So What Have We Learned?

What did I learn from the recent contest?

--That 3,000 words a day is a lot until someone you're competing with writes 10,000.
--That you don't necessarily have to be "in the mood" or "inspired" to write.
--However, certain scenes are easier (or at least less difficult) if you are "in the mood."
--I'm competitive, but also know my limits.
--That Murphy will rear his ugly head at inopportune times.
--That eliminating contractions bumps word count without a lot of pain. Kidding! A little bit.
--That it can be very satisfying to watch a friend whup ass.
--That writing very quickly helps quiet the Inner Heckler (which I already knew).
--That writing very quickly also may mean losing track of secondary characters, subplots and (more concerning) the protagonist's voice.
--That even with some of the things I dropped along the way, I'm still liking this story and my protagonist very much.
--That when you get in the habit of writing every day, it feels weird when you don't write for a day (which I also already knew, but needed to be reminded of).
--That it's good to have a prize that everyone gets to enjoy.

I'm sure I'll discover more as I continue working on TNN and other projects. It was hard and frustrating at times, but definitely worthwhile.

So, what can you push yourself to do over the next 2 weeks?

What A Weekend/Everyone Should Have Friends Like Mine

And I don't mean "What a weekend" in a good way.

I dog and house sat for two very dear friends. One of the dogs has developed some special needs over the past year. She is blind, but gets around okay except right after she wakes up. She also has IBS. I won't go into details here. Suffice it to say that she often needs to get outside RIGHT NOW and doesn't always wake up in time to do so. Even when she does wake up, she might start in the wrong direction and not want to believe me that I know where it is and it's this way and please, please, please hurry.

Friday night's multi-interrupted sleep was nothing compared to Saturday night's getting maybe three hours total and not more than an hour at a time. Each time she moved, I had to be ready to help her get outside. Even when she was asleep, I had to be aware of whining and tummy rumblings so I could wake her up in time. As I said in an email to Jenny, not conducive to sleeping or writing.

I would finally feel like I might maybe be starting to get a flow or words going and have to stop, deal with things and then try to figure out where I was and where I thought I was going. It only takes a few of these to just kill any desire to even try to put one word after the other. After about ten o'clock Sunday morning, I just quit trying.

There was a point late yesterday that I decided that not only was I going to throw in the towel on the contest, but on the whole writing thing. Why was I bothering? Most people seem to be quite content, happy even, going to work and coming home day after day. They might work out and/or go to movies or plays or concerts. But mostly they work and take care of their homes and families, and watch television. Basically what I do already except that I give short shrift to everything except the television watching, because I write or try to write or think I should be writing.

And then it happened.

I heard everyone's voice in my head. I heard Jenny, Ali, Fleur, Mary, Shane, Nicole and all the rest of the Pirates saying, "What the hell are you talking about? You're making excuses. Get over yourself and get back to work." I heard Carrie saying, "If you don't finish something for me to read, I'll shave your head. You won't even see it coming."

How great is that? They don't even have to be around to give me a verbal--mental?--bitch slap.

It's going to be like starting a marathon, getting out front in the first mile, stopping to have a big lunch--maybe a nap--and then deciding that you are going to try to win it after all. But I'm not throwing in the towel. I may finish dead last, but I'll finish. And I'll have more words of TNN than I had when I started. And that was sort of the point all along.

My Own Prep For Word Race 2009

It looks like everyone is getting some of their more mundane tasks out of the way so they don't have to deal with things like laundry and shopping during the big writing race. I should have enough clean clothes to get me through. I'll have to pick up some perishable food items next week, but that won't take very long. I won't be home next weekend (dog and house sitting), so I won't have that weird pull to have everything spotless that I always get when there's something else that really needs to get done. I will be watching a "special needs" dog which could be distracting, but we'll see.

I am going to try to keep some semblance of balance during this. I've been eating a more healthy diet the last few weeks, and I want to keep that going. I will continue my workouts. The Pirates are meeting tomorrow night, and we've all agreed to take a break for that. But I know how to keep the words flowing. I've done it before. There's a kind of muscle memory there.

So, watch the word count over on the left side of the screen, but don't expect much in the way of updates here. I may feel the need to vent or gloat, but if words are being typed, I'd rather they go toward my count.

Game almost on.

Stoopid Stoopid Stoopid

That's me.

Just accepted a challenge with Jenny and Ali. Whoever produces the highest wordcount in two weeks, starting next Monday, wins. The one who comes in last has to buy dinner.

**CORRECTION** The losers go in together to buy the winner dinner. Which makes more sense since the winner is the only one getting something and the losers share the pain of losing.


I still say, "Ack!"

Courtney brought up a good point in her response to my Project Runway post. [And, no, Jenny, I wasn't talking about you.] She talked about how some of the contestants freak out when asked to step out of their comfort zone. Same thing happens on Top Chef. Courtney's argument was that chefs, designers and writers need to be able to step outside their boxes once in a while.

Folks, that's why you see prompts and challenges on this and other blogs from the Pirates. That's why UGWP does round stories. That's why we have played a card game where you pick the cards that you will build the story on. Not because we think that one day Jenny will figure out how to market a Top Chef kind of show involving wrters (although that would be groovy), but because we all get those stray ideas that don't fit into our usual genres. Or maybe we realize that one of our story ideas would work better as a screen or stage play than a novel. Or we really, really want to enter that short story contest with the big prize payout. If those muscles are already warmed up, it's easier to engage them when the time comes.

There's another aspect to what Courtney said. That the contestants are freaked out by the twists the shows throw at them. On more than one occasion, I've said, "Don't they watch this show?" Because they always have twists, often the same ones from season to season.

Which comes back to research. I know I've talked about it before, but it bears repeating. DO the research. Want to submit to the Super Groovy Magazine Contest? First, read the guidelines. Second, look at a recent issue. If they only publish hyper-literary stories between 3,000-5,000 words, don't submit a 7,000 word fantasy piece. Same goes with agents.

Two reality shows about seemingly unrelated jobs that are both, apparently, unrelated to writing. But I've been able to adapt lessons from both into my writing. Are there other shows that have given you insight into your craft? Movies? Music? Something else?

September What?

Wow! Six days into the new month. Guess I should post my goals, huh?

Getting my submission ready for CWC cut into my roll on MMG, but it needed to be done. I'm pretty happy with the result as I submitted 98 pages--the longest submission so far. I also finished the critique for Mary.

My goals for September are going to sound familiar, but with a twist.

--Flesh out the rest of TNN and get it ready for submission. [I want this done before I get feedback on the first part. Otherwise, I have a tendency to want to change direction based on comments rather than letting the story unfold the way I first envisioned it. I've learned that people can change their opinion of the first bit after they read the rest. And it lessens future pressure when it comes time to submit.]
--Get revised bio to Ali by 9/7/09. Yeah, not much wiggle room on this one.
--Critique Shane's submission.

And that's it for this month. Didn't expect that, did you? Where's MMG? I figure I've got about 150 pages of TNN to knock out. Using Jenny's writing math, that comes to almost 7 pages a day in order to be done by the CWC meeting on the 28th. That's NaNo level page count. I think that's plenty to shoot for in one month. Especially one month that's already seen a week go by. And one in which I'm taking on a new tap and jazz class.

With that amount of new writing and trying to get my body to move in new and unusual ways, I think I'm pretty much taking on Ali's challenge as well.

How 'bout you?

The Same Amount Of Time

Project Runway is back. As is a new season of Top Chef. And watching them, I realized something. It takes just as long to make an ugly dress or an awful meal as it does a winner.

I think we, as writers, tend to dismiss bad writing as something that was just "dashed off." No real effort went into it. But that's not the case. Not always. Think about workshops or critique groups you've been in. There seems to be that one person. You know the one. Intense. Focused on their story, or character. They've been working on this manuscript for years. Honing. Reworking. And it's bad. It's really bad. Oh, there may be some redeeming value. He writes good dialogue. Or she can give you a wonderful love scene. But the characters are flat and the situations are trite. There's no music in the writing. You'd rather stick hot pokers in your eyes than read another submission from these people.


But they work at it. They spend a lot of time on their stories. So it's not laziness. I don't think it's lack of talent, whatever that is. So what is it?


Attitude. That "I know better than everyone else" attitude. The unwillingness to even listen to a different opinion. When you've got a Tim Gunn in the room, people, listen up. Because if you listen, he's not telling you to sell out or be just like everyone else. He's saying to step back and really look at what you're doing.


There have been so many people on these shows who are eliminated in early rounds, because they refuse to listen. Their attitude is that everyone else is stupid. If everyone else was just smarter or cooler or more refined, then this person would win the whole shebang. And when they leave, the parting words are usually along the lines of, "At least I didn't compromise my vision." Okay. If that's what is important to you, than go for it. But realize that people wear clothes that make them look good. We eat food that tastes good. And we read books about complex characters in interesting situations.

Now, I'm not saying that a writer should take every suggestion that comes his or her way. No more than a chef or a designer should. That would be crazy. But have a good reason for why you're doing something in a particular way. Be able to defend it with something more than, "because I want to do it that way."

So, if you're going to spend the time anyway, why not write a good book? And listen to your Tim Gunns.