Note of the Living Deb

NaNoWriMo got off to a bizarrely early start with an author panel on October 2. I already know that different authors use different strategies (except they all say that you must make time for writing if you want to write), so it's good that they had a panel of five authors. Plus a few more in the audience, not to mention the half of the audience that had already participated before.

Some of the authors even did talk about the subject of getting started on a new book.


Outlining

To outline, or not to outline; that is the question. The general consensus is that new writers generally do not outline but just jump right in. The technical term for this style is "pantser" (aka "pantster") or one who goes by the seat of one's pants.

Pros

But outlines can be handy. They can speed up the writing. And one person said she tends to re-write the first third of her book whenever she doesn't start with an outline.

Outlines can also greatly reduce the editing process afterwards. In fact, several people agreed, you can pre-write more or re-write more. And most people think pre-writing is more fun. (I might not think that. I think it's also nice to see the writing get better as you fix it up.)

And outlines can help you work with co-authors.

Cons

However, sometimes outlines can take away the magic--if you've already written the outline, then sometimes adding in the details feels like drudgery instead of fun. One author recommends minimal outlining--just list some things that need to happen and some motivations the characters have.

And sometimes outlines can lead you astray--you can't be afraid to trash it if you later decide that's not where your story should go.

My take

I always assumed you'd need an outline or something if you were publishing episodes as you finished them. If you wait to figure out who the murderer is until you're halfway through the book, then it's too late to add the clues you'd want your readers to have.

For school assignments, whenever an outline was required, I always wrote the whole paper first and then created the outline from that. I never knew ahead of time what I would be writing because it all depended on what I found out from the books available to me. I did use note cards, and I suppose I could have written an outline from the note cards rather than writing a paper from the note cards and then an outline from the paper, but at the time, outlining just seemed like a waste of time.

I guess that for the "book" I did last time, I had a bare-bones plot, a couple of characters, and a scene or two that I really wanted. All that happened, but didn't use very many pages. To me it's just as hard to think of an outline as to be a pantser--you have to think up the ideas somehow. Once that's done, it's all fun.

Also I learned that if I couldn't write because I was, say, stuck at a bus stop with no bench, that pre-thinking was a big help. I was always afraid I'd forget my best ideas, though, and would end up repeating them over and over in my head so that I wouldn't.

For this year's non-fiction book, I have made an outline. It's not a full outline, but every time I get another idea I think I might like, I find a place for it in my outline.


Pre-reading

Reading other people's writing can be good prep work for your writing.

Pros

One person likes to read poetry before each writing session. It's like running scales when you're playing an instrument. It gets her warmed up and in the right head space.

One person has several go-to books he re-reads a lot, and he has different ones he uses for different needs. For example, if the language needs to be sparse, he'll read Hemingway, preferably a hunting story. If it needs to be epic, he reads Tolstoy. If it needs to be visual, he likes Jack Finney's About Time: 12 Short Stories.

But another author prefers music for that. She'll listen to opera or something to put herself in the right emotional frame of mind.

When attempting a new genre, you can try reverse engineering. For example, one person writing her first romance wondered how many times it was appropriate to mention someone's scent. So she counted it in a book where the scent was an important plot point, and it had been mentioned 23 times. So when it's not an important plot point, you need to mention it much fewer times!

Cons

Some people feel they need to cleanse themselves of reading. When they read, that other book is hogging a lot of space in their head. That space should be full of their own book instead!

Some people get burned out reading other books in their own genre. (Tragic!)

My take

I know that when I write something while another book has really captured me, I find myself copying their style. Which is super fun (assuming I liked their style).

**

That's pretty much it for the topic at hand. They did talk about several other topics as well, though.


Writing linearly

Someone asked whether they write linearly or jump back and forth. The consensus seems to be that people write linearly unless they really get stuck. Then they might jump ahead to a scene they know has to happen, just so they can keep writing.

One person said that writing from beginning to end helps reduce inconsistencies. One said if emotional development was important, it's really hard to write out of order.

Some people write all the dialog first and then go back and write the other parts.

My take

Heh, my writing is full of inconsistencies even writing linearly. I don't know how that happens, but it does. Then I have to go root them out because I despise inconsistencies! I definitely did that thing where I wrote linearly until I got stuck and then I jumped ahead to the good parts that I had already thought up. But I ran out of those pretty quickly!


Research

You can really get lost in research and never do any writing--it can become an excuse. So how do you know how much research to do? One person summarized the answer this way: If you're winging it and you know you're cheating, do research. If you're doing research and you know you're cheating, get back to writing.

Research usually won't get you out of a fix. And there's usually no need to stop your writing when you aren't sure of something. Like if you're wondering about clothing in during your era, because you need to know if he can un-do buttons or has to do something else, just leave a marker. One person likes brackets: "He tweaked her [buttons?]." Another always uses "XXX" to help find these spots later.

The consensus was that no matter how perfect your research is, experts will say that you're wrong. So, don't try to convince experts, just worry about convincing the lay reader. This advice sounds terrible to me, but one person was writing about an autistic person, based on her autistic son, and someone who knew another autistic person (who of course was different) said she'd gotten some details wrong.


Getting unstuck

I've heard before that if you get writer's block, just write anything. "And now [character] is having breakfast. It's scrambled eggs, toast..." Or as the moderator said, "I don't know what this character should do next. She's tough, but ..."

But there were some other ideas. One person said to get some people you can brainstorm with. Many people like having a novel-writing group where people read each other's chapters and give advice. I'm feeling a little like Daryl Zero in "The Zero Effect." "Talking? To people?" I never expected that book writing (without co-authors) would be such a social undertaking. It seems wrong!

Read how-to books.

Google "the snowflake method." So I did. It's a way to outline your story. First you start with a one-sentence description. Then make a one-paragraph description. Then make a one-sentence description for each character. Add more and more details until you have a lot. The term was apparently coined by Randy Ingermanson who explains it in The Snowflake Method for Designing a Novel.


Motivation

Do a creative writing exercise. Ask yourself, what is the goal, motivation, and conflict--for you as the writer? Why does this matter? If you don't write, what won't you get?

For the conflict, troubleshoot. Figure out in advance what's likely to come up and get in the way. For example, during NaNoWriMo, Thanksgiving! Or you don't feel like it.

Many people recommended finding good spaces to write in, with few distractions. Write-in's at coffee shops are a common NaNoWriMo event. (People just come and sit (mostly) quietly typing away.) One guy moves into a hotel when he needs to do a lot of writing fast. One with no distractions, "not one of the nice ones with gyms."

Or withhold things that you like until you've done enough.

One person heard that Susan Brockman said that when you have a good writing session, pick something physical to do (like rubbing your knuckles) to train your body that doing that thing means you're ready to work.


The NaNoWriMo strategy

"Magic happens when you concentrate your writing." One guy wrote a novella in a weekend. Several of the authors felt that this was a good idea even for them, though one is not participating because with kids, etc., she can write only three times a week, and another is just "going to party, not trying to win."

Who knew that real authors would like this? Weird.


How long it takes to write a book

The survey of these authors on their first book yielded these results:
* two years, 17 drafts
* one year, 3-4 major drafts (first published book); five years (first book)
* eighteen years, 20 drafts (first book), 60 days (second book)
* five months (writing 20 pages each, 3 days per week)
* four months (first book, nonfiction), five months (first fiction)


Co-writing

Many of these people were co-authors and apparently a very common way to do that is to pass the story back and forth. You can be kind of mean to each other, too, such as by leaving your co-author with a situation you know they will have trouble with (but think they could use the practice with).

Two people said an outline was important for co-writing; one said only when working with new co-writers.


On re-write requests from publishers

One gal says that whenever she gets a re-write request, she gets bratty for a while. Then she deconstructs their request and re-writes the request herself. She finds that publishers are good at noticing real problems, but their solutions are often terrible.

Other authors said that the good publishers just point out the problems and don't try to tell you how to fix them.

The latest BBC "Sherlock Holmes" series was the last straw: I've gone to the library and checked out The Complete Sherlock Holmes. I was worried that although the plots might be interesting, the writing would be boring. In fact, I read Hound of the Baskervilles as a kid and was unimpressed.

Fortunately, the writing is great. Here's an excerpt I read just this morning on the bus:

An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow lodger to distraction. Not that I am in the least conventional in that respect myself. The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medical man. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jackknife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs.

I don't suppose I actually want to start transfixing my unanswered correspondence to something with a jackknife (it doesn't seem very practical), but that's quite an image. And this is just part of the explanation about how Watson came to learn about the case we are to read about, a task you might think a writer would be tempted to skimp on.

Reading this book is also showing me that one of my favorite movies, “The Zero Effect,” is practically another interpretation of Sherlock Holmes. Daryl Zero is what Sherlock Holmes might have been if he had just a few more negatives to go with his positives.

**

In other news, I no longer know how to link to pictures in Picasa for this journal. They've changed things, the scum, as if they're Flicker or something. I don't use Picasa as a public photo gallery, I want it so I can have an illustrated blog. I suppose I'll figure something out and you'll eventually get to learn a little about my trip to Amsterdam. Meanwhile, technical difficulties await me.

Okay, folks, there's now officially been enough bad news around these parts:

* Grandma: stroke (not too bad, it looks like so far)
* friend: human tumbleweed syndrome, with not enough pads
* friend of friend: dead pet

That's three! That's enough! If you wanted a turn, I'm sorry, but you've missed your chance.

**

I have solved a blogging dilemma. On the one hand, blogging is taking too much time. On the other hand, I like it. I could reduce blogging to six days a week. But a lot of times the days I don't want to blog turn out to be days I'm glad I've blogged afterwards.

So, I have decided to try to spend only a half-hour a day on blogging. In fact, I started trying out this decision last Tuesday. The first two days, "trying" consisted of observing that I was spending much much more than a half hour. But after that I was able to get pretty close to a half hour.

One strategy has been to write about fewer subjects. If I have a lot of subjects, I can save some for a later date. Well, okay, that's my only strategy. Another possible strategy is that if I have a long topic I can break it up into multiple parts. I may also allow myself some exceptions. But now I'm able to get more other things done (mostly going to bed at a reasonable hour, hoping to heal my nagging ankle), and that's really nice.

I'm sure some of you will be pleased that monster entries are going to be much more rare in the future. And for the rest of you--sorry. You'll still be getting some kind of fix from me each day, though.

So I ended up on the writing committee to come up with a values statement for my office. The office is updating their mission statement, values statement, and vision statement and working on a motto.

The writing committee was made up of two people who volunteered plus another guy. Things went better than I expected, and comments were solicited from the staff about our statement and what we had so far for the others.

I saw my first set of other people's comments about my work today. No one seemed to have a problem with any of the content. But they all had problems, major problems, with the writing. Basically, they thought everything was too wordy, and we shouldn't have separate statements but should just put everything into one paragraph. In the mission statement, we tried to list all of the things we do. But a critique was that we shouldn't even try this; it just sounds disjointed.

The critique that hit me the hardest though was the one where one about how we listed each value and then its definition, like people don't know what things mean. This hit me hard because we listed the value with why it was an important value for our office, not a definition. For example, communication is important so that we can share knowledge, learn exactly what people want, etc. (The wording was better, but I don't remember it.) And every time one of the other people tried to add something that was in any way like a definition of the word (such as, for communication, adding the word "clearly"), I wouldn't let them. Which means all of my troubles were for nothing, since people still insisted on seeing definitions anyway.

I expected people to have problems with it. I expected different people to have different problems which would be impossible to solve simultaneously. But I didn't expect people to say we should get rid of something that wasn't even there. And I didn't expect them to be pissed off that we followed instructions (separate statements).

I immediately decided that I'm never writing for a group again. I'm only writing for one person. Then when that person (and I) are satisfied, it's done. This whole trying to make people happy thing? Screw that.

Then I realized that all writing is for a group of people. Or at least all editing is. Let's say I'm working with a professor to write some class material, if we agree that it's good, but then discover that students don't understand parts of it, then it's not done.

So I decided I'm never writing at all, for anyone. Too hard. Impossible, really.

(I suppose you think I'm writing right this minute, don't you? Smart aleck.)

(Sometimes when I don't do what I decide to do, that's a good thing. I don't know if this is one of those times, but probably it is.)

Then I saw one of my coworkers (who just today was volunteered to be on the writing committee for the vision statement) on the bus and talked to her. She said that armchair editors can do a lot of talking, but if they'd really cared that much, they should have volunteered to actually help. And she let me see that what we'd written could be interpreted as definitions, but then she said that they were definitions specific to our office, and she thought they were appropriate and helpful.

And Robin also said you can't take these things too seriously. And I realized that just because one person wants a particular thing changed doesn't necessarily mean everyone does. Plus, people are only saying what they don't like.

In conclusion, I feel a little better about writing than when I first read those comments.

If I am writing something, but I am not the expert, and then I give it to the expert to edit, here's what I don't want to happen:

* never clarify anything
* never add information
* ignore every single one of my questions
* ask me questions, which I clearly don't know the answer to or I would have included that information
* point out the same formatting problem every time it occurs, even though you know I am using CSS, you are more of an expert at CSS than I am, you have read my CSS code, and you therefore definitely know that I only have to fix this in one place.
* delete things in such a way that what is left no longer flows or perhaps even stops making any sense
* keep telling me to add links that are already there but which you can't see because you are looking at the printout even though the online version is available for you to look at

When this happens, I no longer feel like I am on a team, where more than one person is contributing. Instead I feel a little bit too much like I am in front of a firing squad. Or, at least, that the thing I am trying to write is in front of the firing squad.

And then I start to think that if this expert doesn't care how crappy this thing turns out, why should I care? I start thinking that probably no one is going to read this anyway, so why am I beating myself up about it?

And then I recalculate how long it is until I get to retire. Eight years, nine months, and three weeks. Too long.

And then I look at the current job openings. No good. No jobs from the Distance Learning Center or DIIA, or anything else I could get and stand to do that didn't lead to a 30% pay cut.

And then I write a journal entry. And then I calculate how long it is until lunchtime. And I really, really wish I could finish the book I'm reading instead of work on this writing. But then finally I go back to rewriting.

I've been looking at JavaScript for Dummies again, and now I realize why I stopped in the middle of chapter four last time. It's because the author explains things in the wrong order. She spends a great deal of time explaining how it's okay if you don't understand everything yet and how she's about to explain some more in a later chapter.

This is particularly offensive because JavaScript is not a compiled language which means that you have to write the code in the order in which you want the computer to use it. In other words, the author is an expert at putting things in order so that everything makes sense knowing only what has gone before. She'll do it for a computer, but she won't do it for her readers.

Also, she makes you claw your way through a summary of everything (six chapters) before she lets you try anything. That's no fun.

What is fun (warning: my teachers in high school said I was bad at transitioning) is sliding down stairs. At least my sister said that her new kids enjoyed sliding down the carpeted stairs at their new house. On their bellies, I think she said. You can do that? I don't quite understand, but I definitely want to try this next time I am over there.

I wonder if it will by like the "dune surfing" at Monahans Sandhills State Park in west Texas. You get this little saucer-shaped sled and slide down the sand dunes (this is currently pictured on the above link, on the third picture from the top). Except that it doesn't work for grown-ups. Or at least I couldn't get it to work. Not even with a running jump. (Yes, that hurt.)

Will I just be lying on the stairs making grunting noises? I'll let you know.

Today I submitted a tiny piece of nonfiction to The Dollar Stretcher, which has published a couple of other things I've submitted before. That was fun.

Journal entry of the day: The Most Awesome XMas Lights Display Ever! - llcoolvad introduces a totally awesome light show set to music. You may have already seen this in an e-mail, like I did, but I also learned more about it by following the links.