A Novel Approach (To Me)

Ok, not the best start to the contest.  I slept in, but luckily I’m starting only an hour later than planned.  I can make that up somewhere else.  Coffee is brewing, in the meantime you can see my green tea (needed something hot).  I’ve moved the second computer into the living room so I won’t have any children trying to enter the cave.  Ok, let’s be realistic, they’ll still try to get into the cave, but that computer will reduce the interruptions significantly.  I have posted the following sign on my door:

“Unless the house is burning down or someone has broken a bone (and I’d better actually see BONE sticking out) DO NOT DISTURB!”

It won’t work…but again, it will reduce the interruptions.

Weird thing–I heard creepy howling this morning when I was moving my computer and it wasn’t my dogs.  I’m surprised they didn’t get up.  It must have been the wind but it sounded like a person or maybe a coyote.  It was incredibly eerie which is fantastic!  I’m utterly creeped out and ready to start writing a creepy novel.

Good luck all.  I’ll check in later today.

I just finished my outline for the 3 Day Novel Contest.  The contest starts in about an hour.  I have a loose outline that basically gives me a structure, plot, characters and a preliminary idea of theme.  However, I haven’t broken it into specific scenes or locked it down so much that there isn’t any room for surprises this weekend.  Here is my plan for the weekend:

• Write 30,000 to 40,000 words over the weekend
• Sleep tonight and get up early tomorrow (I don’t want to exhaust myself right at the beginning)
• Write in 3 hour bursts with a goal of 1500 words per hour
• Do 5 of these 3 hour sessions on Saturday and again on Sunday with 1/2 hour breaks in between to pee and eat and read twitter
• Start at 5am each day…done writing by 10 or 11pm and into bed for a good sleep
• Finish writing by noon on Monday
• Edit until midnight
• Incorporate a piercing into the story (as requested by my friend Karen–preferably the piercing of a certain private bit)
• Incorporate a baby arm holding an apple (as requested by my friend Simon–he deliberately requested something ridiculous…baby arm…not the baby…to make it really hard)

As you can see, my friends are evil. LOL!

I have prepared my supplies and washed some comfy clothes (can’t do this naked or formal).  Here’s the challenge, can you find these things in the picture:

• National Geographic magazine (article on Pacific Northwest is the inspiration for my setting)
• Chapstick just in case I get dehydrated and my lips crack
• Eczema care cream in case the stress is too much and I break out in a rash
• Candle in case the power goes out (wait, if the power goes out so does my computer…that would be bad. I’m removing the candle to prevent bad karma)
• Moleskin notebook (my favorite with of my pre-outline notes about the story)
• 8.5X11 paper with notes (because you just can’t have too many notes)
• Sarasa Gel Pen (my very favorite pen)

I’ve chosen my music and I’m hoping for gloomy weather–hey, this is going to be a Gothic(ish) novel…what could be better than gloomy weather to help me write.  Good luck to all you crazy 3 Day Novelists out there in cyberworld. I’m off to have a hot bath and a good sleep.  I’ll catch up with you in the morning.

I received my copy of Snowmen (the winner of the 2009 3 Day Novel Contest) and am a bit leery about whether I should read it before the contest or not.  I could probably read it in two days–it’s only about 140 pages long–but I’m scared to do it.  If it is really good (and it sounds like it is) it will either inspire me or scare the heck out of me. I’ll either get some good ideas about what it takes to write a winning novel OR I’ll be so intimidated that I’ll psych myself out before I start.

I’ll admit that I failed to work on my outline last night.  I had all the best intentions…and then I crashed.  I thought I’d have a quick 10 minute power nap and then I woke up to find that it was morning. Not good.

I think I’m trying to avoid finishing my outline because I’m suddenly feeling that pre-contest panic.  What was I thinking? A novel manuscript in 3 days?  Aaaahhhhh!

I spent an hour tonight cleaning my home office so I have a room that is stress free…good chi…a calm place to write. Well, maybe I was procrastinating but I do feel better that it’s done.  Ok…off to work on my outline.

I’m going to spend time tonight on my outline for the 3 Day Novel Contest.  I want a more thorough outline this time.  I have the characters figured out (though I haven’t done anything as formal as character sketches–not sure if I will).

Things are quiet so far on Twitter using the hashtag #3DNC. I wonder if anyone from last year other than Heather and I are going to participate.  Hopefully we see some activity in starting in the next few days before the contest starts.  There is activitiy already on the chat boards through the 3 Day Novel Contest site, but that seems so archaic compared to the experience I had last year on twitter.  Still, I’m creeping the boards…curious to see what people are talking about.

Only 2 more sleeps (unless I choose to sleep Friday night and get up very early–which is a real possibility).

The count down is on!!  Only 8 more sleeps until I enter the weekend of little or no sleep…otherwise known as the 3 Day Novel contest!  I have a very rough outline made and plan to flesh it out a bit more so that I don’t need to worry about spending any time thinking that weekend…I can just write.

I’ve entered this contest a few times.  I’ve tried the approach of sitting down with no idea at all about what I would write.  This can be a wonderful creative exercise and I was amazed at the great, crazy, stupid, weird, odd, and even a little bit wonderful ideas that my brain came up with under pressure.  Especially since I was sleep deprived and hopped up on caffeine (or maybe that was the secret of where all the ideas came from).  I can honestly say though…this is not the best route for me. I spent so much time thinking, that it was very bad for my word count.  I only reached a word count of about 7500 words that weekend.  My goal was 25,000 + words (at least 100 pages), so you can see how badly I failed that year.

Last year I did a bit better. I didn’t write an outline, but I did start with a concept.  I had an idea of the characters and the story I wanted to tell.  I got hung up because one of the characters developed a talent that required research to get some details I needed. Time lost.  Then friends dropped by and guilted me into visiting to let them know how I was doing so far. More time lost. Still, I more than doubled my word count from the prior year.  It was an improvement…and I was happy.  Even better, I made some friends on twitter specifically because of the conversations at #3DNC!

This year, I’m doing a proper outline and I’ll know my characters inside out before I start.  Does that defeat the purpose of the contest? Perhaps…but it is allowed, so I’m not cheating.  The less you do in advance, the more creative you are likely to get.  I guess I’ve decided that I like my creativity up front and that planning ahead is the only way I, personally, can hope to hit the word count. I’m sure that other writer’s don’t have this problem. I admire them.

So far, I have pages of notes already in my moleskin notebook.  (I prefer the standard black lined notebook, but I had to buy red this time because they didn’t have any black left. Luckily, the colour of the notebook doesn’t seem to have hurt my creativity.)  My notebook and I seem to be getting along well so far. LOL!

I’d love to be a finalist in the 3 Day Novel Contest this year, but I’ll settle for getting a story on paper that I can work to revise and complete this year. That’s a win in my books.

I’m finishing up a writing course I’ve been taking.  The instructor has been amazing and I have a few more tools in my belt–so it was money well spent.  I have more to learn (will I ever NOT have more to learn?) and have signed up for another course that starts in November that focuses on the art of writing scenes.  The break will give me time to write, to read the course material, and to participate in the 3 Day Novel Contest!!   I’m so excited!

This is exactly how I feel sometimes.  Very frustrated with my writing…

Although I’m excited by some changes I’m making in the re-writing process, I am also worried about some of the changes. It’s hard to let go of something that is not working and start again.  Yes, and I’m a bit frustrated. I am about to remove an entire sub-plot around a character named Janet because I’ve been given the advice from another (multiple published and trusted) author that I just have too much plot in my novel.  I know I don’t have to do it, it’s my novel.  But she’s made some good points and I think she’s right. She’s concerned that I’ll end up with a massive manuscript that will be impossible to sell because it’s too big.  Instead of having one main plot and a few sub-plots.  I actually have three independent plots that could stand on their own as independent novels…so she tells me.

So, I’m keeping one plot that drives the main story.  I’m cutting another plot completely and I think I just might use it for the 3 Day Novel contest (Acck…which means I have to write another outline).  The third plot can scale down and become a sub-plot without much effort.  Now I’m creating a new sub-plot for one of the characters to replace what I just ripped out. Back to the drawing board with poor Janet. Of all the characters I’ve written, she (and her story) have changed the most times in this revision process.  Let’s see what percolates in my brain in the coming two weeks.  I want to have the outline revised and the opening of the novel re-written by the end of this month.

So here I am tonight, working diligently on a plot outline.  It’s harder than I thought it would be. In the past I’ve just written organically.  No pre-work, just sit down and write.  However, I’ve figured out that a plot outline is probably important if I actually want to complete a reasonable first draft of a novel in the 3 Day Novel contest this upcoming Labour Day weekend. All the time I spend wracking my brain to think about what should happen next can be spent on simply writing it. It sounds reasonable enough.  Sure it does. I guess I’ll let you know how it works after the weekend is over.

Oh, and I can’t help but mention that it’s been 5 whole days since I received confirmation that they received my submission for the Writer’s Bloc contest. They said they’d keep the top 4 and send rejections as quickly as possible on any that don’t make the short list. If you receive a rejection you can submit another story at no cost up until July 4th. So far, no rejection.  Fingers crossed. Oh dear, now I’ve said it out loud. I hope that doesn’t mean I’ve tempted the gods of literary submissions to send me a rejection tomorrow…

Well, I can’t believe it but I haven’t posted in almost a week! Yikes!

It’s been busy with work and with my course.  I travelled a lot this past two weeks and need to figure out how to use my WordPress App on my iPod Touch to do quick posts.

I haven’t spent any time yet doing a plot outline for the 3 Day Novel contest.  I really need to get at that and not leave it to the last minute.  I have a sense of the type of story I want to write…but really need to put some pre-work into it.

I’ve also been spending my time revising the novel I’m working on and it’s changing a lot…almost daily. I went back and revisited my characters and decided that they’ll each need their own secret in order to drive the story forward more effectively. That means re-working the story line.  Overall, I’m happy with the progress I’m making.  I have a lot of scenes that I still need to write, but I’m excited (and tired)!

Another positive update…our garden is growing like crazy!!  It’s been raining almost every day.  I don’t like it, but clearly the plants do!  I’ll take pictures and post them this weekend.

Here is what I’m working on.  Write, write, write…revision, revision, revision.  It’s called “Seeing With Eyes Closed” but it might be called something else by the time I’m done…who knows?  I’m going to stop working on it now because I have a wicked headache caused by:

a) looking at a computer screen all day

b) forgetting to eat breakfast

c) forgetting to eat lunch

d) not drinking any water today

e) all of the above

I must also start thinking about what to write for the 3 day novel contest. Or I could just go have a hot bath.

(PS: I chose the hot bath)