Formal Friday

Today, instead of sporting formal attire for Formal Friday, I decided to wear my NaNo "uniform" to show my support for all the other writers out there who will start scribbling furiously beginning at midnight.  You can see a NaNo flyer in the background (with the orange triangle), and I have two more NaNo flyers in the upper right corner of the picture.

In case you were wondering, this is my interrupted-while-writing look.

Samhain Brings New Year for Some, Scribbling for Others

I'd like to begin by apologizing for my unexplained absence the past couple of days.  Wednesday was my husband's birthday, and in the morning when we went over to his parents' house to let out the dogs (in-laws are out of town until this evening), we discovered that Smoke, who was adopted with his sister when they were puppies about sixteen years ago, had passed away in the night.  It has been a very difficult couple of days.  I felt very close to Smoke, and it was hard to say goodbye, especially since Hubby and I had to take Smoke's body to the animal hospital to be taken care of until Hubby's family can say goodbye.

Tomorrow, when my husband's family goes to the animal hospital, will be another difficult day.  So I think I'll hole myself up in my office space for the next few days.  After all, I do have reason to.

Today is Halloween, or Samhain (the Witches' New Year) for those more Pagan-minded, and there's something omninous looming on the horizon that has more than 100,000 people sitting at the edges of their seats, fingers poised, trembling, over keyboards.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen.  At midnight tonight, writers across the world will tell trick or treaters to shove off so they can try to get a good start on the first day's 2,000 word count goal.  I may go to bed soon and try to stay up all night to scribble.  (Okay...maybe not.)

I can hardly believe it's been a year since I scribbled for NaNo.  Last year I had the first week of November off, so I was able to finish my novel then.  This year will be a bit different, but I am taking on the ambitious goal of completing two novels in the allotted 30 days.  

I think it will actually work to my advantage, though.  When I feel stuck, I can switch to the other novel and keep working.  I've adjusted my word count goals already (4,000 words a day during the week and 6,000 words a day on the weekends), and I'm finalizing my writing schedule for the month.

I've stocked up on coffee beans for the month, I have lots of Dr. Pepper, and Hubby knows he's pretty much on his own until December 2nd (I'll need the first to recover.).

I'm as ready as I'm going to be, so now I'm just waiting for the clock.

Now I know how she feels....

One of my dear pleasures when it comes to the wonderful world of blogging is getting the opportunity to tag my dear friend Dana at En Tequila Es Verdad with memes and watching her swear and fume and then, inevitably, fill out the meme.  And since I'm generally the one who finds the memes before her, I'm often able to tag her before she realizes there's something afoot.

Today, however, in a plot twist befitting the few days before NaNoWriMo, DANA HAS TAGGED ME!!  And, to express exactly how much she loves me, I'm the only person she's tagged instead of the six indicated by the rules of the meme.  Whatever, Dana.

In the spirit of getting got, I'll happily fulfill my being-tagged obligations.  Enjoy!

Here are the rules for the game.

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

And so here we go.

Random thing about myself #1: I first started writing my coffee house book as a NaNo book the first year I participated, but decided to stop writing it that year and worked on something else instead.

Random thing about myself #2: My dream is to retire to a residential cruise ship and spend retirement cruising all over the world.  Ah, it'd be so amazing!

Random thing about myself #3: While Hubby peruses the electronics section of Target, drooling, I do the same over at Home Office.

Random thing about myself #4: My favorite meal of all time is corned beef & cabbage in the slow cooker.  Delish!

Random thing about myself #5: I only buy purses that are at least large enough to carry a paperback book.

Random thing about myself #6: I've had chicken pox twice.

I tag the following friends who may or may not enjoy said tagging:

1. Angie of Adventures in Home Cooking
2. Kell of Welcome to Earth
3. PC of The Big Stick
4. Audrey of Witness Protection (my newest follower)
5. Liz of A Good Idea at the Time
6. Laura Elizabeth of Diary of a Dreamer

My NaNo Goals

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000-word novel (with 50,000 being the minimum, of course) in 30 days.  And in addition to this, some people set additional goals (two novels or 500,000 words or whatever else they decide to do).

My immediate goal for the month is to "win" by writing at least 50,000 words.  However, since I'm working from home this year, I have quite a bit more time, so I'm going to try and (brace yourself) write two novels this year.

I'll give you a moment to pick yourself up off the floor.

I read a little Q&A on the NaNo website about Kerry McFee, NaNo-Overachiever.  Last year, she wrote over 400,000 words in November.  If a woman who has a traditional job can write that much in 30 days, there's no reason I can't write 100,000 words or so in the same amount of time.  After all, that's only about 3,000 words a day.  No problem!  Most writers write about 2,000 words a day every day, so adding an extra 1,000 words in November shouldn't be a problem, should it?

Granted, I don't have an outline for novel #2 for November, but that's okay.  I have an idea and two days to write an outline.

NaNoWriMo is about pushing yourself to do something you never thought you could.  At first, I pushed myself simply to finish a novel.  Now I'm pushing myself to finish two.  Who knows what I'll be able to accomplish next year?

The Truth About Socks: navel-gazing in language shaded lavendar*

Of late, my task list--often writ on a yellow legal pad in black, felt tip marker--has been slightly shorter in length than that of task lists past.  At first, it was a cause for worrisome caution.  For a flitting moment of doubt, I wondered if my exotic, romantic life of writing all day in much the same way as the prosists of old whose fingers, stained with ink, devoted their lives to the beauty of the written word, and sharing said word with all who would come to their fountain of ideas to drink deeply.  It had been, indeed, a difficult decision (to say the least, if I may be so bold as to speak simply) to take leave of the traditional job that once bound me by the wrists and ankles to the world whose steady paychecks and benefits of health insurance and retirement have earned it the titles "safe" and "real."

There seems to be an upswing now, as my canary backgrounded task list seems to be lengthening, line by line, and I find myself spending more and more of my day watching the golden orb crossing the sky from behind my desk, the only tan kissing my skin from the electronic glow of my laptop.  It is a feeling unmatched to know that putting pen to paper--or fingers to keys, as is the case in this technological day and age--is a skill you possess and is desired by others from you in particular.  My heart was lifted at the need to devote more of my time to Microsoft Word, but this morning, as I stood at my black stove turning eggs, milk, and cheese to a protein-rich meal fit for the start of my day, I took a moment or two to look around me.  At this moment, my eyes free from the chains--happy though they be--that kept me from being shown the harsh truth that was underlying in what was my life these many days.

In addition to being distanced from the beauty of autumn in Orlando, Florida, which is one of the things that, until recently, was all that kept me from feeling the effects of being confined to a desk day after day with no contact outside of the three friendly felines whose companionship breathes life into our home and my husband, best friend, life partner, whose support and encouragement is the foundation of what will be the success of my career, as a direct result of the sharp black words etched hurriedly on my task list, I've come to a revelation that the task list written on white paper in blue ink--those tasks that pertain not to the life literary, but to the realm of home and hearth, such as the cleaning and organizational tasks (vacuuming, dishes, laundry, bills) that keep the home ready for any in-law that would suddenly stop by to say hello.  And it was these tasks, those I was letting slip by, unnoticed, while my fingers danced over the keys of my laptop keyboard hour after hour, day after day, that would prove to be my undoing this day.

With my laptop firmly closed, its power off, I saw the interior of the apartment not from the peripheral of my vision in between paragraphs, but in the full light of morning, with no distractions keeping me from realizing that, in my negligence of household chores during the days that writing took priority, they had, for the most part, been left undone, perhaps in the hopes some brownie would sneak into the apartment as we slept and turn the apartment from what it was into a home clean enough to be mistaken for a model apartment shown to prospective residents to give them an idea of the size and space of an apartment only seen as lines of a floor plan in a glossy brochure handed out by the chipper staff of the Leasing Office.

Regardless of several looming deadlines, hovering over me as a black cloud hovers over those who have walked under ladders or broken mirrors, I was forced from that moment to keep my office, inasmuch as it is an office, closed for the morning to allow myself the leave to rectify the situation.  I knew not if the disheveled apartment was a result of my dedication to the craft or the ability to visualize blinders on either side of my creative eyes to blot out all except the task at hand, but it was a situation I could no longer leave to the efforts of the brownies, who were surely, by this point, overwhelmed so that they would use their efforts more wisely in another home in which the primary care-giver to the household tasks spent time on those tasks rather than frivolous writing exercises and articles.

I deemed the laundry my first undertaking once my breakfast--eggs, milk, and cheese, if you remember--was safely installed in my stomach and the dishes in the sink to await such time as I put them in the dishwasher to be cleaned and sanitized, so I sorted the clothes in various hampers in the bedroom into piles according to color and directions for washing machine use.  As I did so, I made the startling discovery that the white athletic socks belonging to none other than the love of my life--my darling husband--were in quite a state of disrepair.  Many of these socks he wore every day sported holes in the toes or heels, the elastic ankles had been stretched so that the sock did not so much stay in place, but fell around his ankles as he moved about his business, and the bottoms of these cotton foot warmers were no longer white, but instead a revolting shade of grayish-brown indicating they'd not been washed often enough, and were now ready to be cut into dusting rags, or thrown into the waste bin completely, being exchanged for a freshly-purchased pair.

So, in a spontaneous effort toward multi-tasking, I started to separate some of these poor, worn-out socks who wanted nothing more than to be relieved of their duties, out of the white clothing pile that would be washed, and into a separate pile known to me as the pile of items to be disposed of and never seen again.  And it was during this textile act of the mundane that my darling and aforementioned husband, who to this point had had minimal interest in the workings of the laundry beyond asking the current location of whatever favorite shirt he sought for in vain within the unkempt drawers of the dresser, wandered into the living room area of the apartment and, upon noting my segregation of his beloved socks, asked why they were in a pile separate from the other white clothing to be washed.

I explained to him that these socks, though they served him well for a great deal of time, were no longer fit for service, and would enjoy spending their days in the Sock Retirement Village, commonly referred to as the garbage dump, where they would, being cotton, be eventually returned to the earth from whence they came; I assured him there would be new, bright white cotton socks to replace those that would be leaving our home, but my husband, much to my surprise, did not accept this news of the relieving of duty of his socks with as much grace as I expected.  Instead, he began to explain, calmly, of course, for my husband has learned that when there is something he wishes to win from me, his explanations must be calm and clear for me to be convinced, that these socks were not ready to be honorably discharged from his feet, but had a great deal of "wear left in them," and he fully intended to continue using these socks he described as comfortable.

I tried valiantly to convince him that he was being cruel not only to the socks by forcing them to continue to be stretched and washed and pulled and, when our three darling felines feel particularly playful, snagged, but he was being cruel to me in forcing me to continue to wash these poor socks that were being held together by the threadbare elastic left in them that was less elastic and more thread from being stretched so much by use.

It was another fifteen minutes, a full twenty-five percent of the face of a clock, before I, in a fit of frustration and being told these socks were still of use to a man who wasn't the one who washed them every day, took the pile of to-be-thrown-out socks from their waiting space on the living room floor and threw them into the garbage can, knowing full well my husband would not attempt to retrieve them from the depths of the white, plastic pit of breakfast crumbs and junk mail.

We stared at each other for a long moment, the air between us thick with the stubbornness we both possessed that often led us to moments not unlike the one we were sharing at that long moment.  After a moment, my husband turned and retreated to his computer, not a word spoken.

I went back to sorting clothes in various hampers in the bedroom into piles according to color and directions for washing machine use.

--

*I decided to get all this out of my system before November 1st.

Things To Do When You Should Be Writing

In preparation for NaNoWriMo, which begins on Saturday (Eek!), I've decided to get a little bit of a head start on my procrastination to-do list for November.

Lately, I've found myself doing a number of things instead of scribbling (having a light workload got me into some bad habits), so it's time to compile that procrastination list.  That way, when I really need it next month, I'll have it easily on hand.

So here, in no particular order, are things you can do when you should be writing.  (Feel free to add your own in the comments, of course.)

• Read En Tequila Es Verdad for your daily dose of a "fountain of liberal rage."
• Check your email.
• Make and drink a pot of coffee.
• Rewrite your to do list with nicer handwriting.
• Better yet, you should do it in Microsoft Word, then print it out.
• Add to your to do list.
• Make sure your books are still alphabetized by author's last name.
• Visit the forums for NaNoWriMo.
• Update your status on Facebook to say "NP is not scribbling."
• Vacuum the living room.
• Play fetch with the cat (yes, one of my cats plays fetch).
• Make Thanksgiving plans.
• Read.
• Rework your NaNo outline.
• Adjust the font and margins of your NaNo novel.
• Play the Expert level of Minesweeper until you win twice in a row.*
• Do some early Christmas shopping online.
• Print your NaNo outline to put in a folder since you're trying to be more organized.
• Check your word count.
• Watch Law & Order to get character ideas.  (Don't worry about what day or time it is; L&O is always on somewhere.)
• See if any of your NaNo buddies are on AIM.
• Do some laundry.
• Gaze out the window.
• Stare at a wall.
• Look for writerly Christmas gifts online that you might want.
• Start a NaNo scrapbook to document your life in November.
• Go through your story and find ways to pad the word count (omitting contractions, changing all hyphens to spaces, lengthening lists like this one, adding mundane details that border on purple prose, etc.).
• Take a quick little nap to recharge yourself.
• Check the time to see how much more writing time you have.
• Watch the cat sleep.
• Blog.
• Play Mahjong Solitaire.
• Fill out an email survey and email it to everyone in your address book.
• Add page numbers to your story.
• Take the page numbers out.
• Add a title page.
• Add an Acknowledgements page.
• Add an "About the Author" page.
• Create an interview that could be included in the paperback edition.
• Come up with lists for your blog.

---

*NOTE: Do this at your own risk. I once spent three hours playing Minesweeper trying to accomplish this goal.

COTEB VI

Be sure to check out the newest Carnival, hosted by Thoughts in a Haystack!  

This month's carnival is quite creative, so enjoy!

"Prose is like hair. It improves with a good combing."

At least, that's what Jasper Fforde says.

I think combing is a great analogy for editing and revising.  When you comb hair, you work out the kinks, smooth it, and make it beautiful.  Combing prose is the same idea.  When you comb your prose, you work out the kinks, smooth it, and make it beautiful.  And so, it's a necessary process.

To be honest, editing/revising is not one of my favorite processes in the writing realm.  When I've been working with a piece for a long time, I become connected to it, so editing can be difficult.  (How can I slash out an entire scene I spent so much time crafting?)  So I've had to create some methods to take some of the prickly out of editing and revising.

The first thing I do when I start editing something is to read it all the way through without making any changes.  That way I can refresh my memory of the story, and by reading it from beginning to end without interruption, I can get a better feeling for the flow of the story since I jump around a lot when I write.

The next thing I do is go through the piece again and only correct grammar/punctuation.  This is so I don't let superfluous apostrophes or improper tense slip me up when I'm reading for flow, character, and plot.

Finally, the third reading is for everything else.  Did I remember to change the character's name every time?  Does something sound awkward the way it's worded?  Should I add more detail in the setting description in this scene?  This is the time I take notes in the margins, cross things out, move things, and jot scene rewritings on the backs of the pages.

Once I've gone through the piece a third time I sit down at my computer and start making changes.  Even if I think a change isn't quite right, I go with my first instinct and change it.  This is an important step for me because there have been many times I've changed something and in the retyping I changed it again, only to change it back when I reread the piece.  Once the changes are made, I print a new copy and the process begins all over again.

Some people may think this process sounds quite tedious.  At times it is, but by separating the readings that way, I keep myself from having to think about everything all at once.  Instead, I can focus on one task at a time and put all my energy into that task.  That keeps me from feeling overwhelmed as I work through a piece.

What's your revision process?

Journaling in the Life of a Writer

In addition to the blogopalooza that is The Coffee-Stained Writer, I keep a pen and paper journal IRL.*  I've found it to be an effective tool in my personal life, as well as my writing life.

In fact, I have more than one pen-and-paper journal.

One is for my personal life.  This is the journal that isn't shown to anyone else, and is usually kept out of sight to keep tempting eyes from prying.  In it I keep a record of my life.  I use it to work out situations, vent, worry, meditate, and whatever else comes to mind that I feel I need to share with...well...myself.  By committing these things to paper, in ink, I feel more confident about working out problems and situations.  When I'm angry or frustrated, journaling helps me center myself and calm down to better deal with whatever is causing the anger or frustration.  Personal journaling is a therapeutic practice for me, and there are days it's almost all that gets me through to the next crisis.

The other is for my writing life.  Sometimes I use it to write about how writing is impacting my personal life, but usually, I use it to make character notes, remind myself of writing tasks that need to be done, and keep a record of my writing life through notes and scribblings.  This is the journal I keep in my handbag so when the Muse strikes, I'm ready to jot down whatever scraps of a story come to mind before they go flitting away again.  If I think of someone who might be a good character, or I see a house that would be great for a setting, I make notes to myself so I can refer back to it later and remember what I was thinking.  This journal is usually a mess, and would be difficult for someone else to decipher without knowing my short-hand.  I go through these journals a bit quicker, usually, because I write in it more often than once a day or once every couple of days.  Keeping a writing journal gives me the opportunity to take notes or think through revisions when I'm away from my computer, and not worry about grammar or complete sentences.  I can just take notes.

Journaling is a way for writers to write outside the formality of creating stories/articles/whatever.  It's a place writers don't have to worry about editing or reworking and can just let their thoughts be put to paper.  It's a place to log ideas that may never materialize, bits of dialogue that can be used later, or whatever else you want to remember but for which you don't have an immediate home.

Even if you don't keep a personal journal, I strongly recommend you keep a writing journal.  It gives you a place to keep all your thoughts together, making it much easier to work when you sit down to scribble.  And, for those who are destined for greatness, it gives the scholars something to pore over and study years and years and years from now.  (And if you want scholars to talk about your journals even more, invent a short-hand they have to decipher.)

Happy journaling!

--

*IRL=in real life; learn the lingo, n00bs.

NaNoWriMo: Writing Schedules

For normal people, NaNoWriMo is a hectic time.  In addition to a full time day gig, people have family and personal obligations, which makes NaNoWriMo one of those things that's crammed into the spaces between life and work and sleep (well, sometimes sleep is skipped).  So for normal people, a writing schedule is key to reaching that magical 50,000-word finish line.

[Please note: I'm emphasizing "normal" because some of us are fortunate enough to work from home, so scheduling is less of an ordeal.  This post is directed to those who work a traditional full time job (we'll say 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. for the purposes of this discussion).]

When you create a writing schedule for NaNoWriMo, try to keep it as routine as possible.  If you switch around your timing too much, you may forget when you're supposed to be writing, and before you know it you'll be 30,000 words behind where you should be.

So if you get home from work at 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, schedule your writing time for, say, 8:00-10:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.  This regularity ensures that you know that between 8 and 10 every evening, you're writing.  That's not to say you would only write between 8 and 10 at night, but as long as your time is regular, you'll be much more likely to stick to the schedule.

Something else you should keep in mind as you create a writing schedule is the minimum daily word count for the event.  If you write 1,700 words every day (including Saturday and Sunday) during November, you'll reach 51,000 words by November 30th.  Allow enough time each day to reach your minimum word count for that day.  If you go over, wonderful, but if you go under, you'll need to make the word count up on another day.  If you have a tight schedule in November this may not always be possible.  So plan to write around 2,000 words each day, just to be safe.

As you create your schedule, try to do what works for you.  If you can't write in long stretches on the weekends, try scheduling short spurts throughout the day, taking frequent breaks.  Don't force yourself into a schedule you know will burn you out before the end of the month.  That's a very counter-productive way to work.

Once you work out your writing schedule, commit it to paper.  Post it in your writing space, as well as a common area that will allow family members, friends, and house- and roommates to see it.  It's important for those around you to know when you're writing so they can give you the time and space to get your work done.  Having the schedule on paper may also help make it more concrete for you.  That works for me; if I see something on paper, it carries more weight than if it's just on my computer or in my head.

Finally, remember to be flexible.  Life happens, even during NaNoWriMo.  So you may not be able to stick to your exact writing schedule every day.  And that's okay.  Steal an extra half hour of writing over breakfast before work, or on your lunch break.

Remember that NaNoWriMo is not life-or-death writing.  It's meant to be fun.  So don't take yourself or your schedule too, too seriously.  Just write.  And enjoy it.

Happy scribbling!