Ep. 152: NaNoWriMo Crash

What if your NaNoWriMo novel (or any of your writing) is crashing? Does it mean you should give up writing and get a job in finance? Or move to Antarctica where there are no writing devices at all (this is what I’ve been told, anyway…)? Listen to find out!

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Transcript

Rachael Herron: 00:04 Welcome to How Do You Write, I’m your host Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is, and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

00:16 Well, hello writers. Welcome to episode number 152, a bonus mini-episode. I am already really enjoying the idea of doing these and doing these, and the people who support at the five dollar and up level at http://patreon.com/rachael are just sending me the greatest questions and I’ve got a bunch queued up to come. But today I wanted to hit a really important one, especially for right now, and it actually jumped to the top of the queue because it is time-sensitive.

00:47 So in response to Stacy, Stacy first of all, thank you so much for upping your pledge, you upped your pledge and then immediately sent a question. I hope that you continue to send questions as you go, it makes me so happy. Your question is, “You’ve mentioned you wrote your first novel in NaNoWriMo. I’m in the thick of my first NaNo now, and my story has totally fallen apart, like the wheels are off and the cart is crashing hard, yet I keep writing, shaking my head all the while thinking, this is bad, this is so very, very bad. Could you share what your first experience with NaNo was like? Then give a girl a little encouragement. Many thanks, Rachael, love what you do here. 

01:27 Thank you Stacey, and thank you for asking such an exciting question. Nobody ever asks me that, and we talk a lot about how my first published book was written during NaNoWriMo, my first NaNo in 2006, and I talk a lot about what it was like to try to write a lot of books before that and always fail– Walen, the cat, says hello. That’s what that was. But I don’t usually talk about what that first NaNo was like, which is why I love this question. My first NaNo was so exciting, it felt every single day like an impossible task to get up once again and try to write 1667 words a day. I am definitely one of those people– this is embarrassing to admit, but I never do more than I have to. I am not one of those people who gets into the flow and looks up four hours later with 6,000 words, impossible. If I am supposed to write 1,667 words during November, I will write 1,668 just to be on the safe side. So I guess I’ll do a little extra work, I’ll do like one word extra work. 

02:41 But every day to wake up and know that I was going to do that again felt so exciting and daring and crazy, and every day that I pulled it off, which was most of the days, I completed one nano that year, every day that I did left me happier. However, what you’re saying about the wheels coming off and the cart crashing hard, that absolutely happened that year. I went completely off the rails, I had I think a mini-outline, like maybe a, you know, a notecard. I think I tried to do notecards, now that I’m remembering it because people always talk about writing notecards. So I would write notecards, I didn’t know where to put them, I didn’t know what order notecards went in, when I shuffled through them later, I didn’t know what I had meant, so I was really writing blind, I was really, really pantsing it that year. 

03:31 And the book went in so many directions. A lot of times I talk with my writing students about, you know, you write this mess of a first novel and then in revision you kind of figure out your way up to the top of this particular mountain and you come back down and do a little bit more revision, go back up, and all the time you’re building this path, and that path is what the book was meant to be. On that first way up the mountain, when we’re doing this first draft, we go all around the mountain, we spin around the mountain, we take trails that go absolutely nowhere. We connect those trails that went nowhere with something that is interesting and nothing makes sense. Nothing made sense in that book that year, and I have to tell you that that is still the way I write, even though now I plot a lot more. Guys, goodness, dogs and cats, it’s anarchy up in here. I still plot a lot more and still the wheels come off the cart every single book I write. It is absolutely 100% unavoidable for me to have the feeling that my story has totally fallen apart. And in fact, I’m in the midst of doing some deep plotting for the book I just sold. And I need to get this particular part of the plot right before I start writing, because this is under an intense time schedule, and I don’t want to take all of those false trails. And just yesterday, even after I’d sold this book on synopsis and sample chapters, so I know what the book is doing and I know what it is meant to be., yesterday I just had this crisis that I realized there’s no story there. 

05:11 There’s no drama, arc, stakes, twists, there’s no thriller inside this thriller, and I know that that’s just the way I feel. The book is still the book. The stuff is still inside the book. Later on is when we get to decide what that stuff actually does, but I was putting too much pressure on myself to get this first draft right, forgetting that first drafts are never right. They are just full of wheelless carts piled up on the sides of those paths that you’re making up this mountain. Cart after crashed cart after crashed cart and that is 100% fine. If that is happening to you, you are in exactly the right place. You are a writer. This is the point in which a lot of new writers say, “Well, I guess I’m not a writer”. Oh no, that is proof that you are a writer. If you’re confused and stymied and despairing that you will ever pull this into any shape that even you could read, let alone anybody else, you’re in exactly the right place, and just keep forging forward. Keep having fun too. The most important thing I learned that first year was when everything was this gigantic pile-up, I would just shake my head and go, “Okay, what could happen next that’s fun? What could happen next that surprises me?”, and that’s a tool I still use. When I just despair of everything, I just write for fun and more often than not, even though I’m giving myself permission to write something silly that probably won’t make it into the book, more often than not, it does make it into the book because I relax, I let go and I have fun, and suddenly the writing feel sweet and smooth again, even if it’s only for a few minutes. 

06:51 Waylon behind me is crying that he needs his breakfast, so I’m going to go feed him. Happy NaNo to everyone who is doing it. I’m behind as usual in NaNo, but I’m still plugging away. And happy writing to everyone who isn’t doing NaNo, but just thinking about writing. Dosie is now chasing Waylon away. Somebody’s gonna eat somebody, so I’m going to go feed all of the animals, and happy writing to all of you. Thank you so, so much, Stacy, for that question and we’ll talk soon.

07:20 Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of How Do You Write. You can reach me on Twitter, Rachael Herron, or at my website, http://rachaelherron.com. You can also support me on Patreon, and get essays on living your creative life, for as little as a buck an essay, at http://www.patreon.com/rachael, spelled R-A-C-H-A-E-L. And do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers at http://rachaelherron.com/write. Now, go to your desk and create your own process, and get to writing my friends.