Using NaNoWriMo for My Own Purposes

I joined my first National Novel Writing Month in 2010. The thirty days of writing abandon lifted me off the ground with encouragement, camaraderie, and a nice award certificate for finishing with over 50,000 words.

I had the word count, but did I have a novel—a big NO.

What I had was a failed experiment. Of my two ideas for protagonists, one an older woman and one much younger, I went with the older character first. Unfortunately, I ran out of steam halfway in, about the same time I came to the end of my story. What to do? It’s NaNoWriMo, so I kept writing. I came up with another ending. I still didn’t have my word count, so I continued with notes and thoughts about what I’d do better—next time.

Out of that mess, came the basis for my next attempt with a different protagonist and different story elements. This turned out better, but it still wasn’t a novel.

So, for my 2013 effort, I found a writing group that met at Books-A-Million in Davenport. I joined in, but felt very uncomfortable. The group had a nice mix of ages, so it wasn’t that. It was me showing up with my old manuscript pages and working on a total rewrite. That didn’t jive with the often stated purpose of writers diving into something brand new and writing by the seat of their pants.

I felt that I’d done that already. Twice, even. Now, I needed more. I needed to refine, develop, and complete the process. I showed up every Friday night in November, but kept to myself. I stayed off to the side, sipped my latte, and typed away. I got my 50,000 words, my certificate, and a much better product. I neared my personal goal of having a real novel.

Now, with my novel tantalizingly close to completion, the goal for this year’s NaNoWriMo—50,000 brand new words.

Sometimes You Have to Wait

I sat in front of a microphone Thursday morning and put in my fifteen minutes. Alas, not for my fifteen minutes of fame, just helping WVIK put together an interview for the Midwest Writing Center’s David R. Collins Writers’ Conference. 

To promote the conference, an annual end-of-June event, the station wanted to interview someone new to the conference and someone old. I got the nod for old.

I didn’t mind, because I’ve been coming to MWC workshops since 2008 and the conference since 2011. And, yes, at sixty-three, I am somewhat oldish.

I filled in the interviewer to my background, how I first heard about the conference, and noted the things I felt helped me the most. I listed a great many.

My connection with MWC has been very beneficial for me. I’ve come a long way from the shy person hanging out in the background afraid someone might notice me. I’m still a shy person, but I tend to speak up more.

In reviewing my information packets and notes from the 2011 conference, I noticed I had signed up for three workshops. For 2012, I attended two. Last year it came down to only one. This year, I’m going to pitch, that is, actually talk to two agents about representing me and my book.

Whether the pitches work or not doesn’t matter to me as much as showing how far I’ve come on this novel writing journey of mine. Thanks to working with the MWC, I feel like I am a writer and my novel will get published one way or the other. There are a lot of opportunities out there and one of them will be right for me.

Before leaving the station, my last comment for the interviewer, a young woman, was “don’t wait for opportunities,” meaning, make your moves before the later stages of life.

I meant to be encouraging, but maybe I was wrong. We don’t all have the same opportunities or develop at the same pace. What if you have a certain amount of living you have to put in before you’re capable, ready, for writing down your stories? What if the stars do have line up?

Whatever the answer, in the end, I can only speak for my journey and I got here the best way I knew how.

Click here to find WVIK article and audio.

Bishop Hill as a Character

When I began planning my first novel, that is, when it started to have more substance other than a dream, I had three things on my agenda: use my art background, write a mystery, and have Bishop Hill as a character. 

My art background began to develop in the sixth grade after a teacher encouraged me to do more with the pencil sketches I’d entered in a school art show. I’ve stayed with art as a career choice through several permutations. So, that was a no-brainer.

Several sources recommended writing a mystery for a first book as a lesson in plotting. Good advice, since I have this tendency to dump too much information on the reader way too soon. It’s an ongoing struggle to pace things out. So attempting a mystery was definitely a good deal for me.

Dealing with the last item on my list was more difficult. Bishop Hill and its history has been the subject of any number of scholarly books and articles. A few writers have used Bishop Hill as a setting for mysteries and have done a good job portraying places and people I could recognize. Others have delved into its historic past in a fictionalized manner to explore important themes. None of these efforts were going to be helpful for me. I wanted a Bishop Hill that might have been, one of my own creation. Similar, but not. Familiar, but not.

The first thing to go—windmills. Not so hard to do. In order to have my 103-year-old span the time frame I needed, I had to set the action in 2008. There were no wind turbines on the skyline then.

You may ask why I needed a 103-year-old. Good question. During my first NaNoWriMo marathon writing splurge, I tired very quickly of typing in “great-great-grand...” whenever I wanted to reach back for historical facts or action. Easy answer: Create a character who had lived it all and who could bear witness.

So far, I’ve left the basic structure: the Bishop Hill Rd., Main St., the park, the Colony-era buildings intact. No one who’s planning to visit after reading my book will likely get lost. But I’ll work on adding a map anyway, just to be safe.

Time Traveling

It’s been quite a week for me. I discovered a portal had opened up and given me the opportunity to travel back in time—sort of.

I’ve set the action in my Bishop Hill novel to take place during a weeklong stretch in 2008. To be precise, from Friday, May 30th, to Sunday, June 8th. As I prepared to take a drive back to the village in order to soak up some atmosphere, it dawned on me that May 30, 2014 was also a Friday. Not an earthshaking event by any means, but a serendipitous opportunity to spend the whole next week pretending the events in my novel were unfolding in real time.

At the end of May last year, I took a similar drive back to Bishop Hill. I specifically wanted to look at the fields along Highway 34 and check out how the planting was going. I used my observations to improve the description of my protagonist’s drive from Galesburg to the village.

This year, I chose to drive out later in the day. I had found some historical information about the different levels of twilight in 2008 and wanted to experience it first hand. To get a better feel for the levels of darkness as night descended.

I had no idea that there could be so much more to sunset. The website for Weather Underground listed four categories of evening light that depended on the sun’s position at and below the horizon: Actual sunset, Civil twilight, Nautical twilight, and Astronomical twilight. Before finding these facts, it was just all fading light to me. Now I have names for the changes and a time table. The internet—what a great tool.

While driving around, I began to notice all the little changes to quiet Bishop Hill and the surrounding area. There were quite a few more than I would have expected. Most of the older parts of the village try to remain true to the colony era, but you can’t freeze time and prevent change. As structures age, they need repairing, repainting, and, eventually, replacing.

I never thought of my novel as a tool that might preserve a portion of Bishop Hill’s past life. I just wanted it to tell an interesting story, to be a “good read.” My novel, in its own small way, may become something of a capsule to be opened up by the reader who wants to do a little time traveling. 

Constructive Criticism and Magic

I don’t think of constructive criticism as an oxymoron. Constructive comments as a term might sound less harsh. Better yet, feedback. Whatever you call it, it is invaluable for a writer seeking to improve skills and a story.

Writers need not fear revisions and rewrites. That’s where the magic happens.

I’ve recently gathered the confidence to let my novel out to a few trusted readers with the instruction, request actually, to give me comments and feedback.

Now, I have to wait and fret. I’ve spent the better part of four years building up to this point. If the consensus is totally negative, what can I do? Start completely over after investing so much? That will hurt. I’ve heard of writers doing just that. They put a bad manuscript in a drawer and go on to the next something else. Sadder, but wiser.

I suppose I could move on the next project. Check out writing websites for ideas. But I’d rather not. I still have high hopes for my Bishop Hill novel. I’d rather have constructive comments and ideas on how to make it better, to continue working within the framework of what I have already built.

When I took part in a novel writing workshop through the Midwest Writing Center in 2012, I had to come up with 30 pages of manuscript to share with the dozen other writers. I felt lucky to have those pages ready to go. Some of the other writers didn’t.

Amy Parker, a writer from Iowa City, led the group through the workshop process and set up these guidelines for us:

·        Read twice: first for pleasure, as with a “magazine read” and look for first impressions; second as a writer who marks up the manuscript to indicate the passages that delight, that confuse, that pose questions. In short, fill in the margins with comments.

·        Write a one page letter to the author. She wanted us to describe the story, what happens, and where we thought it was going. Readers can pick up on things the author may not have intended. We need to know what worked for the reader, what moved them, what they admired.

The goal was to get at what confused the reader. Where the story needed development, gaps filled, inconsistencies fixed, language clarified. What scenes that could be compressed or summaries that could be amped up.

I don’t expect my readers to go through a whole novel twice, but I am hoping for good suggestions for the next rewrite. After all, magic is a good thing.

Stay Calm: Don't Hyphen-ventilate

I think I’ve finally figured it out. Why Quad-Cities becomes Quad Cities and vice versa.

It’s been a mystery to me ever since, well, ever since I started writing my own mystery.

Along with learning how to write, what makes “good” writing, are the finer points of punctuation—the glue that holds a sentence together. Sadly, in my middle school days, I willfully ignored that nice Language Arts teacher. I’ve paid a heavy price for that indiscretion ever since.

So now, I’m playing a catch up game. I actually bought and read a grammar book. I supplement that with a lot of Google searches. I ask my kids. Stuff like that gets me by until I’m ready to buy the time of a professional editor to check things over.

I feel I’ve improved over time. However, my spell checker program still remains a life saver more often than not. But it has its limitations—it doesn’t do hyphens well. As in, it doesn’t tell me what to do. It gives me choices. Not at all helpful. Most days I can’t decide what I want for lunch.

I found an online dictionary comment that said hyphen usage was down. Don’t believe it. Once you start looking, hyphens are everywhere.

Which brings me to my conundrum. The collection of cities that straddle the Mississippi River northwest of Bishop Hill is a nice place. I’d like to send one of my characters there. Do I hyphenate the name or not?

The answer came by way of a newspaper article about the Quad City Symphony Orchestra celebrating its centennial. It seems the original name was the Tri-City Symphony. I envisioned the ensuing years saw Tri-City turn into Quad-City as the organization grew and prospered. The final stage of growth and transformation required the omission of the hyphen. Quad City can stand on its own as a mature entity. It doesn’t hurt that it can also assume equal, nonhyphenated, standing with the Illinois Arts Council.

In case you’re wondering if this situation applies only to artsy groups, consider the Quad City Mallards.

Therefore, I’m going to send my character off to visit some nice people living in the Quad Cities and let the editorial chips fall where they may.

A Multitude of Michaels

I’m lucky to have many Michaels in my life, both past and present.

I recently helped the first of my Michaels get to O’Hare airport. Not by driving, mind you, his dad drove. I sat in the back seat trying to convince my smart phone to give me verbal directions to go along with the map. Everyone had a safe journey and I got in a lot of valuable practice time virtually navigating around Chicago.

Another one of my Michaels is a family friend, a bright young man I watched grow up. And yes, when he started kindergarten he rechristened himself with a new middle name—Dinosaur. I’ve waited a long time to find a place for that little gem.

He’s grown up to become a responsible family man with an impressive beard that makes him look a lot like his father. I ran into him at a museum a few months ago, but didn’t mention his little niche in my novel as we chatted. It wasn’t the right time.

Two other of my Michaels are a father and son. The son was responsible for my family getting involved in the Bishop Hill 4-H club. I put in ten years shepherding kids through monthly meetings, helping them complete all kinds of projects, and staging local and state fair presentations. Personal high point: watching rockets and robots do their stuff. Least favorite: the lemon shake-up assembly line.

One day, I had the three of these young men sitting in my living room. I walked in to tell my son something and called out his name. Three sets of eyes simultaneously turned to stare at me and I immediately lost track of what I wanted to say. Whatever important thought that had been there fled my mind, just as I fled the room.

The last of my immediate collection of Michaels was a brother who never had a chance to grow up.

There are probably a few more Michaels that I have forgotten about. It has been a popular name for a long time, so I hope they’ll forgive me if I can’t mention each one.

I just wanted folks to know how I rolled all these people up to become the namesake and inspiration for one of my characters.

Additionally, bits and pieces of many other people went into creating the personality and background for this character.

I hope the finished product will be a tribute to all.