Cleaning up the Mess

So, back in November I participated in 30 days of awesome hell called NaNoWriMo.  I ended up with 50,000 words of garbage, and have made it my goal for January - NaNoEdMo - to sort through it and look for anything worth saving.  Well, initially I set out intending to create a readable second draft, but...yeah.  That's not going to happen.

So how do I edit?  I normally don't get this far, so I'm making this up as I go along.  Of course, that's what I did when I first started writing.  Heck, that's what I still do, so I don't know what I'm complaining about.  Anyway, I borrow techniques from several writers I respect (note "respect," not "like").  First step is the read-through.  This is why EdMo is January and not December, besides the fact that in December you are too burned out to even think about writing.  You have to read it as though it is not your own work.  The month-long interval gives you some distance, so that you can read as a reader and not a writer.  Usually it's not as bad as you remember, at this point.

Of course, "not as bad as you thought" is not the same as "good."  On the second read-through, you are allowed to make notes about what needs to be improved - the first time through, you are not allowed to criticize.  I realized very quickly that none of the actual scenes were salvageable.  I had to create a whole new outline for the story I ended up with, rather than the story I began with.  I made notes about which scenes can be used for reference (more just to make me feel that this is a second draft and not a complete overhaul), but over half of it has to be written from scratch, and I have no idea how some of the new plot points are supposed to happen. 

In fact, looking at it all now, I realize I have two choices.  Well, three, but the third doesn't really count.  I can 1)  Add in the new scenes.  Somehow.  2) Cut down what I have and strip it down into a short story.  3)  Toss it all out and give up (You can see why this one doesn't count, but technically it is an option)

I think I might end up going with 2, and possibly taking it a step further and just making it backstory.  You see, my novel did a funny thing this year.  Around page 55, which was about halfway through the month this year, I had nothing left for the story I was trying to write.  So I wrote a slightly related story about witch hunters.  No planning, no prior imaginings, just a desperate gimmick to add words and keep creativity flowing.

Predictably, that is the part of the month I think has the best chance of being saved.

That is what happens during NaNo.  If you look at the pep talk of successful (published) NaNovelist Erin Morgenstern and her novel The Night Circus, her story is that when her NaNovel wasn't going anywhere, she sent her characters to a circus, which turned out to be much more interesting than the original story.  Now she's published and there are over a hundred requests on her book at the library, so I probably won't get to it until after break.  The point is that writing is a process of discovery.  Creation is discovery.  That's what makes it interesting, more so than arranging information into an essay or solving a math problem.  You have control over the novel, but at the same time, the novel has power over you.

Going to stop now before I get too postmodernly semantical.  Have to get back to that editing.  Or possibly that new story with the shapeshifter that's lurking in the back of my mind...

Re-emerging Into Reality

You may have noticed that I have been somewhat less diligent about posting in this month of November.  That is because I have been participating in a cult group madness challenge called NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month.  50,000 words.  30 days.  One writer.

Okay, not one writer.  That is what is so wonderful about NaNo.  Writing is by nature a solitary activity, and sitting in a group of people all absorbed in their own laptops writing their own novels does not sound like a party by anyone's standards.  Still, it is a great way to stay motivated.  I tend to write in creative spurts, but I have a hard time finishing.  I get about half or two-thids of the way through, and the story starts to sag, and I start to see all the places I went wrong, and I want to start over and fix things.  And I get to a point where I don't know where to go next and I don't really care.

But with NaNoWriMo, every word counts.  Rule #1 is DO NOT DELETE.  Rule #2 is DO NOT GIVE UP.  I was up to being seven days behind, but I made up the difference in the last few weeks and pulled across the finish line with hours to spare.

I have done NaNo several times in the past, and this was a year of firsts for me.  It was the first year I made an outline the night before from a story I thought of that day.  It was the first time I threw out that outline on the first day and started with a story that had been smoldering in my head for a while.  And it is the first year that I re-started on the second day with a completely new story that had been gestating but I had not considered ready to be born; but it was my most viable option.  It is the first year I had no idea where the story was supposed to go.

That is another thing about NaNo.  It forces you to be creative.  For the first 20k or so I was writing myself in circles.  Then I added witch hunters.  I never thought I would until I realized that I needed something new.  And there they were.  That got me close to 40k before that arc came down.  The rest was a first person account filling in the gaps of the first arc.  Note:  First person in lovely for wordiness.  You can throw in so much opinionation and asides and rants.  It's wonderful.

Then I was still about a thousand short and spat out half a bonus scene with the witch hunters.

Every year after that first one I have told myself that I won't do NaNo - I don't have time, I don't any good ideas, I'm in the middle of another project - and yet somehow I always do.  And I don't regret it.  Any of it.  Even though all my drafts so far have been shit, and I don't very much think this one is any different, I wrote that damn novel.  I have proven to myself that I can can overcome my creative barriers.  It does not take skill to write, after all.  Skill can be learned.  It takes determination and persistence, and I definitely leveled up in that area this month.

Now for a rest. This is also the first year my wrist actually started twinging (at the 47k mark, when I was starting to think I might actually make it).  That has not stopped me from starting a new crochet project.  I want to get back to my translations - I've been making trips to the career center to see what the heck I can do with my life, and translator is still one of my options.  I also want to start reading books again.  Am halfway through the third Temeraire book and also for some reason have a strong urge to re-read the entire Chronicles of Chrestomanci.  Oh yeah, finals are coming up too.

Blah blah words blah oh wait, I don't have to count them anymore.