No Mo Wri Mo: Why I Am Regrettably Not Doing NaNoWriMo This Year

I am a two-time NaNoWriMo winner. It took me years to get up the courage (and a lost job) to finally get around to it in 2010. Right before NaNoWriMo, I had nearly completed my first novel, Emerald City Dreamer. For NaNoWriMo, I paused that project, and started a whole new project, an alternative history vampire fantasy, with my novel The Sun Never Rises.

As much as I loved the world I built, and my character, and the ending, I have not read The Sun Never Rises. Not once in two years. I haven't had time.

My third novel, Emerald City Hunter, I wrote during last year's NaNoWriMo.

For both projects, I came in at higher than 50,000 words. Right around 65,000 each. I proved I have no problem cranking out high word counts. Awesome.

Unfortunately, those words suck. Not all of them, but enough of them to make editing a real problem. I realize this is the point of NaNoWriMo, to write words that suck, just so long as you write them. And yes, those were my first novels, so they were probably going to suck anyway. I had a lot to learn about how to make 50,000+ words not suck. Some of those I learned during the writing process itself, and some during the grueling editing process.

Now that I've learned those lessons, I'm going for the long view.

I understand my pace better now. It is similar to my process for short stories. Plan, outline, write a few chapters, go back, revisit the outline, revise some future scenes in the outline, edit the past scenes a little bit, write the future scenes, revisit the outline, edit some old scenes, and so on.

When I do it that way, I end up with is a draft that is more satisfying and very solid. It is nearly ready, with some slight polish, to be shown to my writer's group, Cloud City Wordslingers. It is less frustrating and time-consuming when it comes to editing.

Word counts are antithetical to this process. And it takes longer than 30 days.

November is coming, and I see everyone talking about NaNoWriMo. I'm sad. I want to be along with you guys, cheering each other on, sharing problems and woes, and hitting 2-4k words per day. I will feel a little left out, and a little nostalgic for those past NaNoWriMos that were probably a lot more miserable than I remember. It will be hard, knowing I could have another novel under my belt. But I know it will be a novel that will likely have to sit in a drawer for years before I get time to edit it.

I will, however, be doing "WriMo". I will be writing all month. I won't be watching word counts. I won't be aiming at 50,000 words on a single project. I am aiming to finish Emerald City Iron (novella, already half done) to draft that can be read by my fellow Wordslingers. And I will be aiming to begin plotting the next novella. I will share progress on Twitter and here.

Good luck to all WriMos, whether you're doing a novel, a couple novellas, or a pile of short stories. I thank the NaNoWriMo people for holding that carrot out to me for years prior to 2010, to make me keep thinking, "I ought to get back to writing someday", and to letting me win two years in a row.

Why Crazy Wins

These days there's a lot of crazy.  In all debates in the courts of public ideas, be they political, spiritual, moral, or cultural, the ideas most in the fringe seem to dominate.

In preparation for NaNoWriMo, I've been reading a lot about plot and story.  20 Master Plots and How To Build Them is an excellent resource, (as is Story by Robert McKee).  Every plot must focus on drama, on the tension of an unresolved problem, an unreasonable antagonist, a goal worth dying for, overwhelming passions, major strengths, massive weaknesses.  Unmovable objects vs irresistible forces.

Writers are encouraged to bring the tension to a tipping point; to make it seem like there is no way out, to stack the odds to the point where your protagonist is sure to lose (even if she wins in the end).

No matter the plot, there must be drama, or your reader will yawn and put the book down.

Frustrating conflict is great for stories.  But it's not so great for real life.  In real life, be it personal or political, drama leads to sadness, tears, hardships, and destruction.  On the grander scale, it can lead to lost jobs, hunger, crime, injustice, and even death and war.  In real life, it reaches a point where it is no longer entertainment, though it may seem so to viewers who watch it from afar.

All plots can be placed in two categories: Physical or mental, force or fraud, tragedy or comedy, outward action or inward movement.  Whatever you call it, all plots emphasize one of these, while the other takes a backseat or doesn't exist at all.  The action story will focus on physical resolution to tension.  The murder mystery or romantic comedy will solve it via the mind or character development.

Back to real life.  In the past, power was often won by force.  There was no such thing as the Bill of Rights to protect people, so whoever could suppress the people at the point of the sword, or who ever could kill the king, won the day.  Force is still very much a powerful tool, but in stable democratic nations, it is likely to backfire.  And so today those who seek power must resort to mental strategies.

Persuasion is much more humane than war and unjust imprisonment, and a well-argued appeal to reason is more likely to be the best position than a well-warred one.  But it comes at a price: Fraud is as or more likely to persuade.  And the masters of fraud are oh-so-good at it.

Today, wars are fought in culture rather than on the battlefield.  Even the decision whether or not to go to battle must be fought in the cultural sphere before we send out the first soldier.  That is why people were so upset when Bush lied about the WMDs in Iraq.  Few US Citizens wanted to go to war without a very good reason, and when that reason turned into smoke, people felt oppressed and betrayed.  But even this is far better than our alternative, when a leader had only to give the word to start a war.  The opinion of the common people didn't matter.

Fiction must have tension to keep our attention, and so, unfortunately, must the news.  Decades ago, political thinkers like William F. Buckley argued their points rationally, and it's a political temperament I'd love to return to.  Imagine, a world where two people of opposing opinions could sit down on national television and have a well-reasoned debate, where the drama from both sides was a question of who could out-wit the other, who could appear the most intelligent, who could back up their claims with the best facts, who could persuade.  Why have things changed so much?

Because William F. Buckley was boring.  Walter Cronkite and Paul Harvey droned.  It took too long to get to the bottom of things, to hear the rest of the story, to understand the issues, when you had to pay attention to rational arguments backed by facts.  It's easier to believe that a woman frivolously spilled coffee on herself and got McDonald's to pay an outrageous and undeserved sum, than it is to examine the real facts of the event.

Soundbites, for all their lack of actual content, are interesting.  Dramatic.  When a politician says something stupid, opponents get to rally their anger.  Those who support the same politician can rally their own anger to defend the remarks.  Everyone can get emotional, and it's better than watching Iron Man 2 or Avatar.

This pattern continues no matter what level of culture-war you look at, be it at the top rung during Presidential debates, or at the bottom where bloggers go back and forth.  And it happens even in non-political realms, like when Gawker blogger Alyssa Bereznak railed on Magic: The Gathering Champion Jon Finkel for going on a date with her.

There are people out there, right now, who sound more like William F. Buckley.  They lay out all the facts and make reasoned arguments.  Yet these don't draw the same attention as the crazies.  Because controversy attracts eyeballs and mouse-clicks.  Walls of text don't.

But that's not to say crazy actually wins in the end.  In the war of ideas, every strategy has its pros and cons.  Fringe emotional arguments of high drama are, in the end, weak.  They do not tend to stand the test of time.  And the most crazy people often believe their delusions, which makes them inflexible.  They are unable to adapt to changing times and movements, and those who blind themselves to facts and reason may not notice when those they hope to convince begin to run the opposite direction.

Crazy may still get the most airtime and rake in the most cash, but in a stable democracy, its grip on culture and power is (hopefully) short-lived.

Indie Urban Fantasy Roundup

It's been a while since I posted on here.  I have been writing, and I have been blogging.  Since my August post, I have written 116,000 words of novel (two novels).  And I've been blogging twice-monthly over at Indie Urban Fantasy.  The goal was to link an excerpt from each one, in a separate post, around the time of the original posting, but... well... Writing two novels in three months is one of the best excuses I have ever had.

So here's the roundup.

A three-part series on faeries:

The Science of Faeries Part 1
The Science of Faeries Part 2
The Science of Faeries Part 3

Urban Fantasy is the New Folktale:

Folktales in the past did not always begin "Once upon a time, in a land far away". When medieval German mothers told their children tales, they often began, "Just down the road by the old church, there lives a witch", or "When I was as old as you, I met a dwarf in the woods."...

Argentina Gnome - Creepy Reality? Or Just a Hoax?

In 2008, the small town of Guemes, Argentina gained notoriety when The Sun (UK) reported that a gnome had been captured on film. According to The Sun, locals had been plagued by this little gnome for some time.  The boys who captured this video were minding their own business when they heard a sound, as if someone where throwing rocks.  When Jose Alvarez, who had been playing around with his phone camera, saw a movement in the grass, he pointed it towards the sound.  And that's when he captured the gnome...

A humorous post about supernatural NaNoWriMo participants, Interview with a NaNoWriPire:

As you all know, Belle Art ran a popular late-night paranormal podcast. She disappeared last June under mysterious circumstances, along with every copy of every podcast she ever recorded. These transcripts survive. They were of a show taken exactly one year ago, today...

For a very special Thanksgiving post, featuring infinite turkeys, finite unicorns, Zeus, and how they are related, see A Toast to The Copious Cornucopia of Ancient and Modern Folktales

And most recently, last week in fact, I wrote about Mind Control, Mystical Mesmerism, and Other Magical Compulsions, in which I explore all the methods a modern-day fantasy character might use to force you against your will. 

Up next, a roundup of all the short stories I have written for the Indie Urban Fantasy Newsletter.  But you'll have to wait until tomorrow. :)

Interview with a NaNoWriPire

I've got too many words to write this week for my NaNoWriMo novel, a dark fantasy about an Empire ruled by vampires. (I'm at 27,460 words!) So instead of writing a post, I'll just paste this lost transcript from the Belle Art: Ghost to Ghost podcast.

As you all know, Belle Art ran a popular late-night paranormal podcast. She disappeared last June under mysterious circumstances, along with every copy of every podcast she ever recorded. These transcripts survive. They were of a show taken exactly one year ago, today.

BELLE: Hello world! Welcome to late-night Ghost-to-Ghost with Belle Art. That's me. Tonight we have a special show. In studio with me, I have Vlad the Improbable, a vampire from our sinister city, New York. I have a ghost, Henever Mones, from his old haunts here in Seattle. We have Gary Plotter, a self-proclaimed White Warlock who flew all this way from London.
GARY: On a broom.
BELLE: Yes, purportedly on a broom.
GARY: Why won't you believe me?
BELLE: I'm skeptical about such things.
GARY: Sigh.
BELLE: And lastly, I have a werewolf on the line, calling in from Nevada, who refuses to give his name. And what do these fiends have in common? They are all participating in an annual competition called NaNoWriMo. Vlad, would you care to explain?
VLAD: Yes, and may I add that your skin is so, very... very... succulent.
BELLE: That's enough, Vlad. I'm wearing garlic, so just answer the question.
VLAD: But of course. NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. Every November, thousands of people... and unpeople... sit down to write a novel in just thirty days.
BELLE: And what constitutes a novel? How do you "win" NaNoWriMo?
VLAD: Why, you must write 50,000 words between midnight November 1st and November 30th, of course!
BELLE: That seems impossible. How do you do it?
WEREWOLF: Eeennnnnnnngrrrrowww!
BELLE: Interesting, werewolf. But I'm afraid I can't understand you.
VLAD: It is a simple matter of patience, something my kind has aplenty. It is a mere 1,667 words per day.
BELLE: Yes, but if you have other things going on in your life.. or... ahem... death... like jobs, families, hobbies... Isn't it hard to write that much?
HENEVER: It is impossible to write that much, when you cannot hold a pen.
WEREWOLF: GRRRRRRR!
BELLE: Fascinating. Vlad, what do you do for a living?

VLAD: What a silly question.
BELLE: I'm sorry. What do you do during the day?
VLAD: ... You mean, at night?
BELLE: Yes. You know what I mean. Just answer the question.
VLAD: Aside from sucking blood, I'm an investment banker. So I have some flexibility. I take a few days off in November to help me get through.

BELLE: Don't you mean nights?
VLAD: What?
BELLE: You take a few nights off in November...  Anyway, what is your story about?
VLAD: It is about a succulent young thing who wanders into a dark and scary castle all alone... And who should she find there? But a scary, evil, repulsive, terrifying monster!
BELLE: A vampire?
VLAD: No, of course not. She finds a vampire hunter!
BELLE: Oh, scary.
VLAD: Yes. It is firmly in the horror genre. 
BELLE: And you, Henever.  Brr, why is it suddenly so cold in here?
HENEVER: Sorry about that.  I'll stop.
BELLE: Thanks.  That's better.  Henever, what do you do for a living?
HENEVER: I'm a ghost writer.
BELLE: I see. And what is your novel about?
HENEVER: My plot feels so transparent. 
BELLE: Come on, you can tell us. NaNoWriMo is just for fun. Don't take it so seriously.
HENEVER: I'm writing a ghost-apocalyptic tale where everyone is dead. Everyone.
BELLE: Everyone?
HENEVER: Everyone.
BELLE: And how far along are you?
HENEVER: I'm so far behind. I'm at 2,500 words. I got to the part where everyone died, and then, well... Everyone was dead.
BELLE: I see. And you can't have much of a story without any characters, right?
HENEVER: You got it.
BELLE: So why don't you write about the ghosts of all the dead people?
HENEVER: Why... I never thought of that!
BELLE: Glad to be of help... Henever? Where did you go? Oh well. And Werewolf. What do you do for a living?
WEREWOLF: Grrrrnnnnaaarrrrr!
BELLE: Hmm. And what is your novel about?
WEREWOLF: Ennnggggrraaarrr!
BELLE: You don't say... well. And you Gary. What do you do for a living?
GARY: I am a Private Warlock.
BELLE: Uh-huh. And what does that mean?
GARY: People come to me for all manner of wizardly services, such as tracking down mysterious magical murderers.
BELLE: Uh-huh. What's your novel about?
GARY: You don't believe me.
BELLE: I'm not sure why you're so surprised. Do many people believe that you're a warlock?
GARY: No, but you're Belle Art. You're sitting here interviewing a ghost and a vampire, and you didn't question their magical credentials.
WEREWOLF: GRRRRRaarrrrwrr!!
GARY: And a werewolf.
BELLE: That's because vampires and ghosts and werewolves are real. But warlocks? I'm sorry, but I think you are more likely a paranoid schizophrenic with a mental disorder.
VLAD: No offense against those of us with mental disorders!
BELLE: No offense intended.
VLAD: ...
WEREWOLF: ...
BELLE: ...
GARY: Anyway, my novel is a memoir, based loosely on my life as a warlock, my upbringing as an orphan, my status as the one foretold to defeat an evil warlock, my time at warlock school, and the friends I've made along the way.
BELLE: Hahaha! Who's going to want to read that? What a ridiculous story.
VLAD: Back to me. Aren't I hansom? And your skin is very, very... veiny.
BELLE: Well that's all the time we have today, folks. If you're interested in doing NaNoWriMo next year, visit their website at NaNoWriMo.org! Get away! I have a cross! And a stake! Back!
GARY: I'll turn him into a newt. There. Is that better?
BELLE: Yes, thanks. But I still don't believe in you.

My NaNoWriMo Page