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!

Busy, Busy

If you’re like me, you’re not making a living with your writing. Sure, you’ve got that dream project in mind, and maybe you’ve started taking steps to plan it out on paper. Maybe you’re further along than that, and you have everything but the kitchen sink plotted out for the world in your brain (and trust me, I’m looking for a way to bring that to life, too). Any way you slice it, you’ve got something in mind that you want to write, a great idea that needs to be expressed. There’s just one problem – you have no time to write!

Whenever I talk about writing to other creative people, a common phrase tends to crop up with minor variations: “I’d love to write, but I have no time.” Everyone has a million other things they need to do first, and they all take up every moment of every day. Whether it be work or kids, or boyfriend/husband (which, let’s face it, can also fall under the “kids” category sometimes), whatever your excuses are, they’re keeping you from letting you exercise your writing skills. They’re also completely bogus.

It’s always possible to find time to write. There are a number of perfectly good opportunities in the day to get something down on paper, opportunities that might otherwise slip by without you even knowing it. You can write first thing in the morning or just before you go to bed. You can write while you eat lunch, or while you’re on the phone listening to crappy hold music. You can write while you’re waiting for your friend to pick you up, or at the bus stop, or on the bus/train you take to work. Heck, you can write while you’re in the bathroom, provided you don’t have family threatening to break down the door if you don’t get out of there right now. There are tons of little moments in the day where you can put down some words in story form, if you know where to look.

How do I get around balancing a day job and social obligations to friends and family, and still find time to write? I’m fortunate in that I have a number of opportunities throughout the day where I can exercise my wordcraft. While I may not have much time between waking up and heading out to work (a morning person, I am not), I’ve got a good stretch of 20 minutes on the train ride to work where I can do my thing. At lunch, I can usually snag the same amount of time to nail down some story. And after work, I can either sequester myself at home or take a couple hours to fuel my imagination with caffeine at the local Starbucks.

Incidentally, I’ll take a venti Peppermint Mocha, the Frappuccino version if the weather is warm.

The point is, the supposed “lack of time” that everyone complains about is easily solved with some applied time management skills. Sure, you may have to sacrifice time in other areas of your life to accommodate writing – a little less time watching TV or fiddling around on the internet – but your writer’s spirit will thank you for it. And you may find that your writing will enrich the other areas of your life if you set some time aside specifically to let your imagination run wild.

Try it out, and see how it works for a week or two. And if you see me typing away on my laptop at Starbucks, I like my Peppermint Mocha with whipped cream, please!

Writing For Yourself

Everyone wants to be a published author, including myself. Who wouldn’t want to walk into a bookstore and see their creation sitting there on the shelf (or better yet, the bestseller table) bearing your name on it like a badge of honor? How many of us seek out the spot on the shelf where our book would be, nestled between the other published authors, and imagine that our mythical book is actually sold out? C’mon, I can’t be the only one.

Getting your writing published is the dream of every aspiring writer. It’s a form of validation for all that hard work you put into birthing a brand new story. Somehow, seeing the words you put down in story form on widely published pages means you’ve finally made it. For me, it represents a major accomplishment. It means the story I’ve been toiling over for who knows how long has made an impact on someone who has seen it all and rejected most of it, an impact powerful enough to convince that someone that my story must be shared with an audience beyond my family and friends. It’s the prize won from all that brainstorming, the crappy first draft, and all of the torment that goes with polishing that draft to perfection.

But what about writing for the fun of it? What about writing for an audience of one?

What about writing for you?

Stay with me, here. Writers want to write, right? Of course we do. We NEED to write. It’s as basic as needing to eat or sleep. Sure, you could go without for a while, but the need is still there, and eventually it will bring you back to the blank page. And of course, publication is a perfectly valid reason for writing. A lot of us write for publication, of course, especially the most successful of us. It’s not the only reason, though.

I write for myself all the time. When I’m not toiling over my trilogy, I create works that aren’t intended for mass consumption, which is always the concern when you’re writing something for publication. Writing to be published means you’re writing for the masses, gearing your written word toward reaching an audience. It means your concerns have elevated beyond asking yourself questions like “Is this paragraph structured properly?” to “Is this subplot appropriate for my audience?” A fine concern to have, to be sure, but sometimes writers just need to write for the hell of it.

Personally, I write for myself as a form of writing exercise. I use it to work on technique and voice. I’ve experimented with first, second and third person perspective, tackled various genres, and explored everything from my room to a bowl of pretzels in written form. It’s allowed me to work on dialogue, description, and pacing. It’s freeing, allowing yourself to write without concern of who might be seeing it or what they’ll think, because you’re allowing yourself to experiment and explore, and yes, even make mistakes. We should be allowed to do that every now and then, right?

Try it sometime. Come up with a subject you’d want to write about, but not necessarily for anyone else to read. It could be a love letter to your significant other or family member, or a hate letter to that jerk that cut the line in front of you. It could be a stream of consciousness work about what you’re feeling right this second, or it could be a confession about something you did when you were a kid. Whatever it is, sit down with your favorite drink and snack, pull out that pen and paper or word processor, and give yourself a goal of 1-3 pages. Then write. Just write, and let it all flow until the stream turns into a trickle. After that, you can do with it what you will, though I tend to save mine for future reference. You know, just in case.

Writing for yourself might not get you published, but it will get you writing, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. You might even surprise yourself with what ends up on the page!