Camp NaNoWriMo

Next week I will start two challenges.

I have already written about the AtoZ Challenge , which begins on Tuesday, 1 April, 2014. So that’s one, OBVS.

The other challenge is Camp NaNoWriMo , which also begins on 1 April.

I kind of got roped into it by my writing partner, Rachel .

She didn’t have to twist my arm very hard, to be fair.

What is Camp NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month.

Camp NaNoWriMo is the “off season” of the NaNoWriMo program that runs every November, during which writers are urged to write a 50k-word novel within a month. The summer version is much more lax – writers may set their own word count goals, and may work on any project they wish, regardless of genre.

Additionally, while the November event strictly states that projects must not be a piece begun prior to the 1 November start-date, the summer event indicates that anything goes.

Honestly, I cheated during November, signing up on the forum as a NaNo Rebel , because I did not begin a fresh project. Rather, I carried on with a piece I had begun during NaNoWriMo the year prior.

Whatever. No one gave me shit for it, but even if they had, I wouldn’t care. The point of the challenge is not in any way related to how I am doing in comparison to other writers.

The point is to push myself to write, and that is what I did.

What am I working on?

Regardless of the fact that I succeeded in furthering my novel, I failed to reach my word count goal last November – I fell shy at about 36k words, I think. Since then I have added more, but still have not hit the 50k mark. I’m close, though – so close! Since I am “allowed” to bring anything to the table, my current work-in-progress is what shall receive my best efforts.

My novel called The Greene, although originally it was entitled Greene Market and the story I first had in mind fit that title better. However, it has moved an entirely different direction than I anticipated, and actually its current title doesn’t exactly fit, either. Since I have already struggled in properly naming my characters , naming the story is a battle for a different month.

Perhaps by the next camp session in June?

What genre is my novel?

The Greene is fantasy, complete with a badass dragon and a feisty mermaid and a freaky crop of wild, man-eating unicorns. There are witches, a wizard, ogres, and talking animals {a cat and an ape, specifically}. There are hybrid creatures called wingeds which are birdlike pixies.

It is a hero’s journey and a battle between good and evil, nature and science, magic and technology.

I have almost reached the midpoint and I am very excited about the direction it’s heading, even if it wasn’t what I had in mind when I first sat down to write it.

It is told in third person from duel points of view.

The first main character is Emandine, a lovely older woman who is caring for her mysteriously mute niece, Dotanna, out in the Red Deserts. A series of events pushes them to hit the road in search of The Wizard for answers.

The second main character is Medaskal, a somewhat retired mercenary-cum-marketer running a stall in the underground Greene Market. He has a couple unexpected visitors, and soon thereafter he, too, goes in search of The Wizard – not for answers, but for murder.

Hay problema?

SAVE THE CAT! by Blake Snyder — Although the subtitle reads “The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need”, don’t be fooled — this is a great writing guide for novelists and screenwriters alike. TRUST.

Yes, there is a problem.

Just then when I said I reached the midpoint? Yeah, about that… I knew something was missing so I went back over my notes from my favorite writing guide, Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! And I realized I was missing an extremely important inciting incident – a “no turning back” – a crossing of the threshold – a point of no return.

Whatever you want to call it.

Doesn’t matter what you call it, because it wasn’t there.

So now I have to rewrite my entire first act. Chapters 1 and 2 are probably okay, but the rest of Act 1 {Chapters 3 through 5} definitely needs an overhaul.

Which means Chapters 6 through 10 will have to be rewritten as well.

But one crisis at a time, you guys.

I will be delving further into this whole mess throughout the month of April.

What is my Camp NaNoWriMo goal?

I am hoping to add 36k words during the month of April, which comes to 1200 words per day. Before this past November, that self-assigned goal would seem lofty {even as compared to NaNoWriMo’s goal of 1667 words per day}.

However, I now know I can hit this number easily, once I get my butt planted in the chair.

The hard part for me isn’t the writing so much as the GETTING TO the writing.

Taking into account that I will be doing a massive amount of rewriting, I am not going to beat myself up if I don’t meet my goal. I hope to end the month of April with at least 80k words. I feel like this is entirely doable. But I will also accept all further motion and progress as a definite WIN.

But why TWO challenges?

While this is a fair question, it isn’t strictly accurate that I am participating in two separate challenges.

Yes, the AtoZ Challenge is happening concurrent with Camp NaNoWriMo.

But they are not mutually exclusive. I see the blogging challenge {AtoZ} as a way to enhance and report on my writing challenge {Camp NaNo}. I will be working on my novel, and then blogging about it, in an alphabetically-themed process. When possible I might even include excerpts or examples from my own work on my blog. I chose my theme for the AtoZ Challenge to go hand-in-hand with my novel.

And really, if you want to get down to it, since I like to set goals periodically and report on them weekly via A Round of Words in 80 Days {#ROW80}, you could go so far as to say I’m participating in THREE challenges throughout April {Round 2 runs April 7 through June 25}.

Furthermore, I still plan to write a paragraph-or-two detailing my writing issues for the Insecure Writers Support Group {#IWSG} on the first Wednesday of the month, which brings me up to FOUR challenges.

The number is irrelevant.

I can participate in, and report to, as many challenges as I like, and so long as they overlap, it doesn’t matter. The only challenge I’m really, truly engaged in is the challenge within myself:

Just show up.

Sit down.

Plant your ass.

Do the work.

Write the words.

Don’t stop starting.

These phrases, along with all the challenges, are just various ways of reminding myself that I am a writer, and that writers write. There is a big difference between knowing it and KNOWING it. Sometimes I need a little bit of help. That’s what all this fuss is about.

Me, helping myself.

• Are you participating in any blogging or writing challenges?


• Do you ever engage in multiple challenges simultaneously?


• Which challenge makes you feel most productive and self-satisfied?

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Epiphanies {Part 2}

I had a couple epiphanies.

I had two specific unexpected insights a couple weeks ago – something Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project might refer to as A Secret of Adulthood .

The first of my Epiphanies was discussed last week.

The second of my epiphanies was equally powerful.

With regard to my daughter’s game, Minecraft, as I said – it never occurred to me that there was more than one mode of play. There is a part of the game I have never seen, an entire story of which I know nothing.

There are heroes and monsters and forests and adventures; perhaps heartache and perhaps growth; perhaps even death.

As many hours as my child has spent on this game, I find it mind-boggling to realize I truly know nothing about it.

People, like games, have different modes.

Like a prism. And only one side may show at a time, but that doesn’t make the other parts any less present.

When I asked my daughter why she never played on “Game Mode”, she responded that it was too scary.

Apparently you have to build houses and gather equipment in a specific time frame, before night falls and the zombies come to kill you. Well that makes sense; I don’t do well with that sort of game myself.

It was shocking to learn my daughter’s fear.

She was afraid of something I didn’t even know existed.

This person I would swear I know down to the minutest detail has sides of which I can never fully be aware. She is nine. She has entered what is referred to as the “tween” stage – between child and teenager. No longer a baby-kins, but not yet a young adult. A tiny person with ideas and fears and expectations of her own… even though these concepts are not yet fully developed.

My daughter, this being I carried inside my body and nurtured and loved and grew and birthed and fed and clothed and educated and entertained and offered to the world, is a virtual stranger to me, when all her secrets and modes and facets are taken into account.

And if this is true of my own spawn, it is surely true of those with whom I have not spent as much time.

We can only know a person based on the sides they choose to present.

“The Silence and the Scream”

- You see nothing but what I allow you to see, and my scream goes forever unheard.

And if they keep parts of themselves hidden, whether on purpose or without thought {as with my daughter’s admitted fear of “Game Mode”}, we will never know.

Somehow, today, that places everyone I know in a different light.

It’s as though I’d been walking the tunnel with only a candle to light the way, and suddenly, a switch was flipped, so that now I see a little more clearly than I did before. And the people standing in front of me, so one-dimensional before, have been rendered from coals into diamonds. Multi-faceted and shiny and secretive and full of life and with so much more to offer than I ever thought possible.

My mom has a saying that I never really understood until now:

“People are just people, you know?”

I always took this to mean that people have flaws and we should just accept and forgive them because that’s just the crappy way things are.

Now, I think maybe she meant something else entirely. Maybe she meant that people are crazy, unpredictable beings who all have nothing and everything in common, and you can’t know everything there is to know about them, so you might as well take the parts you DO know, and make the best of it, assuming good things exist on the bits you can’t see.

People are just people, you know?

They aren’t all good or all bad. They are just these strange, oddly-shaped individuals with lumps and bumps that go every which way. And no matter how much you love someone, you can never know everything about them.

With regard to my daughter…

…we have lots of years ahead to get to know each other. I look forward to the time we spend together. The biggest joy a mother can receive is when her child allows a peek inside her heart. Abbie lets me in quite easily right now. I know this could change over the coming years, so I’m just going to appreciate the hell out of these moments.

And if she wants to keep playing on “creative mode“, building and deleting and making art-for-art’s sake, well that’s just fine by me. I plan to keep engaging in my hobby, too {scrapbooking}. There is no reason for either of us to switch to “game mode” if we aren’t ready and willing. No reason to give up our hobbies to concentrate on our passions, and no reasons to treat our passions in as light a fashion as we treat our hobbies. No reason to show all our sides when the sides we currently reveal to each other work so well.

With regard to my mom…

…we probably need to get our collective asses in gear. We aren’t young. I’m facing the tragic age of *FORTY* not too far off, which places my mom at almost {le gasp!} *SIXTY*. Neither of us is in perfect health.

And we aren’t currently on speaking terms, mostly by my own choice.

I keep viewing my mom through one single lens. One facet of the gem that she is. One side of the prism.

I think she views me the same way. And neither of us much likes what we see. We sit on opposite sides of the table politically and religiously, which means our morals and virtues are on extreme ends of the spectrum. This makes it hard to come together peacefully. We feel defensive of our perspectives, knowing before the other speaks that we will be judged, and harshly.

For myself, and for my kids, and for my sister and her family, I have got to find a way to see past all this. I need to find a part of my mom that doesn’t tick me off. And I hope she is interested in finding a part of me that doesn’t rile her up. I guess a phone call and visit is imminent in the near future. I broke it; it’s up to me to figure out how to fix it.

Epiphanies are easy.

Family is hard.

• Are you ever shocked at the things you learn about and from other people?


• How do you bridge the gap when controversy tears your family apart?


• What does the phrase “People are just people” mean to you?

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Names are the Things

A follow-up to last week:

I complained lately that my characters hated their names .

Since then they have chosen names and I am pleased.

I think they are, too.

Several people have asked my method in picking out names.

I thought I’d share herein.

Step 1: Who is it?

I am almost at the midpoint of my Work in Progress {WIP}, so by now I have gotten to know my characters fairly well. Obviously. I would be in bigger trouble than merely choosing names if this were not the case.

So the first thing I did was brainstorm different one-word characteristics that describe each person.

Here was my thought process behind the four characters giving me such a hard time.

Not-Edvin wasn’t difficult. He is a somewhat retired mercenary-cum-potions master with a penchant toward hybrid beasts. Not-Ed has been in hiding for some time, but in his day he was quite the scrapper. Dark-skinned and scarred, rugged and handsome, he is hardened with a soft inside. This made me think of a dog – a mutt – a mongrel – a cur. Not a bad guy per se … but not immediately lovable, either.

Not-Tipp was a bit more of a challenge, since his character started out pretty annoying to me. I absolutely could NOT get him right. Now that I’m further in, he has grown on me, and I have figured out his place a bit better. He is a young man and serves as Not-Ed’s sidekick / protégé. Very naïve and hopeful, he sees the best in people and is easily misled; likewise, he is intuitively wise in seeing the best path when it comes to personal dealings. Not-Ed becomes quite fond of Not-Tipp, and indeed, Not-Tipp eventually becomes the rock of the party.

Not-Polly is someone we at first trust, but who eventually betrays our confidence. She is the Judas we never see coming. All I can think when I picture her is RED. She isn’t young and sexy; she is middle-aged and kindly, and as Emandine’s closest friend, her betrayal is all the more shocking and hurtful.

Not-Pandora is actually young and sexy and wrapped in red, so our first impression is that she is a naughty creature bent on destruction. But this isn’t the case. She embodies the phrase “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful”. Or, more appropriately perhaps, “I’m not bad; I’m just drawn that way”. Eventually she provides a source of hope and redemption.

Step 2: Pick one word.

• Not-Ed: mongrel.


• Not-Tipp: rock.


• Not-Polly: Judas.


• Not-Pandora: Pandora.

Step 3: Look it up.

There are several etymology sites – that is, word origin – available online. I am lazy. I went straight to Wikipedia. Some might argue that Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source of information, and while that may or may not be true in the grand scheme of things, I wasn’t on a fact-finding mission.

I was looking for a specific word that would *POP* and sound just right. When I skim material in this fashion, I don’t ever know precisely what it is I’m looking for.

But I sure know it when I see it!

Not-Ed became Medaskal.

Actually, for about five seconds he became Askal, which apparently translates to “street dog” and would have been perfect. Except that another character already has a name that begins with an “A” and I don’t like when that happens. Askal is too close to Anson. I would get confused in writing, and I have to think readers might get confused, as well. Plus, someone had suggested his name should definitely begin with an “M” which sounded right to me. So I combined Ed and Mongrel and Askal: Medaskal. He tells me I have done well and that this is, indeed, his name. The process works.

Not-Tipp became Kephas.

This fits so well, I can’t believe I ever DIDN’T know his name. He thanks me profusely for such a strong name, since he is such a weak boy. In his own eyes, at any rate. His name is more true than he knows.

Not-Polly became Kerioth. And studying about her name origin makes me more mad at her than I already was. Her name SOUNDS caring, but I know otherwise. Back-stabbing bitch. She is smiling at me all smug in having a name which fits her so well.

Not-Pandora became Sinevas.

She was the most fun to study, because Pandora in many old cultures was known as “first woman” much like Eve or, preceding her, Lilith. And while in many stories she is depicted as a temptress {as in Christianity, wherein she made Adam bite the apple}, in most cases she represents hope and redemption for mankind. I like that her name bares both aspects of good and evil, like a yin-yang, because this truly embodies her spirit. Sinevas is bowing to me for having discovered who she really is.

Everyone is happy.

Having spent hours researching possibilities, I am now able to move on to more pressing matters. Like, for example, placing my head in a blender since I have to start all over. Okay, not “ALL” over. But I do have several scenes to rewrite and some characters to move about into better positions. And, of course, I have the tedious, administrative task of doing a “find & replace” for all those not-names.

Glory!

Writing is hard.

• What is your process for naming characters?


• Do you ever have difficulty in settling on character names?


• How do you deal with unruly characters?

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