Stories Behind the Story

Camp NaNo: July Edition was just spend working on backstories for various characters for my vampire novel-in-progress.

You know, the sort of music they like, how they got where they are, and that Nazi Germany apparently had something to do with vampire hunting. I'm not sure what yet, and I even said, out loud, "I wonder why that is?" as though I hadn't just written it and caused it to happen.

This Is Just To Say

It's been a while, I know. Sorry about that.

So, Camp NaNo. I ended up not making my word goal. Which was fine. I said, "I'll just extend my timeframe and keep working on this." I did not. This was not fine.

Camp NaNo 2022: April Edition

I decided literally on April 1st what I wanted to write for Camp NaNo. I had toyed with the idea of using the month for revising my novel, or maybe writing a new short story (not that I had any potential plots in mind).

In the end, I chose to go with something I've never done during a NaNoWriMo event: nonfiction.

See, I have this history research project that will require me to write several short summaries of events. I have a good-sized list of potential topics, I just have to sit down and write them. Enter, Camp NaNo.

Surprisingly Good

I know I skipped February. I'm sorry. But I hadn't done any writing, so I had nothing to report. Instead, I was putting off writing in favor of a somewhat time-sensitive sewing project. And I was putting that off in favor of watching Netflix. But I finished the shows I wanted to watch. And then I made a skirt. So now I have nothing left to stop me from writing.

Camp NaNoWriMo is coming up in April. I have no idea what I'm going to do for it. Might write a short story. Might revise my vampire novel. So in preparation for the second possibility, I've started rereading the latest draft of Cold Blooded.

Only Dealing With Draft One Problems

Here we are, post-Camp NaNo.

Did I meet my writing goal? Yes.

Did I lower my writing goal to something I knew I could meet easier? Also yes.

But that's not the point. It's not cheating when you're allowed to change you goal. And the real goal was just to get started on this story. Which I did. I didn't finish it, but that's okay. I figured out some of the hows and whys that are going to make writing the climax easier.

I'm still going to have to do some heavy edits to the beginning, because, like I said last time, there's a lot of important stuff that's missing. So this was by no means going to come out of April a finished product. I think some of that is going to be solved by better figuring out the POV and voice of the story.

Dropping Some Plot Relevant Knowledge

Camp NaNo is… progressing. Very slowly. I'm not writing as often as I would like, but I am writing, so that's an improvement.

I'm maybe… 50 or 60% through the plot. Maybe. Depending on how long the climax and resolution takes. But we're headed in that direction.

Having not yet completed Draft One, I can already tell that I'm going to need to rewrite the beginning. There's a lot of information, like world building and backstory, that I have all figured out, and needs to be in there, that just… isn’t in there. Stuff like what sort of time period this is set in, and who these characters are and why they're doing what they're doing. You know, important stuff. I also spent a lot of time figuring out what kind of a ship they have, and that's just… never mentioned.

Setting Goals

Whoops, I started writing this in February and then forgot about it. What is time, anyway.

I plotted out about half of the short story I mentioned last time before realizing I wasn't quite sure how it ended. Or how it... climaxed. Then, quite suddenly, I realized the secret that had been eluding me (Sunlight! Windows!) and wrote out a chunk of important dialogue while I was supposed to be sleeping. So this thing is still afloat.

In Between the Murders

Here we are at the tail end of Camp NaNo: April Edition. I took a nice break from my vampire novel and wrote something completely different. I set myself a nice, easy little goal of 2,000 words, just to get me writing, not to stress me out. I ended up with over 4,000 words. A tiny victory.

It was just a little half-baked story about time travel, but it did make me realize something important. I had the basic setup in place, and I had an idea for something that would happen, you know, later. Like, there would be other things, and I would build character relationships naturally over the course of these things. And then when I got to the later thing, it would be more… not just sensical, but more satisfying. Like we earned it. But I got bored and skipped over all the in-between things, and then the big scene was just lacking in… stuff.

Pulling the World Back Together

Sometimes I reread my old stories. Even riddled with plot holes and bogged down with self-indulgent nonsense, they're not half bad.

Today, I read a short story (10,000 words) that I wrote for Camp NaNo back in 2016. It was a vaguely steampunk world that had been shattered into separate continents that drifted through… space? The science wasn't really a high priority. Anyway, the landmasses were reconnected via cable-car sort of systems that spanned thousands of miles, and the story follows a small town sheriff on the last continent to be connected to the others. He has to deal with the influx of tourists and troublemakers and all that kind of thing.

And it was really good and I never wrote an ending.

I'm Pushing an Elephant Up the Stairs

I'm back. And post Camp NaNo, too.

Initially, I had set a 10,000 word goal for the month. It seemed reasonable, a nice chunk of words to get Draft Two started.

But I got busy, and just… unmotivated, so I dropped the goal down to 5,000. Which I succeeded at writing. Not as nice of a chunk, but words are words.

And it was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

I thought that with my Draft One experience, and my handy new outline, the words would just flow and form a bigger, better version of the story. Not so. My 5,000 words were an exhausting slog through exposition and world building. You know, the boring shit I hate. I skipped a big chunk and didn't even introduce one character when I was supposed to because describing how the ice cream shop was set up was the most tedious piece of drivel I have ever attempted. There has to be a better way.

Falling Much Further Behind

I've had some sequel ideas lately, which might not seem super helpful right now, but it's actually helping me figure out how things should happen now, so they can happen a certain way later.

The downside of looking ahead is that I'm realizing just how many words I need to write and it's looking more and more impossible. To give you an idea of what I'm dealing with…

Assuming a finished length of 80,000 words, which is basically the low end of acceptable, that means a major structural beat occurs roughly every 10,000 words. So the first beat, The Inciting Incident, where shit starts to get weird after all the "normal world" set up, happens 10,000 words in.

I'm Writing a Book, I Swear

With the holiday and all, I kind of forgot I was supposed to write a post. So, sorry it's late.

I have commenced with the rewrite of Cold Blooded. I've been changing things from the first draft, right from the get-go. So some of the same things happen, but they happen differently. I think it's better?

Right now I'm in the midst of The Setup, the piece of world-building that occupies the first 11% or so, where we meet our main character and the normal world he lives in. And then we're going to shake it up when we get to the Inciting Incident at the 12% mark. But first we have to get there.

And my god, is it boring. I don't like how it's going. I don't like how I'm writing it. I kind of hate it. It's not fun and wacky and exciting like this story tends to be. It's just bullshit exposition. Here's a ice cream shop. Here's how it works. Here's some weird flavors.

Until We Have Faces

I nearly forgot to write a post this week, as my days off have been spent playing with larger scale murder than usual. I just got the game Plague Inc: Evolved on my computer and I'm trying to wipe out humanity with fungal spores. Mankind is surprisingly resilient.

So anyway, writing and stuff.

Camp NaNoWriMo starts on Monday. I'm super excited. Yeah, I realize I've been struggling with this dumb story for months, but I'm starting to feel it again. I've got my main character back in my head. He had become kind of nebulous and faceless (I’ll get into that in a second) and it was hard to actually get him to be in the scenes. But he has coalesced back into a solid form, and is behaving like a human (or nearly human) again.

Names Are Hard

The July edition of Camp NaNoWriMo is coming up (in—plot twist—July) and I, of course, have started thinking about what project I want to do. My intention at the beginning of the year was to start brand new, short projects, as a break from toiling with my novel. But I haven't been doing a lot of toiling lately. In fact, the main thing I've been doing is fucking around. Every now and again I'll write down a thought that may or may not fit into the narrative somewhere. Things like, "Do vampires take fall damage?" and "How do we feel about accidental murder?"

So I think maybe I should use Camp NaNo as a kickstart to the actual novel writing, with the hope that daily word goals will get me going. The issue is that I was hoping to have a full outline before I started actually writing, for once. Which I do not yet have.

Breaking Through

That's right, I'm still alive. I told you I'd be back in April sometime.

I really haven't gone anywhere, there's just been a lot going on. Not a lot of time or brain power for creative pursuits.

I did manage to set a goal for Camp NaNo of 5,000 (a meager amount, but whatever), and I've just finished with 5,028. So, I've accomplished something. I wound up with two short stories revolving around portals to a sort of shadow dimension. I watched Stranger Things finally, and it's infiltrated my brain.

But the real goal was to get my mind off of my vampire novel, in the hopes that ideas for it would come when I wasn't trying. So there I was, last night, 40 words short of my 5,000 word goal, and I find myself working on my novel outline.  The distraction seems to have done the trick.

I still have all these subplots I'm not sure what to do with, and random scenes I'd like to incorporate, so I'm not in the home stretch by any means. 

Changing Direction

April is nearly upon us, and with it, Camp NaNo. If you're not familiar, it's a diet version of National Novel Writing Month. You can set your own word goal, write a short story, or a script, or a revision, or just… whatever really.

So I could use it to work on my revision of Cold Blooded. But I'm not going to do that. I'm not giving up on it. I just need to work on something else for a little while. I find that I get lots of ideas for stories when I'm not working on them. It's like when you're trying to remember something that's right on the tip of your tongue, and it suddenly comes to you when you stop thinking about it.

Monsters and Mayhem

I have a lot of things in my head.

I've had a few random ideas for my current story, involving time travel, human sacrifice, the usual. I also have this gnawing in my brain, in my very soul, to finish The Long Road.

I don't know why that story is so important. I mean, every year, I sit down to write a NaNo novel, and I say, "This will be the one." The Great American Novel. The story that's going to change the world, even if it's just my little corner of it. It's the story that will make sense and I'll be able to show it to everyone without cringing. Every year, I say that.

And every year, I write a pile of complete nonsense, with a few good gems sprinkled throughout, the needles in my haystack.

A Story About Something

Writing Desks and Ravens: Freedom Edition.

And what's more free than freewriting?

I've started writing for Camp NaNo. I still have pretty much no idea what it's about. Some kind of Lovecraftian horror, I guess, judging from what I have.

Basically, I started with a single scene that popped into my head. This one tiny moment. Just… this:

Blood seeped through his fingers as he lay in the grass. In the dim light, the indistinct form of the creature edged closer. He was done for. There was no escaping now.

The thing was only six feet from him. It could have turned and finished him off. But it didn’t. It kept moving, right on past him. He wasn’t a threat anymore. He was already dead.

Nothing in Particular

I just watched the 2012 movie Upside Down, and it made me think of one of my stories from a few years ago, The Shattered World, in that it involves worlds that are strangely connected and dubious science. Definitely what I would call fantasy and not science fiction. Maybe I should revive that story and give it another chance. Maybe for Camo NaNo in July. Or maybe I’ll do something new. I don't know.

What would you like to see, all five of my readers? What kind of challenge would you like to see me tackle? I have a few things up in the air at the moment, in various states of completion, but I'm not above shelving them and starting something new.

I would have written this post hours ago, but I got distracted reading a story that proved to be much longer than expected. I literally spent hours on it, even as it got later and later, because I really wanted to know how it all turned out. It was a very dark and bleak story, but my god, was it good.

I want to write something like that.

Into the Void

All right, where are we at?

I'm alternating randomly between coming up with new ideas for the next draft of The Long Road and writing pithy nonsense for my romantic comedy. And amidst all that, I'm wondering what I should do for Camp NaNo in July.

So I have a lot going on. I'm multitasking, by which I mean I'm doing several things at once, but none of them particularly well. I need some kind of structure, some kind of schedule. But that's just not working for me right now. Right now I'm just writing when I want to, and not writing when I don't want to. Not efficient, but better for stress levels.

Me being me, instead of focusing on all the things I'm already working on, I'm going to talk about what I might want to do for Camp NaNo.