Tag Archives: NaNoWriMo

Why Writers Write

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Some thoughts on what drives us.

I’ve been a writer since I was 13. I always had a story inside me trying to get out. I started with college-ruled notebooks, writing on just one side of the paper in my printed handwriting, just to keep it neat. As the computer age began, I moved to word processing.

Somewhere along the line, I went pro and began being paid for what I wrote. But it wasn’t the stories that earned me money. It was the technical non-fiction, the prose that explained how to perform tasks with computers. With no formal training in the computer field — after all, it was in its infancy when I graduated from college in 1982 — I had become a computer “expert” (whatever that is) and I churned out books at an alarming rate. Sixteen years after getting my first check for a writing assignment, I now have 70 books and literally hundreds of articles under my belt. (And no, I don’t I don’t think that explains my current weight problem.)

A number of conversations with people within the past few days has made me think about writing and why writers need to write. I thought I’d set my thoughts down here. And the timing couldn’t be better, with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) starting today.

Kinds of Writers

The way I see it, there are different kinds of writers:

  • Born writers are people who just feel an overwhelming need to write. Obviously, no one is “born” to write. They’re born with the equipment to get the job done — a good brain, etc. — and are molded by experience and education in such a way that they enjoy writing. They may not be good at it, but they like it and they do it. Whether they can successfully turn it into a career depends on their personality, willingness to learn and improve, ability to meet editors’/publishers’ needs, and business sense.
  • Made writers are people who, through circumstance, find themselves writing a lot. Most of these people do it for a living or derive at least some part of their income from writing. This might be someone who steps into a management job that requires writing a lot of reports. Or someone in marketing who writes a lot of ad copy.

The Need to Write

Born writers often need to write. They have these ideas rolling around in their heads and they need to get them down on paper (or pixels). Sometimes just getting them out there is enough. Other times, they need to work the words, to fine tune them, to perfect them. Some people write prose, others write poetry. Some of it is very good, some of it is crap. It doesn’t matter to them. They write because they need to get those words out.

I’m pretty sure that I’m one of these people. I feel a need to write something every day. That’s why you’ll find a new blog entry here most (but not all) mornings. Throughout the day, I think about things going on in the world and in my life. During quiet times — while driving, flying, showering, or doing other “automatic” or mindless tasks — my brain shifts into high gear and really thinks things through. That’s when I get ideas. It’s also when I accumulate enough conclusions about something to begin writing about it, often for the next day’s blog entry.

If I go several days without writing, I get cranky. It’s like going through withdrawal.

Blogging — which I’ve been doing for four full years now — really helps me get those words out. From the very start, I looked at my blog as a journal of my life. It’s only within the past two or so years that I combined my personal blog with entries and information to support my books. My life is multi-dimensional; shouldn’t my blog be the same?

But the more I blog, the less I work on the fiction that got me started as a writer all those years ago. Earlier this year, when I lost the manuscript for a novel I was working on (read “Death of a Manuscript“), I simply stopped writing fiction. I don’t feel the need as much, if at all. I think the blogging I do fulfills my need to write.

Insight from a Professional Writer

Years ago, before I went pro, I was friends with a professional copywriter. He wrote mostly advertising copy — the kind of text you’d find describing products or services in a full-page magazine ad. He also did some technical writing. He made a very good living.

I was young and foolish then. I thought he’d be interested in critiquing my fiction. I sent him a story. He critiqued it. Like most wannabe writers, I wasn’t happy with his comments. (Have you ever met a wannabe writer who actually likes honest criticism?) I don’t recall all of his comments, but I do know that he had an issue with my use of the word pretty as a modifier, as in, “It’s pretty cold outside.” He claimed that it wasn’t professional. I think I used it in dialog, where it could be an indication of a character’s background, maturity, etc. But he didn’t know dialog. He was a copywriter. He was looking for high quality, polished prose. I didn’t deliver it.

He did tell me that I had some talent — that I knew how to write. This was enough praise and encouragement for me.

But the biggest thing I learned from him was that there was more to writing than writing fiction. While writing fiction could be enjoyable and a nice way to spend my evenings, writing non-fiction could earn a living and pay my bills. And while wannabe novelists could look down at a technical writer as a “hack” or someone who had “sold out” and no longer practiced the “art” of writing, professional writers know better.

Every word I write — whether it’s a how-to article for using Microsoft Word or the opening paragraphs of a novel — makes me a better writer. So isn’t it better to have someone pay me for all that practice?

Writing for Money

The other day, I had a conversation with my friend, Pete. We were talking about the writing I do and he wanted to know how advances and royalties — he called them residuals — worked. I explained it. (I also explained it on this blog in “Royalty Statements.”) Pete said something like, “That sounds like a good deal. I’d like to write a book.”

I explained to him that it wasn’t such a sweet deal if your books were about timely topics and had short shelf lives — like mine. It isn’t as if every author can write Gone with the Wind and collect royalties for the rest of his or her life. But we did agree that it was nice to get quarterly checks.

I reported this conversation to my husband by saying something like this: “Pete wants to write a book. He likes the idea of royalty checks.”

“That’s stupid,” my husband replied. “That’s not the right reason to write a book.”

What?

That, of course, almost started an argument. I asked him why he thinks I write books. I reminded him that writing about computers isn’t exactly the most engaging or creative thing a person could do. I asked him if he thought I’d keep writing computer books if no one would pay me to do it. At first, he didn’t get it. But then he did. And he wisely backed off.

A Conversation with a NaNoWriMo Participant

And that brings to me to a “conversation” I had with a fellow Twitter user yesterday. She was pushing NaNoWriMo, which I wrote about in “NaNoWriMo ‘€˜05” and “NaNoWriMo Expanded.” (If you follow those links, be sure to follow both of them for both sides of my opinion.) I followed a few of the links in her posts and was pretty turned off by what I found. Maybe it’s because I’m cynical and hard-minded about writing, probably because I’ve seen too many wannabes waste their time. So I tweeted:

Dare I ask it? Do any of the novels actually completed each November ever get published? Or am I missing the point?

The response came back immediately:

Yes, there is a whole list of published authors from NaNoWriMo on the site — €”will go fetch URL. I’m talking w/several agents now.:-)

Ok, the list of published NaNoWriMo authors is at: http://urltea.com/1y4e Scroll down on media kit page.

I looked at the list and found 17 novelists listed with their NaNoWriMo books. One of them was Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, which was hot last year. It was good to see something published, but I admit I wasn’t convinced that these were NaNoWriMo works. (I really am a cynic.) And, frankly, with hundreds of thousands of writers participating since 1999, 17 published works wasn’t a very impressive result.

Now you can rightly argue that publication isn’t everyone’s goal. To which I can argue that any idiot can type 50,000 words in a month. Publication is one of the true measures of the value of those words when taken as a whole. That’s the way I look at it, anyway.

But I tweeted back:

Thanks for this. I’ve written 70 books since 1990 but still don’t have a novel out there. One of these days…

Was I bragging? Probably. (I can be such a jerk sometimes.) But I’m proud of that number, proud to be a published and paid professional writer. And I want to make sure that people don’t confuse me with the wannabes. I’ve got my medals and war stories to prove I’m beyond that.

The response:

You’ve written SEVENTY BOOKS since 1990? :-O OMG, you could teach the rest of us! It sounds like your year to write that novel!

No, I couldn’t teach the rest of them. I’ve realized that I have a knack for what I do and that a “born writer” couldn’t learn it from me. And although I’d like to write that novel, I’m pretty busy this month.

I replied:

It sounds a lot more impressive than it is. I think NEXT year will be my novel year. Hold me to that, will you?

I was hoping she’d agree and remind me a few times next year. But instead, she replied:

Everyone says “next year will be my novel year.” That’s why THIS year is when we encourage you to Just Do It, ala Nike.;-)

And I think that’s what separates me from the NaNoWriMo crowd. “Just do it” isn’t a battle cry I apply to something as important as writing a novel. I know I can write 50,000 words in a month. I don’t need to prove it to myself. I’ve already proved it. I wrote my third book, which was 300 pages, in ten days. I routinely plow through revisions of 400+ page books in less than a month.

And yes, I realize that a novel is different. But how different is it? Start with an outline (like I do for all my books) and character notes and write the damn story. I was 100 pages into the novel I lost when my hard disk ground to a halt. I’d done all that in less than a week. But that wasn’t what was holding me back from taking the NanoWriMo challenge…

I replied:

It’s a lot easier to write a book when you know there’s a check (and an impatient editor) waiting for you when it’s done.

And that says all. I finish writing projects because I’m paid to.

Her reply:

Deadlines and a check are motivation to be sure. What I love about NaNo is rediscovering my inner motivation to just love writing.

I don’t think that being forced to write 50,000 words in a month is a good “inner motivation to just love writing.” But I didn’t say this. Instead, I said:

I think that’s what my blog does for me. Since losing a novel manuscript to a hard disk crash, it’s hard to get started again.

She replied:

Ooh, that’s every writer’s nightmare, a reminder to all of us to keep backing up our novels. I can understand why it’s hard then.

On the other hand, it might be fun for you to start a completely different novel and see where that goes.

Fun? Hmm. I’m not sure about that. Another thing holding me back is what I do at my desk all day: I write. Do you think I want to spend my evenings doing the same thing?

I will write that novel. But not not this month. Sometime when I have a clear head and no work stacked up on my plate. If that day ever comes.

Why Do You Write?

Are you a writer? Why do you write? What motivates you? Inspires you? I’m always looking for input from readers (and writers) as food for thought. Use the Comments link or form for this post.

And if you’ve ever participated in NaNoWriMo, I’d love to hear your honest feedback about it. Did you achieve your goal? Did it provide “inner motivation”? Would you do it again? My Twitter friend showed me another side of the NaNoWriMo scene. What do you have to add? Comments are always welcome.

MPEG-4 Lessons, Server Woes, eBay Shopping

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Maria Speaks Episode 20: MPEG-4 Lessons, Server Woes, and eBay Shopping.

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Maria Langer. Welcome to Maria Speaks Episode 20: MPEG-4 Lessons, Server Woes, and eBay Shopping. This episode is a hodgepodge of information related to my podcasting efforts and the trouble it has been giving me lately. You can find the transcript of this podcast in the “Call Me a Geek” area of Maria’s WebLog. The easiest way to find that is to click the link on my home page, www.aneclecticmind.com.

Let’s start with the MPEG-4 lessons. If you’ve been following my podcasts, you know that I’ve begun creating the occasional enhanced podcast. Enhanced podcasts include images and links and are saved in MPEG-4 format with a .m4a extension. My other podcasts are saved in MP3 format with a .mp3 extension.

Podcast publishing is not exactly a simple task — well, not when you do it the way I do. After recording, editing, and saving the audio file, I then log into Blogger where I create a blog entry for the podcast. There’s a link field that I fill out with the URL for the audio file’s location on a server. I put a short blurb about the episode in the entry and publish it.

Publishing the entry on Blogger does two things. First, it creates the Maria Speaks home page. That’s the plain old Web page you see when you browse www.aneclecticmind.com/mariaspeaks. Then it creates an XML feed file called atom.xml, in the same location as the home page. This feed file has all the codes necessary for podcatching software — like iTunes and a bunch of others I really don’t know — to see and download the new audio files.

But that’s not what most subscribers use to access my podcast. They use my Feedburner feed. Every 30 minutes or so, Feedburner’s software checks out my atom.xml file to see if it has changed. If it has, it revises its version of my xml feed file, which can be found at feeds.feedburner.com/mariaspeaks. That’s the file most subscribers subscribe to and it’s the one with all the bells and whistles to make sure my podcast entries appear correctly in the iTunes Music Store and elsewhere.

Sound confusing? It is, in a way. But I don’t usually have to deal with too much of it. As I said, I create and save the audio file, then create and publish the corresponding blog entry. Blogger, Feedburner, and subscriber’s software does the rest.

My MPEG-4 lesson started yesterday. Well, in all honestly, it started about four months ago, but I didn’t realize it then. Back then, it was a problem getting my podcasts to work. But I changed the way I was doing things and it started to work, so I assumed I’d been doing it wrong in the first place. Actually, I wasn’t.

Here’s the symptom: my enhanced podcasts weren’t accessible from the Maria Speaks podcast. Anyone trying to access the file from the Maria Speaks home page by clicking the entry name got an error message. File not found. And there was no attachment to either version of the xml feed file.

The regular podcasts were fine.

Thus began my troubleshooting exercise. I zeroed in on the difference in the file name extensions and started researching. To make a long story short, I discovered that in order for me to include m4a files in my podcasts, I had to set up a MIME mapping on the server to identify the m4a extension’s type as audio/MPEG.

If you’re completely lost, don’t worry about it. This isn’t the kind of thing most computer users need to deal with. I certainly don’t. Fortunately, I have a server in my office that I can set up MIME mapping. I added the appropriate entry, moved my m4a files over to that server, fixed the URLs in Blogger, republished, resynced Feedburner, and everything began working fine.

I’m still trying to find out if the server space I have on GoDaddy.com can be modified to add the MIME mapping I need there. I’d much rather serve from that server than the one in my office.

So that was my MPEG-4 lesson.

Server woes started this morning. I was still fiddling around with the MPEG-4 files and was very surprised to see that the folder on my GoDaddy server that I’d been using to store my MP3 files was gone. I mean gone like it was never there. And oddly enough, two folders that I thought I’d deleted were back. What the heck was going on?

I assumed that I’d accidentally deleted the missing folder and was mistaken about the other two folders. After all, I’ve been busy lately with my QuickBooks book and a bunch of unexpected helicopter charters. I was obviously being careless. So I rebuilt the missing folder from backup files on my iDisk and went to work.

All the way to work — it’s a ten-minute drive — I thought about my carelessness. And when I got to my office, I did some more research. What I soon realized was that all of the space on my GoDaddy server had been reverted to the way it looked on October 10. Over a month ago. What the heck was going on?

I called GoDaddy technical support and was fortunate enough to have a tech guy answer right away. I told him the symptoms. We did some brainstorming, using the info we both had. We soon discovered that on October 10, I’d requested a change from a Windows server to a Linux server. For some reason, it had taken GoDaddy five weeks to process the change. In the meantime, I kept uploading files to the Windows server when the Linux server was already set up but not accessible to my account. Last night, GoDaddy switched my access to the Linux server, which hadn’t been updated since I requested the change. So I was suddenly faced with a server that hadn’t been updated for five weeks and access to the server I’d been using all along was completely cut off.

Well, this wouldn’t have been so bad if I was using the server space for a Web site. I keep backup copies of all my Web site on my main production computer. If a Web site’s directory or disk is trashed, I can have it replaced in a matter of minutes. But the only thing I use this server for is storing my podcasting files. Not just for Maria Speaks but for KBSZ-AM’s Around the Town radio show, which is broadcast every weekday. When GoDaddy made its change, it wiped out about 20 podcast files.

The really tragic part of all this is that I’d been saving all those podcast audio files on my PowerBook’s hard disk. Two days ago, I got an onscreen message saying I was running out of disk space. Well, why not delete some of those podcasts, I asked myself. After all, I can always get new copies from the server.

Two days later, of course, I couldn’t.

Well, the GoDaddy tech guy was very helpful. He told me they’d do a server restore for the Windows server and copy the files in my directory there to the Linux server. Although GoDaddy usually charges $150 for this service, they admitted that they were at least partially at fault for the screw-up and waived the fee. Now I just have to wait up to 10 days for the files to reappear. And, when that happens, I have to re-upload any files I uploaded to the server between yesterday at midnight and the day the server is restored. Like this podcast.

Oh, and I did lose one of my enhanced podcast episodes. It was one of my better ones, too: Mac and Windows File Sharing. It was on my .

Mac disk space, which I also cleaned up in an effort to get rid of unneeded files. So if you have a copy of it — that’s the version with the m4a file extension — please send it to me at mariaspeaks@mac.com. I’d really like to put it back online for the latecomers here. The lesson I learned in this ordeal is that I must have a copy of every single file I want to make available on a server. If I’d had all my files, I could have just restored the server back to its original condition and got on with my life. And not bore you with this story.

SmartDiskWhat’s weird about this is that I considered the server my backup and I deleted the originals, depending on the backup. If you recall my famous NaNoWriMo podcast episode, you’ll remember how I spoke about the importance of backups. Yeah, well the originals are important, too. Which brings me to the final topic of this podcast: eBay shopping. I’ve been surfing eBay for the past two weeks, trying to get a deal on a portable FireWire hard disk. The idea is to use the external hard disk to store all my media files, thus keeping them off my PowerBook’s internal hard disk, which is only 40GB. SmartDisk makes a drive called the FireLite and I figure I can get an 80GB model for about $130. There’s plenty to choose from, all in unopened boxes. But I seem to have the worst timing; I’ve lost about a dozen auctions in the past two weeks. I’ve gotten to the point where I actually bid on two of them at a time, knowing I can’t possibly win both.

That’s the same technique I used to snag a new iSight camera this week. I put the same bid on both cameras. I won one and lost the other. Fine with me. I figure I’ll bring the camera home and use it on my laptop for a Webcam and for iChat. I might also do some video podcasting — but don’t hold your breath on that.

My other big eBay acquisition is Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Server Unlimited. It’s about half the price on eBay as it is in the Apple Store. Sealed boxes, unregistered. Sounds almost too good to be true. We’ll see.

The server, of course, is so I can finally get rid of WebSTAR and do some serious Web hosting on my server. I’ll bore you with that in another blog entry.

That’s all for today. I hope you learned something from this mess. Thanks for listening!

NaNoWriMo Expanded

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I talk more about beginning novelists.

The other day I wrote an opinion piece about NaNoWriMo ’05, which I turned into a podcast for Maria Speaks. Here are some related thoughts and experiences.

One of the things that has always bothered me was way organizations prey upon people who want to be writers — particularly novelists. They have writers’ workshops and writers’ magazines and and writers’ Web sites with forums and writers’ mail-away courses. They sell products to writers to motivate and inspire them and make them better writers. I’ve seen these products and although I admit to have bought my share of writing books, I’ve also seen enough to know that only a small percentage of what’s sold will really help a writer. And the thing that bothers me most is the fact that the vast majority of writing publications focus on topics of interest to beginning writers — people just starting out. I’m talking about people who haven’t had anything published yet. It’s as if they never expect their readers to get beyond that point.

The people they prey upon — the beginning writers — have a story (or or two or three or dozens) inside their hearts that they’re trying to get out. They’re convinced their work is better than bestselling author, fill-in-the-blank. They believe that the editors who have rejected their work are stupid, selfish, and evil. But rather than spend their time writing, getting those stories out and fine-tuning them for submission and possible publication, they waste a lot of time whining about editors and publishers and the industry in general in online writers’ forums. Or providing all-knowing (or sarcastic) answers to serious questions posted by other want-to-be novelists.

This is where something as silly as NaNoWriMo can help. If these people would stop wasting time and get down to it, they might actually get some work done. A novel in 30 days sounds impossible, but if they’ve been thinking about it as much as they’ve been wasting time in online forums, they should have all the hard part done: the planning, plotting, and character development. Getting the words down should be easy. Just stop procrastinating.

And if there’s one thing that’s always helped me produce, it’s deadlines. Ask Cliff, Nancy, and Megg, three of my editors. (More on that in another blog entry.)

Here’s a real life story about someone I knew years ago. There’s a slight chance she might read this and, if she does, I hope she’s not offended by me telling her story from my outsider’s point of view.

Mary (not her real name) always wanted to be a novelist. I think she was partial to fantasy and science fiction, but she may have had other things in mind. I don’t know because I only had an opportunity to read one thing she’d written. She spent most of her non-working hours online, frequenting bulletin board systems’ (BBSs’) message boards (precursors to the Internet’s forums). She had a BBS and so did I. In fact, that’s how we met.

Her BBS posts were consistently negative toward publishers and editors. She spent a lot of her writing time writing short stories and entering them into contests. She never won. (More about writing contests and other gimmicks in another entry.)

Sometime around then, she sent me one of her short stories to read. I don’t remember what it was about. I don’t recall it being bad, though. But it did have one big flaw. At the end of the story, which takes place in Washington, DC, the main character looks out the window and sees the Pentagon. It was an important part of the story’s irony — seeing that building. I remember that clearly. But it was also a serious flaw because the Pentagon is not in Washington, DC. It’s in Arlington, VA. And it simply cannot be seen from the location her character was standing. When I pointed this out to her, she got extremely offended, as if I’d gone out of my way to find something wrong to pick on her story. I hadn’t gone out of my way. The glaring error was there, right in my face. I would have done her a disservice if I hadn’t pointed it out.

Anyway, she didn’t send me any more stories.

Then one day she decided that the biggest thing holding her back from being a published author was her job. I’m talking about her “day job” — the one where she spent time to earn money to pay rent and buy food. That job. So she quit and retreated into her apartment to write her novel.

A year later, Mary was completely out of money and borrowing from family members to survive. She hadn’t finished her novel and she hadn’t had anything published. I think someone pulled the money plug and she was forced to go back to work.

That’s about the same time I left my day job and started teaching computers and writing how-to books. She claimed I “sold out.” I think she meant that I was writing non-fiction instead of fiction because I was in it for the money. Maybe I did, but my current lifestyle sure beats the 9 to 5, suit-wearing grind I’d be stuck in if I’d kept that corporate job. And who the hell wants to be a starving writer, anyway?

I moved to Arizona and we pretty much lost touch. I heard she had a short story published in a small literary magazine. She was paid in copies. (See my blog entry about Freebies.) But she had her first clip.

The point of this story: this is one person I know who falls into the same category as many of the beginning writers attracted to things like NaNoWriMo, writers’ magazines, and writers’ Web sites with their forums. I’ve just reported her progress in about five years of her life. Five years is a long time. Too long to waste if you’re serious about becoming a writer.

Every day you don’t write, though, is a day you waste if becoming a novelist is your goal. And don’t fool yourself into thinking that participating in those writers’ forums is good practice for writing your novel. I’ll agree that it’s good practice for typing your novel. But it isn’t going to get you any closer to finishing your work in progress.

So why are you reading this? Get back to work!

How Expressing My Opinions Gets Me in “Trouble”

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And why I don’t care.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that I occasionally — or often, depending on how I’m feeling — express my opinions about things. And sometimes those opinions seem rather harsh in that they go against the grain of what other people think. Or think they think.

That’s the key, of course. It all comes down to thinking. And I believe that’s where I differ from my critics. I think. They let other people think for them.

[Uh-oh. Another harsh one coming. Better put on your mental armor and get your hackles up.]

For example, a few years back I wrote a blog entry putting forth my opinions of the snowbirds that flock to Wickenburg every winter. I commented on the increased traffic, crowded parking lots, and blocked supermarket aisles. I made some observations about the attitude of most of these people toward their winter home and its year-round residents. The observations were not positive. I also commented about how the town’s dependence on a seasonal economy supported by fixed-income, part-year residents was a big mistake. The blog entry gained me fame throughout Wickenburg. The people who spread the blog entry were trying to make me look evil. But most of the people who read it — the year-round residents in the same boat I was in, looking with the same kind of eyes and heart — agreed with me. I was stopped quite often for a few weeks by people who told me how much the blog entry had made them laugh or how it was nice to read something that wasn’t the same old party line.

I’ve written other blog entries with my opinions in them. I think my opponents have realized that calling attention to my blogs was helping my cause more than theirs because I haven’t gotten much local publicity lately. Too bad. It’s always fun to stir up the pot here in Wickenburg. Too much old school, old boy thinking.

I did a piece a while back about the yellow ribbons that people were sticking on their cars. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one bothered by the yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbons. I’ve since read dozens of blog entries with the same basic opinion.

And then there was the one about public sacrifices for the War in Iraq. I didn’t get any feedback about that one. Could it be that everyone who read it actually agreed with me?

Last week I wrote a podcast about NaNoWriMo where I stated a few very strong opinions. It might be safe to say that I “blasted” the folks who run the NaNoWriMo Web site. But I made my statements — as I make most of the statements I make here — after some deep thinking about the topic. In that case, I’d been exposed to NaNoWriMo for a few days and had visited the Web site in question. I was able to look at it with the eyes of an outsider, someone who has succeeded as a writer and knows something about the business, even though I’ve spent my time on the non-fiction side of the business. (More on NaNoWriMo in another new entry.)

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts from NPR, Slate, and the Progressive (egads!). They’re full of strong opinions, even stronger than the ones I write here. I agree with some of them and disagree with others. But in all cases, I’ll admit that the authors of the pieces have put a lot of thought into what they composed. They’re logical arguments based on facts. And I think that’s why I listen to them. They not only expand my knowledge of a topic, but they provide insight into the way other people have thought about it. People with brains. People who aren’t afraid to think for themselves. And sadly, for the rest of us.

I think that’s a huge problem today. I believe that only a small percentage of the U.S. population actually spends time learning about and thinking about the things going on around them. I don’t think they spend time making their own opinions. Why bother when someone else can make opinions for them? A political party, a church group, a club? Find a herd, join it, and follow it anywhere it goes. Put a flag or yellow ribbon on your car because everyone else is doing it. Just don’t miss the next episode of Desperate Housewives, Lost, or the latest incarnation of C.S.I. I don’t belong to a herd and I’m not interested in joining one. I’d rather think and act for myself. And if it gets me in “trouble” with people who don’t agree, so what? The more of them who speak out about the things I’ve said or written, the more I know my message has reached them.

And maybe, just maybe, it’ll get them thinking, too.

NaNoWriMo ’05

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Maria Speaks Episode 17: NaNoWriMo.

My comments about the National Novel Writing Month project and the NaNoWriMo ’05 Podcast by Darusha Wehm.

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Maria Langer. Welcome to Maria Speaks Episode 17: NaNoWriMo

I’ve been listening to the NaNoWriMo 05 Podcast by Darusha Wehm. And I’m really sorry if I just mangled her name.

NaNoWriMo — that’s capital N – A – capital N – O – capital W – R – I capital M – O — is short for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is new to me. The goal appears to be to write a 50,000 word novel during the period of November 1 through November 30. It’s an interesting idea, a sort of forced deadline for procrastinators who don’t have an editor reminding them of a deadline as it approaches.

I subscribed to Darusha’s podcast to learn more. You can subscribe, too, at nanorwrimopodcast.blogspot.com. I’ve found that after each episode, I have some comments I’d like to add. That’s what this podcast is all about. I’ll record it and send it to Darusha and she can decide what she wants to do with it. She did, after all, ask for comments in MP3 format. I’m not sure if she expected them from such a cynical realist. But I’ll try to behave myself and be gentle with everyone listening.

First, let me tell Darusha’s listeners a little about me. I write for a living and have been doing so since 1992. That means I write stuff and I get paid for it. I’ve had over 60 books and literally hundreds of articles published in the past fifteen years.

I mostly write computer how-to books and articles. I make a good living doing what I do, but there’s no rest for the weary. Every time a new version of a software product I’ve written about comes out, I have to hit the keyboard to revise my book. I don’t earn royalties on out-of-print books, and most of my books have gone out of print. After all, the average life of a computer book is 12 to 18 months.

I’ve worked on a number of novels over the years but have never finished one. I think it’s because deep down inside, I fear the rejection of something that’s near and dear to my heart. You see, fiction comes from your imagination and soul. Having an editor say he won’t publish it might hurt. Having an editor turn down a new computer book title, on the other hand, doesn’t faze me in the least because there’s so little of me wrapped up in it.

Maybe I need NaNoWriMo to get my latest work in process novel done. I don’t know. I have some thoughts about the 50,000 words in a month deadline that I’ll get to later on in these comments.

And now my comments about things I’ve heard on Darusha’s podcast.

NaNoWriMo gear?

Darusha mentioned that you can buy NaNoWriMo gear on the NaNoWriMo Web site. That raised a flag. And I may as well start these comments with a bang by pissing off some people.

I visited the nanowrimo.org Web site and maybe I’m just dense, but I don’t understand why they need to raise $110,000. I’m also trying to understand why would-be novelists should be so interested in building children’s libraries in Laos. I’m not trying to say that children’s libraries aren’t a worthy cause. But why do NaNoWriMo writers need to support it? And why not support libraries in their own countries?

Okay, so I’m a cynic. It’s hard not to be one when you’re born and raised in the New York City metro area. It just seems to me that the NaNoWriMo gear you can buy at the Web site does more to serve the people selling it than the people buying it.

You want to write a novel in a month? Do you really need a t-shirt to do it? I don’t think so.

And who are the people running the NaNoWriMo web site anyway? It looks to me like some kind of scam to get wanna-be novelists to fund annual vacations for a bunch of Web programming geeks. There’s no indication on the Web site of any real writing organization behind it.

Sorry.

Supporters

Darusha’s episode 3 talked about the importance of supporters. I couldn’t agree more. And I have some comments to add.

I agree that you cannot write a novel or anything else in your spare time without the complete support of your significant other or family. If you just require support for this one month, it’s easy. Ask for it. Explain how important it is to you. Make them understand that by supporting you, they’re helping you achieve your goal. When you achieve your goal with their help, it’s a team effort. But the ball is in your court: if you get the support you need, it’s your responsibility to succeed. Failure would let down everyone and make it just a little tougher for them to support you next year.

Remember, you can’t completely neglect your responsibilities. Do your best to fit your regular chores into your schedule. Rearrange your schedule if you have to, if you can. Just make sure you fit in the things you absolutely must do — like have dinner with your family or go to work — with enough time to get your writing quota done each day.

If you’re trying to write a novel outside of the NaNoWriMo one-month deadline, getting long-term support from your significant other and family might be a little more difficult. One word of advice: be reasonable. Locking yourself up in a room every evening or morning or whatever and neglecting your responsibilities because you’re writing a novel month after month, year after year is just plain irresponsible and stupid. Don’t do that to the people you love. Don’t do it to yourself. Make a deadline and stick to it. And take off enough time during the writing process to keep your life alive.

Novel writing software

Episode 4 talked about tools. Darusha specifically mentioned the phrase “novel writing software.”

I’m sorry, but isn’t any decent word processor an appropriate tool for writing a novel?

This reminds me of an e-mail I got from a guy who wanted to start writing computer how-to books. He asked me to recommend some book proposal software. I told him to try Microsoft Word. That’s what I use and it hasn’t failed me yet.

Here’s the point. There’s no special software that’ll make you a better writer — unless it comes with a creative writing teacher who can critique your work and offer tips for making it better. You can fool around with writing software all you like and it all comes down to your own capabilities. Either you can write or you can’t. Either you have a good idea that you can form into an interesting plot or you can’t. Either you can write realistic dialog and good descriptive prose or you can’t.

That’s not to say that you can’t get better. The best way to be a better writer is to read more, write more, and listen to feedback about your work by people who know what they’re talking about. That doesn’t include your spouse, aunt Tillie, mother, or fellow writing club member — unless one of these people has already had his or her fiction published or works in the industry.

But novel writing software? I looked at CopyWrite, the software package Darusha suggested. It doesn’t look like something you could pick up and start using effectively without a lot of experimentation. So don’t run out and start playing with it now, especially with the NaNoWriMo clock ticking. Use your favorite word processor to write. It has a word count feature built in. And take notes on index cards. Big ones or small ones — your choice. They’re easy to sort, modify, and read. That’ll help make your downtime — like the time you might spend on a bus or train on your way to work or the time you spend at lunch — more productive.

And that brings up something else. Writing a novel is more than just typing words 2 to 4 hours a day until you’re done. It’s planning and plotting. It’s creating backstories for your characters so they’re real. It’s including little details that make your work come alive. When you’re not sitting at your desk, typing away to meet your NaNoWriMo deadline, open your eyes and look around you. Take notes about what you see. Use the index cards. You can put them in your purse or a jacket pocket. Make the most out of all your time, not just the predefined writing time you’ve set aside for this project.

NaNoWriMo forums

Darusha’s Tools podcast also mentioned the NaNoWriMo forums. I visited those on the Web site, too. And here’s my sad report: There are literally hundreds of thousands of posts. My question: why aren’t these people working on their novels? I know from experience that fooling around on the Internet is a great way to procrastinate. Cut it out! Get to work!

If you feel you absolutely must participate in these forums, set a time limit for yourself each day. Something like 15 minutes. Remember, if you type 50 words a minute — which is probably pretty average for someone who actively participates in Internet forums, in those 15 minutes, you could have typed 750 words in your novel. If you wasted an hour in a forum, that hour could have been spent meeting your word count quota for the day.

The good thing about podcasts is that you can listen to them while you’re doing something else. Like driving the car, taking a shower, or working out. So if you must get an Internet fix, do it with podcasts. That’s another way to make the most out of down time.

Backup plan

Darusha also talks about having a backup plan — that is, a plan to backup your novel files. This should be a no-brainer, but I’m sure it isn’t. Most people probably don’t even think of backing up important files — until those files have been wiped out by a hard disk crash, virus, or fire.

Back up your important files. Period. It doesn’t matter what kind of files they are: accounting records, contact databases, or word processing files containing your novel. If you’ll miss it when it’s gone, back it up so you won’t lose it.

Darusha makes some good suggestions for backing up. The main idea is to have an offsite backup. That means backing up on a computer or other device that isn’t sitting right next to the computer where the data lives and breathes. What good is copying your important files to a CD once a week if you store the CD next to your computer? When the burglar steals the computer, don’t you think he might take the disks with him? When the fire breaks out because your superfast, undercooled computer processor got too hot for its own good, don’t you think everything around the computer will burn, too?

Okay, so it isn’t likely. But it is possible.

It’s odd because I was sitting at my desk finishing up for the day while I was listening to Darusha’s podcast in iTunes. Just as she was talking about backing up, I was setting up a folder on my publisher’s FTP server to back up my current work in progress. That folder is accessible by me, both of my editors, and my indexer. I made sure my editors knew why it was there. You see, I’m also a helicopter pilot and there’s always the possibility that I might not match successful landings to take-offs. If something happens to me, I want my editors to be able to get someone else to finish the job without reinventing the wheel.

Check with your ISP. Chances are, you have space on your ISP’s server for your own Web site or something like that. Use that to back up your important files. All of them.

Well, that brings me through Episode 4 and I’ve already said nearly 2,000 words. (Hmmm, if I were writing this for NaNoWriMo, I’d already have my quota met for the day.) But I do have one more thing to say, and that’s about the whole idea of NaNoWriMo.

If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo because you see it as a great way to meet the challenge of writing a novel before a specific deadline, great. You must know what goes into writing a novel and see that it’s more than just the challenge of getting words down so they can be read.

But if you’re participating just to see if you can write 50,000 words in a month, stop and think about it. Are you writing 50,000 words that someone else might want to read? In other words, are you crafting a novel or doing what 100 monkeys at keyboards could do?

My point is this: if you want to be a novelist, it takes more than just saying you’re one and typing 50,000 words as a way to prove it. It takes planning, creative genius, writing skill, and a lot of hard work. NaNoWriMo is one way to see if you can meet deadlines. But there’s more to being a novelist than meeting a deadline.

Do I think it’s possible to write a publishable novel in a month. Yes. The people who do it regularly are referred to in the industry as hacks.

Heck, I’ve been referred to as a hack. But there’s something magic about seeing your name on the cover of a book in a bookstore. Even after the 60th time.

Good luck!