to it. Recognize that voice, smile and nod at it, then go ahead and write anyway. If you have to, say aloud, "I will make it to 50,000 words." Make it your mantra. Don't worry about sounding crazy, everyone assumes writers are weird anyway.

You can do it. I know you can, and deep down, you know you can, too. Stick with it, you'll be glad you did.

See you at the finish line!

The Hero's Journey - The Road Back

I know, I know, we’re all having so much fun on our road trip, it’s almost a shame to have to go back to the real world. That’s exactly what we have to do, however. I mean, they don’t call this stage The Road Back for nothing, right?

No one wants to go back home when they’re in a new and wondrous place, and that includes the Hero. Very rarely, the Hero will stay in the special world, but more often than not, he’ll make the trek back to the ordinary world with all the lessons he’s learned along the way. This is where the main character rededicates himself to the role of Hero and his place in the grand adventure. Just because he’s going back home, that doesn’t mean the reset button is hit and everything returns to normal. It also doesn’t mean he goes back home unscathed. By surviving the Ordeal and claiming the Reward, our Hero is now so much more than he was before… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

You know those thresholds that the Hero has been crossing since stepping into the Special World? Well, this is another one, except it’s the threshold of the Ordinary World. The Threshold Guardian for this one, however, can be anyone. It could be his companions who have accompanied him this far and would love it if he stayed. It could be his own desire to belong in this new place, refusing to go back to being ordinary again. Then again, it might be the Shadow if the villain of the piece wasn’t finished off in the Ordeal. This last one lends itself well to a chase scene, a sure way to spice up this piece of the Hero’s Journey and amp things up after relaxing in the Reward stage.

I wish I had some incredible way to illustrate how the Road Back applies to Rob’s Journey, some dazzling example that would completely wow you and demonstrate how layered this stage can be. Honestly, though, his Road Back at this point is a literal road back home from the NaNoWriMo after party. On the way back, though, he has plenty of time to reflect on his success and realize that he’s very capable of writing a novel. In fact, he’s already got one in the bag. What is he going to do with it? That’s the question that weighs heavily on his mind as he returns to his Ordinary World.

We’re nearing the very end of our Journey! I’m kind of sad about that. I feel like we’ve been through a lot in the course of this year. We’ve been to the Special World and have returned… from the dead? Why not? Next up: Resurrection! (Bring your own phoenix metaphor.)

What's Your Word Count?

Is it November already? Sheesh, where did the year go? I swear, it was just July a second ago.

Today is November 1st, which marks the first day of NaNoWriMo! For the uninitiated, that means National Novel Writing Month, where would-be authors from all over are encouraged to stow the "I wish I could..." and finally pen that story that's been playing out in the back of their brain. Don't worry your pretty little head about page count: we're looking at word count here, with the goal being 50,000 words before the calendar turns to December. Want to find out more? Want to see if any of your friends are getting their NaNo on? Check out their site at http://www.nanowrimo.org/ now!

So, while I'm building toward the final few chapters of my rewrite, who among you is hammering out a 50,000 word story this month? Feel free to step up and share your story idea/inspiration/word count here!

The Hero's Journey - Ordeal

The ultimate showdown. The final battle. The central crisis. The Hero is delving deep within the Inmost Cave to do battle with the villain at its heart. There are many names for this stage of the Journey. Joseph Campbell calls it The Ordeal.

Contrary to what you might think, the Ordeal is not the climax of the story. No, the Ordeal is toward the end, but not the end itself. If you check your Road Map, you’ll see that there are four stages of the Hero’s Journey still to go. “But you just built this up to be the big fight!” Well, yes, because it is. The Ordeal is where the main battle is, the title match between good guy and bad guy. All the trials and tribulations earlier in the story have led to this moment of truth, when swords (or pistols, for you gun fanatics) are drawn and everything goes plunging straight toward the big fiery pit of doom. The Hero needs to show that those lessons earlier in the Journey were not in vain as he puts them to the test in a high-stakes battle against a superior foe. To continue that learning curve metaphor, think of the story as school and the Ordeal is your mid-term (and just as tension-filled, if done properly). Suddenly the label “Ordeal” is more than just a clever name, isn’t it?

This is probably as good a time as any to talk about the Shadow. No, not the pulp hero of the same name, we’re talking about the story archetype. The Shadow is everything the Hero is not. He’s an evil twin, a dark reflection, the figurative shadow to the Hero’s light. In fact, the Shadow often serves the function of showing us, the audience, what the Hero could become if he doesn’t learn the lessons of the story. A good example of this is Harry Potter’s Shadow, Voldemort. The Dark Lord is everything Harry could be if he had ended up in Slytherin instead of Gryffindor, and Harry finds himself wondering a few times in the course of that book series if he isn’t starting to walk the same path as that ultimate evil. The Shadow doesn’t need to be an external force, though. It could be the Hero’s own impulses and desires, warring within him for dominance in the story. It could be an old state of being that he’s trying to change, or a love that continues to burn him from the inside out. Any way you slice it, the Shadow is the archetypal villain for the Hero to thwart in the Ordeal.

Let’s see this phase at work in Rob’s Journey. When last we left him, he was gearing up to tackle his own Ordeal – writing his first novel. The novel isn’t the villain, of course. No, the Shadow he needs to fight is his own fear, self-doubt and old habits. His Inmost Cave is the room where he writes, and his Ordeal is thwarting temptation so he can focus on writing 50,000 words in one month. It’s not an easy task, not when he still has work occupying the majority of the week, friends who want him to sit down and game with them, and family to visit in the holiday toward the end of the month. The deck is stacked against him from the start, but our Hero perseveres and fights to meet his word count day after day. Back and forth he goes, the days ticking by as he sits at his desk (or coffeehouse, sometimes, with his trusty PDA) and lays out word after word. Finally, the clock strikes midnight on November 31, signaling the start of December and the end of NaNoWriMo. Rob sits back and looks at his final word count: 50,007. He did it. He wrote his first novel.

We’re not through with our story yet, though. To the contrary, the true climax of our Hero’s Journey is still to come. The stress of the Ordeal has been overcome, now it’s time to kick back, relax and enjoy our victory as we savor the Reward!

The Hero's Journey - Approach

So we’ve spent a good deal of time exploring the extraordinary world, learned some very important lessons from its denizens, and made new friends and new enemies alike. It’s been a lot of fun, but now it’s time to up the ante. Buckle up, readers, we’re about to make our Approach!

The Approach stage is shorthand for Joseph Campbell’s Approach to the Inmost Cave, usually the lair of the bad guy, the dragon’s cave, or some other den of deadly things in old mythology. This is where the journey starts to get more difficult, the trials of the previous stage paling in comparison to the challenges ahead. The Hero zeroes in on the source of the main conflict and, much like the preparation involved in Crossing the Threshold, prepares for the story’s central crisis event. In fact, this stage is often considered a second threshold in the story, complete with its own Threshold Guardian. If the Hero has paid attention to the special rules of this new world, this encounter should be the first time he puts his newly acquired knowledge to the test.

It’s very likely that your Hero doesn’t expect to return from the final confrontation. This is appropriate – death and resurrection are, after all, an integral part of the great myths, and this plays directly into the Resurrection stage of the Hero’s Journey. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. A lot of high stakes stories involve final battles between the main character and the villain of the piece, and only one is expected to walk away. Settling his affairs before the big fight is something that the Hero should certainly take care of at this point of the Journey. Likewise, in stories where there’s an emotional conflict instead of a physical one, the Hero may have to come to terms with some painful truth before moving toward the climax of the story. The Inmost Cave in that instance may be the depths of his own soul as he deals with some hard truths. Any way you slice it, the Approach is where the protagonist mentally, physically and emotionally suits up for the big showdown.

Let’s check back in with Rob to see how this stage plays out in his own Hero’s Journey. He’s been working at the office for a while now, learning new skills in administration and organization, but he hasn’t been following his dream of being a writer at all. Betty changes that by adding a new layer to his life, challenging him to write short stories about inanimate objects to get the creative juices flowing. At first baffled by the notion of adding writing to what he considers an already full life, he nonetheless takes up the challenge and makes the time to hammer out one short story after another. It soon becomes apparent that each one he completes builds on the last to develop a common thread linking them together, which makes writing the next story easier as an overarching mythology is born. Good thing, too – he discovers that National Novel Writing Month is fast approaching, its siren’s call irresistible to Rob now that his muse is getting warmed up. 50,000 words is a hefty challenge to someone who has never written a novel before, but with his new array of time management skills and creative direction, it’s a battle he’s never been more prepared to fight.

Our Journey is more than halfway over, but the best is yet to come. Though we’re not yet to the climax of our tale, we’re definitely entering crisis mode and fast approaching the big finish. The Hero’s Journey kicks into high gear next time as we launch right into the Ordeal!

In the Beginning...

Alright, I promised a blog about my development as a writer, and so far I’ve managed to neglect saying anything directly about my work in progress. No more! It’s time to lift the veil a bit and give you some insight into how I ended up writing a trilogy of young adult books.

As I’d mentioned back in my NaNoWriMo entry, it didn’t start out as a trilogy. It wasn’t even envisioned as a series. At its simplest, most innocent form, I was just working on a one-shot narrative that spun off from a small collection of short stories I was writing at the time. Sure, there was potential for follow-up stories, but my mind wasn’t at that stage yet. All I wanted to do was to tell a little tale to entertain people and show off my “mad writing skills.” I did just that – with every week of NaNoWriMo, I would bring it to the group that inspired my short stories, led by the remarkable Barbara Deutsch and populated mostly by actors, and let one of them read the Excerpt of the Week aloud.

Let me just say right now that if you literary aspirants ever find an opportunity to have your work read aloud by someone you trust, seize it with both hands. Get over your anxiety at having people see your work in progress and let them read it aloud as if to an audience. A successfully crafted narrative is one that flows smoothly, and the best test of this is to see if someone can cold read it without stumbling over the words and sentence structure. More than that, if you’re writing dialogue, you can hear if it sounds conversational or if your characters sound like textbooks. In addition, if you’re writing a story that incorporates humor, you can see and hear if someone gets it or not… depending on if your reader is part of your target audience, of course. (I, myself, am pleased to report that people responded very well to the humor in my first draft.)

By the end of the month, I had a first draft of a novel, but it only barely fit the criteria. I set to the task of reworking it, adding chapters to fill out the narrative, weeding out chapters that were redundant or otherwise added nothing to the story, and changing whatever was left to fit the new material so it would flow even smoother than before. In that time, the word count on my novel blossomed from barely over 50,000 to well over 65,000 words. Plot was tightened, the world was expanded upon, and the whole thing seemed much more cohesive. There was just one little problem.

I had no idea who exactly it was for.

Sure, I had an inkling that it would make for a fine young adult novel, but the tone and some of the material suggested that it might find a home on the sci-fi/fantasy shelf. The fact that I hadn’t decided on who it was for could be seen throughout my story, though, and it suffered greatly for it. I had to pick a genre, and that decision either way would mean a rewrite of my novel. After a great deal of consideration, I decided to bring it fully into the realm of young adult fiction. I’d always had a fondness for the genre, and the success of the Harry Potter book series (among others) showed that they weren’t just for kids. With a little retooling of the story and plot, I could make an awe-inspiring tale of wonder and magic that would sit proudly on the YA Fiction shelf.

I’ll delve into some of that retooling next week!

NaNoWriMo

No, it’s not baby speak, or technobabble, or any other sort of babble. NaNoWriMo is the abbreviated form of National Novel Writing Month, which takes place throughout the month of November. While I won’t get into the specifics of NaNoWriMo here (you’re better served by following this link to find out more straight from their website), I thought it very timely that my first real entry here should discuss this month-long writer’s challenge and how it helped me reach the next stage in my life as a writer.

Back in 2005, I was struggling with my writing in a way I’d never done before. In hindsight, I was sabotaging my own efforts to launch any attempt at creating a novel-sized work with my own perfectionism, but at the time, it felt as though my inspiration had left me to flounder helplessly in my pursuits. It was the lowest point I’d ever reached in my writing to date, and that dark dissatisfaction at my inability to write wormed its way into other aspects of my life. Sure, I was writing short stories just like I always had, but I wanted to do more. I wanted to write a novel.

I honestly don’t recall now how I’d heard of NaNoWriMo. Maybe it was from a friend online who was trying to get other people into it as well, but how I got to their site isn’t nearly as important as what happened once I got there. The more I read about this challenge – 50,000 words written in the span of a month – the more I wanted to do it, if only to see how far I could get before my perfectionism shut me down. I decided on my story idea, inspired greatly by the flavor of short stories I was writing at the time, and was brainstorming characters and plot all the way through the last week of October. It was all in my head, nothing written down in any way that would give me a head start on the challenge, and all loosely structured to give myself the freedom to go anywhere my characters wanted to go with the story.

As the clock struck midnight, I started writing the opening chapter of my month-long obsession. I set myself word count goals for each day, taking into account the hectic family reunion on Thanksgiving day, and devoted myself to writing at every possible moment. To assist me in writing away from home, I bought a PDA (nicknamed Ziggy) with a bare-bones version of Word on it and a pocket-sized keyboard to go with it. I wrote on the train to work, at lunch, in coffeehouses and bookstores – anywhere I could find a few spare moments to tap out another little facet of my story. The discipline I exercised in that one month was greater than any I’d ever shown in my previous projects. Then again, I never had a community of fellow writers to hold me accountable in my previous projects.

It’s true, my favorite aspect of NaNoWriMo was the write-out. People would announce what coffeehouse they’d go to for a bit of writing and invite others to come out and join them. This flies in the face of the age-old stereotype of the writer locked in his little room, crafting tales in absolute solitude. It’s a stereotype I embody often, but for this one month I was the social writer, sitting with other writers as we all created whole new literary worlds. It was great fun, and immensely helpful to have those of like mind around to bounce the occasional idea off of, or perhaps to inquire about a particular subject or turn of phrase or what have you. That community of writers is at the core of NaNoWriMo and, I believe, the key to its success in many ways.

At the end of November, one day before the end of the month, I crossed the 50,000 word mark. I felt a sense of accomplishment greatly different from any I’d felt from completing a short story. Here, in all its crappy first draft glory, was my first novel, titled Inanimate Gods. It was the most agonizing, wonderful, terrifying, exhausting and amazing feeling in the world to have written my first book, and while I reveled in that achievement, I knew that my journey had only just begun.

But that’s a different story for another time…