What I Learned During Nanowrimo Part 2

Back to the things I learned by taking part in Nanowrimo. If you haven't read Part 1 make sure to check it out. And if you have let's see how things went on Week 2.

Week 2: Stay true to your characters

   Week two is usually when things become difficult. Your initial excitement isn’t carrying you and if you haven’t planned, you’re not quite sure where things are going.

   In week two I had three days where I made the progress of about 100 words. It was hard to see that word target getting away from me again. The nice thing about Nanowrimo though, is that it works out how many words a day you need to finish. Thankfully my required daily average wasn’t ridiculous.

   A day or two of dedication got that word count up in leaps and bounds. A lack of a plan meant my characters were guiding themselves. I think my favourite aspect of writing is creating characters. If you make characters that are interesting enough, people will follow them wherever you take them.

   Over the years I’ve learnt about plotting and character development and hopefully my projects are stronger because of that. The main character for my second novel (the one I was halfway through) has a much more satisfying journey than the one in my first.

   If you were to follow the traditional story structure, when the main character is called to help, they must go through an initial refusal. So when it came for David to ask Lara and Biggs for their help, something strange happened. Biggs was excited by the proposal but Lara didn’t want to leave her town.

   My two main characters, two best friends I had thought would go through the entire story together were separated. Biggs left with David and Lara stayed behind.

   Being where I am now with the story I can’t imagine it going any other way. It’s helped to strengthen the balance of the different plots. One side is Biggs and on the other is Lara. One has their adventures and the other has theirs. Also their separation meant I couldn’t just use “Biggs grows in to a giant wolf” as a solution to every problem (He can only do that with Lara's help).

   Over the course of the book, the characters have taken the lead, reacting to each situation in a way I hope to be true to them. So even if you’re the type to plan out every single detail, just let your characters roam free once in a while. You never know what they might find.

What I Learned During Nanowrimo Part1

   Just before leaving University I attended one of those “Where are you going with your life after this?” interviews. I told my tutor about the novel I was writing and she told me about a competition where you write a novel in a month.

   Afterwards I researched it and discovered it wouldn’t be happening for another few months. The next few years I either seemed to miss it or it didn’t feel like the right time. Finally on November 3rd 2012 I ended up on Twitter and spotted that familiar name “#Nanowrimo”.

   I went on the website and started thinking. I was on a year out in Canada and hadn’t found my next job yet. We’d done most of the touristy stuff and I seemed to have more than enough free time. It was an utter luxury and something that would probably never happen again. If I couldn’t do it this November then I never would.

   Two days had already gone and I was at the end of number three but there was plenty of time to make up for that. The only problem was what to write? I was currently half way through another novel and looking back I probably could have used November to finish it (I wasn’t fully aware of the rules). It seemed more sporting and even challenging if I were to start afresh.

   As it happened I had an idea floating around in my brain, something that had poked its head in when I was trying to write something else (isn’t it always the way). It was to be an homage to the Saturday morning kids shows about kids and their monsters. The twist would be that they were supposed to save the world when they were kids but it never happened. Half of them never got the message.

   So it would be set in a post-apocalypse world. The bad guys had won and the world had been destroyed in the process. The main characters would be a young woman named Lara and her Monster friend Biggs. I had a couple of other characters too.

   There would be David, someone who had lost his Monster because of how badly things had failed. Elsewhere would be a man and Monster pairing. They wouldn’t be my usual likeable, charisma filled males. They would be selfish and tough, characters that couldn’t care less about saving the world (but I still fell in love with them).

   The hardest part by far was diving in to this without a plan. If Nanowrimo is something you want to try or even if you want to write a novel without doing Nanowrimo, then the best piece of advice I can give is “research, plan, think.”

   When I was younger I would plough head first in to stories only for them to dwindle to nothing because I had no idea where to take them. Now I wouldn’t even think of starting to write my first chapter without giving an idea long enough to grow.

   Lack of planning turned out to be my biggest issue during the month of writing. During Nano you’re encouraged to shut out the “inner editor” whereas I usually had someone asking “So what happens next? Huh, don’t know? Guess you’re not writing today!”

It begins

   My first bit of writing only came to 500 words or so. I had just decided then and there to do it and wanted to get something down. The next day saw my first attempt to sit down and write the darn thing. The enthusiasm for the competition was enough to give me one of my most productive days. I’m sure this is the same for a lot of people. You’re excited and still think “fuck yeah, this is an awesome idea!” It’s only later things get tricky.

Week 1: Prioritise.

   The first week saw some decent progress. It was a little annoying to never quite make it to the target because I started late but I was confident I could make it up. I ended up with a lot of other work that week. I had gone from having nothing to do to suddenly having a resume to work on, jobs to hunt and an article I had offered to do for a booklet.

   For the first time in a long while I had a bunch of stuff to do and I had to prioritise. Unfortunately my brain has this weird way of working. I stated to my boyfriend what I had to do and he suggested starting with the article as that was the only thing that would earn me money. What was the first thing I did? I went to the comic book store! (One of the things I will miss when I go back to the U.K.)

   I did come home obviously and put the resume and article aside for the day. I wrote up a list of what needed doing for when and for the most part got it all done.

  The strange thing about writing is that you really have to learn when to put other things aside. You might have to skip the odd yoga class or leave the dishes an extra day, all those things regular human beings manage to do. But sometimes you have to ignore that feeling of guilt and be selfish towards your writing otherwise you’ll never do it.

Check back again for what happened in Weeks 2, 3 and 4!