Only got to about 20K words this year, at which point I ran off into some character development and sketching of story locations which I felt were more important than trying to fudge those things.

Writing is never the hard part for me — I finished my first time last year pretty easily. The hard part is getting what I want out of that writing, and fulfilling my intentions.

To me, in any creative act I pursue, intention is the most important thing. “What is it I am trying to do?” I always ask myself. Along with other questions like, “What am I getting out of this?”

The 2006 NaNo is hardly a loss for what it allowed me to discover; I needed more characters, and not just placeholders. I needed real, well thought out characters that can achieve their potential in the story. I also need maps of my locations, because I’m working in a sci-fi universe, and without those details established, at least for me as the writer, then I don’t really know what I’m doing.

For example, if a battle takes place on the outskirts of one of my sci-fi towns, how far are the people from their homes or ‘living quarters’ as they fight? What are the distances? What is in between them and their homes? Are there any community or business sites nearby? What are the logistics? For me this brings a whole new meaning to the adage “Write what you know.” It turned out I knew a lot less than I thought I did, enough to cripple the drafting process for me.

How has NaNo played out for you? Whether you finished or not, what have you learned?

I also got a root canal last week, and dealt with a little jaw tenderness. I took the Vicodin prescribed for only a day… it fogged me out and gave me what I’m dubbing a ‘Vicodin hangover’ — I had the hardest time waking up the next morning and when I did it was with an aching brain with only one solution; More Vicodin. Rather than going down that route, I elected to just take it easy for a couple days.

This weekend I breezed through 361 by Donald Westlake. Yay for discovering old authors you’ve never read, who have a large body of work to explore. I’ll probably review 361 here if only for the fact it represents what I think is the ideal in writing: To the point, sharp, action-packed, and funny.

I also saw Casino Royale which was very compelling for a Bond film, minus a few contrived scenes added for your typical 007 cheese. I agree for the most part with the review over on This Writing Life, especially in why Jason Bourne has become a more identifiable hero for our times than the showing-his-age Bond character. That said, Daniel Craig makes a solid Bond. Better than the previous shall-remain-unnamed pretty boy.

But back to this whole storytelling fiasco. As we blaze, or fail at blazing through NaNo, let’s not forget we do it because we enjoy this grand thing called storytelling. Without that enjoyment, 30 days of beating yourself doesn’t mean anything.

And next time, I promise to be better prepared!

The true point of NaNoWriMo shows its ugly face; Just write. Ugly or not, painful or not, fun or not. Write. All the subtleties and variety of storycraft gets reduced to that simple mechanical action. Throw words at the wall and hope they stick. And even if they don’t, throw them at the wall anyway.

Just write already.

• Writing deliberately. Saying what I want to actually say, instead of writing in a pure ‘free’ mode stream of consciousness like I did last year.
• Working on a scene-by-scene basis. Keeping my story blocks organized into discrete managable chunks, as opposed to treating my draft as one big long train track.
• Checking for naturalness of dialogue as I write. This is a bit like editing on the fly, which everyone advises you not to do. However, when typing out a line of dialogue from a character, taking a few seconds to say it out loud and see if it feels and sounds right can make a world of difference. This slows me down, but the writing is better.
• As much as I plot and plan, it can never be enough. My story is doubly organized over last year’s, and I can both see and feel the benefit of that planning as I write. Yet I am still finding myself completely unprepared in some ways. Last night I wrote a scene featuring a minor character, but one who happens to get a lot of face time early in the story. Because it is a minor character, I hadn’t developed him out much. I probably should have. I ended up having to create a personality on the fly. Turned out OK, but made my scene-writing more challenging than it needed to be. *Note to self.

These are just some of the things I have learned that have helped me improve over last year. What has helped you in the last year? What new things have you learned that have made a difference in your writing?

1. That people who write for NaNoWriMo are only dabblers, none of whom actually write anything outside of November.
2. That NaNo is offensive to real writers because NaNo is only about pretending to write, rather than actually writing.

First, at this point in my journey as a writer, I have no problem accepting the label of amateur. I have some professional aspirations for my writings at some point, but I’m happy as a clam working as a game developer creating interactive experiences. I’m not in desperate need of a ‘creative profession’ because I already have one. Writing is just extra credit. So nyah. And I write outside of November, even as an amateur. I’m sure lots of other amateurs do as well, including many of the ones that flock to NaNo every year.

Second, I’m not sure how NaNo could be misperceived all about ‘pretending to be a writer’ — You have to write 50K words in 30 days, or you don’t pass the test. There is no stigma attached if you don’t make it, but the dirty work is still required. I’m not sure how any possible measurement of 50K words could be perceived as ‘faking.’ If you wrote it, you wrote it. Writing makes you a writer. A published author is another story… and it has to be pointed out that ‘professionals’ can have just as hard a time as amateurs in getting published. The same is true in the game industry, film industry, or any other entertainment industry. Just because you made something once doesn’t mean you get a free pass for life. Get in line with all the other pros, amateurs, whackjobs, or whoever else happens to be standing in line.

Third, the anecdotal story told is a false analogy. Heart surgery is not analogous to writing a novel, neither as a profession, nor as a basic activity founded upon formal method. One of them involves operating on a human life that might be snuffed out if you do it ‘wrong,’ the other involves inventing clever fiction, for which there is no consequence if you fail. There is no ‘right way’ to write a novel. There is a right way to perform heart surgery, if you want the person to live. The two are not even remotely comparable. It was an amusing tale though. Like something you’d hear repeated ad nauseum at the Annual Bitter Writers Club, where you can don your pipe and smoking jacket, pat each other on the back, and commiserate misery while drinking too much and simultaneously puking on the rug. Sign me up! I can just picture it. The smoky VIP room for ‘Real Writers’ — grizzled, drunken, miserable aging men moaning about publishers and life. “Haw haw, so get this Larry… the guy says to me, ‘I’m a novelist!’ hardeee harrrr!” *Coughs up a lung only to send it back down with another swig of brandy. Um, yeah. :)

I talked a little about this in my post A Fuzzy Culture of Negatives. The idea that someone could crank a novel (good or bad) in 30 days ought to be downright threatening to ‘real writers.’ It means the cliche of the tortured artist spending three, five, or seven years perfecting their masterpiece as a ‘professional’ waiting for lightning to strike may just be a maladaptive dinosaur waiting to be shown up by a fresh, hungrier, more flexible writer. Am I wrong? Maybe. But if I am, that doesn’t explain why people would waste time and emotional energy being bothered by something like NaNo. That’s time and energy they could spend working on their ‘pro’ novel, happily ignoring NaNo. In which case there’s no problem right?

So then why else would NaNoWriMo be offensive or annoying to some people?