That Awful Writer's Block

It has hit me, and I have under a week to make it go away. It's coupled with my fickle mind which is constantly telling me that the novel idea I have is bad, so have this new idea. I want it to shut-up so I can continue the project I have going, but at the same time this inability to write at all is making me think again about switching.

Have you ever had an idea about what to write just to have it blow up in your face? Sometimes this happens to me, and I try to just take it in a new direction, but eventually I take it in four or five directions and nothing seems to be working anymore, and the whole project gets scrapped. A good example is last year's NaNoWriMo. Around November 15 I decided that I was taking my novel the wrong way (bear in mind that's half of the month and 25k words wasted) so I started over from scratch. I hate the novel I ended up writing, but I wrote the full 50k before the end of the month. This year I told myself I wouldn't do it, but it seems like that is what is going to happen. It might be planning. Stephen King doesn't plan out any of his novels. He comes up with what he calls the "seed" and goes wherever that takes him. I think I might just do that this year, and scrap whatever outlining and planning I've done.

I think the important thing is that I get the novel written. I really want to have a novel done by the time I'm 21. Yeah, I have written the one novel, but I want a novel I'm proud of, that I want to revise and edit and show to agents and friends and hopefully get published. If you say it's impossible, Bret Easton Ellis is the obvious example of you being wrong, along with the author of Eragon. Ellis had his first novel, Less Than Zero, published when he was 21, and the author of Eragon got his when he was only 15. It can happen, and I hope to be one of them.

Writing Software

No I don't mean Microsoft Word, of AppleWorks, which are both word processors. I'm talking about software designed for an author, and what it might mean to use it.

There are many programs out there designed to help the writer with his project, whether it be a novel, short story, play, screenplay, or anything else you can think of. They range from the complex which guide you every step of the way from character developing to the structure of each chapter. Others are simpler and are more of an elaborate organizer. Recently, I've stumbled upon Scrivener, a Mac only writing application. I plan on using it for my novel because of some of the features it has. You can easily separate chapters into their own document without having to create a bunch of files you have to sort through. When you look at your word count it will show you the total word count of every chapter combined, the word count of the chapter you have opened, and how many pages it would be if it were a paperback book. It also has a place for research, which would be useful.

No this isn't an advertisement. There are a lot of things I think of when I think of using writing software. What does this make me as a writer? Do the bestselling authors use software like this? Or do only amateurs use software? I'm sure Stephen King doesn't use writing software. He got his start on typewriters, but I sometimes think of myself as just another person who wants to write a novel if I use this, and if I'm jinxing myself into never getting published. It's a bunch of superstitious worry, but superstitious worry can sway outcomes. So if you want to use software, go for it, but I'm going to see if I get stuck in an amateur mindset and end up being less of a writer because of it.

Oh and Atonement sucks, but I plan on finishing it. I'm only thirty pages in, but it's hard to read quickly.

NaNoWriMo is swiftly approaching!

November 1 is almost here! There's only a week and a few days left, before NaNoWriMo begins and I am doing it this year. If you don't know what this is, I'll explain. NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, is a competition that occurs in November every year to see who can write a complete novel in one month's time (you get 30 days). "Novel" is defined as any large length piece of fiction of at least 50,000 words. They don't really care what you do with it as long as you get the 50k, and you don't write a single word until 12:00 am November 1. The prize? The satisfaction that you completed a novel. And CreateSpace (an Amazon company) lets you get yourself a free copy of your book in paperback form. Who's preventing you from cheating? No one, but why would you do it if not for yourself?

If you look a few posts back, you'll see one about prompts, and how I took that, and that's going to be my novel this year. I started writing it, got about 30 pages (book pages, not printed pages) into it and decided I was doing it all wrong. Part of it was that I read a book on Schizophrenia and realized I was writing the disorder all wrong. Part of it was that it wasn't going the way I had originally envisioned, which brings me to the main point of this:

Outlining and Planning:

NaNoWriMo allows you to plan and outline your novel as much as you want beforehand, as long as no work is made on the actual manuscript. So I have been planning and outlining, and writing down a plot synopsis. I never do this, and I'm a little worried of what might happen. I'm trying to be as vague as possible, because on the one hand I want to know where my novel is going, but on the other hand I still want to have limitless options. An outline can be restricting, giving an exact way to do the novel, but if a character suddenly says "No" to what I want him to do, can I listen to him? The answer is yes, because someone else didn't write my outline. I did, so if a character tells me he doesn't want to do something (and they do that a lot) and I can scratch it off the outline and pretend it never existed. But at least I know what's happening in a general sense. If you want to write a novel, you should probably do some outlining, but a short story probably doesn't need anything like that.

And Join NaNoWriMo!

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

by Elyn Saks

For anyone who thinks they have a rough life, this book will make you think differently. Saks has written the most powerful book I have ever read, and it happens to be a memoir of her life with one of the most debilitating mental illnesses in existence: schizophrenia.

She doesn't step around anything in her life. When she goes into psychosis, you are right there with her, hearing what she says, knowing what she's thinking, and all of the outrageous behaviors. She gets hospitalized multiple times for it, and to read some of it makes you scared. I know in parts I was scared that something bad was going to happen to her. The most amazing part of it all is that she is able to be functioning. It's an inspirational story, and it's one that will make you think twice about mental illness. If you have a stigma about them, I suggest reading this book, because you'll understand it from their point of view. It's an illness like diabetes or nonterminal cancer. It's there, it might come back, but it's manageable.

This was also the first memoir I've ever read. I had to read it for my Abnormal Psychology class. I didn't think I would like a memoir. It is very different from an autobiography, which is what I thought it would be like. Instead of providing facts and going over everything, Saks sticks to only the parts of her life that relate to her illness. She includes dialogue and conflict, like a novel, and it felt like I was reading a novel. I'm considering to read other memoirs now, maybe Running with Scissors. It's an interesting genre, one I would try if I had an exciting life.

5 stars

Next: Atonement by Ian McEwan

The Gun Seller

by Hugh Laurie

I finished this book over a week ago, but forgot to put a write-up about it. Ah! It was a hilarious book. I'm not going to go too in depth about it, but it was extremely funny. The plot was just as confusing, though, and that's where this book suffered. Characters were added near the end of the book and I had no idea who they were or why they were there until I was at the climactic scene. It would have been better if he had cut about half the characters in it. That and with every plot twist, there would be a conversation the narrator doesn't describe to leave you hanging, but really it only pissed me off. Funny, though. Very funny.

3 stars (only because of how funny it was)

Next: The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn Saks.

Too Much of a Good Thing

It's natural for us to get excited about something new. Like a new writing project. Currently, I'm really excited about this novel idea that's turning out a lot better than I thought it would. I'm constantly thinking about what's happening, who are these people I've created, and wondering if everything will turn out okay, and all I want to do is write. If I let myself, I could be doing 5000+ words a day, but so far I've been limiting myself to under 1500, or less than a chapter. Why?

It's simple really. I've been through enough failed projects to understand what goes wrong. It's the idea of learning how to do something by completely understanding how not to do it. I've learned a few things about writing a novel by knowing what prevents me from getting to the end, and I've learned a few things from the one (unpublishable) novel I do have. The first is that it has to be on a scale you can manage. There's no sense writing a ten protagonist epic like Stephen King's It was as a first novel. I don't have the experience to handle that amount of story, so I have to make it simpler. Second, it can't be too simple, and for exactly the same reason. I tried a one character focused novel, and I crashed and burned because I don't have the skill and experience to take on such a unique and challenging story. A good first novel has two or three central characters with a few minor characters thrown in, which is what I'm working with.

Third, and where the title of this post comes from, you can't rush a story. Writing 3000 words is roughly the equivalent of writing 10 paperback pages, which could take you anywhere from 10-30 minutes to read depending on speed. It should take longer than that to write those, and if it's not, then you aren't thinking about what you're writing. Simply, you're writing like you would read, and that tends to drop out things. Also, that over-excitement wears off. If you have 20,000 words you wrote one week (which I've done in less before), that's roughly 70 pages. What happens is you've exhausted yourself with the story, and you become sick of it, wanting to do something else. That was a waste of a week. So limit to 1500 words, I usually fall under that, 2000 max. Don't get absorbed, but let it work itself out and plan instead of write, you'll thank yourself.

How to Write; How to Read

A lot of people do the reading part, and some people (hopefully a view of you out there) want to write or are writing. But have you ever thought about what you were doing when you did it?

This comes from English class today, where we discussed "Writing Rituals," which are exactly what they sound like. I determined that I must have music playing while I write, or I just can't seem to do it. I also realized that it can only be three types of music, two are specific bands/singers and the third is a genre. I can only listen to Enya, The Killers, or Classical music. I have no idea why that is, but if I listen to something else, I can't get in the mood to write, and that's what a writing ritual does. It gets you in that mood to write. So when you sit down to write, think about what it will take to get you focused on the page and not on the e-mail, the TV, or that good book you're reading.

Which brings us to the next part: How do you read? When I read, I need to be comfortable, so I don't get distracted by a sore back or by a leg that's falling asleep. For this the music changes. If there is music at all (which I don't need to read) it can't have lyrics whatsoever. I'm limited to classical music. That's the physical part, but now there's a mental part of reading, too. One blog I read talked about how we might look at a book like we do in a literature class, and I immediately thought, "Um...what?" I have never read a book thinking about the themes, why the setting is in the winter and not the summer. Basically, I don't analyze the book. Instead I take it half like a writer would and half like any reader would, and I think this is a good way to read. The writer half is looking at how the chapters and scenes are set up, why the author chose to have organize it, the different structures he used, and the metaphors. The reader half reads it because it's a great form of entertainment and I want to know what happens next. You can't get caught up in analyzing the book, because you'll remove all the fun from reading. As a writer, you can't read for pure entertainment because you should always be trying to learn how a good book is made. So compromise!