Category Archives: Karen Whalen
The places that November will take me
Did bragging that I am ahead of my word count for NaNoWriMo on November 2nd jinx my progress? Seven days later, I am now over a full day’s word count (2,000+ words) behind….and feeling that I am destined to fall even further behind.
The graph on the NaNo website states that at my current writing rate, I will hit my 50,000 word goal on December 5, not November 30. As sophisticated as their website is, it doesn’t take into account hosting Thanksgiving dinner, spending five days at a resort near Cancun, Mexico, with my middle daughter and her family, and celebrating my birthday, just to name a few of the activities that I have given permission to distract me from writing.
I should hit the road writing when I get up in the morning–but I don’t. First it’s the local news (usually a repeat of the prior evening’s news) followed by the national news then trying to convince myself that I need to take my medicine and get ready for the day. All things I would do every day of every other month. Except the fact that it is November allows me to use them as excuses to–wait for it–procrastinate!!
The truth is I will take what I get out of NaNoWriMo. Any quantity of words, even in the form of an extremely rough draft, that I can add to my novel or use as the basis for the final novel in my trilogy is a bonus.
As a reminder, I am a pantser (I write without an outline though in this case I have about ten lines of an “outline” composed on Halloween evening). Today I spent hours with my husband at the hospital having his carpal tunnel syndrome evaluated. When we returned home, I started writing. The scene that developed is a medical emergency that sets up a hospital stay!
It’s possible that I am easily influenced by current events. My current events. Unfortunately, this scene is the second medical emergency/hospital stay of the book. And not part of the outline. But it is chronological. No islands when I’m participating in NaNoWriMo.
Can’t wait to find out where 50,000 words are going to take me…..that’s what I love about being a pantser.
It’s November!
Halloween night I spent multi-tasking: handing out Halloween candy and visiting with the parents (the only trick-or-treaters we get are people we know, all of four families), watching the movie “Water for Elephants,” based on Sara Gruen’s book (that I loved), a NaNoWriMo novel, and working on my outline for my own NaNoWriMo novel, “Full Circle.”
And now it’s November 2nd and as I look around my great room I see orange pumpkins and other Halloween decorations. A good
Halloween is over, isn’t it?
sign in some ways. Instead of allowing myself to be distracted by household chores, I’m devoted to the novel I’m writing for NaNoWriMo. And it isn’t about Diana the Huntress after all! (Bad sign: my husband hasn’t put away the decorations either.)
I’ve decided to take the easy way out. I’m writing the fourth and FINAL novel set in Woodbury, NH. (What is a series of four novels called, anyway? A series?) This one is from the POV of Olivia, the daughter of Anne, who is the protagonist of the first novel I ever attempted. The one I started in 1986. Too many years ago to calculate using your fingers and toes so I’ll fess up—that’s one year shy of thirty years.
Using an existing setting and characters for NaNo feels like cheating. OK, to some of you, it is cheating. But it is probably the only way I will win. I’m enjoying myself, knowing that 1) there’s a high likelihood that I’ll win (I’m already ahead of my goal for the first two days of November) and 2) I am going to be done with this series, with these characters, with this setting.
Yup, hard to admit but I am ready to move on to new territory.
I have a feeling that I am going to end up with one novel written from four (or maybe just three) points of view instead of four (or maybe just three) separate novels. As long as I end up with something to show for all of this time spent writing, I’ll be happy. And that means a published novel. Or maybe three. And that’s called a trilogy.…
It’s complicated
With just 13 days—yikes!—until NaNoWriMo starts, I should be well on my way to an outline, character list and setting. At a minimum. And that has been my plan since my failed attempt to win Camp NaNoWriMo in July. It’s a sad story, a common refrain (for me). My July project is floundering and I am unprepared for November.
I thought I had it under control. I knew what my plot was going to be. Sort of. (It’s those “sort of’s” that seem to be my downfall.) All I needed was some additional information from my mother and I’d be ready to outline like a madwoman.
Last night I met with her (my mother, not the madwoman) for what I was certain would be the details that would weave the story together. Alas, all she could tell me was all that she’s already told me.
You may wonder why I need information from my mother to write this story. It’s complicated. But when isn’t it? Back to my resource, my mother. Several years ago, she gave me what I assume is a pewter or silver plated wall frieze of the Roman goddess, Diana the Huntress, and the stag.
She’s 88 (my mother, not Diana), from Germany, and lived there during World War II. The wall frieze was given to her by her mother in 1953 when my mother moved to the US with my father, who was in the US Air Force.
My grandmother found the wall frieze in 1952 in a trunk that her son-in-law (not my father) bought at an auction. Assuming it only contained a bunch of old newspapers, he stored it in the basement. But my grandmother thought otherwise and trudged down to the basement to paw through the newspapers. She was rewarded for her effort with Diana and my uncle let her keep it. She passed it on to my mother, who gave it to me.
I believe that the trunk was property confiscated by the Nazis from a Jewish family. The twist is that a few years ago I found out that the mother of my German grandmother was a Jew who married a Christian. That means I am 1/8 Jewish. Ties with the Jewish part of the family were severed, which may have been what saved my immediate German family from the Holocaust. (I can’t allow myself to think about the fate of the Jewish part of my family.)
Sounds like a lot of potential material for an historical novel. Or would it be creative nonfiction? A memoir? I could incorporate my Jewish and my German ancestry and my American upbringing. And I do want to write that book. But 13 days just isn’t enough time to do the necessary research and develop the plot, outline, setting, characters…..
So I’ll stick to the story of Diana. If I can come up with 50,000 words about a trunk, a Roman goddess, a stag, and a wall frieze.
Waiting for inspiration
Inspiration…..waiting…..waiting…..when are you going to swoop down and write my blog post for me? That is what usually happens when it’s my turn but this time not so much. Oh, yesterday I wrote enough words to comprise a post. But they weren’t anything I would reread in a few months and wonder if I had actually written them or if my name were mistakenly attached to someone else’s writing.
Yet it’s been hammered into my head that I shouldn’t wait for inspiration. I need to be disciplined, sit down at the same time every day and write. Treat it as though it were a job–unpaid, but a job nevertheless. And some of the members of my writing group do that. They are the ones who produce, who eagerly volunteer to submit their writings for next week’s critiquing by the group.
Where would I be without my writing group? We celebrated our sixth anniversary at last week’s meeting. Six years!! Of the seven attendees, five are charter members and two are “newcomers” We toasted with port, indulged in a multitude of desserts and snacks, and reminisced. I left feeling reinvigorated, ready to tackle (and finish!!) “Claire.” Again.
The next day the four ladies of the group met for our usual Friday lunch. Heidi provided me with an idea for “Claire” that I absolutely will use. It’s a tweak to the story line that started the wheels in my mind turning and whirring.
Three full days later and I haven’t written a word. But I will.
In addition, the three ladies listened patiently as I outlined, off the cuff, my concept for the upcoming NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November. I know what you’re thinking: 1) it’s only September and she’s already started her plot for NaNoWriMo? and 2) she’s going to attempt NaNoWriMo again? She doesn’t need a new writing project, she needs to finish something she’s already started. What is she thinking??
The answer is, for me writing isn’t about thinking. It’s about feeling. That’s what makes me a better pantser than a plotter.
Also, I mentioned in a previous post that without agreeing to submit to my writing group and posting to this blog, I wouldn’t write. I neglected to include committing to NaNoWriMo. It’s potentially 50,000 words that I otherwise would not write.
My proposed story for NaNoWriMo has a personal foundation going back to my grandmother in Germany. Unfortunately, she’s not alive so I will have to rely on the memory of my eighty-seven year old mother to provide the background for my NaNoWriMo novel. In addition, it will involve research about World War II, something I can do in advance of November 1. “Can” doesn’t necessarily translate into “will” I have found.
Linda, Heidi, and Eleanor were supportive of my concept. And of my writing ability. What a wonderful feeling to enjoy a cup of clam chowder with people who have become good friends, talk about writing–and leave with my ego pumped up just a bit.
I am not Salman Rushdie
The September 2015 issue of the “Harvard Business Review” (creativity section) included an Interview with Salman Rushdie by Alison Beard. Thank you to Heidi, who admits to being obsessed with Rushdie, for sharing this inspiring article.
This is how I interpreted some of the interview in relation to how I write (I know, how arrogant to compare myself to a writing giant such as Rushdie):
Rushdie states that he evolved from a plotter to a pantser. He appears to write in a linear fashion, composing only 400 to 500 words a day—mostly complete scenes, requiring minimal, if any, revision. It’s perfect the first time.
I have never succeeded as a plotter. I attempted to outline my current novel, “Claire,” using a storyboard and post-its. Instead of sticking to my outline I ended up writing an island for our most recent writing group and then I determined where it would fit in the plot. (I was told that’s the definition of an island!) I was surprised to find that it closely matched an existing post-it. However, it was neither perfect nor the next unwritten scene.
Rushdie does not share his writing until it is finished. That is hard to pull off in a writing group as the expectation is that you will submit your work on a regular basis. And since I tend not to finish anything—you can see where this is headed!
Undisciplined: me. Disciplined: Salman Rushdie. He treats his writing as though it were a job with a regular schedule—no waiting for inspiration to strike.
I am nowhere near that point in my writing progression. I write when I have committed to submit to my writing group and when it is my turn to post on our blog. That’s not much. Heidi (who else) has suggested that we resurrect our group writing project centered on a bridal shop. Why not? At least I’d have a third reason for writing.
Would Rushdie ever delay publication of one of his works because he had to paint a bedroom to match a quilt? Or even just not write for the same excuse—I mean reason? Certainly not. For one thing, he most likely hires out his painting. Does he realize he’s missing out on the pleasure of a sore back, of putting on the same smelly painting tee shirt every time he paints, of putting Vaseline on his elbow where he scrubbed too hard with a pumice stone to remove stuck-on paint?
Yet I am a day late with this blog post so that I could assist my husband with just such a task. Further proof that I am not Salman Rushdie. As though any further proof were needed….
A question for Siri
A few nights ago I attended a Willie Nelson and Family and Old Crow Medicine Show concert at Meadowbrook in Gilford, NH. (In case you were wondering why I was there, my friend’s husband backed out and I was asked to go in his place.)
Thousands of people applauded and cheered after each song. Some were inspired by their ingestion of alcohol and other substances but a genuine appreciation of the music permeated the air (along with a sweet odor). There is no disputing the fact that attending a concert is a social activity for many people, in addition to an opportunity to enjoy the music. The majority of the songs performed by Willie Nelson have been sung or played many times over the span of many years yet the attendees reacted as though he had dedicated the last five or more years of his life to creating and perfecting them and that he was performing them for the first time.
What if we authors got that same reception every time someone read a book we had written? Would we be motivated to spend even more time writing?
Different abilities and talents are required for singers and writers (unless the singers also write their own lyrics). Would I as an author be comfortable on stage under bright lights in front of thousands of people reading from my novels about Claire, Anne, or Olivia? Hell, no. I have a hard enough time sharing my writings with my writing group. Yet I couldn’t help being jealous of the accolades the performers received at the concert.
Reading is generally a solitary pastime. Any cheering and clapping is done in the privacy of your home. The author, therefore, receives limited direct feedback. So what drives a writer, especially one who has yet to be published, to keep producing? Maybe that is a question appropriate for Siri, along the lines of “what is the meaning of life?”
Speaking of Claire and her cohorts, I offer my sincerest apologies to them for being out of touch these past weeks. You have to believe me that they’ve been in my thoughts. I know what they’ve been doing and thinking and even planning to do. But I haven’t taken the time to record any of this. Everywhere I have been—the hotel in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, the Cape Cod Inflatable Park, the swimming pool, the Mayflower Beach—I’m thinking of them, feeling their presence, the same as when I’m reading a book with a main character with whom I identify. I know she isn’t real yet it’s as though she is my companion.
Writing a book is like reading a book. The characters get under your skin, into your head.
Only it’s a million times harder.
Middle of the night jottings
Fantasy–not my thing, I cover my ears in my writing group whenever this genre is discussed. Yet I believe in the fantastical notion that what I think about in the middle of the night when I get up to pee–or to put it more politely to “answer nature’s call”–I will remember word for word in the morning. You know how this fantasy ends.
Except for last night. At 4:30 a.m. (I suppose that makes it this morning and late enough that I could have gotten up for the day) I grabbed the little notebook and pencil on my nightstand and wrote out four pages of diverse thoughts. Some were for my book “Claire” and others for this blog.
Or at least that’s what I wrote. It would be incredibly rewarding if only I could decipher what all those scribbles are. Or, of the ones that I can actually read, what they mean.
For example, my first note is: “This was the time, Claire thought.” Underline.
Hmmm….time for what?? Time to get up and go to the bathroom? Time to get married? Time to iron? (You’ll have to read the book, I suppose, to find out. And I’ll have to finish writing it to figure it out. But I will use that line!)
At our last writing group, I was asked to focus on Claire’s emotional backstory. I’ve been thinking about that during my “free” moments on our recent overnight trip to Ogunquit, Maine, with two of our grandchildren and my eighty-seven year old mother. One germ of an idea managed to surface somewhere between the frigid ocean waves and the heated excitement of Chuck E. Cheese’s.
However, the best one came from one of my middle of the night jottings. It connects the bruises on the bride for whom Claire is making a wedding gown with long sleeves to Claire’s wedding gown with long sleeves that is stored in her attic.
Middle of the night notes
These two ideas have reinforced the fact that I have been writing “Claire” on a superficial level, unwilling or unable to delve into what is happening in Claire’s mind to cause her to act as she does. I finally get it that her actions will not be acceptable to the reader without a better understanding of her motivations, especially her internal ones. As usual, I know what those are, I simply have failed to commit them to paper. Basic “Novel Writing 101” and something John, our facilitator, has encouraged me to focus on. I can’t wait to get to work on that!
Confession: I am a pantser
I’ve hit the wall, thrown in the towel, given up on my Camp NaNoWriMo project. Oh, I still plan on completing my novel “Claire”—just not in July. If I believed in writer’s block, I’d have to say this is what I am experiencing. But I know deep down I’m just being plain lazy. And that I set too ambitious a goal.
After all, it is summer and we did just buy a Jeep. A toy that we have gotten maximum pleasure out of in the few weeks that we have owned it, tooling around the scenic roads of Vermont and New Hampshire every available evening, anxious to stumble upon some wildlife, or, absent that, feel the freedom of the wind blow through our (my) hair, removed from the necessities of mowing the lawn and painting the trim on the house. And working on “Claire.”
John, our group’s facilitator, has requested (“suggested”—too passive) that I bring in an outline of the book to the next writing group meeting in two weeks. I readily agreed. Deadlines are my allies. And the outline is half-written anyway. Which may be my source of writer’s block. Assuming I believed in it.
I am a “pantser.” I start writing with a germ of an idea for my work of fiction and then I write. I usually don’t have an outline when I start—that would make me a “plotter.” I prefer for my plot to evolve organically. (I just learned that there are also “plantsers.”)
I’m not alone in this approach. But the plotters will tell you that this only makes more work for us pantsers in the long run, that I’ll need to write a few rough drafts to be where they are after their first rough draft.
Hang in there—I’m getting to my point….
Which is that for Camp NaNoWriMo I decided to write more like a plotter than a pantser, outlining before adding to the 10,000 plus words I had already written for “Claire.” Seemed like more than a good idea. More like a necessity. After all, this is the first book in a trilogy and a thriller. That worked. For a while.
Now that I have a half-finished outline, I’m unable to get back to the story and write. Or even finish the outline. So I’m stuck. Writer’s block. Lesson learned: I am definitely a pantser. What I really want to do is just write the damn book.
I’m relying on my writing group to jump-start my writing. Bring it on!!
Meanwhile, I’m waiting for July 31 so that I officially can announce that I did not win Camp NaNoWriMo 2015.
Camp NaNoWriMo
It’s the Fourth of July weekend, I’ve just returned from a cruise and land tour to Alaska, my endocrinologist has started me on a new medication with adverse side effects, Camp NaNoWriMo has just begun, and—naturally—it’s my turn for a blog post.
Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, Alaska
No, I don’t expect any sympathy. I don’t work so I should have plenty of time to write. Right?
Rrriiiggghhhttt. Time isn’t the problem. What do I have to say that is worth reading???
Since this isn’t a cooking or entertaining blog, I won’t bore anyone with my plans for celebrating Independence Day.
Since this isn’t a travel blog, I doubt if anyone wants to hear about my trip to Alaska. (I did have good intentions of keeping a journal. That lasted a day.)
Since this isn’t a medical blog, I’ll save you from a description of how the .05 mg of fludrocortisone is affecting me.
Guess that leaves Camp NaNoWriMo, the July session of the traditional NaNoWriMo held in November, which you may or may not know that I have “won” two times. (Winning entails submitting an original novel of at least 50,000 words written during the month.)
For July, I’ve committed to writing an additional 50,000 words of my already started “Claire” novel. Submitting a work in progress is legal during Camp NaNoWriMo but not in November. My brilliant idea for “Camp” was first to outline how I am going to connect the three novels that I have based in the town of Woodbury: “Anne,” “Claire,” and “It Takes a Village Store,” (all evidently working titles) and then write “Claire,” the first book in my trilogy.It made sense a few months ago….
Now that I am attempting to commit to paper how to connect the three books as well as write the first book all during July, I’m starting to rethink my plan. If the idea is to write 50,000 words in 31 days (note that November only has 30!) and it’s already the 3rd, maybe I’ll forgo working on the links among the three books and instead devote my efforts to “Claire.”
I already have 11,000 words written for this book, as well as a ton of backstory, and I even know the ending—at least the ending as of today—so it makes sense to just whip out the rest of the book. I might even be done before the end of the month….
Happy Fourth of July to all of our followers!!
Perfect wrinkles
I just finished ironing some of the clothes I am about to pack to take on our cruise and land tour of Alaska. One of my daughters was aghast that I would bother to iron before the clothes were stuffed into our suitcases, where they will certainly grow new wrinkles no matter how carefully I roll and fold them.
It goes against my grain to perform anything less than to perfection. Just the thought of packing a pair of unironed pants with wrinkles sends waves of revulsion through me. Well, that may be a slight exaggeration. (But as a writer I am entitled–no, encouraged–to hone my exaggeration skills.)
The need for perfection is a known cause of procrastination for writers. “Perfectionist paralysis” is defined by Urban Dictionary as “the inability to start on…any creative task due to the fear of not getting it perfectly right.” Yup, that’s me. And it’s not limited to starting a project, I’ve found. Revision is also included in that category.
But I’m working on it. I’d love to finish that novel I started in 1986.
Four of us from my writing group have committed to join the July Camp NaNoWriMo, similar to the November NaNoWriMo (a 50,000 word novel in 30 days), except in July we have more flexibility with our projects. We are going to use our weekly “pinky swears” as our projects. For the past week, as I’ve been trying to return to sleep after my early morning jaunt to the bathroom, I’ve been laying in bed pondering my project. I think that’s a good start. After all, I still have two weeks to prepare.
One of my writing group members asked if I would get much writing done on my trip. I plan to keep a journal. But beyond that I know without a doubt that my fiction will flounder. I expect to be too enamored by glaciers and fjords, hopefully even some whales and grizzlies, to focus on Claire, Anne, Olivia, and Emily.
And it’s very likely that I’ll be too busy to notice the wrinkles.
Eleanor Ingbretson
Karen Whalen
llandrigan
Heidi Wilson
Mike M
Thursday Night Writes 