Feel the Love!

Another welcome letter to the 2012 members to Write On.  

Dear new Write On! Member,

Greetings and best wishes on a grand and glorious 2012 thus far.  Hopefully your laptop and median nerve have recovered sufficiently after an insane NaNoWriMo season.  Chances are your Christmas and New Years went along nicely and now you face a brand new year with a brand new lease on life.

So what next?  What is the point of all this?  You were chosen to join us for a reason.  Back in 2010 (in a land far away) Jennifer and I decided we want to create an exclusive group to meet, talk, write, and critique.  That group evolved into the social wonder that you are now participating in.

In many ways NaNo is like summer camp- an intense short period of time where you spend a lot of time with a group of people then give air kisses and promise to write by the end of the month.  Granted  that means you become Facebook friends and make occasion status comments or “like”s on new pictures, but it is easy to slip back into real life and forget everything we shared.  Write On allows us to continue those friendships and strengthen them so that the following NaNo is even more epic.

To be honest, writing is just what brought us together.  We still attempt to write but the main reason that we stay together is because despite our differences, we love this group.  We bonded over NaNo and were so excited for 2011 NaNo so we could bring more people into the fold.  I remember our November meeting and how thrilled I was to mention a few of your names to Jen and the crew so they could keep an eye out for you in the forums and chat room as well as write ins.  It’s exciting to meet people you click with and then know there is a way to keep in touch.

Now we are in 2012 and each of us have our own goals for the year.  As a part of One Word 365 which Andrew Ronzino introduced me to, I decided to use “more” as my word for the year.  In general I want to learn, grow, and experience more in this year and to make more time for others.  I also want to write more, read more, and spend more time with friends and family.  Last year I failed royally at the challenges we created each month.  This year I endeavor to do better.  Last year I made some efforts to spend more time with fellow Wrimos outside of Write On but this year I shall do so even more.  This year has potential to be the best year ever if I just spend more energy and effort on things that I love and people I care about.

So you may wonder how this involves you?  Well be prepared, folks.  Get ready to drink the Kool aid and dive in head first.  We’re a good group of people who relish the accountability this group creates.  What we need from you is openness.  Willingness.  Participation.  Creativity.  We need you to open yourself up to this shenanigan and make the choice to join in with everything you can muster.

Thank you for accepting our invitation and for being discreet.  While there were others we considered inviting, in the end we wanted a well rounded group from different areas that we knew would mesh well with our founding members and give us a stronger team this year.  Our actual evil plan is to make 2012 NaNoWriMo the best ever- more write ins, more craft days, more inside jokes, and more success. 

I’m excited at all this year holds for us, and cannot wait to spend more time with everyone!

Liz

Procrastinate

procrastinate (v) proh-kras-tuh-neyt
to defer action; delay

From Latin prōcrāstināre, “to put off until tomorrow”.

So, if I don’t do it tomorrow either, does that mean that I’m not really procrastinating?

See, there are times when I just don’t feel like sitting down and writing. Everyone has been there. You’re just not in the mood, or maybe the idea isn’t fully formed quite yet and you don’t want to force it. Sometimes you’d like nothing better than to park in front of the computer for a few hours and slam out a couple thousand words, but you know your tax returns aren’t done yet and the IRS isn’t going to wait forever. Maybe the season finale of The Walking Dead is on and I want to watch it live. (Oh, cool, Fringe is back next week too.)

I’ve taken procrastination to a whole new level…I’ve gone “pro” in the crastination department, as it were. When my heart just isn’t in it, I find myself writing a sentence or two, sometimes a whole paragraph, and then getting up to go do…something. Checking email is the obvious choice, but that’s too easy. I’m talking about checking on the temperature (yep, it’s still warm outside!) or looking up the theater schedule or paging through my Amazon wish list to see if anything has gotten cheaper. (Blast, last season’s Doctor Who blu-ray is STILL $64...)

Strangely, one of the things I most often do when procrastinating from something else is clean stuff. There’s never any shortage of that needing to be done, of course, but sometimes something that I’ve ignored and tolerated for months will suddenly find itself getting cleaned up and put away when I’m in the midst of a completely different project.

Weird.

If you were hoping I’d conclude by passing along something useful I’ve learned about tackling the whole procrastination thing, I’m sorry, but I’m about to disappoint you. It just happens sometimes. Could I work a little harder at it? Sure, no doubts there.

But it’s summer! (Close enough, at least…) It’s the weekend and it’s nice outside! Why would I want to sit in front of a computer all day? I do that at work enough already.

Plus, you know, The Walking Dead is on in a bit.

Jason R.

To Be The Hero

Ask any of my close friends or family, and they’ll tell you that I have a bit of a hero complex. That’s not to say that I walk around wearing tights or have a flowing cape draped around my neck, but I do have a hero complex. When I was very young (2 or 3), my mother bought me a set of superman pajamas. Now, to a normal kid, this might seem REALLY cool! But to me, it was so much more than that. In my mind, I was now Superman. I refused to take it off most days, and I would walk around the house, looking all tough and watching for any form of danger or evil that might lurk into my house. It reached the point where anyone who would call me by my name would get the response of “I’m not Adam. I’m SUPERMAN!” (Yes, I actually have numerous video recordings of this from when I was a child)

After a time, that wore off and I realized that wearing a costume all the time wasn’t normal. This realization, however, didn’t change my thoughts on being a hero. In one way or another, I have always tried to be the hero. From getting in a fight when I was in 3rd grade against a bully who was mocking my friend, to standing up to the mean teacher in 7th grade who would grade the boys harder because she was obviously sexist, my youth was full of me trying to be the hero. Even the jobs I chose as I grew were affected by this mindset. I have been a life guard, a camp counselor, a home medical aid, and now am a Youth Pastor. All of these jobs, in one way or another, feed into my need to try to be the hero. I can’t say if this is an entirely healthy mindset, but I’ll admit that it is the mindset I have.

What does this have to do with writing, you might ask? Well, like all other people, how my mind works is where my interests lie, and that affects what I write about. All of my stories I write tend to feed into this hero complex I have, and I believe it makes me a better writer because of it. It’s not that I have an unrealistic view of what a person can and should do, but I believe that to be a true hero, one must put others before oneself, as well as being brave. History is full of stories of heroes, and I believe that is because all of us, on one level or another, crave heroism. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I crave to BE that hero, not to see one. I crave to be the one that has to sacrifice, to fight, and to push away fear and do what needs to be done. This is partially a selfish thought, because there is a level of pride in being the hero, but to me it’s more than that. It’s the thought that in being the hero, others don’t have to suffer, and they can live a happy life due to the actions I’ve done. This is the reason I write. It is because, with all the things in my life, there is still that draw to be the ultimate hero. To give up my life for another. To protect, and to inspire. Few things in life are more inspiring than a true hero in a compelling story, and that is something that is often on my mind.

Now, I am a Christian, and while I don’t feel the need to preach to people constantly about it, I will say that it very much defines my life and the actions I take in it. The Bible tells us that we are to put people before us, to love our neighbors, and to even love our enemies. In my view, a person who can love their enemies, and choose good for people, instead of the bad thoughts and actions that so many spit out into the world, is the ultimate hero. Heroism isn’t about action so much as it is about a mindset, and the person you are inside.

So my question to you is, how do you feel about heroism, and what causes a person to be heroic?

Adam

If a tree falls in the woods...

Ok, so if a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

If I write something and no one ever reads it, am I actually a writer?

I am terribly undisciplined when it comes to my writing.  Not as in, poor comma placement and misuse of the word “their” (though I write with a plethora of em dashes, you will find), but I only ever write for myself.  I’m not self-conscious about my writing.  (OK – not entirely true – I AM self-conscious about letting someone read a straight-up word spew that I wrote just for the sake of word count.)  But provided I’ve been through a chapter enough to make sure I didn’t repeat myself, didn’t accidentally call one character by another character’s name, or have any glaring typos… I kind of like what I write. 

So why don’t I share?  Because the thought of trudging through an entire novel(la), where I already know what happens, is a long and tedious job.  Or at least I assume it is… I have never bothered to do it.  Even the thought of editing bores me.  Once the thrill of creation is over – it’s just work.  I’ve gotten what I want out of the story.  I don’t need my voice heard, I really just needed the story to be written.  I am a selfish, selfish writer.

But is that really what writing is about?  Is it the act of creation, or is it ultimately the presentation?  After all, I don’t abandon the craft after the story is done… it’s just that the next time I sit down to that blinking cursor, it’s with a new passion for a new idea.  The old one is lovingly stored away in my archives, never to be seen again.  So am I a writer?  Or am I a fake?  A tourist?  If my fallen tree goes unheard, did it ever really make a sound?

What does writing mean to you?

~ Adrianne

Clare Vanderpool

Reading Clare Vanderpool’s writing does nothing if not bridge gaps between reader and character, reader and setting, and especially reader and author.  As I read Moon Over Manifest, the story ran on ahead of me, drawing my childhood out of my calloused feet as if daring it to a race.  It makes you feel good without feeling patronized.  It makes you drink in history—yours, Abilene’s, Kansas’, America’s—without choking on sentiment. 

But what I find to be the loveliest thing about Clare is her website.  Moon Over Manifest won the 2011 Newbery award, which is fantastic, especially considering it was Clare’s debut novel.  But clarevanderpool.com should win its own award for staying true to Clare’s heart, even after the book was published and the Newbery won.  Reading it makes you feel like you’re part of her family, in part because she evidently forgets sometimes that people other than her family read it.  She reminds you of her connection to you, her closeness, with every blog post.  Just a few weeks ago, she wrote “2011 was a wonderful year but not only because of a special award.  Other big events:  Lucy got her braces off.  Paul got his braces on.  Luke crammed 80 high school kids in our garage for a dance and everyone survived.  Grace's singing has not broken any windows... yet.  (Lucy made me put that.)”

Clare’s work is part of her life, not its life’s blood.  She has a husband and four children, as well as a dog.  She grew up in a small town in Kansas her whole life, and she says that it was that childhood that prompted her to write Abilene’s story of wandering, of shifting.  Clare says that she has always had a strong connection to the concept of place, and that, at some point she wondered “what would a ‘true place’ be for someone who has never lived anywhere for more than a few weeks or months at a time?”  Moon Over Manifest is her response to that question.

Clare recently finished writing her next book, Navigating Early, that she says will come out next spring.  I, for one, look forward to taking off my shoes, digging my feet into the dirt, and preparing for the next race.

Mary

Just a Little Rant about Grammar

When I was in school, the rules of grammar were drilled into my head. No matter how old you get, English 101 never seems to leave your mind completely. I specifically remember my sixth grade teacher beating into our brains: “You NEVER begin a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but’!” For years I would feel so incredibly stupid if I started a sentence with a conjunction. I’d quickly erase my mistake and take it with me to the grave.

                              

            However, when I started writing more, I found myself ignoring all the rules I learned when I was younger. I read other stories where the authors rebelled against those restricting grammar rules. I was baffled! So, it IS okay, I thought. If published authors can do it, then it is allowed. That’s when I split my writing personality between Novel Writing and School Writing.

            Recently I returned to school. Being an English major it’s pretty obvious that I am taking English courses. The first English course I took my first semester back kicked my a… you know…! I discovered I had developed an ego. I thought my writing style was top-notch because I did what I wanted. Then I relearned all of those grammar rules that sifted through my head over the years. While I will never pretend to understand all of the rules—Who vs. whom? Forget it!—I am much more aware of when authors break the rules.

            Alright, alright. I’ll get to my point! I recently read The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (almost done with Catching Fire, no spoilers please!). Ms. Collins breaks so many rules! Even though the story is excellent and I find myself unable to close the book, sometimes I am districted by her (I have to say it) terrible grammar! She begins many sentences with conjunctions and more than half of the story is comprised of sentence fragments. I get so aggravated when I’m reading and reading and reading and all of the sudden a wild sentence fragment appears and tears me away from the scene because I stumble over the sentence. What did that say? Wait… that makes no sense. Oh, I get it now! Why did she just at “you are” at the beginning of the sentence and make it whole?! Then I want to throw the book.

            Oh my point, right! My point is. I have decided I want to be that author that adopts a style of writing that is both unique and grammatically correct in narration. Dialogue is different but as for the person narrating (whether it be first or third person) has no reason not to narrate correctly. I don’t want my readers to stumble over the words in my novel and I refuse to dumb down my writing. I do not believe people are so illiterate that I need to be grammatically incorrect for my novels to be understood.

            Whew, okay my rant is over. If you read this far then I thank you!

            ~Tabitha, Tabby, MegaPaopu

Brittany Writes a Blog

Right in the middle of NaNo this past November, I signed up with the Writer’s Digest online sign-up... thingie. Originally, I was looking for an article that I wanted to share with my growing NaNo circle, something about 10 Writing Habits and why they were good or bad or both. I had read the article while at a client’s office and thought it would be great. Unfortunately, the online structure of Writer’s Digest meant I not only had to purchase the entire back issue but, in order to be given the chance to purchase the issue, I had to subscribe to the magazine. At the time, that was too much work and a little more money that I was good for, so that idea fell into the cracks.

However, as a direct result of this trip through the nooks and crannies of Writer’s Digest, I ended up on their email list and boy, do they have a lot to say. I receive anywhere from one to three emails a day from their website, on everything from tips for writing, editing and getting published to web conferences* on different ways to turn writing into a lucrative career NOT via a book deal. Did you know that people will pay you to write corporate memos for a living? Yeah, neither did I.

Now, like many of you, I haven’t written a single word since NaNo (except for those times when I stop dead in the grocery store to jot down a plot idea on my phone. It annoys my boyfriend to no end. The stopping, not the writing). After Jenn surprised me with an email telling me it was my week to blog (charts, what charts?), I decided my best bet was see what I could dig up out of the emails and pretend like I actually planned for this. To that end, I present: 6 Simple Ways to Reboot Your Writing.

…

Oh, you’re still here. What, you want me to write about the article about writing? What is this I don’t even - fiiine. Here is the 6 Simple Reboot tips as they apply to me. For putting this much effort out there, I expect some comments on how they apply to all of you, even if you just do one of six. Anyone doing all six obviously has as much free time as I do and probably deserves some kind of prize.

1. Your New Year artist statement: You do have one, don’t you?

I didn’t have one before reading this article/writing this blog but here is the one that I made up on the spot:

When I began writing, it was because I had all of these ideas in my head and they never stopped and I needed to do something with them. To me, that is my creative writing: a release for all of the ideas that build up and up and up and give me headaches until I give them a space to suck up paper/hard drive. As a result of all of the creative writing, my professional writing is superb and gives me the confidence in my daily work doings to think that maybe, just maybe, I’m not a complete failure.

2. Your current regimen: Still working?

I keep trying to tell myself I will have a writing schedule. I will have a time specifically set aside for writing when I will ignore the siren calls of Skyrim and Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and just write. This never happens but for the handful of times it actually has and man, was it ever effective. NaNo proved to me that I felt so, so much better when I had words on the page than when I had promises to myself that I would put words on the page. There will always be excuses but there comes a time when you have to suck it up, buttercup, and get to doing. For me, that time will be... likely February.

3. Your hardware, software: Time for an upgrade?

Scrivener vs Word = no contest. Scriv was a fastastic tool for my NaNo this year and allowed me to write in workable chunks instead of feeling like I needed to keep continuing the same plot path because it was all in the same file. I sincerely hope I haven’t missed out on being able to get the discounted copy (in February) but I might just pay the full price regardless. It’s worth it.

4. Writing extracurriculars: Are you missing out?

Now, the article talks specifically about outside learning tools, such as writing conferences and web conferences*. To me, this is more about building an outside circle of people to do the local event planning for you and take you from your comfort zone. Your comfort zone is likely a lot like mine - a lot of distractions and empty promises (see #2). Getting out to write ins (while also full of distractions) creates a space where you’re encouraged to write because everyone else is writing. A location change can also inspire new wiggles in your writing - new locations, new ideas, new characters.

5. Your support network: Is it in place?

Uh, I think so. You’re all here, right?

Sometimes it can be hard to get support from the people we feel like should support us most. In high school, when my urge to write was really taking off, my mom was less supportive than I would have liked. It wasn’t until I started looking into colleges and the writing opportunities there that she actually got on the bandwagon - and then promptly fell back off when I switched majors. To that end, I don’t really go to her for support on my writing anymore, though I do go to her for other things. Sometimes we need to build our support networks out of different people for different things to get the support we really need.

6. Day planners and deadlines: Have you mapped out a path to success?

Deadlines are actually amazing motivators but as a procrastinator, deadlines also represent the least of my ability. When I wait until a deadline, I rush and when I rush, it sucks and when it sucks, I’m frustrated and suddenly less motivated to take on another project. My push to get 20,000 words out in the last four days of NaNo left me with a novel I will probably never touch again. There is a lot to be said for doing even a little bit of plot mapping. It keeps you on a track - and yes, I even mean you, members of the Illustrious League of Pantsers.

Also - This blog isn’t due until Friday and it’s only Wednesday and I’M DONE ALREADY. Deadlines be damned!


All right, your turn. How does your writing need a reboot?

Brittany


*I hate the word webinar. It’s an atrocity.