Reverb12: Significant Expenditures
Day two of Reverb12 asks:
What was your most significant expenditure in 2012?
It doesn’t have to be necessarily the biggest expenditure, just the one with the most impact.
You’re looking at it.
This website and blog, far from the most complicated or unique design on the web, (I used a template to begin it), was not expensive on an objective scale. Even on the subjective scale of my own budget (which doesn’t have much wiggle room at all) the money is not a huge sum. I bought the domain name, and have it on automatic renew each year. Yet despite the smallish sum, it was probably my most significant expenditure of 2012.
For years I’d resisted the idea of a domain name that was in fact my own name. Truth by told, I am still not 100% in love with the idea, as I am both a reluctant and a poor self marketer at times. However, once the money, the plannikng, the endless consideration, experimentation with design, and decisions were complete, i had this website to show for it. A place with information about me, my projects, my thoughts, my business. The business aspect of it has yet to attain what I have envisioned for its ideal future, but it was nonetheless a big step for me to research and put together, and publish this site.
This part of cyberspace serves not only as a business card, but as a soapbox, and lesson book, a guide, an interface, a conversation starter and more. I may not have the insane number of followers that just about everyone else has, (at least not yet) but I am at last reaching people through my writing via a platform that is not a gimmick, shield, or disguise. It is straight up me. It’s got my name on it. It demands respect from me, and attention to detail with every word. It’s TyUnglebower.com and it is my most significant expenditure of 2012.
Reverb12: Day One
I don’t normally blog this late in the evening. The last time I did so on a regular basis was last year during Reverb11. All this is by way of saying, (in case you didn’t catch on to it from the title) that I am going to do a little Reverb12 this year.
Like last year, I’m not going to promise that I’ll answer every prompt this month. (Though I basically did end up doing so last year.) I am not even certain I will use the same source of prompts each time I post. But I do promise to blog in as thoughtful and honest a manner as possible during this experience.
Last year was my first time doing Reverb, and I loved the novelty of the experience. Many of the prompts got me to thinking about myself, and expressing aspects of myself I usually don’t explore publicly that much. I also had fun with some of the prompts that were less spiritual and simply more everyday human. It got me thinking and kept me writing. The novelty of the experience cannot be recaptured, but the dedication to it can be, and that is what I intend to do this year. After all, a writer must write.
And write I do, and write I shall. Even if I only partially pursue these prompts during December it will mean that the last several weeks of 2012 will be quite full with me doing what a writer must do. For unlike last year, this year I spent all of November writing each day, as I participated in my third National Novel Writing Month. (I won.)
That was fiction and (at the moment) private. This will be non-fiction and public, so I don’t think I will feel drained. I think it could be invigorating to look back on two months of daily writing, in fact. Accountability and structure can quash the genius of some, and nurture that of others. I believe I may be among the latter demographic.
But let’s not overwrite this post. What is the first Reverb prompt from which I will be working this year?
How are you starting this last month of 2012?
The prompt is already answered in part. I’m starting December of 2012 by writing. Which is how I should start and end each month, I know. To be fair to myself, I am usually successful at that goal. I joined a writing group this year, and have done more short fiction in the last few months than I have done in previous years. I’ve continued to blog regularly, even before this month. I seek out places to submit my writing, and I have deadlines to keep with publications to whom I already contribute. No shortage of writing for me.
Yet still, predictable as the answer to this first prompt may be, I must defend my use of it with a few questions: Is it not the writers job to always insist upon being a writer? Many writers will tell you that it is easier even for them to not write than it is to write, and I am often no exception to that.
By using this venue, this prompt for bloggers and writers around cyberspace as yet another (of many) confirmations that writing is a significant part of my chosen identity, am I not honoring the writer inside of me? Paying homage to the aspects of my mind and spirit that make use of words and sentences to tell stories, change minds, and once in a while improve lives? Even if nothing so profound, my writing is a contribution to humanity. To life. Perhaps I’ll never be famous because of the words I compose, but I won’t go to my grave having never composed any.
So I begin this second annual Reverb experience with what is on the surface a rather boring response to the prompt. I’m starting the last month of the year by writing. Making writing the focal point of both a look back at the waning year, and a look ahead to the new coming year. Standing, with pride, within the sight lines of the universe and making it clear all over again, (as sometimes we must) that I will be writing. As a writer, I can expect nothing less from myself.
Final Nanowrimo Update: Success
I’ve done it. Yesterday (Wednesday) at around 1:00PM, I finished writing the 50,000 words required to “win” National Novel Writing Month. It’s been verified by the site and everything. This makes my third successful Nanowrimo outing, though as with the previous two successful outings (in 2007 and 2008), the story itself was not finished during this month. In fact, it’s probably not even close. A generous estimate would put the first draft at about half done.
If you visit this blog with any degree of regularity you’ll already know that this novel is the first Nano novel I intend to finish, and revise into a true manuscript. I may do so for the other two someday, but in this case I went into Nanowrimo knowing it would essentially be a kick start for my next official novel.
In the final days of writing it I hit a bit of a dry patch again. A patch that is bugging me a bit, because I know that when revisions come, it is the section that will require the most work. That and several of the sections to follow, in fact. Work that will not be taking place for quite some time. For I must outline the second half of the story. Then write said second half. Followed by allowing the first draft to sit for a month or two. By the time all of that takes place, several months will have passed, at best. (Depending on how easily the rest of the outline goes for me of course.)
But I will be taking a few days off from this novel, to regroup. But not too many. I have a few sections I want finished up before I start outlining that second half of the story.
I’ll confess that my progress was hindered a bit in the late third and early fourth weeks of Nano this year, because of the “official” status of this novel. Without a doubt it fulfilled its purpose of getting me well into my next major writing project, and for that reason I don’t regret doing it this way. But knowing where I needed to go, instead of just flat out going as I did in previous Nanowrimos made the sailing somewhat less smooth this time.
Nevertheless, I did get it done. And done several days early. Perhaps not as many days early as I originally thought I could manage it, but early nonetheless. I finished a few days early on the other Nanos as well.
So it’s now well established that I can create 50K words of fiction related to the same arc in less than 30 days. And that I can do it both as a pantser and as a planner. But I’ve never finished the narrative in that time. I therefore wonder if that should be my goal for the next Nanowrimo I do. To commit to finishing not only 50K words, but also containing an entire story arc within those 50K in the 30 days November gives us.
I don’t know if I will go for that or not. So far in my fiction writing life, I’ve determined that stories form in my mind that require either far fewer or far more than 50K words. That would make it difficult. I probably could not pants it. If I did go for a full story in 50K, I’d probably have to outline, and see if I could achieve it. And estimating how many words an arc will take is quite tricky anyway. Even more tricky if I were pantsing it. At least that is how I see it for now.
Then there is the notion that a 50K word novel is, as Nanowrimo organizers admit, on the very short end of the acceptable novel length. In fact, I think that it may be slipping closer to the “too short for a novel” category every year. A novel of that length these days I feel would be much harder to sell to a publisher than it would have been even when Nanowrimo was first created. And even if one self-publishes, it seems to me that 50K words would feel more like a long short story to most people in most cases. Or a novella. Anything is possible of course.
Yet all of that consideration is for next year. For now I will enjoy that I not only achieved my third Nanowrimo prize, but that I have made huge headway into my next “official” novel. Will I be able to keep the inner editor quiet throughout the rest of the process, now that the boundaries of Nanowrimo time are no longer upon me? That also remains to be seen. It may be more difficult this time around. But if it is, then perhaps in one way the challenge of Nanowrimo will stay with me for months to come. Just in a different form.
I kind of like that possibility, don’t you?
Here’s to all the Nanowimo 2012 participants and winners. Are you one?
Nanowrimo Update IV
The final week of Nanowrimo is upon us all. As is this, my next update on my progress.
As of last night I have just over 5,000 words to go. I’m projected at this pace to get to 50K by Thursday. There is something weird going on with that though, because last night it had be projected to do it by tomorrow. The projections keep changing. I need to start paying attention to my own count instead, so i don’t miss the deadline. That would be quite annoying.
I had wanted to finish early, and I still might. But I need to remember the point is to finish it, not finish it early. Computers aside, I feel confident in my own projection that I will once again get to 50K words in the 30 day period, so long as I keep up this pace. I’m not Nate Silver, but I think I have a pretty good grasp on where this is going.
Mostly I am in better shape than I was a week ago when I wrote my previous update. A day or two before I left for my sister’s house to spend Thanksgiving, I doctored the remaining parts of the pre-existing outline somewhat. I did that for two reasons. First, I wasn’t sure the outline contained enough material to cover 50K words. I would have been all right with winging-it a bit, (we call it “pantsing”), but my preference was to not have to do that. I may still have to, but I feel it is not more likely I will have material to carry me through the first 50K words.
Not that I added a whole lot, really. I just shifted a few things, and expanded the scope of a scene or two.
The second reason I did so was to address some of the holes and gaps I found forming. I talked about hose here on the blog in previous updates as well. This concern, though not 100% eliminated by the outline surgery has been, to this point, addressed in a satisfactory manner. Enough to get me through Nano, after which I can take a bit more time moving forward.
I still have a fear that I am leaving certain holes. Unlike the first draft process of my last novel I find myself worrying about pacing. One day I will think I am moving through the action too fast, and the very next day I will be concerned that I am spending too much time on something, and slowing things up. I’m not getting the out and out satisfaction of completed the first draft in the same way I did my last novel. Nano might have something to do with that. Experience may have more. I can’t decide, and I know in the end it doesn’t matter. I remain committed to not editing the first draft in any substantial way until it in completed. I must not abandon that approach, or my writing is done for.
Currently, I’m in the middle of an action scene. There will be more of those in this novel than in my last. Frankly, i don’t know what I think of them. I don’t like getting bogged down in details of who stood where when this fell, and how Jane’s shoulder is oriented to Steven’s foot when she tackled him, and so on. I can do it…if I spend five times longer on considering the scene than I normally would. I just don’t usually feel that is a good use of my creative time and energy. This book is not suspense. At least it isn’t intended to be. I’m not sure of the genre, but probably urban fantasy. In either case, certain plot elements require these action scenes.
I’m tempted to write, “Jane was injured several times in a heated altercation with Steven. He had a knife, she did not. Yet somehow he was the one unconscious by the end of it.” But I guess I can’t do that for action scenes. Actually, perhaps I can…in editing. But in this first draft, i feel obligated to set those scenes in detail. And in the pace of Nanowrimo, I know those details are getting skipped. It’s one thing to know your first draft is always lousy. It’s another to know you are intentionally tanking something a bit just to get through it.
I will say that actions scenes do eat up words quickly in the Nano setting. They are just words I don’t usually enjoy writing, and I am in the thick of one now. Probably at least one more before Nano is over. They will be much easier to deal with once I am writing at a non-Nano pace, I’m sure.
But I don’t want to get too bogged down in the actual writing technique of the finished piece. Like I said, I can’t start picking apart a first draft in any event. So as for Nano, I have just over 5,000 words left. I’m ahead of the pace, but I can’t afford to be distracted any further. I can’t miss any more single days remaining. I can only do so much writing in one session and only so many sessions per day.
Nanowrimo Update III
Sorry if these updates bore you, but I am a writer, and ’tis the season for National Novel Writing Month. Don’t worry, though. It will be over soon. (Don’t I know it…)
I am up to 33,731 words as of last night. I might have gotten more, but I was keeping one eye on Ravens vs. Steelers. (Quite pleased with that outcome I may add.) Don’t worry, though; that was the only time I split my attention between Nano writing and something else at the same time. And I still made my daily quota. Computer still projects me to finish by the 26th of this month.
Yet the news is not all good. For I have run into a section of my novel that is really dragging for me. And if it’s dragging for me, it would drag for readers, I dare say. I’m not one to follow publishing conventions, but I imagine that if the author is a little bored with something, most readers would be as well.
Part of the problem is that as I follow the outline, I’m recognizing ahead of time sections, chapters and scenes that are extraneous, or repetitive. So I don’t write them. I write something more efficient. I consolidate them into single chapters. I mentioned this last week, but this week it’s become more problematic because I’m nearing the end of the outline I prepared before hand. It appears increasingly likely that I will have to “pants” a bit this month to get to 50,000 words. I just don’t think what is left of the story I outlined is enough.
The outline was only ever supposed to be about half the story anyway. But I have shrunk it down as I write. My fear now is not only not having enough material to comfortably do Nano, but that I will have a huge task ahead of me to finish the novel once Nano is over. And even bigger task once revisions come along sometimes in the spring.
My instincts are always to establish, establish, establish. To set a mood and to take a gradual approach to revealing the nature of a character, an internal change, a major decision. But I am already finding with this novel, as with my last novel, that it would simply take too many words to arrive at my destination via my determined route. Yet the opposite fear takes hold when I trim things. I become concerned that I won’t establish anything for long enough to be enjoyable.
These are the fears I had going into Nano with am “official” novel, as opposed to some one-off Nano thing that I’d never look at again. Or at least not for a long time. (I still haven’t looked at my first two Nano novels from years ago.)
I have to keep telling myself, that whether Nano or not, this is still a first draft, and of course bound to not be very good. Yet to me there is a difference between being sloppy, and being full of holes. Sloppy can be fixed with subsequent revisions. Holes require at times entire rewrites to fill in. Slop and fat on the edges I don’t mind in a first draft. But holes…those trouble me. Makes it seems like the novel will have to be 4 times longer than I intended in order to fix them. Or otherwise become a totally different novel, and I don’t want that at all.
In the end, I will almost certainly get to 50K by the end of the month. But I may have to cut a few corners plot wise, here and there, so I can get to section that I know will be word-heavy. Which means that the sections which are left thin will have holes. Holes I cannot, as per my own strict rule, correct until I am 100% done with the first draft. Yet continuing on with the narrative may be damn hard when I know I left a few holes waiting for me on the trip back.
So, I am moving along, word wise, but paying a price that is a little too high for me. I have written a brief, newer outline to follow for at least the remainder of Nano. Hopefully that will minimize the holes I leave while trying to write fast. Then, once November ends, I can move at a more deliberate pace, and keep holes filled as I go.
That’s where I am now. Sailing not as smooth as I did a week ago. Nonetheless, the voyage continues. Stay tuned.
Any advice?
Ty Unglebower 