#Nanowrimo Day Five: To Outline or Not to Outline; That is the Question.

When it comes to prep work, writers typically segregate themselves into two camps: those who outline and those who don’t.

Those who outline prefer to have all their ducks in a row before they get started. Those who don’t outline prefer a more flying-by-the-seat-of-one’s-pants approach.

I have belonged to both of these camps. Ironically enough it was Nanowrimo that had me defecting to the other side.

I started squarely and defiantly in the “seat-of-one’s-pants” camp for my first few novels. I preferred to let the story take me where it was going to take me. There’s a lot of freedom in that, because let’s face it, our stories are living entities. Every strike of your keys or swoop of your pen brings these little darlings to life, and they often have minds of their own.

When I try to explain this to a non-writer, I typically get a skeptical side-eye glare, assessing to see if I’m insane. (Hint: I’m a writer… it’s implied.)

“How can your characters surprise you, Ginger? They’re coming from you.”

Well, yes. And no.

Back when I wrote DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS originally, it was as a screenplay, and I had very definite ideas of what I wanted to do with the story. It started as the tale of a lesbian who was a PK (or preacher’s kid,) and, after a disastrous sequence of events, fell in love with the one person in the whole town that she shouldn’t.

That’s the story idea that planted my butt in the chair anyway.

As I bounced this idea off of my husband, Steven, like I am prone to do, he explained that there should be another character in her life, a friend even. He contended that I couldn’t just have her influenced by her horrible, fanatical family.

I agreed, so I took my main character Grace to a liquor store, where she met a guy named Mike.

I should probably insert here that Grace has a lot of problems, one of the biggest of which is that she is a full-fledged addict who self-medicates with drugs and alcohol even though she’s barely nineteen years old.

So of course she’d go to a liquor store, right? That’s a completely organic thing for her to do. *Insert smug writer-type sense of self-importance here.*

All I typed were the words, “Hey, Gracie,” and suddenly Mike didn’t feel so friendly. Since I didn't "meet" this character until he inserted himself in the story, I really didn't know him from Adam. Because he was so new to me and to the story itself, he could do whatever the hell he wanted to do. He was a blank slate. I wanted to create one thing, and all of a sudden my fingers were tapping me in a whole other direction.

I spoke briefly about my first writing assignment. This truly was where I got my first taste of the story guiding the writer. I was given a picture of a house and told to write a story to go along with. Since this was Halloween, I knew that the teacher probably wanted a haunted house story, though the picture in and of itself wasn’t especially scary. It was just a picture of an old house, one that looked like it could have been built in the 1800s or early 1900s.

I had no idea what I was going to write about when I sat in front of that beautiful blank piece of paper to create a story for the first time.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I knew that I wanted the house to be sad. To me, that’s where most hauntings start. I think it would be terribly sad to be bound to an earthbound plane, ignored and invisible to the world around you. How lonely that must be. It's no wonder a ghost would want to reach out, make noise, be seen... be acknowledged.

It just wants what we all want.

So the origin to my story was a sad one. A man loves his beautiful bride so much that he builds her a grand house full of many rooms that they fill with as many children. Instead, they both die childless years and years later, because life has its own plans.

(And yes, I realize that UP got the jump on me on this one. But to be fair, it had been 28 years and I hadn’t done anything with this story, so … it was kinda fair game.)

Making this sad origin scary just didn’t seem right to me after that, but I couldn’t just leave the story like this. It was just too darned sad.

Instead of ending it as a haunted house, I ended the story as a story of hope, by turning the sad, old home into an orphanage into a happy home filled with love for all those kids who had no parents.

(I like to do stuff like that. Recently a reader responded to a promo blog for MASTERS FOR HIRE by saying, "Ginger Voight sure likes to take the norm and toss it on its head." #truestory.)

Of course by the time I was through, I knew I no longer had a Halloween story. There wasn’t anything even remotely scary about it. It was actually kind of uplifting instead. I colored in the picture of the house using happy, bright colors with nary a cobweb in sight.

(Once again, you’re welcome, UP.)

When I turned in the assignment, I was only slightly concerned that I had gone so completely off script with my first story. I am a people pleaser deep down, and I knew I didn’t do what was expected of me. For a chronic Good Girl, whose neurosis to be all things to all people began years before, the idea of invoking my teacher’s wrath, or worse – enduring her disappointment – began to gnaw at me as each day passed and I waited for my grade.

I had confidence that I was a good student, particularly in Language Arts, but the instant I didn’t get my paper back when everyone else did, I fended off an anxiety attack of near epic proportions. Could I have *gulp* failed for the first time ever?

I was a good student. Such a thing was unthinkable.

When I finally found the nerve to walk up to the front of the class and ask Mrs. Adams where my paper was, she gestured behind her to the Wall of Honor, where all the truly important things go, where my paper now hung with a giant red “A.”

I. Was. Flabbergasted.

Not only had my teacher liked the fact I went off script, she praised me for it. It wasn’t just a good paper. It was a great one.

After that, I was passionate about letting my stories guide me, confident that they would know oh so much better than I did about what was good, and what was exceptional.

Fast-forward to 2002, when I wrote the screenplay for DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS over the course of a week, churning out 40 pages in one day alone, and I could tell right away that Mike was seriously about to go off script. He felt creepy. And sinister. I could hear this character’s voice in my ear and it instantly gave me a full-bodied shudder.

This wasn’t her friend at all. This was the exact opposite of her friend. I knew within two teeny tiny words. I think my exact reaction to this was, “Ohhhh. So you’re THAT guy.”

I had a plan for Mike, but as it turned out, he had a plan for me, too–one that would change my whole storyline. This one little change, where my Muse nudged me in one direction and not the other, reshaped the plot entirely.

Later, when Grace informed me that she wasn’t really a lesbian at all, who was I to argue? I was essentially sitting in the first row of my mind’s theater, chowing on popcorn, watching my actors do improv, curious to see where, exactly, they were about to take me.

Because I didn’t outline, I was allowed to do this. I had the freedom to do this. And people who have a lot of freedom don’t typically want to surrender it, especially with the tedious work of writing out an outline. No stallion wants to be confined in the starting gate. We want that gate to open so we can gallop wherever our little hearts will take us.

Therefore I rejected the process quite emphatically and piously, even when I painted myself into quite a few corners doing it the other way. Let's face it, when you're all over the map trying to write a concise, cohesive story, there's a lot of mess to clean up after you make it through Draft One. And while writing is rewriting, it's not a fun or easy process to discard those words you practically had to pull out of your butt with needle-nose pliers in the first place.

If you’re not a seasoned storyteller, this is your early training ground, learning, usually, what not to do. Repetition gives birth to efficiency, particularly if you're learning to write professionally and on a deadline.

What any screenwriter builds is essentially a three-act play, where certain things must happen to drive the story forward. There are beats and inciting incidents and all kinds of expectations that need to be met or your screenplay will falter. And many a screenwriter has found themselves stuck in Second Act hell because they hadn’t really properly laid their foundation for their story in Act One.

Whereas Act One sets up your story, introduces you to the characters, their goals and their obstacles, Act Two is an obstacle course that demands your character is pulled along by the momentum of the story towards their inevitable “moment of truth” or “point of no return.” This is what will vault them into Act Three, your resolution, which includes any epic showdown to see whether or not your character will achieve his or her goal. This essentially boils down to answering whatever questions you posed in Act One.

Because Act Two is twice the size of Acts One and Three, it can be a little daunting. This is particularly true for new writers, who aren’t all that comfortable with turning the monsters loose to chase their beloved characters through the hellish maze one needs to survive in order to get to Act Three.

For many non-outliners, Act Two slows them down, and that’s exactly how it worked for me. Getting past page 25 in any script felt a bit like entering The Fire Swamp from “The Princess Bride.” It can be every bit as dark and treacherous.

Still, I successfully wrote three books and four screenplays this way, so I held fast to my “seat-of-my-pants” status, even after I turned one of my novels, PICTURE POSTCARDS, into a screenplay as well, and realized it was a lot easier to craft a screenplay when all the little ducks were in a row.

Then along came Nano 2004, when I had the beyond brilliant idea to turn one of my screenplays into a novel.

It sounds kind of like cheating, but it’s really not. Since screenplays and novels are two completely different animals, there’s a lot of work involved in adapting one medium to the other.

In screenplays, one is discouraged from writing anything unnecessary to move the story forward. You are tasked with only one thing: telling whomever might be reading what they would be seeing on screen. This whacks away at all the flowery prose we often indulge for descriptions. Instead, you’re expected to be a lot more technical.

Your scene setting is reduced to a neatly condensed Scene Heading, and they want you to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid.) You’re supposed to let them know if it’s an interior or exterior shot, where it is, specifically, and what type of day. You can add in special stuff, like if it’s a flashback, dream sequence or montage, but typically all scene headings are bland data, not good writing.

Here’s an example:

INT. VOIGHT HOUSEHOLD/MASTER BEDROOM – DAY

The purpose of this scene heading is to tell the filmmakers we’re starting a new scene, and where that happens to take place. That’s it. You are able to describe the scene somewhat in the “action” part of the script, broken up with actual dialogue, but you are discouraged from using much space to do this. You only have 100 pages, remember. And readers want to move as quickly as possible down the page. This discourages the use of “too much black,” which bogs down the read.

Unless your description is pertinent to the scene, it’s wasting space to get overly fixated on it.

It’s also not your job.

Screenplays are collaborative. You hand over a basic skeleton that others are then free to fill in, people like directors and set designers and costumers and makeup artists and even the actors themselves will take the basic guide you’ve given them and flesh it out into something bigger.

Whereas I can set the scene for a book by typing:

It was a cool morning, with a slight nip in the air, forcing Ginger’s feet under the covers as she balances the computer across her lap. Despite the chill in the room, a fan runs just a few feet away. There is always a fan running whenever Ginger turns her bedroom into her office, where she can write in peace. She finds the white noise soothing. Its major purpose, however, is buffering and muting any noises from other parts of the house. These noises, the sounds of her beloved family just precious feet from her closed door, are both reassuring and distracting. They yank her out of her creative zone, like being ripped out of a super suit. One minute, she’s GINGER: WRITER EXTRAORDINAIRE, fighting for truth and justice with the rat-a-tat-tat of her keyboard. The next? She’s an ordinary human. Plain ol Ginger. The wife and mother who worries about groceries and bills and what her family might need from her that day.

As such, she has filled her personal space with those things she loves, those things that further shape her eclectic personality, things in purple and black, with a nod to the 60s with lava lamps and peace signs. Things to make her happy. Things to make her comfortable. Things to motivate her and kick start her muse. An exercise bike sits nearby, calling to her, but she shakes her head. There’s time for that. Later. Much later. She has a deadline to meet.

Such a passage would frustrate a reader of screenplays, who just wants to know exactly what they can see on screen, not a whole lot of flowery description. I can define the character going in and out of their heads in a book.

Since there’s no way for the audience to know what’s going on in a character’s head, you can only describe what people can see.

For a screenplay, the above would look a little like this:

INT: VOIGHT HOUSEHOLD/MASTER BEDROOM – DAY

GINGER VOIGHT (40s, plain) tucks her feet under her comforter as a fan hums nearby. She tugs the colorful bedding up a little closer over rumpled pajamas, using the sheets smattered with peace signs to cover the goose bumps on her bare skin.

She reaches for the half-full bottle of Diet Coke sitting on her nightstand. With a swig she attempts to chase away the bags that gather under her eyes before turning her attention to the keyboard sitting on her lap.

She types something, then uses the delete key in equal measure, with a lot more force.

STEVEN VOIGHT (40s, handsome, but wary,) opens the door slowly. Ginger glares his direction.

GINGER
What?

STEVEN
I was going to go get breakfast. Need anything?

GINGER
I’m fine.

STEVEN
You can’t live on Diet Coke alone, hon.

GINGER
I said I’m fine!

STEVEN
(to himself)
Run away... run away...

Once he closes the door behind him, Ginger turns her attention back to her computer. With a snarl, she pounds the delete key five more times.

The cursor blinks on a blank page.

As you can see, I convey the same information in a brand new way, focusing on what can be seen by the audience in the theater. I don’t need to set the stage fully. It’s up to a set designer to do that. I don’t have to worry about minor details. I only need to worry about what defines the character, sets the scene, or moves the story forward.

Therefore converting a screenplay to a novel is basically fleshing out the bits I would have outsourced to other collaborators, even the actors themselves. Everything changes because the perception has changed, which affects everything down to the dialog. I can add stuff. I can direct my characters on the page (a big No No if you're a screenwriter.) I don’t have to worry about concentrating only what people “see.” Granted, “Show Don’t Tell” remains as true as ever no matter what medium you happen to write, though it’s really become the writer version of Randy Jackson’s “It was a little pitchy, dawg,” pat criticism that isn’t particularly constructive.

We’ll probably get to that later, too.

Regardless, you have a lot of room to explore things you didn’t have the space or luxury to explore before. In my novelized version, I included a brand new character, which led to another subplot that still came as a surprise to me, even though I had about the best outline ever thanks to a completed screenplay.

Which brings us back on point. Because I had already done all the prep work to craft the story, there was nothing left to do but write the book. As a result, I finished that first draft of MY IMMORTAL within five weeks, which was a new record for me. I didn’t meander around in Act Two, lost in a confusing labyrinth, without the benefit of any Jim Henson creatures to help me find my way out again.

This was what ultimately converted me to Team Outliner. Not only was it efficient, but it was also liberating. Because I knew what I had to write every day, I could concentrate on all the other stuff, the stuff I didn’t know yet, the stuff that the characters had not yet revealed to me, and let that creative juice flow.

I became an Outliner/Pantser Hybrid.

As such, it hasn’t taken me longer than about four months to write a first draft of a novel since 2004, and that was only because the books in question were darker and/or more emotionally draining. I still have the same benefit of creative discovery I always did, because the thing I learned about outlines is that they are living, breathing entities, just like the characters themselves. They can change and adapt. None of the outlines I’ve written have ever made it exactly to the page, even those that were written as screenplays first. Once the story starts in motion, it will spark to life, creating opportunities to build from all the details you fill in as you write. These are the things you could never predict by crafting an outline, which is why that's not what your outline is for.

An outline simply gives you an overall idea where you’re going. It can be as detailed or cryptic as it needs to be, just to keep the process moving. I prefer to complete an outline all in one sitting, which can be a daunting task in and of itself. I have to run the entire story through my head, putting it together like a puzzle so that I can get from Point A to Point B. For novels, I do this chapter by chapter, with some hints to how the dialog will go, sometimes, if the dialog comes to me, I note it right in the outline.

Here’s an example from FIERCE.

For screenplays, I organize it by act breaks, using page numbers as my guideline. Though the typical wisdom is a three-act structure, I go a step further and break it down into four acts, roughly 25 pages each. Act One: Setup, pages 1-25. Act Two: Conflict leading to midpoint act break, pages 25-50. Act Three: Conflict leading to point of no return/moment of truth, pages 51-75. Act Three: Climax and Resolution, pages 76-100.

Here’s an outline to my most recent screenplay, A LOVELY HAUNTING.

The approaches are different because the means of telling the story are different. But in each scenario, I play the movie (and yes, both mediums I use mental movies) completely out in my head before I ever write one word. This gives me definitive writing goals, broken down in manageable pieces, that make the process of writing a book a lot less daunting.

Like the old saying goes, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

The other benefit of laying out your whole story in front of you is that it allows you to pinpoint wherever there are any plot holes or kinks to fix–or abandon entirely. And like I said, this will change as you write, when you trade what you thought might work to what truly does, and you’ll never really know which is which until you’re pantsing your way through your manuscript,outline or no. An outline gives you a harness to wear, so you don’t fall from your precarious perch on the trapeze, but you still have to perform the stunts.

All an outline really does is ensure that you don’t plummet to a painful death, crushed under the weight of Act Two Maladies you would have seen coming had you peeked ahead. Instead of walking up a darkened staircase where you anticipate where your foot will fall guided by instinct alone, an outline simply gives you a flashlight, so you can see where you're going, even if it's only the next step. This means you can outline as you go as well. There are no hard and fast rules, just whatever works for you as an individual. There is no need for extreme points of view either direction. As long as your method gets you were you need to go, you're good.

So... yes. I get that there are two definitive camps of writers, neither side really enticed to bend towards the other. Every time I bring up outlining to a Pantser, I met with the same vehement resistance I used to use when I was a Pantser myself. I'm not trying to wreck your groove, really. This is just me saying I’ve done both, I’ve seen the value of both.

And I'll tell you this: the more skilled you become completing your projects, the less you need that flashlight. Like I said before, writing a lot means you are learning a lot, and you become a lot more adept in knowing what works and what doesn't before you even put it on the page. Which means that outlines can and do work like training wheels. My last three books were barely outlined at all, I didn't have time to prepare for Devlin Masters. He demanded my immediate, and full, attention from the get-go.

But if you’re a new writer on some crazy-ass deadline, like writing a book from scratch in 30 days, I strongly recommend going into it with an outline of some sort. Spend the entire month of October on it if you have to. Take copious notes. Use index cards for days.

By giving yourself a road map of where to go, I truly believe you will maximize your chances of getting there on time, on schedule and barely bruised at all.

Started First Draft: November 5, 2015 9:35am PST
Paused First Draft: November 5, 2015 10:53am PST
***STEVEN BREAK***
Resumed First Draft: November 5, 2015 11:21am PST
Completed First draft: November 5, 2015 12:11pm PST
Word Count of first draft: 3,495
Completed revisions: November 5, 2015 1:34pm PST
Updated WC: 3,966/17,441

#Nanowrimo Day Four: Mining for Ideas

One of the questions we often get asked as writers is where we come up with our ideas. It’s an important question, because it’s where the root of your story begins. Let’s face it, the reason you write at all is because you have something to say, about the world, about life, about people, about feelings in general. In order to get from the first page of a book to the last, you have to have something driving you.

This starts with your story idea, that little nugget that itches your brain until you have to write just to get it off your back.

It’s a romantic notion, isn’t it? The writer at the mercy of her muse, chased down and tackled every single day until she is forced to write something–anything–just so she can rid all the extra voices in her head.

Not all story ideas are like this, and if professional writers waited around for this particular phenomenon, we’d never get anything done.

Truth is you often have to mine for ideas, carefully picking and choosing where to put your passion. You have to force yourself to fall in love with your ideas and your characters, to train yourself how to race to the computer day after day just to see what they’re up to.

I grew up reading very prolific authors like Stephen King, Danielle Steel, Janet Dailey and V.C. Andrews. They spit out new books on a yearly basis, and it always astounded me how they could come up with so many stories. When I was a young writer, I was still waiting on the Muse to come calling, which she did a couple of notable times, turning my ideas immediately into a passion that I needed to, and wanted to, indulge. The rest of the time my Muse was MIA, which worried me that I might not have what it takes to join the ranks of my favorite writers, whose livelihood depended on writing book after book.

What I didn’t realize then was that the creative muscle is one that grows stronger by flexing. The more ideas you entertain and discard, the more chances you have to land on something that will motivate you enough to invest hours/days/weeks/months–years–of your life on. It’s up to you to bring the passion to your project, by first finding what you’re passionate about.

For me, back then especially, this often started with another passion of mine. Music.

Like I mentioned before, my first book was a novella based on the Barry Manilow song, "Ships." I remember very vividly lying in my single bed that one afternoon, listening to my record player (yes, I said record player,) and really listening to the words in the song.



For those unfamiliar, the song tells the story of an adult male and the complex relationship he had with what appears to be an estranged father. Because I had already seen this play out in my own family, where an adult child meets a parent for the first time, my mind just sort of ran with the idea. It all comes down to one simple question: “What if?” So I asked myself, “What if a man shows up on an adult son’s doorstep, wanting to reconnect after years of absence and silence, and the man wants absolutely nothing to do with him?”

Emotion + conflict = the birth of a story idea. I wanted to answer that question so much, it made me reach immediately for a spiral-bound notebook where I jumped in, both feet, to do exactly that.

I don’t recall exactly how much time it took me to write the story. Some days were harder than other days, because even with this novella written longhand in a notebook, I knew it had to reach a certain number of words to be considered “a real book,” and that involves a lot of skill to build the story and craft the plot. Since these were the days before Google to learn such things, I decided to use the size of the notebook as my goal to complete the story. It was going to be however long the notebook was, and that's the time frame I had to get from asking the question to finally answering it. When I was fourteen, this was what amounted to plotting a story.

Before long I had the complete "book" in my hot little hands, filling that notebook from the first place to the last, with a story that sprang from one simple question.

I didn’t write another novel until five years later, when I was homeless and living out of my car in Los Angeles at the age of nineteen. Once again, music was my motivator.

I was listening to the radio as I sat in the driver’s seat of my then-boyfriend’s (and ultimately first husband’s) old Buick LeSabre.* (*See note at the end.) We used to park behind a Ralph’s* grocery store in Van Nuys, where the forgotten road ran alongside the train tracks. It was not a busy street in the least, which is why we chose it. We could park there without any hassle and no one bothered us, even overnight when we had to put towels in the windows just for a little privacy so we could sleep.

These were the considerations we had to make, rewiring our brains for survival, taking nothing for granted. The thing about homelessness is that you feel absolutely vulnerable 100% of the time. In our world, having money is what makes you have value – what gives you the right to exist, with a place to stay, all your needs met so you can turn your attention from pure survival to actually living.

Not a lot of people really, truly get this, mostly because they’re blessed enough not to live through it.

But when you have no money and no home, you virtually become invisible to the world around you; one that is so preoccupied what you might ask of them that they’d rather not see you at all. (Kind of like certain members of my family, who told me that offering me a place to stay would “encourage dependency.”)

And perhaps that is why when “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses came on the radio that afternoon in 1989, I listened with new ears. Like almost everyone else in 1987, I had listened to Appetite for Destruction until I wore out the grooves in the record (yes, I said record.) I had seen the video more than once, the one where Axl shows up on the mean streets of Los Angeles, playing the character of a clueless kid from the Midwest who was in store for a rude, effin’ awakening the minute he stepped off the bus.



I knew a little bit more about this rude awakening, so my mind began to churn again with, “What If?” If nothing else, it gave me a sense of control when I had none, and that's a very empowering place to be.

What if a young girl runs away from her awful past and lands in Los Angeles because there is nowhere else she could think to go? What if she, too, was some clueless kid, who shows up in the ironically named City of Angels, fresh-faced, naïve, and vulnerable? Someone who faced the terrifying LA streets alone as another nameless, faceless runaway because going back home was the much scarier alternative?

And what if someone crossed her path to help her, to save her, that didn’t look anything at all like what a savior should look like? What if it was a biker, who looked to the world like a rebel at best and a criminal at worst? And what if this biker used that ambiguity to fight both the criminals and the cops, just to protect the innocent and squash the evil that simmers just below the surface in any city?

And what if… that savior was a woman?

This was what made me reach for an ever-present notebook to figure these things out longhand. Not only could I authentically embody the young, clueless girl, but I could also embody the strong, fearless road warrior who decided to protect her.

It, essentially, became a book about salvation. What could possibly be more inspirational to someone who desperately needed saving?

At the time I was attending some classes at a business school. After every lesson was done, I would put in my spare floppy disk (yes, I said floppy disk,) that I used for notes and just fired up the word processor program to fill in any down time I had getting to know these characters who would ultimately become so real to me that they felt like actual friends and family. Actually they were better than friends and family, because they were there for me when I had almost literally been abandoned by most everyone. Aside from my mother, my best friend and my then boyfriend, these fictional people were really the only people in the world who wanted to save me.

I cared about these characters so I cared about their story, so much so that I did take quite a long time to tell it. The bar was set so high I knew I couldn't grab it on the first jump. Granted, I was in the midst of surviving on the mean streets of Los Angeles at the time. Real life interfered all over the place. My mother finally road to the rescue, like she was prone to do, and we all escaped Los Angeles for Fresno, where a whole new set of concerns kept me preoccupied, especially after I found out I was pregnant.

I didn’t finish this book until 1990, where I promptly sent it off for representation only to find out I wasn’t quite ready for that part yet. I didn’t quite reach the bar I had set for myself, evidenced by the heavily edited version the agent sent back to me with a “Thanks but no thanks.”

Just because you finish a book doesn’t mean you’re ready for the big leagues, particularly when it’s your first. No one told me that, so to say I was disappointed to learn that is a whopper of an understatement.

Unlike today, back then I needed to find an agent or publisher to grant me permission to join the ranks of professional writers. I didn’t just get to hit a button and voila… there I was, sitting alongside my idols.

Needless to say, one of the biggest ways to get hung up back then was writing a story idea that wasn’t marketable. Fortunately for me, my story was, as evidenced by the heavily edited manuscript the agent sent back to me. She wouldn't have wasted her time doing that if she didn't think it had merit. It was the execution that failed. I was so embarrassed and ashamed that I had failed my beloved characters that I shelved that project and wouldn’t touch it again until I had proven to myself that I had the goods to write it.

It was 2014 before I completed a whole new draft of CHASING THUNDER, which ultimately got me what I had always wanted most: an agent who was as passionate about the project as I was. She had a buyer for it within a month after I signed with her.

Some ideas land in your brain before you have the ability to do them justice. You have to earn the right to write them. This isn’t an excuse to stop or stall, by the way. It should motivate you to develop the skills that your story deserves, and the only way you’re going to do that is writing. How much you need to write depends on how epic you want your story to be. In between the first draft of CHASING THUNDER and the one that got it sold, I wrote twenty books.

Like my dear friend Hal Sparks says about virginity, “You don’t save yourself for the one. You practice for the one."

Of course, I didn't know all that in the 1990s, when I used my inability to tell the story I wanted to tell as an excuse not to write anything at all ever. I set aside my passion for storytelling to concentrate on being a young mother and new wife. I honestly didn’t have the energy to chase the muse, even if I had known that was what I had to do.

Instead I waited for inspiration to strike. It finally did in 1995, when I ran across an ad for Harlequin or Silhouette, one of those romance publishers, who wanted stories based on the written word. It could be any kind of romance story (suspense, romantic comedy, etc.,) and it could be any kind of written correspondence.

What a great opportunity to ask some questions!

The one that got me motivated to write? “What if a woman moved into a new place and she kept getting the mail of the occupant before her? What if they were postcards, which meant she could read them without violating any privacy? And what if they were romantic postcards that were never signed? What if she fell in love with this man without ever meeting him?”

Because this was an actual publisher who was looking for material, this time I had a word-count goal. These romance novels generally fell around 50,000-65,000 words, which is shorter format than most mainstream fiction.

To my mind, these seemed easier to meet, so I sat at my computer and got going. I had a good idea what needed to happen when, so I was able to finish this particular book within a couple of months.

Of course, I was also going through some personal trauma at the time I first wrote PICTURE POSTCARDS, which had me escaping into my fictional world as a way to cope, to take control in a very powerless situation, but we’ll talk about that more during my “No Excuses” installment.

Because of this trauma, I also wrote what would eventually become THE FULLERTON FAMILY SAGA, based on more depressing and complex questions, like coping with loss and loving two very different men at the same time. These were the questions that haunted into my darkened brain in 1995.

I wouldn’t write another book till years later, when I took a project I had begun in my teens and novelized it. It was the first book I wasn't driven to write, instead it was one I very much decided to write, just to get another completed book under my belt. I didn't wait for inspiration to strike. I very purposefully sat down to craft a marketable idea that would fit neatly into the genre so that I could shop it around.

Passion still played a part, however. Like so much of my material when I was young, UNDER TEXAS SKIES was inspired by music, specifically the Eagles “Desperado” album. For those who know me, the Eagles are one of my favorite bands, landing squarely and securely in the #2 position since I discovered their music in 1983, thanks to a friend of mine.

Though I love their flawless harmonies and their musicianship, what I’ve always admired in particular is Don Henley’s and Glenn Frey’s songwriting skill. They often tell pretty complex stories in a completely poetic and beautiful way. “Lyin’ Eyes,” “The Last Resort,” “Life in the Fast Lane,” “Hotel California,” – all of these songs were self-contained novels in a way, which is why I fell in love with their music so much. My mind was allowed to run free for a few minutes and fill in the worlds that they introduced.

For the “Desperado” album, the guys were darned near operatic, telling a story over the course of all their songs, not just contained within one. I personally thought it should be a musical and set out to write it when I was only sixteen years old.

My fantasy was that one day I’d meet them when the show opened on Broadway, and how cool that would be. (Still would be, frankly.) But after I was done, writing a stage play without any idea how to do that, I knew it wasn’t good enough to show the likes of Don and Glenn. I shelved it and gave up writing for the stage before I could even get started.

Years later, when I wanted to write a book but really didn’t have any new ideas picking at my brain, I decided to revisit that story I wrote around this album. It was, at its core, a romance between a land owner and a drifter, so I had everything I needed to craft a shorter format romance novel. Since I believed that was where I had the best shot to launch my career, I figured it was a good place to start.

This project ultimately became UNDER TEXAS SKIES. (Thank you, Don and Glenn.)

By the time I discovered Nanowrimo in 2004, I had already abandoned novel writing for screenwriting. Well, maybe abandoned isn’t the right word. I hadn’t made much progress breaking down the gates to publication, so I simply decided to throw my energy into trying another angle. Screenwriting has always appealed to me because it’s more minimalist in nature. Since I tend to be a bit more verbose, writing a 100-page screenplay that says everything I need and want to say is the biggest challenge of all. It sounds so much simpler than what it is. The rules are much more defined. The format is a lot more rigid. You don’t get to meander through page after page; you run into place markers every five or ten pages that force you to stay on track.

When I first decided to answer Nanowrimo’s enticing call, I figured there was no better outline anywhere than a screenplay that I had already completed. This is an important part of selecting a story idea for Nanowrimo. To successfully complete a book in 30 days, you kind of need those place markers to keep you on track. These will keep you motivated to keep going, giving you tasks to complete one at a time until you find yourself typing “The End.”

Since this was a love story, I knew I could complete it in the shorter format of 50,000 words.

I keep bringing up word counts because that’s something you need to consider whenever you sit down to write a book. Different genres have different rules. Granted a story isn’t done until it’s done, and you should never bulk up shorter stories into bloated novels just to satisfy a word count.

But if you’re going to market your book, you need to be aware of the accepted standards. Per the Writer’s Digest and Romance Writers of America, some of these work out as follows:

Young Adult: 55,000 – 70,000
Romance: 40,000 – 100,000
Science Fiction/Fantas: 100,000 – 110,000
Mainstream: 80,000 – 90,000
Westerns: 50,000 – 80,000
Middle Grade: 20,000 – 55,000

This gives you a number of options. You can either mine for a story in specific genres that would easily satisfy the 50,000-word requirement of Nano, or you can write whatever the hell you want to write, and if your book isn’t done at the end of November, at least you will have met the word count requirement.

This was how it worked out for me with MY IMMORTAL, which I live-blogged much like I am doing now. I met the 50,000-word count before I finished the book. One I did by November 30. One I didn’t. And it’s okay either way. The objective of Nano isn’t so much to complete the book as much as it is to show you that you can complete 50,000 words in 30 days, which means you could write a solid first draft of more mainstream books within two.

Where people get most hung up is that they think they’re going to have a completed project in a month, and that’s much more daunting. Writing a first draft is just the itty bitty tip of the iceberg. This merely moves you along the game board so you’re a little closer than you would have been otherwise. It's a step in the right direction, but it's still only a step.

Can you complete a solid first draft within a month or two? Yes.

Is it ready to market?

No.

That’s not the point of Nanowrimo. It never was. The point is to get you in the habit of writing so that you can complete a project. You can turn "I wish," into "I did." You can get one step further to your goal of being a published writer, but it's still only going to be one step.

As such, you can keep the marketing aspect in the back of your head, but it shouldn’t be your sole focus, unless you’re an experienced writer who participates in Nano more for the fun and community of it, rather than the educational, skill-building aspect of it. Like we’ve discussed before, it is highly unlikely you’ll have written a polished, completed, publishable bestseller by the end of 30 days. What you’re assembling, really, is a skeleton on which to build, one that will motivate you enough to keep going day after day, so that one book becomes two. Completed projects become careers.

(This can, by the way, lead to a bestselling book. If you can’t wait to see what happens next, imagine how that will work with your readers.)

This is why I recommend picking a project where your passion sustains you. Ask the questions that drive you to the computer so you can figure out the answers. Some will get you over the finish line. Others won’t. The only time I “lost” Nano was when my story ran out before I reached the final word count.

I still finished the first draft within a month, so I personally consider that a win.

Even if it’s your own story that motivates you (memoirs = 80,000 words,) one that you would never sell in a million years because it is a little too raw and a little too real (Fatty: Nanowrimo Project 2006,) you need something to inspire your muse to keep coming around. It’s not a one-way street between the two of you. If you get in the habit of writing, she’ll show up just to see what kind of hijinks you’re getting into.

So choose wisely. You’re going to be eating/drinking/sleeping/talking/writing/obsessing about this idea for the next 30 days. Make it one that inspires you. You’re the first reader of this book, so make it one you’ve always wanted to read but never did, because it could only come from you.

This is the reason you write in the first place. Now get your fanny in that chair and make it happen.

*This asterisk represents a placeholder. I’m not 100% sure that the car in question was a Buick LeSabre or that the grocery store was Ralph's. I'll need to research to get that right, but it doesn't need to be right right now. I’m a stickler for getting things as accurate as possible, I know I’ll have to dig around through my photographs to compare the car in question in order to get this part correct, but those are loose ends I can tie up in the second draft I nitpick for consistency. Instead of using this as an excuse to stop, thus destroying the momentum and getting me out of the writing groove, I’m simply notating it so I can come back to it in the editing process. Nano is all about moving forward. There are plenty of things to fix and repair, but now is not really the time to do it. If I weren’t live-blogging this book, I’d likely not even read the passages after I write them, just so I can keep my focus where it belongs: that very next word that needs to be written. We’ll talk more about this later on; I just wanted to use this opportunity to show you how it works in practice.

Started First Draft: November 4, 2015 12:20pm PST
Completed First draft: November 4, 2015 2:01pm PST
Word Count of first draft: 3,245
Completed revisions: November 4, 2015 3:50pm PST
Updated WC: 3,975/13,429

#Nanowrimo Day Three: Write Like You're Getting Paid for It

From the time I was eleven years old, I wanted to be a professional writer. For those of you who do not know the story, it started as a Halloween assignment, when my very first creative writing assignment was selected for the Wall of Honor. This surprised me at the time, even though I had a history of being an exceptional student, one who was regularly honored at year’s end for my academic performance. As I grew older, these accolades became fewer and fewer, so by the time I was eleven years old, it was a huge freaking deal to be singled out and praised in such a way.

It was such a huge deal that my previous plan, to go to school to become a lawyer, to fight for truth, justice and the American way, flew right out the window.

I wanted that feeling for the rest of my life, where I presented something that I had created from scratch and it was treated it like it was truly special.

Where I was treated like I was truly special.

Since I was a voracious reader at the time, the idea of joining some of my heroes, which, when I was twelve, included such romance icons as Janet Dailey, seemed like the ultimate dream come true. By the time I was fourteen, I completed my first novella, a story titled “My Father and Me,” inspired by Barry Manilow’s song “Ships.” This made the idea of writing for a living even more intoxicating. I regularly created for fun, developing my own soap opera around a randy bunch of Barbies that lived the lives I could only dream of living. (There may or may not have been a character named Ginger, who may or may not have married a character named Steve Perry.)

I had this idea that I could play for a living. I could craft these wonderful stories into books, sell them far and wide and become a huge success, famous of course, but the kind of famous where I could still go to the grocery store without being stopped, photographed or recognized. (The fictional me may or may not have been plagued by the paparazzi.)

I held fast to this dream all the way through my early twenties, when I started to shop around my ever so genius material, only to learn that cracking open the gate to a professional writing career wasn’t quite as easy as I had planned. I thought for sure that I was special enough to make it happen; everyone I had ever shown my work to beforehand had reinforced this belief.

Though it was hard, both to finish a book worthy of representation/publication and finding anyone who was willing to stick their necks out for me to buy (or sell) my work, I held fast to my dream of one day being a professional writer, who could make a living doing what I wanted to do.

That making a living part is the key. Like I told you before, the odds are stacked against both traditionally published and independently published authors, a majority of whom barely make enough to keep themselves stocked in caffeine, liquor and one bullet... just in case... much less enough to pay for groceries, rent or one freaking electric bill. What I dreamed for years on end, to write at my leisure, to produce books that fans clamored for, to travel far and wide to exciting places as part of my glamorous career as a renowned author, is basically a fairy tale for most writers, myself included.

I began to see the cracks in the veneer when I hit my thirties, and I decided, in the dawn of this new millennium, to dip my toe in the shark-infested waters of screenwriting.

The idea had been presented to me in the 1990s by a former agent, who was told again and again that my writing style was more visual and might be better suited to the screen. At the time, I was perfectly content to write romance novels. I thought that was something I could definitely pull off. Writing a screenplay, a hundred or so pages that someone would want to invest millions of dollars to bring to life, was daunting to me.

Basically I didn't believe I could do it.

In 1999, I met my second husband, Steven. He was a total movie buff, who generally saw all new releases when they hit the theater. He had racked up more than 500 points on his AMC card, so much of our courtship was spent inside a darkened theater. This was a new experience for me. From the time my father passed away in 1980, my life had been devoid of frills like this. I grew up in the 1980s without my MTV simply because we couldn't afford cable. Needless to say, I can count the number of movies I saw in the theater in those 29 years on two hands, with several fingers left over.

So, after meeting Steven and living in his world for a bit, I began to embrace the excitement of movies in a whole new way. I loved going to movies on opening night, sharing the experience with total strangers, and somehow always having the experience enhanced as a result.

I told Steven then what the agent had said, and he was totally for it. He had read my stuff beforehand and thought I was talented enough to pull it off, even when I wasn’t so sure. For the next few years, until I wrote my first screenplay in 2002, he was a constant voice in my ear telling me not only could I do it, but that I totally should.

Unbeknownst to him, he was the first person to shatter some of the illusions I harbored about being a professional writer.

He was the one who told me that even if I sold a script to Hollywood, there was a pretty good chance that they would change it from what I wanted. A screenplay is one part of a bigger collaboration, where directors and actors use what is on the page as a guide to the story they want to tell.

In other words, someone else wanted to play with my Barbies, and I wasn’t entirely sure I was comfortable with that. Would they take my beloved characters, like MJ from CHASING THUNDER, and make her some bimbo, when she was supposed to be an icon of feminine badassery?

Hence why it took so long to write my first spec script. There are two basic types of scripts; those you are hired to write and those you write because you have a brilliant story to tell. If you're writing on “spec,” you aren't going to get paid unless you can find someone willing to invest to bring it to life. The odds of selling one are not in your favor. Even a conservative estimate of 50,000 spec scripts written a year only yields a success rate of 50 or so selling each year, and of those, the number shrinks even more how many actually are filmed, much less make it to a theater.

Most screenwriters use their spec scripts as calling cards to get hired for jobs, where producers already have an idea they think is worth investing in, they just need to find the one hungry writer who is willing to work efficiently and well to give them that initial blueprint to follow.

Indeed, this is how it happened for me. By 2005, I had written four spec scripts, one of which would eventually turn into my novel, MY IMMORTAL. I was told by another screenwriter that a director he knew wanted a vampire story they could set in Romania, where this particular director was from. Since I had used a fictional place in my story, I figured we could easily adapt it if need be, so I sent it over. The producer wasn’t that turned on by the Gothic landscape for my tragic love story, but he really loved my main character, a reincarnated vampire who was born with psychic ability.

He asked me instead to write something more urban, something that could be set in Romania, with a similar character. He pitched the idea to me as “Se7en” meets “Interview with a Vampire,” and explained he already had a producer and a studio interested. It was a low-budget affair, but I didn’t care. This was my big break to actually get paid for what I wrote.

I began my research into Romania, Bucharest and vampire lore. Within a relatively short period of time, I had a first draft for this new project, TASTE OF BLOOD, where some tabloid reporters head to Romania to “investigate” (i.e., exploit,) a serial killer who drains his or her victims of blood, to simulate a vampire kill.

Since my research indicated that Romania had been known to wake up psychic abilities, thanks to where it sits on the planet, I decided to make my heroine, Reese Mackenzie, clairvoyant. And I decided to kick that up a few thousand notches the minute she stepped off the plane.

The director loved it. The producer loved it. Even the studios loved it. I was on my way!

Or… so I thought.

In writing this screenplay, I got a crash course on what it means to write for a living. If someone is paying you money for what you write, you kinda have to let them play around with your Barbies, even if they are doing something completely unexpected with them.

The first lesson? Budget restraints. You don’t really factor that in when you’re writing a spec script. You create the world you want to portray and just assume the Powers That Be will make all these scenes happen. But when you’re writing a small-budget screenplay, you have to keep that in the forefront of your mind.

For instance, I crafted a pretty intense scene in the subway only to be told that adding a subway scene in the movie would rack up the cost, since it comes with very specific shooting challenges. Out that scene went. Same with one of the fire scenes and the car chase. I had to pick and choose which scenes would be worth the cost paid to bring them to life, which teaches you all you need to know about efficient storytelling. I had to cut all extraneous characters from the script, because every speaking role is another actor you have to pay, which adds to the bill. If a character says anything, it has to mean everything.

And I was expected to roll with these punches, producing new drafts very quickly, while the interest was hot in the project. Whenever the studio wanted to cut cost and reduce the budget, I had to amend the screenplay yet again. Overall I wrote five drafts in as many months, which may explain why the breakneck pace of Nanowrimo has never really intimidated me.

Ultimately that story, though optioned, was shelved when the studio decided to pull the funding. Despite all that work I did, virtually for free, I was no closer to adding “professional” to my resume than I was before. (I ended up writing TASTE OF BLOOD as a novel, during the 2010 Nano ironically enough. I published it in 2011, because girlfriend is gonna get paid. Trust.)

The wealth of information I learned from the experience, however, was priceless.

In 2010, after a chronic illness left me unable to work a traditional 9-5 job in a brick-and-mortar business, I had a life-changing conversation with a friend of mine who just so happens to be a writer herself.

I met her in 1996 or thereabouts, when we both worked for the same company. She became my steadfast cheerleader, who encouraged me to write more, write a lot, try to sell it, even tackle screenplays. She believed I could do it.

By 2010, she had carved herself a writing career by writing non-fiction, which is a hustle all its own. But the hustle was necessary. Like me, she couldn’t work a traditional 9-5 job. Her son needed intensive medical care, which meant she had to be around for him as much as possible. This became her impetus to become a professional writer: she had no choice. There was no plan B.

“No Plan B” stayed with me for the next few months. When the opportunity to apply to become a freelance writer passed my way in June of that year, I took it. I was even more jazzed when I was accepted. At long last I could get paid to write.

Granted it was non-fiction. I didn’t really get to play around in the sandbox. But I got to write and I got paid for it, which was the first step in the right direction.

Freelance work was much like working in the film industry. I was expected to produce complete projects quickly. Whenever I selected an article to write, I had five days to produce a finished product, which would then go to an editor. If they found nothing wrong with it, it was published immediately and I got paid. If they found errors or wanted to tweak it to make it publication worthy, I got two passes before the article was released back into the pool for another writer to grab. If that happened, I got paid bupkis.

Thus created the real need to get it right the first time, and as quick as I could. As a new writer for this company, I was allowed to pull ten articles at a time, which meant I could virtually write my own paycheck if I was willing to put in the work.

After years and years of writing for free, I was so willing to put in the work.

And it was work. I pumped out articles, some without even having any interest at all in the topic. When you have bills to pay, you don’t get to choose. And you most certainly don’t get to play. I finally got to write for a living only to realize that it really was work. It was a job just like any other job. When I worked at an insurance company, I was expected to work overtime, processing as many claims as possible as quickly and correctly as possible. The better I did this, the more I got paid with bonuses, OT pay, and raises. It was all about quality and volume.

This would suit me well when I decided to self-publish in 2011, where I took all these lessons with me.

Let me be the first to tell you that there is no hustle like that of a self-publisher. You’re not just a mere writer anymore. You wear two hats now. You’re also a publisher, which means what you do is a business. This has nothing to do with being greedy or opportunistic or – that dreaded four-letter-word – a hack. You have your eye on the bottom line because you have to. The buck stops with you, literally. That’s your job. And if you’re successful, you can bring in an income. You just have to be ready to hustle along every other publisher selling their books in the same convoluted market.

Not too long ago, a writer published a piece, offering some advice for new indies, suggesting that you have to publish four books a year to stay relevant. There are thousands upon thousands of books released every year, and for many genres, like the romance genre, a lot of unknowns get a big bump around the time of the release, only to get buried under more successful authors who have already run the gauntlet and cultivated a staunch, devoted fan base. To compete with them, you need to publish new material. Fans of romance won’t wait around for you. There are too many books to be excited about, to gush and swoon over, and if you want to keep up, you better werk. *Snap*

Another author found this advice distressing. This author, whose primary income does NOT come from her writing, suggested what so many often do: that quick writing is crap, and, essentially, you’d be better of writing nothing at all than write a “bad book.”

If you really want to take the process seriously, anyway.

I already took issue with this in previous entries, so I won’t rehash why I think that’s complete and total bullshit. All I will say is that this author doesn’t understand the profession of writing, and most certainly doesn’t understand the business of publishing. When you claim to be a self-published writer, you’re not just some romantic vision of creative brilliance, waiting oh so longingly for your Muse to hand-deliver your next masterpiece on her schedule. You’re a publisher. You have your own schedule. And while there is room for creative genius, there are also more practical concerns, like keeping up with an ever-changing industry where the only rule that counts is that what worked last year won’t work this year.

You’re constantly changing and adapting, and, if you’re making any money at all doing it, you’re writing. All. The. Time.

That’s what it means to be a professional writer. This is a job. If you’re self-published, it’s two. If you’re talented, dedicated and lucky, you can break into that top 20% of writers who make over a grand a year. You can even sustain yourself, like I was very fortunate to do for several years. But this is fundamentally a sales job, where it is feast or famine. You have to be willing to hustle. You have to embrace it. You have to work hard, long hours for which you will never be truly compensated. When you hit publish on your new book, it’s going to take a lot of sales to compensate you after the fact for all the work you put into it, and whether you do or don’t is a crap shoot even if you’ve been successful in the past.

I mentioned the film business earlier. I watched a documentary many years ago that really drove the idea home that show business is still a business. And, much like publishing, it is one that fails more often than it succeeds. Per this documentary, out of every ten movies, only four make any money, and only one is a blockbuster.

That means that half of your darts will miss the bull's eye, no matter how finely you sharpen them.

This is why publishing and show business is a numbers game. Whether your release is successful or flops hard, you don't have time either to rest on your laurels or bask in the praise and success, or wallow in the pity. You need to turn your attention to your next project, so you can keep the momentum going - or recoup the losses.

I’m pretty sure you can see now why I happened to bring this topic up in relation to Nanowrimo. Like we discussed yesterday, Nano gets a lot of flak for setting up “unrealistic” expectations for writers, one that you can write a book at all in a month, and two, that it would be worth the time and effort it took to write it.

Honestly, if you want to be a working writer, I think there’s nothing that prepares you better for the hustle ahead, particularly if you need to sell your work to a publisher. You’re going to get edits and input from people who will virtually withhold your paycheck until you concede a little creative control. You’re going to be expected to roll with those changes and produce subsequent drafts, and you’re not going to be given a whole lot of time to do it. When there’s money on the line, nobody has the time to wait for you to pull a lightning bolt out of your keister. You may have to confer directly with the gods to channel your brilliance, but they have deadlines.

If you want to get paid, you’re going to have to meet them.

My advice? Write like you’re getting paid for it, even when you’re not.

I’ve known many bloggers who have dipped their toes in the self-publishing pool. To my mind, they are better prepared than anyone to turn their “hobby” into a career. Many readers are frustrated writers deep down, and bloggers find their own way to express themselves, constantly on crazy deadlines where they have to read dozens of books just to keep themselves relevant. They read quick. They write quick. They move on to the next project. This, in a nutshell, is what it means to be a working writer.

They likely get paid peanuts to do so, too, if anything at all. Many writers find themselves in the same boat, advised to blog and build community within their fan base so that they can sell more books. And we fit it in wherever we can, even when we have paid writing to do. That's what it means to be a working writer. You write to work, and you work All. The. Time. This is whether you're paid or not or whether you feel like it or not. Deadlines are deadlines and your integrity to meet them is part of your brand. Your fans believe in you, they have faith in you, and you have to deliver your best every single time you sit down to write for them.

It. Is. A. Job. There's a lot of hard work involved, and some of it actually feels like work. When you're first starting out, all of it does.

If you really want to make this your career, you gotta cowboy up. There are far too many hungry writers fighting for every single dollar. (Actually, that’s a generous description… they’re fighting for every penny.) When that producer tells you that he wants a draft within a week, you say “No problem,” and you deliver. You have to, because if you don’t, someone else will. Someone down in the mines, all dirty, grungy and starving, who knows that in order to get anywhere they don’t wait around for “goodness” to happen or lightning to strike. They reach for a hammer and call lightning from the sky, because they have to.

Because they can.

This is your chance to dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Embrace the whole of the experience, not just the good bits where you’re sitting on some beach somewhere sipping a Mai Tai. (At least, if the ads on Facebook to become a best-selling author are to be believed anyway.)

Learning how to work with deadlines gets you ever closer to making your dream to become a professional writer come true. Setting time apart in your day to write, and giving yourself a set goal to get to, teaches you the discipline you’re going to need to turn a hobby into a career, one that weeds out the meek and the timid just by virtue of the gauntlet you must run in order to earn your place at a very crowded table.

Only career-minded folks will cross that finish line November 30. Hobbyists have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to strike. They write for the sheer joy, and there's nothing at all wrong with that. Some people don't want to pervert their art by turning into something as base as mundane as a commercial product. They want to play in the sandbox, on their terms.

Nano is not really built for them. Nano is all about crossing that definitive finish line with a finished product in your hand, which trains you, ultimately, to produce content on a deadline. There’s nothing all that joyful about a looming deadline where you’re expected to produce a lot of content really quickly. It's stressful and daunting and frustrating and exhausting.

It's also totally worth it. There is value in seeing how far you can push yourself, and just how much you can accomplish.

If you want to take this and make it work for you, you absolutely can. A first draft in a month isn’t some miraculous feat. Good books can and have been written in short periods of time. Since it's been done before, this means it can be done again. If your livelihood depends on a solid, completed project, you will make it so, whether it’s a blog, a 100-page screenplay, a 2500-word article or a 50,000k-book. This is business as usual for most people who are lucky enough to claim that they do this for a living. Remember: the key words there are “for a living." That means it’s not your hobby. It’s not some random windfall you occasionally enjoy. It means you have bills to pay and the wolf is at the door, so you better plant your ass in the seat and write like your life depends on it.

Because it kinda does.

This is your training ground for that.

Pick up your hammer. Call down the thunder. Make it so.

Started First Draft: November 3, 2015 8:38am PST
Completed First draft: November 3, 2015 10:16am PST
Word Count of first draft: 3,493
Completed revisions: November 3, 2015 11:21am PST
Updated WC: 4,156/9,356

#NaNoWriMo Day Two: Great Expectations

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced when it comes to Nanowrimo has nothing to do with producing a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. I’m not saying that to be pompous, by the way. Each writer is different, some take longer than others and I’m blessed to be one of those who can produce content quickly. One, I’m a fast typist. Two, my brain operates at accelerated speeds on a good day, much less when I’m creating. Three, I’m a tad obsessive-compulsive when it comes to reaching specific daily goals. I’m a bit like Dr. Sheldon Cooper when I can’t “finish” something. It just tickles my brain until I have to get it done so I can check it off.



I'm the kind of writer who will obsessively sit at a computer for twelve hours straight, typing until my hands curl, never stopping to eat, barely stopping to use the bathroom, to race my way towards the finish line, a caffeine-riddled, delirious mess. There have been days my family hasn't even seen me until I emerge from the bedroom/office, a bleary-eyed zombie with half her brain oozing from her ears.



I accept the time it takes to do the task. And I know that the only way I can get things done is by taking that time and just doing the work. None of that has ever, really, been the issue.

What bothers me most about Nano is that people who know nothing about the process hijack it in order to shame writers for employing different tactics to do the very same work. Most of the time the shamers aren’t even novelists, which makes the criticism even more unfair. It really chaps my hide when people who don’t really do anything criticize those brave souls who dare to do anything.

Therefore a necessary chapter in this Nano experiment has to address the expectations we all bring to the table. You need to know what Nano is every bit as much as you need to know what it isn’t.

Like I said yesterday, Nanowrimo has drawn quite a bit of criticism over the years by those who believe that a great book simply cannot be written in a short period of time. It's just impossible. Each precious word we brilliant writers write must be hand-delivered to us from the gods, transcribed with a magical golden pen that only seems to spit out a handful or so perfect words per day, if that.

Per the detractors, the evidence doesn't lie.

“Harper Lee’s entire career was based on one masterpiece, not some prolific churning out of inferior material. One beautiful book is worth so much more than dozens of mediocre ones. What’s WRONG with you?”

Okay, I'm exaggerating (kinda.) But it doesn't matter anyway because like most blanket statements, this ridiculous assumption basically judges all writers and their content in the same way, as if we were all the same, which we’re not. We’re not supposed to be. To create a wealth of interesting, diverse, beautifully individualistic works of art, we all need to be interesting, diverse, beautifully individualistic people. Such assertions always try to color us with the same brush. Like all stereotypes, this is as inaccurate as it is unfair.

The only truth that can be said about a great book is that it is written one word at a time, kind of like every other book that has ever been written… even the bad ones. Some writers are so afraid of writing a bad book that they never write anything at all, which is one of the reasons that Nano exists. You have to be willing to wade through the crap in order to discover the brilliance.

Does this work for every writer? Of course not. It’s not supposed to. This is why I don’t go around telling people that they should do Nano. If they want to, then great. My motto has always been to find what works for you and just go for it, no hesitation - no apology.

Only you get to decide what type of writer you want to be. (And that's a good thing.)

Yes, Harper Lee had one or two books in her soul to publish, which she likely mined thoughtfully to build her brick wall slowly, carefully, to stand the test of time. Or, that's the accepted wisdom, anyway. Because she dared only to publish the one book, clearly it must have been gold from the get-go. Yet oddly, when it first fell into the hands of an editor, it was considered unfit for publication, despite the sparks of brilliance they could see peaking from behind every line.

It’s a romantic notion to believe that she knew every single word was gold as she wrote them, chosen purposefully for that reason. I would imagine that she had no idea her book would go on to win a Pulitzer, regarded as a classic through the ages. She simply had a story to tell and she decided to tell it. Like every other book, even the greats still have to be crafted and molded to turn them into the masterpieces we ultimately revere.

"Well, that's just the point, Ginger. She needed time to process, to cultivate. She couldn't produce a great book quickly. Again. What is WRONG with you?"

Absolutely nothing at all. I understand the difference between writing a book and publishing a book, since I kinda happen to do both. I have never once uploaded a first draft, even in blog posts, which often go through a dozen revisions before I ever publish them for the world to see.

One thing I've noticed: Nobody gives a flying fig how long it takes me to complete a first draft, as long as the end product is good. Nano never promised to give you a polished, publishable draft after 30 days. I think most writers understand this, particularly if we're not new to it. To assume we don't, that we're all somehow new and clueless because we can do it faster, is ridiculous.

The only thing you can expect from Nano is to produce the first draft of a book, which you will learn is done one word at a time, just like any other book. Putting a time limit on the first draft only means that there is a time limit on the first draft. Prolific writers who have more books to write complete this process a little faster than other writers. It doesn’t mean they’re better. It doesn’t mean they’re worse. It just means they feel they can get it done within a specific time frame. That's all.

Who the hell can determine one is better than the other unless they actually read the books once they've been made fit for publication? And if the readers enjoy it… who gets to tell them otherwise?

Yes, it ticks me off. Unfair things usually do.

It’s also unfair to assume just because someone writes a book in 30 days that they’re going to immediately upload said first draft for the masses and contribute to the overwhelming glut of material already available, which grows by the day. This is both short-sighted and ridiculous, and honestly I find it insulting.

They assume, also unfairly, that just because a book is written quickly that it is somehow easier to write than a book that took years to produce, which automatically makes any of us who do it cheaters and hacks who don't fully honor the process. Remember, the process of putting each word on the page is pretty much the same for every single writer. To force or wedge those words out of your soul on a regular basis doesn’t mean it comes any easier for the prolific writer than it does the writer who decides only to write nothing but pure gold from the start – as if there are any writers out there that make that decision.

The thing about brilliance is that it happens like a lightning strike. Have you ever tried to take a photo of a lightning strike? Next time you’re in a thunderstorm, I suggest you give it a shot. Sit there in the safety of your home or car as you wait out both good timing and instinct to capture this elusive photograph. Try to anticipate when it will come. What you’ll find instead is that you’re going to take a lot of “fail” shots way before you “accidentally” land upon the perfect shot, and you wouldn’t catch it at all if you weren’t snapping away all duds.

Show me the person who uploads every single selfie they take, without going through and “editing” the ones that make them look the best.

You really think we treat our books, our babies, any differently?

We’re waiting for the lightning, same as you.

I’ll go you one further. I’ll bet if you attempt to take lightning photos more than once, you’ll get a lot better at anticipating when that strike might actually come, so that you can anticipate how to use your particular camera to capture it.

See, that’s the thing about instinct. It is a skill you can hone through repetition, like muscle memory.

The more you try to capture that lightning strike, the more successful you’ll inevitably be. You master something by doing something, and for writers, this means planting your butt in the seat and writing one little ol’ word after the other. Nano simply provides incentive for writers to do that, so I’m not entirely sure why the process is so derided.

If you want to write a book, and you think you can produce 50,000 words in a month, I say more power to you. I’m not going to stand in your way. A writer writes. I’d much rather you participate in the craziness of Nano and actually produce a book than tell me for years on end about your precious masterpiece that is no closer to done years after you started it. Remember, a writer writes. The only true hacks I've ever seen are the ones who get off on just talking about it.

And I say that generally with no judgment. You do you. Each writer is different so their process is different, and I’m not one to judge the process. Like I already told you, I began my career much in the same way as the critics of Nano did. I waited on perfection to somehow strike. Without having done the hard work to make it so, I expected to be skilled enough to shoot lightning out of my ass somehow – though I never really made a true habit of writing and producing.

I depended on chance so much that I might has well have been playing the lottery. To succeed at anything you have to risk failure. You have to be ready and willing to face plant every once and a while.

I'll give you an example.

In the summer of 1979, when I was nine years old, there was one thing I wanted above all else. I wanted to learn how to ride a bicycle. My sister’s old discarded Schwinn sat in the garage, pretty, purple and unused, which I personally considered a sin. At nine, that bike looked like a ticket to freedom. I had seen all the other kids in the neighborhood cruising around on their bikes, free as little birds to explore, to discover, to be independent.

I wanted this.

Unfortunately for me, there were a couple of barriers in my way. One, my mother had never learned to ride a bike, so she would be unable to teach me. She also worked a full-time job to support the family, so even if she had known how to, it wouldn’t have benefited me much.

Likewise my dad, who was much older than my mom, was retired and on disability, so he wasn’t able to teach me either.

Never one to accept such limitations, I finally took that bike out back to our alley, where I could teach my own darn self how to ride it. I decided at the grand ol’ age of nine that waiting for independence was about the stupidest thing ever. So I didn’t.

I got on that bike and I stayed on until I could figure out how to ride it, without the benefit of training wheels. I don’t remember everything about those training sessions, but I think it’s safe to assume I didn’t just hop on and mosey down the road with the perfect skill that comes only by learning what not to do first. I think it’s fair to say that I fell. A lot.

Funny how I don't remember that part. The one part that we're all afraid of, of failing, of looking like a fool, of being anything less than perfect, doesn't even jog my memory at all. Instead I treated those imperfections like the stair steps they were. I learned from that failure, and by the end of the summer of 1979, I was tooling all over the neighborhood on my sister’s old purple bike, independent, free… successful.

To succeed greatly, you have to be willing to risk greatly. Because of this, there will be many people who will tell you that what you’re doing is insanity, and that you can’t do it, or you shouldn’t. The way I see it, if you really, truly want to do anything, you should do it even if people try to stand in your way. (This, of course, excludes criminal or hurtful behavior.) But if you want to write a book, write the dang book. If you want to capture lightning in a photograph, snap away. Do what they tell you cannot be done, because their bogus rules were meant to be challenged. It’s called human ingenuity, which is the root of all progress. It’s a pretty great thing.

Can you write a book in 30 days? Yes. You can. Should you? YES! You should! Why? Because that is just one more attempt to capture brilliance the same way you photograph lightning. You have to be willing to do the work.

You'll never write a brilliant book unless you're actually writing.

This is what Nano is there to show you. It’s not teaching you how to be a best-selling success; like I told you before, there’s no one can promise you that. It’s teaching you how to be a working writer by producing content and lots of it on a deadline, and that’s a helluva lot harder. One is outside of your control. The other is completely within it. That means there’s nothing stopping you but you.

It’s a scary thing to kick off the training wheels of excuses and accept full responsibility of what you can do. By no coincidence, it’s also the most liberating.

This challenge helps you hone that skill, whether you successfully complete it or not. You’re still learning to place one word after the other. The more you do this, the better at this you will get. It’s inevitable. This is your training ground. This is where you go to grow. This is where, “I want to be a writer,” or “I want to write a book,” turns into, “I freaking am a writer,” and, “Look at this book. I wrote this!”

Again, why people deride the process is beyond me.

Talent can take you far as a writer, but the rubber doesn’t meet the road until you apply skill and sheer will. There’s nothing to it but to do it. As mystical and magical as we writers make the process sound, writing is no different than anything else. You master it by doing it. Not thinking about it. Not wishing for it. Not waiting around for your Muse like a powerless conduit. You can sink a basketball on the first shot, but that doesn’t make you an athlete. To repeat that magic trick, you have to train.

You have to write a lot to learn how to write well. Doing the work, putting in the time, honing your skill, training your mind… these are the things that will make you a writer, and – if we treated writing like any other occupation on planet earth – it would suggest that you’re a damned good one, too. If I’m going to have brain surgery, I’m going to want the one who has had some experience, not just the first guy out of medical school.

Though they will try to tell you otherwise, chasing impossible deadlines doesn’t mean you value the process any less. You treat writing like a job. If you really want to make it your job, that’s a good thing.

It’s a necessary thing.

Now, these critics do have a point about new writers who, excited now that they have actually completed a book, publish books before they’re ready. This phenomenon is not exclusive to Nanowrimo, but they like to use it as a scapegoat regardless. Again, it’s because for some reason, treating writing like a job shades you in the minds of many as a “hack,” or someone who simply wants to get rich quick by publishing a book.

Anyone who thinks you will get rich quick simply by writing a book quick and publishing it even quicker is sadly, sadly mistaken. And deluded.

I'm not here to blow sunshine up your butt. I'll tell you the truth, even if it's not pretty. Of independently published writers, 80% make $1000 annually or less. (Note: that's about the same number of Nanowrimoers who don't complete the task yearly.) Of traditionally published writers, about half make $1000 annually or less. Any “overnight” success stories that you see are always, always, always the exception and not the norm. And of those rare success stories, I would gather very few did so on their very first book.

Not even cracking that list are the ones who did it on the unedited first draft of their first book.

I don’t consider these folks my “competition,” and neither should you. I’m not aiming to hang among the lowest fruit on the tree, which is why honing my skill is so freaking important to me.

This is the true merit of Nano, not some launch pad into instant fame and glory. If that’s what you’re looking for, then Nano is probably not the challenge for you. Suffice it to say, anyone who thinks writing and publishing a bestseller is an “easy way to get rich,” likely won’t be around at the end anyway.

As anyone who has actually participated will tell you, there’s nothing easy about it. Which is kind of the best Nanowrimo lesson of all. A lot of people want to write, as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of eager participants that sign up for Nanowrimo. But, on average, only around 20% or less of participants actually complete the challenge.

Of those, I would think that the number of starry-eyed newbies and the opportunistic hacks would be exceptionally low in number.

Anyone who thinks Nano teaches you some sort of shortcut to the process has clearly never done it, though I would definitely encourage them to try. Maybe then they wouldn’t rain all over our parade like they had any right to do so.

So it’s Day Two. We’re all a little starry-eyed and optimistic at this point, because the possibilities are endless, which is what I love most about Nanowrimo.

But here’s what you can truly expect for the rest of the month. You’re going to work hard. You’re going to get frustrated. You’re going to run up against all kinds of obstacles to complete the task, the main one being, “Did I really think I could write a book in a month?”

The good news is that you can do it, even if – especially if – it hurts. The bad news is it probably won’t make you rich and famous. You won’t be able to publish your newborn baby on December 1st and be a millionaire by Christmas. In fact, all you’ll really have to show for your November is a completed first draft. This may or may not turn into a published book, which some snobs won't even touch because it's tainted with Nanowrimo anyway.

Spoiler alert: It’s still worth it.

Now let’s do this.

Started First Draft: November 2, 2015 10:00am PST
Completed First draft: November 1, 2015 11:26am PST
Word Count of first draft: 2,701
Completed revisions: November 2, 2015 12:56pm
Updated WC: 3,349/5,111

It's November 1, which can only mean one thing... #NaNoWriMo

Good morning, kids, and welcome to November 1! For many writers, this date is a pretty exciting one, because they’re about to embark on their own hero’s journey, where they turn “I wish,” into “I did.”

This is the magic of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, as it’s more affectionately dubbed.

Why we share such affection for this crazy month is a mystery. To pull off such a remarkable feat, we must complete a book, from scratch, in the limited time frame of 30 days. That it comes smack dab in the middle of a holiday month and, for me at least, a birthday month, means that most of us will cram whatever writing we can wherever we can, amidst all the real-world distractions.

The objective for NaNoWriMo sounds simple enough. Write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Broken down, that’s about 1667 words per day towards your goal. For writers like Stephen King, who recommend a set number of words we should be writing daily anyway, this pace isn’t all that break-neck… until you actually have to sit down at your computer and write the words. Some days the words don’t come. Some days, you have to carve them out with a dull butter knife just to form a coherent sentence. Some days, it’s daunting enough to write a grocery list. So what sounds like a simple thing, adding a few hours to your day to write 1667 words, often is quite the struggle.

Of the hundreds of thousands of intrepid writers who begin this journey, only a small percentage ever “win,” which is to say they finished at least 50,000 words by November’s end. Per Wikipedia, in 2014, 325,142 people participated in the event, but only 58,917 completed it, which is a little over 18%.

This is not a journey for the fainthearted.

I have participated in NaNoWriMo since 2004, where I wrote my novel via my MySpace blog, just to see if I could pull it off. I did, which was a huge accomplishment for me. Back then, when I wasn’t writing full-time, I had only written about four full-length novels over the course of thirteen years, thanks to full-time jobs, raising a family, falling in and out of love, and managing life in general.

This is the way a lot of people think it should work. They think that novels must simmer and percolate, each word chosen carefully by the steadfast wordsmith who would never, in her wildest dreams or worst nightmares, dare write the sheer and utter crap that must be mined in order to complete a book on such a breakneck deadline.

But the truth is that nothing prepared me for my career as a full-time writer quite like Nanowrimo.

The truth is, when you’re an author who depends on what you write to live, to survive… to eat… you learn how to write per the seemingly outrageous deadlines given to you by people who don’t have to sit down at that computer and carve each carefully chosen word out of their arse with a dull butter knife. Editors, publishers, producers and fans all want the same thing – a completed project in their hand.

If you’re one of the 18% who can pull it off, Nanowrimo teaches you how to get from the starting gate to the finish line.

Over the past eleven years, I have participated in Nanowrimo nine times. I “won” eight times. The only time I didn’t cross the finish line was when the book I was writing ended five thousand words before the cut-off. (It was middle-grade book.) Thanks to Nanowrimo, I no longer waited for a wild hair to start a book; I hit the ground running with a definite goal and a battle plan to make it happen. We’re hard-wired to want to win things, which is why the way Nano works is so genius. Because what it takes to win is so simple, that’s even more genius.

Simply write 1667 words a day. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.

No matter what process a writer uses to complete a book, the basic work to do so is rather universal. Just put one word in front of the other. We’re building a brick wall, essentially, and every word is a brick to use. If you give yourself a goal of how many bricks you’re going to lay per day, eventually, when enough time has elapsed, you’re going to be able to stand back and see the bigger picture. For Nano, this is a book with your name on it.

It’s going to take some work; I am not going to lie. There are going to be some days when you’re exhausted and everything in the world that can go wrong in your life will, but your incomplete manuscript will whisper in your ear all month long, “We can do this. Just sit down and write.” Whether you will or are even able to answer that call remains to be seen. But having that deadline looming on November 30 like a bright neon Vegas sign that can be seen from outer space often forces you to make those harder decisions just to get the job done.

This is an amazing education of what will be expected of you when you become a full-time, professional writer. If that’s your ultimate goal, I really can think of no better training ground.

Now, there are those who disparage this writing marathon, who believe that a few hundred thousand writers typing like crazy to meet such a deadline only adds to the pile of sludge we all have to navigate since the birth of self-publishing (which, let’s be honest, was a tricky minefield even before self-publishing became the “norm.”) These people miss the point entirely. If you think you’re going to have a marketable book within thirty days, you’re deluding yourself, particularly if you’re a brand new writer.

All Nano sets out to show you is that you can complete a writing goal. This is only the very first little baby step to get you on your way.

But it is a very necessary baby step. You’re never going to launch your career as a writer if you can’t finish a book. You can have ideas for days on what kinds of stories you’d tell, but until you actually do what it takes to tell them, you’re nothing but someone with a bunch of ideas.

To be a writer, you must write. To be a professional author, you must have completed books to sell. Otherwise you’re just paid to talk about how you’d like to be a writer, and that’s not the same thing, no matter what some authors might try to do to circumvent the process. (Looking at you, James Frey.)

So here we are, November 1st, the starting gate. You have an idea. You’ve always wanted to write a book, and 50,000 words isn’t all that daunting when you consider that most mainstream novels are 80,000 words or more.

All you have to do to “win” Nano is to write 50,000. That’s 1667 words a day.

I’ll make a bold claim here. I think you can do it. I don’t know you. I don’t know your particular skill or where you are as a writer. I don’t know what your idea is for a book, or what your life looks like in order to carve out the time to write it. All of that is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that if you put one word in front of the other, with a goal of 1667 words a day, you can “win” this challenge. I believe in you so much that I have decided to use my entire November to write a book on how to navigate the murky, treacherous waters of Nanowrimo and come out the other side, a little battered and sleep-deprived maybe, but a winner nonetheless.

You won’t be a winner because you’ll write a masterpiece in thirty days, one that will immediately launch your epic, enviable career as a best-selling writer. No one can promise you that, and you should regard anyone suspiciously who tells you otherwise.

But I can tell you how to finish a book. Since my first Nano in 2004, I’ve written 27 full-length novels. As a self-publisher, I impose my own deadlines, and I’m a bit of a sadist. Unfortunately I have to be, as I am a slave to book sales as much as any other full-time writer. This is my job and I approach it as such.

Thanks to Nano, I got off to a roaring start. I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one.

So here’s how the month is going to go. I will write installments daily or semi-daily, allowing for life and all that, to complete my first non-fiction book, “NaNoWriMo: A Passion, A Vision, A Cautionary Tale,” where I will share what I’ve learned over the years on how to take an idea to a completed project. I will give you a starting time, an ending time, my word count, etc, so you can see the nuts and bolts it takes to complete a project.

To honor my first Nano, I’ll be doing it right here in the blog, right before your very eyes. I ain’t scared.

This is a first draft, so it will not be fastidiously edited. This book will emphasize progress over perfection. You will have time to bathe and dress your baby for the world to see. But Nano is almost exactly like giving birth. Your “baby” will come out all covered with goo, not yet ready for the world yet, and that’s okay. In fact that’s necessary.

It’s also a topic for another day.

Normally I go into Nano with an outline, with a lot of my prep work already done. I find this the most expedient way to get from point A to point B, but unfortunately, thanks once again to life, I was unable to do a lot of that beforehand. We’ll get into that later, too.

Right now, I’m just diving right in because I can’t imagine a November without Nanowrimo. Once you start, you can’t stop, especially if you’re obsessive-compulsive like me and like to check things off in the “completed” column. This year we’re going to do that together, one little ol’ word at a time.

Welcome to the mad house.

Welcome to November 1.

This is Nanowrimo.

Started: November 1, 2015 11:30am PST
Completed: November 1, 2015 12:19pm PST
Word Count: 1,762