From: "The Black Art"

"A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl."

Man, I love me some Anne Sexton.

The Truth about November

Sometimes I am a stickler for the rules. Here are some examples:

• when I make the rules
• when the rule is "no butting in line"
• when rich people (not just money-rich, any kind of rich) break rules at the expense of poor people (not just money-poor, any kind of poor)

NaNoWriMo is not about the rules. I hate the daily word count. Some days, even in November, I am just not feeling it. I hate seeing my short little bar next to the taller bar in the progress graph. I want to tell the graph to bite me.

The truth is that I write 50,000 words a month anyway--even if it isn't November. Between work, emailing, novel-writing, blogging, journaling, list-creating, I probably write more than 50,000 words a month. However, because of all those different outlets, I rarely write 50,000 words on a single project in a month--except at work. For me, NaNoWriMo is an exercise in focus.

Yesterday, someone told me she couldn't believe I was writing a novel in a month. But I am absolutely not doing that. That's ridiculous! I'm writing 50,000 words of a novel in a month--I know I won't have a complete novel on November 30. THE INTERN is revising a novel this month--as is Frankie Diane Mallis. Do you know about NaPiBoWriWe, picture book writers? How 'bout HANOWRIMO? The ways to make this month your own are unlimited.

YA writer Justine Larbalestier says: "Use the month of November to explore. Whatever you wind up with—on paper or in your head—you’ll know more about yourself as a writer."

Have you changed the rules of NaNoWriMo to fit your style or needs? How are you making NaNoWriMo work for you?

Welcome... but shouldn't you be writing?

I'll keep it short so you can get back to meeting your word count.

One of my local region nano buddies directed me to a great article about removing Internet noise so we can actually write. I'm tempted to give up blogging this month, except that I think blogging helps my writing rather than hinders it--but so much else hinders it. Here's my favorite quote from the article:

"The hounds are out this month, guys, and they smell your fear and self-doubt. So, shovelbloggers will be offering you a tantalizing Vegas-style buffet of endless writing “help” that will range from the indispensable to the stupid to the unconscionably poisonous."

Now, here are various ridiculous reasons I've put off writing in the past:

• I need a new laptop.
• What’s the point of revising before my thesaurus arrives?
• I will write when everyone is silent.
• No one’s writing anything until this house is cleaned.
• Has anyone seen my muse?

I am giving up excuses for the month of November. What are you giving up to make sure your writing gets done?

Um, What Month is It?

My friend has a sign in her kitchen that says, I'll get my shit together tomorrow (we're a classy bunch). This motto sums up my preparation for NaNoWriMo. Despite the fact that E. Darker, a cool writer girl I met at the NaNoWriMo kickoff party, told me "the trick is to plan ahead," here it is November 2, and my word counter still says:

0/50,000

I planned to have a comprehensive scene list by yesterday, and I sort of do, but it's in my head, out of order, and still a little fuzzy. However, I checked the NaNoWriMo site this morning and saw that my betas are still at zero words too: Proof that betas are good for not only motivation, but also for making me feel better when I flake out.

I'll tell you what I do know. My main character has an awesome family. I have this picture of them, and I can't wait to see how they interact. Once I post this blog, I'm going to go write some scenes with the fam and make my pictures of them even clearer.

As you can see, I'm sort of a pantser in planner's clothing. I make big plans. I break big plans. I somehow emerge with a finished manuscript. I have no idea how it happens.

What about you? Do you plan ahead for your writing? Are you unaware how your magic manuscript gets completed? Got any tips to amp up my word production?

From: "Wishlist"

"I wish I were a neutron bomb;
for once I could go off."

Pearl Jam

From: Love You Hate You Miss You

"There's a couple of other kids who eat by themselves, but I'm in no mood for a very special episode moment, and even if I was it still wouldn't be enough to make me sit with the girl who needs to be told to bleach her mustache or the guy who always wears a suit and tie. I suppose he's making a real fashion statement, but this is high school. You're not supposed to be real. You're supposed to be enough like everyone else to get through and out into the waiting world."

Love You Hate You Miss You
Elizabeth Scott

How to Build Your Perfect Character

This post is not about the top ten techniques for creating catchy characters. You can read that here, here, here, and at other sundry locales on the Interwebs. This post is about your perfect character.

First, a story.

A while back, I was watching Into the Wild and wondering why the hell my stories are not as beautiful as the ones I'm always falling in love with. (Yeah, I ended a sentence with a preposition. I'm feeling rebellious today.) I grabbed the closest notebook and began to list my favorite stories--not books, but stories: books, movies, tv shows, what have you. Here's what it looked like:

Jesus's Son
A Room With A View
LOST
A Moveable Feast
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Tao of Steve
The Catcher in the Rye
"Fat"
The Virgin Suicides
Atonement
Pump up the Volume

I stared at those titles for a long time searching for similarities. Here's what I found: They all focused on deeply flawed characters. More specifically, the characters were sensitive souls, outsiders by nature of their eccentricity, hurt big time by someone they should have been able to trust: a parent, a sibling, a lover, themselves. As a result, they've been driven to extreme loneliness, the kind that only thrives if one cultivates it. In these stories, desperate characters crawl through the muck of extreme loneliness to emerge in a better place, or not.

These are the characters I identify with, and the sort I want to write about. These are my people.

Here is where my story morphs into your perfect character. What are your favorite stories (not books)? Jot them down. Stare at them for a while until you identify their similarities--not just character similarities. My favorites stories are set in strikingly beautiful, colorful locales. Their love interests represent a break from the constant fakery of the world. When I stare at my list, I see a very clear representation of my aesthetic*, and that helps me create stories closer in beauty to the ones I love.

Have you jotted? Are you staring, contemplating? What similarities emerge among the stories you love? What have you learned about your aesthetic*? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

*Aesthetic is a word used a lot in grad school even though nobody knows what it means. I've been using the word for nine years now, and I just started understanding it (I think). Merriam-Webster defines aesthetic as "a particular taste for or approach to what is pleasing to the senses." Those stories you love and write: they mean so much to you because they fit your aesthetic.