Posted by Nicky Drayden on Nov 26, 2010 in
Writer's Life 
Photo by Hamed Saber Creative Commons
Phew! Just passed the 40,000-word mark on my NaNovel, two days behind schedule now. It’s going about as well as can be expected for a novel without a plot–not to say it doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. There’s adventure galore and more crude humor than is socially acceptable, but if at one point I thought I knew where this story was going, I surely don’t now. My main character is currently headed towards a volcano, and we all know that if you show a volcano in the first act, it must erupt in the third.
This November I was mildly successful at blowing off the social obligations that I had, but I somehow managed to put everyone off until “the first week in December”, so now my calendar is crammed almost through mid-December. It will be strange venturing back out into civilization and having conversations that don’t exist solely in my head. Hopefully the transition won’t be as painful as it sounds.
Anyone out there still NaNoing? Any early finishers? You can tell me. I promise not to hate you…much.
Tags: NaNoWriMo
Posted by Nicky Drayden on Nov 19, 2010 in
Writer's Life Just a quick update: I survived week two and am over the 25,000-word hump. It’s all downhill from here, right? It’s been a pretty smooth ride so far, though right now I’m a day behind schedule. And I’m starting to realize that this novel will end up closer to 100k if my chapters keep being as long as they’ve been.
The plot is still hazy, and I ended up killing off a character since the novel was starting to feel like a previous one I’d written. That did the trick, and I somehow have a motley crew running for their lives, with lots of angsty drama in space. Spangst? Is that a word?
Tags: NaNoWriMo
Posted by Nicky Drayden on Nov 8, 2010 in
Writer's Life 
Photo by hbp_pix Creative Commons
I love outlining. I really do. Every since I first learned how to structure one in grade school, I was hooked. Roman numerals, capital letters, cardinal numbers…it was all very exciting. There’s something extremely satisfying about seeing your novel lined out perfectly on a few sheets of paper. Within a couple of minutes you can experience all of the peaks and valleys, twists and turns of your story. But for me, it’s too satisfying. Once I know what’s going to happen in the story, I can’t see the point of actually writing it.
That’s why I went in to this year’s NaNovel with a very basic premise — a guy in a space station slum — since I was pretty sure I wanted to do a space opera. A week prior to November 1st, I looked through random articles on Wikipedia to generate some ideas and came up with the flatworm (I love you wikipedia) and a China reference from which I formulated a couple of supporting roles. And I thought barely sentient tofu should be involved, because why not? There was no plot in sight, but I knew I had 50,000 words to figure that out.
I’ll admit it. Noveling without a net is about as close as I’ll ever come to being reckless. It’s sort of exciting knowing there’s the possibility this could all turn into an intergalactic train wreck. But so far, my characters haven’t let me down. I don’t make them do things they don’t want to do, and in return, they tempt me with inklings of plot ideas, just enough to get me to the next chapter. It all comes down to trust. You dig the holes for your characters, and trust that you’ve given them enough breadth to want to fight their way out.
What’s your outlook? Does the fear of doing a literary faceplant into concrete stifle you or excite you?
Tags: NaNoWriMo
