Blue Pencil Sessions

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Just a few short years ago, I began attending writers’ conferences as an unpublished newbie—tentative, worried that I wasn’t a “real” writer, afraid of taking up the valuable time of published authors with my utterly basic questions about the business and craft of writing. I’ve since come to realize that the attendees are friendly and open to meeting new people, everyone who writes is a real writer—whether they’re published or not—and published authors are there because they want to share their hard-earned knowledge with those learning the ropes.
Now I’ve just returned from the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, attending a conference for the first time as an invited speaker. This time I went with a whole new set of worries—would I have anything useful to say, would I be able to speak for ninety minutes about topics that I feel I’m still learning, would the organizers think they’d made a big mistake by allotting a precious speaking slot to me? (I should have realized from the beginning that all this worry meant I was a real writer).
My new worries turned out to be as unfounded as my old ones. Many of the attendees who came to my workshops told me afterward how much they got out of them. I had so much to say in both of my workshops that I had to race to finish at the end (ironic, since one of the workshops was on pacing in novels). When I get the written evaluations, I’ll have a better idea of whether I’ll be invited to return (which I’d love to do, if any of the conference organizers are reading this).
But the one part of the conference I was really dreading was the set of three blue pencil sessions I had been scheduled for. SiWC is unique among the conferences I’ve attended in that they ask all the presenters to set aside time for attendees who would like an assessment of a few pages of their work. I didn’t ask, but I imagine they’re called blue pencil sessions instead of red pencil sessions because they’re intended to provide constructive critiques in an encouraging way.
I wasn’t dreading the sessions because I thought they would be dull or tedious. I was dreading them because I didn’t know if I was qualified to give feedback on other people’s work, and I didn’t want to dash anyone’s dreams when I saw something that needed to be edited. I know how hard it is to show a stranger the story you’ve spent hours crafting, hoping that you’ll hear how wonderful and skillful your story and voice are, but prepared for the eye-rolling and tsking over poor writing that you fear will be the first thing out of the reader’s mouth.
I’ve been that newbie writer, so I know how much courage it takes to approach me now sitting on the opposite side of the table, me with the presumed authority of just over two years as a published author. A very short two years from my end.
So I did my best to read the samples carefully and dig into what was and wasn’t working for me. I did my best to provide encouragement no matter how raw the writing was. I did my best to make those fifteen minutes count for both of us.
It ended up being one of my favorite parts of the conference. I enjoyed the one-on-one discussions with authors. I could see it in their eyes that what I was saying was meaningful to them, that they felt I was helping them to improve their work in whatever small way I could. And I learned as much as they did about what it takes to become a better writer.
That exchange was what was so great about the conference. The attendees might have thought that they were the ones there to learn, and I’m sure they left with an education and memories that will resonate for many years. But as a first-time instructor, I might have gotten even more out of the experience than they did.

Baloney Advice Writers Should Ignore

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Some time ago I cheekily posted the three rules for writing a novel. It produced a spirited discussion on what is a “rule” and what is a “principle,” but by and large there was agreement that these three factors are essential to novels that sell.
Today I’d like to discuss some writing advice writers would do well to ignore.
Where does such advice come from? I have a theory that there is a mad scientist in Schenectady, New York, who cooks up writing advice memes and converts them to an invisible and odorless gas. He then secretly arranges for this gas to seep into critique groups across the land, infecting the members, who then begin to dispense the pernicious doctrine as if it were holy writ.
I now offer the antidote to the gas.
1. Don’t start with the weather
Verdict: Baloney
This meme may have started with Elmore Leonard, who once dashed off a list of “rules” that have become like sacred script for writers. If his advice were, “Don’t open a book with static, flat descriptions” I would absolutely agree.
But here is why the rule, as stated, is baloney: weather can add dimension and tone to the opening disturbance. If you use it in that fashion, weaving it into action, it’s a fine way to begin.
Look at the opening of Bleak House by Dickens, or the short story “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away” by Stephen King. Or the quieter beginning of Ann Lamott’s Blue Shoe. All of them use weather to great effect. Here’s a Western, Hangman’s Territory, from a great writing teacher, Jack Bickham:
   The late spring storm was breaking. To the east, boiling blue-gray clouds moved on, raging toward Fort Gibson. To the west, the sun peered cautiously through a last veil of rain, slanting under the shelf of clouds and making the air a strange, silent bright yellow. The intense, muggy heat of the day had been broken, and now the early evening was cool and damp, and frogs had magically appeared everywhere in the red gumbo of the Indian Nations.
   Eck Jackson threw back the heavy canvas under which he had been waiting. His boots sank into the red mud as he clambered out of his shelter between two rocks and peered at the sky.
If you think of weather as interacting with the character’s mood and emotions, you’re just fine to start with it.
2. Don’t start with dialogue
Verdict: Baloney
Starting with dialogue creates instant conflict, which is what most unpublished manuscripts lack on the first pages. Sometimes this rule is stated as “Don’t start with unattributed dialogue.” Double baloney on rye with mustard. Here’s why: readers have imaginations which are patient and malleable. If they are hooked by dialogue, they will wait several lines before they find who’s talking and lose absolutely nothing in the process.
Examples:
“TOM!”
No answer.
“TOM!”
No answer.
“What’s gone with that boy,  I wonder? You TOM!”
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room . . . 
        – (Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
 “Any thoughts that you’d like to start with?”
“Thoughts on what?”
“Well, on anything. On the incident.”
“On the incident? Yes, I have some thoughts.”
She waited but he did not continue. He had decided before he even got to Chinatown that this would be the way he would be.
       –  (Michael Connelly, The Last Coyote)
“Name?”
“Robert Travis.”
“Occupation?”
“Mining engineer.”
“Place of residence?”
“Seventh Base, Jovian Development Unit, Ganymede.”
“Reason for visiting Luna?”
“I’m checking on performance of the new Dahlmeyer units in the Mare Nublum fields. We’re thinking of adapting them for use in our Trendart field on Ganymede.”
“I see . . .” The port inspector fumbled through my papers. “Where’s your celemental analysis sheet?”
– (Dwight V. Swain, The Transposed Man)
3. No backstory in the first fifty pages
Verdict: Spam (a step up from baloney)
If backstory is defined as a flashback segment, then this advice has merit. Readers will wait a long time for backstory information if something compelling is happening in front of them. But if you stop the forward momentum of your opening with a longish flashback, you’ve dropped the narrative ball.
However, when backstory refers to bits of a character’s history, then this advice is unsound. Backstory Bits (I call them BBs) are actually essential for bonding us with a character. If we don’t know anything about the characters in conflict, we are less involved in their trouble. (Read Koontz and King, who weave backstory masterfully into their opening pages).
I’ve given writing students a simple guideline: three sentences of backstory in the first ten pages. You may use them together, or space them apart. Then three paragraphsof backstory in the next ten pages, together or apart.
I’ve seen this work wonders for beginning manuscripts.
4. Write what you know
Verdict: Baloney
Sounder advice is this:
Write who you are.
Write what you love.
Write what you NEED to know.
5. Don’t ever follow any writing advice
Verdict: Stinky baloney
There may be a few literary savants out there who can do this thing naturally, without thinking about technique or craft. And those three people can form their own group and meet for Martinis.
Every other writer can benefit from putting in some time studying their craft. I’ve heard some writers say they don’t want to do that for fear of “stifling” the purity of their work. Some of them get a contract and their books comes out in a nice edition that sell 500 copies. And then they get bitter and start appearing at writer’s conferences raging how there is no such thing as structure and you’ve all wasted your money coming here, and you should just go home and write. (This has actually happened on several occasions that I know of).
So here is my final bit of advice for today: don’t be that kind of writer. 

My Hemingway Connection

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by Mark Alpert

As I mentioned in my last post, I take my family to northern Michigan every summer to visit my in-laws, who have a place on Little Traverse Bay. A few years ago my father-in-law casually asked me, “Would you be interested in meeting Ernest Hemingway’s nephew? He’s a heck of a nice guy.” Well, of course I was interested! Hemingway is a touchstone for all writers of fiction, but his influence is particularly strong for thriller writers. His short story “The Killers” is often cited as one of the first examples of “hard-boiled” fiction (although some academics argue that it was Dashiell Hammett who influenced Hemingway and not vice-versa). What’s more, after all our time in northern Michigan I felt a bit of geographical kinship with Hemingway, who spent the summers of his youth at his family’s cottage on Walloon Lake, just a few miles from Little Traverse Bay. The area became the setting for most of the Nick Adams stories as well as The Torrents of Spring, Hemingway’s early novel set in Petoskey, Michigan.


Hemingway’s favorite sibling was his sister Madelaine, nicknamed Sunny, who was five years younger than Ernest. She was the model for Littless, Nick Adams’s devoted younger sister in the unfinished story “The Last Good Country.” When she had a son in 1938. she named him after her famous brother. Ernest Hemingway Mainland, though, didn’t become a writer; instead he went into the insurance business in Petoskey. My father-in-law got to know him because they were both members of the Petoskey Rotary Club.

We set up a lunch to meet Ernie Mainland and his wife Judy. I’m happy to report that they’re wonderful people. Ernie has a face like his uncle’s, squarish and ruddy. The resemblance is especially striking if he’s growing a beard. He’s also a terrific storyteller. Although he hasn’t written any famous novels, he’s passionate about his family’s history, and he’s invested lots of time and energy in the restoration of Windemere, the Hemingway summer cottage, which Ernie inherited. Over lunch he told us the story of how he rebuilt the cottage’s porch, taking great care to match the way it looked during Hemingway’s boyhood. I asked Ernie what he remembered about his uncle, but he didn’t have much to say about that; he met Hemingway only once, during a visit to Cuba when Ernie was nine years old. Still, it was a great lunch, and at the end Ernie promised to invite us to Windemere the following summer.

This was a rare opportunity. Windemere isn’t open to the public. So when the next summer rolled around, my wife and I happily accepted Ernie’s invitation. The best moment, as I remember it, was taking that first step into the cottage and seeing the fireplace in the center of the room. I really felt like I’d just stepped into a Nick Adams story. Specifically, “The Three-Day Blow,” the story in which Nick and his best friend Bill get drunk on whiskey while talking about Nick’s breakup with his girlfriend Marjorie. On the cottage’s walls are all sorts of amazing things: oil paintings done by Hemingway’s mother, pencil lines showing Ernest’s height at various ages, a battered medal worn by Hemingway when he was wounded in Italy. There are also shelves holding century-old books and pamphlets, the eclectic collection of reading materials that young Ernest probably perused during rainy summer afternoons when he wasn’t hunting or fishing or carousing. As I gazed in wonder at the shelves, an idea occurred to me. I’d brought along copies of my own novels as gifts, so I asked Ernie to shelve them next to Hemingway’s. That was deeply satisfying.

Last year Ernie told me that the Hemingway Society was going to hold its 2012 conference in Petoskey to celebrate the author’s ties to northern Michigan. It was an academic conference, with most of the talks given by professors and grad students, but I really wanted to participate. As it turned out, it wasn’t that difficult to get invited; I just proposed a topic — “Hemingway and the Modern Thriller” — and they put me on the schedule. (They identified me as an “independent scholar,” which was very generous.) I was planning to speak extemporaneously, which is what I do when I talk about my novels, but my professor friends were aghast. “You can’t just wing it!” they said. “You have to deliver a paper!” So I wrote a ten-page paper analyzing Hemingway’s influence on Lee Child. Although I don’t know Hemingway nearly as well as the academics do, I figured I was better versed on bestselling thrillers, so I could pretend to be an expert.

The paper was a big hit. I got lots of laughs, and not all of them were at my expense. But the real highlight of the summer came a couple of months later when Ernie and Judy invited us to Windemere again. This time we brought along our kids, and Ernie entertained them by letting us fire his signal cannon. It’s the kind of cannon typically used to start a sailing race; you load it with blank shells and fire it by pulling on a string. (And don’t forget to cover your ears!) While we played with the miniature artillery piece, Ernie told us a story about how it had proved useful. Not so long ago, he said, a pontoon boat full of partying vacationers was looking for an anchorage spot along the shores of Walloon Lake. Now, it’s not so pleasant when one of those party boats is anchored near your property. The noise kind of spoils the idyllic atmosphere. So when Ernie saw the boat approach his shoreline, he brought out the signal cannon and fired it from his porch. The boat’s captain wisely chose another location.

The story reminded me of Hemingway. Ernie had inherited his uncle’s cheerful pugnacity. It was a delight to see. 

Reader Friday: Which literary character would you be for Halloween?

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It’s mid-October, and we’re getting in the mood for Halloween….

So, which literary or thriller character would you choose to be for  Halloween? Jack Reacher? Jack the Ripper? Jacqueline de Bellefort from Death on the Nile? 

To get your inspiration engines started, here’s a link to some literary character costumes squidoo.com


And some more female characters…

http://sweet-green-tangerine.blogspot.com/2012/10/thebookchat-literary-costume-ideas.html?showComment=1350347463066


Here’s a challenge–let us  know which literary character you choose for Halloween! And of course, you’ll need to send us pictures! You can send your photos to Killzoneblog at gmail dot com.

Et Tu, Amazon?

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by Michelle Gagnon

So I just emerged from my editing cave (my second draft of book 2 for the PERSEF0NE trilogy is done- whew) to some disturbing news. Digging through a backlog of emails, I came across a few from fans that were extremely troubling. Apparently these fans tried to submit reviews of my book on Amazon, and their reviews either a) never appeared, or b) were abruptly taken down.

Two of the fans send transcripts of the reviews, and they were standard (and positive, thankfully): nothing offensive at all in terms of content.

One of the fans took the time and trouble to write to Amazon, asking why his review was removed. He received this form letter reply:

I’m sorry for any previous concerns regarding your reviews on our site. We do not allow reviews on behalf of a person or company with a financial interest in the product or a directly competing product. This includes authors, artists, publishers, manufacturers, or third-party merchants selling the product.

We have removed your reviews as they are in violation of our guidelines.  We will not be able to go into further detail about our research.

I understand that you are upset, and I regret that we have not been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction. However, we will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on this matter.

Now, I’ve known this fan for years–he’s read (and reviewed!) all of my other books. And he has no financial stake in my work. He also doesn’t sell anything on Amazon, ever–never mind competing products (which would be what, exactly? Other books? Does this mean that I’m no longer allowed to review thrillers by my contemporaries?)

From there, it became even more disturbing. When the fan wrote back and pointed out that he’s never sold anything on Amazon, and doesn’t have any financial interest in my books, they sent another letter–and in this one, the powers that be declared that if he tried to contact them again about reposting, they would REMOVE MY BOOK FROM THE SITE.

That’s right, remove my book. Even though, had he not written, I wouldn’t have a clue that any of this was transpiring.

Hello, Big Brother.

Needless to say, I found this very disturbing, particularly since it doesn’t appear to be an isolated case. After all, two other fans sent similar messages; and I can only wonder how many others had the same experience, but didn’t write to let me know.

All I can think is that this is some sort of misguided attempt by Amazon to try and remedy some of the abuses that came to light in the recent sock puppet debacle (and if you missed all that drama, here’s a link to catch you up). But if so, it’s overkill. These days, with fewer review outlets available to writers, those Amazon reviews can be worth their weight in gold. And on what basis is Amazon is deciding that some posts should be barred? It’s very disturbing.

Thoughts?

Et Tu, Amazon?

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by Michelle Gagnon

So I just emerged from my editing cave (my second draft of book 2 for the PERSEF0NE trilogy is done- whew) to some disturbing news. Digging through a backlog of emails, I came across a few from fans that were extremely troubling. Apparently these fans tried to submit reviews of my book on Amazon, and their reviews either a) never appeared, or b) were abruptly taken down.

Two of the fans send transcripts of the reviews, and they were standard (and positive, thankfully): nothing offensive at all in terms of content.

One of the fans took the time and trouble to write to Amazon, asking why his review was removed. He received this form letter reply:

I’m sorry for any previous concerns regarding your reviews on our site. We do not allow reviews on behalf of a person or company with a financial interest in the product or a directly competing product. This includes authors, artists, publishers, manufacturers, or third-party merchants selling the product.

We have removed your reviews as they are in violation of our guidelines.  We will not be able to go into further detail about our research.

I understand that you are upset, and I regret that we have not been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction. However, we will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on this matter.

Now, I’ve known this fan for years–he’s read (and reviewed!) all of my other books. And he has no financial stake in my work. He also doesn’t sell anything on Amazon, ever–never mind competing products (which would be what, exactly? Other books? Does this mean that I’m no longer allowed to review thrillers by my contemporaries?)

From there, it became even more disturbing. When the fan wrote back and pointed out that he’s never sold anything on Amazon, and doesn’t have any financial interest in my books, they sent another letter–and in this one, the powers that be declared that if he tried to contact them again about reposting, they would REMOVE MY BOOK FROM THE SITE.

That’s right, remove my book. Even though, had he not written, I wouldn’t have a clue that any of this was transpiring.

Hello, Big Brother.

Needless to say, I found this very disturbing, particularly since it doesn’t appear to be an isolated case. After all, two other fans sent similar messages; and I can only wonder how many others had the same experience, but didn’t write to let me know.

All I can think is that this is some sort of misguided attempt by Amazon to try and remedy some of the abuses that came to light in the recent sock puppet debacle (and if you missed all that drama, here’s a link to catch you up). But if so, it’s overkill. These days, with fewer review outlets available to writers, those Amazon reviews can be worth their weight in gold. And on what basis is Amazon is deciding that some posts should be barred? It’s very disturbing.

Thoughts?

The role of the publicist

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Today, my guest is Tom Robinson, an independent publicist (as opposed to an in-house publicist at a publisher) based out of Nashville, TN and representing such great authors as Tasha Alexander, CJ Lyons, Laura Caldwell, and JT Ellison. Tom and I not only share a great love of writers and the art of writing, but we share the same hometown: Pensacola, FL. When we’re not chatting about the state of the publishing industry, we’re comparing lists of favorite places to eat along the Gulf Coast. I asked Tom to cover the basic question of the role of a publicist, a question that continually comes up in the discussion of writing and publishing.

———————-

By Tom Robinson
Independent Publicist

tom-robinsonSo what does the independent publicist do for an author?

It’s a question which gets asked up front when I talk with an author for the first time. It should always be the first question.

The objective is to promote the book (assuming I’m approached when the author has a new release on the horizon) and the author’s branding so that the name has recognition beyond the new book. Those are the important goals. I said “assuming” the author has a new release. I’m also seeing authors who want to continue publicity efforts while they are between books to stay in front of readers.

But let me get back to authors with a new book.

In a nutshell: from meeting with the author the publicist develops a plan to work from that will outline the use of press material, the engagement of blogs, interviews, reviews, social media, online advertising all geared to the author’s targeted audience. Social media has opened up the publicity avenues by leaps and bounds. It is an extremely successful messenger when used correctly.

The independent publicist is often extending the efforts of the publishing house. In-house publicists are usually juggling several titles. They are often understaffed and burning up long work weeks.

Beyond the plan implementation, it’s essential for the publicist to make follow up contact with targeted media outlets. That’s where so much effort is spent.

When the project is completed there should be a cross section of media coverage.

My job has seen incredible change since I first worked exclusively with authors seven years ago. I think it will continue to change, just as the publishing industry changes. But the goals will remain the same—promote the new book and the author brand.

Tom Robinson is an independent publicist for authors. Located in Nashville, TN. Robinson, a media veteran of more than three decades, works with authors of mysteries, suspense, and thrillers as well as authors of non-fiction and children’s books. He now also has his first cookbook author which is resulting in an expansion of his culinary attempts. You can find him at www.authorandbookmedia.com

Ghosts and gremlins on the road

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I love soaking up ghost legends and local lore when I’m on the road. The family and I spent most of last week at the gorgeous  Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, which is known for its resident ghost: Kate Morgan, aka “Beautiful Stranger.”

Evidently Kate checked into the hotel in 1892, and committed suicide by shooting herself in the head five days later. Presumably the cause was a failed love affair (is there ever a better reason?) Ever since Kate’s passing there have been repeated sightings of her ghost, plus numerous mishaps and phenomena attributed to her restless spirit.



We may have had our own run-in with Kate’s ghost last week. At the end of a musical show in the main ballroom, the sound system mysteriously went out just as the chorus was reaching the climax  of their  finale. Someone said a drunken salesman had tripped over a cable, but the rest of us suspected Kate was a music critic.

Is your hometown the source of any local legends or ghost stories? Have any of them made their way into your fiction?

Note: I had a devil of a time getting this post done on my iPad–I battled gremlins galore, plus the one picture I had of Kate Morgan mysteriously failed to display in the post. You draw your own conclusions.

On the Move

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

So my family and I are about to embark on yet another adventure – just two years after coming back to Australia (after 15 years away) we are now heading back to the USA – to Denver this time – and I am up to my eyeballs in organization and packing (which may or may not explain my current dazed state!). Thankfully final revisions to my manuscript are done and have met with my agent’s approval so, at least on the writing front, things are more or less out of my hands. Apart from that, however, chaos reigns! 

We are all very excited about the move and I’m especially looking forward to getting back into the writing community and attending some writing conferences next year. So my question for you all (as I raise my head above the parapet of boxes) is which conferences do you think are the most worthwhile? I’ve attended many in the past but I confess I’ve lost track of most of them by now and it would be great to get feedback from you all on which you attended, which you thought were great (or not so great…), and why. 

I’ve already got Bouchercon down on my list – though I do find it a little large and overwhelming – but other than that I’m wide open as to options. My current manuscript is a YA one with a historical/fantasy bent but I also hope to have a traditional mystery out by early next year too.

So I’d love you all to weigh in on some of the conference options – then I can get even more excited about my return to the USA!

How to Write a Novel in a Month

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Next month is the annual writing frenzy known as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. It’s not without its critics, and my blogmates and I have covered this action before.  
I extol the virtues of NaNoWriMo. The novel I wrote in November of 2010 was one I had under contract. It became, after editing of course, THE YEAR OF EATING DANGEROUSLY.
There are similar stories. Hugh Howey wrote his novella WOOL during that same NaNo year. The dang thing has sold in the hundreds of thousands as an ebook, and got optioned by Ridley Scott.
That’s a lightning strikes once or twice kind of thing, and most writers are not going to have that kind of out-of-the-gate success, but that’s almost beside the NaNo point. The point is to get you to get your story down, fast and furious (I wish that term hadn’t been purloined by political culture), and unleash the writer within. It’s to give you a sense of the value of finishing an entire novel (even though it will need massive editing).
As the great Robert B. Parker said, “A writer’s job is to produce.” NaNo is one month of pure production.
Here are ten tips to help you get the most out of it this year:
1. Take a week to plan
Use one week for creative brainstorming and organizing. I don’t mean you have to have a complete outline. In fact, it’s probably better that you don’t. NaNo works best when you let the book breathe and dance on its own.
But you also shouldn’t start out with a blank slate. A few, simple steps will get you to a much stronger story. Use my LOCK System (explained more fully in Plot & Structure).
LEAD. Spend a day brainstorming about your Lead character, backstory, goals and dreams. What is it about your Lead that will make readers want to keep reading?
OBJECTIVE.Be sure that the story objective involves some form of death: physical, professional or psychological. That is, your second act (the bulk of your novel) has to have the highest stakes possible. Take a day to brainstorm reasons your Lead will have to be involved. Think about moral or professional duty as a possible motivation.
CONFRONTATION. Now spend just as much care with your opposition character as you do with your Lead. Remember, the opponent does not have to be evil, just have an oppsoing agenda (think Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive).However, if you do want to use a villain, be fair to him. Justify his actions (at least in his own mind). Don’t create a stereotype.
KNOCK-OUT ENDING. This will no doubt be subject to change, but it’s good to have a destination in mind. How do you want the reader to feel at the end? Will your Lead be victorious? Sacrificial? Spend a day messing around with actual scene possibilities for the climax. Choose one as your “go to” scene, knowing you can toss it out as the novel progresses.
Then spend a day planning your TIME. Look at your schedule and block out every free chunk you can. Determine to cut as many distractions as possible during November. DVR favorite shows. Put an auto-responder on your email. Explain to friends that you’re taking time off. Go on a “social media” diet. 
2. Choose mood music
Get your iTunes list together, with soundtracks and songs that create the right mood for your story. Make a playlist for different moods. I have an “Energy to Write” list that is full of upbeat rock and movie music. I blast that sometimes to get my blood racing to write.
3. Watch a “movie in your mind” the night before NaNoWriMo begins
On October 31, plan to get a good night’s sleep. Before you do, get to a quiet spot, a comfortable chair. Put your mood music on softly and close your eyes. Now let a “movie” happen in your mind. Watch your story unfold. Don’t force anything. Let scenes happen, nudge your characters but never push them.
When you go to bed, tell “the boys in the basement” to work hard while you snooze.
4. Kill that first day
Make the very first day the most productive day of your writing life. NaNo works out to an average of just over 1600 words a day. Try to blast past it on Day 1. It will give your confidence a boost.
5. Make it your goal to begin each day with a “furious 500.”
Try getting 500 words down the very first thing in the morning (or second, after you start the coffee brewing). If you have to get up half an hour earlier, so be it.
6. Jot down notes just before you go to sleep
Take five minutes (that’s about all you’ll need) before you go to sleep to put down a few notes about what you might write the next day. Think one or two scenes ahead. If you’re feeling stuck, ask this key question: “How can I make things harder on my characters?”
7. Stick to the knitting
By that I mean the main plot. Make this your focus of attention. At 50,000 words, a NaNo novel is short, and cannot support multiple plotlines.
If you find yourself coming up with a subplot idea, jot a few notes and set it aside for a day or two while you’re on your main plot. If another idea occurs to you, jot that one down, too. After a few days, assess the subplots and choose one, only one. The best one. The one with the most possibilities for conflict. Integrate a scene or two. Then press on.
If you use Scrivener, you can color code the subplot scenes to keep track of them. One subplot only!
8. Write a 200 word nightcap
That is, find some time in the evening to write at least 200 more words. That’s not many. This is in addition to the words you write during the day. If you do a furious 500 first thing in the morning, and a 200 word nightcap, you’ve done almost half the words you need for your daily quota.
9. Break off in the middle of sentence
That’s an old Hemingway trick. And he won the Nobel Prize. Stop your writing stint right in the middle of a sentence. When you sit down to it the next day, you’ll be in flow.
10. If you get stuck
You will probably come to a few points where you don’t know what to write next. Fear will grip you like the cold hands of clumsy proctologist. You don’t want to waste too much time fretting over this, so: open a dictionary at random. Find the first noun you see on the left hand page. Start writing something, anything, based on what the noun brings to your mind.
If you’re still stuck, re-watch Misery and imagine that your number one fan insists that you finish by the end of the month.
And through it all, enjoy the vibe. NaNoWriMo is about community as much as it is about seclusion. It’s about ritual as much as product. It’s a month-long vibe and celebration of being a fiction writer. So enjoy it like you’re in some Hindu festival of colors, or at an Oakland Raiders football game. You don’t have to paint your body (though I’m not saying it’s illegal), but it’s fine to put up a NaNo poster or get a tee-shirt, and to interact online with your fellow NaNos. Check out the community website here.
And now, get ready to rock. November is almost upon us.