Day 15 at Camp NaNoWriMo – Writing Makes You Grin

A lot of people wonder why somebody would want to spend a perfectly good summer morning with his head plugged into a computer screen making up lies about imaginary people.

For starters – I like to write.

It makes me grin.

It keeps my mind awake and active, like a good cup of coffee.

Writing is creative – and creativity is a necessary component of healthy human existence.

Scientists have proven that the exercise of your own creativity increases brain levels of the antidepressant hormone serotonin.

Which is a big-winded, multi-syllabic long-way-around-the-barn sort of way of saying that creating makes you feel good.

I often think about my Grandfather Hanlan who would spend whole days in his basement tinkering on some new contraption. The man was a chronic putterer. I sometimes thought that he did that just as an excuse to get away from the stress of raising grandkids. He might also have done it to forget about the stress of work or the stress of being married.

We human beings do ALL kinds of activities to reduce stress.

Still – nowadays as I get older I believe that my grandfather was just being creative in his own way.

I always think about that he built himself a revolving platform for an outdoor Christmas tree display out of the motor from an old spin washer. He never did manage to get the speed properly geared in – so when that sucker started spinning it looked a little like a Tardis on a seriously bad acid trip.

Thanks to MANDREL BENDERS on DEVIANT ART.

But that’s just the thing.

You don’t have to be GOOD at what you do to get yourself a grin out of it.

So whether you are creating some sort of masterpiece or just composing a dirty limerick for your favorite Tardis washroom stall – you will get a grin out of it.

So go ahead and make something today.

Make it up out of your own imagination.

A painting, a poem, a brand new recipe or a wooden box to put your rubber bands in.

Make it – and just see if you don’t grin.

***********************

I had a slower morning and I have to get ready to go to work – but I am still grinning.

I wrote 700 words and I am at the 29700 word mark. I’ve come up with a story angle that I hadn’t thought of which is going to give me material for several other chapters and I am grinning.

Follow my progress at Camp NaNoWriMo.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Day 14 at Camp NaNoWriMo – Busy As A Bee

Okay – so bees aren’t nearly as busy as their P.R. would have you believe.

An average honeybee work in the daytime but when it is dark they sit around and get buzzed.

Now bees don’t really sleep like people do.

For starters, they don’t have eyelids to close – but they do stop moving and they do relax their muscles and even let thier antennae slump to the northwest, just a little.

Even the queen bee gets to take a break every now and then – once they’ve laid their thousand or so quota’s worth of eggs in the day.

They relax, they suck back on a little nectar and sometimes they even dance.

But then they get back to work.

I had a great weekend and I let my writing quota slump a little but I hammered out 2000 words this morning – which brings me to 28700 words – give or take. It is July 14 and I am a little more than halfway through the manuscript – and right on schedule.

So – to any guilt and bad feelings I might have for skimping a little on my quota over the weekend I say “Buzz off!”

(there is a looong old musical intro to this – but stick around for the lyrics and you get a chuckle or two)

I am an old bold bumblebee. Got a stinger twice as long as my arm. If you see my buzzing ’round you woman you know I don’t mean you any harm.

At least that is the way that I heard the song played way back when.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

If you want to follow along with me at Camp just hit this link and watch me get busy!

Day 13 at Camp NaNoWriMo – A Lull in the Storm

Some days life just seems to catch up on you and it gets in the way of your writing.

That is going to happen. Life is not something that is easily controlled.

Do not beat yourself up about it if life gets in the way so much that you miss a day of writing or just slow down on your quota.

The fact is yesterday I had just such a slowdown. I had a middle of the day shift and work that absolutely needed to be done around the house and I also wanted to spend some time with my wife – so I only got 1200 words written. The day before was only 200.

But today I managed 2000 words – which is a fine morning’s work.

Sometimes life gets in the way.

Whether you are trying to make a diet happen or trying to work out everyday on a new exercise regime or maybe – like me – you are trying to write a certain amount of words every day.

THERE WILL BE DAYS WHEN THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN!

If you beat yourself up about it I guarantee that your long-term production will suffer. Guilt gives rise to self-doubt and self-doubt is their surest way to screw up your production level – WHATEVER you are trying to accomplish.

Remember – that life that keeps getting in the way of what you are trying to do?

Well – odds are that that all-too-inconvenient life stuff is exactly the same sort of stuff you are writing about. So a big old chunk of life gets in the way today – don’t freak out – because tomorrow you will pick the guts out of the life stuff and inject it into your writing.

Life isn’t in the way.

Life is the way.

Get busy, get writing – but most of all have fun.

Odds are before you know it your words will find their own wings.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Day 12 at Camp NaNoWriMo – I’m No Superman

Only 200 words today.

I’m about to head off to an early shift at work and then after work my wife and I are going to the movies.

I guess if I have been on a diet today is my “cheat” day.

I want to apologize to all of those folks out there who thought I was some kind of a writing-superman.

I’m more like Jimmy Olsen with a head cold.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Day 10 at Camp NaNoWriMo – Forget About Writer’s Block!

I was interviewed today and one of the questions asked me was “How do I find time to write?”

Well, these days I make time.

These last ten days I have been making time to get my writing done.

I intend to make this a year-long habit.

Don’t get me wrong. For the last year I haven’t written every day. In fact there were way too many days that I did not write a single word – unless you count diddling about on Facebook and the like.

It can happen.

Some folks out there probably want to ask me if I had WRITER’S BLOCK!

(Did you ever notice how some people say those two words in big loud concrete capitol letters when they say them?)

That is the condition that some people say they have when they cannot write – but I will not give that condition the benefit of an actual label. Once you name something it becomes a whole lot bigger in your mind.

So no, I did not suffer from WRITER’S BLOCK.

I was just being lazy.

There is nothing wrong with being lazy. I work a good job and I do my best to pay the bills on time. I’ve written an awful lot of words over these last ten years or so – so I am certainly entitled to a little slack time.

I mow the lawn when it needs it.

I shovel the snow when it needs it.

So I am not a LAZY man – but when it came to writing over this last year I was indulging myself for far too long.

That will change.

That has already begun to change.

So the next time you find yourself stuck at a certain point and you are tempted to drag out those big two words – WRITER’S BLOCK.

The next time you find yourself using those two big words to bang yourself together a genuine police-sized road block of creativity.

The moment you begin to wallow rather than resist – do yourself a favor, would you?

If you find yourself in that position perform a triple somersault in mid-air and kick yourself squarely in the ass.

You’ll thank me later.

*************

I wrote the answers to an interview today – about 1000 words or so.

I edited a story and submitted it.

And I wrote 1700 words.

That brings me to 23,827 words in ten days.

That’s not too bad for a fellow who does not suffer from WRITER’S BLOCK!

Let me leave you now so that you get back to making time to write while I get ready to go and work a night shift.

Unfortunately, I do not suffer from JOB BLOCK either.

 

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

DAY 9 AT CAMP NANOWRIMO – NEVER SAY “I CAN’T!”

As any of you folks who have been following my progress you know that I am attempting to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of July.

That isn’t all that unbelievable. I know a lot of writers who do this sort of thing. In the indie writing world it is an ASSET to be able to write quickly – just so long as you aren’t just pumping out crap.

So I am not going to pretend that I am breaking some sort of a Guinness world record in novel writing here. In fact, I wrote faster many years ago when I took part in the 3-Day Writing Contest in which I wrote a 30,000 word novella in three days flat. My wife kept me fed and supplied with strong black coffee and proof-read and edited each chapter as I wrote them.

However, this is the fastest that I have written in the last year – and that is very important to me. I was getting bogged down and letting life’s stress get in my way.

This month I intend to break that habit and get myself geared up for future books that I intend to write.

Why?

I have published over thirty e-books in the last couple of years. They are available at Kindle and Kobo and I sell maybe one copy a day – which just isn’t enough. I want to turn these e-books into a good side-income because I have bills to pay and I am hungry for new readers. I have been trying a lot of approaches but I have decided that I first need to teach myself how to write more productively and then once I have created a steady flow of my products – that is my e-books – I intend to begin trying to figure out a more productive way of promoting them.

So – for me my goal this year is improved production.

Next year my goal will be improved promotional techniques.

Which is why I am writing at Camp NaNoWriMo.

Still, I am surprised when I hear some of the NaNoWriMo writers that I have met saying “I CAN’T” about some of the writing they are trying to do.

My wife and I both really enjoy watching America Ninja Warrior on television.

I just watched this fellow compete – several months after breaking BOTH of his ankles and severing BOTH of his Achilles tendons in a gymnastic incident. Don’t try and tell me that gymnastics isn’t tough.

🙂

Take a look at this guy’s recovery and think about it the very next time you say “I CAN’T!”

Never say I can’t!

Today I wrote 1700 words on my novel – only 100 words past the quota – but I still have some writing time left this afternoon.

I am currently at the 21,700 word mark. That’s the result of nine days of dedicated writing and is an average of 2400 words a day.

I would like to do better.

And you know what?

I can!

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Day 8 at Camp NaNoWriMo – Where’d the Road Go?

Today took a little longer than I had expected.

I had an awful lot on my To-Do list – but the very first item was REACH THE 20,000 WORD MARK.

And that was what I did.

It took a little doing because I was in the middle of a couple chapters that I only had the bare bone notes for – but this is the point of the game where a fellow has to reach into his pockets and pull his perseverance out.

Now I know that you can yourself into deep trouble with the authorities if you go blatantly waving your perseverance around like that but I am rebel, just because.

And I so wish that I had the time to hunt up an old photograph of me in my old biker’s black leather jacket – but one of these days I will.

You see sometimes you just have to go hard at something with all of your might. You just set a mark and you run for it.

That is the power of setting a goal and sticking to it.

Now – because I wrote so darned much today I don’t really have the time to give you folks much of a sermon on writing but instead let me show you a scene from one of my favorite movies of all time that will give you a better idea of just what I am talking about.

(and I really wish I could have found a clip of the whole scene – but if you want to learn about perseverance sit down tonight and watch Cool Hand Luke)

I have learned everything in my life from good old movies.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Day 7 at Camp NaNoWriMo – You Must Not Try To Write a Novel!

I can’t tell you just how many times people have said to me – “Oh, you are a writer? I have always wanted to write a novel.”

That is the single biggest mistake a writer can make.

Setting out to write a novel. All those words, all those chapters, all of that time spent making the whole thing make sense.

Don’t do it.

ESPECIALLY if this is your first attempt at writing a novel.

All right, all right – I can hear you out there scratching your heads and howling in puzzled frustration. I can hear you wondering just what the heck I expect you to try and write if you DON’T try and write a novel.

Write a chapter.

Write a scene.

Write a sentence.

Write a single freaking word.

Do you understand what I am telling you?

Think about what your mother used to tell you at the dinner table.

“Bite sized pieces,” she’d tell you. “Use your knife and fork and cut it into bite-sized pieces.”

(all right, I couldn’t make up mind about whether or not I wanted to use that dash in “bite-sized”)

So this is for all of you folks out there trying to write your day’s quota at Camp NaNoWriMo – and for all of those folks who AREN’T messing around with Camp NaNoWriMo.

Don’t get hung up on the grandeur and the scope of your project.

Just remember that a novel is generally made up of chapters.

And a chapter is made up of scenes.

And a scene is nothing more than a story.

So when you get stuck and hung up and don’t what to do just remind yourself of that fact and stop and think about what scene comes next and then just sit down and outline that scene with a few well-chosen scribbled notes – Ralph picks up his knife and fork. Ralph cuts up his steak into bite-sized pieces. Or is it bite sized pieces? Ralph feeds the steak to the dog, one piece at a time and goes out to buy himself a hamburger.

Then just write that scene.

Tell yourself – TO HELL WITH WRITING THIS NOVEL. I CAN’T DO IT. BUT I CAN WRITE THIS NEXT FREAKING SCENE.

You get done writing that scene you are going look at your word tally and realize that you just added another one or two thousand words to that novel you aren’t writing.

And that’s how this game is played. One chapter, one scene, one paragraph – one word at a time.

This ain’t rocket science, boys and girls.

********

All right – for those folks who are following along with me on my July excursion at Camp NaNoWriMo here is the latest scoop.

I have written 2000 words today – which is a little slow for me but still over my quota of 1612 words per day.

That brings me to 17,300 words total so far.

According to the NaNoWriMo calculator if I keep this daily rate up I will hit the 50,000 word mark by July 21, 2014.

Let’s see if I can do it.

If you want to follow along just watch my progress over at my cabin in Camp NaNoWriMo.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Day 6 at NaNoWriMo – Making a To-Do List

 

I am a big fan of to-do lists.

There is nothing in the world that I can’t accomplish once I have put it on my to-do list.

I usually like to start the day before. If I am on a night shift at work then I will keep a scrap of paper handy and when something jumps into my head that needs taking care of I jot it down on tomorrow’s to-do list.

Then, when I get home I put that to-do list on my keyboard so that I know first thing in the morning that I need to do something to cross out something on that to-do list.

Some of the to-do list items are pretty simple – like “Do Laundry” or “Take Out Garbage”. These are things that I would probably do but might forget – so I usually try to get to them early in the day.

Others are a little harder – like “Write one chapter” or “Clean up my office”.

All right, so that “Clean up my office” is damn near impossible for me – but I at least try to go through and throw out a bit of the clutter every day or two. It still looks like a landfill fell somewhere in here weekly for the last millenia or so – but so long as it is on my To-Do list I make it a point to get a little bit done.

Other items are giveaways. “Comb hair” or “Wash face” is easy – but it is important that I put it on my To-Do list JUST so that I can cross it off. The act of crossing off ANY item on a To-Do list builds the illusion of momentum.

That’s what a To-Do list is mostly for.

It gives you that illusion of control and momentum – which is another way of saying that list allows you to tell yourself a story about you having control and momentum in your life – AND IF YOU TELL A STORY LONG ENOUGH IT BECOMES TRUE.

That’s what all of these “Secret Self-Help Techniques” boil down to. You kid yourself long enough into something and it will actually become a part of your life. You won’t ever tell yourself that “I never comb my hair” because you do so every day.

And I know my wife is out there shaking her head and thinking to herself that I probably comb my hair about once every three days if there has been a strong wind blowing but that’s just how it is sometimes.

To-Do lists work for novel writing as well. Tonight before you go to bed why don’t you write yourself a To-Do list for your next chapter and leave it on your keyboard for you to see in the morning. Jot a few notes about what you want to accomplish in the morning with that chapter and odds are you’ll just fall into writing it and it will become easy. You will have both momentum and control.

Give it a try and see.

I passed the 15000 word mark this morning hitting 15,300 – which is almost a third of the way through my 50000 word goal.

Let me scratch that off my To-Do list.

 

Day 5 at Camp NaNoWriMo – Dealing with the Hurricane

Well, Hurricane Arthur roared through Halifax today and even though officially it was downgraded to a “Post Tropical Storm” status – it shut the power down in our neighborhood and did not get to start writing until 4pm this afternoon – but, here it is at twenty after five and I have hit my daily quota and beaten and I now stand at 13500 words.

That’s an average of 2700 words per day – which isn’t bad an old fart like me.

🙂

Better shut the computer down. The power just flickered again.

Talk to you all tomorrow.

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon