THE SITE IS BACK UP!!!

          Yes, it's that time again. As of October 1st, the NaNoWriMo site relaunched with all their new bells and whistles ready to go. For me(and 350,000+ other writers, worldwide), "it's the most wonderful time of the year".

          For those of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November(to take advantage of the nearly universally crappy weather), people around the world devote themselves to writing a novel. Some write longer novels, some shorter, some write multiple novels, but they are all held fast by a promise to try to write at least 50,000 words during that month. And that's pretty much the rules. Agree to write 50,000 on a novel/work of fiction during the month of November.

          In general, for new writers, they suggest starting something completely new, rather than working on something you've spent years on. This is for a good reason. If you think about how you have to make this work perfect, you'll never finish it in the timeframe, if ever. With a new novel, you have fewer inhibitions to hold you back.

          Personally speaking, I've been doing NaNoWriMo since 2007, which will make this my 10th year(and 9th win, hopefully) and I have to admit, I can't imagine November without it. I've written completely new novels, I've continued old novels, I've rewritten novels for it, always getting my 50,000 words. The one year I didn't win was my first. I signed up early, forgot about it for half the month and then wrote just over 2,000 words before giving up. I promised myself that I would clear my plate for the next November. I did and wrote 67,306 words.

          I suggest that everyone try it at least once. Even if the only thing you learn is that you don't like writing, it's been useful. If you do end up enjoying it, you'll have found a new hobby, a new facet of yourself that you never knew before.

          If you do sign up, please follow me and let me know on the site! My handle there is Feytouched and I would love to keep track of each of your novels with you!

          As well, if you're in the Calgary Nanowrimo group, the Wrimotaurs(like a minotaur, but with a quill instead of a hammer), you'll be seeing me on the Facebook page every day. My nickname there is now The Lady of Best Lines because I started a new trend of asking people what their favourite lines they wrote that day were. I'll be continuing that again this year! So if you write a perfect line, you have a place to share it. It takes a lot to share any writing let alone a first draft line! But I know every one of you is up to the task!

          Lastly, if you haven't seen yet. NaNoWriMo has a new thing on their site this year! It's a timer so you have a place to time your sprints on. Apparently, it will also have a pop-up so you can add your word count immediately onto the site if you wish. I'm totally looking forward to trying it out.

Avast Ye Matey's; Yo Ho!

          A few days ago a friend of mine, Starla Hutchton, brought to my attention a woman online who had been asking for sites to pirate digital books from. I was appalled but didn't think much of it at the time. It sucks but aside from agreeing that these people are dirt, there wasn't much I could do. I will admit that I thought this woman was especially an idiot as she's a photographer and I'm pretty certain that she would be up in arms if I called her up, arranged a photo shoot, and then said I wasn't going to pay her but still want the pictures since I like her work.

          Today, I found out that this blew up online. Authors got involved commenting, she made fun of the authors and started banning people. The whole story is told pretty well right here, so I'll let you read it and make your own decisions. What flummoxed me though was the amount of people who agreed that pirating is right.

          I'll admit that when I was younger and I was making quarters above minimum wage that I torrented stuff. Nearly everyone did when Napster first came out. I never felt entitled to that music, but it didn't seem any worse at the time than waiting for that song to come on the radio and recording it from there. Since then I've gone to some pains to buy the music I listen to, I pay for a Crunchyroll subscription for my anime & buy series when I can, and I make a point of buying all my books.

          So why do I do it? Well, first off, it makes me feel good. Knowing that I am supporting my artists and the things I love makes me feel like I'm making a difference; like I'm letting the author know how much I appreciate their work. Usually I accompany that purchase with an email telling the author why I love their work, since as a writer myself, I've found that being told that somebody loves my work or has suggested my stories to someone else makes my day. But more than that, I do it because they deserve it. Writers and other creative people deserve to make money on the things they create.

          I will add a caveat here. Lending someone a copy of your books to give them a taste of a specific authors work is something that I totally agree with. In my experience it leads to more sales for the author. I've turned at least a number of people into fans of SM Stirling's Emberverse series by doing so and all went out and not only bought that book, but they usually continue to buy the rest of the series as well.

          However, somebody once said that people don't appreciate something they've received for free. And from what I can tell that is true. Whether its a tarot card reading, a book you've written, a picture you've drawn, a song you've made... whatever it is, you deserve something for your time. If its your first attempt that might be as simple as a compliment. But as you work on your craft, you'll get better and better at it, your skill will increase, and you deserve to begin getting paid for your work.

          You don't see CEO's saying that they work at 7-11 on the weekends to pay for their love of working for their corporation, or lawyers saying that they work at Wal-Mart 9-5 because they just can't give up defending people in court. Even priests, generally expected to be the epitome of nobility, are expected to make enough to pay for their expenses through tithing at their parish.So why are people who work in creative pursuits expected to be even more noble and give away what they do for free?

The Road Not Taken

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less travelled by, 

And that has made all the difference

-Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

          I don't know if I could honestly say this is my favourite poem by Robert Frost, though he is hands down my favourite poet. Fire & Ice, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Take Something Like a Star, even the old fan favourite, Nothing Gold Can Stay... these are epic poems; beautiful, simple and powerful. Still, the one above is the one that I'm resonating with today.

          As a writer, you want the passion and power seen in Fire & Ice. However for editing... you want something calming and The Road Not Taken has that in spades, as well as the feeling of discovery and that unnameable (or at least, that I know of) feeling that we may have missed out on something great due to our choices, while still being happy with our choices.

          Editing is that feeling intensified. 

          Its my favourite part of the process actually, taking something that sucks and making it great. Though I am left sometimes wondering at the roads I didn't take, the paths I didn't follow. Would they still be there if I went back? The words would be, but I don't know if the same burst would come to me, wavering my conviction. 

          In the end, as Linkin Park says, it doesn't really matter.  You need to choose a path and follow it to the end. Going back to the beginning just to see could-have-beens may be interesting, but you can't live there (though I feel a short story burgeoning through me with that line).

          In my editing this week, I made a decision to delete a character. Inarguably important to the creation of my main character, he no longer had a place in my novel. I replaced him and felt almost fragmented. I will never, except in memory, in past writings, see that character again. 

          And I, I took the road less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.

          Lets go make a difference.

Read Through Editing: 30/110 or 28% completed

Crabs and Writers Block

Today was one of those days that is most difficult for me. It's a day when the stress of working and writing both as full time jobs starts getting to me, my word count starts dropping a bit and then it starts actually getting hard.

In particular, I had a killer attack of writers block. It was stupid. I knew what I needed to write (a scene involving them setting up camp and not finding the clue of awesomeness they needed), but I couldn't write it. My first 400-800 words were all tell and no show, my next 400 were tired and staring around bleary eyed while my mind figured out the problem and shared it with me. 

That problem was that despite knowing the scene that fit in there, I didn't actually know what the purpose behind the scene was. There was no goal, no conflict, no nothing. It was two people setting up a camp-site, describing the landscape and not arguing. That isn't a scene. That is a bone dry factual account. 

Unfortunately, as is usually the case, I had to figure out what the scene was about. I almost gave it up as a lost cause when I finally figured it out. And oh my was it a stupid thing that set me writing again. 

CRABS. 

Yep, it was crabs got me writing again. Little ugly brown crabs that walk sideways and have pincers that look more like shovels than weapons, but are still as sharp as a dull pair of scissors. I don't even know if the little guys exist (its a fantasy and a rough draft, I'll figure out that part later). 

I now know what the next chapter includes, how the crabs and the landscape play into it and what they end up doing during it. I will have to rewrite today's chapter but that will be for later, for a time after Nanowrimo is over. In the meantime, just remember, sometimes it is the stupidest of little things that will get your plot moving again if you are stuck.

Like crabs.

A New Blog Deserves a New Post

Well, a new blog deserves a new post, I suppose. I promise that I will try to keep this one up after Nanowrimo. Most likely it will be updates about my work and such, but I will occasionally post snippets of my writing and what not as well. I will try to update at least once a week. Please stay tuned!