NaNoWriMo: Insane Or Motivating? Depends on your expectations and situation

Today's the first day of NaNoWriMo, also known as National Novel Writing Month! The goal: to write 50,000 words in one month.

I'm a NaNoRebel this year, but my friend Errol Elumir and I are doing daily NaNoWriMo comics over on the NaNoToons site.

There are many experienced writers out there who hate the idea of NaNoWriMo, or think it a waste of time.

As I mention in a blog post today, my take is as follows: it depends on your motivation, situation and expectations. If I had to offer one piece of advice for NaNoWriMo newbies, it would be this:

Whatever you do, do NOT send out your NaNoWriMo novel right after you've finished at the end of November, no matter how excited you are about it. 

If you wrote it in hopes of getting it published, then put it away for at least a few weeks and then start working to polish it. If you can wait until March, then participate in NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month).

My other piece of advice: Have fun with it. If it's not fun, then why participate? If you find yourself falling further and further behind in wordcount, building up stress and guilt and self-loathing, then maybe NaNoWriMo is not for you.

Although I've done NaNoWriMo in the past AND had fun with it, I've found the timing just hasn't worked out for me in recent years because I'm always away for a big chunk of November. So I make my own motivation as well as finding other ways to vicariously enjoy NaNofun....like doing NaNoToons. And being an extra in the 6-part web series about NaNoWrimo, NaNoMusical! First episode just launched, and I appear in a few scenes :-).

So is anyone else participating in NaNoWrimo, PiBoIdmo (Picture Book Idea Month) or one of the other November writing challenges?

Breaking through the wall

Yesterday I got my sixth tattoo. It was a coverup up of something I wasn’t happy with and didn’t really fit my personality anymore. I waited a long time to have it done and saved for months to afford it. It’s the biggest one I have and so - no surprise - it took the longest time to get done.

For the first two hours or so, I did okay. The pain was manageable and I was able to talk my way through it. (My daughter and friend came along for support and to engage in mindless conversation with me.) But by the time we got to that last hour-and-a-half, I was in significant pain. I was genuinely worried I might throw up and instead of being chatty, in my mind I was screaming, “Are we done yet?! Please be done!” 

I get the same way when I reach that three-quarters the way through point when I’m writing a book. I move along fairly well and then, suddenly, it Gets. So. Hard. and it seems like it’ll never end. I’ve heard the same thing happens to people who run marathons. (I wouldn’t know because they only time I run is when people are chasing me. Which is to say, rarely.) 

That wall is a tough thing to break through. Like with my tattoo, I usually just grit my teeth, try not to scream out obscenities and concentrate on the end result. 

What about you? How do you push through that wall? How do you find your second wind?

Back from the SCBWI Winter Conference. Now what?

(click on image above for bigger version)

I just got back from the SCBWI Winter Conference in NYC. Whoa -- what an amazing, inspiring event. Just before the conference, I also visited my publisher at Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers about I'm Bored and other projects. I'll be posting about both events in my Inkygirl blog, with (likely way too many) photos.

But the main message prevalent throughout: no matter what the format, what promoting I do, what process or techniques I use, it's the CONTENT that matters most in the end. In the end, a good story and strong characters trump all.

So while my head feels so full of all the wonderful information and advice I learned during the event, I know that most of all, I need to get my butt in my chair and do more WRITING. 

Getting Out of the Zero-Word Zone

January is often a month when you vow to change your life or reach toward a new goal. How’s that going for you? I’m finding it hard to buckle down and get writing. I’ve just finished revisions on one book, and, while I’m collecting critiques on that one, I’m toying with moving on to another. But I haven’t. I even have a good plan in mind. So what’s stopping me?

I’m getting pretty good at thinking up excuses. First it was the report cards I had to write for my day job. Then there was the new blog feature I started (ABC’s of Writing for Middle Graders over at That's Another Story). And a family weekend we took. Catching up after the family weekend. Critiques I owe. And then…well, you know how it is. Excuses are easy to dream up. What’s not easy, it seems is getting back to a regular writing routine.

What’s your best excuse for not writing? 'Cause I’m getting tapped out. I guess tomorrow I’ll actually have to do it. Just pick a place and start. Even a few words is better than zero.

-- Andrea

Creating Believable Motivation for Middle Grade Characters

Motivation. If you don’t have it, you’re not getting anything done. And if your character doesn’t have it, your story isn’t going anywhere. One of the difficulties I have in writing middle grade fiction is in getting the right motivation for my characters.

A character’s motivation has to be believable. For middle grade, that means you need to know what 9- to 12-year-olds want or what’s important to them. There are lots of writing books that give you advice on how to do that. But I think you also need to know two more things:

1) what middle graders think they can do

2) what they are able to do

These often don’t match up, which is a good thing, because it can create conflict in your story. But if either of them is too unrealistic, you run the risk of setting up a situation that won’t be believable for your readers.

I’ve noticed that sometimes middle graders seem to have a kind of naïve confidence, where they are sure something will be a piece of cake and then find out it’s not. Like when they’ve seen an adult do something lots of times, then try it themselves, and realize it’s a lot harder than they thought. Do they give up? Or do they try harder? There’s some motivation and conflict.

On the other hand, sometimes adults or older siblings underestimate what kids can do. For example, my 11-year-old shows much more initiative and independence when her older sister isn’t around. To a point. There are things she wouldn’t be able to do and knows it. But there are other things she’ll try because she thinks she can. There’s a lot of “trying it out to see what happens” with middle graders.

As an adult writing for children, it’s hard to shut out the perspective of "knowing myself" that comes from having so many more life experiences. But I think it’s important to try. To get the motivation right, I’m going to delve into the minds of my characters and work on what they think they are able to do, then show whether they can as the story develops.

-- Andrea