The Bloggening

Hello, blog world, and happy new year! I owe you updates on the Dzanc Write-A-Thon, and am also planning to post on my current crazy writing event, Wriye. For the moment, however, allow me to introduce you to the mechanism by which those posts will happen: the Bloggening.

As you can see from my archives running down the side of the page, in this blog’s 1 and 1/2 year history, the start of the year was not a great time for me as a blogger in 2008. In fact, I disappeared completely for January, February, and most of March.

To prevent this from happening again, and to inspire a healthy posting schedule, and to torture my friends when it’s time for the Million Writers Award and I’m blogging daily, I’ve joined the Bloggening, a collective bound by social contract to harass each other and apply peer pressure when one blogger’s not keeping up with the others. My partners in crime are as follows:

Belynda – http://dimestoreromance.com/
Dave – http://blog.davidhalperin.com/
Ian – http://www.aberrospecus.com/
Rachel – http://rachelober.com/
Tom – http://www.timewithtom.com/
Brandon – http://www.extantmusings.com/
Jaco – http://www.flyingjaco.net/

I don’t believe any of us guarantee quality, only quantity. You’ll see more from me, and if you don’t, you can rest assured that people will be mocking me for it.

Dzanc Books Write-A-Thon

For the next several days, I will be participating in the 2nd annual Write-A-Thon in support of Dzanc Books. Thursday through Sunday, I will receive a writing prompt and will produce short stories in honor of Dzanc. What you can do to help is go to this link, find my name (Erica Naone) in the list, and sponsor me. Any amount will be most appreciated. I’ll track my participation on this blog, and if you’re interested in seeing what your sponsorship helped produce, I will send you the raw drafts at your request.

Dzanc does tons of stuff that’s worth supporting–they put out the online magazine The Collagist, edited by the ever-awesome Matt Bell, as well as the literary journal Monkeybicycle. They publish the annual Best of the Web anthology, and a bunch of interesting short story collections. They also do a lot to support writers. The Dzanc Writer in Residency Program is an educational outreach program aimed at youth literacy, the Dzanc Prize provides financial support to a writer of literary fiction, and the Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions are very affordable online writing workshops.

What’s more, the people involved are very nice and very dedicated to sharing their love of great literature. It’s sort of random that I feel connected to a bunch of writers based in Michigan and the work they’re doing in Michigan schools, etc, but such is the nature of the Internet. They’ve been kind to me, they’ve helped me to discover a lot of great fiction, and they’re doing their best to make that same sort of help broadly available.

This is what they say about the Write-a-Thon:

With the economy still not up to speed, traditional means of raising funds – writing grants, corporate sponsorships, etc. – have become less successful.  Here at Dzanc, we like to try and make raising money both as fun, and valuable, an experience as possible.  With this in mind, last year we came up with an alternative and interactive plan which we believed not only furthered our mission but was something those participating in would enjoy. Based on the feedback we received, we were right.
…

Our goal for this event, considering there are over 2000 writers in the Emerging Writers Network, is $20,000, or, an average of $10 raised per person.  To put this in a proper context, that would pay for just under 3 full Dzanc Writer in Residence Programs, or the Dzanc Prize plus approximately 2 full DWIRPs.  We will obviously be thrilled to find out after the fact that we were shortchanging ourselves with that goal. We do hope each and every member of EWN, and those who have become fans of Dzanc, will participate in our inaugural Write-A-Thon.

I’d love to give back a little to them, and I’d love for your help in doing so. It helps to know that even getting Dzanc $10 would be doing my part. But to sweeten the deal, I’ll buy any book from Dzanc’s catalog for one randomly selected person who gives to the Write-A-Thon on my behalf. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to see you through their system, so if you do decide to donate, please comment on this post or drop me an e-mail. I’ll select and announce a winner by Wednesday, December 23, and you’ll get the book as a belated holiday present. 🙂

Thanks so much for your help, and please leave any questions in the comments.

Nanowrimo Wrapup

I never reported on the final results of nanowrimo and they were pretty interesting. Every nano, I usually end in a big, desperate rush of words. I’m talking 10K+ to go on day 30.

This time I stayed on top of my word count throughout the month. On day 30 I had a mere 1K to finish up. This surprised me particularly because I got really flat-on-my-back sick the last week of November.

The secret turned out to be in the way I structured my writing-three short sessions distributed like meals throughout the day. This year I’ve been discovering the power of this approach and this serves as further evidence.

Sometimes Your Novel Breaks

I’ve been doing better with Nanowrimo this year than expected, and for about the last week have maintained a slight lead on word count. This is a nice change from my usual “should I drop out” doom and gloom around the third week of November. However, the lead hasn’t made me immune to novel breakage.

Maybe this eventually goes away with experience, but in all my novel drafts to date–indeed in any story I write–there comes a point when the whole thing breaks. Something happens that feels so outside of what I originally planned that I’m wondering if I can even finish the story. This often manifests for me as some jarring jump in tone or genre.

For example, this year I planned a science fiction romance, and I wanted to keep the tone light. That was great until I sent my hero off to get captured by the bad guys and then wrote a scene in which one of the bad guys gloats to the heroine about how the hero cracked under torture. Torture had not been part of the plan. I went with it, but found myself considering things like, “How has his personality been affected by torture?” I wrote a love scene in which he lost interest in sex because his mind was on what had happened to him.

At this point, I felt I needed to reassess what I was up to. Did my story want to be a different genre? Should I cut this torture thing out and go back? I just felt the story was getting a lot heavier than I’d meant it to be. I can’t say what the end result’s going to be because I’m still only in the mid-30Ks on this novel. However, I can say that if I’d worried too much about all that stuff at the beginning of this paragraph, I wouldn’t be that far.

Instead, I just kept writing. I’ve had drafts totally disintegrate on me, and that’s always a fear, but this didn’t feel that way. In fact, in this case, I think the moment I felt like things went terribly wrong was the exact moment at which my characters really came to life. Not exploring this avenue feels like it would have done a disservice to the story.

I can’t say yet how it will all work out, but I can say that the torture incident and its fallout is a more honest reflection of what I find romantic than what I originally planned, and I’m glad I allowed it into the draft.

As far as I can tell, that moment of breakage occurs in every draft, not just the first. It always seems associated with things coming to life. I currently use this to measure when I’m done revising. If I go through a draft, polish things up a bit, and nothing breaks, then I’m done. If I go through and find myself changing male characters into females or adding long-lost siblings or reworking significant portions of the premise, I know I’ve got at least one more pass before it’s over.

I read an article once by Zadie Smith that really stuck with me–she talked a lot about the process of writing and revising, and I’ve thought a lot about what she said and how it compares with what I do. In that article, she talked about how some writers edit drastically, like move their novel’s setting from England to the U.S. between drafts, or change the time period, or make other big changes that she finds overwhelming and exhausting. When I first read this, I thought, “What crazy person would change the setting mid-stream?” Then my husband pointed out that I do stuff like that all the time. I’ve changed main characters, rewritten stories in a different tense or person, and just ditched entire drafts and redone the story from scratch. For me, the story is wildly malleable, and when it stops shifting all over the map, that’s when I know I’m done with it.

So that moment your novel breaks? That’s just it twitching to tell you it’s still alive.

Sale at Prometheus Books

Prometheus Books is giving 20 percent off all titles until December 31. I know and love this publisher for two reasons. First, they have a great selection of classic works of science and philosophy, meaning that I own many of their books thanks to my time at St. John’s College. Second, I enjoy their science fiction imprint, Pyr. It’s worth checking out what they’ve got.

Make Chris Baty Sing

Nanowrimo is having a fundraising drive on Tuesday, November 24, and if enough money is raised, founder Chris Baty has promised to write and record a song, and make a video that includes interpretive dance. People, I love this event. I know there are plenty of deserving places where you could send your money, but please consider making a donation on the 24th. I get really excited when I read about what they have planned if they can make their donation goals for the month. For one thing, they’ve promised year-round Nano, which would make me very happy.

That is all.

Music and Writing

Over the past two years, I’ve developed the habit of listening to a single song on repeat while working on a story. (Believe me, my husband gives thanks nightly that I have headphones). It’s always been kind of neat to hear the song later and think of the story that’s been grooved into my brain along with the song. Vintage, for example, I wrote while listening to “Immortality.” Home to Perfect is, of course, “Green Grass and High Tides.”

I’ve also done this with my novel drafts, particularly in the home stretches. Last year’s 3-day novel was finished to “Stroke of Luck,” and this year, I already wrote about the importance of Dylan Rhymes.

This year’s Nanowrimo, however, seems to be taking the habit to new heights. I’m not sure how long “World in My Eyes” is going to hang on, but my play count on that song is reaching ridiculous heights. It’s hard to quantify exactly because I listen to it in several places, but I’m starting to think I should keep track along with my word count.

I’m wondering if I’m going to get a full-on Pavlovian reaction going, where the opening notes of that song start to make my fingers twitch as if typing.

New SF Magazine

I was catching up on the stuff in my feed reader today and discovered that a new SF magazine, Lightspeed, is coming out in June, and John Joseph Adams will be fiction editor. I think this is exciting news. Guidelines will be posted in December, and they open to submissions in January.

First Outside Author Pep Talk Knocks it Out of the Park

A couple days ago, I wrote that, while I enjoy the pep talks that famous writers put together for Nanowrimo participants, they often feel out of touch with what I think the month is about:

Today, I eat my words. Jasper Fforde gets it. His pep talk, the first I’ve received this month from an outside author, is one of the best things I’ve read about the idea of practicing writing. I’m hoping Nanowrimo will post it on their site somewhere, but at the moment I can’t find a link.

Here are his opening sentences:

I once wrote a novel in 22 days. 31 chapters, 62,000 words. I didn’t do much else—bit of sleeping, eating, bath or two—I just had three weeks to myself and a lot of ideas, an urge to write, a 486 DOS laptop and a quiet room. The book was terrible. 62,000 words and only twenty-seven in the right order. It was ultimately junked but here’s the important thing: It was one of the best 22 days I ever spent. A colossal waste of ink it was, a waste of time it was not.

He goes on to explain exactly why it wasn’t a waste of time to write 62,000 words that then get thrown away. Very much worth tracking down and reading.

Wednesday Comics

Wednesdays have a holiday feeling for me lately, because I’ve gotten back into the rhythm of going to the comics store once a week. I was lured back by the lovely retro-newspaper Wednesday Comics, which came out once a week for 12 weeks in full color, looking the way you wish the Sunday comics page looked. Though those were lovely eye candy, most of the stories inside ultimately disappointed. What’s made me stay, however, is that comics have amazing range. Sometimes poignant, sometimes badass, sometimes just fun. I love the genre-bending that tends to go on. I love hanging on the slow progression of a story that comes out in serial, and then rereading it in a big slurp when the whole thing has come out.

I read and write in a lot of forms, and I find that sometimes I need to change my focus to give me a fresh feeling in a world that’s pretty dense with words. Comics have been doing that for me lately.

I just got home from the comics store clutching Cinderella: from Fabletown with Love–for those who aren’t in the know, we’re talking here about Cinderella, super-spy, and it’s everything I hoped it would be. There’s a nice interview with Chris Roberson, the writer, here.

But I’m far from the only one who feels the magic of Wednesday. Paul Cornell, at the awesome Clockwork Storybook blog (chock full of writers so cool it makes me want to cry), writes, in the post I linked at the beginning of this paragraph:

That Wednesday feeling, where one hangs around I Fanboy (I hope they note I’ve dropped the comma I kept putting in their name, like they were the fan equivalent of I, Claudius), Millarworld and other forums, waiting for the first reviews to wander in, when one can pop into a comic shop, and actually see it sitting there on the shelf (right next to the Avengers titles, hmm, that’s good) is just one of the many lovely things about writing comics. … I think the feeling is quite an ancient one, akin to what Conan Doyle and Dickens and all the other writers of serials for magazines must have felt.

(As an aside, Cornell’s talking about Black Widow: Deadly Origin #1, which he wrote, and which I also picked up this week. (It’s easy to sell me a comic–just write one about a badass female super-spy or assassin or warrior.))

I think he’s dead on with his analogy to the old serial novels. When I’ve read books like The Three Musketeers, I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like to get fed the thing chapter by chapter, to get the story in nibbles and then reread in gulps to make sense of it, to speculate excitedly with my friend about the surprises to come. Those stories work better that way. They’re epic, too big to read quickly or alone.

Comics have this quality, too. I look at Sandman sitting on my shelf, or Y: the Last Man, or any number of others, and I think about what huge, weird, and lovely stories these are. Long live the serial, and all hail Wednesday.