A COLOSSAL BREAKTHROUGH!!!

Look, Mommy. A rainbow!
No, it's not a rainbow, darling. It's a writer's hard work.

Yes, that's right, that which you see before you, is my story from beginning, middle, twist, ending, including the rules of my world and its fantasy elements in all its color-coded glory. It's a beauty, isn't she?

This is a HUGE breakthrough for me. Me, who said she was an organic writer. Me, whose taken, ahem, $^@(@ years and I am still writing the darn thing. Me, who had all these holes and thought, well, when I get to that part, I will just know what to do.

BUZZ! No. Wrong answer.

An outline is your friend. Embrace the outline. Love the outline. Beeeee the outline.

Okay, maybe I've gone a little loopy from all this NaNo stuff (which reminds me, I better keep this brief!) But I've done it. I've really done it - an outline in a living, breathing format that can grow and change as my story grows and changes. I love my outline.

I've always wanted to do this, but I never wanted to put tape on my wall or I thought it would look messy or I was afraid of strangers coming in my office and seeing it and wanting to read it. Gasp!

BUZZ! Again, wrong answer.

If you see something in your mind, if that little voice in your head says, I really wish I could display my outline on my wall so I can stare at it from time to time, read my whole story from beginning to end in five minutes... if you hear a voice in your head telling you your creative steps, then you need to listen, folks!

And listen I finally did.

Wanna know my color-code? Pink are my polished chapters. Orange are chapters from a previous draft, yellow are brandy-new chapters and the green and yellow mess to the left... those are the various rules of the various fantasy elements in my story.

TaDAAA!!!!! And there you go, a living breathing outline that I can change in a second flat if need be. Now, I better go stare at it some more and get on to my NaNo word count. THE END, here I come!!!!!

NaNoWriMo Week 2

Goal For This Week: 14,000 words

What I Accomplished Last Week: 7, 664 words and a lot of whining!

Downside: I am not off to a good start. All that NaNo hype and I am behind!!!! I just couldn't get out of my own way this week, nor could I get myself started. Which, is really weird considering, I was SO psyched and ready for NaNo. The truth is, two weeks before NaNo began, I fell into a serious case of the blues - it was the anniversary of my mother's death, I am dealing with some finacial difficulties, I've been looking for a job (like the rest of America) and have not been able to find one (like the rest of America)… Anyway, by the time NaNo actually began, I was a deflated balloon. I've been trying to blow myself up again, but I think I have a slow leak somewhere that needs patching… This week, my goal HAD to shift. I had to find a job. And I did. Huzzah! So, NaNo took a back seat. BUT… I also recognize that I allowed it to take a back seat and did not sacrifice in anyway. I didn't stay up late. I didn't wake up early. I just allowed my time to silently slip away. Bad, bad writer-girl!!!!

Upside: I learned a lot about myself and the length that my negative voice will go at self-sabatage - (it will even make unnecessary gynocologist appointments to avoid writing. Imagine that! A story for another time.) Anyway, the positive is, I'm on to you, negaitve voice, and how you'll stop at nothing to stop me. So, I am constipated in the creative sense. I've had a daily dose of prunes and well, sorry, but I'm waiting for my writing to run… (Ok, I'll stop with the bowel analogy and get on with it.) The true upside is… it's a new week and I can catch up, eventually. And my true goal is not in the word count. It is in reaching those elusive words… THE END!!!

Any Additional Comments:

See ya at the finish line! Now get to work!!!

The Count Down Begins

TWENTY DAYS UNTIL NANAWRIMO.

Excited? I am. I can't wait. Oh, that reminds me, I need to get my husband to get my Word Count Excel Spreadsheet a little more user friendly for me, though, this year.

Wait! Stop the train! You've never heard of NaNoWriMo? How can that be? Okay, I'll calm down. After all, I had never heard of it until last year either. So, here's what it is... It's a challenge. You like challenges right? Especially writer challenges, right? Well, then. This one's for you!

National Novel Writer's Month, or affectionately known as NaNoWriMo, is held every November. All you have to do is write 50,000 NEW words in one month's time. Oh, just that... WHAT?! I know. It sounds impossible. I felt that way, too. But no sweat. Believe it or not, it's doable. I came very close. I think 46,000 or 48,000 words...

The point of NaNoWriMo is not to worry about quality but to focus on quantity. Sounds backwards, right? The truth is, there's a time and place for everything. Revisions are for quality. In the words of Richard Peck, revisions are where real writers shine.... Okay, that's not a direct quote, but he said something like that at the SCBWI NJ June Conference this year.

Here' how NaNo can help... If you struggle to finish drafts, NaNoWriMo is for you! You don't have to post your new pages every day. I didn't. And don't worry about someone stealing your precious MS. When you do post, you can use the encryption button in Word. It garbles your MS up to nonsense but keeps the word count the same. What you do is you write forward. That's it. Sounds simple, right? But we all know that writing forward is sometimes the hardest thing to do. We want to go back and edit and tweak and find that perfect word to capture that pivotal moment. Again, I say, there is a time and place for everything. When writing an early draft, that is NOT the time to tweak. All you need to do - the hardest thing ever - is to write forward and do not look back.

Over at Rebecca's blog, they are discussing using NaNoWriMo to finish a project or begin a new one. I've been debating this myself lately too. I am on my sixth draft and about to begin the next revision of my WIP. This revision, I hope, is the draft that will be ready to show to agents.

However, I also have several other stories I have been outlining, but have always forced to take the backseat to my current WIP. I am thinking I might use NaNoWriMo to get a first draft done so when I do shop for an agent I will be able to say, here is a polished MS and here is a first draft and outline for another project.

Last year people told me starting a new book is the biggest kind of writer's block you can do to yourself. But I think this depends on where you are in the process of your current WIP. I don't think your should leave a project in the middle. But between drafts... I think it's a good time to get time and distance from your story. In fact, I think time and distance is just what the writer-doctor ordered.

Will you be joining NaNaWriMo this year? Will you start a new project or finish that current one?