Flirting with Plot Ninjas

We’re into the last few days of NaNoWriMo (already!) yet my plot wants to morph and deviate away from my carefully laid plans – little bugger. I think this all started with the dream I had in the early hours of this morning. I get a lot of my ideas from dreams and this morning I dreamt of a town I knew well. It’s a fictional town, a dream town that for some reason my subconscious keeps returning to. When I woke up I was struck by the notion that I knew certain features of this dream-place so well, I really should be writing about it. Then I realised it would be the perfect setting for my Nano novel whose original setting was also a fictional Devon town but one that I wasn’t wholly happy with. So there we have it, apparently my subconscious wants me to change the entire backdrop of my novel. Well it can wait until December.But enough of my griping, who wants some Nano-tastic inspiration?! I’m talking plot ninjas, an idea borne from the madness of the NaNoWriMo forums that just might help propel your novel over the finish line. A plot ninja is an idea, device, character or piece of dialogue created by someone else which you can “borrow” and use in your own story. This could help shift the dreaded writers’ block, or simply provide a good chunk of the day’s word count. Here are some places to spot a wily plot ninja in the wild…

Dragon Writing Prompts
PinoyWriMos
D*I*Y Planner – The Care and Use of Plot Ninjas

Almost forgot… There are currently a few copies of my debut vampire novel, Dunraven Road, up for grabs on eBay and they’re very special because they’re signed They make great Christmas gifts, hint, hint… (lol!) Here’s the linkage: eBay

Eye of the Writer

Well, it’s day 18 of National Novel Writing Month, leaving me only 13 days to complete 50, 000 words. At least I have (what I think is) a good idea for a novel though, characters and some sort of outline; so I’m definitely doing better than I was in my last blog post, even if my word count is slightly lacking… I’m trying not to freak out, 13 days is a long time!

Week Three of NaNoWriMo...

Before I started this I was worried I wouldn’t be able to quell the urge to edit as I wrote, to just plough ahead, mistakes and all; and let the word count pile up. Lots of people have said they love this aspect of NaNoWriMo and find it freeing to write unhindered by doubt and constant re-reading of what you’ve just written. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find these people are right (because I might have been just a teeny bit skeptical…)  It is amazingly freeing to write without looking back, even if you’re positive that your output is nothing but a steaming pile of gibberish.  At least that gibberish is something – something that could maybe be shaped into a thing of beauty after a few rounds of feverish editing.

Now, back to work…

Nanowrimo-orama

I’ve entered this year’s Nanowrimo! (cue lame drum roll and two sweaty palms). I’m in the mood for a challenge, plus I won’t be working full-time until December so I definitely have the time to do it. This started as an idea for a section (i.e. time filler) on my radio show. I’ve challenged other literary-minded (or addle-minded) listeners to join me in the race to write a 50, 000 word novel in 30 days and I thought, I bet people would love to hear about this on my blog too… I actually don’t know if you bloggy-type people would love to hear about this palpitation-inducing (mis)adventure or not, but you’re obviously going to hear about it anyway…

I’ve talked about Nanowrimo before, but in case you have a short attention span, here it is again. Nanowrimo is shorthand for National Novel Writing Month, a yearly madness that started in 1999. Folks sign up at the website; and agree to sign away their Novembers in the pursuit of writing 50, 000 words of a novel before the end of the month. The emphasis is on quantity, not quality (you can edit in December!) Writers are encouraged to leave their inner critics at the door and plough ahead, grammatical mistakes, clunky sentences and all. This will be difficult for me as I often re-read and edit my work one paragraph, even one sentence, at a time. I don’t even know what I’ll be writing about. I have the vague idea for a novel I was preaching about back in July but the idea is still just that: vague. I decided while writing Jinn Nation that a plan was definitely the way to go. Dunraven Road was a bloody nightmare to edit because my storyline was all over the place. So, that’s the first thing: a plan for a novel and an idea for a main character in the 11 days I have left before the start of November. Simples!

Um… Help?

Or if ya just want to laugh at me, I’m signed up over at Nanowrimo as Cazzy_Smith.

Maddening Mental Lethargy – Part One

I once wrote on this blog that I wished someone would invent… “a machine that could download the stories in my brain, bypassing the agonising process of eeking it out line by line and criticising it as I go…” Well, I’ve been wondering about this. Not about the existence of such a machine (come on, they still haven’t invented those Back to the Future hoverboards they promised us!), but why I feel the need for one. After all, isn’t writing (and having that writing published) a vocation that millions of people around the world would love to be in a position to do? Why then, is it sometimes so hard to sit down and actually do it?!

You might have guessed that I’m currently in this same uncomfortable position – I have the ideas and the notes but I’m struggling to find the will to assemble them into something resembling the last part of my new novel. Which is annoying to say the least, if only because it is the last part; the portion of a novel where the author should be hurtling towards the finish line with a clear idea of how it will end, desperate to see the final sentence laid down. I wouldn’t call this predicament writers’ block. That would suggest I simply have no idea what happens next and that isn’t true. So what exactly is this malaise?; this maddening mental lethargy? In a quest to overcome it once and for all, I decided to rake through the net and see if I could come up with a solution. Interestingly, I found several Hence, in an effort to actually finish my bloody novel (I had planned to have the first draft completed by the end of October after all…) I’ll be trialling some of them. If nothing else, it will give me something else to blog about (you wouldn’t believe how boring my life actually is!)

The National Novel Writing Month website seemed a good place to start my search for a mental lethargy cure. I think most people will have heard of NaNoWriMo, but just in case you haven’t… It’s a yearly challenge to write a 50,000-word novel from start to finish in the space of just a month. Some people participate and complete their 50,000-word goal every year, which I find highly commendable because I tried it once while I was still at university and flaked out somewhere around the 15,000-word mark. Anyway, this type of pressure-intense writing has obviously led to the sharing of tips on the NaNoWriMo forums in order to help others achieve their word quotas. Here are some of my favourites (I haven’t included any names. I hope the very helpful WriMos whose words I’ve pinched don’t mind my reproducing them here…):

“Do something crazy to change up your novel and get it going again. Have a…a…fairy! Have a fairy come to your protagnoist (sic) and give them a gift of great courage so that they can…save…the fairy princess?”

This is a really good idea Now, what weird and crazy thing can I have happen to darling Dylan? (heh, heh, heh…)

“I find writing in longhand about a page (if you’re writing on a computer like I am) when my eyes are tired or can’t access a computer, then I type it out, but adding in stuff. You can double what you’ve written, but keeping on task!”

I actually do this sometimes when my brain’s being particularly stubborn. I think it helps because I can change my location and move away from the PC screen. I never write as much in longhand as I do when I type (my hand starts to cramp!), but it gives me a jumping-off point for the next time I sit down to write.

“I believe my saviour will be the Write or Die application. If you haen’t (sic) come across this it’s brilliant. You can set it to normal or kamikaze (I choose the latter because I like to think of myself as hardcore, hmm). You enter your desired word count for the session and how long the session will last then type like buggery. If you are on normal setting and you stop typing for too long the screen goes red and then an excrutiaingly (sic) annoying noise of your choice (choose from such wonders as babies crying, devil’s violins or an air raid siren) blasts from your computer until you start typing again. On kamikaze the screen goes red then it starts deleting what you’ve written one word at a time. Also you can’t access anything else on your computer whilst it’s open. I find it motivates me enough to blast out upt (sic) to 2000 words an hour.”

Okay, this I have to try.

“What I’d suggest is picking out a day, when (if you work) you have the day off – be it Sunday or whenever – and (if you ave (sic) other commitments) you either have none or they are not compulsory. Set that day aside, clear it completely. Set out a timetable. An hour of writing, have an hour procrastinating, and hour of writing… And so on! (please, please, leave time for food and drink and toilet breaks. We don’t want to be too drastic) It really helps, believe me.”

Planning time for procrastination… Genius!

So, after much perusal of the NaNoWriMo forums (yes, when I should have been writing!), I’ve decided to give the Write or Die method a go. As a bonus, the noise of an air raid siren blaring out when I stop typing will startle my poor unsuspecting husband and thus amuse me endlessly. I’ve checked out the website and you can either use the free web based version, or download the desktop edition for a rather nominal $10.

Wish me luck! A review of this imminent insanity will follow shortly