So whats up

With all the entries lately? Why the sudden burst of Blog entries after such a dry spell? Well I’m in training, so to speak.

Starting in January I will be taking on a personal challenge to write … to write more than I have ever written before. I am taking the NaNoWriMo challenge (though not during the usual NaNoWriMo month)

The long and the short of it is this … 1 novel …. 50,000 words … 31 days to write it.

Many of you know me … and you also know that I’ve always had a desire to write. I write little short stories that never get finished … that get a good start going and get people interested and then vanish into the abyss of my laziness never to be heard from again.

My wife has occasionally hounded me about this and invariably I get fired up and start writing … or start working toward writing. Either I dig up a story that I started writing before, or I start planning out a story that I’ve got running laps around my skull at the moment. In the case of the first option I usually end up re-reading my previous work and set down to edit it … the most common result is that I may add one or two pages onto the work, but most often I just finish re-writing it before something comes up that pulls me away for a couple of days and the writing momentum is lost. Or in the case of the second option, I outline and plan, write out character backgrounds and descriptions, define the world and then something comes up that pulls me away and that usually means that it gets filed away with the other projects.

This time, however, I am trying something different. This time my wife came across the NaNoWriMo site and pointed me to it. I was interested and she suggested that I pick up the book ‘No Plot, No Problem’ by Chris Baty (Also the founder of NaNoWriMo).

Chris lays out an outstanding argument in the book. While the book is aimed at helping people through the concept and completion of writing a 50,000 word monster in a month, the concept itself actually applies quite well to any creative endeavor.

Chris’ argument is basically that the only thing standing between me and getting a book finished is a deadline, or more accurately the LACK of a deadline.

Certainly he doesn’t paint the project as a cakewalk … and he points out many of the pitfalls that people face during the ordeal, and suggests ways to get around them. He talks about his experiences participating in NaNoWriMo since its founding in 1999, and he has snipits of advice and stories from other NaNoWriMo successes.

So after reading the book and seeing that I firmly fall into many of the pitfalls that he describes befalling what I call the ‘casual’ writer I decided … you know what … I can do that.

And I can and will make it. I’ve set the month of Jan for my novel in a month insanity because putting it off any farther than that is simply procrastinating and not accomplishing what I’m trying to do. One of the main points in NaNoWriMo is that there is no advanced preparation … the idea is to go into it blank. (the main reason for this is that the more advanced preparation that you do, the more attached to the story you become, and therefore the more likely you are to want to write it right and therefore will fall into the trap of editing … the idea is to get a complete first draft down, not a finished manuscript.)

What does this have to do with all the rants and rambles lately? Call it training … I’m getting used to the idea of writing on a nightly basis. And practicing sitting down at a set timeframe and writing without a significant amount of preparation. Of course these blog entries are significantly different from writing a novel in that I’m not going for an ongoing cohesive storyline. But they still get me used to using this timeframe for writing, used to focusing on something and putting my thoughts onto paper (or in this case on the monitor).

The next question becomes … what will happen to the blog in January? Well, blogging will probably slow down significantly as much of my ‘free time’ will be devoted to pouring my story out of the fires of my mind’s forge and beating it into some semblance of shape. I will, however, try to get some entries put up throughout the month … if nothing else to try and keep my regular readers informed on the status of the experiment. And of course if I get pointed to, or otherwise find a juicy article to rant about I may be able to spare some time to burble a few thoughts on the subject as well.

I will tell you now that I won’t tell you about my story … at least not until Feb … and more likely some time in March after I’ve had a chance to go through and chisel off some of the rougher edges. Not that I wouldn’t like to talk to you all about my story, but it’s one of the steps that they recommend to help keep from feeling pressured to perform (this is one of the main things that creates a lot of the pitfalls to the ‘casual writer’ … the feeling that it has to be right).

So … by the end of January I will be a novelist … not a published novelist to be sure, and the monster I write may never see the light of day, but I will be a novelist none-the-less. My plan from there is to take the same deadline concept and apply it (though with a longer deadline, or more likely a series of deadlines to keep myself going) to getting some of my other stories written, edited, and published (even if it’s just self published on a small scale.)

What will become of the one month monster? Only time will tell … I plan on taking Chris’ advice on the matter and waiting at least two weeks after the Jan 31st deadline before reading it over again and deciding if the beast is something that can be dressed up and taken out, or just needs to be buried and forgotten.

It’s going to be a rollercoaster … lets hope that I meet the height requirement….