Yesterday I posted a horrendously long, rambling, and only vaguely coherent comment on someone else’s blog. I’m not telling you whose, because it was that bad, or at least it seems that bad. Really, the length is what’s embarrassingly astounding about it, and it just looks heinous. As a too-kind soul who reads that blog as well as mine immediately pointed out, I had not even put an entry up on my own blog in quite some time. In an effort to drain myself of whatever wordery may be mucking up manky sponge that is my brain, I present to you what will likely be a long, rambling, and only vaguely coherent blog post. Enjoy?
NaNoWriMo has come and gone in its 30-day fourish of literary madness and caffeine. I enjoyed it thoroughly, except for the part where I didn’t reach the end of my novel. Oh, I hit the word count all right. I nailed that fifty thousand word minimum with a big ten-penny spike on the 18th of the month, so winning the challenge was not really a problem. Of course, in my head I figured that I’d battle out my novel with myself until somewhere around 50K, and I’d reach the finish line, exhausted but exalted at the end of the month.
No.
At 10K I wondered if I’d be able to make it to fifty.
At 20K I realized I had finally actually started writing the real story (plot).
At 35K I started to get jazzed that I was really going to make it to 50K!
40K…starting to get concerned that a major character still hasn’t shown up yet.
45K – realizing there’s no way on God’s green earth I’m ever going to wrap this up in five thousand words.
50K – pretty elated, for maybe thirty minutes. Keep writing.
60K – realize that another ten thousand wasn’t going to do it either. When will this end?! Attempt to get through major plot points and scenes as quickly as possible.
70K – Nope, that’s not gonna be enough either. Start furiously writing extremely shortened scenes in attempt to finish all major points by November 30th.
74K – Having written 2K in two hours, have a major revelation about the plot and several characters while brushing my teeth. Immediately rinse mouth, return to laptop, and spend 30 minutes typing up the story I should have been writing 74K ago. Feel elated. Fall asleep.
76,884 – Written on November 29th whereby REALLY finishing it wasn’t seeming so dire or possible anymore. Start forming plan to complete novel anyway following existing plot so I can say “I did finish a novel,” and then immediately start rewriting entire book all over again with the “real, good” idea that came at 74K.
I learned a lot, kids. A ton. A literary Spruce Goose full of information was handed to me via many mornings, afternoons, evenings, nights, and full weekend days of writing. For one, writing takes up lots of your time! (This is a newsflash you’ll surely pass on to anyone you meet in the next thirteen seconds.) For B, a lot of the hard work of “crafting” a novel isn’t sitting there in front of the screen/paper trying to find the perfectly exact awesome way of describing the trees in Bloomington, Indiana on a fall day, or thinking up the perfect synonym for the “red” of a girl’s hair. It’s actually going, “What? They just met that dude, and now they figured out this thing, and it would be perfect if they met this other dude tomorrow, but they can’t run into other dude until Tuesday, and it’s Saturday. What the hell do I have them do for three days?” It’s also about sitting there going, “Uh, why did he just do that? He wasn’t supposed to do that! I didn’t even know he was going to do that. Now all this other stuff has to happen, and I have to write about all this other stuff, and I really, really, really just want to GET. ON. WITH. THE. STORY!
Ah, the wisdom of the “been there, done that” scenario. Now I have said wisdom. What other lovely wisdom awaits me? Rewrite wisdom? Finishing the novel wisdom? Writing the climax wisdom? Figuring out how to tie up all the loose ends at the denoument wisdom?
Stupid wisdom.
What else has happened? Let’s see, I finished the Artist’s Way. Big yay. I mean it. I’m not overly overjoyed right now, but yay. I wrote a lot. A ton. I hand wrote 270 pages worth of journaling. This does not include writing that was required for the Weekly Tasks, or the Affirmations and Blurts stuff. I used up an entire full-sized, college-ruled notebook and started on a second one before I was done. Now I’m not done. You are challenged to do at least the Morning Pages and Artist Dates for the next ninety days – three more months. I’m on Day Four. We’ll see how this goes. The Artist’s Way got me a repainted kitchen door, a finished rolling ball sculpture, a trip to Bloomington, a trip to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, some self-decorated pottery, a look at art work from the Ming Dynasty, a bunch of colored name signs for friends and family, a (nearly) finished novel…how long can this list get? I’ll stop there. I got a lot out of it, more of which I plan to blog about, since I already spent tons of time taking the pictures of it. It’ll be out of sequence, but I hope you enjoy them just the same.
I hope that cures me of some of my apparent need to talk about everything and nothing all at the same time on other people’s blogs. I hope.
I bow in complete unworthiness. Let’s just say NaNoWriMo didn’t happen again this year for me. I did get a decent story idea out if it, at least. . . It sounds like you had a fabulous experience. Congratulations!
Many thanks, Jolan. I have to say that I don’t know how any parents ever accomplish this feat. I spent several days with four kids all under four years old, and I have no clue how some parents do it. Any parent has my respect for even attempting NaNo. I return the bow.
By the way, I’m thinking that maybe you were the first person to ever tell me about NaNo. You have any memory of that?
Okay, now it’s my turn to write an insanely long entry in someone else’s blog. But it’s okay, cuz I don’t have a blog of my own to worry about.
You’re too hard on yourself. Your post was not “heinous”, even if that is an awesome word.
Literary madness and caffeine? That’s me every day.
After reading your timeline of events concerning NaNoWriMo, I’m pretty much convinced that trying to write a well-structured novel in 30 days is not something I want to try. It was hard enough to do it in 4 months, with everything else going on in my life. I’m sure you can relate. It really does take a lot of your time. Not many people realize that. They think that if you have enough talent (what is talent anyway?) that you can just sit down and write a book in a few days and it will be perfect. Ha! That’s a good one.
It’s funny what you said about having revelations while brushing your teeth. That kind of stuff happens to quite a few writers. You’ll just be doing something mindless (like brushing your teeth, or washing dishes — the old fashioned way, or walking your dog) and suddenly your brain is like, “Hey! Guess what? I’m gonna work for you now and give you an idea and laugh at how silly you look trying to find the nearest pen and paper to write this down before you forget it.” It’s amazing and wonderful and evil all at the same time.
You are so right about the “Why did he just do that?” thing. I can’t tell you how many times I looked at my screen with a furled brow and wondered what the hell just happened in my story. Some of it I kept, but most of the time (especially the nights spent writing until my alarm went off the next morning — oops, time to go to work now) I ended up scrapping a lot of it. You gotta keep those characters in line, otherwise they take over.
I believe you are full of stupid wisdom, Tom, but that’s not a bad thing.
Your apparent need to talk about everything and nothing all at the same time — that, my friend, is a gift. Don’t take it for granted.
All of that being said, I would really love to read your novel (once it’s finished).
Happy writing! (and rewriting….and rewriting….and rewriting…)
Olivia
I remember us talking about it not long after we originally met. We had coffee in Bloomington (or was it Champaign?) in November that year, and I think I was rather gung-ho about NaNo.
Four kids under four sounds like a nightmare. Mine keeps me on my toes plenty, and she’s an only! Of course, she also conspires with the cat, I think. Off to rescue my shoes . . .
Olivia,
Thank you for your insanely long comment on my blog! How much fun it was to read (several times).
I hope my NaNo timeline doesn’t discourage people from trying it. It’s pretty awesome, really. The fact is I took an idea I’d had in my head for nearly two years now and got about 75% of it written out in 30 days. Had NaNo not lit the spark for that frenetic push, it would still be just an idea with several short scenes stored away on my hard drive. It is a good dose of madness, but it’s also tons of fun. I wouldn’t try to write a well-structured novel in 30 days either, and I didn’t. I did try to have fun writing and making some grand progress, and was successful on both counts. I can’t wait until next year!
There’s a very good reason for those flashes of creative inspiration we receive while doing mundane tasks. It has something to do with the brain easing up and allowing ideas through as it refocuses on the task at hand. It also reminds me of what a friend told me: adults learn while they move away from a task they are practicing, while children can keep learning and doing and learning for hours on end. If you practice guitar, and then step away from it for a day or two, you will be surprised that you are better than you were two days ago. Your brain and body keep working on stuff while you are doing other things. More wisdom from The Artist’s Way.
Characters taking over: part of the fun of writing!
Thanks again for all the thoughts, Olivia.
Jolan,
I believe you’re right about that, as that’s pretty much the way I was remembering it. I don’t recall if it was Bloomington or Champaign, but I *think* it was Bloomington. I was a little confounded by the concept of NaNo at that time. A novel in thirty days? What the hell are those people thinking? Now I know what they’re thinking!
Fortunately, the four kids are split evenly between two sets of parents, but still, there is just no rest. Yes, one is indeed enough to sap 95% of your free time and energy. I am now very grateful for quiet mornings at my desk with pen and paper. It is a wonderful luxury, and I am making full use of it!
First, a huge amen to the gratitude of a quiet morning at a desk with paper and pen. Thanks for the complement to writers with little kids. Yesterday I was editing and the only way to keep the kids quiet was to turn on Drake and Josh’s Christmas Special (the latest Nickelodeon craze). The kids were distracated, but I found myself caught up in the tv special too and had to leave the room. The problem with leaving the room is that it triggers a sensor in a child’s mind that a parent has gone off to do their own thing, and thus must be assigned a task. Like juice fetching. They all suddenly became thirsty. I sat at my desk, raised my hands over the keyboard and heard, “Mom! I want applejuice.”
Ok, I will stop being a martyr now. Jolan, I think one kid is sometimes harder than 2 or 3. One kid doesn’t have anyone else to entertain her but you! Olivia, I liked this line of yours, “It’s amazing and wonderful and evil all at the same time.” Nice.
Tom, I agree with Olivia. You’re hard on yourself, man! Look at all the stuff you’ve done! I mean, DAMN! Oh, and did you guys know that Kate Chopin had a “brushing teeth” epiphany about the end of The Awakening? She didn’t know that her heroine was going to walk into the Gulf of Mexico to kill herself until she did it. Then Kate Chopin sat back and went, “…She DIES?” And it worked. This is what I’ve been told by a lit professor anyway.
Keep writing and brushing those teeth, man. Soon we will all get to read the fruits of your labors and we can say we knew you when.
It’s a verifiable fact that I’m hard on myself, and it’s not a productive sort of attitude, but DAY-UM that blog comment I left was long! Ugh.
Yes, the children are always needing something. My sister says the nephew is alwasy, “Mom! Come play with me!” It has apparently been a blessing that in the last few months he’ll actually sit and read a book for ten minutes by himself. Ten minutes. That’s the grace period. Having seen all this, you can bet your behind that I’ve thrown myself into all these creative pursuits that I’ll have almost no time for in whatever possible future wherein I’m actually blessed with screaming children.
I’ve not read The Awakening. Now I’m gonna have to Google that bad boy. Death? I hope my main characters don’t die. Of course, I had no idea that epilepsy was a part of my story, either.
“blessed with screaming children”….that’s hilarious. Hey, if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything, Tom. And you never know, having a child might open new creative doors for you. For instance, I would have never rekindled my love of Sesame Street if it weren’t for my four year old son, in turn that rekindled my love of singing silly songs and reassuring myself that I still know my ABC’s and 123’s and therefore reminded me that I started reading when I was his age, and he wants nothing to do with books. (that’s a horrible run-on sentence, I know, but I’m putting all my editing efforts into my book right now, so I have to lighten up somewhere – may as well me on another insanely long blog comment — it seems to be the week for it.)
What was the point of that? Not sure. Having kids (well, in my case it would be singular) really gives you a different view of things, which I suppose affects your writing and other pursuits. Yeah…..that sounds good, I’ll go with that.
Gen,
Editing is torture! I’m more frustrated with outside distractions (such as the aforementioned child) now than I was when I was creating the story. And what’s even more frustrating is that I feel like I’m not being creative anymore. The technical side of my brain is in overload and the creative side doesn’t want to stop. So…..I cracked. I’m writing the sequel to this wonderful first novel of mine, at the same time writing some short stories — some for competitions and some for the hell of it — and at the same time editing the first novel that I’m sure I need to cut at least 50,000 words off of, and at the same time “watching” my son. The TV and XBox are good babysitters….and they’re free, sort of.
Feel better yet, Tom? I’ve now bombarded your blog with stupidity and nonsense. Two peas in a pod, we are.
Olivia
Nothing like a little blog nonsense to keep the day interesting!