Quick and Dirty Author Reflection: A Bulleted List

Things I Learned About Myself As An Author In November 2016

(in no particular order)

• Writing is not a one woman show, at least for me it isn't. 

• During this month I relied heavily on my husband for both emotional and practical support.
• My little sister graciously served as my sounding board and my pre-Alpha reader. 
• In addition I have discovered that I am surrounded by friends and family who are willing to cheer me on as work to discover what I am capable of as an author.
• Finally, during November, I was blessed with a motley little crew of like minded writers in the city who offered wisdom, encouragement, and levity during this 30 day challenge. 

• I like to write in public...BUT just as I talk with my hands...I tend to write expressively...so if you see a beheadphoned thirty-something making weird faces and flailing her hands about in your local Starbucks...it would be safe to assume she’s writing a novel.

• I am not a quick typist. Therefore, I have to put in more time than some of my NaNo cohorts. I average about 1,000 words an hour...which, believe it or not is SLOW when compared to other authors who can hammer out 500-700 words in 15 minutes.

• I definitely get in a zone when I am writing. Here is a clip from one of my favorite films, written by one of my favorite authors, that describes what “the zone” looks like...especially to my children.

• Sometimes I love what I write. Sometimes my writing is simply passable. Sometimes I write a sentence so tragically terrible that I psych myself out and have to take a break...for the rest of the day.

• Writing can be a very, very, vulnerable pursuit. I’ve written scenes that left me feeling angry or lovesick or heartbroken or ashamed for days.

• I spent the first few days of November floundering. I came up with a really great premise to build a story around...but I couldn’t get it to work. I was trying to fit my author voice into a novel that wasn’t appropriate. I wanted to be more creative...use symbolism...personify emotions... allow for fun plot twists and just let the story flow.

• Creativity is, apparently, not what I do. As it turns out, I am a straight shooter. (shocking I KNOW). Yes, I created a work of fiction and built characters don’t exist...but they COULD. They function in a world that doesn’t exist...but it COULD.

• This style of novel is classified as “literary”. That is a genre which makes me feel highbrow and snobbish; so I pushed against it.

• About the third day of Nano, I decided “f@#k it” and wrote what I wanted to write. It turned into quite the little novel...one that I like and have enjoyed writing. I ended up using my original premise as the novel’s climax.

• This novel has been, yet another, lesson in accepting who I am as a human being and as an artist. I firmly believe that my craft can glorify God...but if I try to be something He didn’t make me to be, I’m wasting a gift by wishing I had a different one.

• Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to say that I still have a lot to learn about writing a good novel. And, frankly, I still have so much to do to fashion this mass of words into a good novel. So much. I am willing to learn. I am excited to work through the process of preparing a manuscript for publication.

Now What? A Quick and Dirty Rundown of NaNo 2016

Dear friends and family who have endured my endless novel writing posts, here’s what you need to know about the conclusion of NaNoWriMo 2016.

First of all, I did in fact complete the 50K word challenge. My final word count for the month was 50,283 (that's what my word program says...the official count was 50,066). So, according to the language of the challenge, I “won” NaNoWriMo. They use the language of victory even though there’s not really a prize (apart from the shiny new rough draft I now possess) As an author, I simply consider having written any substantial amount of words a win in itself.

The challenge goes by word count because that’s the way manuscripts are evaluated by publishers. For reference, novels such as The Great Gatsby, The Hours, The Outsiders, and Fahrenheit 451 all hover around the 50K word mark. After publishers choose a work, they get to decide how your word count translates to the page count of your novel based on font and spacing and production cost.

Here's the catch though friends, only about 70% of the words I typed are usable. The rest is brainstorming, warm up writing, genre experimentation, and pieces that i pulled out of earlier drafts that didn’t fit into the story I ended up with. However, ALL the words counted toward my final count because it’s part of the drafting process. NaNo is about pure word count, if you wrote it in November...it counts.

But, even at 50K words, I’m only about 2/3 of the way through the first draft. Upon completing the challenge, I made a commitment to edit and revise the draft I have created in these last thirty days. That includes adding content in some places and paring down scenes elsewhere.It is my hope to have a completed rough draft available for Beta Readers by Spring Break. I will be comfortable calling this rough draft complete when it gets around 70K words. A novel with that word count is a standard sized book as opposed to a novella like Animal Farm (30K) or a tome like War and Peace (587K). Books with 70K-ish word counts include The Fault in Our Stars, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Catcher in the Rye.

I'm proud of this accomplishment, but mostly I am thankful for the push to focus on my craft. Writing is part of the fabric of my heart. Giving it energy has energized me, if that makes sense. If NaNoWriMo didn't exist, I'd probably go the rest of my life PLANNING to write a novel instead of just DOING the thing.

*****Stay tuned for an upcoming post where I will give a shout out to the human beings who rallied around to cheer me on and throw out a list of take away wisdom from this insane creative writing experience.

The One Where We Put It In The Freezer

As you may have noticed, my blog has been slowly tapering off. I haven't published a post in over a month and a half. Even before that, my posts were getting more and more sparse. While I have many reasons why my little blog has been neglected, there are two circumstances which are contributing to the slow suffocation of Life Less Sweet.

#1. I've been channeling my writing energy into more creative enterprises. My last post shined a spotlight on NaNoWriMo, a writing challenge that happens every November. Even though November has come and gone, one of the most valuable lessons I gleaned from the challenge was merely the knowledge that I am ABLE to create stories.

Though writing has been part of my world since I was ten years old, I'd mostly stuck with either prose-style poetry or short stories. While short stories are still TOTALLY my wheelhouse, I've discovered that longer works of fiction can be written by using chapters as short stories which are woven together to create a longer narrative. Any time I sit down to write (which I am trying to develop into a daily habit) I end up desiring to chip away at my latest novel rather than popping a quick blog post onto Life Less Sweet.

My fiction style is still in its experimental stages. I'm still figuring out my voice and discovering how to craft characters and themes that are meaningful to me. The more practice I get with working out stories, the better my work is becoming. Honestly, it feels good and right to spend my writing energies on these endeavors.

#2. I feel a TON better than I did when I started this blog. At the time of my first post of Life Less Sweet, I was in the throes of a major depressive episode brought on by a gross combination of a bad foster care placement, mothering small children, and a big ol' serotonin deficiency.  While sharing on this blog has most certainly been cathartic, the main goal of shining a light into the uncomfortable places of my heart was to reduce the shame and secrecy that surrounds people (especially people of faith) who struggle with mental health issues.

Through this blog, I have discovered that, while my story is unique to me, the elements that make up my struggle with depression and anxiety are common to many of the people in my life. Too many of us share this condition to allow the matter to be a source of stigma. I want to do what I can to bring the conversation to a healthy and productive place...thus the blog.

In the course of the four years this blog has been around, I've dealt with my depression and anxiety with a combination of medication, therapy, nutrition, and faith. It's helped. My mental health is currently very successfully managed, especially since doubling my dose of sertraline this fall.

Here's where I should tell you that I have been cured and there is no need for this blog any longer...but, as wisdom and experience have taught me, successful management of depression and anxiety are NOT the same as being cured of them. These illnesses are chronic and probably life long. I cannot know what will come up in my life that could potentially pull the rug out from under this precariously stacked management plan. Therefore, I'm not going to officially end Life Less Sweet. Instead I am going to take my cue from Mr. Joey Tribbiani and place my dear blog into the freezer where it will be available to me should I have need of it.