NaNoWriMo

You'll have to read this all the way through please.



I posted a link yesterday to NaNoWriMo. This stands for the National November Writing Month. First off this is a non-profit organization worth checking out. I think it's in it's tenth or eleventh year. The contest is as follows:

Write a 50,000 word novel, starting November 1st and finished by November 30th. This is a quantity not quality attempt. Per one quote on the website "December is for revisions." Don't get bogged down in editing. Just force yourself to write.

I know several of my friends here can relate to that. I've been in the process of writing three -count them - three greatest american novels for at least four years. Sort of a GOYA (get off your ass) contest.

You win by posting your story and having the word count reach 50,000 words. You lose if you post 49,999 words. that's it. No prizes, no judging. Nobody even reads the story at the office. They just count the words. Technically you could type anything, repeat the word THE 50,000 times. It's an honor system. You can't use anything already written (Outlines and sources aside). Again it's all honor system. This is mostly just a personal challenge with a bit of competition and bragging rights across regions. There are about 43 people signed up from Savannah.

I first came across this contest three years ago. I think years earlier as well, but didn't pay it attention then. I always discover it right around the end of October. I always discover it while I don't have a single idea in my head to write about. I always have a thousand good reasons not to do it. I always want to sign up and never do. I always wish I had signed up come the end of November and forget about it again come December, until the following year I repeat the cycle.

On a quick side note, I am also testing right now how well I am at getting a word count going just by typing. Hence the long note here, although when I blog I do tend to ramble. Quite a bit. Although i have severely decreased the amount of ...'s I use.

So to get to the point in a rather long about way, I was veiwing onee of my YouTube subscriptions (HaleyGHoover, she rocks) two short days ago and she signed up for this contest. She also informed us that she's entered four times and one twice.

She's 19.

I am 44 and still sitting on my ass as my stomach grows wider. So I signed up. On October 30th. With not a single idea in my head. Without a hope of finishing this project. With a thousand different things on my plate to finish. Add that to the fact that I am pretty much anti-social anyway, and locking me into a room with a typewriter for 30 days is not quite on my list of healthy behaviors, and you have a definite recipe for disaster.

I have not been this excited since I began reading Wikipedia.

Yeah, another unfinished project there. I wanted to read Wikipedia front to back. Long story (really long blog!) and I discovered I have just under 9000 words into it. From two years ago.

I also am attempting an actual novel. Characters and story arcs and conflicts and resolutions and all. Honestly, it's just one of those things I started channeling. I don't take a lot of credit for it, and I also have not gotten into the meat of the story either. Just the introductions and character development.

I have 12000 plus words in that one though. And that's only a year-long project so far.

I can do the word count. I can very likely do it within a month. But can I do it in an actual novel? Can I do it in something that isn't just a stretched out drawn out watered down version of a fifth step, as is pretty much all of my writing? Yeah, if I get your help with it.

Let me go through my technical difficulties first.

I killed my computer last year. I did manage to save the hard drive, and pretty much all my writings, thank you HP. I also bought a laptop from a friend (on the installment plan. I have yet to pay off that small amount of money, but we talked the other day, and my only real deadline is before I shoot up the work place. Which, as much as I may talk about and seriously enjoy doing, won't be happening). But this laptop has MS Office 2007. The trial version. Which is used up and locked up so I have no actual word processor to write with anymore. My writing will be happenning online, at MySpace (a link will follow if you actually want to read along and hopefully input. Just bear in mind it's a quantity not wuality project).

But I do have a laptop. And those are great for writers. In theory we can go anywhere and write. We can stop on the side of the road and add a note, or meet up with some of the other 42 Wrimos (our collective nickname) at Borders or Gallery Espresso (but not the Metro, damn them for closing!). My problem there is that my battery doesn't charge. So to take it with me requires the use of my power cord. Small difficulty I know, dragging the cord with me and finding an outlet. But let's just say I somehow broke the keyboard on my laptop already. And let's also assume that I have a USB keyboard attached that I also need to drag around with me. And let's finally consider that I am telling the truth because I am, and the stares as I haul all of this into the Starbucks and ask someone who's sitting near the only outlet next to a table (because a laptop is okay on your lap, hence the name, but a laptop and a keyboard are a bit more difficult) become a bit embarrassing.

Wait there's one more thing. Because I cleaned out this keyboard a while back (it was attached to the now dead desktop that I killed last year), and put the N key and the M key on backwards. So if you go back even in this post, and count the M's and the N's, and just assume about a third of them were typos because I generally still look down at the keys when I type, and you get a sense of what difficulties lie in wait for me. And I know that I could take it apart and actually fix it correctly. Buit comon, this is me you're talking about. I like my personal hells. I don't want a challenge I want my head beaten against the wall thank you very much. Besides, for the most part I have gotten used to it.

My biggest saving grace, if I wish to balance the scales here a bit, is that I type with three fingers. Sometimes even four.

We are almost done wandering the neighborhood here by the way. Bear with me because now is where I ask for help. And it doesn't involve any of the previous technical issues. It involves plot. I don't have one. Well, I didn't anyway. Not until I spent 7 and a half hours amongst the walking dead in the Urgent care office today and came up with one. And somewhat of an outline as well. But it needs a lot of work.

Fifty thousand words. thirty days. That's a steady pace of about 1670 words a day. Every day. Even the weekends as I keep Connor entertained. Even on Thanksgiving. Even between cub scouts and meetings and dating and... well, that last part isn't quite happenning yet. But I was ready and God threw this into my lap. Fifty. Thousand. Words. And no plot this morning at all. I would love to finish my novel that's already started. To not count the words written already and add another 50000 to it (do you see all those zeros by the way!). That would be bending the rules. This is supposed to be a start to finish novel. I would love to just do a long winded blog. But again, that's not really a novel.

So I am stealing. That's not really out of the rules. I got to thinking about meeting up with some of these fellow writers (Wrimos) this month, as we plug away and encourage and beat down each others work. I got to thinking about the diverse people involved and the differences and the conflicts and the shyness and the outspokenness and y'all do understand that I am not a people person, so I almost immediately decided to have one of the characters kill them all off. Which actually may happen, but not in my current plan. Because then I remembered a movie. And I realized this was already written.

The Breakfast Club.

If you haven't seen it find it. And I know as the starting gun for this project looms in minutes and I need to write, I still might stay up and watch the movie again.

You have the characters. the jock. The nerd. The weird (goth) one. The princess. And the criminal (or rebel). You have their parents (who, although not seen in the movie except in the beginning and end, play a major role in the conflicts) and the authority figure and the janitor.

You have the conflicts, the bonding then the understanding and the resolution and finally the growth. It's a story that writes itself if I let it, and really, can I even consider myself even a hack writer if I can't do this? So we have what I think of as "The Writer's Breakfast Club". No that's not a title I just want you to start thinking.

Think about the characters. Not so much as the grown up jock or the princess ten years later. Just that there will be a group of five people very diverse in their beliefs coming together and having issues with each other because of their issues away from the group. Give me the conflicts. Share with me something of your own. Your issues with your parents or spouses, current or ex. Brainstorm with me here. Help me write a novel that might actually go somewhere.

See I have my characters. But the authority figure is kind of a stumper for me right now. And I think my nerd (the wanna-be writer probably, since he becomes the narrator) and the criminal (I don't know who yet, but I just understand he is running or hiding something from his past) might be the same person, which leaves me a character short.

I have some conflicts sketched out (imagine a Scad student, new to town, trying to hold a political conversation with someone who really wants to be the next Paula Dean; Imagine a shallow character, barely holding it all together, whose car and house and girl give him meaning learning about the benefits of service from some retired school teacher). It's all right there. It's all ready to be hashed out.

But I don't even have close to 50000 words on my own. And to quote myself from a note I made today: "It's hard to write about characters the reader wants to care about, when you really don't care about people." Yes I do care about people. People I know, people who need help, people as individuals. But I only learn that from you all. I only have that when I stay close to those of you who teach me. All of you.

So you're in? Great! Let's get going. It just turned one o'clock on November first. Even better is that the clocks go back tonight, so it just turned Midnight November first. i can officially write for this contest. Push me Prod me. Laugh and cry with me. I am so ready to go. Come along with me. Give me your ideas and know that nothing is taboo, nothing is sacred and nothing too small or too grand to put down in these comments.

And to let you really understand what's in store, this post was a mere 2067 words.