Novel writing for procrastinators
Have you heard of the book No Plot? No Problem by Chris Baty? It's the maniac's approach to novel writing. Perfect for me.
I've been batting around novel ideas for as long as I could hold a pencil. I have reams of scenes, descriptions (I'm a sucker for a good description), character sketches, waiting for that quiet period of life where I could focus on writing a novel and not writing about writing (you know, like after I'm dead).
Chris Baty got this absurd idea that people could write 50,000 words in a month and check the "I will write a novel some day" objective off their "before I die" lists if they did it together and set the objective of clicking out 1667 words per day. So he gathered some friends and they embarked on a freewheeling, coffee-sustained adventure of noveling (in San Francisco, that crazy city where sane people live) in 1999.
Their success emboldened Chris, as all successes do. He became the Jesus Christ figure for knocking out novels - the one with the special key to the kingdom of prose. His book and website have become a veritable movement, verging on religious devotion.
And my son and I are hooked. Noah and I met for coffee this a.m. to discuss week one and offer each other moral support... and the all important hints for better story development. It was a blast! I've got through the first week with over 12,000 words. I dream about my book, it's that intoxicating.
Don't get me wrong. The writing is crap. Honestly. No one can write anything brilliant when smacking the key pad so hard the letter engravings all fly off (one endearing feature of the Apple iBook). But it's a heck of a lot of fun! I feel like I'm playing tennis, batting around words to see if I can lob them, smack them, serve them up or volley them to the unsuspecting character lurking in the alley.
Try it; you'll like it.
National Novel Writing Month is typically in November. You can sign up and join the literally thousands of brave freewriting novelists by visiting the website:
NaNoWriMo.org
We are writing ours in August before fall term papers are due. :)
2 comments:
I'm intrigued.
I will follow up on this to some extent at least and report back to you what I do with this impulse.
Don't think I can commit to it just yet, because I have a lot of work-related writing and thinking ahead of me. I can just feel it, besides knowing it intellectually by looking at my calendar.
But I will ponder this guy's wisdom.
"Once I start work on a project, I don’t stop and I don’t slow down unless I absolutely have to. If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind—they begin to seem like characters instead of real people. The tale’s narrative cutting edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story’s plot and pace. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new begins to fade. The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death. Writing is at its best—always, always, always—when it is a kind of inspired play for the writer. I can write in cold blood if I have to, but I like it best when it’s fresh and almost too hot to handle. […]
"I like to get 10 pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book—something in which the reader can get happily lost, if the tale is done well and stays fresh. On some days those 10 pages come easily; I’m up and out and doing errands by 11:30 in the morning, perky as a rat in liverwurst. More frequently, as I grow older, I find myself eating lunch at my desk and finishing the day’s work around 1:30 in the afternoon. Sometimes, when the words come hard, I’m still fiddling around at teatime. Either way is fine with me, but only under dire circumstances do I allow myself to shut down before I get my 2,000 words."
Stephen King
On Writing
I have complete faith in you, Julie. :)
And I'm most intrigued by this guy's book--I'm going to look into picking up a copy. Thanks for the heads-up.
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