Is NaNoWriMo Right for Me?

by Katy White

This month, I'm working on NaNoWriMo and am a few hundred words short of crossing the 50,000 word mark. It's an exciting feeling, yet the thought of editing this particular first draft is giving me a bit of anxiety I don't normally have. This draft isn't as polished as my others have been. I didn't prepare well enough for NaNo (I switched projects only a few days before November), and I can feel that all over the place.

When I'm working on a WIP, I typically plan a little with the use of a beat sheet. I do a fair amount of research, which I organize in Scrivener (the best writing tool EVER--I'm not an overly detailed or ultra-organized person in regular life, but I am as a writer). Then, I write. I add more research as I need to, and every day, I start my writing time by reading and gently revising what I did the day before. The result is a fairly clean first draft (though it still needs editing and round upon round of critiques from my incredible critique partners).

With NaNo, though, I don't have the luxury of time to go back and revise what I did the day before. I rarely even read much of what was written the day before. I just start writing. When I reach a point that requires more research or very careful wording, I just write something like, "XXX--comic book joke," then come back to it later. That means that revisions are a bear. At least this time.

So...why do it this way? I'm wondering this a lot this month. I tell myself that it's a good exercise to learn to write using different methods. But is it really? I felt great about last year's NaNo novel and about the Camp NaNo novel I did this year, but both of them were very, very well planned in advance (much to my surprise). So even if I hadn't had a time constraint, I still would have drafted them quickly. Hmm.

What do you all think? Do you have any experience with something like this, when the WIP just feels clunky or a method stops working for you? Is it the idea? The lack of planning? Or is maybe NaNo not the right style for me right now? I'd love your input and advice for this stage in writing life.

Why Cruises Are Just Like Writing

by Katy White

I just got back from my first ever cruise, and it was wonderful. I'm a fairly experienced traveler, and as a result, it was a little slow for my taste. But I fully recognize and embrace the fact that that's the point of a cruise, and I just watched the waves from my balcony with a foreign, lovely sort of calm.

I read a lot (no laptop, so no writing, sadly). I spent a lot of time with my husband and looked at a lot of pictures of our daughter. I swam and sat on lounge chairs and reapplied sunscreen every 90 minutes. The stops were fantastic, the food was decadent, and the nightly shows were amusing (especially the cheesy ones). Overall, it was a fantastic trip, and I'm grateful for the experience.

After all of that, let me tell you the ways in which a cruise is just like writing:

-There's room for plotters and pantsers. Love a detailed guide to maximizing your vacation and karaoke skills? You've got it! Don't feel like rearranging your life to fit in the four types of trivia happening in the Explorer's Lounge today? Don't worry about it! That's what the lounge chairs are for. Either way, you can look back at the end of a day and feel it was spent exactly the way it should have been.

-There's a lot of sitting around. You know how sometimes you just stare at your computer and wait for inspiration to hit or for the words to flow or for that stupid fly to just leave you alone, already? Cruises are kind of EXACTLY like that. There can be a bodacious amount of downtime between events. But when the urge hits...

-There's a boatload of stuff to do (pun intended). As soon as night rolled around, it was like all the day's fun was to be crammed into the post-dinner-pre-uber-late-bedtime-time. Broadway-style shows, karaoke, dancing, the milkshake place, movies under the stars, another milkshake...I almost couldn't fit it all in for how quickly the fun was coming at me! Just like writing.

-The best laid plans...  No matter how perfectly you prepare for your stop to Puerto Rico (or the first kiss between your main characters), some crazy rainstorm is going to shower down a change of plans on you that you didn't see coming. You have to be able to roll with it, or you'll be one miserable cruiser (or writer).

-The most important thing you can do is just experience it. Just as first drafts are perfect if they simply exist, your cruise is perfect if you simply show up! No one should have crazy expectations of what they want to see and do on a cruise, because cruises aren't meant for the hardcore explorers, just as first drafts aren't meant for your inner editor. Cruises are meant to give you a vacation. First drafts are meant to give you a place to start the actual book. You shouldn't overthink either of them.

What do you think? Any other cruise-writing correlations? Or did I totally do my cruise wrong?! ;)

Step #8

-a post by Jeanna Mason Stay

Remember here, where I gave you eight steps to NaNoWriMo success? Well, November is over, and now it’s time to start talking a bit more about step #8. There is good news, and there is bad news here. Let’s start with the good news.

The good news is that even if you didn’t do any of the other seven steps, even if you didn’t hit 50,000 words in November—even if you didn’t try at all—you can still do step #8, the most important step of all.

The bad news: It’s harder than the rest of them combined.

Yes, the dreaded step #8 is to polish the novel (or short story or picture book or quilt or whatever).

If you only follow through on the first seven steps, you will turn out a lot of words and you will probably learn about your story quite a bit and tap some creative wells you didn’t know about. This is all awesomeness on your way to epic awesomeness. But, sadly, it isn’t enough. Because what you have is most likely so raw and full of holes no one will ever want to read it (including, maybe, you). (Okay, yes, I know that there are people who write fantastic first drafts, but those people are not me. And I’m sorry to say that they’re probably not you either.)

So the next step is, like Betsy Schow is always saying, to be a finisher. You’ve been a finisher at NaNoWriMo (or maybe not, but that’s irrelevant), but now you need to be a bigger finisher. You need to take what you’ve done, pick it apart, and stick it back together again in a way that makes sense. And then you need to make it pretty.

I’m saying all of this entirely hypocritically, by the way. I have four fairly large (50K or over) novel manuscripts sitting on my virtual shelves, one 30K manuscript, and scads of bits and pieces too. But I’ve only carried one of them to “completion.” (I sigh when I say “completion,” because every time I think it’s done, I get some feedback from a friend or reviewer and decide to fix it a little more. So even though I’m submitting it to agents, and it really is polished, it’s never quite polished enough, you know? Sigh.) So essentially I haven’t been much of a finisher.

That is because this step takes more work and thought and problem solving than any of the others, but I also think it’s the one that sets apart the serious writers. Sure, it’s not exactly “easy” to do NaNoWriMo, but how many people actually do something with their manuscripts afterward? I would bet that most manuscripts just languish for years (like mine).

Be one of the few! Make a plan and a goal. You have the entire rest of the year to be a NoFier (Novel Finisher . . . hmmm, somehow I don’t think this abbreviation is ever going to catch on). I actually ran some imaginary numbers on this at one point and determined that if I devoted even half as much time to writing during the rest of the months of the year that I spent in November, I could easily finish a novel a year. Draft in November, polish/reviews/revisions in December through September, outline a new one in October. Chop chop, that’s that. Tragically, this plan has yet to happen.

But 2014 is my year, people. One more of those manuscripts sitting on my shelf is going to get pretty.

How about yours?

P.S. I really wish I had come up with a cool picture or gif or something to go with this post. But honestly, given my brain power right now, you should probably just be impressed that I used bold and italics. That’s some seriously high-tech stuff there.

P.P.S. If you live in or near Logan, Utah, I hope you are planning on going to LDStorymakers this year. And if you don’t live close, consider spending huge amounts of money to go. We’re talking about Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson here, people (both of whose classes are going to fill up ridiculously quickly). And many other good things. It is going to be full of epicness. Make sure you register early to get into nifty classes and whatnot (registration opens on the 16th), but not any earlier than I do. :)

"Can I Read It?"

by Katy White

This year, I've finished two different first drafts, and I'm honestly thrilled about both of them.  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure when I start the second drafts, I'll realize they're absolute rubbish.  But writing them was energizing, and I didn't have any prolonged moments of, "Oh crap, where do I go now?"  I feel like that's a success in its own right. And, to revisit one of my favorite quotes:

“Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist. It's perfect in its existence. The only way it could be imperfect would be to NOT exist.” 


―Jane Smiley

As much as it scared me to admit to my friends and family my dream of becoming a writer, I decided to do it.  I posted on Facebook that I was participating in NaNoWriMo, and explained what it was.  I was relieved to see so much support from my peeps, and some of them even became great cheerleaders for me.  So when I posted that I had won NaNo and finished my novel, I felt on top of the world!

Then comments like these started appearing:

Katy White!!!!!!! You are my hero!! Love ya girl!! Can I read it pretty please???
That's amazing!! You are awesome! Can I read it too? I need some good reading 
So awesome! I knew you could do it.  Can't wait to read it!
Seriously, I need to read it now.

Sigh.

I've asked several writing friends about their experiences having friends and family read their work, and it's been pretty unanimously crummy.  Like mine.  What's up with that?  My first novel is the novel of my heart, and when my siblings and Dad and best friends asked to read it, I just assumed that, of course they'd actually read it!  And they'd love it!  And if they didn't love it, they'd still give me really, really good feedback that would help me make it so darn amazing, that it would sell a humble hundred thousand copies.  (Okay, so maybe me expectations weren't realistic.  I see that now.)

What I wasn't prepared for is people not reading it.  Of my four absolute best friends in the world, each a bibliophile whose favorite genre was my novel's genre, only one of them read it.  She reads two books a week, yet it took her four months.   Slap to the face.  And the slaps kept coming.

That isn't to say that no one read it, and it isn't to say that no one loved it or gave me incredible, much needed feedback.  Because that stuff happened, too.  But the negative experiences overwhelmed the positive ones to the point that I vowed to never again send a book until I was good and jaded enough not to let this hurt me.  Or, at least not to send it out so naively.

Fast forward to my current predicament of having super kind, well-intentioned friends who don't actually know they don't want to read my book.  They'll say that it's because it's so hard to read a book online, they'll ask if I can send them a hard copy, and they'll explain all about their computer problems.  Some of it will be legitimate, too.  But all of it will be disheartening.

Now I face the task of explaining to these well-intentioned friends that I have multiple drafts to do still that will take several months.  I need to explain to those whose interest still exists after all that that they can only read it if they promise that they're willing to give me real, hard feedback by a certain deadline, even if it's only to say, "I hate the title."  And through this, I hope I'll help some of the nice ones realize that the kindest thing to do is to not commit to something they can't or won't actually follow-through on.

Gina's recent post gave great suggestions and a helpful resource for finding critique partners.  But in general, how do you respond to "Can I read it?"

4 Ways to Write Faster Than Ever

Whether or not you do NaNoWriMo (and by this point in November you've already decided if you're going to finish or not), if you want to make a career out of writing, you will absolutely need to know how to draft quickly.

As a writer, unless you are one of the rare handful of uber-successful multi-millionaire writers, you will constantly be working on someone else's schedule. Many of us spend years writing our first book, churning out the first draft slowly over many, many months. But if and when you sign a contract, you don't have the luxury of moving that slowly for the second book. Agents and editors will want to see early drafts very quickly, often as quick as sixty or ninety days. And that has to be a draft that you're comfortable presenting to them. Not your first draft.

Experienced, multi-published authors get in the habit of getting the story down, drafting entire novels in a month or less (Robison Wells famously drafts each of his novels in two weeks or less - VARIANT was drafted in eleven days!)

If you're someone (like me) who spent much longer than that on their first draft, you might ask "HOW DO THEY DO IT?!?!?"

I have the answers for you. Buckle up. This is going to go quickly. (Not really)

- Plan before you write. 
Put together an outline, or a plot, or a rambling summary. Make character biographies, create a list of names that fit in your world that you can draw on quickly, have an idea of terrible things that could happen to your character. You might not use it all, but having a mad-libs sort of list to fall back on is a lot better than spending an hour "researching" all the ways teenaged girls can hurt each others feelings.

And by "research" - I mean watching 90s teen movies. Obviously.

- Utilize the placeholder. 
When I get to a place where I can't think of the word, or I realize I haven't built that piece of the world yet, I put "XXX" in the manuscript and move on. At last count, my NaNoWriMo project has about 41K words, and 31 instances of XXX. The XXX stands in place of towns, directions, people's names, list of ingredients, description of weapons, symptoms of an illness, anything that I need to do more research on or need to think about.

The XXX allows me to keep writing. I know where the scene or the conversation needs to go, and I don't want to get bogged down by details and research right now. I'll come back to it. When I'm done drafting (or if I have a few minutes to spare and need a mental break), I'll use the search function and find all the XXXs and replace them, one at a time.

- "Insert this kind of scene here"
When I know I need to have a transition scene, or a scene where someone reveals some information, but I can't get the words to flow, I type, in big capital letters, "INSERT A SCENE WHERE SHE CONFESSES HER LOVE BUT HE REJECTS HER". Then I move on to the scene I am mentally/emotionally prepared to write. It's not always that specific. Sometimes it's "INSERT TRAVEL SCENES HERE" or "INSERT SOMETHING AWFUL HERE".

Then I use that handy-dandy search function to search for the word INSERT and take care of each scene, one at a time.

- Make changes inline. 
Sometimes I'll realize I need to foreshadow something, or that I've written a bunch of scenes out of order. In line with the text, I'll type in "XXX move this scene up - before she eats breakfast" or "XXX add stuff about his hair before this". This way, I don't waste valuable drafting time scrolling up, searching for just the right paragraph, and finding ways to do these little things.

So that's it. Those are my tips.

What are you fast-drafting tips?

First Drafts

by Katy White

As I've mentioned before, turning off my internal editor for a first draft is a challenge.  My first drafts tend to take months (okay, sometimes years) longer than they should, not because I don't know exactly where the novel is going, but because I belabor every word and paragraph along the way.  I'm a perfectionist.  It's obnoxious.  And while it's getting better, the fact is that it's not easy for me to get past.  

But, as Jeanna and Gina have mentioned, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us, and I plan to do it this year, darn it!*  So to psych myself up (or is it pump myself up?  Shut up, Internal Editor!), I've been looking up advice and words of wisdom from authors about first drafts.  Because I love quotes and used them frequently in the business world to motivate-slash-inspire-slash-make-me-look-smart, I thought I'd share with you some quotes I came across in the chance that they'll motivate-slash-inspire you and your writing journey.  

“Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist. It's perfect in its existence. The only way it could be imperfect would be to NOT exist.” 


―Jane Smiley

“I wrote a book. It sucked. I wrote nine more books. They sucked, too. Meanwhile, I read every single thing I could find on publishing and writing, went to conferences, joined professional organizations, hooked up with fellow writers in critique groups, and didn’t give up. Then I wrote one more book.” 


―Beth Revis 

Writing the last page of the first draft is the most enjoyable moment in writing. It’s one of the most enjoyable moments in life, period.

—Nicholas Sparks

I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them—without a thought about publication—and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.

—Anne Tyler

I generally write a first draft that’s pretty lean. Just get the story down.

—Nora Roberts

I don’t fiddle or edit or change while I’m going through the first draft.

—Nora Roberts

I have never written anything in one draft, not even a grocery list, although I have heard from friends that this is actually possible.

—Connie Willis

I’m constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again.

—Chaim Potok

Let me back up a little and tell you why I prefer writing to real life: You can rewrite.  A novel, for example, can be cleaned up, altered, trimmed, improved. Life, on the other hand, is one big messy rough draft.

—Harlan Coben

I love all of these great quotes!  Just what I need to get me in the writing mood.  But, I would be remiss if I left out my new favorite quote about first drafts from the great Ernest Hemingway (edited for salty language):  

“The first draft of anything is (crap).”

May we all be blessed with a first draft that we love, however, um, messy.  

Happy writing, friends!

*My NaNo profile is http://nanowrimo.org/participants/katy-white - feel free to buddy me!

First Drafts and Baby Feeding: An Unexpected Correlation

by Katy White

Due to a slight obsession with cleanliness (not necessarily order), I have a one-year old who gets her face and hands wiped between far too many bites.  I know, I know.  All you seasoned moms are probably laughing at me or rolling your eyes.  And I get it.  But I justify my actions because, well, I hate having to do huge cleanup when I can do a bunch of little cleanups along the way (this is the same reason I use daily shower spray).  I also justify my constant child-cleaning by referring you all to my child's enormous amount of hair.

Baby Girl at seven months  

Seriously, children shouldn't have this much hair until they can realize that avocado-hands should not be run through such luxurious locks.  But I digress.

Sort of.

I love editing.  I love grammar.  I love seeing the flow of sentences and paragraphs shape themselves into a cohesive whole.  I love thinking of the perfect word, the most poignant phrasing to convey a thought, to evoke a response. I love this all so much, I tend to allow my inner editor to run rampant on a first draft before there even is a first draft.  You seasoned drafters are probably laughing at me or rolling your eyes.  And I get it.  But I justify my actions because, well, I like doing it so darn much.  I also justify myself by saying that this tendency served me quite well in high school and college.

The only problem is, I feel like my first draft, like Baby Girl, is getting the short end of the stick.  Poor Baby Girl is missing out on the opportunity to experience meal times like a, well, baby.  She's missing out on figuring out how to use a spoon herself, on figuring out what it feels like when you accidentally miss your mouth and smear your food on your cheek.  Or nose.  And I'm missing out on being surprised by how quickly she learns and seeing how much she enjoys the feel of food squelching through her chubby little fingers.  Who wants to miss out on that?

Similarly, my first draft is missing out on the opportunity to be a first draft.  It's missing out on figuring out what it wants to be when it grows up because I'm trying to force perfection out of characters and scenes and pages that would (and should) otherwise get the axe.  And I'm missing out.  I'm missing out on the experience of just letting thoughts fall out of my head to land on the page where they may.  Heck, I'm missing out on getting to my second draft because I'm spending so much time on the daggum first draft that I can hardly see the story for the page.

But not anymore.  I'm committing right now to letting my baby be a baby, darn it, and to letting my first draft be a work of utter, total rubbish.  My baby deserves to grow up knowing how much fun it can be to make a mess.  And my first draft deserves to have fun being a mess so it can finally (hopefully) grow up.

Starting...now.

What about you?  Have you evolved as a mom?  As a writer?  Any surprising correlations?

Right Brain, Left Brain

I feel like this post is a bit Dr Seuss--One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.

Once I had a bestselling author explain to me that he can't write and promote books at the same time. For him, writing required the creative side of his brain where promoting (marketing) required the more analytical, businesslike side. I'm not a bestselling author by any stretch of the imagination, but I totally understand what he means.

For me, it's writing and editing.

Drafting that first pass of any manuscript requires you to let loose your creative side, to plot, dream, challenge, and grow that part of your brain.

Editing, however, requires a more detached, analytical view of your work. You can't afford to LOVE it while you're trying to FIX it. Some things have to change; others need to be ditched completely.

This month I have divided my time up between writing and editing. Between working on edits for one book as I get them back from my editor, I'm working on the first draft of another book. And it's HARD. I find myself trying to draft while having a serious plot block (like a writer's block, but with the plot--not knowing what comes next), or going back through what I've already written to answer a question--like what is the character wearing--and wanting to edit it as I go. It takes an extreme sense of control to not give in to the impulse. Yes, I'm still working on it.

Yesterday I had an awesome breakthrough about my plot problem and I'm so excited to charge right through the current block.

Who's willing to bet that tomorrow I get another round of edits back for the other book? :)

Crossing the Finish Line

I have a confession.

I've been writing since third grade.  I've dabbled with poetry, short stories and novel length fiction.  I even have the beginnings of a non-fiction book that I like to pull out and dust off from time to time.  The last I counted, I had eighteen different manuscripts at various stages of production, ranging from the work I wrote while I was in high school all the way till the present.

Eighteen.  And that's just the ones I can find and count.  I'm pretty sure there's others buried in boxes or zip drives and forgotten....

My confession?  I've never finished one of them.  I have never completed a first draft. 

Last November I persevered through NaNo, bringing one of my WIP's to the 50,000 mark.  And that was the first time I've written past 40k.  I was naturally excited, but once again, did not finish.

I don't know why I do it.  It's not standard behavior for me to begin a project and toss it aside half done.

With some of the books I lost interest.  Some of the books I got stuck.  Some of the books I got busy, and then lost the flow of creativity and desire, and the ambition to jump back in.

Until now.  On Friday, January 6, 2012, I sat down with the computer after the tucking the kids into bed, and wrote out a chapter of a story that had been floating around in my head for a couple of days.  I took it to critique group the next day, got some great feedback and advice, and dove in feet first without looking back.  Sometimes it took a lot of willpower, but I held myself to a steady goal of adding to my word count every night. (It helped that my husband had three night classes and was never home in the evening).  Some weeks the words just flowed.  Some weeks I stagnated in self-doubt and uncertainty.  (When you're climbing a high building, it's good advice to not look down.  When' you're writing a first draft, it's a good idea to not look back.)

This past Saturday, I passed the 85,000 mark.  And I can't be totally certain, but I think I'm on the last chapter.

I can hardly contain my excitement.  This is what it feels like?  It reminds me somewhat of labor.  You get to the other side and think, well gee - that wasn't so bad!

The race is not over yet.  Now the real work begins.

Here's to crossing the finish line.

K is for Kids

We’ve all heard it said, and perhaps we’ve all felt it. As authors, the books we write become like our very own children. We love and nurture and dream about them, from the first moment we feel the life spark within us, till the moment we kiss them and kick them out the door, full of fear and hope for the good we hope they do in the world.

I’m at that stage in my current WIP, that near-the-end-of-first-draft stage, which could be alluded to the ninth month of pregnancy. That stage where you’re sick of being overly huge and incapable of doing anything else and all you want to do is scream “Get this thing out of me!”, and yet you also yearn for the not-too-distant moment when you get to hold that first draft in your hands, feel the real, flesh and blood reality of this beautiful thing you’ve created, and imagine the possibilities that the future and some good parenting hold.

I love my babies. I love that newborn smell, the softness, closeness of the experience. And I hate being nine months pregnant.

My baby.

I’m finding a parallel between that and first drafts. I’m so anxious to finish. I want to be done. I want to move on to revisions and editing. But, like every stage of childhood, each stage of writing has its pros and cons.

Because once this WIP becomes a newborn, and not just an idea floating inside my mind begging to be born, the work and effort and sacrifice does not diminish, it just changes.

There will be poopy diapers (all those dreadful parts that must be cut, because let’s face it, they are poopy diapers).

There will be sleepless nights for feedings (because every stage of creating comes with sleeplessness at some point).

There will be that terrifying moment when you pass that newborn off for someone else to hold, not knowing if their touch (or critique) will be gentle; if their approval will be constructive.

But that newborn manuscript, with love and care and time, will grow and develop and mature.

Like our kids. The ones we write for. The ones we write about. The ones we love, and nag, and sometimes, for just a moment, can’t stand. But ultimately, wouldn't want to live without.

Just like our books.

Know what else? It takes a community to raise a kid. I truly believe it takes a community to write a book. From author, to illustrator, to agent, to editor, to cheerleader, to beta reader, to publisher, to bookstore customer, we cannot do this alone. So reach out – be a friend and find a friend.

And don’t forget to love your books – and your kids. They grow up and leave home all too soon.