Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Day 19.

Sorry this is late going up. I’ve been stricken with the plague and just woke up from sleeping for 15 hours straight and I had not had it prepared ahead of time. On the plus side, I feel incredibly well rested. Still sick though.

I haven’t gotten much writing done this week due to said plague. I needed a pick-me-up story this late in the game of someone winning even after not winning NaNo since I do not think I’ll make 50,000 words this year.

I didn’t know this until earlier this month when she posted it, but the very awesome Carrie Ryan‘s popular YA zombie book The Forest of Hands and Teeth was a NaNoWriMo book she started in 2006. Something “different” for her that ended up becoming such a beloved series. The Forest of Hands and Teeth was followed up by The Dead-Tossed Waves and will end next year with The Dark and Hollow Places.

So here is her story of not winning NaNoWriMo but in the end writing and editing a great book series. Enjoy and have a great weekend full of writing. We are almost to the end. ( http://carrie-me.blogspot.com/2010/11/on-nanowrimo.html )

I was a stickler for the rules and so I started casting about for a new idea — something to stretch my writing voice and take me in a new direction — and that’s when JP (my husband) suggested I write what I love which was zombies and that was that. A year later I sold The Forest of Hands and Teeth. -Carrie Ryan

Day 20.

Seeing as how all eyes are on Hogwarts this week and we’ve all collectively become devout followers of the religion of Harry Potter all over again, I think it is absolutely necessary that we draw some inspiration from the author herself, J.K. Rowling. Now, I love Harry Potter. I can recall where I read every single book and how I felt when I read them. I think they were masterful achievements in literature and I have no doubt they will go down in history as classics of our time. My favorite book is the first book and my least favorite books are tied with the 5th and the 7th, which pretty much makes me unpopular with every other Harry Potter fan in the world. And even if you don’t like Harry Potter or never felt a need to read the books, you cannot deny that the writer has captured the hearts of like, 80% of the world and whether you think her writing stinks or if you think she’s brilliant, she’s been successful and I think that is something we can all agree on.

So today’s cookie is Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of J.K. Rowling’s Harvard Commencement speech from 2008. Bless her heart, she is so nervous. I love listening to her talk. So much of what she has to say is relevant to all of us hoping to publish and have our stories loved by the masses. She is so kind and thought provoking. I love the way she connects the Harry Potter world with growing up.

Also, I cannot believe NaNoWriMo is almost over.

We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better. – J.K. Rowling

Day 21.

Research makes me nauseous.

For example, my NaNoWriMo story is set in a time period that doesn’t exist, in a country that doesn’t exist, in Europe, near the United Kingdom but not in the United Kingdom, and in the 25,000+ words I’ve written, I’m not really sure whether it is in our imaginary past or imaginary future. It could go either way. But the thing that has kept me from deciding is the dread of research. I fear getting details wrong, which is absurd since it is all fictional anyway.

I also love the adventure of research. During my writing of the first draft of The Wilds I took a trip to central Indiana, met up with my best friend, and drove down to hike through the Hoosier National Forest near the escarpment area where my book partially takes place. I wanted to know what the trees looked like, the way it smelled and sounded, and what the houses of the people who live out in the middle of nowhere look like. One of my favorite details is that throughout the forest there are countless snow white trees. Because we were hiking in March, all of the trees were dead of leaves and everything was pretty brown and gray, except for these white trees. I don’t know what kinds of trees they are and neither does my MC who isn’t from Indiana, but she noticed the snow white trees. Just like I did.

NaNoWriMo doesn’t give us much time for research. The fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants writing sprint requires you to have a very good imagination for details and pretty much ensures December will require a slow down, re-outline, research time. For everyone who will be researching in December, like me, here’s a wonderful article about writers who research and some tested advice for writers setting out to hit the books and dig up the details.

Writer Wednesday: The Writer’s Brain is Soup and 10 Unbreakable Research Rules by George Rabasa ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/0 ... 69106.html )

The creative writer unwittingly manages to make a mess of the ordinary thinking process: memory, imagination, and something approximating objective reality are all mooshed together into a dark, rich stew…When the pursuit of new knowledge becomes systematic and purposeful, rather than a random gathering of tidbits, it’s called research. – George Rabasa

"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?" - A. Einstein

;)

Day 22.

This cookie is a TED event video by the internationally best selling author Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Eat. Pray. Love.

When I stumbled across the title of her TED talk, A new way to think about creativity, I clicked, and for 18 spellbinding minutes I was caught. Elizabeth Gilbert has such presence when she speaks, yes, but she had somehow, maybe by accident, tapped into the inexplicable creative primordial goo and found a way to verbalize this feeling I always knew about our kind - our creative kind - and how broken by our talents and passions we really are and how there is something kind of wrong with our passion slowly destroying us even as we attain our dreams.

She talks a lot about what it feels like to face the book you have to write after your bestselling book and the pressure to continue to create and whether or not your bestselling book is as great as you'll ever be. She talks about the idea of having a "genius" inside of us. She speaks of the creative process, of writing and creating and failure. She discusses the history of authors trapped by alcoholism, depression, and drug addiction as a vehicle for tapping into their "genius." And after the 18 minutes were over I felt kind of worn out but understood. She gives no answers to the troubles that plague the creative ego, but I felt better having words to describe creative fear. I hope this lecture is as inspiring and spellbinding for you as it was for me.

Norman Mailer just before he died, last interview, said 'every one of my books killed me a little more.' That’s an extraordinary statement to make about your life’s work. But we don’t even blink when we hear somebody say this because we’ve heard that kind of stuff for so long and somehow we’ve completely internalized and accepted collectively this notion that creativity and suffering are somehow inherently linked and that artistry in the end will always ultimately lead to anguish. So the question that I want to ask everybody here today is are you all cool with that idea? Are you comfortable with that? Because you look at it even from an inch away and I'm not at all comfortable with that assumption. I think it is odious and I also think it is dangerous and I don't want to see it perpetuated into the next century. - Elizabeth Gilbert

Wow, these cookies have been/and are so cool, Sommer.
The third week was grueling for me. I had to fight every day to keep writing through that part.
I almost gave up. I was falling behind. The story seemed futile.
My husband said, just keep writing. The cookies said you can do it.
And then yesterday, I broke through some kind of ceiling.
I'm currently at 39,400 words. The story is affecting me.
It's had me in tears at four points now.
What am I doing? I wonder.
And I don't know.
The story has me and now I must write it.

bcomet wrote:Wow, these cookies have been/and are so cool, Sommer.
The third week was grueling for me. I had to fight every day to keep writing through that part.
I almost gave up. I was falling behind. The story seemed futile.
My husband said, just keep writing. The cookies said you can do it.
And then yesterday, I broke through some kind of ceiling.
I'm currently at 39,400 words. The story is affecting me.
It's had me in tears at four points now.
What am I doing? I wonder.
And I don't know.
The story has me and now I must write it.

Reading this gave me goosebumps!!!!

Day 23.

I have to admit, I'm going to be sad when the NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies are over. I can't believe we are 7 days away from the end. Everything I've thought about, all of the blog posts I've read, all of the hours I've spent writing and thinking and researching this novel I thought up in about 7 hours before 12:00am on November 1st. Over. I'm kind of anxious about that.

At the end of the day, you should have 38,341 words. I remember when I hit that many words in the WIP I've been working on for almost two years. It took considerably longer than 1 month to reach it. Granted I was editing a lot as I went, but still. That's an incredible achievement and if you've reached this point or surpassed it I hope you realize how much work goes into getting this far and you've achieved something most people can't do in a year. Keep that in mind. Even if you delete 90% of what you wrote, most people don't get that far.

Today's cookie is totally just for fun. It doesn't give you advice, it doesn't give you a pep talk, it doesn't tell you how amazing you are just to be following your dream. It is a website called Free Rice ( http://www.freerice.com/ ) and here's how it works: You play a game where you define words and for each correct answer you give you collect 10 grains of rice. All of the rice you earn is distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme by the sponsors advertising on the site. I've been playing the game for a long time during many bouts of procrastination. It is the word geek's version of Mine Sweeper.

And yes, Free Rice is legit. I did the leg work just to be sure, but it's on the up and up. Although to be perfectly honest, when you get right down to it, the 700 grains of rice you rack up in about 10 minutes of play time isn't a lot. Still, it is a lot of fun.

Or maybe I'm just a big dork with a skewed idea of what "fun" is.

:-)

Day 24.

Today’s cookie is quite possibly one of the most helpful ideas I’ve ever stumbled across, and it doesn’t just apply to NaNoWriMo writing. I was doing research on research (don’t ask, I’m so easily pulled into mindless deep research dives. All I need is a website waving around something shiny and I’m all but lost) when I came across this tip from author Cory Doctorow as posted on Lifehacker.com. I’m not surprised it came from him. He’s kind of amazing and definitely one of my heroes. ( http://craphound.com/ )

( http://lifehacker.com/5129153/use-tk-to ... lack-holes )

Researching isn’t writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual matter that you could google in a matter of seconds, don’t. Don’t give in and look up the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, the population of Rhode Island, or the distance to the Sun. That way lies distraction – an endless click-trance that will turn your 20 minutes of composing into a half-day’s idyll through the web. Instead, do what journalists do: type “TK” where your fact should go, as in “The Brooklyn bridge, all TK feet of it, sailed into the air like a kite.” “TK” appears in very few English words (the one I get tripped up on is “Atkins”) so a quick search through your document for “TK” will tell you whether you have any fact-checking to do afterwards. And your editor and copyeditor will recognize it if you miss it and bring it to your attention. – Cory Doctorow

Day 25.

Before the panic of the final five days sets in, I want you to stop what you are doing right now and click on this link. ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/fe ... n-part-one )

When you have returned from clicking you will have read 10 Rules for Writing Fiction (and possibly clicked on Part 2 and read that as well.) And you probably feel a lot better than you did before you clicked on the link.

I love all of these 10 Rules because they are kind and honest and true and, in general, writers tend to be exceedingly unkind and dishonest and untrue to themselves. We waffle between thinking we are failures and cannot do what we have set out to do and in thinking that we are the most brilliant geniuses of creativity that was ever set upon this earth to write and dream. Both are horrible lies we tell ourselves to push ourselves to keep going and to desperately try to convince ourselves to stop.

I originally found this article because of my unabashed love for Margaret Atwood. She is my favorite author Of All Time and I think probably the most brilliant woman in the world. If you have not had the chance to fall in love with her, pick up a copy of the tiny book Good Bones and Simple Murders. It will change the way you see storytelling forever.

The writers included in the article are: Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, PD James, Al Kennedy, Hilary Mantel, Michael Moorcock, Michael Morpurgo, Andrew Motion, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx, Philip Pullman, Ian Ramkin, Will Self, Helen Simpson, Zadie Smith, Colm Toibin, Rose Tremain, Sarah Waters, Jeanette Winterson

Margaret Atwood

1 Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can’t sharpen it on the plane, because you can’t take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.

2 If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type.

3 Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do.

4 If you’re using a computer, always safeguard new text with a ­memory stick.

5 Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.

6 Hold the reader’s attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don’t know who the reader is, so it’s like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What ­fascinates A will bore the pants off B.

7 You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there’s no free lunch. Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you’re on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.

8 You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You’ve been backstage. You’ve seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.

9 Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.

10 Prayer might work. Or reading ­something else. Or a constant visual­isation of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.

Day 26.

I’ve got nothing charming or witty or wise to say today, I’m afraid. So I’ll leave you with this hysterical video called Trailer for Every Oscar Winning Movie Ever by BriTANicK.com. Cliches facilitate understanding through universal experience. That is also why they are boring as hell. There are few surprises left in cliches. It is also why they are fruitful for mining hilarity for pop culture YouTube videos.

As this video will attest, you can deliver an entire story to an audience without saying anything of substance. And while what BriTANicK does here is absolutely brilliant, it’s probably not any story you would pay to read.

Enjoy!



P.S. I spelled the word “facilitate” three different ways when trying to write this post. I am so ashamed.

I just won NaNo a few hours ago and wanted to thank you for your daily encouragement. In between the official pep talks, when I really needed to buckle down and write, these posts helped me do that.

Thanks!

Leonidas wrote:I just won NaNo a few hours ago and wanted to thank you for your daily encouragement. In between the official pep talks, when I really needed to buckle down and write, these posts helped me do that.

Thanks!

Oh wow I am so glad you enjoyed them and they helped you. That was my hope!!! Congrats on winning NaNo, that's really awesome!

Day 27.

After today, there are only three days left of the competition.

I can see how many writers might be staring down the last stretch of days, looking at their mighty lump of words, no longer even sure what they wrote. And maybe they are thinking, “What have I even done after all of these hours?” and more importantly, “Was it worth it?”

I don’t have an answer to either of those questions, but I can put it all into perspective.

Every summer, all over the world, artists hit the beaches and enter sandcastle competitions. There isn’t a lot of money in sandcastle competitions and there certainly isn’t a lot of fame. And yet artists go out and create immense, impossible works of art out of nothing but sand and water.

Most competitions give the artists one day to prep their site, one-to-two days to create, and one day for competition. Most competitions allow people to come and gawk and take pictures while the artists work. Imagine if 90,000 people were watching your every word being typed in real time. I would be mortified if people knew the many ways I regularly attempt to spell the word “definitely” before I hit spell check.

And after the competition is over these artists maybe have 30 days to hold onto their works of art… if the weather is kind. Then after 30 days their art is manually destroyed and turned back into regular non-magical sand.

30 days.

If you knew that at closing on November 30th, no matter what, your NaNoWriMo work of art would be set on fire, would you still have done it?

Like the sandcastle artists, we set out to create. Good writing, bad writing, or not enough writing, it doesn’t matter. We write because we love to write and we love the passionate, albeit fleeting, craziness that comes from excitement fueled creative sprints. Whether you “won” or not, whether you padded the last 10,000 words with in-text recipes, made up love songs, or pirate ninja zombie battles (because at 3am after 27 days of word pounding there are few things that sound like a better idea) or whether you made it to 20,000 words and decided that was enough, we are the masters of what we take away from this experience.

We didn’t start NaNoWriMo to win anything, not really. There are no real prizes, no real accolades, and certainly no agents knocking down doors demanding to read our NaNoWriMo work of art. Think of the sandcastle artists. Their creations have a shelf life of 30 days, much like NaNoWriMo, and they never think “I shouldn’t do this because it won’t last. What’s the point if one storm could take it all away?”

They do it. They take our breath away. We write. We surprise ourselves with the power of our own tenacity and talent.
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Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia World Championship Sand Sculptures ( http://www.greatervancouverparks.com/HA ... les01.html )

Wow, Sommer!

Your article and the pictures were inspiring - and I'm not even doing NaNo. Thank you!

Evelyn