NaNoWriMo ends!

All good things must come to and end.

The National Novel Writing Month is almost over, and it saddens me deeply, because, in all honesty, it has changed my writing life.

Aspiring writers go through many challenges, most of us hold regular jobs and have to juggle between work, family and friends and the sacred little time we have left to write. We all have to go through the deep valleys of self-doubt, of over editing and the darkest place of them all: procrastination. We have to forego family outing (especially during the week) or leave our favorite games, movies, and TV series behind. Why? Well, in my case, because I have to. Writing is as essential to my life and eating and breathing, it has become an intrinsically part of my life that without it, a dull, cold and empty void would form at the very heart of my soul. Writing is an extension of who I am and who I want to be, it is to experience, through the eyes and voice of my characters, stories that simply need to burst out of my head.

As an aspiring writer, I made a conscious decision to commit to my writing in the beginning of the year, to forget about being published, or to publish myself, because I have NOTHING to publish. NaNoWriMo has changed my pre-conceived notions of what I am capable of doing and of my own resolve to, well, simply write.

For the past 20 years, an idea evolved into a story, a story evolved into a novel and now, finally, I am seeing the possibility of finishing it, of having a beginning and an end. That has become the most important aspect of my writing right now, and I intend to keep on rolling words, of creating the zero draft, the whole story from scratch, and then edit the heck out of it.

I wanted to write 90k words this month, I am 20k short, and will probably not get there; however, I am not worried about that anymore. This month I have written through blinding migraines and lackluster effort. I have written after long, tiresome days and even longer, restless nights. And I have done so being faithful to what I expect me to be in terms of being an employee, a business owner, a friend, a parent and a husband. I can't ask more out my tired soul.

So, I will keep on writing, I will keep on grinding and eventually, the results will be there, and they will be worth the wait.

Edit: I have changed the layout of the site, I hope you all like it. I will be removing links to some of my outdated work, and will remove the links to the Druid's Grove. I feel that I posted the latter with no editing or revision whatsoever, and will not post until it is fit to be up.

Thanks again!

NaNoWriMo week 4

So much to do and so little time! This phrase has been stuck in my brain the while week, because I have not been able to find time to do everything that I want to do.

NaNoWriMo continued, and is entering its final week. I have been a somewhat lazy once I passed the 50k word mark, and I am still gunning for the 90k, but, I don't think I can get there this week. Regardless of my own goal, I do feel proud that I was able to muster up 50k coherent words (at least at first glance, the editing will commence in January.) about a story I love, with characters that feel like part of a dysfunctional family living inside my head. It has been rewarding and exhausting, but now I know that I am able to write a zero draft in a month or two, instead of years. (I began to write this novel when I was 16, and even though everything has changed since then- it was initially written in Spanish and the protagonist had a strong resemblance to yours truly- the overall story has remained the same since 2002.

Even though I had already loads of pages written, I decided not to use them, because I wanted to start fresh, my writing, for better or worse, has changed in these past nine years, so I wanted to read new words, fresh ideas, and I have been able to do so.

Even though I won't have it ready by the end of the month, I am well on my way of finishing the novel this year, an event that will undoubtedly have me celebrating rowdily by consuming alarming amounts of spirits.

That said, I am looking to finish the month strong and to build on the momentum.

The week is almost over, so there is nothing more to say!

Have a great week and keep on writing!

NaNoWriMo week 2

Oh boy, this last two week have been interesting indeed. Not only because I accepted the challenge of NaNoWriMo, but because so much has happened that I don't know where to begin! I guess I will start, at the beginning then...

This past Saturday, we were finally able to celebrate my boy's birthday party, albeit it was a very small family gathering, my wife and I felt that we owed the little guy his party and I have been really struggling letting go of what happened to him a couple of months back. His was born on September 10, three years ago. This time around, everything was ready for his party, but he fell ill, and I mean, really, really ill. He contracted a nasty bacteria that destroyed his stomach and intestines. I don't know if I have ever been more afraid in my life, than when I got to the emergency room and saw my little boy, pale (he had lost a lot blood via his stool), dark rings around his eyes and the uneasy gaze of not knowing what is happening. I hugged him and tried to tell him that everything would be all right, but I did not know for sure, we had no idea what was going on. Just writing about it is hard...

The good news is that he obviously recovered; he spent 11 days in the hospital, enduring a grueling battle with his IV medicine and the tedium of feeling better but not being able to go anywhere. My wife and I had to split the time between the hospital and home, and I did not want my 5-year-old girl to spend too much time in the pediatric ward of the hospital for obvious reasons. So we never really had time to stop what we were doing and to analyze what has happening, heck, like I wrote above, I have just begun sorting through all the feeling and emotions.

Being able to see him this last Saturday, happy, playing with his toys and with his cousins, it just made my year. A smile from one of my kids wipes all the worries away, that's for sure.

I got sick on Thursday (My wife was the culprit for this one, her new nickname shall be the Petri Dish) and could not get much done in terms of my writing. Friday I was slowly dying (at least I felt that way) and Saturday I had the party and on Sunday I rested, still not feeling 100%. So, now I am 9k words behind on what I want to accomplish from NaNoWriMo. Yesterday I was able to get around 600 words back, and I am determined to write at least 25k words this week. I know that word counts are not that important in the grand scheme of things, but for a professional procrastinator, it has been a life changer. I now have a measurable goal; before NaNoWriMo, I wrote roughly 2k words a day, but now I see that I am perfectly able to write 3k+ daily, in the same amount of time and I owe the knowledge to the Challenge.

Hope you all have a great week and keep on writing!

NaNoWriMo Week 1

Week one of NaNoWriMo has been quite uplifting and good. The hours put into the writing have, in my opinion, been productive and the positives surely outweigh the negatives so far.

I am blessed to be able to work from home in the afternoons (at least for now, if a change needs to made, well, then it will be made) so I can spend those writing hours at home. I am only a closed door away from my wife and kids, so whenever I feel like it, I can take a small break and see what the family is up to (or my kids can barge into my study and ask what I am doing, which I love) or just go say hi and play for a few minutes with them. This month has been no different, even though I am spending more time writing (Our manufacturing keep working until 5:30 pm, sometimes 7 pm, so during those hours I am writing and working) my work and family are not neglected.

Now, my goals were pretty clear when I began: write 3,000 words every day and reach the 90,000 word count at the end of the month.

So far, I am sitting at 14,000 words, I am about 4,000 short of the weekly goal. However, I am certain that I can make up for it in the coming week.

The experiment of writing a novel in a month (well, a draft of a novel actually, at least that is what I believe I am writing) has been good in so many ways that it is difficult to describe them, mainly because those positive changes are mostly about the way I feel about my writing, about the discipline I am learning to dispense on my day to day life; it has spilled over my work ethic, my other goals (losing weight, smoking less or quit smoking altogether, exercising, getting to work on time, not procrastinating, etc.) so I really do recommend this experience to anyone that wants to write anything.

I know that the novel won’t be ready for a long time, but the foundations are going to be written this month and I aim that these words can be a good building block.

Let’s see how this week goes.

I will post some of what I have written later on in the week.

Have a great one!

NaNoWriMo begins!

Well, finally, November is here and with it comes NaNoWriMo, one of the most challenging events I have ever been a part of.

The ominous 50,000 words in one month sounds scary enough (it comes out to roughly 1,600 words per day) but the fact of finishing the novel, be it 50k or more or less words is the real deal for me. I have not finished a novel, EVER. I have only finished 3 short stories, but no novels, so this is a big deal for me, and one of the main reasons I signed up. I fell that is it time that I up the ante on my writing and begin to take it more seriously, or at least be more responsible in terms of discipline.

Like I have stated before in this blog, I want to finish a novel first, then day dream of what I am going to do with it (either self-publishing or sending it around).

I found some very interesting tips around the web, and I will share with you the best list of tips, for me at least, that will help you, if you are signed up for NaNoWriMo.

There is not much else to say this week, I have been preparing my outline and I am ready to go.

I will let you know how I am doing next week.

See you and happy writing!

Links:

http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/2009/11/nano-tip-1-dialog-spine/

http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/11/02/nano-tip-no-2-the-zen-of-first-zero-drafts/