Cate Morgan's Blog, page 5

7 Things I Learned From NaNoWriMo (With Pictures, Cuz Words Hurt) (#IWSG)

1. DO THE MATH

50k is a hella lotta words, y’all. Broken down to 1,666 average words per day? Not so much. If you type at an average speed, say 30 wpm, that’s about an hour’s worth of work.

For the record, I wrote just shy of 72k words by writing about 2500 words a day in 90-minute increments using Write Or Die.

2. DO THE HOMEWORK

That being said, the writing went fast because I largely knew what I was going to write. You can drive a lot faster and more efficiently if you know where you’re going, right? I had a road map, knew my characters, had a plan. There’s a widely-spread misconception that planning stifles creativity. Um, not really. Having at least a road map of plot points makes the work go a LOT smoother, and let’s not be coy here–this IS work.

Remember, we’re talking 50k words in a month. Courting the Muse means preparation ahead of time. It’s different if you don’t have deadlines, or want to take a serious, professional go at this, or if you’ve already written so many books you’re cozy with your own process. People point to Stephen King as the model to follow for success, but let ‘s be honest (while we’re not being coy), and remember he’s been doing this for decades. DECADES. He knows what he’s doing. His Muse is locked up in a cage and threatened with all manner of frightening things, because Stephen King.

(I, however, do no prescribe to the idea you have to write a certain amount of words every day to be successful. I do believe you have to understand your process, implement said process, and stick to it. If writing every day doesn’t work for you, then for Elder Gods’ Sake, DON’T DO IT. Find your sweet spot, and then practice that regularly, so it becomes a habit.)

3. YOU ARE CAPABLE OF MORE THAN YOU THOUGHT (NO REALLY)

I didn’t think I had it in mean to write more than a 1,000 words a day. I have a full time day-job, and by the time I get home I’m generally drained, mental energy wise. But it turns out that while I’m a high-level Accountamancer at the day job (with a specialty in Arithomancy and Excellism), I’ve found that writing is something like a sanctuary for my brain, which pretty much needs a break from all the numbers and logistical cogitating.

Once I realized this, it was easy to cut WAY down on the Netflix, which has a serious hold on me. I LOVE to be entertained, probably more than I like entertaining if I’m honest. Instead I got my storytelling fix by opening Write Or Die and spilling all the voices clamoring in my brain onto the page. 90 minutes later, I felt revitalized instead of drained.

4. BE FEARLESS (AKA PERFECT IS THE ENEMY OF DONE)

Write Or Die doesn’t give you much room (hardly any) to hem and haw over word placement/choices. It starts a timer, and then you have to type like a maddened banshee to get the words in before time’s up.

This switches something off in your brain, the thing that second guesses you at every turn. That voice is invaluable when it comes to revisions, but is kryptonite when it comes to drafting. Only when you spill the words out on to the page like  escaped marbles can you see what you have. Then you can edit and rearrange and organize. But first, you have to spill the marbles.

I honestly don’t know if any of the 70k words I spilled are any good. I won’t know that until revisions. But the same holds true whether I wrote 100 careful words that day, 1,000 not-so-careful words, or a crazed avalanche of 5,000 (because it was Saturday, and pjs and caffeine was involved).

Forget what you know, or you think you know, about writing, and just WRITE.

5. IT’S OKAY TO ASK FOR HELP

There’s another misconception out there, also widely spread, that writing must be a solitary endeavor. But I couldn’t have blew through 70k words on my own. I told my husband I was doing NaNoWriMo, and after I explained what that was, and he looked at me as though I’d grown a second head, we agreed to cut the TV watching down to a day a week for our current shows on Hulu, and he went and played Fallout 4 the rest of the time, leaving me to tender mercies of Write Or Die and Scrivener. He also made sure there was plenty of wine in the house, which was much appreciated (believe me).

And there was my fellow community of writers, checking in with them, cheering on and doing whatever we could to help one another out when the writing wasn’t going quite as well as we hoped. Non-writers don’t generally know what the work is like, no matter how much they might sympathize. Writers, however, are only too happy to discuss plot knots and process and their tips and tricks.

6. IT’S OKAY TO TAKE A BREAK

Your brain is a muscle. Like any muscle, it needs to rest lest it goes all woogy and starts dribbling out your ears. This is especially important after a big word count or a frustrating scene has got you all turned about. Walk away. Run, if you have to. Do a load a dishes, take a walk, bake cookies. Read a book. Anything. The beauty of the brain is that even after you stop writing, the subconscious is frantically working behind the scenes so it can download new information into the creative part.

7. WARMING UP IS KEY

The other, and final, misconception I want to touch on is that writers have to simply sit down at ye olde laptop and start pounding at the keyboard, already primed and ready to go. Why? Musicians warm up before they play, artists do quick sketches to warm up their hands, athletes stretch.

It’s a LOT easier to start if you warm up first. Make note of what scene or scenes you have to complete for the day. What purpose, or purposes, does that scene have to accomplish? Brainstorm ideas for action, imagery, dialogue. Make note of the scene’s location, and imagine what the temperature’s like, what objects are there, and describe them not only in context of shape and color, but texture and even smell. Practice using your five senses. Organize your thoughts and put your head in the game.

In other words, get the hands moving on smaller, simpler tasks before you start on the larger one. It takes between ten and fifteen minutes. Only when your creative mind is buzzing along at a nice clip is it time to draft. Then that hour or ninety minutes you put aside will just fly by, and before you know it, you’re done. Heck, you may not want to stop. Listen to your brain, and the story. It will let you know when it’s time to stop for the day.

So there you go–seven things I learned (or re-learned) while burning through NaNoWriMo. Did you participate? What did you learn?

Author’s Log: NaNoWriMo Round Up (#amwriting, #nanowrimo)

If you’re like me, and participated in the focused madness that is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), you’ve probably just come skidding out the other side with your heels on fire.

*dances about to put out flames*

So how’d I do?

My goal was to draft 30k words on Blood & Steam 3 (full novella) and 45k on DRAGON’S HEART (half of a 90k fantasy novel) for a total of 75k words.

I didn’t quite make that 75k, but only because I fast-drafted Blood & Steam 3 and it came out shorter than I anticipated at about 27k. My total word count for the month of November was… *drum roll*

71,962

Ummm…that’s a whole lotta words, y’all. It’s certainly the most words I’ve ever drafted in a month. Actually, that’s more than double that what I’ve done before, even in my best months.

I honestly don’t if any of those words are actually any good, but I’ll worry about that in revision. I’ve got an extra week in December, the last week of which I’ll be off the Day Job, so I’m going to see if I can’t hit that 75k words this time. BECAUSE HOLY WOW I WROTE OVER 70K WORDS IN 30 DAYS!

That’s a daily average of 2,398 words per day. I’m exhausted, but thrilled at the same time. And now…time to collapse.

Sleep? What is this “sleep” you speak of?

*blinks*

*falls over*

How about you guys? Did you participate in NaNoWriMo? How’d you do?

Author’s Log: Fly By Posting (#amwriting, #ROW80, #nanowrimo)

Just a quick fly-by today, as everyone I know (including me) is at the tail end of NaNoWriMo. Also, here in the States it’s the long Thanksgiving weekend, so I’m using the welcome time off to catch up on my lagging word count.

*wrangles words*

*falls off horse*

*gets tangled in rope*

Words Drafted (Sun-Sat): 19,463

Best Day: 4,422 (Sat)

Avg Words/Day to Goal: 6,009

Days Drafted: 7/7

So I’m probably going to be missing my goal, but I did end up drafting nearly 63k words this month anyway, so I call this a win. Write or Die stepped up my game, and it helped that things have slowed down a bit at the day job, leaving me with more mental energy than I’ve had for a long time. As you’re reading this on Sunday, I am no doubt madly typing away trying to get those last words in before the end of the day.

I’m still plowing through DRAGON’S HEART, and either this thing is going to be a bigger beast than anticipated, my story structure is out of whack, or there is going to be some incredibly judicious editing in my future. As in, dynamite may be needed. Because I am only now creeping up on my first plot point, rather than my midpoint, as I originally anticipated.

Unless this really IS the midpoint.

BOOM!

Heh-heh-heh.

On Dec 1 I’ll begin revisions on Blood & Steam 3, so I can concentrate on drafting DRAGON’S HEART for the last of NaNoWriMo. I should have first-pass revisions done on my WRAP date of 12/4, but I should have a final polish well in hand before released on Dec 18.

Looking Ahead:

Dec 4:

WRAP Blood & Steam 3

Dec 18:

RELEASE (eep!) Blood & Steam 3

POST-PROD on Keepers 4

Resume Drafting Sweet Home #1

 

HAPPY TURKEY DAY! Thanksgiving Giveaway (#freebooks)

Seeing as my kitchen is being taken over by a VERY large turkey (seriously, will that thing even fit in the oven? ANY oven?! Yikes!!) I figured I’d beat a hasty retreat and give away some books.

In other words, I’m here to give thanks to you, My Readers. Because Readers are, verily, The Awesome in the Cranberry Sauce. (Can you tell I’m hungry? Bring on the tryptophan!)

For Action & Adventure, Magic & Mayhem (because nothing says “Mayhem” like fighting over the last drumstick):

Need to catch up on the series? THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF ACACIA CARLISLE (Blood & Steam 1) is priced at $0.99 on Amazon this weekend!

For the Romance of New Beginnings (because wouldn’t it be more fun reading about someone ELSE cooking?):

Offer is good November 26-27.

Oh, hey, wait–have you already read these books? Or would you rather read one of my OTHER books instead?

Email me to let me know which book you’d rather have and I’ll place it delicately at your feet, Dear Reader. That is, as soon as I can bend over again. (Oof.)

Gobble Gobble!

 

 

This NaNoWriMo Break Brought To You By…(#amwriting, #nanowrimo)

Wrote this line today,  which made me extremely happy:

Lillith and her coterie circled overhead, wings blocking the sun in a flickering lacework of sunlight and shadow.

Even if I don’t make my goal today, this makes it all worth it.

:-)

 

Author’s Log: In Which Things Get Complicated (#amwriting, #ROW80, #nanowrimo)

Okay.

Okayokayokay.

*breathes*

*tries not to hyperventilate*

*fails*

I FINISHED BLOOD & STEAM 3.

!!! O.O !!!

*cough*

Ahem. Let’s try that again, shall we?

What I mean to say is, I finished my rough draft of Blood & Steam 3.

It’s not very pretty. In fact, it might be considered downright ugly, because I couldn’t decide where to put certain reveals, so I put them in more than one place, and it’d be nice to have an aftermath reaction from Lucia after Henry kisses her, and the clues to the mystery are unclear and convoluted. Because–and I don’t know how this is possible–my characters are a hella lot smarter than I am.

Also, it turns out I like complicated plots. I don’t just chase my characters up a tree and throw rocks at them. I put a pack of ravening wolves beneath the tree. And a club-wielding, nose-picking troll (thank you Harry Potter). And then I set the tree ON FIRE.

And then my characters all look at me and say “Well? Now what?”

And all I can manage is “I…well…um, sorry lads. I’ve got nothin’.”

And then I leave them there.

Yeah, I know. I’m a bit of a bastard. But as creator of their worlds, it’s kind of my job to be.

Eventually I get things disentangled, once my subconscious has a chance to work on it in a slapping-together-a-monster-of-spare-parts-and-lightning sort of way. And I can only hope that by the time I return to the tree to put out the fire, it’s not too late for at least some of my poor, benighted characters. Generally they just call me some not-very-nice names to my face and stomp off to get on with doing their jobs of telling the story.

Not to run off with a mixed metaphor, or anything.

But because this is NaNo, and deadlines, and Other Reasons, I’m Sure, I barreled my way through the plot problems like a Carlisle through a certain engineer’s workshop window. (Sorry, you’ll have to read the book to find out what that means, exactly, because I’m not sure I still know at this point.)

But that’s what revisions are for, right?

RIGHT?!

*paper bag*

*breathes*

*whimpers*

Actually, I’m sort of okay with this. When you think about it, movie makers get a lot of film in the can. A LOT. Some of it won’t even reach the light of day, even in the deleted scenes and bloopers DVD extras. And nothing is filmed in order, so very little is consistent at that point. It’s just a bunch of raw ingredients that haven’t yet been cooked. The story only truly comes together in edits (post-production), when everything is painstakingly gone through over and over again with a fine tooth comb. (And anyone who had lice as a child knows exactly the kind of pain I’m talking about here.) So by giving myself more time in Post (as they say in the movie biz), I’m setting myself up to tell the story I meant to begin with.

So I’ve put this away for a few days to settle, and this week I’ll dive into revisions and edits. The plan is to do at least three passes, one each week, and then wrap on Dec 4.

I even have a cover art proof up, though that still needs to be polished as well.

So where does that leave us?

Technically, according to my new Production Schedule, I should be drafting Keepers 4 as of this weekend. Except…I already, sort of, drafted it. Back when I thought I would be releasing it through my publisher. But that didn’t quite work out, so I’m self-pubbing it instead, in January. So I go into Post-Production on Dec 18 (revisions, edits, set up a landing page, scheduling promo, etc). In the meantime, I’ll work on the cover art and jacket copy, because that is now part of my Pre-Production lineup.

This opens me up to increase my drafting on DRAGON’S HEART, because I’ve got some catching up to do if I’m going to meet by goals. Up to now I’ve had two, 90-minute writing sessions on my docket every day. I’ll keep that schedule for now, until I can crack through the approximately 11K words I need to catch up on, which at around 30 wpm comes up to about 4.79 extra writing blocks, give or take. Once I’m through that I’ll ease up on the throttle, and drop back down to one session per day.

Because when you only have about three hours per day during the week to write, you have to make every minute count. So, yanno, Math.

Which brings us to:

1. BLOOD & STEAM 3: Revise.

Time to go all Beautiful Mind on this bad boy and pull it apart, scene by scene. Fortunately, I’ve been keeping track of what I refer to as my “Flags and Tags” as I’ve gone along, so now I can go back and Bag them. I’ll export each scene to Evernote, so I can print them from the Day Job, and spend my lunch hours going over each one individually with highlights and my Pen of Red Death. *insert maniacal laff here*

2. DRAGON’S HEART: Finish Drafting (90k Words).

So I fell behind on this one due to all my mad drafting on Blood & Steam 3. So I’ll keep up my extra writing sessions, keep using Write or Die (because Holy Wow it works), and just keep swimming. Soon I’ll be able to drop down to one session per day, and I’ll breathe a little easier. SO MANY WORDS.

3. KEEPERS 4: Mop Up Pre-Production

So I’ve got covers to both Keepers 4 and the corresponding Origins story for Tess to contend with. I also need to polish up the blurb I used to submit the manuscript to Editor Awesome all those many months ago. I also need to get a decent landing page together for ye old Website, with appropriate links.

So catching up on DRAGON’S HEART is my most challenging goal to meet in the coming days. But even if I miss my NaNo goal in the end, there’s no reason I can’t have a rough draft in the can by the end of December.

Unless, of course, my characters come back to set ME on fire. *knocks on wood*

Looking Ahead:

Dec 4:

Wrap Blood & Steam 3

Dec 18:

Release (eep!) Blood & Steam 3

Begin Post-Production on Keepers 4

Resume Production on Sweet Home #1

Author’s Log: NANO Or Bust (#amwriting, ROW80, #NANO)

Behold! Stats!

Words Drafted: 13,194

Best Day: 4,007 (Thursday)

Avg Words/Day to Completion: 2,290

Days Drafted: 4/7

Total Words Drafted This Month: 31,489/75,000 (42%)

So I’m still (mostly) on track to complete my mammoth 75K word goal this month. As long as I just keep swimming, there’s no reason I can’t cross the finish line come November 30.

I did suffer a minor setback this week–namely The Return of Allergies (Dun-Dun-DUUUUUUUUNNNN!) I did a bunco day on Thursday, then on Friday I was Laid Low by the twin detours of Day Jobbery and Allergies. I had a horrible headache all day Friday, and was so tired I ended going to bed at around 8:00pm. I figured, hey–go to bed early, get up early, and get a jump on the day, right?

Wrong.

Oh, I was up early on Saturday. Because I was pulled out of a dead sleep by someone outside TALKING REALLY LOUD on their cell phone. Turned out that person was one of the maintenance guys, who then proceeded to bang and crash his ladder against the back end of our condo as though he had some personal grudge against stucco, freaking out my cats and generally making a ruckus. I thus spent the day aching dully in a semi-dark room and wincing at every noise. It seems my noise sensitivity is only getting worse the older I get. Joy.

In other, more positive news, I made some more minor tweaks to my 2016 production schedule that gave me yet MORE wiggle room, PLUS let me move up my release dates while remaining within the same month. This shrunk my process cycle down to 77 days per project–score!

So I’m down to 2 weeks for prep, 1 month for drafting, 3 weeks for post production shenanigans, and then release two weeks later–totally doable, once I’m back to one project/month, especially since I’ve proven I can draft 3K words/day fairly quickly with Write or Die.

The trick, as always, will be to know the story as much as possible ahead of time. And I’m WAY ahead of the game on some projects, which leaves me room to get caught up on others. And I’ve got that extra two weeks between wrapping a project and releasing it if I need a cushion.

YAY, CUSHION.

*falls forward* ZZZZZZZZ….

So for the rest of 2015 all I really have to worry about is finishing and releasing Blood & Steam 3 and completing a (very) rough draft for DRAGON’S HEART.

In mid-December I’ll go back to drafting Sweet Home #1, and shortly I’ll dig into edits on MINSTREL’S DAUGHTER. Also in mid-December I’ll tackle post-production on Keepers 4.

So I’m in the Home Stretch. Which is pretty encouraging considering I don’t do sports. (Nerd Alert.)

The best part is that Fallout 4 came out this week, so the Tech Monkey has been glommed to his computer like an alien hatchling to an unsuspecting space marine’s face. Thus, our usual routine has opened up a bit so I have an extra few hours to get the words in. Otherwise, the time just seems to get away from me before I quite know what’s happening.

With that in mind, let’s do a goal check-in:

1. Finish drafting BLOOD & STEAM 3 (30k words): 52% Complete.

My hero and heroine have just been (hilariously) playing spy games on one another, because the bad guy has planted evidence from the previously mentioned hydrogen fire/explosion on both of them. Then Lucia got her Carlisle up (a state usually reserved for older sister Acacia), and purposely crashed her way through Henry’s window in a fine show of fury because she thinks he knows where her father is.

I’m going to have to go back to plant some things–like Chekov’s proverbial guns–but that’s usual when I’m drafting this fast. So I flag it, tag it, and will go back to bag it once I’m through the first draft. WRITE ON!

2. Finish drafting DRAGON’S HEART (90K words): 18% Complete

I’m a little over 15K in, out of 45K for this month’s NANO goal. So (*does math*) 1/3 of the way in.

Having spent three chapters setting up the storyline, conflict, and inciting incident on Main Character 1’s side of events, I’m now progressing on Main Character 2’s side as a result of what happened at the end of Chapter 2.

Erm. I think.

*flips through notes*

Ah, yes. Here we are.

I may end up flipping chapters around so that I have alternating POVs at least up to Plot Point 1 when we have our next major event, but for now the words are being written, which is the important thing.

3. Edit MINSTREL’S DAUGHTER (90k words): Not started.

With all the adjustments I made to my Production Schedule, I now have some room to go through the Pink Hammer’s edits on this novel. I’ll review the Big Notes first, which are summarized, and then start taking the thing chapter by chapter. This is on my docket to begin this coming week, so we’ll see how it goes.

Looking Ahead:

Dec 4: Wrap Blood & Steam 3

Dec 18: Release (eep!) Blood & Steam 3

Go into Post-Production on Keepers 4

 Resume drafting Sweet Home 1

 Your turn, ROWers–how are your goals going so far this month? NANO giving you any problems?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author’s Log: In Which We Write Or Die (#ROW80, #NANO, #amwriting)

Hoooooooo-da-lally, folks. There’s enough smoke coming from my keyboard to send signals instead of my normal update post.

You though Project Insanity was, well, insane? Well, I got it into my head to not only draft the final book of my Blood & Steam series because of deadlines (30k words), but to ALSO draft the first half of DRAGON’S HEART for NaNo (45k words).

So that’s, like, 75k words THIS MONTH. 18,750 words per WEEK, which shakes out to about 2600 words a day. Without stopping. Or, it seems, without eating or sleeping.

And I’ll be doing this for December, too, to finish out 2015 with a bang, followed by what sounds awfully like a whimper. From me.

I rearranged my Production Schedule slightly to give myself some wriggle room, and have dedicated at least one evening a week (TV nite) to develop future projects well ahead of time. This largely occurred because a story that’s been banging around in my head awhile came together rather abruptly and demanded to be written, so I was up until close to 2:00am not so much outlining as telling myself the story, scribbling longhand before it leaked from by brain.

So, when the TV’s on in our house, I don’t feel like I’m losing production time. Take that, Netflix!

After a week off from the day job, I’m back and at it again, busy as ever. It didn’t help that my car broke down while my husband was driving it the Sunday before I was due back at work. Of course it couldn’t happen the week I didn’t actually need the car. Oh, no. But the evening before, when our mechanic’s shop was closed. Two days later, it’s running better than ever, but sheesh.

But back to the 2600 words per day thing. As it happens, I’ve been averaging (so far) around 3000 words a day–something I didn’t think would be possible unless I wasn’t working a day job. I’ve had my few successes, but it’s difficult to maintain that level of productivity ongoing.

So how’d I do it? I discovered an app for my computer called Write Or Die. And holy wow, does it work! I wrote 18k words in five days, y’all. 18,000 WORDS IN 5 FLIPPIN’ DAYS.

!!! o_O !!!

Basically, it forces you to write. Otherwise, if you linger a bit too long, it starts flashing warnings, alarm bells, and grumpy cats all over the place until you get typing again. Then, if you didn’t think to turn off “Kamikaze” mode, it deletes your words.

This, if you’re not prepared for it, will cause a minor heart attack. Because you’ve just installed this rather neat little program onto your computer, and NOW IT’S WIPING EVERYTHING. *shriek* *panic* ::FLAIL::

I nearly unplugged the entire Internet before I figured out what was going on. And then I felt silly, but a bit calmer.

Your session is then saved into a text doc (in a save folder you chose before writing), and then you can put the words wherever you need to after (Scrivener, Word, etc.) It also automatically saves every few seconds, so score. Or, you can simply copy and paste if you so choose.

There’s free trial, or you can just go for broke and spend the 20 clams to get the full version. Best 20 I ever spent.

Look, I even have stats!

Stats!

Words Drafted: 18,295

Best Day: 6,023 (Saturday)

Days Drafted: 5/7

Avg Daily Words To Completion: 2,363

Overall goal completion rate: 18,295/75,000 words = 24%

So there’s that. This means, that as long as I can keep fast drafting, I can pare down my production cycle to between 3-4 months. Which means better stories FASTER.

Now on to:

1. Draft BLOOD & STEAM 3 (30k words): In Process (30% Complete)

I got to write my hero sparring with his boxing machine this week, and gave Lucia a chance to save the proverbial cat after a hydrogen fire/explosion. I’ve come to the conclusion that Lucia, while being as daring as Acacia, and as brilliant as Becca, she does not have the confidence of her older sisters. She feels she has a lot to live up to as the youngest Carlisle in a family of people who are a bit larger than life. This is her first time away from home, where she spent much of her time in a lab, so she’s discovering herself and finding out what she’s truly capable of.

2. Draft DRAGON’S HEART (90k words): In Process (10% Complete)

As I initially suspected, once I knew what my opening scene should be all the rest fell into place. I know where I’m going. I know (largely) what I’m doing. And it’s going fast. No you know where all the smoke is coming from. *puts out keyboard*

3. Revise KEEPERS 4: Deferred (0% Complete).

I think I’m going to start this in the coming week, probably at a rate of a 3 chapters per week. That means my first pass will be done at the end of the month, and I’ll have an outline for the corresponding Origins story.

I’m almost convinced that Origins will be exclusively for my newsletter subscribers, at least at first. We’ll see how I feel once it’s written, however.

Okay ROW-ers–what are YOU up to? Are you NaNo-ing? How’s it going for you?

What THE MARTIAN Taught Me About Project Management (#IWSG, #NANO)

Work the problem in front of you.

That’s it.

Wait, what? You showed up for a blog post and want me to elaborate?

Oh, very well. *rolls up sleeves*

So I dragged the D.S. (Darling Spouse) to go see The Martian for our anniversary last week. Granted, I didn’t have to drag very hard. He hadn’t heard of it, or the story behind it, but naturally being a nerd AND a writer (a lethal combination when debating the merits of a movie or TV show we both watch), I had. I haven’t read the book yet, but I was interested to see the culmination of Andy Weir’s hard work.

Be that as it may, I showed him the trailer, and he was immediately compelled to see it. He wants to work for NASA one day, hopefully in time for the next Mars mission, so he was pretty into it from the word “go” and I hardly had to shove him into the car at all. He was even wearing pants, so bonus.

First, let me just say it’s really difficult to do a Man versus Nature conflict story well these days, and well enough to keep a mainstream audience’s attention. Hemingway did it well, as did London. But…I had to read both Hemingway and London in school. Repeatedly. And I hated it. But I can still appreciate the craft involved to pull something like that off.

(Just to keep score, there are generally three conflict types in story–Character versus Character, Character versus Self, and Character versus Nature. The best stories tend to have 2 out of 3–3/3 is going overboard, I think.)

Here you had a team at NASA trying to bring an astronaut stranded at Mars home. There, you had said astronaut fighting to survive on Mars long enough to be rescued. The antagonist (the source of the conflict) was Mars.

On both sides, there are what might be considered insurmountable, overwhelming odds. We like Mark Watney, we like the NASA team, we want them to succeed, and but have no Earthly (or Marsly, as the case may be) idea how they might accomplish such a thing.

Both parties approached the issue by–you guessed it–focusing on the problem in front of them, and worrying about the rest when the appropriate time came.

This brings me to NANO (National Novel Writing Month). So you’ve got 50,000 words to write this month. Sounds like a lot, right? If you’ve never done it before, it looks especially gruesome. Hopefully, you’ve done your homework ahead of time–figuring out your characters, getting comfortable with story structure, getting at least a list of milestones down so you have a map and, therefore, A Clue as to What Happens Next.

I’ve got a little bit more of a challenge this month, however. In order to keep my production schedule on track, I need to draft a 30,000 words this month, in addition to the 45,000 words to complete the first half of the fantasy novel I’m working on. That’s 75,000 words, y’all.

Looks pretty insurmountable, right? And just a mite overwhelming, maybe?

So I took a page out of The Martian‘s protagonist’s book (heh), and scienced the ever-loving shizzle out of this problem.

In other words, I did The Math.

First of all, I know what my stories and charactrs are about, what makes them tick, my main story points, and how to get from point to point (yay, story structure!). I figured all that out before I started drafting, and got myself reeeeeeeal comfy in both worlds.

Then, for my novella, I broke the story out into scenes to make sure I had the proper pacing in place, and then compiled scene sequences into chapters (using a 3-scene/chapter structure). For the novel, did the exact opposite–I wrote a chapter list, and then broke each chapter into three scenes (beginning, middle, and end).

Then I tackled the word count. I calculated the number of words I needed to write each week, and calculated a daily average. The daily average then got split between the two projects. So now I have something that looks like this:

Monthly Goal
        75,000


Weekly Goal
        18,750


Daily Goal
          2,679

That means I need to draft approximately 1,000 words a day on my novella, and 1,500 words a day on my novel.

Suddenly, the problem I had (epic word count), doesn’t look so insurmountable.

I easily type 1,000 words in an hour. That means that in as little as 2 hours a day this month, I can have my daily goal completed. Keep it up long enough, and it becomes routine–hardly painful as all. Certainly not as painful as being shoved into a car by one’s overly-excited spouse on Movie Day, pants or no. Two days into NANO, and I’m already 9% complete with my overall goal.

Notice I didn’t mention anything about whether the words I wrote were good or not, or whether or not I can get it published, or editing/revising what I wrote the day before. That all comes in post production, once the book is actually done. That’s what this is about: finishing the story. All the rest can (and should) come later. No words are wasted if you’re practicing your craft, and learning from it.

So there you have it. Work the problem in front of you. Focus on the task at hand. And, by inches and degrees, you’ll succeed in accomplishing the seemingly impossible–and it will make you MIGHTY.

Happy NANO-ing, y’all!

Or, for the Martians out there: NANO, NANO!

TRICK OR TREAT! Halloween Book Giveaway (#freebooks)

Heya, Keepers!

It’s that time of year again (i.e., my FAVORITE time)–that is, it’s HALLOWEEN! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaa!!

Ahem. *cough*

Sorry.

That also means it’s time for FREE BOOKS! Because “Books” starts with Boo! :-D

For today only, fill your Trick-or-Treat bag/pillowcase/Samsonsite suitcase with the following:

For Action & Adventure, Magic & Mayhem (because, HEY HALLOWEEN):

For the Romance of New Beginnings:

Oh, hey, wait–have you already read these books? Or would you rather read one of my OTHER books instead?

Email me to let me know which book you’d rather have and I’ll drop it in your loot bag.

Okay, so it’s not a full-sized Snickers bar. But it’s still pretty good, right? :-)

Happy Halloween!