The Secret to Making it Work

When I first I started developing my yet-to-be-written NaNoWriMo novel "Touch," I used the Snowflake method ( http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php ). It was an excellent boost and got me to the point where I had a really solid general outline.

I'd already had the idea for the story before I even thought about doing NaNoWriMo. It came to me after a series of different concepts kind of coalesced, like balls of mercury glomming together when rolled around on a flat surface. One came from another novel I had started reading - a Stephanie Meyer book called "The Host," in which alien beings physically take over the bodies of people just before the moment of death. Other parts of the concept came from other places which, at this moment, my memory cannot access. It was pretty much a bunch of "what ifs"...which, when you come right down to it, are probably the seeds of almost every novel out there. What if.... hmmmm....

After getting about three steps into the Snowflake Method, I kinda branched off in my own direction. I thought, "how the hell am I gonna write a cohesive novel in only thirty days?" Well, I needed a plan, I decided. I think that's the production manager in me coming out. If you look at a task as one big whole, it can be terrifying...terrifying enough to send you running in the other direction.

But I knew that lots of people have "won" NaNoWriMo, so  I knew it was do-able. I also knew I've tackled seemingly daunting tasks in the past and managed to accomplish them with aplomb. And here is how I did it:

Recipe for Tackling a Big Scary Task:

1. Break the Big Scary Task down into its component segments
2. Figure out (loosely) how long each of the segments should take
3. Know what your deadline is
4. Work backwards from the deadline to figure out your deadline for each segment
5. Write down your plan
6. Get to work, stick to your plan, adjust as needed, and finish the job.

So, following that recipe, here's my plan:

1. Component segments of a book are chapters, of course.
2. I have thirty days to write 50,000 words. That makes my daily output goal 1,666 words per day. I know from previous experience that it takes me, when on a roll, about 90 minutes to two hours to write that many words. Since this novel will be written without my customary obsessive editing-as-you-go method, I can assume one to two hours of writing time per day to reach my daily goal.
3. My deadline is November 30 at midnight
4. This step jives with #2 in this case. I need to finish one segment (chapter) of 1,666 words each day. 
5. My plan is to break the novel into 30 chapters of approximately 1,700 words each, in sequence, from start to finish. I have already outlined, chapter by chapter, exactly what will happen in the first three quarters of the book. I'm tending toward leaving the last quarter un-outlined, as I suspect things will come up in the first three quarters that will inspire a logical and satisfying conclusion. I may be taking chances here...but I guess it's okay to live dangerously just a little bit.
6. I've used the month of October to plan my novel out. On Monday, November 1, I'll begin writing, following my plan closely and trying not to deviate from it too much. That way, by the end of the month, I should have a finished, 50,000-word first-draft novel on my hands. (And if my best friend, Tonia, has anything to say about it, I will then immediately abandon "Touch" and return to my work on my first novel, "The Bog," which she is clamouring for more of.)

Now that I have my Plan in place, I'm feeling very confident about being able to do this. My biggest challenge will be to allot up to two hours every day during November to work on "Touch." As much as I love writing, I find it sooo easy to put it off in favour of other, usually far less fulfilling or worthwhile activities. That's where my readers come in. You (I know you're out there) who have signed up for my daily emails will be my conscience and my guiding light. Knowing at least nine people (at current count) are reading along will "keep me honest" so to speak...I won't be able to quit so easily without a huge amount of guilt. I hate guilt.

Read me!

What do you think would happen if DNA from an alien race suddenly began spreading throughout the human population of Planet Earth?

That's the question asked by "Touch," the NaNoWriMo novel I plan to write beginning November 1. NaNoWrimo is National Novel Writing Month, and the challenge is simply to write a 50,000 word novel in the space of thirty days. It doesn't have to be an award winner. It doesn't even have to be finished as of November 30. It just has to be 50,000 words long.

It's not hard to see that this is a huge challenge. And it comes at a time when I'll be very busy with work. I've taken on a very big contract which starts around November 8, plus, as it happens, November includes an extra production period for the newspaper I build, AND an issue of the quarterly magazine I do. 

Whew! What have I gotten myself into!? Suffice to say, I'm going to need all the motivation I can get in order to park myself for at least two to three hours every day and write about 1,700 words. 

That's where you come in. I figure if there's a bunch of people waiting to read my new output every day, I'll be motivated to get the job done and far less likely to give up half way through.

So, read the brief synopsis of the novel and, if you're interested, drop me a line and ask me to add you to my NaNo mailing list. Then, beginning November 1, you'll receive an email from me every day with that day's writing output. If I happen to miss a day here and there, you'll get more the next time (gotta keep up with the quota!)

Looking forward to hearing from you!

The Big Reveal...and an invitation

Believe it or not, in some cases, embarrassing yourself, or rather, the fear of embarrassing yourself, can be a force for good in your life. I've always believed that the number of people you tell that you're doing something difficult, like quitting smoking or going on a diet, is inversely proportional to the likelyhood that you'll give up on that difficult task.

I'm going to try and write a 50,000-word novel in November and I've decided to not only tell as many people as I can, but invite them to read along as I share my daily output. I figure this is the best way to scare myself into keeping it up to the bitter end.

So, you're invited to read along with my novel, Touch, which I shall briefly outline for you below, by sending me an email and asking me to put you on the mailing list. There's a nice easy email link over there on the right under the header "Subscribe to my daily NaNo Novel Updates." In return for the silent encouragement your interest will give me, I will email you the text I have managed to write that day. It should be approximately 1700-1800 words per installment.

Now, I warn you, this is go to be very rough text. It is a first draft, and in order to reach my goal of 50,000 words by the end of November, I will have to mostly resist the temptation to edit as I go along. It will probably be riddled with typos and bad sentence structure. It will most likely have gaping plot holes and a few wooden characters. But, I think I've come up with a passable story idea, so I hope it will be interesting enough to allow you to overlook (for now) its shortcomings.

So, as promised, here's the basic outline so you can decide if this is something that might interest you...and if it does, I hope you'll follow along as it's written!

Millions of years ago, in another galaxy, members of a dying race have devised a way to spread their DNA across the universe, hopefully to land on at least one planet with compatible life forms. Here on earth, in the present day, a pretty rock washes up on a riverside where it's found by a little boy. As soon as he touches it, it cracks open, and inside he finds an intriguing goo, to which of course, being a little boy, he is irrisistably drawn. He touches it. From that moment on, the alien DNA enters the body of anyone he touches, or anyone those people touch, spreading itself within weeks across almost the entire planet. The DNA causes very subtle, but discernible physical and psychological changes in those it touches. Many people welcome it. Many fear it. Some want to destroy it. 

And some very special people are profoundly changed by the DNA, becoming the centre of a storm that rages around one of mankind's greatest fears: the fear of change.

I'm using the Snowflake Method

A clever fellow named Randy Ingermansen devised a strategy for plotting and planning a novel that, so far, seems quite brilliant. He calls it the Snowflake method. It's based upon the notion of a fractal, a mathematical object which builds upon itself, layer by layer, becoming increasingly more complex with every iteration. A novel, he says, can be built up the same way a fractal is built up.

This evening, I tried putting Mr. Ingermansen's strategy to the test with the novel I'm planning for NaNoWriMo 2010, which I've tentatively named Touch. The Snowflake method is a ten-step procedure, which starts off with a single, brief sentence that describes the story. After Step One, you build up your novel plan by adding more and more detail in each subsequent step. Step Two takes that first sentence and turns it into a full paragraph.

In the space of about 2 hours this evening, I came up with a very satisfactory summary of the novel's plot in a single paragraph (it's harder than it sounds!). Where there had only been a few nebulous ideas and concepts before I sat down, I now have a concrete idea of what my novel will be about. I also started on Step Three: a detailed synopsis of my main character. Step Three includes one of those synopses for each of my other main characters as well. So I'll probably have to do about five all together.

I was quite excited by my results this evening! It's always a thrill when you start to see something you've conceived of actually begin to take form, when you first start to believe that "wow, this might just work!" Whether it's a short story, a novel, a drawing or a brochure layout, those first steps toward making an idea a reality can be quite invigorating. And the Snowflake method has taken the floundering out of what, for me, as a novice novelist, can be a real flounder-fest.

Welcome...let's get this party started!

I've had a Twitter feed called @PatMoranWrites for a while now. It's just for my thoughts about writing. Didn't use it much at first. Mostly I got it so no one else would take the name before I had a chance to use it! I figured I'd use it a lot more once I become a famous author. Ha. You can see the most recent updates over there on the right, in the nifty little Twitter gadget I got for this-here blog. >>>

Lately, I've been tweeting more more frequently because I've been writing more regularly...and loving it. Mostly, my tweets have been about my novel-in-progress, The Bog, which is at about 40,000 words in its first draft. The feed only has eight followers, but I'm hoping to get more, because...

A few days ago, I made the rash decision to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. What is NaNoWriMo? It's an annual challenge to writers to write a 50,000-word novel in one month -- the month of November.

That is a big challenge. And one that, I'd hazard to guess, is not completed by the vast majority who undertake it. I suspect I won't complete it either. I'm notorious for getting all gung-ho about a project and then losing interest in it after only a short time. Especially if it requires a lot of work, which this most definitely will.

But, it's only for one month, and I figure that the more people I tell about this crazy thing I mean to do, the more embarrassed I'll be if I become tempted to quit, and the less likely I'll be to actually drop out. Not sure if that kind of psychological self-blackmail will work either, but it's worth a try. And hopefully, in the process, a few people might enjoy what I have to say.

I welcome and invite your comments on any post you will see here. Part of what makes up a successful blog are the quality and quantity of comments posted by readers. I hope to see lots of dialogue from you all, and will always do my best to reply.

Cheers, and tally-ho!!