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Blazing Fingers

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How fast can you type?  I think when I’m really on a roll and I have cooperation from my fingers, I clock in around 70 words per minute, but there’s usually a few typos in there.  On average, I am about 60 wpm.

So when you sit down to write a novel, you’d think you could really pound those words out, wouldn’t you?  Nope, I did 1,325 words in the first hour of the morning on November 1, the first hour of NaNoWriMo.  That’s about 28 words a minute, which shows how much of my time is spent thinking about what I’m writing.

Some people are already over half-way to the 50,000 word goal on the first day and I’ve heard that one person actually does the full 50,000 in a 24 hour stretch on the first day.  I’m not sure how they do it, but they are truly amazing writers.

I wrote over 5,000 words total on the first day and I am proud of that because I’ve never written that many words in one day.  But at the end of the day, my brain was tired, literally.  More than the extreme typing trick to write even 24,000 words in one day is the strain on a brain that isn’t used to continuously tying words and plots together to keep that kind of momentum going.

Of course, there is the “just write” mentality behind the writing that’s going on and some people just throw down words and ideas and keep going, which is fine in this situation.  The objective is to get 50,000 words towards your new novel, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be the best words or even words that will ultimately end up in the novel.

My own objective is to have the first draft be the base for a novel that will be revised a few times, polished and published later.  So even though I’m writing as fast as I can, I want to feel that the story is following my outline, somewhat, and will be something I can work with later to get a publishable book.  I am already cringing at some of the phrasing and word choices as I write them, but I know they will be changed later.  The essence of the scene is down and it will be refined with the next draft.

So, I’ll try not to babble about this project too much over the next few weeks, but it is consuming my thoughts at the moment.  I will put up a chart, because I like to do them, next week of my week’s word count, but I will talk more about either the novel I am writing or the one I just finished the first draft on last week.

To anyone reading, thanks for following along with me and please feel free to subscribe and comment about my posts or ask questions.

blog, Book planning, NaNoWriMo, Writing Tips

10 Writing Tips I’ve Discovered

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50K-words

One week from today is November 1, the start of the NaNoWriMo event, so it is exciting and still a little scary. As I posted to Facebook, I just completed over 50,000 words on my current work-in-progress, “O’Ceagan’s Legacy”  in 23 days and I am only two chapters away now from completing it. I am targeting the end of this weekend to try to wrap up the first draft. So I feel pretty good about that. Apart from wanting to get the book completed before I start on the new book on November 1, I wanted to see if I could write at the pace it would take for NaNo. Now I have proven to myself that I can do it. But here’s 10 other things I learned while doing this:

One  

Set aside the time to write in the morning or early afternoon and stick to it. Plan on additional writing in the late afternoon or evening. I even try to write for a short while after I turn off the TV set at night. After a couple of weeks, you’re beginning to get conditioned to this. It is sort of like training for a marathon, but not as physically tiring. You make up for it in mental exhaustion.

Two

Having a plan is really important for me. How do the pantsers do it? I like having an outline and knowing where my story is going and how it is going to get there. Not that I don’t have detours along the route and sometimes we go to an entirely different place than I planned, but that’s all right.

Three

Scrivener has been an amazing tool with the notes and scene planning and I wonder how I managed without it before. Oh, yes, I had those stacks of index cards with scribbled notes that I kept shuffling around. That worked well… not! So easy to adjust the scenes and move them around with this program.

Four

Take breaks while writing. Get up and move around, shake out the tension in your shoulders and put the book out of your mind for a little while. I like to play a video game for about 30 minutes to distract me and let my subconscious work.

Five

Don’t stop to edit. I’ve heard this from many people and it is something I have to work on. I still see the red squiggles under misspelled words and go back to correct them. So you noticed that you used the same word in the second sentence that you used in the first. Let it go. You’ll correct it in the next draft.

Six

Yes, this section really sucks and it feels flat, but once again, the story is the important thing now. The art of the words comes with subsequent drafts.

Seven

Holy cow! Is that a plot hole or what? Well, yes, your spaceship just flew through it, but make a note and you’ll fix it on the rewrite. This kind of includes things like this is more technical that I actually know, but research on those troublesome items can also come with the second draft.

Eight

Never mind that your main character thinks she suckered you in. You want to hear from your characters, as many as possible, because the mind works in a very strange way and those character viewpoints help you make the whole darn thing work. If you can hear and see them, then your story is coming alive and writing goes much more smoothly.

Nine

Stumped with something in the story and nothing is coming to mind to put on the paper? It’s not really writer’s block, not when you know what has to happen. I have two options to get around this.

• One is to write a different scene, either the next one or one in a different part of the story. Often other scenes are clearer in my mind, so skipping to one is a quick way to get the brain going again.  It sometimes helps to work out the details for the scene I’m having trouble with.

• This other technique has worked for me for many years. Pick up a pen and paper and write it out in longhand.  Because I did technical writing as well as article writing for many years, I tend to engage the logical side of the brain more when I’m on the computer. But I started writing stories as a child and I wrote them out on paper before I typed them with a typewriter. When you have to keep typing the whole book over for edits, you do tend to edit when typing. So, it seems that picking up the pen signals the creative side of my brain that we can relax and let the ideas flow.

Ten 

Take time to pet the cats and don’t get too upset with them when they decide that you’ve typed enough and the keyboard is in the way of their grooming on your lap. This is really important, especially to the cats. They help you to relax and sometimes that helps bring the story out. Besides if you ignore them, they will simply lie on your keyboard and put all kinds of unwanted cat words into the book… or worse.

These techniques may not work for everyone, but if the last 24 days have been an example for me, then they may be keys to my success next month. I am certainly hoping that’s the case.

Got some other tips for NaNoWriMo? Let me know in the comments. I need all the help I can get!

blog, Book planning, NaNoWriMo

Character Building and Inspiration

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Monument at Lady of the Snows Catholic Cemetery, Reno NV -Photo by R. Averett

A little under two weeks until the start of NaNoWriMo on November 1st and novel prep is underway.  I will be writing the first book in, what I plan to be a series, called Funeral Singer: A Song for Marielle.  It’s a paranormal mystery, think a Ghost Whisperer type of story.  I am so excited about writing this story and I have the plot worked out, although stories do tend to take side excursions on me as I am writing.

Character

This past week was spent with the characters more and getting the background for them worked out.  I am still adding to them, but most of them have names and histories and are beginning to “come to life” in my brain.  You know you’re succeeding when they start talking to you.  I think I am getting close to at least my main character speaking up.  That’s always a fun time in the writing process.

Even though my NaNo Reno group met on Friday to work on plot and characters, we didn’t really plot much or do much character building, but did get better acquainted and talked quite a bit about writing.  Two of us had signed up for the webinar on using Scrivener for NaNo that was presented by  author Joanna Penn and Joseph Michael, who offers training on the program.  I have been using the program about a month now and absolutely love it for any writing project.  But this webinar showed us quite a few tricks and learning how Joanna has used it during NaNoWriMo was a bonus.  So, we talked a little about the cool features in the program and how much more there is to learn about it.

Inspiration

Grave monument at Old Hillside Cemetery, Reno NV – Photo by R. Averett

Yesterday, I went out with the roomie looking for a little inspiration in, of all places, cemeteries.  I also wanted to get a renewed sense of the feeling in the mausoleums, chapels and along the rows of graves, new and old.  As I was taking a few photos, I had the feeling that I was intruding at times.  I found myself offering prayers and well wishes to any ghosts that might still haunt these areas.

I went to the Old Hillside Cemetery near the University of Nevada Reno campus.  Graves in it date back to the Civil War era, but it is a sad-looking place.  Fences surround the various sections of it to prevent vandalism.  Oddly, there were a few newer-looking gravestones for very old graves so the families of these people are trying to maintain those graves.  I’ve heard that there are some who wish to move the graves to a new location so that this area might be used for student housing.  Stories relate that there are at least two ghosts who haunt this graveyard and possibly more.  I am not prone to seeing ghosts, but there are times that I do feel a presence.  I also believe that moving the grave will not move the ghost with it.

One of the cemeteries was the Catholic one at the north of town. I stood among the graves of the innocents, the babies that had died, some not even one day old and yet offerings of flowers showed that they were still remembered and loved.  One grave of a 12-year-old girl, who died several years ago, had a freshly carved pumpkin and autumn flowers on it.  Very touching.  I want to remember all of this when I begin writing my book in November.

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A “Legacy” Grows

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I have been working on the new novel, O’Ceagan’s Legacy,  and it is coming along pretty well.  Not as fast as I’d like, but at least progressing.  It took its first deviation from my original plan yesterday, which is a good thing.  It means the characters are becoming real in my mind and making choices that I didn’t expect.  This is what makes writing fun!

What exactly is a legacy?  The Merriam Webster Dictionary gives two definitions for  it:

1) a gift by will especially of money or other personal property: bequest.

2) something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past: Example: the legacy of the ancient philosophers

In my novel, the “legacy” is acting on more than one level.  It also stretches those definitions to something more than what they might seem.  But, as food for thought, a legacy can consist of more than money that is inherited.  It can be a house or land or family jewelry.  The value may be intrinsic or for the history.   It can be practically worthless monetarily, yet worth a fortune in knowledge or sentimental value.  How will this play into O’Ceagan’s Legacy?  Quite interestingly, I believe.

So working on chapter 7 now and lots to go yet, but feeling that this tale will be a pretty good read down the road.  Not quite ready to put up a blurb about it, but it will be coming soon along with an excerpt from the prologue.   I will tell you that it has roots in Celtic mythology and it is set in the far future.  And there is a space freighter involved called “Mo Croidhe”, which is Irish for “my heart”.
Until next time…
Lily
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About My Blog

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My thoughts often flow with varied shades and nuances, much like the colors of the seasons flow in the breezes, or winds, that lift the leaves, the papers, the flower petals and other debris that litter the streets or the yards.  So it seems fitting that my blog should be called this and this is where those thoughts will flow.  I hope you will l enjoy reading some of them and will comment or ask questions; otherwise, they will simply blow away like the rest of the treasures – or debris –  in the wind.

Lily – May 8, 2014