a very scary research trip!

last night i went on my first official "research outing" for writing.

i confess, my research often involves me sitting at my laptop doing video, photo and map searches... and scouring "How Things Work" websites. as a writer, the internet has saved me a lot of time and money when it comes to researching my stories.

but i recently realized i needed some information for the Work In Progress (aka next month's NaNo project) that no amount of googling could help me find. i needed to see/experience it for myself. so i was THRILLED when The Nest Haunted House here in Arizona agreed to give me a behind-the-scenes tour!


i am only one short chapter into GRIM (the WIP about a group of teenage boys working at a haunted house), and i have already run into questions about logistics (how do they communicate inside the haunt?), costumes (what are the fake vampire teeth made out of?) and layout (how does mad scientist get into his lab, and where does he go if he has to take a pee, for crying out loud?!)

all of these questions are just background for the actual story, but they have to be accurate for authenticity.

AN ACCESS HALLWAY FOR ACTORS:

GETTING MAKEUP TOUCHED UP BEFORE SHOWTIME:

ONCE THE SHOW STARTS, IT'S LIGHTS OUT! TOUCH UPS HAVE TO BE DONE WITH THE HELP OF A SPOT LIGHT:
A PLANNING BOARD AT THE NEST:

i also had a ton of questions that ARE pertinent to the story, but this is a spoiler-free zone. thanks so much to Brooke Rodda of Angles PR for answering many of those questions and for spending the evening with me.

and thanks especially to Josh Burdi and Skyler Wright, the teenage actors who gave me incredible insight into what it's like to be a teen working in such a wild business. (The Arizona Republic has a great shot of Skyler getting into his makeup here. - link! click it!)

if this book gets published, by the time it comes out, those guys will no longer be teenagers, but i hope they'll still be hanging around haunts like The Nest, giving guests a good scare. in any case, they sure gave me a lot of inspiration. i can't wait to start writing the rest of GRIM, thanks to them.

organized chaos

NaNoWriMo starts in one week, and i have to admit - i didn't sign up until today.

there's been a lot of revising this year - rewriting Billy D and going through the editorial process with Butter. i haven't written anything new in so long, i wasn't sure i was ready to dive head first into another rough draft. so i was considering skipping NaNo, to give myself a break.
but then i thought - a break from WHAT? - a break from my favorite part of writing? from the pure freedom of rough-draft creativity? i don't need a break. writing a new manuscript IS my break - from editing!

so i'm going for it again this year, but now i only have a week to prepare. and preparation is key.

here is how i get organized for the mad-dash chaos that is National Novel Writing Month:

step 1 - story idea.
dude, ya gotta have an idea. otherwise that blank page can kick your butt on day one. for me, that idea has to be fully formed, which means:
step 2 - outline.
it's not cheating! you can outline your whole book - just don't count those words in your November tally. in fact, i go beyond outlining and fully recommend:
step 3 - write a first chapter.
again, i don't count it when i'm adding up the November sprint. chances are, your novel will be longer than 50,000 words - so it doesn't hurt to have a few thousand written ahead of time and a few thousand still to write afterward.
step 4 - make adjustments.
you have an outline and a first chapter. if you're not feeling it, you may want to switch gears. the point of the outline and the first chapter, for me, are to get me revved up for NaNo - to make myself WANT to write the next page so bad i practically can't wait for the madness to start. if you're not feeling that urge, you may want to look at your chapter and your outline and see if this is really something you want to spend 30 days of your life with. if not - go back to step 1 and start again. (if i were clever with PhotoShop, i would build you a little flow chart here, but i am so not talented in that way.)
step 5 - clear your schedule.
clean your house; get your doctor's appointments out of the way; finish up whatever other projects you are working on. these things, if left undone, will become distractions, at best, or give you a guilty conscience, at worst. i know i personally struggle with NaNo if i have a long "to do" list hanging over my head in November.
step 6 - do. not. write.
if at all possible, give yourself a few days or a few weeks to rest your brain and recharge the creative batteries. spend quality time with important people (in case you accidentally ignore them while immersed in NaNo), and do something FUN (there will be very little time for fun in November).
step 7 - strap on a good attitude.
despite what i said about the fun, that's actually what NaNo is all about. it's permission to have FUN writing. have fun staying indoors, unwashed and anti-social. have fun sitting on your butt for hours on end. have fun meeting new friends at local write-in events. however you "NaNo" - make sure you have fun while you're doing it.

personally, i plan to have fun writing something out of my comfort zone. it may end up getting tossed, if it doesn't feel like "me" in the end, but i will still get a kick out of trying.

oh, and part of my fun is in the preparation this year. i have a "research outing" planned for this week that should give me some GREAT inspiration. if i get permission from my outing "hosts," i promise to blog all about it.

let's get loud

you know what you should do when you just finished revisions for your editor and probably have another round coming soon? when the next item on your list is to polish up your newest manuscript so your agent can submit that baby? when you're way behind on chores and have been neglecting your boyfriend and your dog and your friends and especially neglecting that alleged "next" book idea that you've been sitting on for over a year? YOU KNOW WHAT YOU SHOULD DO THEN??

you should totally start writing something new.

...and by should, i mean absolutely definitely should NOT!
but inspiration is a pain in the ass like that. it comes up at the most inconvenient times, and for me, it usually comes in screaming.

there's an idea that's been cooking in the back of my brain for awhile, but i've been ignoring it, because it wasn't part of the plan. (the plan being to dutifully edit BUTTER, then revise and submit BILLY D, then hopefully spend my beloved NaNo month drafting GRIM and then pay attention to the voices in my head.)

i like things to be linear, see. i like to be on a schedule.

but the left and right side of my brains are always warring on this point, and sometimes the creative voice wins out over the logical one.

so despite my best efforts to ignore the voices... i somehow ended up with 20 minutes worth of voice recordings, 3 lined sheets of paper packed with notes, a scene-by-scene outline and a brand new book file on my laptop.

that seems to have silenced the cacophony in my brain for now, but i'm really looking forward to a time very soon when i can return to this story and say to my characters - let's Get LOUD!

word count wednesday - fifth and final

it is the morning of December 1st, and that means some of you may still be sleeping off your NaNoWriMo hangover.
some others of you may be pointing and laughing at the folks with the NaNo hangover, saying "see? glad i didn't do that this year."

as for me, i hit my 50K on Sunday.
finishing a few days early is like drinking a lot of water and taking advil before you go to bed. it helps prevent the hangover, so i'm feeling pretty good. ;)

my final word count in the NaNo validator was 50,950 !!!

since i had written nine chapters of this book prior to november and because i went on a writing spree monday on my day off to finish the whole darn thing, my total WC for the full manuscript is almost 72,000, including these two words: "THE END."

so yeah, of course i'm feeling all kinds of cheery about that, but here's what i really want to say:
whether you have 72,000 words or 7,200... YOU should be celebrating too!
i've mentioned before that BUTTER was a NaNo novel last year, and i didn't even get halfway to the goal before it got derailed. and as you know, that all worked out okay.

so if you didn't hit 50K, i hope you will continue to work on whatever projects you started in november. if you DID hit 50K, i hope you'll come back to your MS after a few days or weeks off and sit down to revise Revise REVISE. because as we writers all know, the first draft is just the beginning.
we also know that november may be a whole lot of fun, but writing is a year-round job and a lifelong passion.

take that momentum from NaNo and use it to propel you into the new year. however many words you wrote... you are that many words closer to making a dream come true. keep the momentum going!

best of luck. you are ALL AWESOME, regardless of word count.

the return of... BEST LINES!

the best part of being done with the crazy writing spree that is NaNoWriMo is that i finally have time to READ again!
and i'm so glad the book i picked up first is one with lines worth sharing.

so after a long hiatus... i bring you more "Best Lines."

these are from the first third of "How I Live Now," by Meg Rosoff. (most are actually fragments of lines, as the writing style makes every sentence about a paragraph long, and i don't want to give away too much.)

...Davina the Diabolical, who sucked my father's soul out through his you know what and then got herself knocked up with the devil's spawn which, when it pops out, Leah and I are going to call Damian even if it's a girl.

Basically we couldn't believe our luck, and for a little while it felt like we were on some big train rolling down a hill, and all we cared about was how great it felt to be going fast.

...sitting in the jeep and bumping down a bumpy old road and the sun was streaming in the windows and it felt much nicer than usual to be alive even if it meant a bunch of fish were going to have to die.

Dad was one of those Never Mention Her Name Again type of fathers which if you ask me was extremely unpsychologically correct of him. Leah's father worked on Wall Street and shot himself one day when he lost $600 million of someone else's money and they never shut up about him in their house.


those are the most non-spoilery ones from near the beginning of the book, but there are some zingers later too.

if any of you are doing NaNo and motoring through the last day - GOOD LUCK!! see you back here tomorrow for a final "Word Count Wednesday."

for the win

word count wednesday 4

HOME STRETCH!

my word count: 42,845
words left to "win" NaNo: 7,155
estimated words left to finish the story: 11,000
words to erase and rewrite after NaNo: 10,000 ...at least.

that's a little secret no one talks about at the beginning of NaNo - how much you are going to write after november. all those words you wrote this month - whether it's 50,000 or 10,000 - are just a fraction of the words you will write before that book is done. whether you have more to write, lots to rewrite or just several waves of revision in your future, chances are you will write many more thousands of words - just for this one book.

but really, who has time to worry about that when we're still trying to finish THIS race, right?! so get typing; take a break for turkey; then get right back to typing!

i'm taking a little blogging break over the long holiday weekend. hope you all stuff yourselves silly. :)

the computer ate my chapter!

...and other blessings in disguise.

the first novel i ever tried to write died a horrible death. it caught a nasty incurable virus and when it finally went into the light, even the best computer doctors could not revive it.
this was ten years ago, and the pain of that loss was so raw, i did not write again for years.

i am being completely serious now.
i allowed a manuscript-eating computer virus to put me off writing... for years. even when someone very close to me - an angel really - produced the first ten thousand words or so from his own email archives, bless him, i could not be persuaded to pick up the story again. how could i possibly remember what the NEXT ten thousand words were? and i couldn't even fathom letting those words go and starting the story again from the middle. i was so stubborn.

but i took the ten thousand words from this angel, and put them in a folder at the back of my file box with a neat little tab labeled: Sammy Vegas. for almost a decade, every time i opened that box to file a utility bill or check a bank statement, the words "Sammy Vegas" would play peek-a-boo with me from the dark rear of the box... taunting me, reminding me that once upon a time i wanted to be a writer.

when i finally started writing again, the "Sammy Vegas" file got moved to a new filing cabinet - one filled with nothing but manuscripts, story ideas and publishing information. now, when i see the "Sammy Vegas" tab, i don't see a painful loss but a story that will someday be brought back to life. SV would have been the wrong first book for me. and maybe i needed to live a little more before i started writing for real. i truly think losing that MS was meant to be, so that all the stars could align for me to write a book some 8 or 9 years later that would actually be good enough to publish.

i tried to remember the SV tale this week when technology let me down once again.
this time, it wasn't a computer virus but a malfunctioning android application that ate my words. (oh, how time has marched on!)
my trusty little cell phone voice recorder app crashed and burned - taking with it an entire chapter of my NaNo project. in the sheer panic of losing those words, i forgot every single one of them, even thought i had dictated them into the voice recorder only that morning. Handsome and i made a few feeble efforts to recover the audio files, but they were lost. i wanted to crawl into bed and forget the whole manuscript.
but NaNo waits for no drama, so i knew i had to suck it up and write something new.

and you know what? the new scene is better. once it was all written, my thoughts cleared, and i could remember the initial scene, and it wasn't half as good as its replacement. losing that first chapter was probably the best thing that's happened to me since i started NaNo.
(but, um, Karma? if you're listening? that doesn't mean i want to lose any more chapters, okay? i AM on a deadline, here.)

i just wanted to share those stories for anyone who has hit a setback in their writing, whether it's:
- a computer virus
- a lost notebook
- an accidental 'delete'
- an identical scene in someone else's book that forces you to press 'delete'
- or just about any other uncontrollable factor that erases so much of your hard work.

words get lost.
but sometimes it's a blessing in disguise.
fortunately, we know where the words come from, and we can always make more.

research

i hear stories of writers who spend years researching a topic before starting a story - who interview experts, read text books, etc... to absorb all the facts they want to put into their fiction.

other writers i know make it all up as they go along in the first draft and save the fact-checking for revisions, which i imagine can mean lots and lots of rewriting, depending on which facts they got wrong.

i think i fall somewhere in the middle - researching as i go.

for my current WIP, i had to do quite a bit of preliminary work, because i knew before i started that one of my characters would have Down Syndrome. i had to compile medical notes, research family dynamics and do a lot of observing.
it's probably the most research i've done before actually putting fingers to keyboard.

what happens more often is a situation arises in the story that requires me to know what i'm talking about. if i can see this coming, i'll stop, do a day of research, then get back to writing.
(example: i had a quirky scene that required one of my characters to know a little something about small towns and geography. i decided to make that quirk a thread throughout the entire story, but i had already used up the limited facts i knew in one scene. so i had to stop writing and spend some time expanding my knowledge base in order to pull the thread through.)

occasionally, i'll fall into the pantser category, when the writing is just going too fast and smooth for me to stop. who can be bothered with research when the facts i'm making up work so well?!
i don't let myself get too far, though, because i don't want to rewrite thousands and thousands of words all based on a mistaken fact. what i'll do is stop at the end of the chapter and do some fact-checking. then, if i got anything wrong, i'll fix it. but sometimes even waiting a whole chapter is too long.
(example: i had an entire chapter and plot development that hinged on a certain type of government office being open at a certain time of night and operating a certain way. i did some vague research online, but it wasn't until the chapter was over that i actually contacted someone at this office to verify my facts. turns out not only is the office closed and its operations nothing like i described - but it doesn't even exist in the town where i put it! (*&$%$&^#). i couldn't bear to rewrite an entire chapter in the middle of NaNo, but you better believe i spent half an hour typing up a list of corrections and plot changes in my revision notes. the good news is, the changes will make this little piece of plot better anyway.)

since that incident, i've been very careful to check my facts every step of the way - whether it's placing a building on the correct street corner or confirming a state law. but i'm still doing the research as i go, letting the story tell me what it is i need to look up.

i'm curious what other writers do!
*if you do loads of research ahead of time, how much of it do you think goes unused - and do you think that time would have been better spent writing? or do you think having the knowledge still makes the work better/more informed in the long run?
*if you're a pantser and later find a factual error that requires changes in 23 chapters, does it make your revision process more stressful? or do you prefer rewriting later to stopping and starting while in the middle of a first draft?

word count wednesday 3 and a story

well, we’ve hit the halfway mark. NaNo sure makes November go by fast!

i’m at 29,519 words, and i’ve hit the climax of my story.. or the build up to the climax.. or the build up to the incident that triggers the climax.. or something. anyway, we’re getting somewhere.

so, today is the one year anniversary of the event that pretty much ended NaNo for me last year.
i came home that night planning to grab some dinner, let my dog out and get over to a write-in going on at a local bookstore. i never made it.
because when i got home that night, my gate was open and my door unlocked. a quick trip through my house - that made me want to throw up in a way i’d never quite felt before - confirmed that strangers had been there, had gone through my very personal items, had stolen my family heirlooms and plenty of other things.
i spent the next three days talking to police, insurance agents and security specialists. i replaced the locks, installed surveillance cameras and woke up terrified in the middle of the night. i did not write a word.

it was weeks before i realized everything that was gone and months before i stopped checking my closets with a huge kitchen knife in hand every single time i came home. i don’t remember when i started writing again, but i know that i wish i’d started sooner.

writing is therapy, escape, distraction and occasionally – revenge. (those chapters of a non-existent book are filed away on my hard drive, never to be seen by the public. they contain way too many curse words, but they sure made me feel a lot better!)
i was writing the first time my power went out after the burglary, and i’m grateful for that because i was so focused on finding a flashlight, pen and paper to finish my thoughts that i forgot to be frightened.

my point is... life can give us a lot of good excuses to not write, but you might find in those tough times that turning to your writing - instead of away from it - can actually help you through something... and that your life experiences (good or bad) can inform your writing in a way that makes it feel richer and more real.

now, as for this year - the only excuse i have for possibly falling behind on NaNo is the fact that the full version of "Angry Birds" was finally released for Android, and i am in a race with Handsome to see who can beat the game first. :p

word count wednesday 2

first of all, thanks to the cool people who posted BUTTER on goodreads! :D (and thanks to Susanne for letting me know about it!)
i signed up for the author program to "claim" the book, but i don't quite have GR all figured out yet, so we'll see how that goes. (i'm ejwriter, by the way, if any of you are looking for me on GR. i'm looking for you too!)

okay, on to word count wednesday! i am at... 17,230 words.

it's good, no? if you're following the suggested NaNo pace, you should be at about 15,000 words. so woohoo! i'm 2200 ahead!
however, i'm about 2K behind my own schedule.

see, at the start of the month, OCD EJ wrote out a chart/calendar for the month of november. i included all my appointments and plans that would keep me from writing and figured out about how much i could write on each day. since there are a few days coming up when i won't be able to write at all, i front-loaded my NaNo so i would be ahead and not playing catch-up later.
according to my little anal calendar, i should be at 25K by Saturday. yeah... not gonna happen.

a lot of folks thrive on the rush of catching up, but i am not the tortoise. i am the hare. i have to be the hare, or i'll get overwhelmed by how far there still is to go and give up.
also, i know how things can happen to derail your NaNo efforts entirely. i know - because this happened to me last year - that some really nasty stuff can go down that basically stops NaNo in its tracks. in fact, the anniversary of that nasty stuff is one week from today... so more on that next wednesday.
(in other words: ...to be continued.)

word count wednesday 1

happy first week of NaNoWriMo!

at least, i hope your week is happy. mine is fairly miserable, as i've started NaNo with a nasty cold. all of my words are alternately fueled by fever and cold meds. although, being home sick has its upside - like plenty of time to write. that's why my word count is already....

5,568 words!

i know some folks out there have already blown that word count out of the water, but that's pretty great for me - especially considering all of those words are from Monday. (yesterday's elections required me to work 13 hours). but i'm back on the couch with my tissues and my laptop today, so hopefully i can bang out another few thousand words and stay ahead of the game.

observations from week one:

- for me, writing fast = writing sloppy.
(lots of little typos and missing or misspelled words)

- i must break the "don't look back" rule.
i just can't confidently move forward on a book unless i look back at yesterday's chapters and at least do a cursory edit.

- my outline is a jail cell.
it's a lot easier to write fast and furious if i'm not bound by my outline. when i hit a scene i don't feel inspired to write or don't know how to transition into, i slow down. i may be in danger of veering off the outline just to keep pushing forward.

it remains to be seen whether NaNo will work for BILLY D. the way it worked for BUTTER, and i may end up having to rewrite the whole thing from scratch. (yikes! i hope not!) but i just don't know if NaNo is right for every book... just as it's not right for every writer.
Phoebe North wrote this great post on her blog: "NaNo No More." (link! click it!) she makes some good points about NaNo and why it might not help you accomplish what you really want to accomplish. (and she writes from experience, having done NaNo several times, both "winning" and "losing.")

if you're still committed to making NaNo work for you, check out the NaNo word sprints on twitter. (link! click it and follow!)

don't forget to share your word count in the comments, and tell me your own week one observations!

introducing...

...word count wednesday!

i'm going to do a little feature every wednesday during november for everyone participating in NaNoWriMo. if you're still deciding whether to do NaNo, please see the post i did here for encouragement. (link! click it!)

on wednesdays, i'll post my running word count and invite you to share yours. (don't worry. if last year is any indication, my WC is bound to be embarrassingly abysmal. we'll lament our failures together. or celebrate your success or whatever.)

so right now, our word counts are a big collective ZERO. but that doesn't mean you can't be gearing up. folks all over the world are getting a head start on NaNo by writing outlines, making notes on characters, stockpiling M&Ms and stretching out their typing fingers.

personally, i am cheating a little bit. i am going to use my 50,000 words of NaNo to finish BILLY D. this is a project already started and fully outlined, but about 50K words from completion, so it works out. (i promise not to count a single word written before November 1st in my NaNo tally.)

my prep also involves finishing up any books i'm currently reading, because i know i will not have time to read... clearing my calendar of November commitments, particularly on weekends when i do the most writing... and researching local write-ins.

so i want to know - how are you prepping for November? do you know what you're writing yet, or are you a pantser to the core who's just going to wing it?

NaNo Love

it's almost november, which means i am starting to see some variation of this statement pop up all over the internet:
"You can't write a good book in 30 days."

to which i say: Bullshit.

..unless someone says it directly to me, in which case i say, "oh, you're totally right, i personally can't write a good book in 30 days... but i can get one hell of a running start."

in fact, i bet i could write most of a book in 30 days.
i bet i could write enough to be motivated to finish that book.
i bet i could spend the next few months revising that book.
i bet i could land an agent.
and i bet a year later i could be on sub to publishers with that book.

you see where i'm going with this? BUTTER was a NaNoWriMo manuscript. and it's a lot better than the book i spent a year writing before that.

i did not finish a book during NaNo; i did not reach the 50,000-word goal; but i did learn a lot. for starters, i learned i write better when i'm fast and focused. i also learned NaNo is a great way for me to get back in the habit after my always-busy month of october, when i rarely write a word. finally, i learned feeling accountable to a community of writers is good motivation for me. i never wanted to show up to a NaNo group-write or log on to AW without a new word count.

every NaNo veteran has their own reasons for participating - or not participating, if it doesn't work for them. but this post is especially for the writers who haven't done it but want to try. i just don't want anyone to be discouraged if they see or hear: "You can't write a good book in 30 days."

maybe you can't. but maybe you can. or maybe that's not even the point. but if you want to give it a shot, you shouldn't let anyone else's opinion discourage you.

plus, i just don't like that word: "can't."
ick.
yes you CAN!