I WON! I WON! Wait, what did I win? Stuff I learned from NaNoWriMo

So I took it down to the wire and finished today. 50k. 30 days. And here's my stats page where you can see my very steady progress. 

Stuff I learned from my first NaNo:

1. I can up my expectation of myself and meet it. It won't kill me.

I'm always setting myself targets - usually 1k a day when it comes to word count. NaNo calls for more, and just the knowledge that it did had me saying things like 'I've only written 1500 words today'. That would have been a good writing day before this month. Now I know that I don't always have to push myself this hard, but I also know that I can.

2. I can write all sorts of scenes that might not need to go in the book but still serve a purpose. 

I tend to write short YA contemporary novels. So when I got to 42k for NaNo, I'd finished the planned story. But since I wanted to win (because I just did), I wrote all sorts of scenes linked with the story - an alternate ending I'd been considering, a collection of flashbacks, a stack of scenes that I couldn't decide whether or not to include. And I'm so glad I did! I already know that a lot of them will go into the book and it will be better for it. Even the ones I'm not so sure about helped me think more about my mc and the other characters. I wouldn't have bothered writing any of these scenes without NaNo.

3. If I plan a novel in great detail beforehand, I never get stuck. 

This is another first for me. I pantsed the novel my agent signed me on (and then edited extensively). But I knew I wouldn't be able to write 50k in 30 days without a plan, so this time I made one. And what's more, I really enjoyed doing it. It was invaluable and it was fun. Bonus. I don't know yet if it will mean less revision afterwards, but I'm thinking that it will.
 

I've never had a problem writing through to the end without editing, but I know for those of you who do, NaNo is a big deal in that way. So how about you? Did you 'win'? Did you get something more useful out of it than the win? Did you figure something out about writing you hadn't figured out before? Do you now get to reward yourself with the second season of Vampire Diaries??

I just signed up for NaNoWriMo!

It's official! I just signed up! I'm excited!

It's my first time! I won't use this many exclamation marks in the manuscript!

I've got a blurb for the book I want to write and I've been a-planning and a-plotting. The rest of October is going to be frowning-and-being-serious-about-scenes time. So I won't be pantsing, just writing what I've planned. I'm Ruth Lauren (original, I know) on there if you want to find me.

So, who's done it before? Who's doing it this year? Do I need writing buddies? Do I need valium? Give me your tips, hints, seasoned advice for a newbie NaNo-er. Should I pace myself, or run at it like a demonic maniac? All advice welcome!

Which came first - the query or the book?

Cute. This is before the little fella tried to figure out which way round was best.

 I've done it both ways - book then pitch, and pitch then book (although I'm yet to complete that second way - at the moment I have two pitches written that are bookless).

Here's what I found: When I wrote my first pitch there was anguish and rending of garments and so on. I'd written the book (it was a bit rubbish) and there was no way I could make the story fit into the Query Shark formula (side note: some people can break the rules and get results with queries. I'm not one of those people, so I follow the formula). My book just didn't want to be constrained that way because it was just too...

It was just too rubbish is what it was. It took a long time to write a decent query for that book because the book itself didn't have great stakes.

Book 2's query took a similarly long time, but for different reasons. Namely these: I'd spent so long writing my book, it had so many great things in it that NEEDED to be in that query and there was no way 250 words was enough. (It can be hard to see the core of the story - especially if you've pantsed it in the first place.)

In short, despite the fact that my query for Book 2 worked, it was DIFFICULT to write.

Here's the good bit: More recently, Ive been writing the pitch first. And it's been a complete revelation.

Mind. Blown.

One advantage of doing it this way round is that you don't get bogged down with uneccessary detail or tempted to make mention of that incredible sub plot you have going on. The idea comes out pure. And although it might need a little flavour injecting into it later on when you've nailed down the characters and the setting, you'll have the core plot ready made.

I'm also hoping it will keep me on track when I come to actually write the book. I know what the main thrust of the plot is, so I can (theoretically) make sure I'm always writing towards it (and bypassing that scene at the sewage plant that seemed like a good idea at the time in favour of something that matters and isn't gross).

Plus I know that the plot is big enough, that the stakes are high, and that the choices these charatcers are going to have to make are WHOA (this is a technical writerly term I'm sure you're all familiar with). 

Not convinced? How about this: Do it this way round and you won't waste any time writing a book that isn't going to fly. You won't feel pressure to do your wonderful book justice and gnash your teeth over the pitch, because you haven't written said wonderful book yet. Stress-free query writing!

Yes, I googled 'book coming out of an egg'. Not sure what I was expecting.

So what do you think? Have you tried this? Did it work for you?

How I fixed a plot problem without wine (I know - I didn't think it was possible either).

I wrote this post a while ago, where I asked you if you'd ever set a WiP aside, and if you had, what happened to it?

At the time I'd finished (HA! yeah, it was nowhere near finished) THE CRACKS IN EVERYTHING and it was with clever Agent Julia. So it was shiny-new-book time for me.

I had an idea for a boy POV contemporary/romance-ish type story, and it even had (gasp) a title! My titling prowess is lame at best and so I took this as a good sign. This book had a plot. I had a plan. Yes, I'd confirmed the long-held suspicion that I was a genius.

So I set to work and wrote 19k words. And realised that the plot was RUBBISH. I set it aside. I wrote the aforementioned post hoping that you would tell me that this was a) normal, and b) certain to end in me running through sun-drenched fields of fragrant flowers clutching the finished work to my chest with a beatific smile on my face because, yes, one day I would finish the book.

You made valiant efforts towards letting me kid myself. (Thank you!)

A few months later, I read this post by Sarah Davies on the Greenhouse blog. You can see my enthused comment at the bottom of the post.

The point here is that I'm not a patient woman. I don't like waiting. I definitely don't like leaving things half-done and walking away. But a few months ago I could not for the life of me figure out how to fix this story. No matter how often I thought about it, no matter what crazy alternative directions I wrote down, no matter HOW MUCH WINE I DRANK (I know, it was bad).

I'd considered a change of genre - maybe this was a horror story. For a while I was convinced it was a contemporary ghost story. Or maybe a sci-fi? If I just added killer aliens or space monkeys, that would fix it, right? RIGHT?

Wrong. It's a contemporary boy POV romance-ish type story set in Siberia and London.

And what it took for me to fix it was TIME not WINE. Who knew?

Between the time that had passed (and in that time I'd written most of the first draft of another book and all but forgotten about the work that was rapidly becoming the-19k-that-shall-not-be-mentioned) and the stellar advice in the Greenhouse blog post, I figured it out. And lo, once again, it was awesome!

What do you do to figure out plot problems? Any advice for me if this happens again?

Exciting super cool news!!

So you all know that Michelle Krys is my critique partner and general internet bff, and that she signed with Adriann Ranta recently? These are excellent things and good reasons why you should follow her blog, but on top of that, there's this from Publisher's Marketplace:

Michelle Krys's THE WITCH HUNTER'S BIBLE, in which a snarky sixteen-year-old cheerleader is forced into a centuries-old war between witches and sorcerers only to uncover the first of many dark truths about her life, to Wendy Loggia at Delacorte, in a good deal, in a two-book deal, by Adriann Ranta at Wolf Literary Services (World).

News like this calls for this:

I'm pretty certain Michelle won't mind if you visit her blog post about it. Or if you send large expensive gifts. Either is fine : D

And lo, it was awesome.

 Now as some of you know, I've been working on Book The Third in between revisions on the book I got signed for (Yes, it would be easier if they had cool titles. No, they don't have cool titles.)

I even wrote a query and synopsis for Book The Third before I started it in an attempt to avoid previously experienced meandering and rubbishness in my writing. And then I started my lovely new book and wrote 19k words of it.

And then I stopped. Because Book The Third has no plot. A shocking oversight on my part, I know, but I really thought it had one when I started. I knew my characters; they had backstory (not in the book, of course), they had complex realtionships and problems and motivation. The setting? It was great. But plot? Yeah, MIA.

I'm not prepared to let go of Book The Third though. I'm happy to put it aside while I attempt to come up with a plot to go with the great setting and the great characters, but can I actually ditch it? Not finish something I started? (This would be a writing precedent for me.) I don't know.

While I was considering whether abandoning my work made me a big loser or just a pragmatic writer, I had a NEW IDEA. A fully-formed, packed with plot idea that had great characters to boot. I wrote said shiny and exciting idea down and asked my critique partner Michelle Krys what she thought of it and what I should do whilst I pithered and prevaricated about ditching Book The Third.

And here's why I love Michelle >

OMG! I F***ING LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I haven't read (Book The Third) yet but I can already tell you that you need to write this. NOW! I want to read it now so I can tell you that you'd have a best-seller on your hands. Please write it now??

Somewhat bolstered by the amount of exclamation marks, I wrote a synopsis.

And lo, it was awesome (even if I do say so myself.)

I fully intend to start Book The Fourth this week. But Book The Third is looking at me balefully, forlornly, plotlessly. And I'm feeling like it might look at me like that until I finish it.  

So my question is this - have you ever set a work aside? Did you go back to it afterwards?

Quick contest to say Merry Christmas!

The contest is now closed. Thanks to everyone for participating :) Winner(s) posted above!


In the Christmassy spirit of Christmas I thought I'd throw a little contest and offer to beta read the first 3,000 words of your manuscript. 

All you need to do to enter is write your name, the title and genre of your ms and your email address in the comments section. The contest will close at 7pm GMT 24th December when I'll pick a winner. I'll read the first 3k words and get them back to you in a week : ) 

RULES:
1) This is for unagented writers.
 
Um, yeah, that's the only rule (see Christmassy Christmas spirit - I’m doing this to help.) It can be a finished ms, or a WiP.  

I'm not going to insist that you follow my blog to enter, though I'd love it if you did. I'm not going to insist you post it on your own blog to let other writers know or tweet this post either but I'd love it if you did :D 

Now here's a pic of something cute while you polish up your 3k words for me to get my hands on.

No ifs, ands or buts about it

Do you really care if I start sentences with words like 'and'? Because I'm going to (see what I did there?)

I wrote Fait Accompli however it occurred to me to do it. Before I joined Scrib and learned about the hitherto unknown passive sentence, or the evil that is (hushed whisper) an adverb. Before I fully understood that the full stop goes inside the speech mark when you're writing dialogue. Yes, I know I have an English degree. No, apparently I never picked that up. Yes, I know how stupid that makes me look.

Then I joined Scrib and a whole new understanding of the depth and breadth of my lack of understanding revealed itself to me. I spent twice as long editing FA as I did writing it. 70k words became 58k as I cut redundancy, re-worded passive sentences and waged war on adverbs.

So when I started work on Write Your Name, I was a little better educated. I knew that each speaker's dialogue needed to be 'attached' to their actions. I knew about tags and beats. Paragraphing is still somewhat haphazard, and commas may never be my friend, but, moving swiftly on, I felt like I could attempt to produce something half decent. However, somewhere during the process, I also started to analyse everything I read. Not in the way that I did when I was at University. Not from a lit crit angle. From a I'm-picking-apart-every-sentence-you-write-to-see-how-you-do-it kind of angle.

And I expected to see little to no evidence of 'weak' verbs. None of those adverbs I'd been warned would be the ruination of my lovely writing, and could be deleted if I just chose a stronger verb. No run-on sentences, no passive writing.

I expected not to see full stops after speech marks. Ok, I got that last one. Nobody does that. Seriously, not even six year olds.

BUT (yes, I started a sentence with it, and there's nothing you can do about it - it's my blog!) the books I scrutinised all used the word (shield your eyes if you must) was. I was reading Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong when I first started really looking at what published authors used or didn't use, and let me tell you, Mr Faulks didn't seem adverse. I'm currently reading the second in Maggie Stiefvater's Wolves of Mercy Falls series (Linger) because I'm on a massive YA kick since last year. She doesn't seem overly bothered either.

Now I know that I'm not in the same league as those authors. I know that in my pre-published state (isn't that a nice way of putting it : ) ) I shouldn't pick and choose which writing 'rules' I flaut. But is it really so terrible if, in telling my new story the way I want to tell it, I use the word was? Can I really not start a sentence with but, or and? When you write, should you worry about rules? (dear God, I just slipped into second person. Am I going to writer hell?) How do you decide?