Back Up Your Work

This is your sporadic reminder to back up your work.  If you create or save anything on a computer,  make a copy and store it somewhere safe.  Make a couple of copies, keeping one nearby, and one off-site  (yahno, in case the house burns down).

If something happens to your computer and you don't have a backup, Very Bad Things will happen.  Puppies will die!  (Okay, maybe not, but you will curl up in a corner and cry for a very long time.  Result is the same.)
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Her Grace has lost work in the past due to lack of backups.  She's learned her lesson.  She hopes you do as well, preferably the easy way.  One good place to keep a backup is in a fireproof safe on a well-guarded military base.  Should anything happen to that, there are worse things to worry about other than the state of your backup.

Read Widely

What do you like to read?  Fantasy?  Romance?  Chick Lit?

A book is a book is a book.
Love them all.

How often do you read another genre? 

What?!  You Don’t?  (Oh, my bleeding heart.) 

Be brave this week, go to the library and get a book in a genre you don’t usually read.  Yes, it may be a bit harder to read, but it will give you some spiritual nutrition you didn’t realise you were missing.

Read for enjoyment.  If not, read for analysis.  If you put the book down and don't finish it, ask yourself why.  If you find yourself saying, "Oh, I just didn't like it," what were the qualities you didn't like about it?

Read a book that you'd be embarrassed to be caught reading.  (It's okay. You can borrow a dust jacket from a book with your kind of street-cred.  Use said dust jacket to hide the book.)

My TBR pile this week contains:

• Where Are You Now by Mary Higgins Clark.   This is a thriller.  I'm trying to learn the difference between mystery, thriller and suspense, as part of my MFA.
• Manuscript found in Accra -and- Like the Flowing River, both by Paulo Coelho.  Both are literary novels.  However, they sport positive messages of the greatness of Humanity.  Not many literary novels do that.  If you dislike literary because of it's dark dismalness, give Paulo Coelho a try.
• Timeless by Gail Carriger.  Yep, finishing off this delightful Steampunk series.
• Beta-reading a few mates' novels.

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Her Grace loves a good book. She is due to raid the New Aquisitions Shelf at work. 

NaNoWriMo teaches...

Not sure what you are?
Sienna North can help.

So, by all this outlining and pre-writing, am I defeating the spirit of NaNoWriMo?  After all, it was originally an exercise designed to get writers to push through a big barrier—namely, getting text down on a page.

A lot of apprentice writers (I refuse to call them “aspiring” writers; I myself am a journeyman) have a hard time with putting text down on a page, regardless of whether or not they’re pantsers or plotters.  (I’m a plotter.  I can't write by the seat of my pants.)

It’s because they don’t know what they’re supposed to write next.  Or sometimes, they think they know what’s supposed to be next (breathless, timeless, prose of great beauty!) and they fear that the next line they write will not meet that expectation. 

They’re right.  It won’t.

BUT… what they need to learn, what NaNoWriMo teaches them, what their mentors should be teaching them, is that it’s okay for your rough draft to be, well, rough.  Apprentice writers must allow this. Not enough of them do. Everyone’s rough drafts are rough.

Mine are rough.  I crank out my text and don’t look back until it’s down.

That’s another thing apprentice writers need to learn.  Get the text down and don’t look back.  Text needs to be down, no matter how rough.  You can’t edit a blank page.

Rough drafts are not the be-all and end-all of your creative process.  (Why do apprentices keep thinking that their first draft must be as brilliant as a last? C’mon, folks!)  They’re the start.  Then you go back and edit.

I edit all the time—though not as I go. That’s the kiss of doom, that is.

I’ll crank out a scene with no stupid back-and-forthing.  Get the stuff out.  Then I let it sit.  I go back later (on a particular schedule, and never during November) and do my editing passes.

1.   Edit the scene so it makes sense internally.
2.  Edit the scene so it makes sense in the overall arc.  (This involves reading the whole novel, making notes as I read, then going back, reviewing notes, and then making changes. Can't do it on the fly.)
3.  Stylistic edits—tic words, weasel words, filter words, rhythm and pacing.
4. Grammar and spell Czech.  Always the last pass, never before.  It’s a waste of time to do a grammar pass on a scene that may be axed entirely.

So yes, I do a whole lot of outlining and pre-writing and organising and dreaming and creating scene placeholders in yWriter before 1 Nov. 

But NaNoWriMo taught me that.  It taught me what kind of writer I am (a plotter, not a pantser).  It taught me I can crank out 50K of text in a month. (Heck, I can do it in fifteen days, now!)

NaNoWriMo gave me a challenge. Write 50K in a month.  I had to figure out how I can best accomplish that. 

That’s what every NaNo writer needs to do.

So, gonna give it a try?

Extremes

And when I fall off,
it will be into another world.

You know what makes a story really REALLY good for me?  The fact that characters go to extremes.   No Quiet Novels for me. Nosiree!

Characters who are pushed to their limits.  Life-and-death situations (either figurative or literal).  Their lives changing irrevocably (or at least the threat, if they Don’t Do Something Right Now!!)  The destruction of the world around them (figurative or literal). Characters making the Hard Choices.  Characters failing to make the hard choices and having everything go Charlie Foxtrot.

I like to see characters faced with a choice, where both of them are gonna result in Very Bad Consequences.   (Ah, sweet dilemma!)

For me, the beginning of a good novel involves the earth shattering for the characters.  The end of a good novel involves the characters dealing with the consequences to my satisfaction.

This stuff is intriguing.

Yes, even in frothy Regency romances.

Humans are extreme characters.  Just look at all the World Records people make’n’break every year.  Look at our sporting pursuits, our court cases, our facebook pages.  There is nothing tepid or half-way about Humanity.

Why should our stories be any different?

Secret to winning NaNoWriMo

The biggest secret to winning NaNoWriMo is preparation.  Okay, plus Butt-In-Chair (BIC), getting the wordage out.

If you’ve ever found yourself on Nov 1 (or Nov 7, or 14 or 29), staring at a keyboard, you may benefit by a bit of preparation.

If you’re a successful pantser who wins NaNoWriMo every year, this advice is not for you.  If you’re an unsuccessful pantser, who spends far too much time staring at a blank page before typing, “Uh, I don’t know what to write next?”, maybe you should reconsider your strategy.

Writers who win NaNo year after year know planning is key to their success.

And no, planning your novel in advance is not cheating.

 Lots. Of. Others. Agree.  With. Me.

You can do as much planning, plotting, arcing, characterising, structuring as you want before 1 Nov.   Or as little.   Plan out enough stuff so you have an idea about what you want to write.

WHY

You want enough planning to give you the answer to the question: “What happens next?”   

The biggest roadblock to getting text down is not knowing where you're going.

HOW

This is how it works:  You write your opening, possibly the hardest thing to write in a NaNovel.  You write until the scene is exhausted. 

“What happens next?”   Our Heroine meets Our Hero and they clash.

“What happens next?”   Miscommunication.  Bring in Trusty Sidekick.

“What happens next?”  Bad Guy has his day in pursuit of his evil plans.

As long as you can answer “What happens next?” you will flow along rather well.

If you ask, “What happens next?” and your answer is, “Um…?”  You need more planning.

WHAT

This is how I plan a NaNovel (or any novel, really):

1.  Form my plot backbone.  What’s my main dilemma? Who are the main characters this affects?
2. Define the vertebrae:  What is the Resolution?  (I always come up with this first, or my novels fizzle instead of sizzle.)  What are the obstacles that prevent this resolution from resolving?   How does Our Heroine solve these obstacles?
3. Musculature.   Break down events leading to resolution into scenes.   Sometimes I work forward, sometimes I work backward.  Backward is good.   Z happened, because Y happened, because X happened, etc. Causality. 

Sometimes I’ll conceive A (Inciting Incident), then I’ll conceive Z (HEA) and work my way between the two.  I’ll make my notes about what happens in each scene.  Each scene accomplishes at least one thing to forward the plot, and develop character.  Sometimes more.  The whole novel gets worked out from start to finish.  Every scene is planned.  Arcs are drawn.  Notes taken.  All that’s left is to populate the scenes with words.

That’s what November’s for.

I open my outlined structure in yWriter and open the first scene.  My notes tell me what needs to happen.  I’ve spent the night before dreaming the scene on the stage of my mind, blocking characters, rehearsing dialogue, etc.

Before I type, “Once upon a time…” my book is pretty much written. All I have to do is jot down the words.  And that’s the easy part.

What the Heck is Supertext?

Short def:  Stuff everyone collectively knows.

Clark Kent's got supertext.

Long def (as required by MFA faculty):  In genre fiction, supertext is the body of information that belongs to that genre.  It is the collective set of rules or conditions or elements that help define that genre.  The more you know about the supertext, the easier it may be to understand any given novel within that genre.  Likewise, the more you know about the supertext, maybe you’ll look at a fresh element in a genre novel and refuse to suspend your disbelief.

Supertexts are living, changing things, dependent on their body of works.  The more elements that are used in more novels, the stronger the supertext becomes.

So, how's it work?

Gonna pick on vampires, as they seem to be in the public conscience of late.  (Vampire fiction is usually a subset of Fantasy, Horror and sometimes Science Fiction.)

So… stuff everyone generally knows about vampires:  they suck blood. They’re afraid of sunlight. They’re undead (or some variant of Not Human).  They’re strong. They’re hypnotic. They have long “lives”.  Sometimes they can turn into bats and fly.

You don’t need all of these elements to define a vampire.  You only need enough to invoke the supertext in a story.

Fr'ex: someone writes a story and says, “This undead character fears sunlight.  At night they turn into a bat.”  You, dear reader, are going to say, “Yup. Vampire.”

Fr'ex2: someone writes a story and says, “This character is a vampire.”  You, dear reader, know there’s gonna be a bit of exsanguination going on.

And that’s roughly how it works.  An author doesn't need to completely invent a new creature from scratch.  They can simply tap into the supertext and go from there.  Even add a few unique twists to make it theirs.

However, if you do go about tinkering with elements of the supertext, it’s gotta make sense within the context.

So.  Edward vs. Lestat.  Sparkly vampires vs N’Orleans undead.   Both are afraid of sunlight.  That element satisfies their vampiric supertextual definition.  Whereas Lestat’s rendered to barbeque upon contact with the gentle rays of good old Sol, Edward turns into a disco ball (or a New Adult at his first Mardi Gras ball).  Both good reasons to avoid the sun.

Some skeptics scoff at the thought of sparkly vampires.   But most people accept it.  They can suspend their disbelief, even though no other mythos features vampires that sparkle (unless you consider bursting into flames a form of ‘sparkling’).

So, why are so many readers saying, “Sparkly vampires. Cool”?   Because Meyer has tapped into another supertext—Fantasy creatures.

In the Fantasy supertext, various supernatural creatures sparkle and shine--namely, fairies.  Think Tinkerbell from Peter Pan.  Think Cherlindria’s fairies in Willow.  Think any kiddie show featuring friendly pixies and elves and wizards etc. (I can think of about four, as I have a plethora of little girls in my life.)

Supernatural sparkly beings is not a new concept. Deep down in our little tutu-wearing, wand-carrying little girly subconsciences, we know this.  That’s why we’re okay with Edward looking like he’s rolled around in K-mart’s teenage makeup section.  Oh yeah, and he drinks blood.

That’s your supertext at work.

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In pursuit of higher learning, Her Grace is indulging in relatively useless bits of elemental analysis.  Can't call yourself a grad student without involving a bit of intellectual wankery.

If You Like a Book, Tell Someone

Read anything good lately?

When was the last time you read a good book, a really good book?  You loved it, didn’t you?  So, who did you tell about it?

If you’re answer was, “Um…. ?” then you’re doing a good book a disservice.   For every great book you read and don’t tell another soul about it, little puppies die.*

Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing there is.  One of the best things about it is that this form of marketing favours the truly good books (and not just the ones with advertising money or agendas behind them).  If someone tells you, “hey, this book is good” (and you trust their opinion), chances are, you’ll enjoy it too.  Take a chance and read the book.

This is how the really good self-pubbed books get about.  Works for trad pubs as well.

Likewise, rate books on the various systems you’re on.  The catalogue of the library I work for features a book-rating system of five stars (no comments).  Any book I enjoy, I’ll rate. (Then again, if I thought it was terrible, I’ll also rate it accordingly.) 

Amazon, GoodReads, your own blog and more. Use ‘em.  Rate books.  Tell us about the books you enjoyed.  If a book in your TBR pile  more than proves its worth, please, please, please, let us know.  

Consider this: is that book in your TBR pile because someone told you about it?  Share the love.

I’ve fallen in love with books I would never have looked at once, if someone hadn’t told me about it.  I’ve made recommendations to Librarians for book purchases because someone recommended a book.  I read it and I loved it.

That’s what word-of-mouth does.  It gets the best books into many hands.

What books have you read recently that you’d recommend?   Comment below.

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*At least all dogs go to heaven, so it’s not a complete tragedy.  But still.  Killing puppies!