With the exception of a few author's notes before I started the story (such notes saying what the title is or what issues I was having at the time) I tried to only post what I had written for NaNoWriMo as I wrote it. So, now that it is December 6th, I want to look back at NaNoWriMo and what it has taught me.
1. Writer's Block Does Not Exist
The first lesson is that there seriously is no such thing as "writer's block". True, you may not be able to write anything "productive", but no matter what kind of mood you are in or how few of ideas you have, you can write something no matter what. I can say this, because throughout November I wrote 49500 words without a plot. That's right, I only had a solid plot idea when I only had 500 words to go to make the 50k mark. Consequently, those were probably the fastest and easiest 500 words I wrote all month.
True, I did have a plotline starting out. This girl, Marti, was a waitress whose body was acting like it's pregnant even though the tests (once she managed to actually take a test) said she wasn't. But, after writing 35000 words, and discovering that I was only 3 days into the plot, I realized that my original plot was not going to hold up. At that point, I thought I had to take the first 35000 and work into it a different plot, wherein one of the Elemental Persons died from not being linked to the other Elemental People and Marti was picked to fill in the missing Element. Under this plot, the "pregnancy symptoms" were her body adjusting to being an immortal.
While I loved my other three Elemental Persons who were formed out of the three old ladies that I had previously had visit the restaurant, this plot wasn't something I was really excited about writing. For starters, my writing is much more "slice-of-life" than it is fantasy as the Elemental plot would have had to be. Secondly, the Elemental plot meant that the cover I had designed and the title, Stuck in Estrogen's Funhouse, were no longer any good.
A few days later, after a lot of pointless, random writing about the going ons of Applebee's, I got into a conversation with one of my Word War buddies, Amy Tilberg, about the problems I was having with my plot. She suggested I switch something up, have Marti decide to leave Applebee's for a different job. Within about thirty minutes time, my story was saved and I finally had a good, solid plot. Marti was not to be an Applebee's waitress, well... she had indeed been an Applebee's waitress in her past, but Marti's current job was a bartender at a local night club called the Flash Point. The original pregnancy symptoms were still needed, as that which was my main plot became a subplot. Marti's body had been behaving as though she were pregnant, her hormones a total mess, and in the midst of being held prisoner in her own mind/body,she falls into an affair with one of the bar customers, who ends up being her latest co-worker. However, despite her emotions going haywire and insisting she falls for the young gentleman, Erik, she is still in love with her husband.
It was within that plotline, that I finished out my 50k, and instead of finishing the story, began editing/rewriting the first 50K so that the new plot was the focus.
Which leads me to lesson 2
2. Plot Will Write Itself
When re-writing Stuck in Estrogen's Funhouse, I realized that while I did need to add scenes, most of the initial editing process included taking out parts that no longer fit in with the new plot. I still used a good portion of the first 50k that I had written throughout NaNoWriMo. A lot of the writing was re-located, moving to some other spot in the story than it had originally been written for, some dialogue even went from being spoken by one character to being spoken by another, but most of what I wrote was usable with the new plot.
Also, I found, that the new plot fit in very nicely with everything I previously wrote. So even though I didn't know what plot I was writing for, the plot still showed up in a very rudimentary form anyway. That kind of made the editing process rock.
I'm under no delusions that once I REALLY edit the story, that is once the entire thing is on hard drive and i have Carissa edit it for the sake of editing, and not for the sake of making sure the story follows it's own plot, there will be a lot I have to revise/take out... but for now, for this NaNoWriMo writing-First draft stage, that is how it stands.
3. I Can Write Despite Working Full Time At the Office
Before NaNoWriMo, I had been working on focusing my efforts on my writing talent, but I had failed miserably. Starting out NaNoWriMo, I was convinced that I wouldn't succeed for the same reason I didn't feel like I actually wrote much this year between Jan-October; namely, my day job wore me out. I'd set about to writing every day, only to find myself exhausted and collapsing on my bed when I got off of work. I figured, since I didn't have any days off except the weekends, that NaNoWriMo was doomed to fail for the same reason.
But, as you can tell, I survived. In fact, I more than survived as I now have a decent novel in the works that I'm way excited about. And the funny thing is, I wasn't wrong with my worries. I WAS often exhausted from work, and more than once I passed out when I got home from the office. However, just because I passed out didn't mean that I didn't do my writing that night. Matt was very good about letting me get 2-3 hours of sleep, and then waking me up and setting me to my writing.
So, even with a full-time day-job, I was still able to crank out over 50000 words in a months time... I hope this isn't a lesson I forget.
4. You Can Tell A Difference in Writing When the Author Is Being Honest, Even If the Author is You
One major difference between Stuck in Estrogen's Funhouse and any of my previous writing, which I hope you will be able to enjoy someday soon, is that I let go of any of my writing inhibitions during the process of writing it. It was a gradual process, but it made a huge difference. At first, I just de-censored the extra characters. An expo guy actually exclaimed "Damn Marti" instead of "Gosh/Darn/crap/ect Marti." Honestly, while, having been a waitress in my past, I knew that "Damn Marti" was much more realistic to the restaurant environment, I felt just a bit reluctant not having expo guy say "crap marti" or any other substitute. Why? Because I was worried about what my "main readership" would think. My mother, sister, and grandmother read most anything I write, and I wasn't wanting to upset them. The way I saw it was that I was lucky they took the time to read what I wrote, and if they stopped then I'd basically be writing for myself alone without anyone even glancing at it.
By the time the plot became it's current plot though, I had to abandon all pretenses of censoring my own writing. Crystal, Marti, Spencer, and the side characters all are now presented without any censoring on my part. What this means is that, more than once, you'll hear an explicative be said by any or all of my characters for various reasons. Also what it means, is that my writing became a lot more intimate and graphical than what any of my previous readers would consider my norm. Normally, I'd say the characters crawled in bed and drifted off to sleep. Now, with my newly-noninhibited writing, you experience an intimate scene between Marti and Spencer, and while I haven't (yet) had to write a sex scene, it's a lot more than I'd normally write down.
The thing is, while, yes, I might lose some of my normal readers (my sister, upon hearing that I changed the plot no longer wants to read it) and that is a bit scary... the characters are much more real to me than most of the other characters I've written about since I started writing my own fiction. I make a slight exception in the case of Lilliana and her friend Emily, as they were children intimate scenes and explicative language wasn't really censored so much as nonexistent, at least as far as I had gotten written before the story got put on an indefinite pause.
Not only has writing uninhibited caused my characters to be more real to me than ever before, but also I find that a lot of the time I would spend thinking "what would X character say if... no, not that.... that's not right..." is eliminated. "This order is wrong. I need it remade." "Damn Marti." is so natural and, really, in the scheme of things such a small line, that I can continue writing bigger scenes that are of higher importance to the plot and story.
And so, should you get the privilege of reading my finished copy of Stuck in Estrogen's Funhouse, please do not accuse me of "needless cussing." I swear to you, I didn't go overboard with my new uninhibitedness. I didn't write in a sex scene (should there be one) just because I can, or an explicative just because I can. While, I won't go english-teacher on you and say that I spend hours thinking of just the right word to come after "the", I try not to write too much fluff and word padding into an actual novel. So if there's an f-word or intimate scene, it's to allow the characters to react naturally in the situation they are in, to develop character, and to move the story alone. I'll tell you right now that the intimate scene that is written is done so to leave no doubt in the reader's mind that Marti really does love her husband, as does he love her.
There are probably other lessons I've learned. Certainly, there's still lessons I need to learn, but those are the ones that stick out in my head.
I'm incredibly pleased with myself for winning NaNoWriMo. I cannot wait to hold the paperback proof copy of my book in my hands, and I am definitely looking forward to another year of working on my writing talent, and next year's NaNoWriMo, which I will most definitely be participating in. In fact, my plan is to write next year's NaNoWriMo novel so that, after being edited, it is fit to be sent off to Harlequin publishers... but if I'm to do that, I've got a long way to go in a year.
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