WIP

Just for the record, there is nothing worse that having a low normal temperature (95.5-96.5). Because nobody believes you when you walk around complaining of fever and chills when the temp goes up to 98.5.

And why is it my head feels like it's floating gently from side to side up and down even though I'm just sitting still. What is going on inside of there!

*pokes sides of head gingerly, half afraid something might poke back*

Just remembered that the Nov 25 deadline has passed and it was time to upload my entire NANO novel on the NANOWRIMO site to get my Winning count.

I get to brag...



54,600 words - at least according to my computer. I'm not sure how but the NANO official counter added a couple hundred extra words to my total. Er, which I'll take. :)

Rah!

Fwiw - I still like last year's banner the best. This year's banner seemed a little blah compared to the past two years. Just saying. <- And that might just be my dazed and confused swaying inflato head talking.

While looking up cheesecakes for Christmas*, I came across www.sporkorfoon.com and saw the picture above.

Although I'd been planning to cut back on cookies this year and only make MY FAVORITES (Kolacky, Walnut Crescents, Shortbread, baklava), I'm sadly losing control of my will again.

It won't hurt to make a few sugar cookies... I suppose. Maybe a dozen or two...

*Every year, my oldest sister (Marianne) and I have a cheesecake competition. About this time every year, we start our recipe hunt trying to find a new and different cheesecake recipe to try out, and we keep it secret until Christmas Eve, when we actually make the cakes.

This year, I'm thinking about doing a pumpkin cheesecake - as it's probably one of those I haven't done in a while. It is also to make up for the cheat I did last year.

Fact: My mom (the judge) loves anything with strawberries in it.

I was out of ideas and made a quick and easy strawberry white chocolate swirl cheesecake last year. This was made with gelatin, so it was lighter than the baked kinds (yet another cheat, as my mom's constantly dieting).

It was yum, and I won as I evilly knew I would.

This year, I'll play a fair game. Ur, even though I did wonder what a pumpkin cheesecake with strawberries would taste like. :O

A word of advice:

If you want to find an agent for your novel, posting a query on Craigslist is not the way to go.

The following particulars especially show you might not be informed as to how the publishing industry works.

Location: MI, NY, CA, IL
Compensation: Going Literary Agent Rate or Best Offer

RULE #1 - You do not pay an agent to represent you (although some might charge you random fees for copies, possibly). They make their money after the book deal.

Could be this woman meant that, but the way this ad is written, it makes me wonder if she's getting a lot of scammers suggesting an hourly rate for handling her work.

Also -

I also have a finished screenplay that could also use the benefit of a literary agent to sell.

I could be wrong, but I really don't think agents handle screenplays. Or not the same kind of agents.

OH GOSH! Here is another one!

I am a writer i have written many short stories and a book. I am working on a sequel to the first book and a skit that would fit the format of shows like saterday night live. I am having trouble publishing my book and I am looking for an experienced agent to help me get it published. The job would pay based on how much i make. i need an agent asap so please reply quickly to the listed email XXX or call me at XXX and ask for XXX to schedule a time to interview

No! Don't DO THIS!!! You are just asking for somebody to come swooping in and scam you.

Furthmore -

This book is kinda of a spin off the Larry David show Curb Your Enthusiasm and the movie Crash. Where this will be a best seller because of the outrageous funny rude people I have met over the past 40 years. This project is for Journalism students, and previous writers who want to Co-Author a book that will pay Royality's if we sell 500,000 books we will both get some $2 million from the book alone not including what we can make off the movie. Look at the movie Paranormal Activity.

I just don't know what to think about this ad.

From the sounds of it, this is somebody who has a great idea but doesn't actually want to do the writing work. That part isn't the huge deal (because God knows there are good writers out there who are wall-blocked for ideas, or work best when given assignments).

The huge deal is I'm not sure how he thinks he will sell that many copies of a book.

Dude. o_O

Look, I have a great story to tell; a true story and I have been writing it but i keep getting twisted up...I need help and I am willing to share credit as well as proceeds for someone that can help me get this thing on paper.

This one actually...

Sighs.

Have you considered how much credit a writer wants for doing all of the work? Anyone can come up with a fantabulous idea. The writing work itself is the part that makes you a writer and the author. That's why ideas aren't copywrighted, but words are.

On one hand, I know how this feels. When you have this idea in your head, and know it will be good - then yes! It can be really frustrating when you can't get the idea to take shape on paper.

If you think about it in sculpting terms (something I wanted to do all day today, because I'm making some presents instead of buying them) it's like lying in bed dreaming up these fantabulous little statues which you want to make for friends and relatives. Then you sit down to sculpt and the clay is too hard to shape properly, or too soft and keeps falling out of shape. Or the paint just doesn't have the glossy finish that you dreamed of (clay statues don't have the same delicate shape and shine as porcelain statues, but I fall for the same daydreams every single time).

Back to the writing deal -

The best thing to do is work on becoming a better writer. Don't rush. Keep in mind that most qualified writing help books tell you to regard writing as an apprenticeship that may take YEARS before you master your trade. Until then, be patient and open yourself to learning and growing.

I won NANO this past Sunday, though I haven't quite stopped adding to my word count. I haven't gone purple yet. I'd like to stretch myself upward to 60,000 words at least. I'm gaining that point at almost 52,000 words.

Yesterday and the day before I concentrated on going back to my first chapter. I'm fighting a couple of issues that have been bothering me, especially upon witnessing the usual quibbles about the Twilight series spurred on by the recent New Moon movie (which I want to go see).

The main guy character is an alien - or the type of aliens which I like to write about. This comes from my love of Stargate and also my latest fascination with the TV series V. There are nifty particulars about him, but I'm keeping under my hat right now.

Problem is I started the novel with him being a new transfer student - something that happened because he wanted to fit into the community while taking care of family business.

I keep flipping back to the scene where he walks into the homeroom the first time. It's like he's Bella and my main girl lead is like Edward. As if I subconsciously thought switching the gender roles would keep people from noticing the cliche.

Haha. You understand now why I felt COMPELLED to go back and rewrite that first chapter?

Writing plans for the weekend - I'm going to continue revising Bottles (my nick for the NANO).

I wasn't really going to do a blog topic on this, but it occurred to me when I saw grieving comments from people who began NANO with high hopes and then never got going. It also may expand on my viewpoint that the last thing you want to do is write cwap just because it adds to the word counts and you have lost control of the plot anyway.

See, my thought is that NANO is one of those affairs where nobody is watching over your shoulder. I know people who are pasting in sections they wrote months earlier for different projects - just so they keep making up the word counts per day. It's all for show, and in the end they won't have anything really to show for it.

There's nothing wrong with this, but it just... I dunno. It belittles the efforts of people who really are writing fresh material every single day and have a mostly finished novel by the end of the month. Then again, those people get the last word, because at least two that I know of have polished and cleaned up their novels in less than a year and have tentatively hooked agents. Compare that with people who deleted their nano novels directly after the Dec. 1 deadline, because it was such a mishmash of junk.

Speaking for myself - I have been in the in-the-middle camp. I am highly guilty of writing all my favorite scenes first and getting my word counts that way, while err... getting stranded in the end because all the dull drab annoying parts are left over waiting for me to get my bum into a seat and write them. :)

I'm also guilty of blocking a LOT of stuff out and pasting it at the bottom of my document while I continued to write and replace scenes I didn't like the day after I wrote them. That's why my 50,000 word WIP gets chopped down to 20-30,000 words after Dec.1. Gladly so.

That is completely different from continuing to write the novels in a steady line, even though you know a bad scene has led you in the wrong direction and you are wasting time writing stuff that you don't want to keep. That's probably about the time that some people get silly and start spoofing their work, just so the word counts grow. <- I could never do that. My brain doesn't work that way. I imagine if I had a novel like that, I'd wind up deleting the entire novel and going back to square one. Something that a LOT of people do.

W/regards to the people who ran into a wall and can't meet the first milestone (10,000 words), my advice is that maybe they just need to organize their thoughts a bit.

1. If they want to just be able to have 50,000 words in the win column, they can do the spoof route. While I look at that as a waste of time that could be better spent on something that WOULD sell (even if I stop doing nano and go back to my old novels), other people see it differently. As long as you are writing and playing around with characters and worldbuilding, you can look at it as practice for that moment when you are READY to write that novel.

2. Don't compete with people who are better writers than you are. Do what you know you are capable of - especially if you are like me and have a dayjob. I know a lot of people get burnt out and stressed during NANO, because OMG! I'M SO FAR BEHIND THE BFF AND LOOK LIKE A BAD POKY WRITER! GADS! MY BRAINS ARE FRIED AND MY BURNING EYES ARE FALLING OUT OF MY HEAD AND I'M STILL BEHIND. I REALLY AM A CWAPPY WRITER!!!!!

Stop it. Just remember 1667 words a day wins NANO. If you really have a hard time nicking out 1667 in one sitting, then break it up. Write a little at different points of the day.

Poky or pokey? Pokie...?

3. Do what I do. When you get stuck trying to explain how characters know each other, even though one just appeared out of nowhere and gives off mafia vibes, jump ahead and write the scene you enjoy writing. I know somebody who wrote 20,000 words in her last week of NANO simply by writing all of the love scenes in her book. Made me laugh at her, but she was just happy she scrapped out a win.

4. Write or Die - I mentioned this in another post, but it really does help if you sit there and have to write 1000 words in a half hour, or DIE! It's all mental, but it helps. Do a couple of sessions of WOD a day, and you will stay ahead of the game.

5. Another trick when you are completely stuck and don't want to go the 'write anything' route - go back to the beginning and start expanding. This does two things. While you expand out in scenes, describing surroundings and developing your characters just a tiny bit more, you are also going back and finding the threads and intrigues which will hopefully guide you out of your blue funk and make you remember where you are going next with the novel. I've used this trick often, not just with this year's nano, but with other stuff in the past. It works.

6. Add action, throw in turns - thought I'd add this one, because it serves more than one purpose. By giving your character PROBLEMS to deal with, you are giving yourself plenty of material to constantly work with. Because, if you cause a problem, you have to show the character getting out of the problem. It also trains you to think outside the box and get away from cliches and similarities to novels already on the bookshelf.

The other purpose is that agents and them who know want to see more action and nonpredictable (as opposed to the 'blah predictable') turns. If you spend huge portions of the novel with characters talking and looking at each other (something I'm so guilty of doing in WIP), then you got more problems than your characters.

7. Indulge in all of your bad habits. This is not the same as writing scenes and whole chapters you do not intend to keep. This means, write as many adverbs as you want, because you can always edit them out. Start every chapter with your character waking up in bed, if it gets the ball rolling fast. You can always figure out a different way to begin each and every one of those chapters later. If you want to throw in sparkly vampires, do it. Just remember to change the vampires to something less Twilightesque when you edit. If you want to make your main character a Mary Sue or Gary Stu - DO IT and relish the moment. You will have plenty of editing to do later, but it isn't like you will have to scrap the entire novel. You will have something to work with.

8. Always remember that you don't have to be perfect. Agents request that people do not send their NANO novels in directly after finishing them. You are expected to edit and revise over and over until you have a polished product. So, see point # 7 and have at it.

9. Write up a quicky summary of what you want to accomplish in the novel. This could be an in depth synopsis like I wrote, including various notes and info I copied from around the web to help. I did this and sometimes consult those notes at different points. It keeps me from going too far off the beaten path.

10. Talk out your problems with your friends, even if you don't really want to show and tell re/your plot just yet. If you are stuck on something, then go forth and ask people questions. Don't expect anyone to write your novel for you. Gather inspiration.


********* Speaking of NANO *************

I've officially notched the 45,000 mark. This means I could be done with NANO - TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <- Yes, all of those exclamation points are necessary, because this would be the earliest I've ever finished.

Or the limitations that go along with being human.

That is - a human who spends an awful lot of time sitting in front of a computer (at work) all day, and then comes home to do the same on own computers can expect to have certain issues with the blinkers.

I have a bad case of eyestrain, and have been trying to rest my eyes the last two days. It is slow going, but I'm hoping it's settling down. I tend to think that eyestrain is just like bronchitis and pneumonia. Once you have it, you will always be susceptible to developing it at the most inopportune times. Like NANO.

So I'm stuck at 40,000 words at this time, waiting for my eyes to calm down and defraz.

Wish everyone else luck with their writing and editing.