Why do I do NANOWIRMO?

 Hello!

Another November has arrived. This means, another year of NANOWRIMO has begun. This is the 20^th year, I believe.

For those who don’t know, NANOWRIMO (or more officially NaNoWriMo for those who want to take the time to type the acronym out correctly) stands for National Novel Writing Month. This is a month where writers are encouraged to write a novel (or a novella) of 50k or more words in 30 days.  The goal of NANOWRIMO is to encourage aspiring writers to produce a complete work, get in the habit of writing every day, and to give them a community of other like-minded individuals for encouragement and support.

I know there has been some controversy around this event. I’ve heard career writers say they do not participate because they are writing all the time anyway, so why would November be any different? I’ve also heard from new, self-published, or yet-aspiring authors that it has helped them produce content and/or get into a writing habit.  NANOWRIMO as a non-profit organization has set up various resources to help writers of all ages (including creating a teen/young writers track) and provides information and tools to help guide you through the whole novel creation process. And yet, they also partner with a lot of products, sell merchandise, and probably profit a bit from some of that.

While I have participated in 8 NANOWRIMOs, I haven’t really paid attention to the other events they hold. This post, specifically, will be about the rules for winning and why I do it. Let’s start with the rules.

1.       Writing starts at 12:00: a.m. on November 1 and ends 11:59:59 p.m. on November 30, local time.

2.       No one is allowed to start early and the challenge finishes exactly 30 days from that start point.

3.       Novels must reach a minimum of 50,000 words before the end of November in order to win. These words can either be a complete novel of 50,000 words or the first 50,000 words of a novel to be completed later.

4.       Planning and extensive notes are permitted, but no material written before the November 1 start date can go into the body of the novel.

5.       Participants' novels can be on any theme, genre of fiction, and language. Everything from fanfiction, which uses trademarked characters, to novels in poem format, and metafiction is allowed; according to the website's FAQ, "If you believe you're writing a novel, we believe you're writing a novel too."

This seems like a lot of work. Why on earth would anyone want to do it?!

Well…

Someone told me this year that a former participant of NANOWRIMO said that “it doesn’t matter what you write, as long as you win.” While I will be the first to say that the goal should not be to write just a bunch of garbage, hitting that 50k word finish line is exhilarating. During the first year of NANOWRIMO, the organizer actually asked to verify that participants actually met their word goal (7 of the 21 entrants actually finished by the way). Nowadays, the “winning” is more honor-based (yes, there’s a tracker, but you can lie to it).  However, the word count “win” is really just the visual representation of what you, the writer, is trying to accomplish.

Of the rules above, I have broken a number of them; whether it’s not starting a NEW project on day 1, or counting other writing projects done in November as part of my “word count”, or using the month for final editing etc. But for me, of the NANOs that I have participated in, I have won 7 of 8. Did I write my 50k words each time? More or less…but the main point was that I did what I told myself I’d do:

-          Finish the novel, even if that’s after November end

-          Edit the novel even though the “new words” I wrote fell under 50k…).

-          Write 50k+ words and get some of those unpleasant asshole scenes on paper (which is harder than it sounds)

The most important thing about NANOWRIMO for me is that I was able to use the combined energy of the event and the participants to motivate myself to *do the work*.  

Let’s break it down a little…

To successfully complete NANOWRIMO, unless you are a writing machine, you really need to write a little every day. Because the standard 1667 words/day is a lot easier than 10000 words each weekend day plus and extra 10k on the final day of the month. This “writing every day” thing, as I have heard from many professional authors, is the only way to really be successful as a writer. NANWRIMO is pushing that. For me, in doing NANOWRIMO, I’ve been successful at writing *mostly* every day. However, while I have proven to myself that I *can* do it, NANOWRIMO has also showed me that I don’t want to do it all the time.

You see, writing every day is tough already. It becomes infinitely tougher when you have a day job where you are on a computer every day. Or when, in your off time, you’d rather do anything other than sit on a computer more. Or when you crave social interaction after a day of burying yourself in headphones and music, emails and Word files.  Or when, you realize you’re in your mid-30s now and need to go to the gym occasionally or your clothes stop fitting. Or when you have a family or a partner or a pet that also needs attention.  Or when…

TLDR version: It’s hard.

It’s just as hard as getting to the gym every day. Yes you can do it, but you may be doing it at the expense of something else. Sometimes that expense is other hobbies like video games or sewing or fencing, but other times that expense is your partner, health, or sleep. This is a common struggle for a lot of us who have not yet made a career of writing, but who desperately want to. And until my partner can support me while I “work for money” 10-20 hours/week, this is going to be my reality. 

But back to NANOWRIMO. It definitely has helped me with some of these issues. It gives me social interaction, even if it is just writing near other people and saying, “Hey, how’s it going?”. It gives me a reason to get out of my house. It puts the fire and that little edge of competition under me which helps guilt me into keeping it up. It gives me solidarity with other writers, sharing frustrations and triumphs. It gives me inspiration, excitement and pride at being a writer.

It gives me an excuse. For one month, I CAN do it. I can make arrangements to write a crap-ton and (hopefully) finish a project. (Then I can use the next 11 months to refine and promote that project and work on other projects sporadically at my own pace…).

I know some people may turn their nose up at this approach and say that I am not a serious writer, but I will disagree. If I weren’t a serious writer, would I still be writing after 25 years? For a while, I allowed those naysayers to get the best of me. You will see that in my NANOWRIMO participation years: 2002, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018, & 2019. Those big gaps were when I stopped believing in myself (most notably 2002-2008. I was in college and while I knew of NANOWRIMO groups getting together on campus, I tried to pretend that I didn’t care).  I stopped believing in myself because I did not have the resources and connections to convince me to keep it up. If I was not doing it “the serious way”, what business did I have even trying?

The last 3 NANOWRIMOS I’ve participated in have changed all that. I decided to seek out “write-ins” (where writers get together at a coffee shop or library and write together for a few hours). I joined writer communities, giving the NANO forums, Scribophile, CIPA (Colorado Independent Publishers Association), Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Toastmasters and other online groups a try. I had mixed success sticking with these communities but what it did show me, was that there were a lot of people out there writing. Some were snobby, and some were encouraging. Some were driven toward publication and some were just doing it “for fun”. Some were like me. 

I didn’t find my current writer “group” specifically from NANO, but NANO has helped bring out all those writers that I already know (many of whom I didn’t know wrote!). The relationships I’ve built have carried on after NANOWRIMO was over. NANOWRIMO gave me access to a community that was already in my world and to a world that I had no idea how to break into otherwise. These groups, these individuals, encourage and push me to do better. They help me up when I am falling. Because of them I am still moving forward. Still making progress.  Because of them, I have been pushed to attend more conventions, writers’ groups, and writing workshops.  

So for me, whether I make the word count or not, it doesn’t matter. My participation in this event is one of the big ways I will work (sometimes slowly) toward my ultimate, grander, goal: to get published.

And to all of you writers, my advice for you is to definitely participate in NANOWRIMO. Even if you don’t think you’ll make the 50k. What is important, is for you to think about what you really want to do, set an achievable goal, and then run with it. Even if that goal is just to reconnect you with this love you’ve had for as long as you’ve owned pencils.

Here is my 2018 NANOWRIMO "winner" certificate. If I can do it, you can too!

♥

Lyndsie

On Beta Readers Who Are Your Friends – My Honest Thoughts

First of let me put in a disclaimer: as a writer and an aspiring author who dreams of getting published, I want you to read my book. And I want her to read my book. And him. And those five people over there.I want my friends, family, coworkers, and strangers to read my book.  I want you to read my book if you love sci-fi. I want you to read my book if you hate sci-fi. I want positive feedback. Negative feedback. Questions. Concerns. I write, not just for myself, but for you all…my audience.

That being said, one of the most disheartening things you can do to an unpublished writer is promise you’ll read their WIP and then never do it. It is crushing.

There. I said it.  

Recently, (and for most of my adult life) I have been struggling to get beta readers to actually read my finalized, author-edited manuscript and provide feedback. In April 2019, I put out a post on Facebook saying “Hey, I am looking for 3-5 beta readers who want to read my YA, near-future dystopian manuscript.” I made a point to note that I had a few specific questions and I only wanted interested people who would be able to deliver feedback by August.   I was blown away by the number of responses I got - all told, it was around 20 email addresses. So I thought, “Hell, why not?” And I sent them all the manuscript along with some questions that I wanted them to look for as they read.

To date (November 1, 2019) I have gotten ONE response, which includes all the “Thank you, I’m looking forward to reading it” emails (which, in all honesty, was 0). That one response was feedback and a request to meet and discuss it (yay!). However, think about this for a second. One response out of over 20. Frankly, that super sucks. (Later on, I did get one apology of life being crazy and the person not being able to get to it.  That’s fine. I understand stuff gets insane in life and some people will have life intervene. And yes, I also understand that I was not offering to pay people. Still though, I would expect more people to communicate…).

Here is why this 1 of 20 response thing sucks:

1.       Between April and August, I was sitting on my hands…waiting. I had stopped submitting Anamnesis to publishers. I had stopped looking for beta readers or editors.  I stopped trying to figure out how I’d pay a beta-reader. I essentially wasted a quarter year of potential progress waiting for people to come through on their word.

2.       Now, I had just given my novel out for free to a bunch of people. Maybe somewhere down the line, they’ll read it. But if I get published, would they buy it? This goes along the lines of asking an artist for free artwork. Or a physical therapist for free adjustments. Yes, some freebies are expected when you want to go into business for yourself, but if you want this to be a career or at least a profitable side-gig, you can’t be giving stuff away for free all the time.

3.       You offer to read it the novel because you want to get into my good graces…or my pants. I absolutely hate it when the following scenario occurs: Person A: “Oh you’re a writer?” Me: “Yeah I’m working on wrapping up a novel.” A: “OH! I’d love to read it sometime.” I mean, Person A doesn’t even know what I write or what my story is about. How can you, in good conscience, volunteer to read something you know nothing about? This type of enthusiasm is the carrot-dangling behavior that really crushes my spirit because the moment we break up or Person A gets busy with something else, all that promise goes out the window. And I am left, yet again, with no feedback, sitting on my hands, wondering what I’m going to do with the manuscript now.

4.       It causes me to think the worst and then descend into a spiral of self-doubt and loathing. Did my betas start my novel and find it just. That. Bad? So bad that they couldn’t get through it, but were too embarrassed to tell me? Was it offensive? Or awkward? How can it be improved? This has caused me to put a novel away for good before. And yet, I still don’t know if that novel was garbage or not…..

I’m sure right now some of you are thinking, “wow, she sounds so ungrateful to her friends. These people are volunteering their time and their energy to help.” Except they aren’t. They wrote words to me stating their intention, but that was it.* They provided me with hope, that was then let down. As writers, it’s already hard enough to get noticed. Your work falls into piles and piles of similar projects – filled with all the hope, fear, triumph and regret of their authors. When you submit something to a publisher or Agent, you’re lucky to get an auto-generated confirmation of receipt and better yet, a rejection. However, I don’t want to feel that same let down with friends.

Maybe I’m doing something wrong in my search for betas. Do need to pay them? Find strangers on websites (though this has never worked for me either)? Create an application process? Make them pay me? :P Join a writers’ group? What do other broke non-career authors do when they need a second set of eyes on their work?  

So…What did I do? I jumped in for one more try of 3 beta readers. One, I promised a bottle of scotch. One, I read his novella so now have guilting powers. And one read my first draft and knows I have no qualms hounding him until he completes it.  So we’ll see…

I will now conclude this post with a PSA: Please, please, please…don’t feel like you *have* to read my stuff if we’re friends. If it’s not your genre, or if you just don’t have time, that’s OK! I will still love you. However, if you do volunteer, make sure you can reasonably predict having the time and energy to follow through. And if you have questions, or problems, or can’t finish it, please…just let me know! Don’t make me turn a post about beta-readers into a post about communication…

(And for those who have helped me out in the past and who are currently putting in effort for me, I am grateful [and hopeful] for the feedback you will deliver).

♥

Lyndsie

Welcome to Anamnesis (a.k.a. the title change) - Anamnesis The Novel

What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.

- Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

As some of you may already know, I have had to make a minor (monumental) change to my completed cyberpunk novel, "Insignia". I had to change the name.

Back in 2012 when I had started writing this novel, I searched the name to make sure there wasn't a similar novel with the same one. At that point in time, there was not. However, the problem with sitting on a novel for six years means that the world of literature changes and someone steals your title....Yes, I'm looking at you, S.J. Kincaid. (Ok, ok, I also bought your book).

https://sjkincaid.com/book/insignia/ 

Insignia by S.J. Kincaid was released as the 1st in a series, in 2013. Nice going Lyndsie, way to get on that. :-\

Needless to say, not to be overshadowed by an already prolific author, I needed to find a new title. It's sad, too, because Insignia is very pertinent to my book, easy to say, and most people can figure it out. I wanted to stick to the one-word title because it captured the feel of my story - the spartan, dark world. Unfortunately, all the other more common key words just didn't have as much oomph as "Insignia". Or they were taken.

 Memory
Timeseer (already a book with that name anyway)
Humanity
Savant (already a book here too)

And then there were multi-word titles that I debated on though they seemed to be a stretch:

The Memory Code
The Mech Wars (I didn't even bother looking this one up because I'm sure there's already something out there)
Being Human
Bright Star

Finally, I turned to synonyms of the two words I like the most: Insignia & Memory. I didn't find anything good for insignia except "colophon"which is a bookmakers symbol. Specifically,

a statement at the end of a book, typically with a printer's emblem, giving information about its authorship and printing.

However, there are a lot of great words for "Memory": Remembrance, Flashback, Reminiscence, Retrospection, Cognizance, Mindfulness, Anamnesis....

That's when I fell upon that last one and said to myself, "That seems like sci-fi." When I looked it up, it hit home even further:

Anamnesis [an-am-nee-sis] (n): the recollection of the Ideas, which the soul had known in a previous existence, especially by means of reasoning.

- Platonism 

Honestly, there's no more perfect title for this novel. 

So now I just need to get it published before someone else steals it.....

Indie vs. Traditional Publishing - The Saga of Lyndsie - Part 24

In 2012, I began to write a book as some of you may know (ok, I am kidding. If you are one of those that still doesn't know that I am/have been writing a book for a while now, then you must have been living under a rock).

Anyway, in 2013, 2015, 2016, & 2017, I have finished this book. Yes, I finished it multiple times because it has undergone some edits every time I want to declare it officially "finished".

However, I have sat and sat and sat on this book. What was I going to do with it? The idea of submitting to traditional publishers literally paralyzed me. Though, I couldn't really place my finger on why.

Most people would just say that I'm lazy and/or not committed enough to my writing to work really hard and do research 45 hours/day and get 1000 rejections before finally getting accepted somewhere. But in actuality, I think my feet-dragging was really related to other things.

- I wasn't sure I was even good enough to be a writer.
- I didn't feel like I was good enough to be a writer.
- Thus, why put a ton of work into trying to get published when I wasn't really worth it?
- Also, I was overwhelmed and didn't know where to start.
- Losing control over much of my writing via contracts was not appealing
- Conflicting information
- This highlighted one of my WORST skills: doing research

 However, I have realized that NOT getting my work out there was kind of killing my self-worth too. That was when a friend of mine opportunistically started this online writer group with bi-weekly meetups. Then from that, I learned of the Angry Robot publishing open door which encouraged me to fine tune my story for publication. THEN I found CIPA (Colorado Independent Publishers Association).

I have been to two CIPA meetings so far and have found them very inspiring. And I learned one very great thing about Indie Publishing - It really relies on networking. One of my BEST skills.  This last meeting was a presentation on Traditional vs. Indie publishing and couldn't have been more enlightening. I have weighed this decision in my head for a long time, and think I've finally come to a decision.

First of all, I am going to weigh out the Pros & cons of both styles of publishing. Now, let me tell you, this is only what I understand (and the result of 4 years of research) but it could be incomplete or plain wrong. However, if it's the latter, I would blame the websites and "respectable people" i have gotten it from.

Traditional Publishing
Pros:
- (perceived as) More respectable
- Less work in promotion/marketing for the author
- (generally) Provides cover art, editing, typsetting etc.
- Access to a wider network
- Advances and contracts to ensure work
Cons:
- Take a larger % of your earnings
- Shady contracts/contracts that can affect you long term
- Less control over cover art and edits
- Some of the pros above are inconsistent between publishers (like some require the author to do a lot more marketing etc).
- Slower to publication/printing
- Competing against many other books

Indie Pub (formerly-known as Self Publishing)
Pros:
- Keep more of your earnings
- More control over story, art, and distribution area
- Your own schedule
- More overall Freedom
- Faster to publication/printing/distribution
Cons:
- More investment financially from author
- More time required to "get big" with marketing/promos
- Quality may be perceived lower
- Competing with a lot of other authors

So the more I have looked these over, the more I have begun to feel that Indie Pub is going to be the future. Books come out quicker and they are more to the taste of the author. And since it seems that everyone is an author these days, making a living off of it may not be as easy as it used to be.

For me, I think it's the better step. I mean, don't get me wrong, I would love to be a professional writer where writing IS my day job. However, at this point, it doesn't feel like possibility from either route. Because, even if I did get picked up by a Trad Pub, it is no guarantee that I will be able to live off that. In fact, it's almost guaranteed to be the opposite at first. I would still have to work my day job while simultaneously churning out works to stay relevant. That seems more stressful than I would like.

Right now, I just want my story to be read. To be loved (and hated), shared and talked about. I want to hold a copy in my hands and say "This...this is mine".  So, I have taken the initial steps to become a published author - I bought business cards, a web domain, and have begun thinking about crowdfunding for cover art and editing fees.

I WILL have a finished, fucking, novel. Even if it takes me 10 years to do so.

P.S. OMG YOU GUYZ, I'm super excited about my business cards.