The benefits of regular writing

http://lifehacker.com/5855019/how-to-harness-the-mental-and-emotional-benefits-of-regular-writing

Today is the start of National Novel Writing Month, which I did two years ago and managed to hammer out the first draft of the novel I still haven't finished yet. I'm not doing NANO this year, because there's a huge chunk taken out of my November by a CRUISE TO THE CARIBBEAN (YEEEE!!!!) and I really do need to finish Shooter Vanished (and maybe the other two novels moldering on my hard drive) before I start a new project. Anyway, the above article has some good points about the mental benefits of writing regularly.

Excerpt from "The Shooter Vanished" (working title)

EDIT 1/31/12: This scene appeared in a now-tossed first draft.  Enjoy it as a one-off, but don't expect it to appear as a part of the final project.


Here's a small taste of my novel-in-progress, tentatively titled The Shooter Vanished. I've still got a lot of writing left to do - the novel currently stands at a very slim 178 pages, and I intend to get it to 250 at least. NANO really doesn't give you a novel at the end - it gives you a dime store paperback and a kick in the pants to put more meat on it.

I want to have the initial draft of the thing finished by January - that's my current goal. Initial draft by January, editing done by March or April, finalized by summer, published and making me millions by early 2011. Not ever having done this sort of thing before, of course, means that those dates are entirely arbitrary. Like Douglas Adams said,

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

So without more ado, here's something to whet your appetite.

Chapter 27

Michael was walking past Powell's bookstore. He was feeling a bit disoriented. He'd had another one of his mystery episodes – flashing lights, dizziness, a quick blackout. They'd been coming more frequently recently, and now they were accompanied by weird hallucinations. As he looked up at the marquee, he was absolutely astonished to see the name of the author who was up in the Pearl Room doing a signing at that very moment. Henry Garson?? After all these years of searching, of justice denied, of the pain of crushing loss destroying his spirit daily, could this be the moment when Michael finally got his revenge? Beyond which, what the hell was Garson doing out in public being featured and promoted by a major bookstore? The bastard had been in hiding for so long that Michael thought the world might have forgotten about him, especially after the controversy that had followed his acquittal in the murder trial.

Michael walked into Powell's. Some things didn't look quite right, and there were several book titles that made no sense to him, but Michael dismissed this as just being a symptom of the fact that he hadn't actually been into a bookstore in ages.

He ducked into the men's room and locked himself into a stall. He took out his pistol, which he had had to start carrying with him at all times just for his own peace of mind, and checked to make sure it was loaded. He wanted to see the look on that bastard Garson's face as he ended Garson's life, just as Garson must've looked straight into Jasmine's eyes before murdering her in cold blood.

Shit. He was having another episode. The world went swimmy, started to melt around the edges. Michael had been to quite a few doctors over the past few weeks, but none of them had been able to explain what the hell had been happening to him. Now, here it was, happening again. At a most inconvenient time, actually.

He sat down on the toilet, closed his eyes, and waited for the world to resolve itself again. There was the flash of light. He opened his eyes again. The world reasserted itself into his vision. He shook off the dizziness, stood up, and put his gun back in its holster nestled under his left arm and well-concealed under his finely tailored wool blazer. He brushed the wrinkles out of his slacks, opened the stall door, and walked over to the mirror. He looked at himself. His eyes were a little bit bloodshot, with black smears under them from the sleep he hadn't been getting enough of recently. He studied the ugly scar on his face, from a jagged beer bottle swung at him several years before. He opened his mouth, grinning at himself, checking for food between his teeth. Satisfied that his teeth were clean, he addressed his attire. If he was going to do this revenge thing, he wanted to do it while he was looking his classiest.

His gray wool slacks were immaculate, the careful crease in them undamaged by the walking he'd done to get here. His Italian loafers were shiny and polished. His maroon cashmere turtleneck draped across his slim form perfectly, and the color exactly complemented his black sport coat.

Michael took pride in his appearance, and used it to his advantage in his line of work.

Satisfied that he was appropriately dressed for his revenge, Michael walked out of the men's room, found the elevator, and started to take it up to the Pearl Room.

As the elevator doors opened, the world started to melt again. Mike cursed himself, determined to shake this one off so that he could complete his revenge. As he looked around through the haze, he noticed something odd. The Pearl Room seemed to be empty. No chairs were lined up in front of a podium where Garson should have spoken before beginning the book signing. There was no podium. Mike kept walking, through the haze, convinced that this hallucination was just part of whatever was happening to him.

There was the flash, and as the world resolved itself, more quickly than it ever had, Michael was staring at Henry Garson, at his smug face, that sickly sweet smile that he used to con the world into thinking he was such a good guy, that face that had convinced a jury that there just wasn't enough evidence to convict him of Jasmine's murder.

Without even thinking about it, he took out his gun and fired. There were screams, but they were lost in a fog that was enveloping Michael. Suddenly, Michael gasped. Through the fog, through the confusion, he could swear that he saw, running toward Henry and screaming...no, no, it was impossible...Jasmine??

Another flash. Michael blacked out.

Did it.

Well, I did it - 50,000 words in 30 days. Who knew that such things were possible?

46,684

Home stretch now. I should hit the 50,000 mark tomorrow. Very exciting. The novel won't be done, but I'll have completed the overall task. I will have shown myself that I can write a damned novel, and I can do it in a month, even while having a job and a life. This whole process has been pretty incredible, a real learning experience, a resounding "PROBABLY" to the question of whether I have what it takes to try to be a serious writer, to make it a career, to put myself out there and write material that I can send out to be published.

One thing I have learned is this. If, during this month, I had been able to devote my time solely to NANO, it is entirely possible that I would have finished this novel in two weeks. Not just the 50,000 words - finished the novel. With the pace I was writing, with the solid story that I had to work with, with the creative juices pouring out of my brain, this story would have written itself very, very, quickly, given no other distractions.

That says something.

38596

Did a bunch of catch up tonight after totally blowing off my NANO this weekend. Now I'm back on track. Digging where the story is right now - clearly this thing is going to surpass the 50,000 word goal and become a real full length novel. There's just a lot that still has to happen, and it won't happen in 10,000 words.

Getting toward the end of this is a pretty incredible feeling. I've now written a story that is almost four times longer than anything I've ever written. And what's more, it doesn't suck! I mean it'll need a hell of a lot of revision, tightening, editing, proofreading, tweaking, whatever you want to call it, but I think I've really got something here. Many thanks to my Portland crew for opening my eyes to Nano. I've got something I never thought I'd have - a damned good start on a possibly publishable novel.

Anyway - onward and upward.

31,739

I committed the cardinal NANO sin of revising last night, because I realized that my timeline made no sense. And since the second part of my book is a retelling of the first part, from a different perspective, it's sort of important that I get the timeline hammered down. This weekend, I might go through and write an actual timeline with notes as to when important events occur. Then again, I'm reminded that the goal of NANO isn't necessarily to write something perfect, it's to write something quickly and consistently, so I may not do so much of that kind of detail work.

NANO isn't easy. It's not the hardest thing I've ever done, but it's certainly not easy.

In other news, I do believe that it has rained every single day for the past couple of weeks at least. While at the start of this process, my mind was mossy, now I'm just growing moss.

In honor of moss, here's this:

The IT Crowd - Maurice Moss - fire
by Reghy

I've often felt like this on a Sunday.

"In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you’ve taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o’clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul."

NANO is at just over 26,000 words. I'm still on track, but I killed the cushion I had last week. Gotta hit it hard this week.

20,050

words and still going strong. The only trouble I'm having is that I think I might be telling my story too quickly. I'm going to have to go back and add some bulk into the plot before I get to this point in the story, but that's fine. I don't know though - part of me is questioning whether the arbitrary 50,000 word goal of Nano is something I need to be concerned about if it causes me to add unnecessary filler to my story. Then again, the point is to write a novel, not a short story - so I need the story to fill the pages. That's the challenge.

Nano update

I've got 7282 words now - this story is racing out of my head faster than a metaphor I can't think of right now because all of my words are being sucked out of my head by this novel.

I won't be posting it here - this is something I want to get published, like actually published, some day, so no peeksies. And for those of you dying to know what happens with The Nondescript Man, well, I'll post the rest of that story soon, probably. But that's just a bit of silliness.

Oh, and forget about Ark Ship for a while - that rewrite is on hold until after Nano, and then I might just turn it into a novel. I'm on a roll, baby.

Like Kramer said, in that one episode of Seinfeld, "Oh, I'm percolating, Jerry. I'm telling you, I have never felt so fertile. I'm mossy, Jerry. My brain is mossy."

Regarding "Ark Ship"

I'm rewriting it from scratch (both because it needs it and because doing so will be good prep for Nano). Going back through it, it's pretty clear that much of the story suffers from a dry narrative structure and lack of descriptive language. Still, I think the concept of the story is solid, and I want to try to make it into something good. I wrote 6 pages of the rewrite this weekend, and I'm pretty happy with the end result. That said, I'm not posting the rewrite here until I'm absolutely satisfied with it.