I’m supposed to edit this?

Now that NaNoWriMo is behind me, I have my first novel in my hands and I’m now faced with the inevitable next step; the editing process. To me, this is almost more of a daunting task than the writing was, I don’t even know where to start. I’ve read some suggestions but it seems like every writer has a different idea of how to edit, when to edit, and the sequence of the editing steps.

I started by printing the novel so I could hold it in my hands. This seemed like a better option than trying to read it on the computer screen and making edits on the fly. If I make notes in the margins, they’re not changed yet, they’re just suggestions. Then I can come back after my initial read through and see if I really think my notes apply.

One of the biggest problems I see ahead is dealing with the ending. I sort of chopped the end off in a cliche sort of way and I really want to continue with the story and end it properly. Unfortunately that probably means I’ll be adding a lot more to the story. I also know there are numerous occasions where I started a scene with more than one character and then forgot about everyone but the main character. Those areas are going to demand a major rework to fix my oversight.

I’ve read that the best way to edit is to focus on fixing the story first, then worrying about grammar and sentence structure and things of that nature. I plan on trying to tackle my story in this same manner. I certainly hope this is the most effective way of editing!

Anyone have any other good editing tips they’d like to share?

NaNoWriMo 2009 Afterthoughts

Whew! NaNoWriMo is over and I’m sort of … sad? It’s funny how your mind can change from fear and uncertainty at the beginning of the month, to the complete opposite at the end. Well, I suppose that’s not true if you don’t win but lucky for me, I did! I didn’t think I’d make it, but I came out alive with a word count of 50,203.

What did I learn from the month long experience? A lot! It’s not easy sitting down and writing anything that long and I’m sure the first time you do it is always the worst. Here’s a few things I learned along my journey.

• If it’s your first time (or maybe second, third, whatever) you probably want to make this as easy on yourself as you can. I started with a story idea but it felt like I was dragging it out of my head through a swamp. Six days into the process, I dropped that story and changed subjects to something I’m very comfortable with. I think the worst thing you could do on your first try is venture down a road that you’re not familiar with. Simply changing subjects helped me write a lot faster and the story sort of just came out.
• Ditch the editor. It’s SO hard to try to not think about what you’re writing but you must! Early on it’s a bit of a chore but you must put your head down and run past that mean old editor! Once you get used to pouring words onto a page without the editor’s interference, you become a lot more relaxed.
• One thing I didn’t do was plan anything out. I had a piece of paper with some character names scribbled on it and that’s about it. If I had it to do over again, I might like to plan out the scene of the novel a bit more, re-think the characters and the number of them (I have WAY too many nameless characters in my novel), and maybe think about how I want it to end. I like to leave the middle open for the characters to weave their own story, but my ending sucks!
• Don’t lose track of your characters! I have at least 4 scenes where I started out with 2 characters and ended up just focusing on one. I would be three thousand words in before I realized I had lost the other guy in my memory. Oops! Again, probably something I could have avoided with a little planning.
• If you have a day where you really get in the groove of writing, wring as much of that out as you can! There are enough days where you struggle that it’s worth it. I did find that those days where I struggled, sometimes just hammering through a few hundred words would get things flowing nicely.

I guess that’s the basics. In the end, I have a novel that I wrote myself and even though I know it’s poorly written and needs major work to be good enough to share with anyone, I’m still extremely proud of myself and looking forward to editing it. I even started a new novel, imagine that!

To all the winners, congrats. To all those who tried, there’s always next year. Keep hammering at it!

Writing is hard!

Wow, NaNoWriMo is beating me up! If you haven’t tried writing a novel, it’s no walk in the park! I think the first time is probably always the hardest and thus, I was sort of expecting this to happen.

Last Thursday I abandoned a week’s worth of work (I’m not sure if it qualifies as a real week’s worth) and started a new story. Oddly enough, the words began to pour out of me and I finished 3,300 words in one sitting. The next night I sat down and cranked out 2500 words. I was feeling great!

Then came Saturday in which I expected to make up a big chunk of my deficit. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. Sunday I tried to write and it just wasn’t coming out.

That has me sitting here tonight on Monday thinking about how I’m 9,000 words behind. Oh well, I can’t complain, I’m actually getting somewhere.

By the way, I’m aware I’ve been ignoring my blog and I apologize. I have 3 nice products from the Exaclair line that I will be reviewing as soon as I can. It’ll be worth it.

NaNoWriMo and my disappearance

Oh my, it’s Monday night and I haven’t posted anything on my blog. Allow me to shove the blame over on NaNoWriMo please?

I’ve spent the past week quite stressed out about the whole novel writing business. I’ve often fancied myself as a writer yet I don’t write so… yeah that’s a problem. As Nov 1st drew closer, I began to panic about not having a story or characters or any of those things you might expect to be in a novel. Oddly enough, while I thought I was kind of ignoring it, I was actually stressing out about it in the back of my head and it started to affect my sleep quit badly. The last night I slept well was Thursday and I’m firmly placing the blame on this novel stuff.

However, I pulled an idea out of my head and decided to at least give it a start. At 9pm last night, I began to write and cranked out 1700 words before succumbing to fatigue of the fingers and brain. I tell you what, it’s not easy to drag a story out of your head if you’re not used to it. I imagine if you’re not used to writing fiction – which I’m not – then you’d find yourself in the same place I was, dragging the story out of your brain as if pulling a large log through a mud field. Not easy!

After last night’s insanely fitful attempt at sleep, I’ve decided to take a day off. Today is my birthday and in a couple of hours, my Fiance will be home and we’re going out for dinner after which I fully plan on passing out with a nice full belly. Hopefully a good night’s rest will help spur me on to writing well tomorrow as I’ll be a day behind! I have not given up on NaNoWriMo… yet.

I’m going to move the updates to this blog from daily to Mon-Wed-Fri for now. I think that’s about all I’ll be able to handle and write a novel.

To everyone participating in NaNoWriMo, good luck!

Countdown to NaNoWriMo

Ah the cursed arrival of the fall season is here and I utterly despise it. Nothing puts me in a more foul mood than watching the trees turn beautiful shades of orange and red, and then die right before my eyes. And once October is over, November rushes in with colder temps and a promise of at least 5 more months of this wretched weather.

But let us focus on a tiny little bright spot; November also brings National Novel Writing Month and for those of you who love to write, love sitting inside, or just love being anti-social, it works out perfectly. Who really has anything important to do in November other than Thanksgiving? From November 1st to November 30th, your job is simply to write a novel. No one is telling you what it has to be about or how good it has to be or how clean your dialog must be, you simply have to write a novel.

For several years now I’ve watched NaNoWriMo come and go and thought “I should do that” but there’s one thing that always holds me back: I’m convinced I can’t write a novel. I’ve started one but got lost in my plot and gave up. I’ve written several very silly short stories to amuse friends but never actually tried to write something of any real substance in such a short time. The creator of NaNoWriMo says that the very thing that makes this process work is very simple, you have a deadline. 30 days to write 50,000 words isn’t exactly a cakewalk, that’s 1,667 words per day and while I know for a fact I can crank out a blog post that rivals that in an hour, that’s me spewing my opinion and not trying to tell a story about… ? But the deadline is what makes it possible. You have a rather frantic sense of needing to be done by a certain date and it helps motivate your writing, or so the belief goes.

And thus, I have committed to NaNoWriMo this year. At the very least, I’m going to start a novel and that’s a step above and beyond every other year which in itself is an accomplishment. I’ve purchased the “No Plot, No Problem” book written by the NaNoWriMo creator and have been pouring over it feverishly for the past couple days in hopes that he will tell me something that will quell my fear. Guess what? He did.

I’m a perfectionist who is never perfect. It’s a curse really. Some things in my life must be clean, straightforward, exact, and then the rest of my life is a jumbled up mess. I strive for perfection only to fail miserably which always leads me to not want to try whatever that was ever again. But here’s the key to NaNoWriMo: you’re just writing a rough draft. This is the kind of manuscript that Stephen King urges you to write and then throw in a drawer and forget for 6 months. If you’ve read his book “On Writing” you know that he feels the most important part is getting the story out onto the paper in whatever form you can and worry about the plot holes and character flaws and all the other little bobbles, AFTER you’ve written it. You set it aside, let the story ferment, then come back and see if it’s worth another draft.

To steal a quote from the book, Ernest Hemingway is quoted as saying “The first draft of anything is shit”. Let those words ring in your ears as you write!

And thus, I’m heading into NaNoWriMo knowing that whatever I produce will undoubtedly be utter crap and I fully expect it to be. In fact, I want it to be! After all, it’s just a rough draft and my only goal is to hit 50,000 words in 30 days. That, I’m positive I can do.

I hope you join me in this quest, it’s gonna be a blast.

Of posture, writing, and discomfort

For the past 2-3 years I’ve been trying to improve my penmanship as well as turn writing into a hobby. I’ve spent hours sitting at different tables, chairs, etc and I simply cannot get comfortable. It may have to do with my 6′2″ height, or it may have to do with my poor posture when writing. You see, I can’t write very well without leaning over the paper and that causes my elbows to cramped up.

I also fight with the problem of holding onto my pen much too tightly. While I’m able to focus on that and get my hand to relax somewhat, it’s only a matter of time before my elbow starts hurting due to being bent for so long. I’m also resting a lot of weight on my arms as I’m bent over so far. I have to admit, I”m sort of at a loss here.

At the moment, I sit in a normal swiveling office chair and write at an old oak desk that I picked up from a friend for cheap. Sitting in my chair, the top of the desk sits at my mid-belly which I think is about as good as I can get it. Any lower and I feel like a kid sitting down at an adult table, and any higher makes the desk seem super far away. As I mentioned before, if I don’t bend myself over the paper, I don’t write very well. I’ve tried sitting up straight and writing but it seems the quality of my penmanship begins to suffer.

Perhaps I just need to practice sitting straight up and working on that penmanship problem but regardless of what I try, I’m never comfortable. If I can crank out 3-4 pages in my journal before becoming annoyed by the discomfort, it’s quite the accomplishment.

Any suggestions on how to alleviate the pain I’m facing? I’d love to be able to sit down for hours and write but at the moment, it just doesn’t seem possible.