Words/Time: 46 minutes and 1593 words, the latter of which was revising “Pithea” with two of my sisters over Skype. Also known as the 58th meeting of the Tri-County Sisterhood of the Traveling Book. We got through just over 5 pages of double-spaced text. We’re struggling to even find time for the meetings these days, as things are really busy for all of us right now. It wouldn’t be so bad–I wouldn’t even mind taking some weeks off until some of the craziness passes. But we’re so close to the end of the story, I want to try to squeeze in at least an hour each week. The amount we got through today was pretty much on par with what I’d expect for a shorter meeting, so I’m happy with it.
The time was spent early this morning (before I went to bed) working on the plot of my novel for NaNoWriMo. I spent a lot of that time researching. Most of it, in fact. Maybe all of it. I started looking for information on what red-hot metal would do if stabbed into a body (not a pleasant or easy topic to look up) and ended up looking at Hollywood misconceptions about how blades are made.
You know how writers sometimes try to come up with an answer to the question, “Why do you write?” I’m not sure if that’s a question that’s actually posed very often by an external source, or if writers simply decide to answer it themselves. Most writers can answer that question, and the answers may sound similar. Because there’s a story inside us that wants to come out, because it’s fun, because we want to experience a world that we otherwise couldn’t.
I haven’t really thought much about this question myself. No one posed the question to me, but during the last month, a particularly stressful time, I’ve had a realization about what my writing means to me.
First and foremost, I would say I write because I want to share my ideas with others. In my head, they’re no good to anyone but me. I get really excited about some things–a character with a great story, a plot twist that I just have to build a plot around, a sweet moment in time that just maybe I can contain and show to people. The best way to share these things with others is to write them down.
When I first started writing more seriously, the reason was to make up stories about characters my friends and I played in an online game. I used some of what happened to us in the game, made up my own stuff, and just had fun with it.
Now I can add a different answer, one that I never would’ve expected to apply to me. I write because it’s a stress relief. I’ll try to be brief in my explanation.
My dad is a blacksmith who demonstrates his craft at historical reenactments like this one:
At those shows, he also sells items he makes year-round. Camping equipment, fireplace tools, things like that. I work for my dad, mostly doing the books for his small business. I also go with him to some of these reenactments to sell the product.
Going to reenactments, for us, means being gone from Thursday or Friday (depending on if the show has a kids’ day on Friday or not) until Sunday night, sleeping in a truck camper, waking at 7, and being at the mercy of the weather.
In the fall, we have our heaviest concentration of events. This year, we had shows on 5 weekends in a row. This culminated in our two biggest shows of the year, back-to-back. For these two shows, it’s all hands on deck, because the crowds are huge and one person cannot accommodate the rush of people wanting to buy from us.
The show season is really busy for us, both on the weekends of said shows, and during the week when we’re recovering from one and gearing for the next. I work a lot more (normally I work 1 day every week or two), both on the weekends and during the week, and it’s just a generally stressful time.
During all of this, I’m still homeschooling my kids, and I have to bring them when I work during the week and take care of them while trying to focus on my work. I’m not home as much, so the state of the house suffers (I’m not much of a house cleaner anyway, so it gets really bad during this time), my ability to make supper every night is diminished, and school often suffers too. I don’t get a lot of breaks or “me time” while all of this is going on.
This year, I’ve developed a stronger daily habit for writing work than I ever used to have. However, it’s difficult to stick to it when in a busy time like this, and I definitely slacked on the weekends. Even when I had an hour alone before bed, I was usually too tired to focus on writing. Besides, most of my writing work needs a laptop, or at least space to spread stuff out around me. Neither of those are easy to get in the truck camper (we’re not plugged in, just parked out in a field).
However, during the week, I still usually made sure to do some work in the evening. And during the shows’ open hours, when there was a moment of quiet, I would usually be thinking through questions I had about the story I’m revising, or about the one I’m plotting for this year’s NaNo. It gave me something to focus on that was important to me, amidst the craziness. It was nice.
During some of this busy season, a misunderstanding between my husband and me led me to believe that he didn’t want me to spend nearly as much time working on my writing any more. I took something he said the wrong way and nearly fell to pieces thinking that spending my evenings (usually after kids were in bed) shut away and writing/revising/plotting was a problem for him. Before he could explain what he’d actually meant, I was in tears and blurted out something to the effect of, “What will I do to relieve the stress from all of these shows?”
Those words were as much of a revelation to me as they were to him. Neither of us had ever really realized how much my writing meant to me, beyond just trying to share my stories. I can’t say this has changed my thoughts about my writing, or even my approach. However, I am now even more inclined to make sure I get to some sort of writing work every day that I can.
I also think that perhaps, even without having realized it yet, the therapeutic aspect to writing may have been why I’ve been so much more excited about NaNo this year than usual. Or maybe it’s just because I’m obsessed.
Words/Time: 23 minutes working on prep for my 2015 NaNoNovel. I started a timeline for “Too Many Irons in the Fire.” I was going to do a lot more, but then my kids came home and the next hour was spent getting them ready for bed. And then I worked on a blog post for tomorrow, which took me longer than I expected to write. So now it’s midnight and I never got back to my work. Maybe I’ll do some more before I go to bed…though I’m really tired, which doesn’t usually happen to me this early. It’s been a long last few weeks.
Words/Time: 20 minutes working on prep for my 2015 NaNoNovel. The weekend is over, so I wanted to make sure to do some writing work today. However, there’s still a lot of craziness as I recover from my work’s busy season. My head isn’t in the right space yet, and probably won’t be until at least Thursday. For now, though, I’m making lists of things that I want to use in my writing next month–observations I made at the last few rendezvous and things I remember from 12 years of attending these shows. And I started writing up a more detailed synopsis for the plot, only to decide it was getting too detailed (I was aiming for no more than 5 paragraphs). I’ll have to work on that some more.
When I was in high school, I remember realizing that to be able to concentrate on my homework, I needed complete silence. Though I tried to convince my mom (and myself) that I could study in front of the TV, she never bought it, and really, neither did I.
Fast forward to now, and things have changed a little. What I’d like to do is listen to music while I’m writing, plotting, or revising, but that’s usually a bad idea. The only time it really works is when I’m doing something that doesn’t require as much focus, like transferring edits I made on my hard copy into the computer (which, frankly, barely counts as writing work anyway, but it has to be done now and then).
The lyrics are the main reason music is a problem for me. I start singing along, even in my head, and I lose what I’m doing. Music without lyrics would work–I know people who like to write to sound tracks from epic movies about adventure and magic. I don’t listen to that kind of music normally, so it would really just take too long trying to track down a playlist that I like or fits the mood of my story.
So I stay away from music most of the time, but I don’t like absolute silence either.
That’s why I use Coffitivity. I just found out about this website sometime earlier this year, but I use it almost every time I sit down to do any kind of writing work. It’s basically just the sound of a coffee house or diner. On a loop. There are three options (or more, if you want to pay), though I honestly don’t see how any one is better than the others.
This doesn’t work as well for people who write with the internet turned off to avoid distractions, but for the rest of us, it could be a crucial part of our writing environment. If you’re not sure if you need silence, noise, music, or something else, try it out now, during NaNoPrep season while you plan your novel.
Words/Time: 0. I’m physically tired…and sore…and just mentally exhausted. It’s a rendezvous weekend, and I’m technically in the middle of said rendezvous (Mississinewa 1812 in Marion, IN). I was up early this morning to drive out there and join my parents, for whom I work, helping to take money for things we sell, while my dad demonstrates blacksmithing. Normally rendezvous are a full-weekend event for me, meaning that I’m gone all weekend. This one is close enough that I came home tonight. I have to teach children’s church at my church tomorrow, and couldn’t really get out of it (we’re low on teachers), so I’ll go to church tomorrow, then back into my funny clothes and back out to the rendezvous for the rest of the afternoon.
I don’t enjoy rendezvous as much these days because they leave me tired, sore, and often headache-y. And I’ve never enjoyed teaching children’s church because I’m not great with kids and really not much of a teacher, but our church is small and the need for children’s workers has always been great, so I accept the role I was asked to fill. However, doing that on a rendezvous weekend is sort of a conglomeration of stress for me. So I’m taking the weekend off with writing work.
One thing I have realized during all of this (rendezvous season has been non-stop the last 5 weeks) is that writing is somewhat therapeutic for me. I’ll probably make a separate blog post about that soon (in which I may repeat a lot of what I just said, so sorry for anyone who reads this and then that one too). I also have a whole list of tips for the actual month of November that I want to share soon, for NaNo hopefuls (especially newbies).
I’m looking forward to delving further into the plot I’m working on for November, and getting more revision done on “Pithea.” I’m just too tired to do any of it right now.
Words/Time: 35 minutes figuring out character names for my 2015 NaNoNovel. There are nine (for now) reenactors that the main character will interact with at some point during the story. That’s more characters than I’ve ever planned for at the outset of a story. I’ll have to work on a way to make sure they’re distinct enough. If I get confused during the writing, there’s no hope that future readers won’t be lost.
Words/Time: 58 minutes developing my 2015 NaNoNovel. I’ve reworked the synopsis a bit from my original plan and given it a more official title. I then set to work on naming the main character’s husband, father, and mother, all of whom have prominent roles in the story. And I have a cast of about 8 characters who are all important side characters, and they all need names. I think I’m actually so used to coming up with fantasy names now that picking normal names that I like is…a lot harder than I thought it would be.
I’m going to make a full post later once I’ve fleshed out the synopsis from 2 sentences into a few paragraphs, but for now, here is what I have:
“Too Many Irons in the Fire”
When a loud, obnoxious blade smith disappears during a historical reenactment, the daughter of a neighboring blacksmith attempts to track him down. Her search is hindered by the rendezvous crowd, her own obligations to the event, and the odd behavior of the other blacksmiths.
Words/Time: 613 words of writing practice I did. After a full day of work and a rough evening, I didn’t get to my writing time until 11:30. My brain wasn’t in the best space for quickly figuring out what to work on, so I pulled up a prompt and wrote for 15 minutes.
Words/Time: 2121 words, most of which was revising “Pithea” with two of my sisters over Skype. Also known as the 57th meeting of the Tri-County Sisterhood of the Traveling Book. We got through 5 pages of double-spaced text. There was less off-topic discussion tonight than we’ve had for a while now. But we came across more areas than usual that hung us up because we couldn’t come to agreements on how to fix them. More than one of them ended in the, “I’m the author so I’m just going to pull rank,” line. I don’t like doing that, because I’m sure it makes them feel like I’m dismissing their concerns. But when the concern isn’t a mistake but more of a difference of opinion, sometimes “pulling rank” is the only way to move on.
The rest of the words were from some writing practice I did. I’ve been trying to do a prompt every few days, partly because I’m still generating ideas to fill out the plot for my NaNoNovel, and partly to be in the groove of actual writing (instead of revising) before November comes. The prompt I pulled wasn’t one that I connected with, but I refused to let myself pass on it. I’ve been trying to stretch topics and themes that I can or will write about, so I’ve done some writing practice that was awkward or fell flat lately. This one, though, turned out rather interesting to me. So I’m going to do something I rarely do, and share what I wrote.
Keep in mind that this is raw (unedited) and I wrote it quickly without any forethought or pausing to think through where I wanted to go. The prompt came from 1000 Awesome Writing Prompts.
Prompt: Staging a fake kidnapping to get money out of your rich parents
A Journey of Words 