Nano 2011- Day 4

Despite the fact we’re only at Day 4, being a Friday I just feel the weeks drawing to a close. I had planned on doing a few posts before Nano had started, but clearly time got the better of me.

This year things are going well. Having set out to write TWO after the success of last year’s achievement of getting over 186,000 I wanted to really start stretching myself.

For the past few months I’ve really struggled with getting my own writing done, writers block and an emotional over load just got the better of me and I found myself saying ‘it’s ok, you’ve got Nano’

Nano means a lot of things to different people: 

• I think it’s a chance for people to give themselves permission to focus on something they love to do (or would rather be doing)
• To others it’s a chance to play out an idea we might not give more than a passing thought to
• To prove that you can actually write 50,000 words
• That you can take a story past a basic concept to a narrative
• Or simply to just tell a story

For me it’s a chance to meet some new people and to ‘talk shop’ writing is an incredible lonely experience a lot of the time, and not one that everyone wants to hear you talk about every time they see you. No a lot of people can really have a conversation about pacing, char arch’s or just ‘that one damn scene’ that’s got you stumped.

I think because this month for me is to change things up a bit, to go play in another world for a while. Rather than stay in the one I’m currently working on, in a way that my short story projects don’t really allow.

I take this month off my ‘normal schedule’ to have some fun, which is way I’m cramming two stories in this month.

But even though where still in early day’s (and this did come up in a few October meetings) a lot of people seem to get bogged down in word counts, now I’ll admit I managed to get 30k out in three days, more out of experience, lots of planning, and pretty much have A LOT of spare time. And while the ‘advised’ daily count is satisfying I think people often forget the organic nature of storytelling, not a lot of people ‘grow’ at a steady rate, we have growth spurts, and the same thing happens in stories. One day you’ll get 500 words the next, you’ll pull 5,000.

And maybe I can pull a more relaxed attitude about Nano being about the ‘story’ about enjoying the journey… after all that’s what we all have in common, we’re all story tellers. 

And keep in mind this is a marathon, not a sprint. Remember to breathe and keep up the fluids! 

Other Opinions

Found this article up on Voyager Online

Why Fantasy-Science Fiction rocks my world

October 12, 2010

Stories are full of magic. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. A story can masquerade as reality. It can do a splendid job at impersonating the ordinary, the grindingly mundane. But that is simply the spell it weaves. We are all willing dupes, seeing in black letters on a white page a troupe of living, breathing characters and scenes of joy or infamy. There is no tale that is not an act of invocation. ‘I am Truth, I am Reality,’ says the illusion: believe at your peril. You are entering a web of consensual deceit, catching a ball the author throws at you, participating in a game of shared imagination.

As you can probably tell, I’m of the tedious ‘every author writes Fantasy’ persuasion. Don’t worry, I won’t go all deconstructionist in this blog post. I’ll simply say that genre distinctions do not speak to me. At best they are a pitching and marketing device, a way of providing readers with the stories they like, or at least pretending to provide the story they like before moving on to interesting alternatives. So, why do I write in that storytelling shorthand that makes a reader think, ‘Ah, Fantasy’? Why in particular that code which throws up the warning sign, ‘Epic Fantasy: dragons be here’?

The short, and partially correct answer in my case was that I had a story which cried out to be written as speculative fiction. A coming of age tale set in a giant tree the size of a mountain range had to be either Fantasy or Science Fiction. I suppose it could have taken place in the ‘real world’, as the ravings of a lunatic. But that would have necessitated a clumsy narrative framing device; I was more interested in what happened inside the picture. So I chose Fantasy, or rather Science Fiction disguised as Fantasy, or rather Science Fantasy –

Whoops. Have I given away too much? You’re not supposed to know that yet, not in the first book. But there it is, in a nutshell. The beauty of Fantasy is its flexibility. It is a genre that can morph into anything, that can be anything, from Truth to Dream to Philosophy to Poetry. For a slippery fish such as myself, the possibilities are intoxicating. Fantasy is the ultimate nod to creativity. Anything goes so long as one is able to pull it off. So long as the spell is cast adroitly enough.

I doubt if I will always write Epic Fantasy. I doubt that I am even now, strictly speaking and with an eye to very narrow definitions, writing Epic Fantasy. But I will always be to some degree a writer of speculative fiction, because I love the freedom that form gives. From the subtlest forays of ‘magical realism’ and alternate history to all-out space opera and epic, dragon-ridden sagas, it’s all for me. I love that breadth of choice. And should I break down one day and write a tale of everyday life and love set in a corner of the so-called real world, rest assured that I would still be cheating. Quietly.

There would be a creeping sense of possibility, a whiff of magic in the pages, that gave the game away.

Mary Victoria is the author of Tymon’s Flight, Chronicles of the Tree Book One. She is working on the second book, Samiha’s Song, which will be released in February 2011.

Green Bars

As Nano moves on and the finally manuscript has been handed over to Fran I am left with nothing but Nano to keep me creatively entertained.

What I’ve found most interesting recently is the boards, and as more and more people get higher word counts and even as people start getting to the 50,000 words interesting things have started to pop up.

Whether designed to inspire or for congratulations there is a thread designed for people to announce their achievement of reaching the 50,000 words.  Now some participants that I’ve spoken to set out with their own personal word limits, most around the   90,000- 100,000 word mark. This should be the point that I've managed to reach around 89,000

Its strange how aggressive people get when the topic of ‘why’ people write comes up. This is meant to be a competition for ‘like minded’ people. For people who until Nano lacked the time or the commitment to write anything and now it seems like infighting as ensued on some level.

I write because I have stories to tell, be it to me, family, friend or  others. That’s what writers are,  they are story tellers. Something that I think in Nano gets a little lost, you shouldn’t really be out there to write 50,000 words just because you can, people should just be other there to tell their stories. No matter how long or short. 

Day 2

I went to a ‘write in’ today, now these day days during Nano that people in your region meet up and write together.. Well in the same place, and you do things like word wars (see who can write the most in 15-30 mins)

It was good, interesting is more the word, I’ve always had to ‘rearrange’ my life around my writing. Like most part timer’s there’s school, day jobs, writing is something you do. Now it’s my job, yay. Now don’t get me wrong I’m privileged to do what I do full time now, but it means that its harder to ‘take it seriously’ to sit down for 6 hours and write something more than 1,000 words. Some people can do it, me well someday I just can’t be assed you can’t be like in Nano or when it’s your job.  Two days of lazy writing is going to cost me, I’m going to have to make up the time/words somewhere.

There was a lot to get out of today, made some headway in stories but more importantly started putting faces to names. But also what was strange was the sense of community- there wasn’t the awkward ‘intro phase’ it was mostly like pretend everyone already knew people and just jump into conversations. It is strange, mostly because peple ‘do’ know each other through IRC chats or the forum boards.. but stick people physically together and it was a little different, less talkative. Maybe we are all more  comfortable from behind a user name or maybe its just being physically confronted with faces and not just names, having to actually deal with a person and not just their  conversation.. anyway that’s it from me 

Out of the Woods

Like so many other 20-sasomethings, I’ve had a blog before – Livejournal, (for a short time) Myspace and even on my DeviantArt account. But mostly they start with the best intentions and end up falling away into a mess of late night spiels about some apparent misgiving I have about my life being an overly emotional child.

This however, I hope to be different. This is the start of my professional blogging path (if you want to watch my late night rambles please see my DA account)

This blog was originally suggested by my agent Fran, as a way to talk about my profession as a writer (you can all watch the joys as I hold my breath in anticipation of my first book), to post things on writing; what it means to write and be a writer. Basically my journey -particularly the next month doing NaNoWriMo (get ready for a crash course in writing a novel)

Of course there will be other things, things of merit- news, topics, criticisms and reviews. But mostly just me, doing my thing.