The Plans of a Planner

As I'm certain you are all aware by now, I have a million things I want to do this year.  And every day seems to bring with it something else that I'm desperately wanting to try.  I have writing conferences, and editing.  Rewriting and drafting.  Critiquing and writing exercises.  All of which take time.  Time, that I've come to realize, that I just don't have.

I've always had the issue where I realize that I can do something, and I decide that I'm going to do even more.  (This is called being competitive with oneself.  It's not the healthiest thing in the world to do.  And yet, I find it hard to stop...) Then I end up setting ridiculous goals for myself that there's not way I'm ever going to finish, and get frustrated when instead of succeeding, I get overwhelmed and end up getting less done than I would have if I hadn't over planned everything and tried to make myself do more than is humanly possible.  (Don't be fooled by the nickname, folks.  Much as my writing group likes to call me a robot, I really am still human.  I swear it.)

So, this year, when I set up all of my goals, certain that I needed to do all of it while still working forty hours a week at my day job, I was blissfully unaware that I was falling into the same cycle that I always find myself in.  I'll tell you one thing: Ignorance is not bliss.  And whoever said it was should be shot.

I made it through January alright.  February, I stumbled.  A lot.   This had something to do with some feedback I got on a project that I had labelled nearly finished, and had to look at under the microscope again.  So, instead of writing the first draft of the second book, I rewrote half of the first book and scraped pretty much the entire plot that I already had worked out for the second one.

In March I seemed to find my feet again, though I also began to realize that I hadn't made any allowances for unexpected things coming along, and started to sort through what I had planned for the year.  First to go were the writing exercises.  I wanted to do all 201 this year, but I hit a road block at about 17, was never really able to recover, and soon found myself so far behind that the thought of them just stressed me out.  For the good of my health (and the projects that trying to catch up on those exercised would have taken time away from) I decided that it wasn't worth it to continue.  I will get back to them eventually.  They were a lot of fun, and I was learning from them, but right now it's just not feasible.

I did manage to get the planning done on a novel I wanted to completely rewrite.  I decided I was going to do Dangerous Waters in April, but because I finished the planning early in March, I started writing then too.  I even made it to 25k before Camp Nano officially started!

Which, of course, is when my motivation decided that it wanted to rest for a while and I found myself completely engrossed in a tv series, and unable to pull myself away from the story line to work on, well, anything.

Now I've managed to catch up on my camp nano goal (though I'm still only planning on 50k, and I'll need another 75k afterward to finish this project) as well as fairly up to date on the script project myself and a couple of friends have going on.

While I know what months I'm going to be writing during (Junowrimo, Camp Nano - July editing, and Nano, of course) the rest of the months are up in the air.  And I think I prefer it that way.  Even if I am a planner.

Of course, I might be less worried about getting everything done if my current obsession wasn't a book that I don't need to have even planned out until next April, but that's another blog post.

Here's the real question: Will I, one of the biggest planners around, be able to pants my way through the year?

Eeek...Nano!

So, it's officially October, which means that nano is just around the corner, and I find myself freaking out just a little bit.  And by a little bit, I mean a lot.  My brain is ready to explode with the amount that I need to do before November first.  I kind of want to cry.

I broke down all of my goals for you last time, so I'm not going to repeat them all, but suffice it to say, it's a lot.  More than I think I can actually finish, but I'm going to give it everything I have.

Anyway, that's not really what I wanted to talk to you about.  As you might be able to guess from the title of this post, I want to talk about NaNoWriMo. (You might want to get used to it...during the nano season I really don't shut up about it...I'm warning you now.)

With nano comes all these new challenges.  First of all, as I'm a crazy robot, I never stick with the challenge nano sets out for us.  That's right, fifty thousand words in a month just isn't crazy enough for me, so I always up my goal.  This year it's going to be four books, so I thought that today I would tell you about those books and where I am with them.

Up first is the YA urban fantasy Stolen Magick

Stolen Magick is set in a school that teaches for humans and Arcanists (though the humans certainly don't know about the Arcanists.)  For those of you wondering, Arcanists are basically witches combined with superheroes.  Each one has a specific ability (these are often the same as others in their 'power category'.  The main character,  Phaedra, starts at Arcan Academy a few months in to the school year, and soon makes friends with a group of humans.  But when a particularly nasty Arcanist by the name of Terri decides to mess with her head and instead accidentally unlocks powers that not even Phaedra knew about, her life becomes just a little more complicated.

Then we have the middle grade Aliens Stole My Socks

This mid grade is based around Tommy Thompson, a ten year old whose father died when he was six and now has a two year old sister and a step father that he hates.  His mother doesn't know what to do with him anymore when he catches an alien stealing socks out of the dryer.  He tries to chase the alien out of the house, but he ends up taking his sister, and Tommy is left to rescue her when none of the adults believe his story.  Along with his precocious friend, Felicia, he manages to make his way on board the mother ship.  The Aliens won't know what hit them.

The third book is an adult dystopian named Betraying Eden

Set in a the future when the air was poisoned during a massive war that wiped out most of earth's population, people now live in large domed cities that clean the air.  Rent is collected every month for the privilege of staying inside the safe zone, and if it isn't paid, residents are 'evicted' with nothing more than a single can of clean air.  Mordecai is the heir to the throne of Eden, though he spends most of his time on Snake's Ridge trying to help the people that can't always afford their rent.  When he gets himself, along with his two friends, Charlie and Jonah, evicted from Eden, Mordecai discovers just how harsh the real world is.

Finally I have the adult urban fantasy Birth

Unfortunately this one isn't as planned out as the others.  I do know that it's set in a world where Phoenix's exist.  Except they're not exactly what legend makes them out to be.  They walk the earth as humans and have the ability to manipulate fire.  Mag, a human, fell in love with a Phoenix, only to have him go through the burning.  Now she's raising him, and their daughter Aliera.  Other than that, I'm not sure exactly where it's going.

Those are my novels for NaNoWriMo this year.  I'm excited for them all, and can't wait to get started on them (especially now that I've written this post...I'd forgotten how much I was looking forward to some of them).  I can't wait for November to get here (though, I really can.  Really, November, you don't have to come quite as quick as October did...I don't mind). It's going to be Epic!

What are you writing for Nano?  Do you have everything ready to go yet?

A Planner's Worst Nightmare

As I told you all a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I was going to write a novel without creating a plot for it, just to see how it went.  I started that novel last week.  All I had when I started it was: A basic idea that finally spoke to me after hours of flipping through my idea book; the name of the main character; and A title for the book.

First of all, I have to say, I'm sure I've posted more blog posts than I can count about how much control my characters have over the story. (Once again, I would like to clarify that I don't, in any way, blame my characters for the product that comes out in the end, just what information they didn't give me.  I will always take responsibility for my novels, good or bad.)  When I'm pantsing, though, that control goes far beyond anything I'm comfortable with.

In the past I've had characters randomly show up, but now it's like an epidemic.  Characters are popping up all over the place in this novel.  It started with a pink haired vampire, who didn't even get named.  Moved on to a tiny black haired four year old who creeped the hell out of me.  Throw into the mix a 'trusted' friend that her mother pointed out to her that I just don't like, and we've got ourselves what feels a little like an uncontrollable crowd of characters.

None of these characters ever do what I say.  Just when I think I'm getting the hang of them, they go and do something that I would have never expected.  Including the creepy girl getting friends.  Her mother's jaw may have dropped when she hugged, but I swear my surprise was worse.  I nearly stopped typing and I was in the middle of a mongering session.

The worse part of it all is that I have no idea what's going to happen.  I'm literally taking it chapter by chapter.  I have these vague ideas of what could happen, but that certainly doesn't mean that I do everything I think of.  Hell, my character went to the park where I planned to have her attacked by...well...someone, and instead she sat down and had a discussion with her best friend's kid about making friends.  I mean, talk about not following a plot, these characters refuse to conform to any ideas I have in mind for them.

I was sure I knew the end of my story, and I really do.  Well, the basic idea of it, anyway, however I'm coming to think that the person who causes the end of the book isn't correct at all.  I was wrong on all counts.

Add to that the fact that I have a character who's supposed to be a major player in the novel barely making an appearance, and I feel like this novel is a mess.

I know what you're thinking.  That it's probably not as bad as I'm making it out to be, and to be truthful, it's probably not.  I'm just to certain things when I'm writing.  One of them is that I know my character.  They don't usually surprise me (too much) because I have a really good idea about who they are and how they would react to situations.

I also know exactly where my story ends and how my characters are going to get through it.  IN this novel I keep finding myself in situations that I didn't expect, and therefore couldn't have thought through before hand.

It's scary, and it feels wrong.  I love writing it, though.  Even with all the strange surprises, and the way the characters basically tell me how it is (and by tell me, I mean, I type the words then gape at them as I realize what my character just did.)

After all of that, though, I have to say, I don't regret this decision.  I keep looking at the book and thinking that it's not actually too bad, though why that shocks me so much is completely beyond me.  I still wonder where it's going and what the point of this novel is, but I think that's kind of fun.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want to give up on my planning.  I actually really enjoy the work I put into a novel before I start writing it, but this series (if this first book turns out to be good enough for me to even consider continuing it) will always be written without a plot.  I don't think I could force these characters into a plot now if I tried.

Now let's see if I can continue to write the novel and not get stuck at the 25k mark, as so many writers around me seem to do.  Wish me luck!

A Fresh Start

Well, the race is on.  Again.  It's time for me to start writing a novel.  One that I've told myself I'll try and get out in the same amount of time it took me to write a novel during November.  In case you're wondering, that means that I need to write this novel in only ten days.  I'm not entirely sure I can actually do it, but that's got more to do with the fact that I'm not putting my life on hold for this book like I do in November.  I have plans with friends, I haven't stopped going to critique group, and I don't know if I'll even have time to write ten thousand words a day.

But now that I've decided to do it, and even promised the character that it would be done by April, I can't back out.  First of all, if I did, I would end up with a character yelling at me and not giving me any rest until  I actually wrote it.  Second, I would be disappointed because I wouldn't have that novel I need to submit to my critique group so I can get my current novel ready for beta readers then for submission.

The worst part is that I have everything planned out.  And when I say everything, trust me, I mean EVERYTHING.  I have character bibles for each of my main to more important background characters.  Each bible consists not only of what they look like, but also their personality, their goals in the book, the motivations, what makes obtaining their goals difficult, any growth they have in the book, what their role is and any back history I've come up with for them.  (In case you're wondering, these characters have some of the strongest and most details character histories that I've ever written...)  I have pages and pages of brainstorming, as well as two pages devoted entirely to a cast list, naming every character that could possibly come up in the book.  And, finally, I have an entire plot written out (not too detailed, because I'd spend the entire time writing frustrated.  My characters don't really like to stick to the plan...) in my scrivener file.

The writing should be the easy part with all of that planning out of the way.  Especially since I don't have to make any actual decisions while I'm writing (which is good as I'm kind of indecisive...) I should be able to just sit down and write it, after all, my characters are even talking to me, and I can see some of the scenes in my head!  Scenes that I desperately want to write.

So what's holding me back?

Chapter one.  It's as simple as that.  When I wrote the plot I made it very vague, and I hadn't really decided on anything, up to and including what the guy did to deserve being killed.  I didn't even know what he looked like or did for a living.  I didn't have a single clue as to how my main character was going to approach him, never mind kill him.  Both of these things were very important as my character is actually an assassin and was being hired to kill the guy.

When I sat down to write, I found myself staring at a blank page certain I had a fantastic idea, but having no idea how I was going to start it.  Where this first chapter, that introduces the character, but not really the story, was going to go.  My mind blanked.  So I got desperate and wrote the first thing that came to mind.  In first person as I had planned.

Turns out the first thing I think of isn't always the right thing.  Or even good.  After 1200 words I was getting increasingly frustrated and realizing that if I continued to write like that the book that I've been looking forward to writing for so long was going to go the way of all the other books I've written so far: directly into that dusty old folder in the back of my computer.  That's the last thing I want.

So I did the only thing I could do.  The thing that nearly made me cry, as those were the only words written on the novel and I was supposed to write 10,000 words.  I deleted them and started over.

While it was a hard thing to do, it was the best thing.  I changed to third person, which I find much easier to write in. (Originally I thought I should do first because so many other books like the one I'm writing are written in first.  When I first started writing I actually wrote in first and never thought I'd be able to change to third.  I was wrong...)

Now I'm only 450 words into the first chapter (a far cry from my 10k goal...) but they're far better than the original 1200 I had been working with.  I'm looking forward to writing the scene, and I'm once again hopeful that I can write something other than crap.

Sometimes you really do have to give yourself a fresh start, whether you're at 1200 or 65,000 words.  Just make sure that you need to give up on it before you do.  You'll kick yourself if you start all over again just to realize that what you had already written had potential.

Well, time for me to get back to writing...hopefully I can hit that elusive 10k soon.  I've gotta get this book written!

Hello Procrastination...We Meet Again

I love planning new novels.  I think I might like the planning stages more than anything else.  I love figuring out the characters and their history.  How those histories will make them interact together.  Where the story is going.  Why things are going to happen the way they do.  And even how the hell I'm going to make the things that need to happen work when all of a sudden I realize that my character actually might not do that very important plot point.

Figuring out those characters and plots is something that I love to do.  I talk excitedly about it to anyone who will listen, even though half of them aren't writers, and therefore couldn't care less about what I'm saying.  In fact, I've had more than one person give me that look. The look that tells me they think I might actually be a little crazy.  (Other writers will know this look.  It seems to be a hazard of the job.)

Some parts of it, though, can be a little hard to get through.  For example, the character bibles.

Now these aren't something that every writer out there does.  In fact, most of the writers I know don't do them.  I find them really helpful when I'm writing, because I can glance at them quickly if I forget an important fact about one of my characters (like their hair or eye colour)

Honestly, I don't use much of the rest of the bible during the writing process, but I find the rest of it really helpful before I start writing.  The bibles help me to truly get a grasp of each of my characters.  I figure out their motivations.  Their goals.  Their quirks.  And, most importantly (at least to me) their history.

The only problem is that I figure out their story, and then I don't want to actually put it into words on the page.  (Yeah, I know, I'm a writer.  That's exactly what I want to do with my life.)  I think it's just that these are scenes and information about the character that I don't get to actually write.  They all happen before my story took place.  So while I have all these ideas about their history, and love the insights these histories give me into my characters, I find myself a little disconnected with them.  I didn't take part in any of the decisions they made.  It's frustrating.

So, instead of continuing with the bible and forcing myself to get through those histories that I love but don't want to write, I do other things to keep myself busy.  Things like watching television shows that I 'need' to get caught up on.  Or writing a blog post (even though I am, technically, supposed to post one today.  I told myself I would at least finish the bible I'm working on.  I didn't...)

Procrastination is an old friend of mine.  I perfected it in school, and we haven't grown apart at all since I graduated.  In fact, since deciding that I want to become a writer, we've become even closer than we've ever been.  We're like those annoying best friends you see on the street, giggling and laughing like the world is a joke.  The ones who buy the necklaces that break apart just so they can show the world how close they are.  How there's nothing in the world that can come between them.  Because their friendship is just that strong.

I think I proved my point.

One Step Forward, But Standing Still

Today I finished the editing for my next critique group submission.  I wanted to get it done yesterday, but it seems I have become better at procrastination than I originally thought.  So, I decided to be happy with finishing today, as well as getting this blog post done.

Anyway, the point of the matter is that I finished the next two chapters, and I was happy that I finished it so early in the week, even if it was a day later than I was actually hoping for.  I was ahead of the game.

Unfortunately then I made the mistake of looking at my Dangerous Waters manuscript.  That's the one I'm trying to get through right now.  That's the one I want to have polished and ready by the end of April.  That's the one I want to query and get published.  It's the one I've put the most work into.

Sadly, it's also the one that still needs the most work.

A couple of weeks ago I went through the chapters I had left to edit and picked through the ones that (obviously) needed rewrites, and the ones I could try and edit.  I also figured out how many chapters I would have to add in order to fix the many mistakes I made while writing the novel.  (While it wasn't one of my nano novels, I still wrote it fairly quickly, and as it was one of my early novels, I didn't have the plot nailed down nearly as much as I thought when I started writing it).

Thirteen.  That's the number of chapters that need to be rewritten or added altogether.  I only had about twenty left to edit, so that's a fair amount.

This leaves me with a bit of a problem.  All of that work certainly doesn't make me want to actually do the editing.  It probably would have been better if I hadn't gone through and figured out what needed to be done.  Yet I can't regret it because I've always been a planner.  I actually spend more time planning them than I do writing them.  So not knowing how much I was going to have to change was bothering me enough that I felt I had to do it, and I did.

Being at a stand still with Dangerous Waters, however, means more than that one novel never being finished.  In fact, not finishing that novel means that all the other projects I have on the go (refer to the Progress Report section) are also not getting worked on or completed.

Sometimes I tend to get myself in over my head.  For example, during nano I decided to write 200,000 words.  But about five days in I changed that to 300,000 words.  Most of the month I was overwhelmed and thought I wouldn't finish.  I did.  Just barely, but I did.  Now I have all of this work, and I'm feeling overwhelmed, but for some reason I'm not really moving forward.  I can get done what I need to get done for my critique group, but other than that, I'm not making any progress.

It doesn't matter that I really want to finish this novel.  That I want to have it, done and complete, in my hands, and ready to send out to agents and publishers.  I want to feel like I've accomplished something.

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and get down to it.  Starting tomorrow (and everyday for at least a little while until Monday) I'm going to continue editing Dangerous Waters.  I have a goal to finish the next three chapters by the end of Sunday.  (In case you were wondering, the next three chapters are ALL rewrites, so it's going to be harder than it sounds.)

Don't worry, I'll let you know how it goes in my next post, also scheduled Sunday.  Till then, happy editing!

The Life of the Planner

Hello, and welcome to this weeks edition of When Your Characters Hate You or Why Don't You Ever Do What I Want You To?

In today's show we're going to discuss characters that like to veer of the well trodden path. The one that you mapped out for them with a highlighter, explained the dangers of the other paths, even put some obstacles on them so they didn't even want to go that way. The path you paved in gold and lined in signs telling your characters this is the way you should go. I've planned it. If you go this way, we wont have a problem. And they still go the wrong way.

If you're anything like me, you have a multitude of issues with your characters ranging from (but not limited to) them letting you think they're doing one thing in a novel, and doing something entirely different, minor characters forcing their way into a major plot line, characters eloping with each other, and love interests dying before they have a chance to become love interests.

The worst part about any of this is the nice lovely plan you had all ready to go. The plot that you spent longer working out than you'll spend writing the novel itself (or is that just me??). The one that you're sure your characters will actually stick to this time, only to have them completely veer off track, leaving you scrambling to try and fix the plot so that you're not fitting scenes in that don't make sense.

In the end, of course, you're left with a bit of a mess. Half of your novel sticks to your plot, the other goes in whatever direction your characters decided they wanted to take. You have to edit all the things that no longer make sense, even though when you were working on the plot you were snickering about how clever you were to put that in. And you have to figure out what your characters will be pissed at you for taking out and make sure to leave it in (unless your goal is to actually anger your characters, cause then you should definitely take them out...though I don't actually recommend this plan of action.)

If you've ever had any of these problems, rest assured. Things will turn out for the best. Because, once you get that mess of a novel in your hand and read it through (after taking a couple of weeks off so that you aren't tempted to just chuck it all, or kill off all of your characters) you'll realize that all of those things that pulled the characters off of the golden path actually makes the novel that much better.

Because, no matter how much you plan, you still have to do what's best for your characters. You have to take into account what they want. Not that you didn't when you were plotting, it's just that the characters evolve as you write them, and suddenly what they wanted before isn't anywhere near what would make them happy after a few chapters.

Don't be alarmed when your characters start to take on a life of their own. It just means that your doing your job as a writer. Those characters that take over are the ones that are going to feel real on the page. They're going to be who your audience falls in love with, and they're going to be the ones that you'll mourn when you have to kill them off, or finish the novel/series.

That concludes our program for the evening. Stay tuned next week when we discuss worlds and how they suddenly became much more complex then you originally intended.