Writing When It's Hard

So, a confession that most experienced NaNos will maybe relate to: sometimes the writing is hard.  Sometimes, you sit down to get your daily words written, and it's just a grind to get them all done.

But sometimes, you can let yourself get psyched out about it also.

Today was a case in point for that.  Yesterday was tough.  Today I wasn't feeling it; I was sure it was going to be a slog just to get the bare minimum of words in.  I wasn't sure how I was going to face tomorrow and the ISU write-in, other than by hoping that, somewhere in those 6 hours of writing, I'd manage to get a couple thousand words.

BUT, I sat down tonight to write anyway.  I hooked into the UStream link for a virtual presence at the write-in, and I made myself write.  And do you know what?

I did my two highest word-count sprints so far this month.

Not only that, but I also figured out what happens next, other than what I had planned, which just won't cut it anymore because now I know something worse to do to my protagonist.  (That's the beauty of having your protagonist think "I have to avoid this because there's no recovering from it."  Then you know what they think the worst that could happen is, and you can do it to them.)



So, what's the moral of the story?  I admit that some days are still a bit of a slog, but don't just give up because you think it's going to be rough.  Actually sit down and type.  You never know when good things might happen.

NaNoWriMo Prep Forthcoming

I've decided to do an experiment and publish my NaNoWriMo prep here.  This will hopefully provide a few benefits, among them forcing me to get to my preparation work that I've been putting off.  As well, there's a chance that I would get some feedback that may help me as I go, and another chance that someone else may find the process useful for their own work.

Some concerns that play through my head, put out as if my subconscious is questioning my conscious:

• Are you worried that somebody will take your work?
  
  Somewhat, but overall I don't think that this is a reasonable fear.  This is only preparatory work; there is still a lot of effort to be done to turn it into a story.  In addition to this, each writer is going to be interested in and emphasize different parts of the prep work, so the resulting story should turn out quite different even if people work from the same source material.
  
• Are you worried that you'll flood your readers?
  
  You mean flood them with regularly blog posts instead of the occasional one when I remember?  Not entirely.  Google's new auto-publish means I can't just select the best to share and save the rest, but I trust my readers (if I have any) have made it to the level where they can skim past a published link to a blog if it doesn't interest them.
  
• Aren't you worried that you'll fail in public?
  
  Definitely.  However, I don't actually expect to.  One reason is that I've done prep for and tried NaNoWriMo multiple times, and am pretty confident in my ability to finish NaNoWriMo successfully, which is the definition of successful prep work as well, IMO.  Another is that I've always experimented with my prep work, trying to find new things, so if it fails, it might be kind of fun anyway.  Finally, I attribute the remaining fear to just the usual cause of author fright, and move on.
  
• What's the prep this year?
  
  I've decided to do a combination of Story Engineering and Million Dollar Outlines.  More specifically, I'm going to try and develop the prep work according to Story Engineering, and use Million Dollar Outlines to inform the process.
  
  This means a reader can look forward to rumination on concepts, characters, themes, and outlines, potentially all mixed together for the benefit of all... or at least the benefit of me.
  
• Does having your subconscious present as a separate entity worry you at all?
  
  Should it?  Hmm.... I may have to think this one over a bit more.

So there it is.  I'll try to label it all and hopefully not spam too much.

Writing, Editing, and Critiques

Two stories, both related, about me having a story critiqued, and critiquing another.  Similar outcomes.

First, a friend sent me a short story she had sold, and was settling in to revise.  I read it over and had a generally good reaction, and sent her some of my comments.  Soon after, I got an email that primarily read "THESE COMMENTS ARE AWESOME".  (That's a nice feeling, by the way, when your efforts are so appreciated.)

So as a follow-up, I took the short story I thought was in the best, most sellable state, cleaned it up a bit more, and sent it to her for comments.  She... well, she didn't tear it apart, but she pulled it into many pieces, and explained how those pieces kept the story from being as effective as it could be.  In particular, I had extra exposition at the beginning that was probably unnecessary, I could introduce more conflict and handle the exposition by having an oppositional character (rather than just the circumstances), and the ending could be more life-altering, maybe.  I'm really not sure about the last one yet, but the others are advice gold.

Of course, that means the story I thought was in good enough shape to submit for potential sales, I have serious doubts about.  On one hand, I need to wrap it up as best I can sometime, and send it along.  On the other hand, I don't want to send less than my best work, or at least work that I feel fully realizes the story... and I now know how much better the story could be.  I don't think I can send it like that.  I will be missing my goal to submit a story, unless I somehow both revise that story and get another round of critique in somehow, but after some other discussions about how magazines can now easily track a submitters previous submissions and how they improve (or not), I'm pretty sure I don't want to put anything too terrible out there.

Not that this is, but still.  Goal officially abandoned, for another month.

On the other hand, I also recently did a critique where I didn't see much of a story in the short story.  Others disagreed, which is their right.  It's good to remember that some critiques aren't just what the story needs either.  Writing them out may help me figure out my own stuff, but that doesn't mean they will always be helpful to the recipient.  It's when it is helpful to neither that I should really be careful about even posting the critique.

Million Dollar Outlines Review

Million Dollar Outlines, by David Farland.  In short, I'm very glad I bought it.

In more detail, then.  David Farland starts off with what might appear to be a digression -- why do people read?  In reality, he gets to the heart of why people read in order to figure out what authors need to do in order to deliver to people what they are looking for when they read.  His conclusion?  Without nuance, to be put through an artificially stressful time for a good emotional payoff.

Emotional payoff is a theme that recurs.

He then covers audience research, including a lot of information from his days as a movie consultant.  This includes the emotions different audiences want to experience (statistically, at least), and how to look at what is selling well now in order to try and figure out what audiences are looking for.  This can be done with movies, TV shows, and books, though caveats apply to all of the analysis.

Also included are some ideas and tips on characters and plotting.  I thought the tips sections were well done in general, though of course they weren't the primary point of the book.

Then the outlining sections start.  Farland walks you though why outlines might be needed and the benefits they bring.  He continues with developing the outlines, including working on them over multiple passes and rearranging them at times in order to make them work better.  Near the end, he takes you step-by-step through the process he uses to develop an outline.

He then finishes with an appendix containing tips on moving from the outline to the completed novel, and a few items of note -- including some analysis of Lucas and Speilberg's discussions when trying to develop the concept and plans for the first Indiana Jones movie.

The book has me excited to try out some of the techniques, and also to try and combine them with another book I recently read, Story Engineering.  I have little doubt that my stories would be better with some more pre-planning and a little less seat-of-the-pants writing.

Some minor critiques I have would include the fact that the story plot graphs aren't very well explained (or perhaps I missed the reference to the book that would explain them).  I have a feeling I've been missing something with these, as I've seen them referenced more than once.  Then again, I might be able to pick up the idea from the book itself.  Also, reading the book on my b&w kindle made some of the graphics included for the plot graphs be less than illuminating, though the main points were easy enough to follow.