NaNoWriMo 2009 – The Conclusion

So NaNoWriMo 2009 has come and gone, with much heartache, sleepless nights, sore hands, etc, etc…

I have a confession to make – I didn’t finish. This year was not mine for the sweet smell of success. I peaked at 25,000 words (a quarter of my original target). To say I’m disappointed in myself would be an understatement – but equally, I’m not ashamed. Indeed, in many ways I’m quite happy, and proud of myself, during the final weekend, I finally learned to accept I can’t write all the time. I want to, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes there is no way round the fact that without will, inspiration is relegated to frustration.

I really really don’t like failing, but I could have pushed in that final weekend, and pushed, but I would never have hit even the modest target of 50,000, and even if I had. Instead I took a break, having accepted defeat, let go of the pressure – I felt wonderful. So immediately following my return home, I started writing again. Nice and smoothly, and without much effort. In fact I’ve had some late nights, because the writing has being going so well, and I wasn’t aware of the time.

I’m not finishing off my NaNoWriMo project for now, I’ve put it to one side, as my imagination is caught with  a sequel to my previous NaNoWriMo attempt (the one I won last year).

Just shows you, sometimes pressure helps, and other times it hinders – I think for me it’s the accumalative pressures I found myself under with family life, work, money, and writing, it made for some unsurmountable obstacles. Until I let go, and found away to enjoy myself away from the pressure.

NaNoWriMo – Week 2

So we’re now in week 3, I figured I’d reflect on week 2 briefly, as I did week one.

I can sum up my NaNoWriMo experience this year so far in one phrase:

“Off course”

Life keeps interfering in my writing, last week I didn’t write anything until the weekend, for which I have plenty of excuses, legitimate ones, but only one person to blame – yours truly.

My goal of writing 100,000 has slipped to a remote chance, and I have to accept that, and I do so, with much sadness. 50,000 is starting to slip away too. I know I like brinkmanship, but I really need to find some gumption and get on with writing.

Did manage some writing on Sunday, at the Leeds café meet, but then I decided when I got home to concentate on fixing my netbook. This is less procrastination, and more a practical act. I’ve been trying to use my 17″ laptop to do my novel on, however it was bought for media and not typing, I didn’t pay any attention to the keyboard – as it turned out, aside from being impractical to carry round with me, it was truly awful to write on. Now the netbook is a go, it’s portable, and I feel quite comfortable typing on it (in fact it’s what I used for NaNoWrimo last year), all being well, I can increase the time I can get writing done.

Last year I utilised time on buses, probably was only a few thousand words, but every little helps. Plus now I can easily just turn up at a café and write. The world is my literary oyster once more.

So, for now the aim is 50,000 words by the end of the month, and though I’m behind, I am definately confident of achieving that when we reach the 30th November.

Just to be sure, I’m booking myself a little getaway for the final weekend of the month, a few days in Ilkley to concentrate on writing without the distractions of everyday life, just what the doctor ordered.

Annoying Writing Habits…

Doing NaNoWriMo in the company of others has shown me something – how many annoying habits I’ve built up

I’m not talking about actua writing issues, I’m talking behavourial one. The one I’ve noticed most often has to be the tapping of keyboards. Not the keys themselves, but the frame or rest area, when I’m trying to think around a problem, or plotting my next move.

I also seem to  a very emphatic gesture when hitting the carriage return, it’s like every new paragraph is a victory. Also, it seems full stops too.

The other one I’ve noticed, though I’m trying really hard not to do this in public, is the chewing of my tongue during tense, or really busy period.

There’s a few more, but those are probably my biggest crimes against the people around me.

It has led me to wonder, what are your annoying writing habits? Answers on a post card – however since I’m not giving you my address, probably best to answer in a comment.

NaNoWriMo 2009 – An Update 10/11/2009

Well we’re now into week 2 of NaNoWriMo, and I managed to resolve my problems that came about at the end of last week. I say temporarily, because despite introducing a brand spanking new character, to whom I switched to, so I could imply the extent of the problem with my protaginist, without gettimg bogged down in detail, (and the logic of how long healing should take), I still wrote in the troubles just later in the process.

Two thousand words dropped for nowt, and probably another thousand to erase the second mistake.

I do have a plan though, and it is a cunning plan, go back again and undo the difficulties, limit the protaginists psychological difficulties (which are what would take too long in the time wise to deal with), but keep the secondary character. Kind of a sidekick to help out my protaginist through the couple of days recovery he needs (I’ve also undone shooting him in the legs, and instead had the bullet nick his brachial artery).

This should mean my character is less on his own, and has more interaction, and I can up the humour a bit. I’d much rather my characters were funny people than the narrative, or situations. Gallows humour is good, especially in procedural crime writing.

So, recovery is in sight – but I do have some monster writing sessions between now and this Saturday. Which is fine, I don’t mind the pressure, it’s only when deadlines become tight that I really put my foot on the gas and blast those monster wordcounts out. I had hoped this year woukd be different – but events conspired against me.

Meeting up with other NaNoWriMo’ers helps – it’s where I found mysels thinking out the solution to my plot problems. It was a good meet up on Sunday, (7th November 2009), some new faces and old. It’s enough to make you believe writers are generally smart, talented, driven people, who are genuinely nice, friendly, and social – until you remember I was there , brutish talentless oaf that I am.

The only way to hit 100,000 is going to be by being diligent, and erm… Deadlining with an all nighter on Friday – yes my bad, but we each have our ways of writing afterall.

NaNoWriMo 2009 – Week 1

Well we’re now seven days into NaNoWriMo and I’ve only achieved 13,000 words so far. This is actually to plan, yet now we’re going I can’t help but feeling I’m falling short. Today is Saturday however, and I planned in most of my word count for Saturdays and Sundays (because I’m not lucky enough to be able to live without earning lots and lots of money).

In my defence (against myself, since I’m my own harshest critic), there has been a lot of drama to trip me up along the way. From car thefts, work, and family – all neatly working their way into my writing time, and mindset.

I shouldn’t be bothered, the plan was for 20,000 a weekend, with and extra 5,000 on a Friday, and we’ve not had a full weekend yet – but I want to do more, be faster stronger as a writer.

I’m not helping myself however, trying to exercise and write at the same time isn’t easy, and it’s taking it’s toll. The Friday just gone, I should have done 5,000 words, instead I slept. Oops, my bad.

It just means today (Saturday) I have to hit 15,000 to be sure of my targets.

Actually, I do realise I’m being unfair, everytime I think about it, I ramp up the amount of words I need to do each week (and subsequently each day), because of how badly I’m doing. It’s not just to contemplate for being bad now, it’s to compensate for things being just as hard later. I know that if I could get away with it, I would probably set myself a target of 50,000 words a day this weekend. Which isn’t unachievable really – think about it, assuming I slept for 12 hours, out of the 48, and wrote for the rest – I’d only need to achieve 52 words per minute consistently.

Of course, that’s not likely since I’m here writing this, oops. 15,000 today and tomorrow is fine – it’ll get me to 42% of my target, which does give me room to relax for the rest of the month.

I am my own hardest task master… I’ve as many psychological issues as my main character – but he’s paranoid delusional, since I started writing his life has now gone quite psychotic. The irony is, I didn’t mean to do that, all I did was shoot him, and he’s gone nuts. Oops.

So now I’ve got to get him functional, get him out of hospital, and somehow have him run (a bullet passed through both thighs, and at one point he starts bleeding out). Oh hum – well here goes.

The good thing with a 100,000 word count target, if I don’t finish this in 50,000 I can push it to 60,000 and then have a nice shorter to finish the challenge with.

And if you think I’m a harsh task master this year? Next year will be 50% harder… and you don’t even want to know about the year after that.

Thought of the day…

This turned up on our intranet, and I feel it encompasses my aims for this month (and life in general):

"To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life" – Buddha

This month I am extremely busy, NaNoWriMo, pumping out lots of words every day, meanwhile every other day I’m going to be walking to work, and the other days I’ll be going to the gym (when it opens a week from today). Hopefully my mind, body, and spirit will be renewed by the end of the month, and I can throw it all away and celebrate by getting stupidly drunk, eating kebabs, and writing a haiku.

NaNoWriMo 2009 is a go!

Weeks of anticipation, preparation, and nerves have finally lead to the start of NaNoWriMo 2009.

It started at midnight, and so did I, or close enough (what I actually did was start the procastination early, by waiting an hour to start while I worked on a spreadsheet to track my writing… erm oops). Anyway, today I went to Café Latino in Leeds, met up with another writer doing NaNoWriMo, and we got to work properly on writing our novels.

I’d like to say I’m target, but I’m about four thousand words short as it stands, and annoyingly I’m currently averaging a very poor, and very slow four hundred and fifty three words an hour, I’m not really sure why, the ideas there. Hopefully when a few more characters turn up, and we get some good interaction (not just phone calls), the words will start to flow.

My ideal is to do ten thousand words a day at weekends, with an extra five thousand on a Friday night. Now I know this isn’t entirely sustainable, which is where week nights come in, they’re my bonus rounds where I can pick a few extra on the word counts, but I can also take some time to create and organise notes, drawings, and do plans to help me at the weekends. The weekend and Fridays plan brings me to my target of one hundred thousand words, across two stories – and thats where I need to focus my efforts.

I don’t really need to feel too bad about not hitting target today, this Sunday is an extra, above and beyond the plan, so any words today, just help take a bit of pressure off later on. However, aside from a few chores, and writing this entry I’ll be writing right up until bedtime. Sadly this year there won’t be any bus writing, my little netbook is still out of order (bang out of order as it were), and I’m confined to using my seventeen inch monster laptop which is just about portable, if I’m writing in a café, or some such, not really something I can sit on a bus with.

I am feeling really confident about this year though, I’ve got a good plan, and some great ideas. There’s a lot of pressure, but I write better with pressure, its how I made it last year,  when I did 80% of my novel in just ten days, right at the end.

I’m going to try and fit in time to keep writing here, this is what my blog is for, writing, and discussing writing, and this is the month I’m going to be doing lots of it, so i’ll have plenty to discuss.

To all everyone doing NaNoWriMo out there, I wish you all the best of luck.

Only Days to Go to NaNoWriMo…

We’re into the last few days before NaNoWriMo starts (on 1st November), I’ll be setting up my blog to handle track my progress. Of course being a geek I’ve got a spreadsheet up, that provides me with a weatlh of statistics based on putting in the current word count, and the amount of hours I’ve been writing each day. Plus graphs. It’s not quite finished yet, was working on it late, and some of the formulae were getting a bit complex, (that happens a lot when I’m tired, bt easily cleaned up on a fresh day).

I’ve signed up a second account on NaNoWriMo, I’m aiming for 100,000 words this time round. I’ve know the provisional plots, and a few characters already. Hardest part is focusing my thoughts onto one story at a time.

My plan is to do 50,000 words a fortnight. Thus working the two stories seperately.

The first is a private detective story, featuring a character that has a lot of issues, but is actually reasonably young (mid-20’s). It works in my head, ihe’s a rich man’s son, and running a failing business he has no real experience in is his form of rebelling against his father. I’ve had this idea since earlier in the year, originally it was going to be my ScriptFrenzy attempt, however I never got started, it’s a good enough idea to warrant pushing through though.

The second of my stories will be a post apocalyptic fight for survival, which is actually a tale of chaos versus morality – when my protagonist and antagonist are at logger heads in humanity’s last survivor colony (as far as they know, though aside from drifters, and roving bands of people no people from outside of their area will feature). I’m not going to spoil the nature of the apocalypse, or who the characters are, and how it plays out – but I find this one really exciting., thought not entirely original of me. I’m actually reading On The Beach at the moment by Nevil Shute, it’s an absolutely fantastic book (not finished yet), and it definately inspired this idea (that and several conversations of late on similar ground).

I’m really looking forward to NaNoWriMo now, the fear of writers block has gone, and I’m sure I can plow straight in, and start banging out those pages (285.5 of them).

Block Breaking

In the words of Shirley Manson (of Garbage), "My head explodes, and my body aches," why? Because I’m trying to overcome writers block, and it takes a lot out of me. Its akin to smashing my head against a brick wall for hours at a time.

Why would anyone put themselves through that? Is it worth being a writer if you are not very good at it, and in fact can not write a blessed thing? It is without a doubt a masochistic tendency of writers to try and write through writers block. However it is worth it.

What I’m trying to do at the moment is warm up to NaNoWriMo, I’m taking on the insane challenge of entering twice this year. Two targets of 50,000 words – which I’m definitely capable of achieving, but only if I write. Indeed daily its a requirement of about 4,000 words (with room for creative breaks).

So banging my head against a brick wall ia just warm up, next month I’ll be peddling a bike at twenty miles per hour into brick walls, and clinging on for dear life in the hopes I don’t get knocked off in the process.

I’m confident though, because despite the block, the ink is flowing. It might only be hundreds of words a day, but clearly that its any words per day after struggling with none is a great thing.

Bring on the impossible challenges. Speaking of which, throughout November, to help push myself I’m going to be giving myself little challenges, characters, and scenarios to include in the stories I write. There are already some over at NaNoWriMo.org: York & Leeds for my region. Will keep you posted on how that goes, and feel free to suggest challenges at me, the more the merrier.

Pay Up!

No this post isn’t about turning my blog into a pay per article service, or any such notice. I don’t even use ads, this an entirely free blog, my reward is in writing, and the odd comment or two. If my blog inexplicably became uber-popular, and my existing over resourced was somehow unable to cope and I had to get bigger more expensive hosting, I would have to review the situation to recoup costs. That situation isn’t likely, but I do appreciate that the internet can be expensive at times, and someone has to pay.

There is a point where quality and quantity must come at a price. For published authors that point has come, people have deemed the quality and quantity worthwhile paying for, and are ready to stump up the cash.

The world is changing though, and the point of quality and quantity is higher, it’s an uphill struggle against thousands of other writers to hit that point. The internet has had a major impact, books are less popular because there’s so much out there for free, and more convenient.

Amazon was a revelation, you no longer had to go to books, instead they came to you. That hit bookshops hard, but they struggled on. The focus of books changed though, the priority for quick ROI’s (return on investment) is pushed. Books now have to hit the most people for the least popular price. A strategy that seems to back fire more and more. This strategy led to the rise of the ridiculously priced minor celebrity biography. A scatter gun approach to the problem that spreads the investment over many similar books, hoping that one will catch the eye, and return enough money to pay for the lot. Plus I imagine a few publicists like rubbing shoulders with celebrities, and those in the know.

Regardless, sadly the book industry is dying. Various strategies, to my mind, have exasperated the situation, but it’s only hastened the demise, not caused it. The new killer started to rise a couple of years ago, the eBook. EBooks have been around for a while in one form or another, but various technologies are aimed solely at enabling this market, from software for computers and PDA’s to dedicated eBook readers. Libraries of books can be fit onto a memory card smaller than my thumbnail.

Many companies are trying different models to get a ROI from eBooks. The problem is DRM will always be breakable, which means one person pays, cracks, and shares with the world.

It is robbery, but one that’s hard to pinpoint, hard to deal with, and in these days of burgeoning technological advances both sides of the line, hard to track. There are those that argue that it isn’t morally incompatible with the arts, just the same way they argue with the film companies, and the music industry. However, for the time being, the issue isn’t nearly so great as with films and music – and the value of revenue streams is far different.

Throw in that much of the content available on the internet is legally free, in terms of literature, I doubt the publishing industry could get anywhere close to the extreme actions of it’s bigger sisters (music, film, and television).

I’ll put my cards on the table, I don’t necessarily agree with how copyright works now, though I acknowledge the illegality of file sharing certain files, I don’t believe the law is set up right for the twenty-first century. The basis for copyright laws dates to the 1600’s (must query and confirm), when small publishing presses were re-publishing books of bigger firms. Back then copyright was set at a decade, and then books would become fair game, giving the larger firms ten years protection on profits. Then, with a lot of lobbying from bigger publishers, copyright duration was extended, and extended. Loop holes were systematically excised, and precedent cases were brought against people and organisations, big and small.

Though over the past few hundred years there have been countless alterations to copyright law, international versions have been set up – the principles are the same. The current creative industries are hooked, their whole business models inflexibly require this antiquated form of copyright, and they fight any and all efforts to change this.

Even as the world changes, leaving them behind.

Truth is, illegal file sharing wouldn’t nearly be so big, popular, or socially addictive as it is now, had the corporations, and governments come into the game earlier, and dealt with the situation. They could have spent the past decade looking at changing their businesses to fit with the twenty-first century, while protection their revenue. However, a short sighted view, and inefficient weed killer, has maintained their own degradation as the source of creative media.

They only have themselves to blame. However, I digress slightly, but only slightly.

The point of this article is to explore a very valid point, one that multiple industries are faced with.

Given the abundance of free and legal sources of entertainment on the internet, of reasonable quality – would you pay for it elsewhere?

Say for instance, I’m a bestselling author – I’ve just written a ground breaking piece of fiction. It’s gone to the publishers, and has been released into the wilds of the bookshop. Now, I have some sort of weird control over my own works, that prevents my publisher from blocking me from publishing elsewhere, (I would expect they have better control of contracts than this, but it’s a necessary machination for my role-play), and I decide to offer it free to an online community, or two.

Everyone can go and download and eBook version of my groundbreaking book, (by the way, if you’re wondering it’s an awesome book, the best you’ll ever read), the media publicises this fact widely, so lots and lots of people know.

The consumer has a choice, they can download it for free online, or purchase the book. Which do you think the consumer would choose?

I believe they’ll choose the free meditation. I would. However since this a ground breaking, and unbelievably amazing book, maybe I’m hoping they want to buy a physical edition, to keep forever. However, the revenue is going to be far less.

Now, bearing in mind we’re dealing with an ultra-amazing groundbreaking book, if I were to add some form of advertising to the download page, I can recoup some of the lost revenue. Given how amazing the book is, that’s a lot of potential individuals to advertise to.

Of course, financially that’s not quite satisfying, I’ve got bills to pay, and a five storey, one hundred bedroom mansion to buy, (you know, the essentials in life). Next up, I want to look at putting advertising in the eBook – of course I’m a proud writer, and I don’t want LucoCola logo or text interfering with the story itself, so maybe on the front and back pages, and water marks in the corners? Intrusive, but not story ruining. The added advantage to this is, if you want the book without the advertising, you can go to a shop and pay for it.

Seems like a reasonable business model, no? I get lots of good attention from online downloads, plus a reasonable advertising revenue stream, and I get a decent payback from the physical copy of the book. It’s a business plan I could live with, except it would only really pay off with something destined for success. If only one hundred people download your book, the advertising revenues would be tiny, and certainly wouldn’t get me close to my SR-71 Blackbird, even a retired fixer upper.

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