January 23, 2013 by geraldhornsby

Writing challenges – are they any good?

First, there came National Novel Writing Month – often shortened to NaNoWriMo. The challenge? To write a 50,000 word ‘novel’ during the 30 days of November. First

NaNoWriMo remains very popular. In 1999, their first year, they had 21 participants and 6 winners. In 2011, they had over a quarter of a million participants and nearly 37,000 winners. The number of words logged in the 2011 event was 3,074,068,446. Over three billion words. Staggering.

However, there a couple of problems with NaNoWriMo:

1) The pace is pretty high, at 1667 words per day. The danger is that you type words, not create a story. Generally, I’ve been dissatisfied with my 8 NaNoWriMo winning ‘novels’

2) 50,000 words do not a novel make, especially that, by the time you’ve done some (necessary) editing, you’ll end up with something around 30,000 words.

Several other challenges have emanated from the NaNowriMo people. Camp NaNoWriMo is another 50k word novel month, in the month of July. Script Frenzy is the same, but for scriptwriting. And it doesn’t stop there. Others have created NaNoEdMo (editing), NaNoWriWee (30k in a weekend). There’s a ton of monthly timed artistic challenges at http://www.wikiwrimo.org/wiki/List_of_timed_artistic_challenges

So, with all these problems, is it worth doing a timed wordcount challenge? Bearing in mind that:

* You have to be prepared to work at it. Nothing worth having comes easily. You need to make compromises. You need to write when you don’t feel like it.

* You can feel down if you start falling behind. You need to either stick with the schedule, or not. If something gets in the way – illness, family issues, meteorites hitting the earth – you need to accept that you’re not going to achieve that target.

* You can end up with nonsense. Ernest Hemingway said “the first draft of anything is shit.” And it is. Mine are, anyway. That’s what the editing process is for.

However, there are a couple of huge positives:

* Having a regular, challenging schedule means that you need to write each day. This is a very good thing. And once you get into the habit of writing each day, you can’t stop. More writing = a better chance at gaining a publisher or more self-published works to offer to the public.

* You can feel that you have what it takes to become a novelist. This is also a good thing. We’re all delicate, fragile souls, and our confidence needs lots of bolstering.

How do you succeed at timed writing challenges? Here are some hints and tips I’ve used over the years.

* PLAN

I’ve seen many authors fail the challenges, but one of the biggest reasons is due to lack of planning. You really can’t write a novel without having a plan. An idea is not enough. An idea is not a plan. The plan is something which lists plot points, from the start, through the middle, and to the end. The plan lists your characters, with some sort of character definitions. The plan can be a chapter-by-chapter detailed definition of your story, but it needn’t be. Without the plan, your story will run out of ‘legs’, you will run out of story, before you complete the necessary words. And, with something like NaNoWriMo, there is no time for major replanning.

* WRITE EACH AND EVERY DAY

It sounds obvious. But some people don’t. They feel tired, they have a busy day at work, they have a family member fall ill. All valid reasons, sure enough, but if you can break through these barriers, write just a few words, a couple of sentences, maybe a paragraph or two – then you’ll stand a much better chance at succeeding.

* DON’T SPEND TOO MUCH TIME TALKING ABOUT WRITING

NaNoWriMo have forums for you to chat with your fellow challengees. They have individual local forums for people in your area. They have forums for your genre. They have technical question forums. They have forums for people to recommend writing resources and programs. And so it goes on. There are Facebook groups, Twitter hashtags, other forums. All of which take you away from what you are supposed to be doing – WRITING!

Restrict your non-writing social media efforts to a certain amount of time during the day. One of the best things I have found to do is to close down my browser when I’m writing. That little bit of effort to open up the browser and load websites takes just long enough for me to think carefully before doing it.

* LEARN TO WRITE IN SMALL BITES

One of the problems many challenge writers have is of finding time to write. We think to write 1000 words a day or more, we need a couple of hours of time away from other people, in silence or with the music of our choice, a glass of wine or a cup of tea, and a view to inspire our writing.

Wrong!

You need to put your writing instrument of choice in front of you, and write. I’ve written whilst food has been cooking. While watching TV. In between doing household chores. When the rest of the house has gone to bed. Before the rest of the house has woken up in the morning. Whilst waiting for an appointment. During a 15-minute tea break. During a lunch break. Learn to write in small sections, and with distractions. Learn to switch off from outside influences, and concentrate on your story. I can type at around 1,000 words an hour, creating fiction as I go. That’s four, quarter-hour segments, or six, ten-minute segments during the day. Can you find six, ten minute chunks of time to write. Sure you can!

* HAVE FUN

Yes, the challenge is about writing. And writing is work. Damned hard work. But you’re allowed to have fun, too. Chat to others about what you’re doing. If there’s a forum, join in. Read blogs that other writers offer. Here are a couple that might amuse or encourage you. Chuck Wendig is not everyone’s cup of tea, and he’s irreverent and some of his language may offend. But what he says is the truth, so please read them, and nod your head sagely, and remember who told you to read them!

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2010/11/01/nanowhonow-nanowrimo-dos-and-donts/

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/10/04/25-things-you-should-know-about-nanowrimo/

Good luck!

January 16, 2013 by geraldhornsby

Monomyth and story structure

I’m not a fan of prescriptive writing. The sort of stuff where you learn ‘how’ to write a proper story, where you learn about protagonists, antagonists, story arc, blah blah blah. I’ve read a lot of novels in my writing genre (crime / horror / dark / dystopian fiction), and I think I’ve absorbed story structure into my head. My characters have challenges and conflict.

But I enjoy reading about writing, and I particularly enjoy listening to the Writing Excuses podcast. http://www.writingexcuses.com/ You can subscribe via iTunes.

This week, they were talking about “Hero’s Journey” http://www.writingexcuses.com/2013/01/13/writing-excuses-8-2-heros-journey/ and there’s a lot of interesting stuff in there. They also link the theory to popular stories and films, like Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings story. Examples like that really bring home the reasoning behind the theories.

I’ve searched some of the stuff they talk about, and include links below.

I’m not saying (and they’re not saying) that your stories have to follow these prescriptive plans, but it’s worth reading about the theories to see if they might be useful to you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

http://channel101.wikia.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_Basic_Shit

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheHollywoodFormula

http://ywp.scriptfrenzy.org/files/scriptfrenzy-ywp/sf_ywp_08_formula_hs.pdf

http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2012/10/orson-scott-card-mice-quotient-how-to.html

http://www.wendy-wheeler.com/7point.html

January 6, 2013 by geraldhornsby

Quick update …

… in more ways than one. Long overdue, I updated my two ebook collections of flash fiction and short stories (see side panel). All in all, it was a very painless experience. I completed the updates at around lunchtime, and the books were available to be downloaded by tea time. Excellent! (Should have done it earlier!)

January 5, 2013 by geraldhornsby

New Year – New Challenge!

It’s New Year, and despite the fact I don’t make New Year Resolutions these days (thereby avoiding the guilt trips I have suffered in the past when the resolutions get broken within a week or two), I’m up for a writing challenge.

And there’s no better challenge than my old mate Sally Quilford’s 100k in 100 days challenge. The idea has some similarities to NaNoWriMo, in that there is a word count target at the end of the period – i.e. 100,000 words in 100 days. Mathematicians amongst you will probably soon be working at that this means 1,000 words per day, which is much less stressful than NaNoWriMo’s 1,667 words per day average. Still, that’s about four pages of a paperback novel, which doesn’t sound too onerous, does it? But definitely worth doing. By mid-April, you’ll have enough of a first draft written to enable you to edit it down by 20%, and still have an 80,000-word novel to send out or publish.

The other difference is that Sally allows writers to use creative writing from other destinations, not just on one ‘novel’. You can include blog posts (as long as it’s about writing), writing articles, short stories, poems, and stuff like that. Again, it’s to reduce the stress and the pressure, and allow you more freedom in choosing your writing. The main idea is that it keeps you writing.

I’ve created a little spreadsheet on the internet for people to log their word counts. Simple enough, but the first place I chose to host the spreadsheet was very unreliable. The fact that their blog hasn’t been updated since 2009 doesn’t exactly engender confidence, either. After a second hiccup, another writer from the group suggested Google docs. I had been confused by Google telling me I needed to download Google Drive (which I did, but which isn’t appropriate for everyone to do). But, on further investigation, that was just to allow easier uploading / archiving, and Google Docs works pretty much as it always has done. So the word count spreadsheet resides on Google’s massive servers.

So, how are we doing, four-and-a-bit days into the challenge? So far (as I type this) – which will, of course, count towards my daily total 😉 – the group has recorded over 279,000 new words written, across the 89 users currently listed on the spreadsheet. An amazing total! Personally, I’ve taken my Performance Enhancing Drugs (Christmas cake and coffee), and am aiming for double the average, and trying to write 2,000 words per day. After 4 days, I’m sitting at 8,874 words, most of which are in a new novel wth a working title of The History of Things To Come. The subject is the end of the world, for which the December 21st date has come and gone. This book, which is fiction of course, shows why that date was incorrect, and more importantly, names the REAL date. Death and destruction all the way. It’s a thriller, in case you can’t guess.

In the next blog post, I will list some of my coping mechanisms / tips for writing challenges. I’m an 8-times ‘winner’ of NaNoWriMo, and I’ve discovered things that work, and a lot of things that don’t. I hope you’ll join me then.

December 8, 2012 by geraldhornsby

NaNoWriMo – success!

Hurrah! And three cheers of whatever bilge you drink. I completed (or “won”, in NaNo parlance) NaNoWriMo 2012. And here’s a badge to prove it:

It’s a pretty little badge, and the eighth of its type that I have collected. Since 2003, I have failed once (can’t remember why), and I have not started it once (we were moving house during November, and therefore a little busy). So you could say I quite like these time / word count challenges.

So what? Good question. I’ve improved my typing skills over the years, and can now comfortable exceed 1,000 words of creative writing per hour. Unfortunately, that’s where the work on the ‘novels’ has stopped. 50,000 words do not a novel make. Nor are they, ever, good words. Some of them might be good words, but when put together, they don’t amount to a hill of beans. As one of my heroes, Ernest Hemingway famously said: “The first draft of anything is shit.” Oh yes. He must have been looking at my NaNoWriMo entries.

This year, I began three stories, all with a series character, and all with their feet firmly planted in the crime genre. And, unlike previous years, I’ve got to the end of the challenge (but not the end of the stories), and I haven’t fallen out of love with them yet. So the prospects for me actually completing them, and then moving on to editing, are pretty good. Watch this space. In the meantime, I will give my poor fingers a rest, until the next challenge!

November 10, 2012 by geraldhornsby

NaNoWriMo – progress

NaNoWriMo is progressing. At the time of posting, I have written over 20,000 words across the two stories – “Speak No Evil” and “Trick or Treat.” They feature my series character, Detective Inspector Danni McGregor. So it’s going well. So far.

In addition, I’m doing a little bit of podcasting. It’s good fun, and involves a little bit of audio file manipulation to get rid of the “umms” and “errrs”. Of which there are many. If you’re stuck for something to listen to, head across to my podcast site > HERE <

October 20, 2012 by geraldhornsby

NaNoWriMo – planning and podcasting

We’re less that two weeks away from the beginning of November, and the start of NaNoWriMo 2012.

I currently have three ideas for stories – one at least half-planned, and two roughly planned. More planning needed, and decisions to make. I have considered doing a double NaNo – writing either 100,000 words, or two 50,000 word pieces. I like a challenge, me, even if it does sound stupid when I’m sober.

I’m also doing a bit of podcasting – I’ve uploaded a short videocast .: HERE :. and there’s an audio podcast too, when I can find somewhere to host it.

So, today, I’m planning a bit more on the other two story ideas, and I hope to be able to make a choice by the end of the day as to whether I’ll be doing one or two, and which of the ideas I’m going to write.

Edit: my audio podcast site is .: HERE :.

October 4, 2012 by geraldhornsby

NaNoWriMo (again) – shall I? Shan’t I?

I’m so tempted. Each year I do it, I look at what I’ve produced, file it away, and swear never to do NaNoWriMo again.

The problem is that it’s quite good fun, and it actually gets me writing. Of the eight years I’ve attempted it so far, I have “succeeded” seven times (which means I’ve written 50,000 words in the month).

This year has been a lazy year for me, and I’ve written very little. I have several pieces of writing at the “nearly finished” stage, but nothing that really grabs me, and makes me desperate to finish and edit it. And this is my perennial problem. I fall out of love with my writing, I think the stories are too trite and tedious, and the writing lumpy and pedestrian. And so … nothing gets finished.

However, I have an idea for a story, combining my love of cycling with a desire to tell a story in the psychological thriller genre.

I’m re-registered on the NaNoWriMo site, and girding my loins. This time, it will be good.

February 15, 2012 by geraldhornsby

Guest blog post

I’m very pleased to have been asked by a writer friend, Jane Rusbridge, to write a short piece on her blog about editing for the independent writer.

You can read it HERE

Jane has had her debut novel, ‘The Devil’s Music’ published by Bloomsbury, and is available for Kindle from Amazon. If you prefer, you can buy it direct from Bloomsbury, or you can buy it from your local independent bookshop.

Her new book, ‘Rook’, will be available in August 2012 from Bloomsbury.