Remember the last thing a fascist regime wants is people to make more art because art makes people think. It’s ok to use your art as an act of protest.
#writingadvice
Author R.A. Gasparac
-Dark/Paranormal/Fantasy/Horror AUTHOR -Human/Hyrax Hybrid -Dark Empress of Delayed Reactions
Thank you for your response. ✨
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Why are you writing this year? What is it about your idea that fills you with excitement that you can barely stand not writing this very second? In this post we will:
- Break down and analyze your writing motivation
- Position your motivation to help you succeed at your wordcount come November
- Using accountability buddies
Accountability Buddies
There are several places you can find these people. The easiest is to post into an open forum on the NaNo website, sharing your intent to participate and post daily to receive encouragement. What I did was join a (closed to the main public) writing group with my facebook friends who were writing that year. It could even be as easy as telling the people you live with, and asking them to keep you accountable for writing a set number of words a day.
Why are these people worth their weight in gold? Because the simple fear of having to report to people that you are slacking off is enough motivation (usually) to keep writing. We hate to admit we are being lazy to other people. We want to throw out a slew of excuses as to why we couldn’t do something, but having accountability buddies will make it that much harder, because they will have the power to remind you WHY YOU STARTED in the first place.
Choose your accountability buddies wisely. Make sure they are individuals who care about you, and want to see you succeed. These are the people that you will eventually dedicate your finished and PUBLISHED manuscript to. It takes a Village- to write a book.
Your Motivation for Writing
In my last post I glossed over your motivations. Now, I want to take a few moments to think about this. As you may remember, I remarked that if your primary focus was to achieve fame and fortune, that you are in the WRONG business. Less than 1% of writers are able to live off of their craft. INCLUDING myself. I hold down a day job on top of busting my ass and hustling to make my stories exist. Much like how the character Dexter has a compulsion to kill people thanks to his ‘dark passenger’, I feel the pull to make my stories exist.
I say the following wherever I can to help re-affirm my purpose in saying my goal is to help one million people. This is my motivational tool that helps keep me focused, because I know there is someone out there that needs to read my stories to make their life a little better. I don’t know where or how, but simply focus on that fact. One day my writing will be someone’s favorite thing. Thats not the bi-product of an over inflated ego, because I work hard to make my stories better than even I can originally imagine them. I toil day in and day out selflessly in the hopes that one day someone will read the words I wrote and it will make that moment better being outside of their own lives.
So, what is your motivation for writing? The more selfless you make it, the easier it is to write. What about some buddies to keep you accountable? Share it with the rest of us in a comment below!
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Welcome to my introductory post about Nano, giving you the absolute basics to get you started this year. What are we covering in this post?- WTF is NanoWriMo really?
- Nano survival kits
- Fiializing your Nano Novel Idea
WTF is Nano
There are many reasons people participate in NanoWriMo. The most important is to accomplish something that would otherwise never exhist. As human beings, our main atribute is being creators. We exist to create something. We are instruments of change. Ideas and concepts come to us, and we feel the compultion to make them a reality.
NaNoWriMo is one of those things that help us facilitate that change in our world. The end goal is to birth 50 thousands words into a consecutive narrative. On paper that sounds relatively easy. The truth is that is is harder than any new writer can imagine. You have to develop not only dicipline, but maintain your levels of interest in your story. Because beleive me, your love for your story will receede the longer you work on it.
I first attempted Nano in 2008, and FAILED MISERABLY. The equivalent of falling flat on my face and scraping all of the skin and flesh along the asphalt. I wish I was exaggerating. I forgot the most important part was dicipline, and walked into it thinking it was childsplay. So, if my first time was that difficult, why am I still participating after having already won? Because of what it means to me.
Nano forces me to focus on building a draft within a short amount of time, without letting my inner editor take control. Our inner editors want to make everything perfect the first time around. This is normal. However, it is difficult for them to edit when there is no time for it. Forcing your inner editor to sit in time out is the ONLY way a first draft manuscript can materialize. Make peace that the first draft will be a bloody mess, and move on. You can work on that later – but you cant work on writing if you are editing. So write first, edit second.
NaNoWriMo Survival Kits
No two survival kits will be the same, first and foremost. How you will build yours will vary based on intense introspection, and knowing your shortcomings. The point of a survival kit is to keep your flaws in check, by planning for them to rear thier ugly heads.
If you want to peek at other participants kits, check out the Forum HERE.
Here is a list of possible items to include:
- sticky notes
- outline
- writing totem ( mine is a sketleon painted rubber Ducky named Xavier)
- scented candles
- Youtube Playlists
- Beverages of choice ( beer to Coffee and Tea)
- Snacks ( some healthy, some fatty, some salty, and some sweet.)
- visual inspiration for writing and/or story
- pinterest Writing boards
- plush onesies ( MY uniform is a Plush Ghostbusters Onesie.)
- takeout/ fast food menus
- water bottles
- reference books
- wrtie or die
- Scrivener of iOS
- notebooks
- blanket/ shawl
- favorite book ( fiction to keep your focued on prose)
- Nano Forums
- Netflix
- yoga mat
- writing buddies
- story binder, pre-writing
- timers
Whatever you choose is up to you, and only you. You know how you will try to self sabotage your writing, so plan for it.
Finalizing your NaNoWriMo Novel Idea
Chances are, if you are attempting Nano, you already have a slew of ideas roaming through your head, or if you are lucky, only one. Either way choosing an idea to commit to has to challege you. Why? Because if it is too easy, you will shrug it off, and not work on it.
Challenges motivate us to take a risk on something to see if we are strong enough. For instance Initially this Nano (2016) I was going to attempt a BEAST of a 100k word SciFi novel. The closer it got to October, the more I feared starting. So I knew I would never start, thus never win. 2014’s Nano I won writing Di Inferi, Those Who Dwell Bellow because I could write 50k. So I took stock of all of my writing projects and took an honest look at what stories I felt more attached to, and discovered I had three Novellas (25k words each) that wanted to exist more than my SciFi idea.
So, I opted to challenge myself with 75k words. I could easliy write 25k, so why not 3. That way, If I only complete two, I still have two first drafts instead of one. Best case Scenario, I have three.
So, your homework today is to look deep within yourself and ask why you want to write your project. ( I will tell you a secret- any reason is a good reason to write- unless the end goal is fame and fortune. If that is your goal, you dont have it in you.) You need to decide what story inside of you makes you excited, and write down everything you feel about his project. Pin it to your wall where you can see it each day before you write. This will help you stay focused on why you are doing this.
What are some reasons you will be participating? Share it with us!!!
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Hello, Hello, Hello!
With a new year on the horizon brings us Nano time! I have pledged to participate and win this year, what about you? If so, congrats! You are about to take on something very difficult, but rewarding.
This year, I will be doing a daily blog series featuring tools, tips, and tricks to help anyone who may venture to my side of the web.
So what will I cover? Here’s the rundown (will become hot-links after the posts go live):
- NaNoWriMo 101
- Why are you choosing to write?
- World building/ making your world rules.
- Plotting/Plot chains/Beat Sheets/ References
- Pinterest Boards for your Nano Novel
- Developing Characters
- Developing Settings
- Antagonists 101
Some quick links on Nano Prep on the Official NaNoWriMo Forums:
- Current Prep Status
- Got Your Title?
- How To Win: Advice Before you begin from previous winners
- How You Outline
- My NaNo Prep Checklist! What’s Yours?
- NaNo Prep As A Parent
- NaNo Survival Skills
- Planster? ( a Mix of Planner and pantster)
- Seeking Advice as a Wrimo who has never finished
- Typing Vs. Handwriting
These posts will begin October 19th, 2016, and will lead up to November 1st in which we will ALL start writing our Projects. Participating this year? have any tips or tricks? Share it with us in a comment below! Let’s help each other out!
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Recently I attended my first nephews baby shower. The party was filled with a bunch of people I didn’t know. My social anxiety hit the roof, and I spiraled until my brain chose to do something unexpected. For some unknown reason my brain reminded me to look at the event as character development research. As quickly as my panic attack came on, I went away and left me with a treasure trove of resources for later use.
So, lets break down what exactly happened, and then I will give you the mental tools to do the same.
Comfort Zones
As writers we spend so much time alone writing, that we forget how to act like human beings and talk to people. It is often like an axe murdererwalked into the party, raised his axe high in the air with an ultimatum to be interesting, and our response is to scream and throw our drink into the murderers face and flee. The problem is that social anxiety has a compounding factor. For every second of awkwardness we feel, the pressure to be interesting intensifies until we erupt into a social fauxpax.
Small Talk
As writers we spend so much of our time re reading our writing and hold back the urge to vomit at our fluff. Fluff is the prose that you want to hunt and kill like the axe murderer mentioned above. We hate seeing it, so it is expected we would only want to say things of value and merit, and here you are forced to talk about stuff that has no real bearing on your day to day life. This is normal. Take a deep breath and just read on.
Lack of Common Interests
As writers we find it hard to converse with “normal” people. Normal people tend to have active social lives that revolve around parties and watching a lot of TV. Typically, they are following the lifestyles of celebrities you have never heard of. Maybe they are super into sports, and your idea of a pleasing sports event is watching a Qudditch match. It is important to remember that even though you dont care about the same things and or people that they do, means it has no value. Everyone has a right to thier interests, and it pays to ask questions about them.
Tools to Use
People Watch As Research.
It is amazing was a slight shift in perspective can do to help with this one. There is so much verbal and non verbal communication being thrown around at events, and it pays to observe them. watch how people interact with each other taking note of thier body posture, hand gestgures, or even the volume of thier voice. Do you hear any interesting laughs, or interesting groupings of cliques?
Paying attention to these interactions is our lifeblood as writers. If we cannot disect these actions, how can we ever communicate them through words alone? This is what we activley try to emulate with our writing as we tell our stories, because if our characters communication isnt coming off naturally, we arent doing our story justice.
Another side game you can play while people watching, is coming up with elaborate secret backgrounds for the people you are observing. Make them sharp in contrast to thier appearance, and reconcile how they got to this momment at the party. You never know, there may be a hidden story idea gem in there for you. It helps exercise the writing muscles.
Self Promotion
Ah, the dreded two words that make the most willful writer shrivel up and die. We hate talking about ourselves and our work because we are scared it will seem too boastful and turn people off. I’m going to tell you a secret. Most people will never write that book that is inside them. Some will start it, but few finish. The people you are talking to know this.
It is perfectly okay to inform people what you have written. If you havent finished yet, hope is not lost. This is the perfect time to fine tune your elevator speech. If they dont get your premise, it is a sign and agent wont get it either, so take mental notes of what people respond to and try again next party.
I usually tie this part up by asking if they have ever considered writing, because I can guarantee you everyone has at least ONE book idea. This is the perfect opportunity to urge them to get started, and help them with any mental blocks or tips you have lerned along the way. This is a productive self promotion tool in that now this person will remember you and your advice, because you positivley impacted thier life. Wether they take the plunge and write is neither here nor there, because you made someones day by telling them about your work. ( It’s all about perspective.)
Diflecting Attention
This is by far my most used diflection technique. Ask people about thier lives, and backgrounds. Non introverts will always want to talk about themselves. ( it isnt a negative, they just happen to be more apt at sharing thier life experiences than others.)
‘Peel The Onion’ as it were, and learn how thier life experiences made them. Use these layers with your own characters. Now, I am NOT saying to rip off someones life for a character without the persons permission. What I mean is to learn how small life events lead to large ones.
You will find with this technique people will leave the conversation with nothing but positive things to say about you, because you were open and receptive to thier experiences. This also leaves you with future customers. Being personable and likleable are the most important pillars to your Author Platform.
find the common ground
Even if all you have in common is being a Human being, there is something you can learn from them. Life is not a constant game of one-upmanship. We are all going through life together, so we might as well learn from each other in some way or another.
Any tips or tricks you have found help out? Let us know!!! (a.k.a. Leave a comment)
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Hello again everyone! Today we are talking about the Dragon that is NanoWriMo. I will assume you have just had one of three reactions :
- Horrified
- Confused ( Whut is Nano? )
- Explosivley cheerful
I am personally a mix of one and two. First of all, NaNoWriMo is an abreviation of ‘National Novel Writing Month’, A.K.A Novemver. Every year millions of people around the world sit down in front of thier computers and comit to themselves and the novel inside of them to become a reality.
While it is in fact exciting, and adventurous to comit to fleshing out a story it is impossible to achive unless you put in the work. Thats where most people ( including myself) fall short. In 2014 I won NaNo with ‘Di Inferi and Those Who Dwel Below’ ( my most beloved work in progress). I achived my 50,000 word count goal five days early, and by the end I had a 73,000 word manuscript to show for my time.
There were a few factors that helped me get to that point:
JOIN A WRITING GROUP
I was shocked to discover this was most likely the main reason I was able to win NaNo. Everyday I logged in my words, and kept other people in my writing group accountable. Writing groups are a fantastic way to share your feelings and advice. Be sure to include other writers in various stages of thier writing career. This will help build a community to help pull you out of funks that inevitably will come.
ENGAGE PEOPLE IN YOUR WRITING GROUP
You may be surprised who might step into your writing life. I, myself befriended a fellow writing in one of these groups that unbeknowest to me was an Indie Comic Book Publisher. I am also happy to say he is in my inner circle of trusted friends I know I can rely on, and open up to about my personal life.
You will be surprised how adding people in your friend pool with the same goals as you will actually help slighshot you further in your writing life. Thier presence reminds me I am on the right path.
SHARE YOUR GOALS PUBLICLY
This goes back to accountability. When you have other people checking up on you ( think of how a Boss will check in with you and how you are doing with a task), because mentally it drives you. If you surround yourself with friends who are writers as well, that will bump up your accountability because you dont want to let them down.
When sharing your writing goals this november have everyone in your group ‘pitch’ thier story idea. This will make the story seem real to you, and have others care to find out what exactly happens.
Another side effect is that as you are writing you can comment on what happened in your story, what was difficult – or a Rogue character that hyjacked a storyline. This will have other people invested in you as a writer, and your story – your future reader base.
COMMIT TO YOURSELF
This NaNoWriMo 2016 is a great time to take out a clendar and in each day write 1,667. Why that number? Because 50k broken up to everyday is a measly 1,667 words. Thats all you have to commit to. The average person can write 250 words in about fifteen minutes. You can do that math.
If you can carve out an hour of writing time, you can have a completed first draft.
WRITING TIME IS SACRED
Everyday of 2014 Nano, the first thing I did for the day was sit down at my computer and check my online writers group. Instead of social media sucking me in, checking up on my friends progress gave me the fire to get my writing done for the day, otherwise I would have no room to talk when others didnt complete thier daily goals. Do whatever you have to to get those words down, be it waking up early, going to bed late, or even locking yourself in a small room with only your work in Progress.
Pitfalls that contributed to my falling flat on my face in the 2015 Nano Challenge:
BALANCING WORK AND WRITING TIME
So, what caused me to fail miserably in 2015? I didnt prioritize my writing. At that time I started a new day job to support my writing career. Wanting to impress my new co workers I focused on learning that trade, and my writing became less important. I moved writing to “if I get to it during the day”, instead of “before I do anything today.”
When I wrote Di Inferi, I was a stay at home housewife. I had all the time in the world to complete my manuscript. Now, I found myself juggling more balls than I could have imagined, and kept letting myself drop the one ball I wanted to balance.
PUTTING OFF THE WORK (COMPLETING DAILY GOALS)
Procrastination. We always think there is enough time. We have l;oads of it during the day. The trouble is that we dont notice its passing. We are on this earth for a finite time. I calculated how many project ideas I have versus the average time it takes for me to complete a project and realized, I need three more lifetimes. Let that sink in.
That means some of my stories will nevr be shared with anyone. No one will benefit from them. When I die, they will die with me. They won’t enrich anyones lives unless I double down and do the work and not put it off another minute.
LACK OF INCENTIVES
Another thing that works everytime is incentives. In 2014 I chose to reward myself with my favorite chocolate Ferro Rocher. Every time I wrote 1667 words I popped one in my mouth. If I didnt attain the goal, no chocolate. That also meant if I didnt reach a goal, I couldnt have the chocolate until the day after, and the chocolates did not stack. However they did stack when goals were achived in one day.
For instance, the 25th day I wrote 5000 words. I surprised and amazed myself. I accomplished half of Stephen Kings daily writing goal ( no lie – his daily goal is 10k!). I broke my own rules to reward my accomplishment and for every 1000, I had a chocolate.
In 2015 I had no such incentive. I had no reason to accomplish my goals, so I didnt. Incentives are POWERFUL.
NO PREPARATION
Nano 2015 I also tried something new to see if I could do it. In Nano you are either a Planner or a Pantster ( fly by the seat of your pants.) This is where I learned I am hopeless without a roadmap. Trying to write a story where I didnt know where it was going only brought on writers block. If you can write without a road map, more power to you – but thankfully I learnd from this. This is why my planning started this July (2016). Pre Write as much as you possibly can if you need a roadmap. It is the best way to prevent writers blocks.
So, what now?
So, why/how does this help you, the reader of this amazingly awesome blog? It helps you to know that as an amateur novelist I was able to attain my goals, and even as a professional author I have failed miserably. There will be high times, and there will be some REALLY LOW times. As long as we look at out work objectivley and choose to learn from our good and bad habits, we can create beautiful things for people out there. Remember- the Novel you are writing will some day be SOMEONES favorite book.
It may take years to get to that point, but this isnt a timed race ( okay, maybe Nano is, but in the grand sceme of life I mean.), because this is about the journey. Just keep clacking at the keayboard until you reach your goal.
So, tell me how things have worked for you and not worked for you in the past. Any pearls of wisdom for the other readers out there?
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UPDATE: Officer friend has been accounted for, he is home safe with his family.
Hey there. This is slightly awkward, since I am currently pre writing at least fifty blog posts on the art of writing and so forth. It’s awkward because this shouldn’t be my first post. There should be zero reason that it is 5 am and I have not been able to sleep.
Initially, I know what you would think, I must be scared for my life. Thankfully no. I reside far enough away from the shootings last night that I am in no immediate danger. I’m not able to sleep because I am tired. Not the typical type of tired before you fall asleep. This tired transcends the general lack of energy that follows the need to sleep.
This tired is for the senseless killings. In my current Novel I have been putting off writing a scene, knowing how heartbreaking it will be. In this chapter my heroine must deal with the backlash of child soldiers killing families in Africa, terrorist attacks in airports, and people walking into peaceful places such as churches and shooting everyone. I am tired because I have more than enough demons in my writing fiction. I do not need to see these demons in real life.
I’m tired of all of this killing. While flipping through social media I scrolled over a report of a Taiwanese Typhoon devastating its region, and all I could think of was “thankfully it was a natural disaster.”
Has it really come to that? We have been inundated with so many deaths by our own hand that a natural disaster is a welcome change? I am tired of that feeling. I’m tired of people who turn this into a political game of pointing fingers. I’m tired that so many of us are so focused on an “Us vs. Them” mentality, they cant even accept the fallen officers were victims.
Frequently at the grocery store I shop at, I see a Dallas Police Officer keeping the peace. One night I absently went to pick up some toiletries I was running low on when an officer smiled and said “Hello,” as we crossed paths. Somehow we got into a short conversation on how this is his first real break having worked a thirteen hour shift. THIRTEEN. He hadn’t even had the time to stop and get something to eat.
I was floored. I had to right this wrong. I broke off our conversation, and said I’ll see what I can do. I’m fairly certain he thought that would be the last he had seen of me. Luckily there was a fast food restaurant still open, and I ordered the healthiest option available and instructed them it was for the officer. Struck by my gesture the attendant ( who just happened to be the manager on duty) said to tell the Officer to come in and he can have whatever he wanted to eat, regardless of what its price was – he would cover the rest if need be.
I’m not telling you this story to make you ponder on what a humanitarian I am ( okay, maybe I am – but thats not the point here). The point is that the Officer had never seen this type of kindness while on duty. People tended to shy away from him when he was in uniform, and only pay lip service. My random act of kindness should never have been a gesture that moved him to stop me on my way to my car and convey his gratitude ( while giving thanks is good- its the fact that he was never shown appreciation for his work).
The most terrifying layer of this story is that I don’t know if he was helping out at that protest( Dallas PD is VERY short-staffed as is). I don’t know if the man that represents all of those officers in my head right now is alive or dead. A kind, warm human being put his life on the line for years – just like the Officers last night. Every Officer present represents all of the people who keep us so safe that we aren’t even aware they are doing their work. They stand between me and anarchy in the streets.
For every bad cop, there are at least three good. Let that sink in.
My call to action is simple. No, I will not ask for people to share my blog post in some mastermind marketing ploy. All I ask is that when you go about your day tomorrow, and you happen to see a police officer, shake their hand and tell them “Thank you for your service to my community.” Thats it. You will notice it is similar to thanking a Soldier wearing fatigues, because they are the unsung Soldiers in our community. Some are war vets ( a.k.a. Dallas Swat).
P.S. I promise to have the rest of this blog up and running as soon as possible, and thank you for reading.
Are you tired? I’m tired.
Author R.A. Gasparac 
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