NanoWriMo Update #2
on plotting, pantsing, and everything in between!
What’s up, swimmers? Happy Friday! Happy almost Sag Season! I hope that you’re hanging in after midterms, and daylight savings, and the rapid demise of the bird app as we know it, oh my!
Meanwhile, I chopped off my hair (see above), visited my first born child in person!, and have staying focused on my writing goal of 50K words in November! It’s felt increasingly absurd to spend so much time writing stories about queers in NYC banging each other, but also kind of the perfect way to ride out the end of another reality-bending year.
Couple of things before I pour my heart out:
⚡️ MY BOOKS FOR DECEMBER 2022 ARE OPEN! ⚡️
Seeker Sessions will be tailored to the recipient. You choose the time—1 hour at $111 or 2 hours at $222—and then we’ll decide how to use it! Tarot, Numerology, Readings for the Year Ahead, Support around Witchcraft or Creative Work, the limit does not exist.
Links for January 2023 will be released in the December newsletter for paid pals. Please note that this is the last time I’ll be offering readings at these prices. If you’d like to book as a gift for someone else, please email me directly.
🎧 COMING SOON TO SITS 🎧
I genuinely don’t know what we’re doing in December on SITS, but that’s ok! We have plenty of time to figure it out. If you have anything on your mind or have been waiting for my take on a certain topic, let me know!
What I do know is that I’ll be chatting with a few incredible folks over the next month or so, and will be bringing you a couple of conversations in January that you’re not going to want to miss!
I am officially on Day 18 of National Novel Writing Month.
The goal by the end of the day, is to have written a total of 30K. I’m currently sitting pretty at 31K and I haven’t even started today’s work!
First things first, I have to acknowledge that yes, I am essentially 18/18 on my daily word count goals. Because I’ve been tracking just above the overall goal, there have been a couple days where I haven’t written as much as I would’ve liked to have written, but it hasn’t mattered in the grand scheme. As I write, I’m finding this is the sweet spot for me, as it keeps me from continually chasing the carrot, you know?
Second, I am feeling quite decent about the story I’m writing! But, and this is a huge but, I’ve had to get over the hump of quite a few days where the whole thing just felt like I’d descended into narrative chaos, never to return to the surface again. I’ve also had to surrender almost everything I thought I knew about the characters and the plot, and just simply show up every day for whatever the story actually wants to be.
In NanoWriMo speak, there are 3 different types of writers: Plotters, who spend ample amounts of time getting their affairs in order before they write—plotting out external events, writing outlines, and creating character moodboards and playlists; Pantsers, who spend little to no time planning anything, instead opting to just wing it day-by-day; and Plantsers, who are a healthy combination of both—a little plotting, a little flying by the seat of your (sweat)pants as you go!
I’m a Plantser. I shared a bit of this in the first update, but if things feel too nailed down, I can lose interest in the process altogether. For me, there are few things as satisfying as when a character just shows up on the page, and you’re left to just revel in their complexities, and say, nice to meet you! But I also need to know the trajectory of where we’re heading, even if that changes along the way.
But what if there was another way of thinking about the writing process?
Lisa Cron, author of Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere), cautions authors against both plotting and pantsing. She says that instead of spending all of your time creating external events for your characters to hurdle over, your time is best spent figuring out what your main character’s third rail is—what’s “the live wire that gives meaning and juice to everything[?]”
Cron says,
What drives your protagonist forward is her internal agenda: she arrives on page one already wanting something very badly, and with an inner issue – a misbelief – that she has to overcome in order to have a chance of getting it. Overcoming this internal misbelief is what the story is about. The plot is constructed to force her to confront it — which is where the struggle comes in — ultimately causing her to change, internally. Otherwise, that thing she wants? Even if she gets it, it’ll taste like ashes.
I found this reframe to be super helpful, especially once I realized exactly how many scenes I’m going to need to fill up a whole ass book! But also because this method not only helps you to clarify the needs and wants of your main character in any setting or interaction, but it also helps to flesh out the characters that surround them.
Who are the people, places and events that have shaped your poor little meow meow? What are the lessons that they’ve come to learn, whether “correct” or “logical” or “some other secret third thing?” When faced with new information, what’s the lens that your blorbo is always viewing the world through, and how does that affect their responses, reactions, and future decisions?
Cron’s website has so many free resources and her book takes you through the plotting of an entire novel, but I wanted to highlight the above to say that this is all work that I’ve been doing in Weeks Two and Three of Nano, after I’ve already started writing. Why is that important? Because it really is never too late to start, and even if you’ve already started, it’s never too late to change course or add more or simply deepen that which you already “know” about your work.
After all, NanoWriMo is an exercise, and a pretty bonkers way to create. If you’re in the trenches, I’m sending you love and solidarity and stamina to keep going! If you’re considering it for next year slash a random month of your choosing, DO IT! And know that I’m here to help!
A SASSY SNIPPET 👀
“When I was asked to do the panel, I was dating this photographer. Oh my god, Mol, you would’ve loved her stuff. She was so raw. Worked only in black and white, so she played with shadows. She could make anyone’s body look like it belonged in a museum, I swear.” She swirls her martini—Beefeater gin, dirty, extra olives—between her fingers, her long, braids swirling on the tabletop. Mol can almost still feel them falling onto her back, tickling her sides as China moved behind her, inside of her.
“Anyway, I was gonna try and get her introduced to a couple of folks, use this opportunity to get her in front of some people who hold real keys around here. But we broke up.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mol says sincerely, her fingers dancing lightly on the sides of her own glass. McCallan 15, neat.
China sweeps a hand in front of her, playing it off. “Ah, that’s okay. Some people just can’t get with the poly thing. I seem to remember you having an issue with it yourself.”
Mol flushes, and she hopes the lights are low enough to conceal it. “It wasn’t my favorite thing, no,” she admits. “But if it works for you, great. I respect it.”
“All you can do,” China says. She takes a drink, her dark eyes never leaving Mol’s. Were her lashes always this long and this inviting? “So what do you do with yourself these days? You seeing anybody?”
“Not at the moment,” Mol says, thinking about how she almost asked China that very question in her first message. “But I guess there’s this one person…”
“There always is.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It always is.”
Mol loves this rhythm, this back and forth, her grin almost vulpine when she says, “I do okay though.” All cocky and confident, like she can get sometimes.
“I’m sure you do,” China replies.