Month: October 2009

Risk, Reward, and My Writing Hat

NaNoWriMo Particpant Well, I’ve done it. I’ve joined the over 100,000 NaNoWriMo participants world wide who plan to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Chris Baty, who began NaNoWriMo 10 years ago with a small group of friends, describes the next 30 days like this:  “Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.”

His last statement summarizes what is, for me, the greatest appeal of the project. I earn part of my living by writing, so what I create is calculated to meet my expectations of professionalism. I strive for my copy to be clean of errors and excess verbiage and to serve well the demands of my client or editor. While my NaNoWriMo file is open next month, my expectations are going on holiday. I plan to enjoy some freedom, take risks, surprise myself and my characters–and have fun.

It’s been a while since writing was just fun. I can’t wait to put my built-in, bossy editor on hold and to enjoy the words appearing on my screen, whether they are the perfect words or not at that moment. At least I’ll be writing something just for me.

I’m sure that my output won’t be anywhere near 50,000 words at the end of the month, and I’m not worried about it. What I have done is set aside writing time every day, and that commitment alone means that I am honoring that part of myself that is “the writer.” All the other hats I wear get my time and attention, but my writer hat gets left on the shelf more than the others. And I miss it.

For the month of November, I’ll be wearing my writer hat every day, and on November 30th, I’ll have more words than I started with and a month of remembering what it is like to be a writer. And maybe that means, for the future, that my writer hat will come off the shelf more often. I’d like that.

Sometimes you just want to knit a scarf

scarfThis is the times of year when the days get shorter but my to-do list doesn’t. I would love to take a step back from things and just catch my breath, but I know that’s not going to happen right now. I force myself to take a simpler approach to things. A few more meals get cooked in the slow cooker. I use my headphones and MP3 player more often to keep something joyful in my ears—and the noise around me silenced.

And the knitting changes, too. I’ve put aside the sweater with the cables for a while. The pattern isn’t that complicated, but it demands more than I have to give at the moment. My mom is knitting hats and mittens for a charity, so I said I’d knit matching scarves. A simple rib stitch, worsted weight yarn, my favourite bamboo needles, and that’s it. I need to feel yarn running through my fingers and to hear the soft click of needles. Those sensations are soothing, if not healing, and they are part of who I am.

So, for the next week or two until life gets a little less hectic, I’m simply a knitter of scarves. And that’s okay.

Writing Starters – Final Instalment

day 7 photo31-35 Just one prompt today and that’s for NaNoWriMo writers like me who don’t have a plot yet.

 A sure-fire plot plan exists in the steps of the hero’s journey. Documented by scholars such as Joseph Campbell, this pattern has been worked into stories across cultures and millennia. I wrote a fantasy for middle readers several years ago, and when I looked back, I found I had unconsciously followed the pattern almost perfectly. It’s been used in movies as diverse as Star Wars, The Lion King and The Princess Diaries.

Two great books on the subject and how the pattern applies to writing today are: The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler and The Key: How to Write Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth by James N. Frey. Here’s the journey as Vogler describes it. Take your heroes and heroines on the same journey and see what happens.

The Hero’s Journey Outline

The Hero’s Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development.  It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization.

Its stages are:

1.        THE ORDINARY WORLD.  The hero, uneasy, uncomfortable or unaware, is introduced sympathetically so the audience can identify with the situation or dilemma.  The hero is shown against a background of environment, heredity, and personal history.  Some kind of polarity in the hero’s life is pulling in different directions and causing stress.

2.        THE CALL TO ADVENTURE.  Something shakes up the situation, either from external pressures or from something rising up from deep within, so the hero must face the beginnings of change.

3.        REFUSAL OF THE CALL.  The hero feels the fear of the unknown and tries to turn away from the adventure, however briefly.  Alternately, another character may express the uncertainty and danger ahead.

4.        MEETING WITH THE MENTOR.  The hero comes across a seasoned traveler of the worlds who gives him or her training, equipment, or advice that will help on the journey.  Or the hero reaches within to a source of courage and wisdom.

5.        CROSSING THE THRESHOLD.  At the end of Act One, the hero commits to leaving the Ordinary World and entering a new region or condition with unfamiliar rules and values. 

6.        TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES.  The hero is tested and sorts out allegiances in the Special World.

7.        APPROACH.  The hero and newfound allies prepare for the major challenge in the Special world.

8.        THE ORDEAL.  Near the middle of the story, the hero enters a central space in the Special World and confronts death or faces his or her greatest fear.  Out of the moment of death comes a new life.

9.        THE REWARD.  The hero takes possession of the treasure won by facing death.  There may be celebration, but there is also danger of losing the treasure again.

10.      THE ROAD BACK.  About three-fourths of the way through the story, the hero is driven to complete the adventure, leaving the Special World to be sure the treasure is brought home.  Often a chase scene signals the urgency and danger of the mission.

11.     THE RESURRECTION.  At the climax, the hero is severely tested once more on the threshold of home.  He or she is purified by a last sacrifice, another moment of death and rebirth, but on a higher and more complete level.  By the hero’s action, the polarities that were in conflict at the beginning are finally resolved.

12.       RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR.  The hero returns home or continues the journey, bearing some element of the treasure that has the power to transform the world as the hero has been transformed.

Writing Starters Instalment #6

Here’s the penultimate writing starter list for your NaNoWriMo creations.

26. If your main character could choose to play a character in a play or movie, which characters would he or she choose? Is he a heroic and handsome man of action that secretly wants to play Cyrano? Is he a soft-spoken philosophy professor who wants to play James Bond? Or is she a slim, brunette ad executive who wants to play Marilyn Monroe’s role in Some Like it Hot?

27. Scour magazines and newspapers for interesting faces. Give them new names, professions and histories and see if they want to come and play in your story.

28. Brainstorm around the following words: drink, call, space, ladder, jam.

29. Write a story for children. Start with “once upon a time” or “long ago in a land far away.” Enjoy a magic place where anything can happen.

30. Several works share the title, “A Stitch in Time” derived from the saying, “a stitch in time saves nine.” What titles and stories can you create from other proverbs or sayings? Try one of these:

  • What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
  • Once bitten, twice shy.
  • Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
  • Never judge a book by its cover.
  • Jack of all trades, master of none.

Writing Starters Instalment #5

NaNoWriMo is getting closer. Here are 5 more ideas to get the creative juices flowing.

21. Write a first paragraph in which your characters comes into physical contact with someone or something.

22. Think about secrets. Make sure your character has some and imagine the kind of person he or she would trust with those secrets. How could that other person gain that trust? Why might that person betray that trust and tell the secret to someone else?

23. If you have an antique or flea market nearby, look for old postcards and read the messages on the back. Here’s one I found. What story can you imagine lies behind the message? “I suppose you are still in Plaster Rock.  Heard that Frank 1st has left you.  I guess he must be a wanderer.”

24. Brainstorm around the words: flame, table, cover, mask, hollow.

25. Send  your characters on an adventure to a “land far, far away.”  Look through some old issues of National Geographic and imagine how your character would cope in a yurt, or in a market in Marrakesh or in a tent on the side of a mountain?

“If [my characters] were real, they’d hate me by the end of the book.”  Clive Cussler.

Writing Starters Instalment #4

Still looking for some NaNoWriMo inspiration. Here are 5 more writing starters to get you creating.

16. Head to your local bookstore or library with a friend and your writing journal. Take 2 envelopes and lots of small pieces of paper. For 5 minutes wander the store and write random novel titles on the small pieces of paper and put them in your envelopes. At the end of 5 minutes, exchange envelopes. Dip in and pull out a title and brainstorm a story that would go with those words. Maybe you could use the words as a line of dialogue to begin your story or in the opening sentence. Keep playing until one story starts to claim your full attention. Start writing.

17. Begin your story with your character in motion—driving, running, flying, riding. What is your character running from? What is your character running to?

18. You’re walking home with a friend after dark.  When you look at her, her eyes reflect light like a cat’s.

19. Your character loses a backpack/ purse/briefcase containing one thing that his or her future depends upon.

20. Free write around one or all of the following words: box, watch, garden, window, ship

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightening and the lightening bug.”  Mark Twain. 

Writing Starters Instalment #3

Here’s the next instalment for NaNoWriMo plotters. Have fun!

11. Play with the word “needle.” How many different needles can you visualize? Put one or two of them in your character’s hands or just out of reach and see what happens—someone away from home for the first time sewing on a button, fearing a dentist’s needle, needles clacking while heads roll… Or have your character needled or needle someone else.

12. “I never start a novel until I’m satisfied with the title.”  Ed McBain.  Work on your title until it’s right.  It’s the cup you are working to fill.

13. Look at your favourite CD cover.  Hide everything but 1 square inch.  What do you see?

14. Write an opening sentence in which something or someone falls.  What happens when they get up–or don’t!

15. Turn off everything and try writing in silence or change your background sounds.  Try jazz, blues, Benedictine monks, Mozart.

 “When you are telling the story you are meant to tell, you are actually going to feel the truth of it, and in feeling that truth, your spirit is going to soar.  When you are telling that story the way it needs to be told…you are going to feel that, too.”  Elizabeth George. 

Writing Starters Instalment #2

More ideas for NaNoWriMo writers and other creative folk.

6. Think of the skills you have: putting up a tent, downhill skiing, solving crosswords, cooking. Add these skills and interests to your characters or make learning them essential for your main character’s survival.

7. Think of the places that you know well: a neighbourhood, a city, a school, a cruise ship, a gym, a museum, a library. Now imagine them as places where your characters can fall in love or be shocked or frightened in. They can be places where a murder takes place or where people reveal secrets.

8. Decide what frightens your characters or grosses them out. Make sure this appears in your story somewhere (think Indiana Jones and the snakes).

9. What does your character value the most? Is it an object like a ring or a photograph? Or is it a reputation for honesty or an influential position or the chance to find true love? How can you put what your character values most at serious risk in your story?

10. Elmore Leonard said, “I once named a character Frank Matisse, but he acted older than his age; and for some reason he wouldn’t talk as much as I wanted him to.  I changed his name to Jack Delany and couldn’t shut him up.”  Try renaming one of your characters and see what happens.

“Nighttime is really the best time to work.  All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep.”  Jessamyn West. 

Writing Starters Instalment #1

Here are the first 5 writing starters for the week.

 1. Find a place where you can do some serious people-watching. Pick three strangers and, one by one, imagine them saying good-bye. Decide what they are saying good-bye to–their homeland, their family, a lover, a job, a threat. What has happened to bring them to this moment? What lies ahead of them? Is the good-bye the beginning of their story or the end?

 2. Draw a map. It could be of a country, a city, an island, a kingdom, a space station. Add lots of details and place names. Now send your characters on a journey through the imaginary world you have just created, making sure that they get into lots of trouble along the way.

 3. Start with the sound of sirens. How does that sound affect you? What do you imagine has happened? Where has it happened? Who is affected?

 4. Have your character find or receive something small enough to be held in two hands. Now create a story around that small thing that turns your character’s life upside down. Think of Bilbo and a ring, Arthur and a sword, Snow White and an apple.

 5. Free write using one or all of the following words: sage, match, corner, light, border.

“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”  Samuel Johnson

Fresh Start

Well, my partially completed sweater became balls of yarn yesterday. Then I cast on 200 stitches and started again. My new pattern

Same Yarn - New Pattern
Same Yarn - New Pattern

has a very simple cable and I’m enjoying getting back to work with needles and yarn again.

I started something else new, yesterday—brainstorming ideas for my NaNoWriMo novel. This is my first attempt at NaNoWriMo and it’s an intimidating prospect. To survive, I plan to rely heavily on Chris Baty’s No Plot? No Problem!  I’ve already read it once; I expect to read parts of it several times before the end of November. I love the humour, the practical advice, and plan to follow all the recommendations for coffee and junk food consumption—though, sadly, my coffee has to be caffeine free.

If you’re brainstorming ideas for your NaNoWriMo opus, or for your short story or poem, and are looking for inspiration, I’ll be posting 5 writing starters a day for the next 7 days.

 I’d love to hear where the writing starters take you. Drop me a line here or join me on Twitter .

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