This. Is. NaNo!!!

I try to post here on a mostly regular basis. Most of the time I manage to pull it off. Sometimes, however, I fail spectacularly. But that's okay. My week was slightly busy and I forgot what day it was. :D That's life. Things get crazy. Sometimes the madness barges its way into the picture, sometimes you invite it with open arms. November is mere days away. For most people, November is the kick-off to the holiday season: Harvest, Thanksgiving, and the downhill slalom to Christmas. Pffft. Whatever. To a crew of crazy writers worldwide, November is all about NaNo- National Novel Writing Month!

The idea is to write a complete Novel, start to finish, 50,000 words, the end- in 30 days. Late nights, early mornings, coffee overload and telling the editing part of your brain to stuff it is both frightening and amazingly fun. Last year was my first year participating in the program. Last year was also the first time I've completed a finished piece of such a large word count. It was awesome.

This year promises to be even better. More people are signed up, the last numbers I saw had participants pinned at over 80,000. How sweet is that? My own tiny scrap of the map is more cohesive and organized; we even got our own region. Community writing events are on the calendar. Parties are planned. Even got the hubby in on the fun. It's going to be epic.

So I'll do my best to update everyone through the November chaos. Ta ta for now.

On Collecting

I collect. I collect a lot of different things. Lately, my main objects of interest are odd stuffed animals (Not the dead kind, that would be too creepy. Even for me) art supplies. Of course, that's in addition to my bizarre fascination with all things Hello Kitty. It's a sickness, really. I swear I'm a Pez dispenser away from an intervention.

Being a collector of random weirdness that has to be dusted has its advantages, though. Over the years I've developed a pretty decent eye for detail, especially for the unusual. And I use this to my full advantage when I write. Having a backlog of people, places, facts, things, and phrases in my head creates this wonderful mixture that I can draw upon for just about anything. I write down a lot of what intrigues me. It makes me feel like I'm somewhat organized, even though I know that it's a terrible, terrible charade. And on a really "on" day, I even manage to remember to take my camera with me.

I need all the help I can get my grubby little mitts on, plus it satisfies my need to gather things (Past life as a squirrel, maybe?).

Because it's there.

I watch a lot of documentary-type programs. I saw one about the high death toll that K2 takes on climbers. And the suicidal tendencies that the show highlighted just struck me as completely insane. If I recall correctly, the quote "Because it's there." embodied the motivation of a great majority of the climbers. Now I have issues concerning heights, frostbite, and oxygen sickness so great that I could never bring myself to try for a summit attempt. But then I got to thinking about the climber's motivation for doing what they did-the need to climb, to see what very few people ever have seen, to be at the top of the world. And while I don't have that same need (it's the height thing, I swear), I do have a need of my own, namely, concerning my writing.

One of the blogs I follow asked what is your ultimate goal for your writing. And, of course, my idea is to shoot for the stars and want it all. Why not? Dreaming and positive thinking are fantastic tools. And hey, who in their right mind would turn down a brilliant career doing what they love? Not me! But even if all I ever managed were an occasional printing, that'd be okay. Heck, even if all I managed were rough drafts that only the family read, that'd be okay, too. Because, to me, if I don't write, I'm not completely me. And if that is anything like those climbers feel like, then I can totally understand.

In praise of the Muses.

Writing groups, in my personal experience, are kind of like bears and pig-tailed burglars.

Being in the wrong writing group kind of really sucks. It's too hot. Competing egos and no real desire to improve the craft have a detrimental effect to everyone involved. Slamming everyone's work in order to make yourself feel more competent is counter-productive and unprofessional. On the flip side, gushing about everyone's work because you don't want to offend can do the same thing.

Of course, being a solitary writer kind of sucks. Too cold. You can't work in a vacuum. There are aspects of writing that just need an outside eye. Grammar people are valuable. Nice grammar people are priceless. Human encyclopedias, style watchers, semi-professional readers, industry gurus--anyone and everyone, all are people that you don't have when you're alone. Duh, I know.

Being in the right one is awesome. Warm, porridge-y, awesomeness. :D Having different styles, voices, viewpoints and goals is the whole point of being part of a group. But the ability to maintain your own and validate those of the people around you while everyone produces at their own pace is so much fun.

So, yeah, I love my writing group. :)

Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow...

...and maybe the day after that. I'm the Queen of Procrastination. Well, maybe not the queen, but probably an ambassador on a bad day and a low-level bureaucrat the rest of the time. I can't help it. It's in my nature. But the truly terrible thing is that my strain of the sickness only manifests when writing is concerned. All my household stuff gets taken care of, the cooking done, the errands completed without being put off. It makes one weep just thinking about it. Well, I'm tearing up, anyways.

The more I've been seriously dipping my toes into the writing community, the more I've found that I'm not alone. Apparently, there are mountains of resources and abodes for literary procrastinators, I just haven't checked them out yet. Isn't that terrible?

I have a theory, though. I think that I use up all of my "complete a task" discipline on all of my non-writing tasks for the day. As much as I push myself to get the boring things done, the less I have to motivate my daily word count. Hmm, I think I'll try that one. Maybe it'll get me out of some housework. :)

*sigh* Like that will ever happen. But, hey, a girl can dream.

Most kidding aside, I've been examining my writing habits lately, trying to see what I can do to be more productive. Unfortunately, I have no "optimum" window for writing. Morning, noon, or night, there's complete random productivity. Location doesn't seem to help all that much, either. Although, I would love to wrangle a dedicated workspace one of these days. Noise levels are hit and miss; sometime the silence is golden, and at other times the racket is awesome.

Two things that have been giving me more consistent results are planning and reporting. Lately, I've been trying to structure my work rather than fly by the seat of my pants and hope for the best (well, aside from the first draft). I LOVE FreeMind for that (saw the advice on Spacejock's site-fabulous!). Yeah, you could idea bubble on paper, but this is a cool computer program! Also, being involved in a writing group has kept me on the ball. "Reporting" my status updates and receiving professional feedback motivates me to keep on going. And in case you're wondering, yes, I was that kid that craved getting the gold star.

I'm not sure that this is a fix all way to go about things, but it's definitely a start, which is what I'm after.

Be nice to me or you'll end up in my novel.

I love that saying. It makes for really cute decoration for coffee cups and t-shirts (both of which I keep meaning to buy), it adds a bit of levity when frustration hits, and it comforts me when people bug me. But it's not just a guilty pleasure for revenge (while satisfying, is very naughty!), it's also a very valuable tool for characterization.

It'd be dang near impossible to be a member of this world and not have my writing influenced by the people that cross my path. But with great power, comes great responsibility, or something like that. There are so many interesting people around that it would be a sin not to take advantage of such a wonderful natural resource. :)

But (there's always a caveat, I know), like any other resource, it has to be utilized with care and forethought. You have to go green! It's easy, and perhaps a smidgen therapeutic, to have a stand-in of a high school rival as comic relief, you have to ask: Is it necessary? Does my story really and truly need that element, or am I just being bad? Not that being bad is, well, bad all the time. It's a fine line to walk; sometimes it doesn't work, sometimes it does. One of my friends relayed an unpleasant run-in she had with a waitress. I ended up trying to write the waitress in a piece as payback (in my defense, the juvenile behavior was when I was an actual juvenile). But the character took on a life of her own and contributed a lot to the story, instead of what I had planned. I'm glad I couldn't pull it off.

There's also an inherent danger of the tool becoming a crutch. Relying solely on outside ideas for drawing up characters can backfire quickly. You get lazy as a writer, and when your friends find out all the stories they inhabit, you might find yourself short of friends. So yeah, lose/lose. So go gathering every once in a while. Have fun with the things you find. Just don't over-harvest.

I'm framing that puppy!

So I received my very first rejection letter last week. All in all, I have to say that it was very anti-climatic. The experience wasn't even remotely close to the ideas I'd had about it. The editor was pleasant and professional. A simple "no thanks," not the "you suck" I'd been fearing. Short, simple, painless. I felt a lot like a child crying and flailing over a shot that didn't even hurt.

One of the things that had concerned me most when I had thought about submitting work was the prospect of REJECTION! The idea that an editor wouldn't like my work paralyzed me. The scenarios that would run through my head would range from 'Aww, isn't that adorable? She thinks she can write.' to searing criticism so intense that it would leave the letter's edges turned and smoking. And for a lot of years, I allowed the 'what-ifs' keep me from the 'actually doing.' 

Not completing a piece became easier and easier to justify when the fear of someone disliking it had a welcomed place in my head. It was safe. I could have all of these wonderful flights of fancy and not have to produce anything to show for it. It was also rather selfish and short-sighted. I wasted a lot of time that I could have spent honing the craft and sharing my vision. I kept my ideas to myself like a hobbit-hating cave-dweller fixated on shiny things. But that doesn't really matter now. That's in the past. My eyes are used too the sunlight now. :)

Rejection letters, as I'm led to understand from my more prolific friends, are part of the business. They're not anything personal. So file them and get back to submitting. That's what I'm doing. Now I'm just left to wonder if the acceptance letter is as awesome as I've imagined. Hmm.