Change, and change, and change again

Well, it's been too long.

That's about all there is to say about it: it's been far too long since I've updated here. To recap the past year or so: I lost my job at the end of July 2016, which gave me a five-month "break" from my daily routine, namely "find a new routine, where that routine is job-hunting." I have to admit, it was pretty bleak, and I was feeling very down on myself. We're all creatures of comfortable habits, and I certainly had grown comfortable to the point of complacency. But a new position in the new year set things aright for me -- a new environment, a new team, new skills -- everything I'd lacked, and for so long that I didn't even realize they were missing.

Unfortunately, that employer made some restructuring decisions within my new team, and not wanting to be caught off-guard twice in under a year, I built on the experience of the five-month misery and chose my own path this time. I left the new job, and started a new-new job. For someone that agonizes for  months over how to use gift certificates, finding, applying, and accepting a new position like this is positively breakneck. Don't tell anyone, but after literally decades of resistance, I might be learning to accept change and even uncertainty into my day, even when it means tamping down my natural introversion and general unease around humans. Amazing times indeed!

A post shared by Michael P. Clemens (@mpclemens) on Sep 30, 2017 at 10:07am PDT

One constant in all this flux, though, is the advancing of the year and the inevitability of November and NaNoWriMo. But this year, I'm even looking to shake up that routine a little bit. This year, I'm looking to break out of my self-imposed writing bubble. I'm banging the Nano drum at work, for example, saying "join me" instead of "please ignore the odd typing sounds." And I'm looking to attend the Night of Writing Dangerously this year, the fundraising write-a-thon held around the middle of the month by the NaNo organization. Logisitics and my own stick-in-the-mud-ness have always been my excuse, but I've outgrown the excuses. Actions are serving me better.

The other half of the attendance equation, of course, is the /raising funds/ portion, and I've even worked on my natural Midwestern resistance to asking for help to… ask for help. Or specifically, to ask for donations to NaNoWriMo, in the form of sponsoring me + rhino to attend. Here's my page for the event:

https://www.classy.org/fundraise?fcid=1128521

I have a lot of respect for the team behind NaNoWriMo, shaping what started as a kind of collective distributed flashmob and transforming it into a respected non-profit devoted to fostering writing and creativity, and teaching that Big Crazy Dreams aren't that unattainable after all. I truly do credit my years of participation for giving me the courage to change how I look at huge projects and to give me a mental mindset for chipping away at big problems. And I have made it a point to donate every year after that first wild ride. Is it coincidence that my donation years perfectly align with my Typewriter Brigade years? Of course not! Typing makes us kinder, more thoughtful, and (hopefully) more giving people. And that's a kind of change I have no trouble adapting to.

Pieces

So, my tenth Nano come and gone -- and quite a year it was, too. It reaffirmed my need to be team planner versus team pantser as I struggled to bring the two complementary story lines I had in my head together for a dance. But all was not lost, not at all: I uncovered details and backstory that had not even been hoped for in my pre-writing process, and amid all the rambling dialogue and word-padding, I've uncovered some potential bones for future work. I don't have a novel to show for the month, but I've got over 50,000 words spread across scenes and dialog that will be seeds for something bigger and better to come.

Now December's here, and I'm looking forward to really-and-truly having written every day of 2016. I'd like to say it's been easier as the year has gone on, but this has been a hell of a year to face with creativity. It's been anchoring and grounding, and more than a little therapeutic at times. And I've been doing it enough that the thought of "getting in my daily" is a sense of something I need to do instead of something I ought to do. It's become a vital piece in my life now, and I'm glad for the addition. Even if the output doesn't amount to anything, it's been good for me to work through. Fitting this year together has been like working a massive, at times frustrating jigsaw puzzle, and there have been points where I was afraid to look up to see all the work yet to do.

As always, I'm grateful for the madness that is the NaNoWriMo Typewriter Brigade, the collective crazies that insist on banging out their own creative pieces year after year, on manuals, electrics, wedges, or (shhh) AlphaSmarts. Literacy and creativity and the joy of making feels like it's in short supply this year, in a season of political divides, fear and doubt, accusations and blame. And more than a few creative minds were taken this year, and left holes in many of our hearts. It's been tough to spackle over all those cracks. Seeing the Brigade reform against all common sense is heartening.

I'm also glad for the relative normalcy of the typosphere, and its doged determination to keep growing despite all my shameful neglect. Social media seems to have turned largely into Antisocial Morass this year, so a cheery picture of a custom-painted Lettera or gleaming typebars or some truly dazzling typewriter art is a welcome smile. I'm glad we can all celebrate the little positive pieces of our lives, too. Thanks for being here, Typosphere, and if you're a Brigadier, too, thanks for jumping into the annual fray!

Time Lowers all Bars

By the anticipatory vibratings of my youngest child, I can only assume that Halloween is nigh, a night promising sugary riches in exchange for minor scares and occasional suburban mirages. (One year: a horse dressed as Pegasus being walked on a lead.) Finishing touches on costumes are being applied, reworked, and revamped. Pumpkins have been agonizingly rejected and selected, sliced and scooped, carved and positioned. Careful attention is being paid to playlists: blood-curdling sound effects before or after the Disneyland Haunted Mansion music, and how much Danny Elfman is too much? It's more logistics than most military manuevers. As a parent, I'm obligated to carry bags and flashlights and hoods when they get itchy, and masks when they are too hard to see through, and (very likely) tote umbrellas, too. My rate is one Reese's cup or mini Baby Ruth per block walked, payable at the stop sign at the corner. I think this is being more than reasonable. And sometime after we've all walked about two blocks too far, and the kids are cranky, and the parents' arms are tired, and at least half of the group needs a bathroom stop and/or coffee, we call it a night, say farewell, and close our eyes on October.

And wake to November.

Of course I'm NaNoing again this year, marking a decade of dubious novel-writing (or the writing of dubious novels.) I "planned" my first year on Halloween night, set off into November with high hopes, and came thisclose to a full crash and burn before the end of the month. I had high hopes and grand plans and good intentions, which was all but inviting Disaster and Doubt onto my laptop for thirty days. I had not then had the experience I have now: the knowledge of just how "rough" a rough draft can be, of the power of free writing, of both the pain and the pride of a good edit. Our family grew by a child, faced all the usual things young growing families face in a ten-year span, plus the outliers. I've learned to be more flexible in my personal life, less self-critical, more outgoing. I've tried to get back in touch with my creative side, and take better care of my professional side, too. And I don't know if I can lay all of that at NaNo's feet, but I put a lot of it there, for certain.

Facing a Big Scary Thing once a year has been like a booster shot for life. My family and I have faced Big Scary Things together in these ten years, things that we anticipated and things that we did not. I'm reminded of these when we pull the big costume bin out of storage every year and remember the Octobers past, the people our kids have been, and look to who they've become. I think about all our annual rituals and how they anchor us even when we're being tossed around, and I can appreciate the importance of keeping those rituals alive even when we'd Rather Not This Year. And this year especially, we've recited our mantra of This Too Shall Pass to help us keep perspective on what matters, and what we need to do to get by. Rarely will we ever get anything right on the first try, and rarely do we need to. A best effort is better than no effort at all, and it's possible to get through even the most overwhelming task if you sit down a little every day.

I'm way off on my usual planning routine this year, a fact I've bemoaned in the NaNo forums. Ten years ago I didn't think I needed to plan. Ten years later I believe it. The bar to winning NaNo is set very, very low if you think about it. It's just words, one after the other. It's not life. It's not even a walk down the block in the rain. But you can bet there's going to be candy waiting at the end.

MIlestones, Millstones, Rhinos and Hippos

Happy October, everyone, or "Inktober" for the artistically inclined, or "Pre Holiday Rush" for the retail oriented. The latter category includes my son, who has officailly joined the almost-full-time working world as he discovers his own path through life. That path now means staring Christmas full in the face for nearly the next three months as he's going to be surrounded by it at his day job. I have no love for the general commericialization of holidays, but hype at this time of year especially rankles me. It's pie season, in short. And who doesn't love lingering over a good pie? Recent shocking revelations notwithstanding -- i.e., canned "pumpkin" may legally be canned squash -- autumn is still my absolute favorite season, and adjustment move to longer nights and less sweltering days is a welcome one. Especially is one is prone to bake and consume pies, pumpkin, "pumpkin," or otherwise. I'm all in, pie-wise, and am not so eager to have that swapped out for peppermint-everything.

Can you tell that I'm blogging before breakfast today?

Of course, I also love October because for me and my Famously Flawed Writing Process, it's the kickoff of my NaNoWriMo prep season. This is the second NaNo I'm participating in since my personal pledge to Write Every Day, Dammit. Last year, I was still wrestling with digitizing/redrafting my 2011 attempt, and looked forward to October for a chance to stop and refocus. This year, I almost hate to put it down, even though it's still the same work-in-progress. I've found a good technology mix for the task: my AlphaSmart Neo for the original digitizing, and my tablet and bluetooth keyboard for the rewrite, plus some good habits about making backups. (Specifically I'm using a Belkin keyboard meant for mobile devices, which has its own supporting panel. I should do an entry on it.) The Neo, as Joe V. pointed out, is excellent for its distraction-free simplicity, at the cost of not being able to see much text at once. It's closer to the raw paper typescript than a finished product. Using the tablet lets me see about a page at a time, and get through more text at once, and having that context is important for pulling together coherent overall paragraphs.

So anyway, October. My Nano Rhino is ready, though it's not clear when he'll be starting. I do have a habit of over-planning things, and I may try for a more skeletal approach to the novel this fall. Perhaps I won't sketch out the daily writing as much as the overall big ideas, and save the specifics for November. I'm still due to dive into my notebooks and see what I've got going in there. And as I posted previously, having the known quantity of my daily rewrite chore is also keeping me mentally anchored in the face of personal turbulence. I want to see those characters through their own journey, I suppose, before I set them aside again and introduce more into my head-space. One can only juggle so much chaos. But the Rhino is itchy nonetheless. I think he may get a friend this year, a new addition to my menagerie of malapropisms. I'm keeping my eye open for a "Hippoplotamus" to join my writing totems: a creature that lurks beneath the surface, just showing enough that you know it's there, watching. One poke, though, and it erupts noisily and dangerously. You better be ready when the hippoplotamus decides it's had enough or when it's time for a snack. 

I wonder if they like pie?

Ascent

I made it! Somewhat!

After many false starts, I decided to buckle down last July and no-kidding-this-time get a digitized rewrite of my very weird and convoluted modern-day road trip/ode to the 1980s/thinly veiled updating of a Greek myth that emerged from my NaNo typewriter in November 2011. It's been a very long time coming, and has been through a number of major tonal shifts and a few challenging technical ones -- like setting it in first person, present tense. I'd love to say it was an edit, but it really was more of a rewrite, with only cursory glances back at the original typescript. Many new things happened. Many strange paths were taken. Many more words got added. But I made it.

Now comes a sit-down and a look through the landscape that I've just traversed, trying to stitch up all the save-files that were dropped like breadcrumbs along the way. Try to find coherent scenes and themes and events and start shaping readable prose around them, from the raw materials I've put down. The typescript showed me the direction, this draft got me to the summit, but I don't think the trail is safe for anyone else yet to traverse. Too many pitfalls, too many dead ends. So there's a lot of work ahead, still.

But today, in a mental fug because of the switch into Daylight Savings and the lack of sleep that goes with it, I can at least look back and say: hey, look, I actually finished something I set out to do.

Every Day, Carried

Yes, this again. 'Tis the season to recycle.
NaNoWriMo 2015 is now officially a Fond Memory, despite a kind of struggling finish. This year's writing basically depleted the last major deposit of story ideas in the infamous brain dump box, started so many moons ago. I suspect the plot wasn't entirely ripe yet, despite all the planning and pre-planning and post-pre-planning that went into it. Frankly, it left me a bit wrung out, but come December 1st, I kept to the vow that I made way back this summer. I've been scribbling a bit each day, refilling the notebooks if not filling up index cards, and trying to get my brain back into the low-volume-but-not-no-volume mode of being creative. My fingers are starting to itch for a return to The Ballad of Congo Willy, my oft-started, oftener-aborted NaNo 2011 win that i was working on up through September. Maybe I'll have it done by the end of the year. That would be a good thing!

The daily writing is, quite frankly, harder than I thought. Fine with the collective noise and mayhem of November, but more difficult to manage in a solo setting -- sneaking in a page or two in the evening between dinner and the kids going to bed. But a funny thing happened sometime last week: hard as it is, the writing, once started, is getting easier. And more interestingly, I think, is that I'm finding myself thinking back, way back to my first Typewriter Brigade-fueled November. That novel may be ripe for a rewrite, too. Perhaps 2016 will be the year of the rewrite? That remains to be seen.

It will be seen largely offline, though, as I am slipping towards my end-of-year holidays, time with the kids and away from the computer, time to play with pens and paper and to keep the rhino fed through the rest of the year, and, muse-willing, into the next year, too.

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays, everyone!

Suede Recap: The Nano Challenge

We're into the final ten days of NaNoWriMo, and I've been averaging around 1700 daily words, right on par for finishing on time and on target with the words. I've already had to bench a cheap nylon ribbon on account of drying out, and just now, I finished re-wrapping the platen in another sheet of suede-finish/velour-texture paper from the craft store. I've been using in it lieu of a backing sheet this year, and back before Nano got going, wrapped the platen of my main machine in tape, sticky-side-out, with a cut sheet of paper adhered to it.

The Good:

• It's super-grippy, and seems like a quick and cheap solution to slippery worn platens. I'm running about 6-10 pages per day through the machine, and not a one of them has come through crooked. I've never had this kind of luck with a backing sheet.
• Still an incredible bargain, especially when you coupon-stack and pick numerous replacement sheets from the craft store. Plus, it comes in zebra print which I was not quite bold enough to try (yet.) The color really dresses up the machine, which is in desperate need of it. Royal knew how to make them ugly.

The Bad:

•  It is, fundamentally, paper, and as much as I want to pretend it's something more durable or cushioned, it's no replacement for a fresh grippy platen. The one on the Royal is a little rough from many past years in the Typewriter Brigade (this is year #8) and it's now featuring noticeable vertical banding along the rubber from all the impacts. Even with a backing sheet or two, this platen works hard.
• Applying this is still tricky, and getting the seam flat where the ends of the paper meet requires either three hands or a better grasp of geometry. In theory, one should be able to cut right to size. In practice, I just wrapped-and-trimmed. It shows.
• In time, my rough-and-ready tape job showed through. Not by wear in the paper, which held up admirably, but in the wrinkles from the tape surfacing on the paper itself, leading to uneven type. As in many things: take your time and take care.

The Mystery:

• Is the fancy paper more cushioned? At least at first it seems like it is. Repeated strikes over a few weeks, though, hammered the surface into oblivion, leaving only the area outside the margins free of problems.
• Has the platen suffered any less damage than it would without paper at all? I don't know. As I subscribe to the backing-sheet-always school of typing, I don't think it's a bad thing. It's made it over 60 years now. Any TLC is probably worthwhile.

The Photos:

I'd hoped to peel the old sheet off somehow and have it laid next to the new one for comparison. This did not happen. Since I'd practically covered the platen in tape, the only way to remove the paper was to tear and peel in a long spiral.

Here you can see the platen on the left -- note the banding from years of typing, some of the paper on the top (the blue-tape side), and fragments that I managed to salvage. Can you tell which part of the green paper was outside the margins?



Here's another comparison of original texture versus the three-weeks-in side. You can see how bad the worn surface was wrinkled at the end. I had wrapped the platen like a barber pole in tape, spiraling down it completely.



The replacement going on. I backed off on the tape this time, going for four loops instead of a complete surface. Nothing is stuck to the rubber of the platen: the tape is fastened only to itself on the ends and slides freely.



The new red wrapper, pre-trimming.



I creased along the edge where the paper meets itself, and then used a sharp pocketknife to slice down the crease to remove the excess. It's still not as good as computing the actual size or the paper needed. There's still a bit of an overlap in the final product, but it's less than my original.

---

This whole experiment has me looking at other sheets of material at the craft store, too -- nylon sheets, maybe actual felt instead of faux-felt... upholstery fabric? The possibilities are endless. I don't know if it has much real merit beyond short-term writing projects like Nanowrimo, or maybe the occasional photo shoot, but I'm still happy with the results.

Now, if someone just sold a wrapper that made my plot better...

November again

Right on schedule, November is here again, and with it the trembling anticipation of drafting another novel. (Trembling in part because I'm surely fueled on a breakfast of coffee and leftover Halloween candy.)

If you're participating, then what are you doing on the Internet? Get back to work! And may your rhinos run straight and true and in interesting directions. Stay strong, Wrimos.

Join the Club

In a way, I'm a bit sad.

I've been sticking with the Don't Break the Chain approach to revising one of my old drafts -- a book that optimistically combines love, sex, religion, drugs, death, magic, biodiesel and video games under the unlikely title of The Ballad of Congo Willy.[1] This was the product of NaNoWriMo for me in 2011, and I have attempted rewrites and restarts every few months since the keys cooled from the original draft, always fizzling out for one reason or another.[2] But I'm actually almost nearing the end of it now, three months into making myself spend some time with it every night. I can't say that it's actually good, but I know at least that it's improved from its previous form, shoved in a box on a shelf being ignored.

Inspiration was hard to come by for this one, and instead of getting itchy fingers at the approach of November this year -- time for a carnival o' writing! -- I'm feeling kind of... dry. Empty. Not used up, necessarily, but not as eager as in years past. A bit sad, even, because there's no way I'm not doing NaNo this November, and more than I'll allow myself a night away from C.W.. Writing even terrible fiction is such a sea change from my day job mucking around with databases and code,[3] and I enjoy the oddball camaraderie of the Typewriter Brigade and the general festival nature of NaNo. For someone who slips into his habits easily and stubbornly refuses to get out, a month of creative chaos is a welcome and necessary part of my life now.

But what to write about?

I know that I'm not a (seat of the) Pantser come November. I don't just sit down at the typewriter and bleed. I need at least a sketch of a character or two, and a situation to toss them into: the basics of an outline, which I adhere to or drift from over the course of the thirty days. This flawed exercise is my capital-p Process, such as it is. And usually I am coming into October with just exactly these basics, having scrawled them down in notebooks and index cards during the summer. But I've spent all that time this year rewriting and revising, not sowing. So just as I'm forcing myself to Get Creative Daily, Dammit, I'm going to cutover into Full Bore Planning Mode in October.

The Internet[4] attributes this quote to Jack London:

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

After three months of enforced hill-climbing, I completely agree. There are days when rewriting C.W. was mental agony, and days when I couldn't get out of the way of my fingers fast enough. And I know that book is far better[5] overall for the attention it's been paid this summer, especially when the going got tough. And now I'm looking at the hill that is November, and realizing that I need to climb this thing yet again, and the only way to do this is to grab hold of both sets of bootstraps[6] and go.

But it's friendlier with more.

So here's a challenge to you, dear reader. Who's with me? Who's willing to head out and club up some inspiration? Who needs to break out of their daily rut a bit and write four weeks of bad prose? "I have nothing to write about" isn't an excuse.

Who's going to join the club?

---

[1] I did say I was being optimistic.

[2] Just one reason: pure unadulterated slacking off. I've tapped a vein of the stuff and mine it all day long.

[3] All of which is flawless, of course.

[4] "The Internet is always right." -- Abraham Lincoln

[5] And much, much weirder. I'm happy with that, too.

[6] Not sure this is physically possible. Not worrying about that, either.

Two In, Two Out

The daily beast is getting fed. This is a good thing, generally. Two months of daily writing down, a scant two more months to go before NaNoWriMo begins. Muse willing, I hope to actually have a second draft done by then, fully digital, and ready for an editing pass and then farming out to beta readers. Even with school happening now with the kids, I'm able to at least hide for 15-30 minutes and keep my toes in, creatively-speaking.



November will happen regardless. There's no avoiding November.

One Third

We're one third of the way into November, and the dreaded "week two Sucks" of NaNoWriMoare chipping away at the Typewriter Brigade. It's hard enough to stay motivated to write every day, but week two is when the realization hits home of just how bad a fast-written first draft can be. I've reached the point where I drop missing words into sentences after the fact, and then re-start the sentence again. Pessimistically, I'd say my word count is over-inflated by a third. Edits are going to be brutal.

In a more coherent time (i.e., October) I got contacted by the NaNo organizers about the Typewriter Brigade. I'm quick to point out that unleashing this thing on the world was not my doing -- blame is still laid at the feet of the one they call "Duffy Moon." But I have wheedled myself into being an annoying cheerleader of sorts, in this great beast-without-a-head that is the annual running of the Brigade.

I have a slight problem with self-editing, and the NaNo blog had limited space (I guess? It's a tumblr, so... bit conservation.) Here's the hit piece as published on their blog and below follows the original replies I sent them, less one "secret" question for the next interviewee, and with some answers I cut down for space before submission.

Despite being largely camera-shy, I am happy with the way the lead photo came out -- a selfie, no less, with everybody's favorite tiny rhino pal. Black and white photos really accentuate gray hairs, don't they? Hmm. Added bonus: the uncropped photo of my writing space, which shows the utter blandness and mild grubbiness of our coat closet. Enjoy.

# # #




1. Tell us a little bit about the Typewriter Brigade and what makes it great. Tout it like crazy.

The Typewriter Brigade is a worldwide group of typewriter enthusiasts, smooshed together into a moderately dysfunctional noveling family. We offer advice on machine repairs and restoration, encourage impulse machine buying, and try to slog through a high-velocity month in low-technology style.

Occasionally we even get writing done.

2. What do you think is the best thing about noveling on a typewriter?

There are a lot of benefits, but the biggest one is no distractions. It's simply not possible for me to waste my writing time by fooling around on Twitter or the forums when I'm typing, and thank goodness. I have the attention span of a gnat.

Having no "Delete" key is a huge benefit, too, and because I'm such a poor typist, every typo equals a free word. The end-of-line bell is a wordcount cheerleader, and I've never managed to crash a typewriter or run low on battery.

3. What is your favorite typewriter model? Geek out a bit; we don't mind. We encourage it, in fact.

My personal favorite is the Olympia SM3, which is a portable typewriter from Germany built in the 1950s. It's built like a clock crossed with a tank, came in many colors, and is very stylish with lots of chrome. I own a few of these. My wife wishes I collected something smaller. For write-ins, I take a Smith-Corona Skyriter., which was designed to be portable enough to take with you on an airplane or use on your lap.

My main NaNoWriMo machine is a battleship-grey 1952 Royal KMG typewriter I call "the Beast." It's more work than using a computer keyboard, but I find it very satisfying, and once I find my typing rhythm, the words really flow. Since there's no delete key, every typo becomes a wordcount boost. This is a secret Brigade bonus.




4. Tell us a bit about where you, specifically, are writing from this year.

I'm in Pleasant Hill, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, just over the hills from the OLL. Go team East Bay!

The Beast and I set up in the family room, wedged behind the sofa and facing the coat closet. It's the most boring part of the house, and as far from the bedrooms as possible so I can get my writing in before the kids wake up and start demanding breakfast and rides to school and other selfishness.

5. Tell us about the novel you're writing this year, if you're writing one at all, in six words.

"Plucky orphans, nefarious villains, airship racing."

6. Introduce us to the NaNo Rhino!

He appeared one day when I said "NaNoWriMo" into speech-to-text software and the computer heard "Nano Rhino." He keeps hanging around, living in the typewriter, making plot suggestions and demanding strong coffee in tiny cups, gourmet chocolates, and frequent belly rubs.

Shockingly, many other Brigadiers have discovered Rhinos living in their typewriters, and pictures of them often show up in the forum. The Rhino is a combination good luck charm and grumpy muse. Nano Rhinos grow wings when their Wrimo caretaker reaches 50,000 words. They molt and come swaggering back every November wingless and demanding snacks.

7. What is the best piece of writing advice you've ever received?

It wasn't directed at me personally, but Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is one of the best books on writing that I've read. The essays on getting started and on first drafts are on my pre-NaNo reading list each year.

In general, I like reading advice from writers who sound a little neurotic and not entirely in control. This is the kind of help I can relate to.

8. What is one piece of advice you would give to a nervous novelist who may or may not be reading this post?

If you're not reading this post, go back and read this post! It's full of excellent words arranged in an entertaining manner.

If you are reading this post, my advice is: don't delete during November.

If you are unfortunately forced to use a computer for NaNoWriMo, remove the Delete key or glue a tack to it or do whatever it takes to not remove anything from your draft. Turn off the spell check and the grammar check and the Internet. Keep every sentence, especially the ones that you are sure are boring and useless and pointless.

I am often surprised to discover that the horrible, awful, terrible pages I wrote in November got much better when I was brave enough to read them again in December. You're too close to make good decisions in November: keep it all and revise later.

9. What is your weirdest writing experience?

I am usually a big planner, with outlines and index cards and plot figured out in advance. The weirdest moment for me -- and this happens every year -- is when my characters ignore all that hard work and do whatever they want to do, and change the story around. To a hardcore planner, this was very upsetting the first time it happened. What about the plan?! The outline?! Guys! Come back!

Now I've learned that this is normal, in a kind of hearing-voices-in-your-head way. It's a great feeling when the characters run things and I just copy it down. It's still weird, though, having them take over my brain.

Meanwhile, in the Barracks of the Typewriter Brigade

All right, you sorry excuses for novelists, time for a SPOT INSPECTION! Everybody fallllll in! Atten-HUT!

Rhino: Brigadiers! I have this here memo from HQ saying that I've got less than 24 hours to whip you into noveling shape! We have 30 days to take 50K Hill. Are you ready?

Brigade: Yes, sir.

Rhino: What was that? I can't heeearrr you!

Brigade: SIR, YES SIR!

Rhino: That's more like it. Private Pantser, front-and-center!

[Private Pantser slouches forward, rumpled and coffee-stained. A fine snow of post-it notes falls like leaves. Panster's fingertips are covered in ink.]

Panster: S-s-sir? I mean, SIR!

Rhino: Just look at yourself, soldier! And in heaven's name, WHERE ARE YOUR PANTS?

Panster: Just enjoying the breeze, SIR!

Rhino: All right, then. You're going into this battle unprepared, unorganized, and direction-less, is that correct?

Pantser: Sir, yes sir!

Rhino: You will turn whichever way the wind blows, writing whatever pops into that little precious snowflake of a mind, won't you?

Pantser: Sir, yes sir!

Rhino: Now, Panster. I don't want to hear any stories about you being riddled with doubt and uncertainty, do you understand? They are the enemy!

Panster: Yes sir! The enemy!

Rhino: If you write yourself into a foxhole in the middle of the month, what will you do?

Panster: Write my way out by any means necessary, sir!

Rhino: Cor-rect. Now tell me, soldier, do you see Private Planner over there? How would you describe the good Private?

Pantser: Sir! Neat and trim, sir! Slightly smug, sir! Alphabetized and organized, sir!

Rhino: Exactly what I see. And does this make Planner a better writer?

Panster: Sir? No... sir?

Rhino: You're damn tootin' it don't! Private Planner has just as much chance out there as any of you! Erase that doubt! What is doubt, soldier?

Pantser: The enemy, sir!

Rhino: Right again. You'll do fine, Private. But for heaven's sake, put down a towel when you sit.

Pantser: I shall, sir! Hygiene shall be my watchword, sir!

Rhino: All right, dismissed, Pantser.

# # #

Rhino: Private Planner, front-and-center-on-the-double-I-mean-it!

[Private Planner marches forward, chin up, knees forward, ramrod straight. A tidy file is tucked under each arm. Color-coded index cards are neatly rubber-banded and in each hand.]

Planner: Sir! Yes sir!

Rhino: So, Private Planner... looks to me like you have every contingency mapped out, don't you?

Planner: Sir, yes sir! In triplicate!

Rhino: You're a real go-getter, aren't you, Private? A real big thinker?

Planner: Sir! Don't want to fail the unit, sir! Eliminating all doubt as it is the enemy, as you rightly pointed out, sir!

Rhino: Pretty organized, I'll give you that. But let me paint you a picture, soldier. Let's say it's the 16th of November, and you're on the downhill side of your wordcount. All according to plan, right?

Planner: Sir, yes sir! Conflict resolution expected in five days, sir! Denouement in seven, and done early in time for pie, sir!

Rhino: I see what Pantser means, soldier, you *are* a little smug. But novels can get ugly, and they can get ugly fast! What happens when you discover that the cable guy is actually the protagonist's sister's ex high-school sweetheart who was supposed to die in that hovercraft accident but instead washed up ashore at the Buddhist temple with his memory gone, only to be nursed back to health where he regained his memory at last?

Planner: S-s-sir? I don't think I have a cable guy in my notes...

Rhino: Doesn't matter, soldier! Your characters can turn on you at any moment! You need to be prepared... to pants it! An outline's all nice and tidy in the forums, but when it's just you and the keys, you need to be ready! Ready to wing it, for the good of the novel!

Planner: Sir! Yes, sir!

Rhino: Now tell me, soldier, you see Private Pantser over there? Just look from the waist up.

Planner: Sir! yes, sir!

Rhino: Pantser would laugh off the unexpected cable guy, wouldn't you, Pantser?

Private Pantser: Sir! And would make the Buddhist monks ninjas as well, sir! Just for color, sir!

Rhino: You see what I mean, Planner? You can be careful and you can make a plan, but novels are messy! Dangerous! Unexpected! You won't know what you'll find until you write it! Be flexible, Planner!

Planner: Sir, yes sir!

Rhino: Remember: there's no hole you write yourself into that you can't write back out of. Maybe you have to detour a little. Maybe your chapters come out of order. But you get yourself up that Hill no matter what it takes!

Planner: Sir, yes sir!

Rhino: All right, Planner. Dismissed.

# # #

Rhino: Now then, Typewriter Mafia... falllllllll in!

[Typewriter Mafia comes to a loose semblance of order. A few are carrying mysterious laptop-shaped bundles under their arms.]

Mafia: Sir! Yo, whadaya want, sir!

Rhino: Now it says here that many of you folks are over on this end of the barracks on account of "mysterious typewriter accidents" and "circumstances outside of your control." Do I have that correct?

Mafia: Sir! What's it to you, sir!

Rhino: Now I'm no stranger to being a victim of life circumstances. I know some of you fine folks are like Pantser or Planner over there, keen to get started, but having to associate with the... lower elements of life. Laptop users. Hand-writers. Alphasmarties.

[A shudder ripples through the barracks]

Rhino: Steady, Brigade, steady. Now all of you, look at one another! Take a good, long look! Yes, even at Pantser over there. Any of you could be on the other side at any time! This is NaNoWriMo, people! Your machine could throw a mainspring and put you into the Mafia! Or, you could find a machine at Goodwill and bammo! You're typing again!

Mafia: Sir! Ain't much for philosophy nor hypotheticals, sir!

Rhino: All right then, I'll keep this simple. Any of you, and I mean *all* of you, are in this here Brigade, whether you're typing or not! And we are going to take 50K Hill together!

All: Sir! Yes sir!

Rhino: What's our battle cry?

All: Sir! Coffee-extra-strong-with-cream-and-two-sugars, sir!

Rhino: What's our *other* battle cry?

All: ALL THE WAY TO 50K, SIR!

Rhino: You're damn right. I'll be honest with you, Brigadiers. All of you will be facing Doubt and Uncertainty this month. There's a little bit of the enemy in all of us! But if you start to waver, if your courage starts to fail, just remember: old General Rhino is right there behind you, to give you what you need. And what is that, Brigadiers?

All: A sharp poke in the butt, sir!

Rhino: Correct! You're an inspiration, all of you. Now! Line up in time-zone order, get your machines at the ready, and I want to see you come out writing! Is that clear?

All: SIR! YES SIR!

Rhino: Where are we going?

All: ALL THE WAY TO 50K!

Rhino: When are we going?

All: RIGHT AFTER COFFEE, SIR!

Rhino: All right, then, Brigade. Dissssssss-missed! Get out there and WRITE!

Hexed

First: NaNoWriMo starts in ten days -- less, actually. So I'm freaking out, because of this year's pledge to Lack a Plan and just to Go With It Come What May.

I'm drowning the panic in tasty snacks...



and getting the Beast in its usual spot...



...and for some reason, this year, I have decided that a board game needs to be designed, allowing the hapless reader to re-live the dramatic point of the plot when [REDACTED], which I'm sure you'll agree might be kind of interesting. And this means that I need to archive a link to this hex graph paper PDF generator. Because, you know, it's not like I'm going to be writing a novel or anything during this time.

So this is how my brain rewards me for joining the "Team Pantsless" crowd this year. Yay brain!

Crash

Holy crap this year, guys. It's just been... and then this summer... I have no words. Honestly.

Normally this is the point of the year where I humblebrag about outlining and plotting and prepping for NaNoWriMo. It's become something of a thing.

This year? Nothing. I really have nothing at all. The muse? She is silent.

I have no outline, no notes, no cards. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I'm fully and squarely in the Pantser Club this November for the first time ever. Even my inaugural year way back in 2007 had a loose outline cobbled together on Halloween night. Never mind that I rapidly diverged from it and wound up skipping whole sections when I got stuck. I'm older and wiser now.

Older, anyway.

The forums are reset, the Typewriter Brigade rises again...



...and I've got a set of "Rory's Story Cubes" that my kids gave me some years back to provide impromptu inspiration.



This could go well, this could go horribly, but I need a little crash of rhinos this year (or a crash of little rhinos.) Who's in?

Thirst

I woke up early this morning to something that's too rare right now in California: the sound of rain, draining down the downspout outside my bedroom window. This is our first serious rain of the season, one that's been anticipated for a week at least. I never had an appreciation for something as simple as rainfall until I moved here. The climate in the areas where I grew up were known for their general unpredictability (standard joke: "Don't like the weather? Wait five minutes.") Nearly two decades a Californian now, I've gotten complacent about weather in general, and tend not to have as much awareness of the passing of the seasons. This isn't meant as a brag, honestly! Despite the autumnal equinox arriving this past week, my days are the same as they were in April, or June, or August. Only the early darkness belies the fact that time is, in fact, advancing. Thanks to the ongoing drought, the hills and trees around me are in a permanent state of late summer: withered leaves and dried grass (we say "golden" to make ourselves feel better.)

The tempo of the rain just picked up, it's delightful. It's complacency-shaking, too. A reminder that change can and does happen, and that it happens whether or not we're ready for it. Now a rumble of thunder: this is a rare storm, indeed! Of course everyone along my morning commute route will also be shaken up. Californians are notoriously bad drivers, tops in many polls, and the rain brings out a special degree of incompetence. I'll need to be on my guard, as I take my future driver to school this morning. There's nothing like driving in the rain to summon Fatherly Judgment about everyone else on the road. ("You call that a turn signal?!" "Hey, headlights on! It's the law!" etc.)

Of course I'm also going to summon the spectre of NaNoWriMo in this post. We're under a month away from October, and whether it's due to new management at the Office of Letters and Light, or whether it's just blue-car syndrome because I'm unprepared, there seems to be a lot of discussion about planning and preparation this year. My initial reaction is one of the California driver, faced with the first precipitation of the season: lose all common sense, and veer wildly. "Write? Plan? I can't do it! My God, it cannot be October already."

My second reaction is that of the seasoned vet. This will be my seventh(?) foray, and all but one of those years in the Typewriter Brigade. I know I can generate 50K words in the allotted time, though let's not talk about the quality or editability or the future of those words. Like many vets, I'm not doing NaNoWriMo to prove that I can. The challenge isn't the thing any longer, and honestly hasn't been since year two.

Quite frankly, at this time of year, I'm just parched. Sapped creatively from a long development project at work, from the daily grind of drives to school, stops at the grocery, and kids' sports on weekends. I wear the same clothes every week, and do the same tasks, and attend the same meetings. It takes something like NaNoWriMo to break up the sameness. To water the mental grass, to mangle a metaphor. I have tried writing and editing on a daily basis, but the inertia of my daily life is strong, and it's hard for me to get motivated to change my habits.

When the improbability of November rolls around, though, the herald of the end of the year, and long nights, holiday plans, and other demands... somehow that's just right. I do subscribe to the philosophy of "when you have a million things on your plate, what's one more?" And NaNo is finite . By definition, it won't last forever, it makes no demands after the thirty days, there are no obligations or even expectations. A month of cutting loose, talking typewriters, photographing toy rhinos -- occasionally even writing. It's a welcome shower of weirdness on thirsty soil.

This year has been particularly withering, and I've got a lot of low-level stress that's chipping away at me right now. I'm not anywhere as prepared as I like to be for this, attempting to craft a whole novel, with my little story point milestones all typed up on notecards. Frankly, I'm a mess this year. But I'm also not going to miss out on the chance to play in the rain.

The Horizon from 46,425*

I can't see it yet, but I can feel it... the end of the NaNoWriMo sprint. The end of the story, and the end of the early-morning wake up call. Characters have changed, plots have shuffled around, details have filled themselves in. I'm just channeling the muse, trying to keep the plane level and the course as straight as possible.

Honing in on the horizon. That's me.

* Wordcount estimate puts me with about 3,500 words to go. OCR counting says I crossed the line a day and a half ago. I'm going with the estimates, because I know how many typos are keeping the Rhino aloft right now.

Impermanence

Written with a Moleskine 2B pencil.

November!

Morning came really early after canvassing the neighborhood with my girls for candy last night. I'm out of practice for sure, and those first few pages are crazy rough and confused. But I have coffee, and a rhino, and I've begun. Everybody raise a mug to the gods of momentum: may they see all Wrimos through the lean times this month.

Practice Makes... *yawn*

So, NaNoWriMo is nigh, as is the end to the tyranny known as Daylight Savings Time. In recent years these have aligned such that we've already adjusted our clocks and gained back the extra hour of sleep so cruelly denied us at the start of Spring. No so this year, however, as we say farewell to DST between November 2nd and 3rd. As my normal writing time -- if anyone can call NaNo "normal" -- is first thing in the morning, before anyone is up, I trick myself by not adjusting my alarm clock, giving up that free hour in the name of mad drafting. This year, though, is different, so I'm easing in to the transition by setting back the alarm 15 minutes each day. Today is day three of that exercise, which means I'm up... um... *counts on fingers, squints at hand*... well, far earlier than I was a week ago, I'll tell you that. And I'll tell you something else, too. The house is cold and dark at this hour. Only the promise of a cup of incredibly strong cold-brewed coffee got me up this morning, but now the caffeine is coursing through my system, slapping around my synapses. Sweet, sweet caffeine. This easing-into-morning trick is new for me this year, though it's something similar to what we do with the kids when summer ends and school begins. That feels simpler, though, either because I'm already getting up for work, or because the sun has, too.

Anyhow, since I'm up anyway, I'm trying out another new-for-me setup, a wireless keyboard and a new piece of software installed on my little tablet. Now don't worry: I'm certainly not about to turn in my membership card to the Typewriter Brigade, that forum-swallowing monster that Mr. Moon wrought in a fit of inspired madness. But I am astoundingly busy with real-life concerns this year. I'm always a little busy, given the kids and the onset of the holidays -- we carved jack o' lanterns last night, the first harbinger of the End TImes (for the calendar.) Work has me positively hopping this year, due in a large part to the way the State of California implemented some of the finer points of the new healthcare laws. We have a houseguest coming for a day or two soon, which means no pre-dawn typing music, too. It's going to be a season of alternate technologies and stealth noveling, to be sure. So I'm practicing again, trying to coax my groggy brain into not only wakefulness, but into assembling cognizant sentences before breakfast. (I am cheating somewhat and using both the spell-check and the backspace, as a nod to the poor readers of this blog, both of you. I am not entirely heartless.)

I think you can see another reason why I like to tackle NaNo when all sane people are in bed: a tendency towards excessive wordiness. My internal editor is still snug abed, leaving very little censor between my fingertips and whatever thinking parts are currently sitting with their feet up in a metaphorical coffee bath. (The analogy centers are also still sound asleep, thanks for noticing.) Verbosity is an asset in this challenge, as you know by now, and I'm still hyper-competitive enough to feel that, although it's great to be encouraging and nice and supportive on the forums, I still fully intend to stay well ahead of the breaking crest of the wordcount wave. Uh, or something. (Analogies happen in the rewrite.) So, I'm still an over-wordy jerk first thing in the morning. At least that didn't require any practice.

There's still time! I know that many of you have the same story as I do, getting pulled into the madness of typewriters through the general insanity and all-Clemens echo chamber of the Brigade topic on the forums, and then sustaining that love after November is but a cold, dark, sleepless memory. And more than a few of you are Wrimos from the Dark Times before the rise of the Typosphere, yet I do not see you counted among our numbers. Maybe you're just hiding, or maybe you're scared off by my propensity to post replies to anyone that even breathes in our general direction. These are both fine reasons, but if you're not playing along because of business or lack of ideas or love of sleep... are these really true excuses? (Brand new mothers/fathers get a pass. You may thank me for my beneficence later, Mr. Speegle.) After all, the not-very-secret point of this exercise is to carve out a window of uncensored creative time in your incredibly busybusybusy adult lives, isn't it? I mean, imagine me, here on the sofa, our poor dog neurotically pacing through the house because I'm doing something unusual. Even my dog knows this is special, and she's about as smart as a sandwich. So what's your excuse for not partying with the rest of us? Even if your weapon of choice is a pencil, or laptop, or clay tablet. Why not? I certainly hope you're not letting that bastard Self Doubt set up housekeeping in your head.

Our local public radio station has a series they call "Perspectives" which is the favorite part of my morning drive. It's folks from the Bay Area, reading an audio essay aloud about whatever topic they feel like speaking on. One recently was about Art, although I doubt it was capitalized. More like "art", and making and taking the time to create it, even if you're not what would be called "an artistic person" and even if you make your living doing something non-arty. Like, say, fret about the Affordable Care Act and how it's playing merry hell with lower-income hospital patients. You don't much less "art" than that, trust me. I"ll have to see if I can find the piece, but in essence, the author was talking about those of us -- the inclusive "us" here, I'm sure he meant you, too -- who toil away at a secret creative process in our own time, time reclaimed from our daily routines. Art, that whether good or bad, allows us to be defined by something other than "he's a dad" or "he's our database guru" or even "he's my husband and he doesn't have sense enough to stay in bed when it's cold and dark out." Art done for the creator's own enjoyment, in short, and no one else's.

Someone on one of the forums (?) described the 30-days-50K-words NaNoWriMo goal as an "ersatz deadline." I like that, because if you stop to think about it, it's completely true. Why 30 days? Why 50,000 words? Why bother? Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo, lays out the reasons for the numbers in his No Plot? No Problem! book, but your own personal reasons for playing along -- your own "why bother?" answers -- should, I hope, be something like these:

"Because of community."

"Because of creativity."

"Because a small plastic rhino tells me to." (That's me.)

"Because of art."

Note that "to get published" and "to become grotesquely wealthy and lord it over all those who have done me wrong" are none of these reasons, because, let's face it, most of us won't. We won't come anywhere close to those goals, and very few people do. And they are big and lofty and crazily desirable goals, but they also mean hours of effort and revising and commitment, and a lot of things that suddenly don't feel like "art" to me any more. They feel like work, and I have quite enough of that already, thanks. And I do so much of it that I forget there's another part of me that likes to pull out a page, be it real paper or virtual, and just romp around a while. That's the part that needs some practice now and then to stay healthy and alive, and that's the part that got me up out of bed, fired up the tablet, and sat down to type. That's the part I'm bringing to November. How about you?

Two Hands

Blink, and another ten or eleven days go by. November is nigh, the Rhinos are restless.I've got the shadowy form of a book in my head -- tall tales from a daredevil bicycle troupe set around the late 19th/early 20th century. There will be pigs, and hearts broken, and disguises, and ghosts, and chaos. It may be scary in one point (cf. ghosts) and silly in others (cf. pigs.) The Beast is situated, there's a ribbon inking in a baggie, the Rhino is perched and there's paper standing by.

Ten days. Two hands' worth of fingers. It's gonna go fast.