Day Twenty-eight: Glimpses of Normalcy

NaNoWriMo is like taking part in a total immersion language program. For those who may not know what that is, instead of taking a foreign language in college for two or three one-hour sessions a week, you live in a dorm with other students of that particular language, French for example, and that is all you speak. By only being allowed to communicate in the language you are learning, you learn it much faster. The theory behind it is based on how children learn their native languages, which is primarily from hearing their parents and older siblings speak it.

NaNo is something like that. You may be physically present in a non-NaNo world, but much of your waking time is spent either working on your novel, corresponding with your writing buddies about your novels, or talking in the forums seeking support or discussing problems with your novels. Even when you're not actively engaged in writing or discussing, your brain is trying to work out plot snags or details of the next scene. You speak a whole new vocabulary, one steeped in writing terms and NaNoJargon.

It takes some adjustment when you finish your book and suddenly remember that you have a life that exists the other eleven months of the year. Somehow, during November, that seems to slip your mind. But I've begun to catch glimpses of normalcy. For instance, when I'm writing, I like to listen to the classical music station on the radio ("ALL Classical, ALL the time," is their motto). But a couple of days ago, I suddenly realized there was a smattering of Christmas music sprinkled in amongst the works of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Grieg. Then, while watching television in the evening, it was impossible to miss the holiday commercials; and even two of our favorite programs had Thanksgiving themes, and one was a Christmas episode!

There have been more mundane reminders of that "other" life, too. Bills still have to be paid: creditors don't consider NaNoWriMo a valid excuse for late payments. And my husband informed me that there is something amiss with our refrigerator--how can it be freezing and thawing at the same time? So, it looks like a call to the repairman is in order.

And then there's the mud! Not only have we had one of the wettest springs and summers on record, but fall has not been much better. Our back yard is so saturated, I'm thinking of investing in "Wellies" for Mindy, my dog, so she won't track in so much mud from outside. If it were just a bit warmer, we could grow rice or perhaps have a cranberry bog of our very own. The bottom line is that the floor by the kitchen door needs to be mopped almost daily to keep the muck from spreading into the the main house.

It was also nice to take a day off from writing to enjoy Thanksgiving with family, to talk with real people instead of just the characters in my book, and to listen to conversation that I didn't write. Soon, meals will return to being more balanced, and more regular, as will bedtime. Once again laundry will be folded upon its return from the laundromat, and clothes will be available in drawers and closets instead of having to be fished out of the accumulated bags of clean laundry piled by the linen closet. Furniture will be dusted, floors will be vacuumed and mopped, beds will be made. In short, the normal rhythms and responsibilities of life will return--at least until next November.

Day Seven: Beginning...Muddle...Ending

Congratulations to all of my fellow NaNo writing companions, all 150,000+ of you! Today concludes the first week of National Novel Writing Month. If you began last Sunday, and faithfully treated your computer as another body appendage all week, you should have reached at least 11,669 words and have a pretty good start on your novel. Some have already far exceeded that, and at least one person has already passed the 50,000 word finish line! The rest of us can only stare in awe as we bravely jog along wiping their dust from our eyes. Others have had life intrude and are struggling to catch up, and more than a few have yet to begin. If you fall into this last category, Paige and I would like to encourage you to take heart, take a deep breath, renew your commitment, grab your pen and notebook or place your fingers firmly on the keyboard, and write. Get something, anything, on paper or on your word processor. You can't hope to finish, if you don't start. If you don't have any ideas, or have too many vying for your attention, try ten to twenty minutes of free writing where you write whatever comes to mind without judging it. This simple exercise may help move you from thinking to doing.

If you are in the group that has been writing all week, and everything is going great, and the words are flowing almost faster than you can write them down, fantastic! Run with it! But for some, the first flush of excitement may be waning as you suddenly hit a snag in the story line. You may have the beginning down, and know where you want to end up, but aren't quite sure how to get there. In other words, the middle is a muddle.

In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, the king tells the white rabbit, "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop." That sounds like very sensible advice. But when you're writing, the process isn't always orderly, especially when you're trying to meet a word count deadline in a short period of time and are feeling the effects of sleep deprivation. Ideas dart around your conscious mind like kids playing keep-away. They don't line up in an orderly queue like well-disciplined British school children. How do you push through? What if you're drawing a blank and don't know what should come next?

If you already know the ending of your story, go ahead and write it. When making a movie, scenes are rarely shot in the order in which they appear in the final cut. Sometimes, the last scene of the film is the first scene shot. There's no reason why you can't do this in your novel, too. Perhaps once the ending is written, it will be easier to work backward to the beginning. Another idea is to look at your outline. (If you haven't done one yet, and you're stuck, now's a good time to do it). Decide what needs to take place in each chapter to get your characters from point A to point B. Then decide what scenes within each chapter will tell that part of the story. Once you have these main ideas and supporting ideas down, you can begin to craft descriptions and dialog to flesh them out. It may also help to write each chapter's main idea on an index card. Then write each supporting idea on a separate index card, and lay them out under the chapter in which they will best fit to tell the story. Doing this will take a little time, but it's worth it if it gets things moving again.

If all else fails, and you're starting to panic, go to the NaNo Forums page, look under the section titled "NaNo Tips and Strategies" for a thread called "Plot Doctoring." People there may be able to help you with such things as character names, coming up with a conflict or obstacle, plot twists, setting, dialog, or whatever your specific needs are. Don't be afraid to ask for help. The reason that thread is there is because we've all been, at one time or another, where you are now. With some fresh ideas, you can take your great beginning and your fantastic finish and unite them with a middle that's not a muddle.