niltoy.net

It’s hard to get back on track, when you’ve been out of the habit of writing. Believe me, I know! I just spent a month without writing a word (yes, me, the site admin!), and it’s hard enough to say, “Yeah, well, I know I’m behind, but the story is worth telling, and I’ve still got ideas, and I’m gonna work on it now.” But it’s even more difficult to just do it.

We all get to that place at times. Real life steps in, gets in the way, mucks up everything, and makes you lose focus and ideas. By the time you realize what’s happened, it’s a month (or two!) later, you feel like you have absolutely no hope of catching up, and you sit and sigh about “coulda, shoulda, woulda” and what-if.

Look. If the site co-creator and Admin can sit here and admit freely that she is a month behind on her count, but that she is “back on track” and making the effort to get her ideas down in some sort of coherent way, then anybody can do the same!

So, I invite those of you who fell off the wagon, or even those who missed the wagon in the first place, to flag it down and hop back on! Come on, we’ll wait for you… Just climb on up, write every day at whatever pace you can manage, and in no time, you’ll be well on your way to completing the first rough draft of a novel! And in time, it will become easier and easier to write more words each day. Your story will flow from your fingers to screen or paper, your ideas will fill your waking day until you feel like you’ll burst if you don’t write them down, and your doubts will fade into nothingness.

(Re)Start your novel today, and share with the NILTOY members your successes and challenges over at the NILTOY forum (http://www.niltoy.net/forum/). We’re a friendly bunch of folks, who enjoy reading and critiquing each others’ work, writing our own stories, and simply sharing life’s challenges and rewards with the other members. Come on over, and get re/started today!

So, where did that week go? Looks like I missed it somewhere…

No matter. I can get back on track today, and I have. No guilt, no angst, no remorse. Certainly no whining! Just back to work. And it feels good.

When we get out of the habit of writing, we might beat ourselves up over it, feel guilty for it, anguish over it. But you know what? It’s much easier to simply sit down and start writing. Work out whatever ideas you have. No ideas? Then try planning out some things. Work out possibilities. Figure out what would work, and what wouldn’t work. Insert some lines for clarity. Inject a scene. Write what you know, even if it’s out of order. Write the ending, even if you don’t know the middle yet.

Put on some music, whatever you like to listen to when you write. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Let your imagination run wild, and ask it to help you out with some ideas for plot, character or a scene. Type or write whatever words come into your head, without worrying about whether they make sense or not. Examine your grand scheme, then take a step back. What is the main theme?
“Love conquers all.”
“Time heals all wounds.”
“Life sucks, then you die.”

Are you writing an action or adventure novel? How about an avalanche?

Writing a romance? How about throwing in a secret admirer?

Maybe you’re writing a fantasy. Every hero needs some Kryptonite for balance.

Ah, then it must be sci-fi! Too much or too little gravity at the wrong time can really screw up your whole day.

Remember that the reader needs conflict to keep things interesting. And yes, that can be hard on the writer who wants to make things easy on their beloved characters. Except the villain, of course (who should win once in a while, just to keep things interesting).

So, go shake up your story a bit, and see if you can’t get some writing done. Now.

Did you ever get an idea, but not have a clue about how to go about developing it? Maybe you have a great idea for the premise of a story, but can’t take it very far? Or maybe, you have a great story, you’ve developed it pretty far, you have the beginning and the end, but you’re stumped in the middle, bereft of ideas for how to get from point A to point B, so you can get on to point C and finish the story.

We need an idea machine! Imagine a device that can be used to either create ideas that we can develop, or that can develop ideas we create. It would have to be portable, yet powerful. It would have to work on all computer operating systems, with various sorts of input devices, and even accept voice and handwritten input. Perhaps even have the ability to network with other such devices to come up with original stories based on the variables present. What a nice idea….

Only a dream? The real idea machine is our own brains. We have to input the ideas, feed in the data, and extract useful tidbits of output all by ourselves. And, of course, we have to work at chugging out the output. This can all become a tedious process, especially if done in a vacuum.

Luckily, we have a community of like-minded individuals, each with their own “idea machine” that can help us develop our ideas further, or even suggest a new track for us to consider. It is the community that becomes an extension of our idea machine when we need further input. Sometimes the function of the idea machine network is to show us what we don’t want to use. Other times, the perfect suggestion is input from an external source. The point is, the Idea Machine system works, but only if you use it well.

What are you waiting for? Boot up and log in to your Idea Machine!

Some folks think that “intellectual” words are more valuable than plain speech. People such as lawyers and politicians are great examples of this mindset. They cloak their true intentions and meaning in words that very few actually understand, hoping that the masses who don’t understand will be too embarrassed to admit it, while hoping that the few who do understand won’t call attention to what’s really happening.

Others who tend to use hundred-dollar words include those in the lofty ivory towers of the world’s most famous colleges and universities, untouched and untouchable by the teeming uneducated masses, and devoted to improving their own ability to understand how the world works, while shedding very little light on the matter for the rest of humanity. Physicians also tend to use long Latinate or Greek-derived terms for various medical conditions, necessitating a long monologue on the condition, its symptoms and available treatment options, often imparting little understanding on the part of the patient. In the process, the physician hopes to give the impression that they are the only one who can do anything about it, and that the patient must rely on them for the healing process to begin.

Most of the rest of us want simple words; words we hear and use every day with our colleagues, friends and family. How many police officers fully understand every word in the laws that they enforce? Very few, I’d imagine. Why bother with a law degree, just to become a cop? But then, more than a few cops work their way through law school while on the streets. So the process is backwards there: learn what the laws mean, and enforce them, then learn the language in which the laws are written.

We are told by professional writers and editors to “consider your audience,” meaning to think about the population for whom you write. Obviously, a children’s writer sticks to very simple language and very simple story lines when writing that kind of book. A writer for young adults writes longer, more complex stories using more complex language for that audience. However, when it comes to writing adult fiction, many authors assume they need to write like an intellectual in order to write meaningful books. Unless you are writing about a character who insists on using verbose and abstruse language, you should probably stick to vocabulary you would likely find in a newspaper. It has been said, after all, that the average newspaper is written at the seventh-grade level. If you must use more enigmatic and esoteric language, you might consider including an explantion, such as a superior explaining to an inferior just what the heck is going on.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, “eschew obfuscation” means to avoid purposely hiding the meaning of your statement by using confusing, pretentious or overly complex language. Any writer would do well to remember this charge. It’s your duty to your audience.

Hi, I’m Jennifer, and I’m the one that originally suggested this crazy idea.

Here’s why.

During NaNoWriMo, I kick ass at churning out stuff. I’ve won four out of the five years I’ve done NaNo (the year I lost, I had a long-distance boyfriend and no laptop- bad combination). This year I finished before Thanksgiving, which is the fastest I’ve ever done.

NaNo is a lot of fun. There’s a deadline, and other people are doing it with you and CARE if you get it done or not.

But did I ever work on writing a novel the rest of the year? No, my friends, I did not. Without anyone around, and with no official deadline, who was to care if I worked on it or not? And setting my own deadlines- “I will have five pages done by Saturday-” never worked either. I knew I was the only one who’d care if I missed it or not, and if something more interesting came up in the meantime, what did it matter if I did that instead? And soon, all fictional writing would come to a halt until November came around again.

Sure, you can do NaNo in some other month of the year. I even know a guy where I live who did it. But you end up doing it completely alone. Where’s the fun in that?

During the month of December, while I was taking the month off from writing to work on presents, I was trying to think of a way to get myself to write during the rest of the year- or at least, the months that aren’t November or December. How could I get myself to do that?

So, I came up with the plan that became NILTOY. 10,000 words a month, for 10 months. (I don’t know about you, but my NaNo plots are usually about halfway done at 50,000 words.) Okay, so that’s about a week of writing in NaNo time, but this plan would allow for having a life while writing…and yet still have deadlines and word count requirements. You can do 500 words a day if you want, or 2,500 a week, or 10,000 in a month. Whatever works for you.

But the ultimate test of whether or not I’d stick to such a schedule by myself, well… I decided to see if anyone else would be interested in doing such a thing. I tested the waters by posting on the Cherries NoMo group…and folks were interested…and Ish was REALLY interested And she knew how to set everything up, too, which is great because I probably would have been like, “Uh, should we just do a LiveJournal here or something?”

And so far, over 50 people have joined the madness. Hooray!

I’ll admit that I haven’t been the best so far at writing on a daily basis. I’ve got classes or writing group or volunteering going on weeknights, so I’ve mostly just written on weekends. Hell, so far I’m starting to work on novel-writing on Saturday night…or Sunday morning. Ahem.

But having the weekly check-in helps to keep me accountable. Or at least to the point when I’m walking home on Saturday night and remember, “Oh, crap! I’m supposed to have 5,000 words by today! Ack! Must go home and write!”

But, it works. Reading this, it sounds like it’s working for others too. People who wouldn’t have written at all (including me) if not for the deadline and the group, are writing!

And that’s just awesome.

Never underestimate the kind of power that a deadline set by an outside force has over the lazy writer!

Today, I’m in pain. I must have slept in a weird position last night, because my right wrist is really bothering me. I’m contemplating searching for my old wrist braces, hoping that would ease the discomfort somewhat.

This is an old thing, maybe 15 years. I’ve had this flare up every now and then. Today, it’s worse than it has been in a long time, and I’m thinking about not writing on my WIP for the day, and maybe tomorrow if it isn’t any better.

This is Not A Good Thing. I’m trying to create a habit of writing 500 words or more every day, and so far this month, I’ve had 8 days of fewer than my goal, with two days of zero words. It’s not encouraging.

There are other kinds of pain involved in writing: cutting scenes we really like, because they bring nothing to the story, or take it in direction we don’t want to follow; hurting characters we love, and really want to protect; rewriting entire sections because they just don’t work; scrapping an idea altogether because it is going nowhere; listening to honest and accurate critique, even when it cuts our work to ribbons.

We write our stories, because we really want to tell about the character and the situation. We fall in love with our characters. We hate letting them get into serious trouble. We loathe killing off anyone but the villain, and we avoid letting the villain escape. But into every good story, a little rain (and a lot of conflict) must fall. I’m not talking about “angst” - like what so many teenagers go through, which you know is completely self-induced, internal and almost always temporary - but real, true, heart-rending conflict. A choice between what you think you want and what you must do. And the consequences of that choice.

As writers, we make that choice, and our characters and their worlds suffer or enjoy the consequences. But we also have the choice between writing and not writing. If we write, we may as well write the best darned story that is within us. There’s no point in writing crap just for the sake of putting words on paper, or keeping up with a word count. Sometimes, crappy writing is the best we have at the moment, so we write. And that’s OK. But if you have something better, write that instead.

And if today is a Bad Day, and you are just not going to be able to write much or at all, give yourself a break. There’s no guilt or angst allowed here. Make the choice, take a day off, give your wrist a rest. Find your Bliss, and follow it. Catch up later; there’s plenty of time built into our plan for that.

And if you just decided to write a rambling blog piece about writing and choices, that’s fine, too. But don’t “try” to write. As Yoda said, “Do, or do not. There is no try.” So, make your choice today. Write or don’t. But whatever choice you make, don’t whine about it or the consequences. Just live with it. And if your choice is to write, no matter what kind of pain you might have to face, then write. Don’t worry about “later” now. Enjoy your choice, and relish the accomplishment when you’re done. Take care of the writer; the story needs someone to tell it.

Like most artforms, writing rarely comes automatically to most people. Oh, most of us, especially the web-savvy ones, are happy to write thousands of words a week in emails, blogs, forum posts and other sorts of electronic communication. But tell us to sit down and write a story, and suddenly, our brains shut down. The words stop flowing. We fidget. We sit idly, tapping the desk top. We get up and make a cup of coffee, or get a snack, then sit down again. A moment later, we hop back out of the chair, and go start some laundry. Now the dog needs a walk. The floor needs to be scrubbed. Dishes need to be washed and put away. We desperately need to call that friend we haven’t spoken to in five years….

In short, we procrastinate. Rather than face that blank screen, or a blank sheet of paper, we turn away and find something, anything, else to do other than write.

It can turn into a painful process, involving guilt, frustration, anger, anguish and fear, along with a host of other negative emotions and effects. Our self-esteem plummets. Then, the Inner Critic (IC) enters on the scene…

It doesn’t matter whether your IC voice is male or female, single or a horde, a whisper or a shrill scream. The monologue typically goes like this:

“Who do you think you are? You are a no-talent hack, who can’t even write believable dialogue. You know nothing about your subject, and your characters are all wooden and lifeless. You’ll never finish this piece of inane drivel, so why are you wasting your time? You suck, so just quit now.”

Tell your IC this from me:

“I may suck at this, but I’m going to do it anyway. I enjoy it, and you won’t stop me. So, just shut up and go play on the freeway!”

Here is what Marianne Williamson (later quoted by Nelson Mandela) has to say about fear:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light and not our darkness which most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone! And as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. And as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others!”

And this is from the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear from Dune by Frank Herbert:

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

So, now that you know that you are powerful, talented and wonderful, and that you will survive after you pass through the fear, sit down. In the chair. In front of the computer, or with a pen and notebook. And write. Your story.

Begin wherever you are, wherever your mind takes you. Need to describe a character? Write a scene to do so. Need a plot point? Write some ideas. Need to figure out a motivation? Interview the character, on “paper” (the real thing, or the electronic version), and ask some questions. The main thing is, get started. Write something.

And once you get started, amazing things begin to happen. Your plot begins to unfold. Your characters begin to speak to you, telling their stories. Your world begins to take shape and awaken. Your muse begins to whisper in your ear. Or maybe she’s screaming at you. Sometimes she’s like that. Mine often bashes me in the head while I’m sleeping, and carries on with the beating until I get up and write down the idea.

Feed your muse with your interest, your desire. She longs to take you where you wish to go. But you have to take the first step. She can’t push you out the door, but she can pull you along the path, once you’re outside your comfy little corner of reality. She might not take you where you expect to go, but it will be worth the journey.

Trust me. Would I lie to you?

I get a lot of questions about word-counts. “If I write more words than I need on one day, can I swap them onto the count for a another day when I don’t write enough?” “Can I write ahead?” “Do I have to write 500 words every day?” “What about when I’m on vacation?” And the list goes on…

The answer is simple: to hit the 100K mark by the end of October 2006, you have to *average* 329 words a day. Every day. There are 304 days between January 1 and October 31 this year, so that would have you finishing up on the last day. But you can always adjust your personal count to accommodate your schedule. Write every other day, twice a week, once a month… Whatever suits your lifestyle and writing style.

Can you write ahead? I don’t know. Can you? It’s perfectly allowable to write more than the minimum recommendation of 500 words a day. But it’s not a requirement.

Do you have to write 500 words a day every day? Nope! At 500 words a day, you get 2 days off each week. In fact, you only have to write 20 days a month to get 10K at 500 words a day. If you write 1,000 words a day, you’ll be done in 5 months, instead of 10. The math is simple enough that even I can work it out.

What about vacation? You can take a notebook and write your ideas while you lounge by the pool. Or take a tape recorder and dictate ideas while you ride in the car on that cross-country trip. Or leave it until you get back, rested, recharged and full of ideas. Even your brain needs a break from time to time. It allows your subconscious time to come up with all sorts of creative ideas.

We’re not here to crack whips across your back to make you write. We’re here to help and inspire you to get over and around various kinds of obstacles with your writing. Stuck for a plot idea? Need help with a detail and need an expert’s advice? Need to whine, bitch or moan? Want to brag about your word count or a breakthrough in your story? Feeling a need to procrastinate? Come on over to the NILTOY Forum for help, congrats or a good, swift butt-kicking. Whatever you need, we’re here to help.

When I first heard about the NaNoWriMo site and challenge, I looked at the average daily word count, and thought, “I can do this. Grad school was harder than this.”

But grad school didn’t require a plot, character development, world-building or any of the other things that a novel requires. Grad school is pretty cut-and-dried: figure out what the professors want to read about, spew 20 pages of whatever you’ve had to memorize or research, check the grammar and spelling, then turn it in on time. No big deal.

Fifty-thousand words is a BIG deal! One hundred-thousand words is a HUGE deal! Most people would look at that number and go, “Nuh-uh. No way! I haven’t got that much inside my head!”

Nonsense! Many of us write more than that in a few months in emails and forum postings, not to mention blogs, journal entries and other sorts of writing. It all comes back to basics: start with an idea; develop the idea, either in your head or on paper; expand on the idea; and make writing a habit. Don’t let fear stop you. This is not a terribly painful process, and think how good you’ll feel when it’s time to edit the piece!

They say that it only takes 21 days to make a habit. So, give it a try. For 21 days, write a minimum of 500 words a day. That’s about 2 single-spaced pages typed. Or write by hand, if you prefer that. Allow the creativity to flow through you. Talk to your characters, ask them questions, let them tell the story. If your work is fantasy or science fiction, make up your own facts if you have to. Suspend disbelief; not just as a reader, but also as a writer. Suspend the disbelief that it is not possible; it is possible. Authors write and publish novels of varying lengths all the time. New authors are continuously being published. Even if publication is not your main goal, writing can be personally satisfying.

You’re already sitting at the computer as you read this, so why not try your 500 words now? What have you got to lose, but a little time? And maybe, just a little of that fear that’s holding you back from starting that masterpiece…

Many people I know make the same resolutions each year: lose weight, get fit, spend more time with family, spend less money… On and on the list goes. So many promises. And by the end of the year, so few promises kept.

Lots of writers I know make the same sort of promises to themselves: “I will spend more time writing;” “I will finish that manuscript;” “I will make the connections I need to get my work published.”

Me? I try to avoid these traps. Personally, I can’t stand the guilt that comes at the end of the year when I have to face those broken promises to myself. Nope! No New Year’s Resolutions for me!

And then a funny thing happened… Someone suggested this project and this site. I am now obsessed with writing, and with tweaking the website. For the first 2 days of this year, I have more than made my writing goal of a minimum of 500 words a day. In fact, it wouldn’t take much to nudge it up to a minimum of 1,000 words a day. Once the kids are in bed, it would only take about an hour… As long as the ideas flow, that is.

Then we come to The Wall. The Fear of Failure. What happens when I run out of ideas? What happens when I get sick and just don’t feel like writing? What happens when I realize I’ve just written 20,000 words of crap? That’s where NILTOY really makes the difference.

Come on over to the forum for some sympathy, commiseration, motivation or just plain butt-kicking. Read how others beat the slump. Get some writing prompts, or participate in a challenge. Or take a day off (but only one!). At 500 words a day, you can afford a day off once in a while. And the more you write, the faster it will go. While the rest of us are still slogging away in June, you could be entering your editing or rewriting phase. Imagine how good that will feel!

We’re so glad you have stopped by. We hope you will stick around, join the fun, and start bragging to the rest of us about how well you are doing! Goodness knows, we could sure use the inspiration!