I recall about a decade ago asking a fellow author who'd been doing the rounds longer than me what this Nanowrimo thing was all about? She patted me gently on the head and explained that it was a thing one did in November, writing as a kind of group activity - inasmuch as writing can ever be a group activity. The aim is fifty thousand words in a month. Spit it out as fast as you can, then edit your little heart out in December.
I tried it once. I tried Camp Nano, too. Camp Nano was useful because I had a good start to a novel but I'd been busy practicing procrastination - and I was good at it. Being in a group, having to report in on daily progress was an incentive and I finished that book. Yay Me.
But really, the way I write doesn't suit the Nano process. I'm not one of these people who writes fast, gets it all down and edits later. I'll write one thousand or so words in a day and the next day, I go back over what I've written and fix it up before proceeding. And in order to be able to proceed, I need a clear vision of what I'm going to write. Sort of practiced the words in my head. So I might not write every day because the words haven't spoken to me.
Actually, in this year of plague I haven't been terribly motivated to write. Some people have shut the real world out and lived in their own creation. I envy them. However, I have made a start on a project, title unknown. And I did a little course in plotting a romance which was great because it forced me to produce detailed outlines of the characters in the book. It was amazing how that brought out ideas and coalesced the plot. So, after I get a little milestone out of the way, I'll go back to it and have a novel out next year.
2021. It's got to be better, doesn't it?
The book I finished in Camp Nano? That was Retribution.
Tensions simmer on a world where Humans blame Yrmaks for their defeat in a recent war. For Celia Whitley, former head of Imperial Security and director of Humans First, it’s a great place to incite an interspecies war. All it takes is money and weapons – and she can organize both. Revenge over the Yrmaks who murdered her husband will be hers.
Imperial agent Tian Axmar wants Whitley dead – but her boss insists the woman be brought back to face justice. Whitley’s trail had gone cold until Tian, partner Brent Walker, and auralfang, Puss, learn of a stolen cargo of heavy weapons.
Tian and Brent scramble to prevent a war on one world from spilling over to engulf the Empire. But interspecies war is not the only vengeance Whitley wants. Tian, Brent and Puss will need all of their cyborg abilities to prevent the cruelest blow of all.
This novel is the third story starring Brent Walker and Tian Axmar. Like the other Dryden books, it’s a space opera full of action and adventure. And of course it includes Puss.
If you’d like to read a bit more about Princess Amira and Admiral Ul-Mellor, take a look at A Matter of Trust. How Tian and Brent got together is the story in Eye of the Mother. And we first meet Puss in For the Greater Good.
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I've never attempted NANO, mostly for the reasons you gave, Greta. I tend to be a write-forward-and-then-go-back-and-edit sort, too. (As well as a bit of a perfectionis--one of the reasons I can't publish five books a year.) My books never end up plotted out the way I originally envisioned them. Surprises and twists pop up spontaneously along the way, and I feel like I need to have a good base on the story before the ol' Muse starts pulling plot twists out of her hat. Maybe some year I'll try NANO "just for fun" if I happen to have a future year without some sort of deadline involved.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm the same. That story base is the key, though. From there, your characters can have their heads.
ReplyDeleteI've never done NaNo. I can't write that fast. But this year I thought I'd give my own version a try. I have outlined a new project (I'm actually still tweaking it) more detailed than any other project so that when I do sit down to write, hopefully *crosses fingers* the words will come out faster and I'll have less to rewrite. I have to prevent what happened with Renegade. I had to delete 70K words on that book because I was telling the wrong story. ugh!
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