Journal – Page 25 – Teel McClanahan

looking toward NaNoWriMo 2009

Coming up in less than a month is National Novel Writing Month, 2009. I have been a participant since November 2002 (and actually staged my first month-long novel writing challenge in May 2002, since I’d just barely missed out on the “real thing” in 2001), and of seven attempts have “won” four times, including last year. My successes have since become Lost and Not Found (NaNo’02), Dragons’ Truth (NaNo’03), Untrue Tales… Book One (NaNo’04), and More Lost Memories (NaNo’08). ((For those of you who are both unaware of NaNoWriMo and who didn’t just go to their site to see, it’s a novel-writing competition where you try to write a novel in a month. It’s on the honor system, it’s more about getting something done than about doing something well, and the prize for most winners is simply the knowledge/pride of having written a novel.))

Among the many features that make NaNoWriMo what it is, some of the most important are the online forums and the in-person gatherings of participants. On the forums, writers can connect with people from all over the world – usually to procrastinate, but sometimes for writing prompts, factual details, help with character, setting, theme, whatever can get them from zero to novel in a month. For anyone living far from other participants, the forums are the community. For people in large urban areas, there are usually hundreds or thousands of other participants they have the opportunity to meet and write with in person. There are, traditionally, write-ins scheduled throughout the month; ostensibly to get together and write (esp. including group “word wars” to spur bursts of high-word-count activity), but also importantly to chat and connect with a community of like-minded people. Like-minded only in that they also wanted to write a novel & had the audacity to try to do it in a month: NaNoWriMo participants come from all walks of life, which is why it’s such a great way to meet new people. People who love books & writing & words…

Back in 2002, my first year doing NaNoWriMo (the 4th year of its existence), the Phoenix area had never yet been organized, had never had a Municipal Liaison, and I wanted to interact with other writers in person -I’ve never been a fan of online “forums” and that was the only alternative- so I volunteered. I organized. I scheduled write-ins. I contacted local writers. I contacted the press & got articles in both the East Valley Tribune and the Arizona Republic (the latter featuring a photo of our group at a write-in, which I thought was pretty cool). I started novels that I was having trouble with, tossing them out and starting form scratch over and over and ended up writing an entire novel in 8 days, finishing at 10PM on November 30th, not long before the deadline. It was a great experience.

Then, within months, my whole life situation changed and I was living in the tiny Northern Arizona town of Pine when NaNoWriMo 2003 rolled around. The nearest meetings were 100 miles away in each of three directions, and … and I still didn’t much like forums. I took a couple of days during the month to drive down to Phoenix, and got a fair amount of writing done at the same coffee shop I’d written my first novel at (though I don’t think I ever managed to connect with other participants, that year)… and it wasn’t the same. I very nearly didn’t finish, and I think the result is my least favorite of my novels, and I put a lot of that on how it felt to be doing NaNoWriMo by myself. It’s one thing to be an author working on a novel and to do that singly; it’s something else to be doing a worldwide challenge in parallel with tens of thousands (now over 100,000 every year) of other people, none of whom you ever see or speak with.

Then, by NaNoWriMo 2004, I was back in Phoenix. The Phoenix area had two co-ML’s who did a great job finding great places to write, getting people motivated both on the forums and in person and a lot of people were showing up to the write-ins. It was great, again. A lot of the participants continued meeting, and writing, and editing &c. for months and months after November ended. [details removed] and when NaNoWriMo 2005 hit, I wasn’t welcome at the write-ins and other community gatherings, nor to post on the forums. I felt like shit, rejected, threatened and emotionally abused by a few members of the group, and I think I ended up writing about 1200 words that year. (Or maybe it was 5k that year and 1200 the next?) It was basically the same thing in 2006. If you look at my blog posts for November, 2006, you see I only made 1 post, on November 30th, about how much not being able to participate in the NaNoWriMo community was tearing me apart.

So, in 2007, I’d decided that I was going to participate anyway, and if the few people who’d had a problem with me were still participating & still had beef with me, that was their problem, not mine. I wasn’t going to let it be my problem, any more. And I had a good time, again. One of the great ML’s from when 2004 had been so good was still ML, and the group dynamic was pretty good (though smaller), and there were write-ins all over the valley. I wrote a story, I finished the story, and it wasn’t anywhere near the 50k words minimum to “win” but that didn’t bother me too much. About half-way through the month, Mandy and I decided to get married. On December 1st, we did. Which is to say that, rather than starting a new novel attempt and easily finishing before the deadline (which I could have done), I instead planned a wedding & honeymoon in under two weeks. Now December 1st will always be a happy day for me, whether I’ve just finished a novel by November 30th, or not.

Then in 2008 the ML that had done such a great job for years moved to the East Valley, and for the first year, Phoenix NaNoWriMo participants got split into two groups. Phoenix, and East Valley. Another person wanted to split off North Phoenix (where I live) as well, but the new ML-in-charge-of-Phoenix said no – so she scheduled her own “unofficial” write-ins in North Phoenix anyway. I only went to a couple of the East Valley meetings (because I live 30-60 minutes away from where they were), but when I did I had a good time and saw a great group. All the “official” Phoenix write-ins were scheduled in the new ML’s neighborhood, the forums were nearly dead, and few bothered to show up to the write-ins. Mandy and I both participated in 2008, and we went to a couple of these “official” write-ins, and they were deadly dull. It was frustrating as heck, and I barely got any writing done in their stifling silence. Alternatively, we also attended some of the “unofficial” write-ins in our neighborhood and found that not only was attendance equal or greater than the “official” ones, but the attitude and atmosphere were much more cordial, friendly, and conducive to writing. After about mid-month the new ML stopped showing up to her own events, failed to plan anything for a non-writing gathering that she’d put on the schedule, failed to organize a TGIO party… Mandy and I continued attending the North Phoenix write-ins, and both finished our 50k words before the month was out.

Looking forward to NaNoWriMo 2009, I’d been thinking, a couple months ago, that the ML who had totally dropped out of NaNoWriMo in mid-month last year wouldn’t be back. I’d been thinking I might even volunteer. I’ve been ML before, I’ve done NaNoWriMo 7 times before and have 10+ books published, plus I don’t have a day job other than being an author and artist, and working with the writing community in the Phoenix area is certainly something I’ve been wanting to at least try to do more of. Except that when I went over to the NaNoWriMo site to see what it said about Phoenix’s ML situation, I found that last-year’s failure of an ML was apparently gung-ho to get started and excited to try again. She’s put together a (sparse) “PhoeNoWriMo” website, and created a PhoeNoWriMo Twitter account (with 3 tweets), and… uhh… yeah. Said she’s planning fewer write-ins, more non-writing gatherings, and putting an emphasis on doing things online, online chat, forums, et cetera, and minimizing in-person interaction. Plus, she hates dislikes me, and doesn’t mind saying so to my face. I don’t like her either, and say so right back to her.

On the other end of town, there’s the East Valley, with two great MLs who I know I can count on to host lively events and encourage everyone effectively to reach their writing goals. It’s only the minimum 30-minute-each-way drives to the East Valley events that makes that difficult; money is tight, and that could add up to a lot of gas… though if the Phoenix ML schedules all the events in her neighborhood again, it’s still a 20-25 minute drive. Or perhaps a few of us North Valley participants can “unofficially” write together again, this year. In the “official” NaNoWriMo-is-only-a-month-away email, the Phoenix ML specifically told us not to schedule any “conflicting” events, and implied that us North-Phoenix writers better not be having a good time at unapproved events. The whole thing is making me want to contact the real NaNoWriMo staff & ask about officially creating a North Valley region, if not for this year then for next.

Oh, and what am I planning on writing? I don’t know. Depends on what other writing I’m able to get done between now and then. Cheating, Death seems to be paused temporarily in the middle of Chapter 8, though if I can get my momentum back, I should be able to finish it this week. If that happens, I may be able to start work on the next zombie novel, and then I could either work on a totally new & random project for NaNoWriMo 2009 or I could write the Self Publishing book I’ve been thinking of. And then there’s the question of whether I try to podcast excerpts from my NaNoWriMo novel as I’m writing it, like I did last year. The podcast version of Untrue Tales… Book Three runs out mid-November, and I think I run out of pre-recorded poetry at the end of October, so … probably, yes. Lots to do. Always lots to do. I may not be earning much money doing it, but I’m going to continue working, writing, painting, podcasting, and otherwise creating as long as I’m able.

Cheating, Death – chapters 6 & 7

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Whew, that was a hard one. Well, a hard two, I suppose. I kept having to stop writing, take a break, and try to remember how it happened. I wanted to get it just right, get things in the right order. Causes, effects, surprises, and zombies, all in the right sequence. I had to re-jigger my outline a tiny bit. I even shifted one of the chapter-opening vignettes from chapter 6 to chapter 7, and wrote a fresh one for chapter 6, because of how the story was unfolding & lining up.

The major event of chapter 7 is still the same; the book still has the same chewy emotional center, right in the middle of the book. The next 6 chapters, they’re all downhill. And if you’ve been reading what’s in the first 7, that’s pretty bad news. I mean…. Well, what do I mean? let me excerpt a couple paragraphs for you (Yes, this contains spoilers, but it’s a zombie book; you knew everyone was going to die, right?), from chapter 7:

Even in the dark, he could see it was too late. In the low light, the scene was like something out of an old black and white movie, Madeline’s blood dark like chocolate syrup or motor oil as it gushed from her neck. Whether she hadn’t heard it approaching or had been too afraid to get out of the cart and run, Madeline had still been sitting there hugging the number ten can of peaches to her chest when the undead monster had torn her throat out with its teeth. As the zombie languorously munched away at Madeline’s soft flesh, her blood gushed out in an unbelievable torrent of darkness that consumed her clothes, the peaches, and which seemed to be opening a dark portal in the floor under the cart.

Melvin took in all this in an instant, and in another instant he was shoving the zombie one way and pulling the cart another. Without a thought, Melvin discovered that he was perched over the laid-out body of the monster, repeatedly bringing the heavy can of cling peaches in heavy syrup down onto the remains of its long-since ruptured skull, smashing it again and again into smaller and smaller chunks. Frances didn’t stop him, she simply stood by the blood-soaked body of her last living child, too shocked to shed tears and too grief-stricken not to weep. After what seemed like a long time, Melvin’s arms stopped moving, and Frances caught her breath. Then Madeline’s mutilated form began moving, and Frances’ breath caught in her throat.

Yeah. Fun. It’s all downhill from here. Things falling apart, as it were. I think I’ve got the sample % right so that the first 4 chapters are still free.

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Cheating, Death – chapter 5

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Chapter 5 took me a little longer to write than the others. This has something to do with the weekend; I actually took some time off to play Beatles Rock Band (my birthday gift) and to spend time with my wife. It also has something to do with money. F_cking money.

There’s a bit of a story about this story, you see. I’ve been thinking about writing this book for quite some time. At some point, many moons ago, I realized what the story was, and who it was about. I wrote a quick pseudo-outline of the basic story… well, actually I just made some notes about it in the mind-mapping software I’ve been using on my iPhone (Headspace – worth a look; I went from the free version to the paid version, its icon moved to my first page and, this week, to my ‘dock’ – I use it that much), but the character arcs were all there. Then I spent several months reading popular modern zombie fiction, as ‘research’. Now I’m actually writing the thing.

After a few relatively easy-to-write chapters, I started looking forward. Wondering what the next chapter was supposed to encompass. Thinking about length. How long a book did I want, how many chapters (at their current, relatively stable, length) would I need for that, and so on. And it occurred to me this weekend that … the story I have to tell isn’t of traditional “book length.” Not without a lot of padding and filler and … and I don’t know what. Actually, going by my outline, my mind map, my initial notes, if I’d just written the rest of it without thinking about structure at all, it’d probably be over in twenty thousand words. And I’d probably have missed some of the story. And it would be almost unpublishable as anything but the eBook it already is.

I stressed out, for a while, thinking about money, about what length book people expect, and how writing a shorter book would impact sales. About how if the book were short enough, maybe I could price it at $10 and I could make a lot more impulse sales than I do at $13 and $14. About my current trade discount of 50%, which effectively sets my cover price for me, and is based on the idea of being palatable to book stores. About giving up on the ridiculous idea that book stores will ever stock my books, about reducing the trade discount to 20%-30%, which will keep it listed online at Amazon/bn.com & give me more pricing flexibility (& potentially more profit per copy sold). About rethinking the premises on which I make decisions for my publishing company, looking at what my current realities are, and looking to the future & potential of storytelling in all its forms.

Then, finally, I ended up where I’d started. Which is that I run my own publishing company so that I can write the books I want to write, the way I want to write them. So that I can tell the stories I have in me to tell, in whatever way is best for each story, and then put it out there as though the industry has no business telling me how and how-not to be. Because they don’t. All they know is what’s made money for them recently. Which isn’t the point, for me. Realizing which, I spent some time working on writing a closer-to-proper outline (on paper, but moreso in Headspace) of the story the way it wants to be told and the way I want to present it.

I’m open to following Cheating, Death wherever it takes me, so if things here or there go longer along the way, so be it. But with the basic structure of the story laid out, it looks like 13 chapters total. With the average chapter length I’ve been finding so far, it looks like about 33k words total. The paper book for a story that long will probably be around 124pp, which I can sell for $10. (I have 2 poetry collections available that are this size, already.) Which makes the final (estimated) eBook price $4.99, the current eBook price $0.99, with an expected $0.50 increase with each additional chapter. So go get Cheating, Death now for $0.99 and read it as I write it. Or wait until it’s done, pay $4.99 for the eBook or $10 for the paperback.

Hmm… I think it’s early enough yet that I’ll try to write Chapter 6 before I go to bed. I’m right in the heart of the emotional center of the book, right now. This is Act II, chapters 5-8, where Melvin is confronted by his wife about his cheating, before things really start to go downhill.

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Cheating, Death – chapter 1

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Yesterday, I finally started work on my new novel, Cheating, Death. As I’ve been working toward, as soon as the first chapter was done, I got to work getting it set up on Smashwords. My idea is to write the book “live” on Smashwords; to make the rough draft available to readers as it unfolds. The first few chapters will be free, and after a certain point I’ll gradually start increasing the price so that by the time the book is fully written, the eBook will cost full price. Because of the way Smashwords handles versioning and rights, once you’ve paid for an eBook you have access to it no matter what the price gets updated to or how many times the text is modified – in fact, you actually get to choose which version of the book to download, if it’s been updated since you purchased it. So whatever price you pay, whenever you purchase it, you don’t have to pay again and you get access to all future updates, including the final one.

I plan to update the book on Smashwords every time I finish a chapter (or if I’m on a roll, at the end of each writing session with any completed chapters). I expect to finish the book by Halloween at the latest (because NaNoWriMo starts at midnight on Halloween), and perhaps as soon as the end of next week, if the story really flows out. (One time I wrote a book over a long weekend, so there’s no telling, maybe I’ll be done by Monday.) Your feedback on the novel-in-progress is appreciated. Feedback on the content, the grammar, spelling, the unlikable characters, whatever – anything is welcome. I’d like to get the thing in as good a shape as possible while I’m writing it.

I plan on doing as much of the back-end work as possible while writing it (plus I’ve already got the cover almost finished, and I’ve just put together several pages on modernevil.com for it) so that within a couple of weeks of finishing the first draft, I should have the paperback in hand. Then, with any luck, I’ll start podcasting the audio version of the novel on November 13th – one week after Untrue Tales… Book Three is finished on the Modern Evil Podcast… which should give me podcast content until around mid-January, 2010.

Continue reading Cheating, Death – chapter 1

I’m not sure the Olivetti is the right machine for this novel

I’ve just been lying awake in bed, thinking about what to use to write my next novel, Cheating, Death. (Have you seen the cover I designed & painted for it?) To most people this is sortof a decision between word processors. Should I use MS Word, Open Office, Pages, or something exciting and hip like WriteRoom or Scrivener? (Or asking around to find something half as hip as Scrivener for Windows, if that’s what you’re using instead of just getting a Mac already.) ((Incidentally, stopping to fill in all those links really interrupts the flow of writing this.)) I hadn’t given it much thought, though when someone asked the other day I admitted that I tend either to write directly into InDesign (ie: doing all the publisher-type layout and formatting stuff as I write the first draft, since I’m going to have to get it in there for publishing anyway) or write the first draft on a manual typewriter (though I’ve heard good things about Scrivener, and keep meaning to dl the trial right before I start a new novel).

Anyway, so as I said, I was lying awake in bed a bit ago, thinking about maybe setting up to live stream writing Cheating, Death via USTREAM or some such, thinking about how I’d set up the camera or cameras, maybe see if I could use BoinxTV to do a split-screen with one video of my face and another of my typewriter, how to do lighting, angles, and be able to reach both the typewriter & the computer keyboard to interact with anyone watching and … and for a second it occurred to me that people watching might prefer/expect me to be writing in software and streaming the computer screen itself … but that passed, and I got to thinking about how I’d have to set up another table in front of my computer desk and wondering whether it would take the force of my energetic keystrokes on a manual typewriter… Which actually led me to thinking about the idea that … I’m not sure the Olivetti is the right machine for writing this novel.

I mean sure, I used my Olivetti TROPICAL (looks like this one) to write the entirety of Forget What You Can’t Remember (among other things), it’s a good machine. Reliable. Comfortable. I’m used to it. It’s also the lightest and most portable of my working typewriters. But I don’t think it’s the right machine for Cheating, Death. This is a zombie novel. Grittier, dirtier, more painful than FWYCR. Still not a thriller, no, but the Olivetti is clearly for lighter fare. So what else could I use? Certainly not my Olympia! (She’s a great typewriter, never had a mechanical problem with her, but every word that comes out of her is in script. Cursive! Far too feminine for this book.) Perhaps the Underwood I wrote Dragons’ Truth on, or one of my Smith Coronas or Remingtons. A friend gave me a President that needs a little work; maybe I could get it in working order… but even though it’s masculine, it has an even smaller profile than my Olivetti. The President is for more lightweight work. Maybe I’ll try it for some short stories. It feels like it would be good at terse writing.

Just writing this post is making me want to go out to the storage room where most of them are sitting, waiting, on shelves, for the chance to be used. Not all of them are fully functional. A few of them need totally new ribbons, a couple of them I’ve never written more than a sentence with; I’m not even sure they’d survive a novel without serious repair. I think my favorite Underwood is about to need a repair I’m not qualified to give it, and I don’t have any money to hire a pro right now. (Have you considered buying a subscription to me?) I believe (though I recall offering to give one away in the last couple of years, so it may be one less) I currently have nine manual typewriters in my collection. Each one has a different feel to it, a different character. I don’t think the Olivetti is the right machine for this novel. Maybe none of them are; maybe I should write it on my iBook. I’ll definitely be doing my NaNoWriMo novel on it – I bought that iBook for NaNoWriMo, received it November 1st, 2004, and have been using it ever since… right up until I bought the iMac I’m writing this post on. I bought that iBook for writing. Perhaps it’s still the right tool for the job. Certainly lighter and more portable than even the President. Perhaps I’ll load it up with Scrivener and take it to town and see what comes out. But I’m definitely going to get out all my typewriters this weekend & consider the matter thoroughly.

What about you? What do you write with? What would you use to write a zombie novel, to write Cheating, Death?

Update: I’ve just uploaded photos of all my typewriters to this flickr set. I’m thinking about doing a post (or eight) detailing them, as well.