Writer at Large

With four weeks behind me, and only two days left to go, here are my current statistics:

• Total word count: 52,941 (well ahead of target, and actually completed, if you want to get technical about it)
• Average daily word count for the week: 2,329 (a new personal best of any week for any year that I’ve participated)
• Nearly all of the sections written this week were large sequential chunks. There are a few “stragglers”, but chiefly in places where there needs to be some kind of transition between the opening and the main event of the sequence.
• I am still struggling to find an overarching plot. Most of these week was spent on (probably overly) exploring vignettes involving personal life events, so any plot itself has not moved along much. I do have a general idea for the climatic battle scene now, but need to flesh it out more.

For the remaining two days, I will probably strive to hit my personal goal of 1,800 words each day and then call it in sometime Tuesday night.

Until then . . .

The statistics at the two-week milestone (and nearly halfway point) include:

• Total word count: 36,638 (nicely pacing just ahead of target)
• Average daily word count for the week: 1,797 (just under my aspirational goal of 1,800, chiefly due to an underproductive day on Thursday)
• This week again there have been large sections written as sequential chunks.
• I’m still struggling with a plot . . . I think. And a main antagonist has not yet reared its villainous head, but I think I’m starting to arrive at a concept for one.
• Two important breakthroughs this week:
  • I have a final scene. (It came to me just minutes before I wrote this.) It provides exactly the kind of ending I wanted. It isn't the conclusion of the plot, though, so that's still an issue.
  • I understand the theme of this book now. I suspect I knew what it was all along, but had not recognized it at a conscious level. I'm not going to reveal it here, but will say that involves a societal issue that has long bothered me.

I have a handful of scenes in mind to write next week, but I have a feeling that Week Four is going to be a challenging one nonetheless. And this is definitely not a book that will be complete in 50,000 words.

The statistics at the two-week milestone (and nearly halfway point) include:

• Total word count: 24,056 (right on target, and just a few words short of my personal best for the second week)
• Average daily word count for the week: 1,511 (a bit below target due to almost no progress as expected on Tuesday through Thursday)
• Although I still plan to structure the overall novel as a series of vignettes, large sections of this week’s work have been sequential chunks.
• I still have only the vague notion of the overall plot—and almost none at all about the main antagonist.
• Even if this turns out to be the (fictional) biographical study of a superhero, it’s going to need something climatic at the end. I don’t think either a “He lived happily ever after.” or  “He died quietly in his sleep.” is quite going to work.

Here’s hoping that it all starts to come together in Week Three!

And we’re off! At the one week mark, my statistics look like this:

• Total word count: 13,479 (Looking back, that’s a new personal best for Week 1)
• I have a (working) title: Heroic Measures.
• I have several characters who are actually doing things, or starting to do things.
• Average daily word count for the week: 1,926

Although the “voice” of this novel is similar to other things I’ve written before, it is the first time that I have deliberately set things up to not be in sequence. The story is constructed as a series of vignettes in the main character’s history.

I anticipate my progress being zero (or close enough as not to matter) from Tuesday through Thursday due to work-related commitments, so my statistics next week are likely to look kind of wonky in comparison to usual. However, but plan to go into the week with a two-day buffer, so hopefully that will help.

Onward!

Yes, it’s that time of year again—the insanity that strikes right before the even greater chaos and mayhem that are the traditional winter holidays: National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words in 30 days. Who in their right mind does this?

Since there are many out there who would be more than willing testify under oath that I am often not in a “right mind”, I guess this includes me. So, a preview of this year . . .

Here’s where I am so far:

• a main character
• a vague sort of concept for the story
• a world setting
• something of a storytelling timeline structure
• a few ideas for a handful of supporting and other minor characters
• some half-formed metaphors that underlay the story
• the lack of a solid plot
• the lack of a key antagonist

At this moment, I’m very concerned that there isn’t enough here to sustain through 50,000 words. If I can fill in some of the gaps quickly, though, I think it just might work.

As usual, if you care to, you can monitor my progress here. Weekly updates will be posted as always.

There seems to be a general public perception that writing—or almost any artistic endeavor for that matter—is not work.

I’ve often wondered why this is. Is it because the odds of being “successful” at it seems so remote? It is because people who are not artists do not understand the efforts and skills involved in producing a piece of quality work? Does it stem from a sense of personal jealousy from people unwilling to take the same risks themselves? Or it is because, at some level, it involves a certain level of “make believe”, so it cannot be real work?

For any given detractor, the real answer (or answers) probably might be any one of these, a combination of any of them, or even some reasoning entirely different.

I have found, generally, that almost any attempt at explanation, at describing the process and effort required to produce a creative piece of work (and notice the word choice there—work), tends to be met with skepticism or disdain, rarely with admiration. The attitude often changes if we can produce some sort of proof that we have actually been published or otherwise recognized for our efforts, but there seems to be little regard or consideration while we are in the process of creation. During that time, it feels as though we are treated as a dilettante, a grownup playing at childish things that we should have long put away.

Working at one’s art requires time, commitment, and energy—any or all of which can often be in short supply while we try to keep the mortgage/rent paid, food on the table, our families clothed, and our employers reasonably content. Even those of us fortunate enough to have among our circles of acquaintances other artists who understand, the wider chorus of voices around us provide little support for our creative endeavors. Most often, some kind of lip service is offered up, but in the end it rarely takes the form of anything tangible or material.

What is the answer, I wonder? How do we get our society to respect and truly support its artists? By this, I mean the ones struggle to make it happen, not the ones who walk the red carpets at the Academy Awards (and other) ceremonies who are publically and financially well-rewarded for their efforts. (I do not mean to imply that they are not worthy as well, but I have wondered how many artwork exhibits or small press publishers might be funded by the cost of the clothing worn to those events alone.)

Is it that what the public wants is glitz and glamour? That the hard-working writer who dutifully and expertly writes their page or two a day, gets published in a few thousand copies, is simply not interesting enough because they lack a good publicity agent? That if you’re not on Oprah or publically placed in rehab or involved in some vaguely notorious scandal, you’re not worthy of the title of “successful artist”?

It’s a strange and baffling world out there . . . Maybe it is really is as they say: Truth is stranger than fiction.

Let me begin by expressing my gratitude where rightfully due: to Laureen for (strongly) recommending this book, and to Holly for loaning me a copy until I could get home to purchase my own.

I’ve needed a good, swift kick in the proverbial pants, writing-wise, of late. My inner editor has been screaming loud and long. And, when she hasn’t been screaming, she’s taken to whispering vague (but still demoralizing) bits of criticism in my mind’s ear. (One of these days I really need to figure out whether my muse and inner editor are related, hero and arch-villain, or two disparate personalities within the same being. But that’s a discovery to pursue at a later time.)

This little book was exactly what I needed, when I needed it. (Yeah, yeah, I can see you nodding smugly over there…) I was so moved by what I found within its pages that, while reading it during a recent plane flight, I actually dug my notebook out of my onboard luggage and completed the first three exercises and nearly all of the fourth.

Let me say this about the book so far. The chapters are short, the writing personable and personal—and to the point, and the lessons based on experience are dead-on. This one definitely looks like a keeper, and one that I will likely return to whenever the muse and editor are deadlocked.