The NaNoWriMo Writer's 10 Commandments

I. Thou shalt not begin writing before November 1.

II. If, in the fervor of creativity, thou dost begin writing before November 1, the words that thou writest shall not figure into the final counting.

III. Thou shalt not undertake NaNoWriMo lightly. Even if thou dost not "win," thou shalt write -- and no word thou writest shall be writ in vain.

IV. Remember the eleventh month is for writing. Thirty days within it shalt thou write, and none shall stop thee. Neither thou, nor thy spouse, nor thy children, nor thy grandchildren, nor thy parents, nor thy brothers, nor thy sisters, nor thy friends, nor thy coworkers, nor thy boss who is an ass, nor any other shall thwart thee.

For 335 days of the year thou mayest move heaven and earth to procrastinate and devise myriad excuses not to write. But November is the WriMo, and God knows you deserve it. Therefore, thou shalt bless the Office of Letters and Light and meet thy daily goal that thy manuscripts may grow long and thy word count increase.

V. Honor thy structure and thy passion, that thy story may remain strong and thy chapters may be long.

VI. Thou shalt not murder the English language, neither shalt thou commit grammar-cide in the rush to increase thy word count.

VII. Thou shalt not commit the premature edit, for such actions inhibit the creative muse and boggeth down the finishing of the great work which you have begun.

VIII. Thou shalt not steal the words from a previously written work and include them in thy word count. Neither shalt thou plagiarize, for this is cheating. Verily, I say: winners never cheat and cheaters never win.

IX. Thou shalt not covet thy buddies' word counts, not their agents, nor their book deals.

X. Thou shall persevere for 30 days. And thou shalt avail thyself of every opportunity to encourage other writers who are undertaking the same task, crossing the same creative desert, and climbing the same NaNo mountain that risest before thee.

You Might Be a Writer If...

... you consider a trip to the ER a great opportunity for taking notes on proper medical procedure.

... you have at least one friend who is convinced that everything you write is autobiographical.

... some of your best friends are fictitious.

... you never get bored in church or committee meetings because you're too busy people-watching.

... you've been known to transcribe the conversations of total strangers because you liked the authenticity of their voices.

... you can spend 5 hours on your work in progress with only a single paragraph to show for it.

... you feel guilty for taking a break for lunch if your characters are in danger.

... your entire plot hinges upon notes scribbled on the back of an envelope.

Photo by Jane M. Sawyer, courtesy of MorgueFile.com

... you've ever called your own phone number so you could dictate plot points to your voice mail.

... every room in the house, including the basement and the bathroom, has a supply of note paper and pens.

... you plan Thanksgiving dinner so it doesn't interfere with your NaNoWriMo word count.

... you do not fear the blank page; you embrace it for it holds endless possibilities.

Top 5 Reasons You Should Do NaNoWriMo This Year

"What's NaNoWriMo?" the uninitiated ask.

"It's National Novel Writing Month," the Chosen Ones answer. "It happens every November. You sign up online, then spend 30 days ('cause November couldn't have been one of the months with 31) furiously scrabbling to find a way to slap together 50,000 more-or-less coherent words."

Stunned silence is the general response, followed closely by: Why?

I'm glad you asked. Here, in no particular order, are the top 5 reasons you should participate in NaNo 2011:

1.  It's invigorating. NaNo is bracing. It's a blast of creative juice that soaks the Muse right out of her rather apathetic stupor.

Thanks! I needed that!

2. It's just what the doctor ordered. You know that manuscript? The sick one? The one you've been meaning to make some chicken soup for, take to ER, and rub its back till it feels better? NaNo gives you a whole month to indulge the headachy, snot-filled, fever-ridden work-in-progress. After 30 days of caregiving, you'll know beyond the shadow of a doubt whether or not the patient can be saved.

Is book unwell? Mummy's here, dear...

3.  It will force you to look at things from a new vantage point. With NaNo, there's precious little time for second-guessing. Or editing. Or proofreading, for that matter. It's a write-like-your-life-depends-upon-it undertaking. Which makes you overlook things that may have slowed you down in the past. Every new NaNo day marks uncharted territory. There is no time to revisit what you did yesterday. Get ready to be bumped out of your comfort zone!

I'm seeing things I never dreamed of!

4. Try something daring. Has your writing become rote? Complacent? ~ahem~ By-the-book (pardon the pun)?  NaNo gives you permission to throw away your crutches and safety nets. Try something you'd never normally do. Go ahead: it won't kill you!

This ain't the way I normally roll...

5.  You discover your personal writer's work ethic. No matter how supportive your cheerleaders, no one can write your book for you. (Technically, that's not true. Ghostwriters can. But that kind of negates the whole "I'm going to write a novel this month" thing...) NaNo shows you exactly what it takes to shoulder the book-writing load and git 'r done.

Keep moving forward...

What are you waiting for? Only a few days separate us from the beginning of NaNoWriMo 2011. Don't delay! Sign up today! Oh, and comment below if I missed your favorite reason for NaNo-ing. Happy writing...

All photos courtesy of MorgueFile, except the one showing the crazy person perched atop a 1-ton horse with nothing to stop her fall if the horse should decide he no longer wants her there. Yeah, that's me on my Percheron. 'Cause I'm just that stupid...

NaNoWriMo 2010: A Thread of Thankfulness

Last year was the first time I entered National Novel Writing Month. I got my 50,000 words written -- just squeaked by at the 11th hour -- but the book still remains to be finished. With any luck, that will happen during NaNo this year.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of NaNo '09, though at times I felt that I was taking a month-long break from reality. At other times, I questioned my sanity because reality refused to take a break from me. Last November for instance:

• The book I was under contract for went to the publisher. This, of course, required the tying up of the myriad little editing loose ends that always accompany a major co-authoring project.
• The school calendar included an entire week of half-days, which significantly impacted my writing plans. (It's a widely accepted fact that it's easier to be creative WITHOUT a six-year old hanging over one's shoulder asking to see what one is writing...)
• The choir that I directed added additional practice days in preparation for our annual Christmas cantata the second week of December.
• My family & I went on a 3-day Thanksgiving trip to a ginormous waterpark -- which significantly impacted my ability to say "I'm going to go write now" with any real credibility.

Now, for me, NaNo is as much a part of Thanksgiving as eating too much on the final Thursday of the month.  NaNo and Thanksgiving are inextricably intertwined in my mind.  Few things make me more thankful than having the time to write.  And a concentrated month of my family supporting my crazy career path only fuels my thankfulness.

I am so thankful to Robert, my wonderful husband, and my very good friend Chari, who read as I wrote last year and clamored for more chapters. They pushed me to keep writing -- even when I got around word 30,000 or so and became convinced that my doing NaNo was an exercise in generating crap.

Robert has always been my biggest fan. He has known of the story I am writing (in all its permuations) for years. Chari, on the other hand, is completely unfamiliar with the material. She's my "newest fan." Both of them kept me going.

This year, I was considering three different projects for NaNo.  Both Robert & Chari chose for me: they insisted that I finish the novel I started last year.  (Chari pitched a rather remarkable fit about the evils of writers who force their avid readers "to wait an entire freaking year to find out what happens.")

It pains me to admit that last year I plugged along with the project for awhile, but against my own advice ended up editing what I'd written instead of finishing the thing. Then I allowed Real Life and other projects to pull me off track.  This year, the 50K that NaNo requires will be just the thing to finish it.

I am also thankful for the students I've worked with who took the time to let me know that I was of use to them in some way. Last year at least three fellow NaNo contestants participated because I mentioned the contest in one of my workshops & encouraged students to sign up.  None of the three had ever written anything lengthy before, and all three finished!  Sometimes all a writer needs is someone to think he or she is up to a particular challenge. I love being that person!

And so, as this November looms, bringing its own bag of challenges, here's to all my writer friends -- especially those of you who are ready to jump into NaNo with both feet. May you continually find yourself surrounded with those who encourage you to grow, who support your dreams, and who fill you with thankfulness!

Are you a writer who is participating in NaNoWriMo this year?  Good luck! I invite you to take a moment to leave a note of thanks to those who you are most thankful for.

Goal Posts

Happy New Year to one and all!

The arrival of a fresh year stretching its twelve pristine months into the future invites me to make plans.

Look at that enormous expanse of unsullied time, I think. Plenty of time for me to finish the draft of my NaNo novel, split it into three pieces, and flesh out the trilogy...

and research and draft my Pet Novel Project that I'd begun before NaNo...

and edit two clients' projects...

and write books for two other clients...

and write another spec script...

and research literary agents and managers, pinpoint the right ones for my work, craft brilliant introductory query letters, and have them fight over the right to represent me...

and plan the Writing Workshops I'll be teaching...

and promote the book I helped Ryan Gingerich write, which is due for release in March...

and get the movie of "Against the Wind," the screenplay I co-wrote about the life of running legend Dick Beardsley into production...

This is how my thoughts get me into trouble. Because, suddenly, those 365 beautiful, blank days seem pitiful and small and entirely unable to support all the things I want to accomplish when they visit.

I -- like so many writers -- want to do too much. This poses the very real danger of spreading myself too thinly, of starting too many projects, and consequently failing to finish much of anything.

The name of the game is Prioritizing. Instead of asking "What do I want to do this next year?" I must address the issues of "What will I commit to completing this year?" Which is somehow scarier. In many ways, it's easier to have a million Things I Want To Do than to have two or three Things I Will Move Heaven and Earth to Accomplish.

This has led me to think seriously about how to help myself and the writers with whom I work to meet our goals for the next year. I have a plan percolating. I think it will work. I'll add it to the Things I Want To Do, and unveil it next week...

Till then: I encourage you to write down the things you will commit to this next year. Feel free to post them in the comments, if you wish, but write them down. Then let's work together to make our dreams reality.

Happy 2010!

Character Confessions

Even though November is over, I have continued to work on my NaNo novel. As the work progresses, I have discovered (to my great surprise) that I have developed a rather poorly veiled crush on the character who is my principal Bad Guy.

This is quite unlike me. And though I like him -- a lot -- it doesn't stop me from writing down the horrible, despicable things that he has to do in order to move the story forward. It does, however, make me come up with a host of interesting ways to explain his bad behavior.

I must confess, this little obsession of mine has caused me to give the guy far more "screen time" than I had intended. It made me explore his motivations, define his drives, and flesh out his history more than I would have thought necessary had he been content to simply adhere to his original purpose in the story. My liking him has made him more real to me. Which, by necessity, forced me to make him more interesting in print.

It's been a good thing. I'm wondering how to make myself crush on all my major players...

This past week, I have been privy to several writers' "character confessions."

One lamented that the character she had intended for her protagonist ended up rubbing readers the wrong way. Without exception, all thought he was an "arrogant, manipulative, ass." This works well for House, but wasn't exactly what she was going for...

Several writers I've worked with lately have admitted that they don't know enough about their characters to know what they like, don't like, want, or work for. They know their characters' pasts and have plans for their futures -- but they don't know who these people are. Yet...

One writer identifies so strongly with her (fictitious) character, that she blurs pronouns when talks about her. "She" becomes "I," and then critique becomes dicey...

One male writer in the Writer's Practicum I facilitate consistently has difficulty creating real, believable females. He has a good grasp of plot and story, and a decent ear for dialogue -- as long as everyone involved has a "Y" chromosome. As soon as he introduces a female character, he abandons craft and clings to cliche. We're working on it...

Then there was the e-mail exchange with a young writer I coach, in which we discussed the importance of inhabiting the characters we create so they are well-rounded and real to us. He recognized his own shortcomings in being able to write from a female point of view:

"...actually, I always wonder about my female characters until a female reads them, and then I'm... relieved, but also a tiny bit worried about myself -- and what Dad would say if he saw the words "Well, he was really cute" typed by my hand as I was typing them. That sort of thing..."

I told him I was going to steal his confession for a post on the subject of characters.

We can get into trouble in a hundred different ways when we people our prose. Liking our creations too much can be as bad as not liking them.

One of the worst pitfalls is not knowing them. They become thinly veiled, poorly drawn caricatures of us (or people we think we know). Another, equally dangerous, pitfall is projecting ourselves onto them. This only results in our shielding them and not allowing them to grow into fully-realized characters.

The first step, I believe, is in recognizing our shortcomings. Sometimes identifying a fault or a weakness is all it takes to overcome it.

NaNo No More!

or, Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Well, National Novel Writing Month is officially over tonight at midnight. I got my 50,000 words written -- just squeaked in under the wire today -- but the book is far from finished.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, though at times I felt that I was taking a month-long break from reality. At other times, I questioned my sanity because reality refused to take a break from me. In the month of November, the book I am under contract for (for my "real job") went to the publisher. This, of course, required the tying up of the myriad little editing loose ends that always accompany a major co-authoring project.

During the month of November, significant happenings took place with "Against the Wind," the movie about the life of Dick Beardsley that is in development...

November included an entire week of half-days of school, which significantly impacted my writing plans, since it's easier for me to be creative if a six-year old is NOT hanging over my shoulder asking to see what I'm writing...

November means that the choir I direct is adding extra practices in preparation for our annual Christmas cantata the second week of December...

It also holds Thanksgiving... And a thousand other reasons why I should be doing something other than writing.

It's the spirit of Thanksgiving that I will most associate with this year's NaNo.

I am so thankful to Robert, my wonderful husband, and my very good friend Chari, who both clamored (and continue to clamor) for more chapters. They pushed me to keep writing -- even when I got around word 30,000 or so and became convinced that my doing NaNo was an exercise in generating crap. Robert has always been my biggest fan. He has known of the story I am writing (my version of an Arthurian legend) for years. Chari, on the other hand, is completely unfamiliar with my source material. She's my "newest fan." Both of them kept me going.

Robert and Chari's enthusiasm and support reminded me how important it is for writers to say "I'm a writer," and to tell people what they are working on. Telling others of our projects not only makes our work more real, but it also makes us accountable to others and encourages us to finish what we start.

I am also thankful for the students I've worked with this past year who took the time to let me know that I was of use to them in some way. I know of at least three fellow NaNo contestants who signed up because I mentioned the contest. None of the three had ever written anything lengthy before, and all three finished!

Of course, each had to do the work him- or herself, but it makes my day to receive e-mails telling me that I had something to do with motivating a writer to take on something new. Sometimes all a writer needs is someone to think he or she is up to a particular challenge. I love being that person!

And so, as November fades away and December looms, bringing its own challenges, here's to all my writer friends -- especially those of you who jumped into NaNo with both feet this year. May you continually find yourself surrounded with those who encourage you to grow, who support your dreams, and who fill you with thankfulness!

Contest Considerations

I am engrossed in my NaNoWriMo project (7,000+ words and going strong), and had decided to blog a big less during the month of November.

But then the incomparable Jim Mercurio, screenwriting consultant to the stars (and a really nice guy who loves The Boss) posted some pithy and cogent musings on contests and their obsessive entrants, and I had to share.

If (contests) can help you enjoy this sometimes lonely and always rejection-filled process of writing screenplays by giving you something to look forward to, then figure out your, as they call it in poker, bankroll: What you are willing to risk on contests? Even losing poker players can have an appropriate bankroll: The amount of money they are willing to lose in spending X hours of their life doing something they enjoy.

If you're a contest aficianado, I strongly suggest you read the entire post on evaluating writing contests and deciding whether or not they are for you. Then continue your education and read other posts in Jim's "A-List Screenwriting" blog. (Grab a cup of coffee when you visit -- he's quite prolific. He'd probably scoff at the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words in 30 days... I, on the other hand, find it no laughing matter. Happy writing -- I've got to go see a Muse about a novel...)