Did anyone read that article of Chris’s I linked to last week? If you did, you might have noticed his writing goals for 2010. The overall word count blew my mind: 300,000 words! This guy has become something of a role model for me, so I felt like I should aim in that general direction, but three hundred thousand words seemed like a lot.

But is it really? I haven’t gone back to add up the total, but I was keeping track of my word count on this blog in the spring, and I also kept notes on my progress during the day on my desk calendar. I have that calendar beside me now, and I’m wondering why I was so hard on myself. I know I fell short of my goals more often than not, but, criminy! In April I wrote 19 days out of 30, which, if I’d been sensible about it, could have been the weekdays. You know: the work days. I’m seeing numbers like 116 and 152, but also 1493 and 1848. If I write 240 days per year, and write April’s average (660) on each of those days, I’ll be more than halfway to someone else’s really ambitious goal.

I kicked myself every time I didn’t hit my targets last spring. Now that I look back, I realize that just the attempt left me with something I wouldn’t have otherwise had. A blog, for example, although that’s just part of it. I also have a record that proves I tried to do something that was important to me, and that I met with at least partial success.

That means a lot to me as I set goals for next year. I’m married now, so I have these new things called “shared goals”, which take up a lot of my time. Also: “obligations.” Balancing those two and my personal goals is likely to be my biggest challenge in 2010. It’s heartening to see that just setting (and tracking progress on) a personal goal can help me do that… even if I don’t succeed.

Chris Guillebeau has written another timely post. It’s encouraging to see someone living at the convergence of writing and goal setting. I’m using his Annual Review method for the second time this year, and I hope to meet with similar success in the years to come.

Frank McCourt said, in the first chapter of Angela’s Ashes, that “the happy childhood is hardly worth your time.” Then he proceeded to tell the incredible story of his incredibly hard youth.

Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird, suggests going back to Kindergarten and writing down every detail of every event I can remember, grade by grade, plus holidays. The very next example features a family gathering where half the adults are so drunk they can’t walk from one room to another. Flannery O’Connor backs her up, saying that there’s enough awful material in anyone’s childhood to pack several novels. Misery seems to be an excellent source.

Can a writer write anything good when everything in her life is coming up roses?

How important is discontent to the creative process? It’s been a motivator for me often enough, and I think it’s easier to make an emotional impact in writing when I feel strongly about something. I can remember sitting down to write a chapter, and discovering that I’d fallen out of love with someone. It completely derailed the story, because that unrequited love was the reason I started writing it. My motivation was gone, and so was the main character’s. Seriously, why didn’t she just go home already? The guy just wasn’t that important.

Perhaps that’s an argument for not writing characters too close to myself and people I know.

When I decided to try NaNo this year, I was far too happy to have an entire novel’s worth of angst about anything ready to write out. No life tragedies, no insoluble internal conflicts… I turned to No Plot? No Problem! and the Snowflake method, and came up with characters I like but don’t know very well, and a storyline I didn’t expect. Life derailed my plans once again, and (here in early December) I haven’t finished the novel. Even so, I’m optimistic about it.  Having guidelines and a goal have also been helpful in my past writing.

Maybe contentedness isn’t an insurmountable obstacle.

Hello again!

Slowness this week refers to my leisurely return to blog posting. While I’m getting my act together, read something by someone who already has, quite a while ago.

Day 2 of NaNoWriMo is fading, and my word count is getting close to my Day 1 target. The Snowflake method seems like a good thing, but I’m rushing through it (and skipping ahead) so quickly that it’s hard to say. Part of me wants to hold off on the novelling until I’ve finished the snowflake, but another part keeps reminding me that that’s not how NaNo is supposed to work, and I’m falling behind!

My slow start is only slow in terms of building word count. Coming up with characters and a plot in two days–that’s fast.

Someone in my regional NaNo forum recommended this webpage, which uses the Koch Curve as an allegory for the process of creating a structure for your novel. The author calls it the Snowflake Method, and (before I clicked) I thought, Snowflakes are pretty, not useful. This is going to be lame. Then I saw that it was Koch’s Snowflake! The lameness evaporated. Anything that combines fiction and fractals is cool.

I signed up for National Novel Writing Month. For those of you not familiar, that’s when a crazy group of people try to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days: November 1 through November 30.

I tried three years in a row, starting in 2005, and finally won in 2007. I skipped ‘08, and I’m sad about this. The winner’s t-shirts had a pirate ship on them, and now I want one, but my pride won’t let me buy one. Never again!

I encourage everyone to sign up. NaNoWriMo founder Chris Baty says that one week is the perfect amount of time to get ready, but I say three days is plenty (heck, I just started yesterday). Check out his guide book on Google Books. If you want more help, just ask! Comment here or look me up in NaNoLand.

Happy novelling (that’s a real word in NaNoLand)!

There’s a trade-off between productivity and peace of mind. Of course, if you’re getting a lot done, you can enjoy knowing that you’re on top of things. There are times when I have so much energy to spare I can clean the entire house, write for three hours, plan dinner, review my life list, and still find fifteen minutes to work on improving my handwriting. On those days, I feel awesome. There’s a lot to be said for getting a lot done.

Even so, keeping that up for weeks at a time makes my shoulders knotty. Planning to do it, and following through, generally makes me feel accomplished, and even energized, but still: knotty shoulders.

For the past few months, I’ve been working towards one of those Big Life Events that everyone comes together to celebrate and take pictures of, and that lots of us put into fancy albums to take out and cry over every couple years. I intend to do that, by the way. It has taken a lot of planning and effort and (ye gods) money and time, and for the past few weeks, I’ve opted to either do all that, or do nothing at all. This is one of those times that I know I’m falling short in at least one important area, but I’m okay with it because I’ve chosen to sacrifice one important thing for an even more important thing.

I’m getting married.

I’ll see you all again in two-and-a-half to five weeks.

-Linnea

I have not been disciplined about this at all lately, but some writing has occurred. I have known people (and I have been one myself) who can write themselves a ridiculous schedule for life, the universe, and everything, and still sit down for x hours per day and write.

This month has been more catch-as-catch-can. By the way, has anyone seen that phrase in writing before? I really like it, but I’m pretty sure I got it from a YA fantasy novel where everyone was speaking quasi-Old English. Anyway: I’ve written whenever I can catch a spare 20 minutes on the fly. No purpose, no larger project; just really wanted to be typing, so did.

I must have a lovely, patient Muse, if she puts up with this.

Not a new observation, I know. Check out the Foxfire books for a whole bunch of cool stories and useful wisdom.

I made this not-new observation last night when one of the older people I know started talking about his days as a Range Safety Officer for the Army. He told me about the time he was re-training some guardsmen on grenade-throwing, and Something Went Wrong. No one was hurt (well, not more than necessary to keep two people from being maimed), but it was an exciting tale.

If you want to write a short story and have no ideas, go find an old person! Sit, ask a simple question (“How are you today?”) and then just listen. I guess they’re not all as talkative as my grenade-throwing trainer, but keep asking; you’ll hear something. Even if you don’t, you’ll probably be making someone’s day.