NaNoWriMo | Bertram's Blog

Finding a Reason to Write

October 4, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Okay, here I am. The fourth day of My Novel Writing Month. I take a deep breath, trying to remember why I wanted to write, why I needed to.

Several years ago, when I couldn’t find the books I liked anymore — story and character driven novels that can’t be slotted easily into a genre — I decided to write my own. The one obvious flaw to this reasoning is that if publishers weren’t publishing non-genre novels written in a genre style (as opposed to a “literary” style), then how did I expect them to publish my books? But I did. And they didn’t. When I’d written (and rewritten) four novels, adding another didn’t seem compelling. Four unpublished novels were bad enough, but five seemed . . . pathetic.

Now that two of those novels are about to be published by a small press with looser definitions of genre than the multi-national publishers, I am down to two unpublished books. And all of a sudden, that seems too few. So now I have the need to write, and I have the itch, but I am out of the habit.

That’s what MyNoWriMo is supposed to give me — not the 50,000 words necessary to complete NaNoWriMo, but the habit of writing.

So here I sit, waiting for the words to come, and they do. But not the right ones.

I’m supposed to be getting my hero back to his neighborhood (after finally letting him stop running from the volcano), yet here I am, writing about writing rather than writing. Though I suppose it depends on one’s definition of writing, because technically, I am writing. Or am I blogging? Either way, I am not working on my novel.

So, I got the poor guy away from the volcano, let him drink his fill at an hour-old river, let him indulge in a bit of light-headed musing (after all, it’s been months since I fed the poor guy), and now he’s on his way home.

The shadows are lengthening, and in this strange new apocalyptic world, anything can happen . . .

Posted in blogging, books, fiction, life, writing. Tags: blogging, genre style, habit of writing, itch to write, motivation to write, MyNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo, novelist, style, why write, writing. 2 Comments »

My Novel Writing Month

October 1, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Chip, the hero in my WIP (work-in-pause), has been running from a volcano for several months now while I spend my words writing articles and commenting on other people’s articles. Poor Chip is getting pooped. (Does anyone use pooped any more to mean tired? Or am I dating myself?)

November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month); aspiring writers from all over the world pledge to write a 50,000-word novel or add 50,000 words to an existing work during those thirty days. (Had to say that silly little grade school rhyme — thirty days has September, etc., to get the number of days correct.) I planned on doing NaNoWriMo this year to get me focused on my novel again, but then I realized if I wait another month to start, I would find other ways to procrastinate, such as promoting my books. (Shh. I haven’t told my family yet, but two of my novels — More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire — are going to be published in November.)

So, I am declaring October MyNoWriMo (My Novel Writing Month). I’ve never been able to write 1,000 words in a day let alone the 1,670 words I’ll need to achieve my goal, but apparently the point is to let the words flow without censoring oneself, and that is what I want to learn how to do. I’m one who edits as I go, and that does tend to cut the output.

I decided to get a head start last night (I already know that I won’t be writing on Thursday because that’s when I have my live writing discussion at No Whine, Just Champagne on Gather and I wanted to make up for it), but I fell asleep. Makes me wonder how I ever managed to write and rewrite and edit and re-edit four novels!

Let’s hope my falling asleep isn’t a sign of things to come.

I’ll let you know what happens.

(Could I have used more parentheses?)