Chris Baty's Blog, page 134

From Our Young Writers: The Struggle of Writing as an Extrovert

In addition to the main event every November, NaNoWriMo provides free creative writing resources to educators and young participants around the world through our Young Writers Program. This month, we’ve asked some of our young writers to share their own words of wisdom. Today, participant Lily Dodd shares her tips on how to write a novel and have a social life at the same time:

My one* problem with writing is that it’s pretty isolating. This is partially my fault. I do not enjoy writing in front of people. I can’t write on public transportation. They’re looking, I think of my anonymous seatmates, who literally could not give a flying flapjack about what’s in my notebook.

Writing in high school was especially tough for me. I cared much more about hanging out with my friends than I did about writing the Great American Novel– which was great. I have no regrets about focusing more on my social life than on my writing. Actually, I’m not sure why I put that in past tense. I still prioritize my friends over my writing. But truly great moments come when the two are combined.

When I was fifteen, I was named a finalist in Fiction Writing by the National YoungArts Foundation. The reward was a trip to Miami for a week with about 170 other young people across artistic disciplines. It’s possible that I’ve never had more fun than I did that week. I was writing like crazy. I was getting better every day. And I was constantly surrounded by people.

“‘See?’ I told myself. ‘You can be social and writing at the same time!’”

I had a mad crush on a cute photographer. I ate with a group of music boys who somehow managed to include and immerse me in a conversation about contemporary string quartets. One of the dancers I saw at dinner every night went on to win So You Think You Can Dance. I was inspired by everyone, not just the writers. Simply being in that environment did enormous good for my creativity, my motivation, and my general well-being. “See?” I told myself. “You can be social and writing at the same time!”

YoungArts was an unusual experience and impossible for me to perfectly replicate in my daily life. But I figured out other ways to incorporate people into my writing world. My junior and senior year, I wrote one act plays for my high school’s annual festival. This meant meeting with the directors and actors, all of whom were friends.

I also took to writing in coffee shops. You talk to someone when you get there. You sit next to other people, but typically far away enough that you don’t feel exposed. The drawbacks are cost and time—now that I work in a café I know how annoying it is when one person has been typing for six hours and you’re trying to turn tables over.

A lot of people don’t have a problem with working alone. But for those of us who do, I think it’s important to recognize that writing doesn’t have to be super isolating all the time. I’m still looking for ways to feel like a participant in the actual world while creating my own worlds. I’m also pretty sure I’m going to drop a lot of money on jasmine tea this November.

*Other problems include: procrastination, excessive tea making and consumption, long periods of mental blankness, and feeling like my computer screen has seared itself into my eyeballs.

Lily Dodd is currently on a gap year adventure. She enjoys chill people, comedy television, and nature (very vague). She has won several national awards for her writing, including one in 2014 from the National YoungArts Foundation. You can read her story “A Eulogy for Pretzel” in One Teen Story Magazine, or listen to it on Audible.com (!!!!!!). Lily’s novel for NaNoWriMo 2016 is called Sherwood. She really wants to finish it. She telling you that because she read somewhere that if you write down your goals, they are more likely to happen.

Top photo by Flickr user Hans Splinter.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2016: Day Sixteen

Every November, during National Novel Writing Month, thirty professional designers volunteer to create book cover art inspired by novels being written by aspiring authors from around the globe. Why? To encourage new, diverse voices, and help build a more creative world.  

30 Covers, 30 Days is presented in partnership with designer and author Debbie Millman.

Read more about these NaNoWriMo 2016 novels-in-progress, and the cover designers, below.

A Sidewalk in Winter

A young adult novel being written this November by YWP participant S. L. H. in the United States.

Summer has become a withdrawn and isolated girl – bereft of a last name, orphaned, living on the streets, fiercely independent and wary of relying on others who will inevitably demand repayment. However, she quickly learns that she will not be able to survive the bitter winter on her own. Desperate, Summer meets an elderly woman who provides a hot meal and warm bed each night for the girl. 

Frightened at the thought of losing her independence, she takes to the rough streets once more. When she finally returns, she’s too late to even say goodbye to her elderly friend. Remembering her kind actions, Summer has a new mission: if a bowl of hot soup can change a life, a young girl can change the world.

Cover Designed by Emily Weiland

Emily Weiland is a recent New York native who journeyed from Sumter, South Carolina. She graduated from Anderson University to take the role as Studio Manager at the first ever Masters in Branding Program at The School of Visual Arts.

3 Tips to Help You Perservere Through the Middle of November

All through National Novel Writing Month, published authors will take the whistle, take over our official Twitter account for a week, and act as your NaNo Coach. This week’s NaNo Coach, Heidi Heilig, has some advice to help you through the middle-of-the-month blues:

Here we are, Wrimos.

Muddling through the mucky, murky middle of it all.

I’ve only been coaching a few days, but I’ve already seen a trend: loss of motivation, burn out, confusion–even despair. A lot of Wrimos are unsure they’ll be able to make their goals. It’s a terrible feeling, but so common, and for so many reasons: All the early energy has worn off, and yet we’re still so far from the end. People are looking at their novels and asking “What happens next? What do we do? How do we move forward?”

If you are struggling right now, I have some advice:

1. Take care of yourself.

If you’ve been going hard for a while, you might not have taken time to take care of yourself. Please do so now. When things seem so urgent–especially if you’ve fallen behind on your word count–it’s hard to step back and claim time for you. But it doesn’t do any good to sit and stare at the screen. Make sure you are rested. Make sure you’ve had water and food. Take a long walk, a hot bath, read a short story or a poem, or watch a movie or an episode of your favorite show. You have my permission–my encouragement–to take time to breathe.

2. Remember your joy.

After you’ve rested, eaten, and hydrated, I want you to remember your joy. Think back to those early days, when you were excited to start writing. Remember how you looked at your world–at your characters–at your manuscript in the first week of November. What did you dream for them? What part of the story interested you most? What were the scenes you looked forward to writing? In books you admire, what parts do you best love to reread? Remember that joy and hold it close. Let it remind you what you’re writing for.

3. Make a plan. 

Before you sit down to write, envision what you’ll do next. Set a goal–your goals can be vague (“Just type stream of consciousness until I make my word count!”) or specific (“Character X sits down to dinner with Character Y and talks about plans to Z.”) What’s important about this goal is to be able to work towards it, and to know when it’s accomplished.

After all that? Sit down and open your manuscript. Because when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and even though we’re all in the middle of this, at least we’re all in it together.

Heidi Heilig is the author of the YA historical fantasy The Girl From Everywhere and the sequel, The Ship Beyond Time. She holds an MFA from NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. She is bipolar, biracial, and pansexual, and enjoys surprise twist endings.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2016: Day Fifteen

Every November, during National Novel Writing Month, thirty professional designers volunteer to create book cover art inspired by novels being written by aspiring authors from around the globe. Why? To encourage new, diverse voices, and help build a more creative world.  

30 Covers, 30 Days is presented in partnership with designer and author Debbie Millman.

Read more about these NaNoWriMo 2016 novels-in-progress, and the cover designers, below.

The Night Owl Delivery Service

A satire/humor novel being written this November by participant Chris Erl in Canada.

Kier MacTavish was in a rough spot. He had no money, no prospects, and no intention of listening to another nagging lecture from his parents. In his desperation, he takes the first job he can land: driver with the Night Owl Delivery Service. 

The company motto is simple: deliver anything to anyone between 11 PM and 6 AM. As the company’s first (and only) driver, Kier is sent around the city to collect items both bizarre and banal for a host of characters who find themselves awake as the rest of the world sleeps. And while most of his deliveries are simple, he soon discovers that not everyone who stays up all night has the best intentions…

Cover Designed by Jesse Hernandez

Jesse Hernandez is a graphic designer from Los Angeles, living and working in Providence, Rhode Island. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design where he earned his Bachelor’s degree with a double major in animation and design. Since then Jesse has worked on logos and brand identity campaigns for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, higher education, small businesses, and design agencies across the country. When Jesse is not busy working he can be found tending to his backyard chickens and urban farm.

Artist and author Jenny Williams has hand-lettered quotes from...

Artist and author Jenny Williams has hand-lettered quotes from this year’s Pep Talks! Check out her work at www.jennydwilliams.com, or follow her on Instagram @stateofwander. Read the rest of Alaya Dawn Johnson’s pep talk here.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2016: Day Fourteen

Every November, during National Novel Writing Month, thirty professional designers volunteer to create book cover art inspired by novels being written by aspiring authors from around the globe. Why? To encourage new, diverse voices, and help build a more creative world.  

30 Covers, 30 Days is presented in partnership with designer and author Debbie Millman.

Read more about these NaNoWriMo 2016 novels-in-progress, and the cover designers, below.

Warm Notes

A young adult novel being written this November by YWP participant Jason D. Jonas in Australia.

Ethan doesn’t know it yet, but being a pianist at the John Mesnikoff Music Department’s youth program is a lot more than being a musician. Being forced into a world of uncertainty, Ethan is about to experience the wildest summer of his life. 

After being introduced to his newest (and only) friend Daniel, both a cellist and the most outgoing person Ethan has ever met, the quiet life Ethan knew will be no more. Bridges will be made, walls will be broken down, and with the John Mesnikoff Duet Award on the line, Ethan’s life is about to take a sharp turn away from what it was before. 

Cover Designed by Prescott Perez-Fox

Prescott Perez-Fox is a Brooklyn-based art director and brand developer with 15+ years experience in branding, packaging, graphic design, and web design. Prescott helps small businesses and individuals create smart, strategic brand identities they can use for years to come. In addition, he created and runs The Busy Creator, a website and podcast discussing the tools, techniques, and habits for creative productivity.

Dive Into Your Novel: 4 Tips to Overcome Daily Performance Anxiety

We’ve almost reached the middle of the month! Whether you’re keeping up with your word count, you’ve blasted past it, or you’re not as far along as you hoped you’d be, author Jodi Compton reminds us that simply sitting down to write every day can be a challenge–and offers a few tips to help you take that first, crucial step.

A daily writing session is a lot like going to a pool to swim laps. (Bear with me on this). Presumably, you want to swim your laps or you wouldn’t have come; you’d be disappointed if you got to the pool to find it closed. Yet when the time comes, there you stand at the edge, making excuses not to get in. Not just yet.

Many of us have this same push-pull feeling about our writing. Why? Not just because it’s work, I think–most of us get up and go to school or work every day, or tackle minor projects like laundry with a matter-of-fact attitude. Writing, if anything, should be something we’re happy to begin. The very fact that you’re reading this, after all, indicates that writing excites you.

But that, in itself, might be the root of the problem. An uninspired day at work or school is no big deal; it happens all the time. But we bring real emotional freight to the blank page. Writing should be enjoyable, but what if it isn’t? What if we don’t find what Stephen King calls “the hole in the page” and fall into it? What does that say about us? Does it mean this project–or our writing in general–isn’t meant to be?

This is classic performance anxiety, and performance anxiety spurs us to find something, anything, to do other than writing. Fourteen years after I published my first novel, I still wrestle with these feelings. In those years, though, I’ve learned some tricks to get past them.

1. Re-read yesterday’s work. 

At first, this is just reading. Then I find a place where I obviously omitted a word: “He hefted the out of the trunk” should be “He hefted the groceries out of the trunk,” so I fix that. Then I start making other light corrections. So now I’m not just reading, but editing, a shift from passive to active. Then, when I come to the end of yesterday’s material, it seems very natural to just start writing. Hey presto! I’ve eased myself into my daily session without taking a jarring plunge. And something which makes that even easier is…

2. Stop in the middle of a hot streak. 

Are two characters in a heated argument? Has a pickup truck rolled over and trapped your MC, and bystanders are trying to lift it off her? Stop right there! Of course, that’s counterintuitive. It seems much more natural to say, “I’ll just finish this scene and then knock off for the night.” But the next day, you’ll have to start with a new passage, and no matter how well you’ve synopsized (if you’re a planner), this is harder than picking up the thread of a scene in progress.

Neither of these things work, though, if you have difficulty sitting down at your desk in the first place. If that’s the issue …

3. Tell yourself you only have to do 30 minutes. 

Newton’s First Law (objects in motion stay in motion, objects at rest stay at rest) is surprisingly applicable to human effort. Despite how reluctant we are to come to a task in the first place, entropy sets in once we’ve begun, and it takes a bit of psychological effort to stop. For example, imagine you’re writing the previously-mentioned “heated argument” scene. Wouldn’t it take a bit of discipline to stop without finishing it? Usually, it’s only initial resistance that needs to be overcome. So tell yourself, “I only have to do 30 minutes, and then if I’m still not feeling it, I can stop and do something else.” More often that not, you’ll do 60 or 90 minutes… maybe your whole 1667 words.

4. Bonus tip for apartment/condo dwellers: 

If you live in a building with the classic big-bank-of-mailboxes on the ground floor, unplug your modem or router, take it downstairs, and LOCK IT IN YOUR MAILBOX. As Adrian Monk would say, you’ll thank me later.

Jodi Compton is a crime novelist whose books have been published in more than ten languages and optioned for television (though, sadly, not produced). She has participated in Nanowrimo for six years. A proud Hufflepuff, she can usually be found on the @NaNoWordSprints feed as @JCinNovember, representing her house in the Harry Potter House Cup sprints. Or you can just visit her site, jodicompton.com.

photo by Maarten van den Heuvel via unsplash.com

30 Covers, 30 Days 2016: Day Thirteen

Every November, during National Novel Writing Month, thirty professional designers volunteer to create book cover art inspired by novels being written by aspiring authors from around the globe. Why? To encourage new, diverse voices, and help build a more creative world.  

30 Covers, 30 Days is presented in partnership with designer and author Debbie Millman.

Read more about these NaNoWriMo 2016 novels-in-progress, and the cover designers, below.

The Learning of a Golden Compassion

A science fiction novel being written this November by YWP participant Magnolia in the United States.

Lucy, a teenage girl from another dimension, is kidnapped. When she escapes to Earth, she finds she has an incredible ability to empathize with others. As her father and her friends try to help her harness her psychological powers, she begins to find she is slowly gaining the ability to understand and have compassion for people no one else can or will. 

In the end, Lucy rejects the common path of unrelenting harshness and forgives her kidnapper, a man forced away from his family by his own cruel actions, bringing healing to a truly lonely and repentant soul, proving that to love and be loved is worth far more than anything else a human can offer.   

Cover Designed by Roshanak Keyghobadi

Roshanak Keyghobadi is an artist and scholar who regularly writes about contemporary art and design. She holds a doctoral degree in Art and Art Education from Columbia University and her MFA and BFA are both in Graphic Design. She blogs at artCircle.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2016: Day Twelve

Every November, during National Novel Writing Month, thirty professional designers volunteer to create book cover art inspired by novels being written by aspiring authors from around the globe. Why? To encourage new, diverse voices, and help build a more creative world.  

30 Covers, 30 Days is presented in partnership with designer and author Debbie Millman.

Read more about these NaNoWriMo 2016 novels-in-progress, and the cover designers, below.

Free Motion

A horror/supernatural novel being written this November by participant Dai V Ross in South Africa.

Quilting is expressing what is in your heart into a pattern. Giving something handmade you poured your soul into, to someone you love. A priceless feeling.

And then that person dies. Mysteriously.

So you add a row as a remembrance piece. Not that you can remember buying the fabric… and you assume you sewed it together since you woke up next to the machine.

Anyway, quilting is such fun. And then a person cuts you off in traffic - and the next week they die under mysterious circumstances. Where did you get the cute car design fabric? And really, you should stop falling asleep in front of the sewing machine…

But. You wonder. And you start to investigate. Will you like the answer, if you find it?

Cover Designed by Jeffrey Wiener

Jeffrey Wiener is a multi-hat wearing artist, designer and owner of marketing consultancy Dangerous Media Productions as well as several entrepreneurial ventures. With an eclectic range of clients, Dangerous Media is a one-person shop that provides digital marketing solutions for social media and the web. Clients include Disney, Scholastic, and the New York Times. Having spent decades developing traditional art-making skills and building a career as an illustrator/designer, Wiener then went on to master digital art-making, using drawing tablets and computers to create everything from Life Drawings to animated videos for clients.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2016: Day Eleven

Every November, during National Novel Writing Month, thirty professional designers volunteer to create book cover art inspired by novels being written by aspiring authors from around the globe. Why? To encourage new, diverse voices, and help build a more creative world.  

30 Covers, 30 Days is presented in partnership with designer and author Debbie Millman.

Read more about these NaNoWriMo 2016 novels-in-progress, and the cover designers, below.

Identity

A mystery novel being written this November by participant Kitty Sinclair in the United Kingdom.

When her great-grandmother requests that she transcribe her life story (after all, your handwriting deteriorates somewhat when you reach 90), Evie wasn’t expecting to be tapping out the tale of one of the greatest master thieves of all time. Slowly, through tea-breaks, half-remembered moments, and a somewhat stuttery voice, Evie’s grandma paints a rich picture of post-war Paris and how she carved out an illegitimate life in the middle of it.

Meanwhile, local police officer Geoff Fledger is bored sick by his job, Kali’s TV is on the blink, and an unknown figure is gearing up for one of the crimes of the century. Evie Childs’ summer was going to be nothing if not eventful.

Cover Designed by Tin Wai Winnie Storey

Tin Wai Winnie Storey is a skinny, petite designer born in Hong Kong and raised on soy, manga and anime. Art has been her life-long companion. Creating a typeface at age 7 addicted her to graphic design. Past clients include Honest Inc, Curious Pictures, StarDust in New York; Publicis Asia in Hong Kong; and Apple Inc. “Design with a smile for a better tomorrow” is her philosophy. Her portfolio is at (http://www.in-ni.com). She is currently traveling the world designing her first Virtual Reality game. Follow her at (http://www.vrdreamcatcher.com )