Pep Talk

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

I know what you're doing. You're thinking about cheating, aren't you?

Ha! Caught you!

Come on. One cheater knows another. You think I've never been there?

Maybe for some of you it's not too late: you haven't crossed the line...maybe you're just entertaining the idea of abandoning the story you're currently working on.

Maybe you're just thinking of taking a break to jot down a few notes about the story you just thought of; that ultra-fresh, totally cool, sure-to-be-a-bestseller you dreamed up the other morning while you were supposed to be figuring out where you took the wrong turn on your work-in-progress.

But I'm here to let you know: That's how it starts. The next thing you know, you're doing character sketches. Then a little dialogue. Then whole scenes.

And then you're through. You've given up on your work-in-progress entirely, and the next thing you know, you've started working full-time on this new story you thought up.

I know only too well what comes next. The excuses. The rationalization: "So what? So I switched stories. I've still got a work-in-progress. It's just not my original work-in-progress. So I'm a little behind in my word count. I'm still writing, right?"

Sure, it seems innocent enough. But the problem with doing this is that of course the new story always seems better than that old busted up, out-of-control story you've been working on for so long. That new story has the aura of dewy freshness to it. It's calling to you! It's all, "Yoo-hoo...look at me! I don't have any plot problems and my characters are way-intriguing and some of them wear leather jackets and oh, yeah, you know that weird transition thing you've got going on near chapter four that you can't figure out? I don't have that!"

I know. It sounds good.

Dear Author,

It's happening. You're writing a blue streak. You're piling up the pages. You're roaring through this novel like a forest fire. Then suddenly you hit the immovable obstacle. WHAM. Ow. You're flat as a piece of typing paper, your mind as blank. Panic!

Whether you're taking a month or a year, this is always the question. What happens next?

Fiction is all about decisions. Let me give you a personal example. Working on White Oleander, I kept hitting this wall, about chapter 8. It was all going great, all the wheels in motion, and then WHAM. I just couldn't decide what to do next. I'd try this, try that, but each time I'd get stuck. The character would put her toe in and pull it out again. No, not that. Should I just bag it? Write a different book? Go to law school? Watch reruns of Hogan's Heroes? I was absolutely blocked at the crossroads.

Luckily I was seeing an amazing therapist at the time. I explained I was afraid that if I chose route 6, then I would be eliminating all the other possible routes. What if route 15 was better? Or 3 1/2? So I hedged. I couldn't commit. I was stuck. And she gave me the piece of advice which has saved my writing life over and over again, and I will give it to you, absolutely free of charge. She said, "I know it feels like you have all these options and when you make a decision, you lose a world of possibilities. But the reality is, until you make a decision, you have nothing at all."

So you have these options, but which one to go for? When in doubt, make trouble for your character. Don't let her stand on the edge of the pool, dipping her toe. Come up behind her and give her a good hard shove. That's my advice to you now. Make trouble for your character. In life we try to avoid trouble. We chew on our choices endlessly. We go to shrinks, we talk to our friends. In fiction, this is deadly. Protagonists need to screw up, act impulsively, have enemies, get into TROUBLE.

Dear NaNoWriMo writer,

The metaphor of writing-as-birth is not a new one-perhaps it may even be a bit overused---but I can't help but think about it this month. It doesn't matter if you're a woman or a man; you're pregnant with a novel---congratulations!

Of course, one month is a pretty short gestation period, but hey, that's all the time rabbits need, and NaNo certainly requires a "no time to say hello, goodbye" White Rabbit breakneck pace.

I remember how amazing it was when I was pregnant with my kids---each day, my body had transformed into something new. This month, you have transformed, too, moving from aspiring writer to novelist, from someone who has wanted to write to someone who actually is doing the hard, juicy work of getting words onto the page. You have learned new things about the creative process, about the depths of your imagination, about the themes and images central to your subconscious life. And even if you are way behind on your word count, even if you've only written the first scene of your novel, you have taken a profound leap. You are a writer now. How awesome is that?!

If your experience is anything my like NaNo experiences have been, this has been a time of exhilaration and frustration, inspiration and despair (and, hopefully, big slices of pumpkin pie!) A journey from that first thrill of conception, through moments when the story feels heavy and unwieldy, to times when it kicks inside you and fills you with awe. And now the end, your due-date, is in sight---at least as far as the calendar is concerned. Now you're not just pregnant---you're in labor.

Dear Friends:

At this point I feel I should just say: "Times a'wasting! Stop reading this
note and get back to work." But I promised to try to cheer you on, so I'll
do my part, if you'll promise to get right back to your novel after you've
read it.

Yes, yes, the hardest part of writing a novel is keeping at it. Some years
ago when I was totally stuck in the first draft of a novel, I was having
lunch with my dear friend, the novelist Mary Lee Settle. "Oh, Mary Lee," I
moaned, "this is my seventh novel and I haven't learned a thing."

"Yes, you have," she said, fixing her eagle gaze upon my whining face,
"you've learned that a novel can be finished."

So I went home and finished the first draft. Now you're determined to write
50,000 words in a month. I just said to myself that I had to write two
pages a day before I could do anything else. The margins could be wide and
there was no requirement for quality. I just had to finish the two pages.
Eventually, the log jam broke and I found myself moving forward without
that iron rule.

I aim always to get to the end of the first draft even though all the time
I'm telling myself that I'm writing nothing but garbage that no one on
earth would ever want to read, especially me. But I tell myself that this
poor little attempt, this garbage, deserves a chance. Just as our beautiful
dog Annie, who was the runt of her litter, grew into the most beautiful,
loving dog anyone would want, so there may be hope, even for this pitiful
mess of words I'm accumulating. So I say to myself: Don't read back too
far, don't try to start rewriting, just get to the end.

I live in Barre, Vermont which calls itself the "Granite Capital of the
World." Outside our town are enormous quarries, so when I speak in local
schools every child has a mental picture of a granite quarry. "You know how
hard it is to get granite out of the quarry," I say. "You have to carefully

Welcome, writers, to the place I call Very Nearly the End.

By now, NaNoWriMo has taught you that writing is not for the faint of heart. You must be stalwart and brave, like pioneers of old, unafraid of uncharted lands or crossing vast frontiers. It was exciting at first, wasn't it? Preparing for the journey, stocking supplies, counting down the days until the start of the great undertaking. That enthusiasm would have carried you through the first weeks, and even the pitfalls along the way might have seemed like thrilling opportunities for adventure. But now you have come to the bleak no-man's land just before the last great push to the end. It is barren and empty and it seems as if no one has ever passed this way. Except for every other writer who has come before you. This place lurks along the journey of each book for all of us. Here we hate our characters, our plot is mundane, and our prose is as flat and unlovely as the landscape. Be watchful; it's dangerous, this place. I have heard of writers who lacked courage and who turned back to safety, never to return. They simply stopped being writers because they could not find their way across this nothingness. That is not an option for me, and I don't believe it is an option for you. You have come too far, weary travelers! And there is a way across, I promise.

The solution has two parts. The first is to be a little selfish. At this point in the book, a writer is a bit like an invalid emerging from a life-threatening illness. We are fragile and wan, and people will remark that we have grown thin and pale. We startle easily and we tire quickly. This is when we have to be kind to ourselves. If there is someone who can cook for us and bring us cups of tea and rub our feet, excellent. If there

Hi there NaNoWriMo writer.

I'm writing this on a Sony notebook perched precariously on my lap, said lap created by me slouching in the red armchair in my living room. Prior to the red armchair slouching I thought about what I was going to write on my walk home from my office (a luxury of my later writing life) and I scribbled down some notes with the first pen that came to hand while I was standing up in the kitchen cooking dinner. Which leads me to my first bit of advice.

1) Don't get hung up about how, where and with what you write.

Most of my earlier novels I wrote longhand first, only typing up each chapter or sometimes a bunch of chapters when I could get to a computer. Many of my later books I wrote parts of longhand but much more directly on many different computers, in bedrooms and living rooms, park benches, offices, beaches and even on the wall of a crusader castle. The location doesn't matter, and you don't need a great computer, or any computer at all, to start with. Many famous novels were written on pieces of paper with pens or even pencils. You can always type it or get it typed later. Don't let the lack of a computer, or the lack of a desk, or a writing room, or an attic, or a comfortable cafe or time to go somewhere put you off. Writing in bed can be pretty productive, or in the bath (though best to not use a laptop there). Try writing wherever and whenever you can, and see what works.

2) The journey of a book begins with a single chapter.

I never actually sit down in front of a blank screen or a piece of paper and tell myself I have to write a ninety or one hundred thousand word novel. I tell myself I have to write a chapter, which typically will be somewhere between two and five thousand words. That's a much more achievable task. Then, when I've written a chapter, I put it aside for
revision and tell myself I have to write the next one. Eventually, I discover that just by writing a chapter at a time, I've written a book.

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

You’re hearty stock. This is obvious. You don’t have prissy notions about the muse as some airy thing that sometimes does and sometimes does not alight on your shoulder. And I like this about you. It is, in fact, one of your most endearing qualities.

If you look at the world one way, it takes from you---it’s a thief of time, energy, creative mojo. But if you look at the world another way, it gives you an endless supply of motivation. Here are a few things that the world offers (in furious fistfuls) that get my butt into the chair: petty jealousy, the chip on my shoulder (a slight deformity I was born with), my kids’ pending orthodontia bills, guilt of the Catholic variety, rejection, and, on a Freudian level: my parents’ love.

And now my tips:

Polish your jealousy to a high shine---like the chrome of a well-loved Mustang.
My jealousy took the form of the phrase "two-book deal with Dutton." My student, Sharon Mitchell, who went on to become #2 on the African American Bestseller's list for her first novel Nothin’ But the Rent, had just gotten a two-book deal with Dutton. I hadn't. I was her teacher. I'd been at this, seemingly forever. She was a psychologist, dabbling in the novel. This phrase haunted me: "two-book deal with Dutton, two-book deal with Dutton." Luckily, I couldn’t shake it. At that point we were running a boarding house out of our home, and my desk was in the living room. Every night I went to bed, after turning off my computer, late at night, and it had a light that, even when the computer was off, blinked at me across the room. Each time it blinked it said, “Two-book deal with Dutton, two-book deal with Dutton.”

Ditto the chip on your shoulder. Treat it well. Feed it crackers, and maybe it’ll turn into a parakeet---one of those blue ones who knows how to cuss.

November 4, 2008

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

You could write a novel about the act of writing a novel. It's a heroic act. (Or so I tell myself as I sit here in my garret study, chewing my nails, scratching my nose and staring blankly at my screen. That's what this is, I say grimly: a heroic act.) Why is it so heroic? Because it fits the mythic pattern of all great legendary heroes' lives. It's the story of a mighty quest accepted, of a long journey undertaken, of insuperable obstacles overcome and finally—in your case after 30 painful days—of lasting triumph won. It would make a fine movie, apart from the scratching the nose bit—probably starring Charlton Heston. Full of dramatic highs, dreadful lows and endless tedious bits when the audience goes out to make a cup of tea. It's an epic, all right, and we're all in it together.

Here's how it works for me. At the beginning there's a kind of honeymoon period, where I'm pretty excited by the idea in my head, and the possibilities it evokes. Sure there are a zillion details to be worked out later, and plenty of things that don't yet mesh, but that's ok—we've lots of time. I write the odd fragment and chuckle over the occasional piquant joke. I do a bit of research, visit museums wearing black roll-neck sweaters, scribble ideas down on napkins in coffee houses. It's a pleasant calm before the storm.

Then things darken a little. Time is pressing. I want to get to grips with the novel, but I haven't a clue how. This is the 'phony war' period. I now apply myself seriously to work, but the trouble is that it doesn’t hold together. Scenes start promisingly but peter into nothing. Main characters turn out to have all the zest of a cardboard box abandoned in the rain. Dialogue is lousy. Description descends into wall-to-wall cliché. No fragment lasts more than two or three pages before being printed off and tossed aside. And still the real writing hasn't begun.

November 6, 2008

Dear NaNoWriMo author,

You've started a long journey. Congratulations on your resolution and
ambition! And the first thing you need to remember is that a long journey
can't be treated like a sprint. Take your time.

The second thing you need to remember is that if you want to finish this
journey you've begun, you have to keep going. One of the hardest things to
do with a novel is to stop writing it for a while, do something else,
fulfill this engagement or that commitment or whatever, and pick it up
exactly where you left it and carry on as if nothing had happened. You will
have changed; the story will have drifted off course, like a ship when the
engines stop and there's no anchor to keep it in place; when you get back
on board, you have to warm the engines up, start the great bulk of the ship
moving through the water again, work out your position, check the compass
bearing, steer carefully to bring it back on track ... all that energy
wasted on doing something that wouldn't have been necessary at all if you'd
just kept going!

But once you've established a daily rhythm of work, you'll find it
energising and sustaining in itself. Even when it's not going well. This is
a strange thing, but I've noticed it many times: a bad day's work is a lot
better than no day's work at all. At least if you've written 500 words, or
1000 words, or whatever you discover is your most comfortable daily rate of
production, the words are there to work on later. And when you do visit
them in a month's time, or whenever it is, you often find that they're not
so bad after all.

The question authors get asked more than any other is "Where do you get
your ideas from?" And we all find a way of answering which we hope isn't
arrogant or discouraging. What I usually say is "I don't know where they
come from, but I know where they come to: they come to my desk, and if I'm

November 24, 2008

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

Between my apartment and the Office of Letters and Light, there is a monster of a hill. I bike to work, and I always take a long route that steers me safely around the behemoth. I do this because I have the calf muscles of a goldfish, and because I've developed an aversion to feeling like I'm going to die first thing in the morning.

But yesterday, I summoned all my courage and headed up the mountain. My word count was---and still is---stuck in the low 30,000s, and I wanted to ride the hill to remind myself what the 40,000s in NaNoWriMo felt like. After struggling through an ordeal in which my lungs felt like twin meat-logs roasting on gyro spits, and my heart beat so fast that I feared it was going to try and make an emergency exit through my nose, I reached the top.

A day later, I'm still buzzing, and feeling more alive than I have in months. With biking, as with most forms of exercise, the best part truly comes when the ride is through. The ascent can feel miserable, but once you've made it to the top, you get that enduring glow of having pitted yourself against something bigger than yourself and triumphed.

If you've already crossed NaNoWriMo's 50,000-word line, you know that feeling of triumph intimately. As for the rest of us...In just one week, the sun will be setting on this year's NaNoWriMo. As the light of the contest starts to dim in the final days, we will likely still be out on that hill, still struggling towards 50K.

This is good. Very good. Because, as humans, we come into our own in these do-or-die moments. Deadlines mint miracles every time. Want proof? Think of all the papers we've written at 2 AM. All the projects that have been nowhere-near presentable that we've salvaged at the zero hour. Having a life as busy as yours means you have to leave some big undertakings till the very last minute; it's just how things get done.