So what have you learned, Dorothy?

So NaNo is over for another year. At the risk of sounding overly proud of myself (I am!) or preachy (I’m not!) this whole post is about lessons learned during this process and personal growth and stuff, so be warned.

During the process of NaNoWriMo, you learn a lot. You obviously learn about your own novel and you learn about writing in general, but you also learn a lot about yourself – as a person and a writer. What you’re capable of, your best working patterns, your hidden feelings about things which suddenly become glaringly obvious when they’re words on a screen instead of amorphous attitudes floating around in your head.

So first, you learn about these bizarre characters you have created, and what they’re up to. You learn how they talk to each other and how their world works. Some of it feels like it’s under your control, but a lot of it feels like it really isn’t. I honestly don’t know that I make things the way they are in my writing, they just are that way and I chronicle them.

Last year I had what I thought was a much stronger basis for my first novel: a cool original character, a universe to put her in, some antagonists for her to deal with, some things for her to figure out. This year I had no earthly idea what I was going to be doing, I only knew who my main character was. For a while I was sure that there wasn’t even a story there. I didn’t know what the hell this chick was doing in town. When I finally figured out why she was here I was as surprised as anyone else might have been.

Speaking of town – I made some fundamental mistakes last year, and I think the biggest one was setting the book in a city I had never lived in, only visited. While I did (and still do) love all things Savannah, the NaNo process doesn’t lend itself to lots of research time during the month. Having to leave lots of notes to yourself (figure out setting, where is this place?, find a picture of a street sign from this neighborhood, etc.) means there are chunks of writing you just can’t do during the month. This year I not only re-set the original novel to take place in St. Louis, but I also set the sequel here too. That made things much, much easier. Want to write about South Grand or the CWE? I can drive right over there for reference shots, or just to soak up the atmosphere. I included places that I shop, that I drink, that I eat. It was not only fun to fictionalize those things, but it reads much more authentically.

I was hesitant to set a book here, for a couple of reasons. I think that part of me didn’t want to be that girl – the girl who writes about the place she lives. There’s that familiarity breeding contempt thing, where I automatically think of St. Louis as being sub-standard, because I grew up here. But then I thought about it and realized I was being ridiculous, or reverse snobby or something. St. Louis is an interesting city, and even if it wasn’t I wouldn’t be much of a writer if I couldn’t make this setting work for me.

I think part of my fear was also that I didn’t want people to have an easy frame of reference into my writing. Since most of my friends also live here (and they will eventually be the first people to read what I write) they will be able to spot right away if something is inauthentic or incorrect or badly represented. And I don’t want that to be distracting for them. I can also guarantee I will want to drop kick the first asshole who says “Yeah, but Tower Grove Park is all bluegrass, they don’t have any fescue there!” or something equally nitpicky. But then again I can’t control the level of assholishness of others, and if they want to play spot-the-incongruity instead of read a book, what the hell. So I took some liberties. It’s fiction.

You also learn about yourself and your own writing style. For example, I can’t write in the morning. I can putter around in the morning, I can drink tea and do research and play on the computer and pretend I will start writing, but I never got anything done before about 4 p.m. Sorry morning writer people who swear you have to write 250 words before you take your fist pee of the day. That doesn’t work for me. 4 p.m.-11 p.m. is my window. I also learned that I can write in the house, with all its myriad distractions. Last year I was a coffee shop writer, convinced that only outside my home could I clear my mind and get some work done. With Jake being sick and needing me to keep an eye on him I was forced to write at home in the beginning of the month. Turns out I can write just as well there. Sometimes a coffee shop can be good if you have to marathon, but for normal daily writing, home works for me just fine.

I’ve learned that a big part of my review process is re-reading my work out loud. When I do that I recognize where the flow and pattern of the words is off. I hear where another word would sound better and I spot where I’ve used the same word 3x on the same page, and need to bust out the thesaurus. Reviewing out loud = key.

I’ve learned that the time you give yourself for pondering plot points is just as important, if not more so, than time you give yourself at the keyboard. I’ve learned that I do my best plot-related thinking in the shower (I’ve also learned that since that’s the case, this isn’t a good month to have your water heater go out.) The smoothest, best writing sessions I had were right after “Aha!” moments in the shower, when whole chapters would come to me at once. After that it was really just going to get it all down on paper, rather than sitting at the keyboard wanting to bash it with my head.

I’ve learned that my writing is dark, sarcastic, negative, funny, intense and possibly hard to take in large quantities – just like me. I’ve learned that when I try to write in a way that’s positive, cheery or optimistic I end up wanting to punch myself in the face until I pass out from it. That’s not to say there’s no hope or optimism or good things in anything I write, it’s just that it has to come out in a way that’s natural for me, and forcing a different tone isn’t going to work. Some of my characters are more positive than others, but the writing itself is just dark. I experience the world as a hostile place, full of horror and badness and confusing pockets of evil, and that’s what I convey when I write about it. Sometimes the world flashes some good things my way, and those come through too, but not being true to my own authentic way of being in the world makes for very bad, very painful writing.

I’ve learned that I can make myself do things I don’t want to do. That I can do things even when I am bored of them, that I can challenge myself and live up to that challenge. That’s good. That’s what makes me proud of me right now.

That’s also bad, because if I can set challenges with regard to writing and live up to them, then I can probably challenge myself to do other things I don’t want to do, and live up to that too. That sucks. I now have no more excuses for not getting some other areas of my life together. “I just can’t make myself do that.” no longer appears to be an option, so I will have to face up to actually doing some things, or being honest that I just refuse to make myself do them. Personal accountability sucks.

One book I’ve really found useful in this process (and I think I will continue to find it useful in the revision process) is the Gotham Writer’s Workshop “Writing Fiction” which has all kinds of practical useful reminders about writing style.

I’ve also been using The Complete Encyclopedia of Elves, Goblins, And Other Little Creatures by Pierre DuBois which is densely written, but has some good information and inspiration in it.

Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds by Bernd Heinrich  has been invaluable, as has the website Language is a Virus with their awesome character name generators and databases.

Anyway, I think that’s all for what I learned this month. Now comes the harder part – revision! But first I think a few weeks of reading, reading other first-person novels primarily, to see how good writers do it – and just some time away from the book so I can come at it with fresh eyes.

Thanks for putting up with my ranting and raving this month, and thanks to everyone who encouraged me to get this done. I appreciate your support.