There are some really, really good things coming up this next month, and I’m SUPER excited about all of them. And good things have happened this week, so I’ll fill you in on that too.
First this past week. I started a second job hosting at a café downtown, and it’s been really good so far. For one, they feed me during my break, which I have to take during my 5.5- or 8-hour shift and it’s really good food. Sandwiches, salads with goat cheese, pizza (on the weekends!), and sometimes pastries or sweets if the bakery has some to offer. YUM. My four consecutive days of training from Thursday to Sunday took up a lot of my time this weekend so if I were to offer an excuse for not having written in a week, well, that would be it. But I’m not doing that anymore! Here’s cool thing #2 and the reason why.
I signed up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November. (I know, November is a little ways away, but bear with me and I’ll get to the reason why this matters already and part of why I feel great.) The goal is to write 50,000 words between November 1 and 30 – for the unfamiliar, a page is about 250! – and there’s a website where you can join a community of sorts based on your city. The people here will basically serve as your support group for the month, because with a task as daunting as writing a novel period let alone that quickly, God knows a support group is necessary. I struggle to crank out these 1,000-word or so posts once a week. Good grief, what have I signed up for.
Anyway. I realized when I registered on the site a month ago that good Lord will I need help. I brainstormed my story options: build on a smaller work of fiction I’ve started (though fiction has never been my strong suit), come up with a new fiction idea, or decide on a timeframe for a complete memoir (a complete account of Australian adventures? I wondered). Since it’s a “novel” challenge, I leaned away from the memoir and am thinking about working with a short story draft I did for my Intro to Fiction course two years ago.
With an idea in mind, I decided I need to begin planning. And that I need help with that too. How do you create a sustainable story arc? Compelling characters? Convey a believable and enchanting setting? And in one month?? I confess this is part of the reason that I prefer nonfiction. The story is already there, so it’s just a matter of telling it. I’ve struggled a little here about what to tell, who to identify, and what photos to use, mostly because I want to respect people’s privacy and also because I don’t want to provide a reason for future employers not to hire me. With fiction, however, an entire world and characters are created from scratch. I admire that kind of imagination, so I've chosen fiction in an effort to challenge myself. It's also why I believe I need even more help than if I were writing nonfiction.
Cue the “Writing and Publishing” section of Barnes and Noble. I bought 90 Days to Your Novel this weekend by Sarah Domet. I chose it over the 30-day version and the several varieties of basic novel how-tos because of the introduction.
Domet basically says that the difference between a writer and a wannabe writer is that a writer actually writes. Go figure, huh? She emphasizes that in order to actually pen a novel, you will probably have to skip out on some social outings, write when you don’t feel particularly motivated, and ultimately park yourself at the computer for extended periods of time. That part was kind of a wake-up call for me, because I realize that though I do write I don’t invest nearly enough time like I should. There’s always something else going on and it’s easy to put it off until the next day, much like working out – but I’ll save that issue for another time.
So, no more excuses. I’m doing a modified version of Domet’s 90-day plan, and I hope to have my outline, for which she allots 4-5 weeks, finished by the end of October. Then it’s write write write for thirty days. Which will include a visit from a friend in New York, the end of my internship, and flying back to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving. Yikes. But my goal is to write every day. Fingers crossed, nice thoughts, and any prayers you can spare, please!
Along with this pledge came a revelation. Working in publishing, I see so many works, contact so many bloggers, and send out so many books that it’s been a wake-up call to get on my game. Last week, I received an email from a blogger I reached out to for a review of one of our books, and he asked me if we would be interested in publishing his book that is similar to the one I was looking to send out. Being a lowly intern of no authority whatsoever, I asked my publicist boss (who is really so wonderful). Her answer was simply that we don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts, but he should try going through an agent. It was honest, but entirely discouraging for an aspiring writer.
It felt like a real blow to have to tell this guy no without ever having seen his work, and I realized that I was projecting. I’m enjoying being in the publishing industry, but I become more and more convinced every day that I want to write for a living. I get that this isn’t something that happens overnight, but I’m hoping that I’m getting closer to figuring out what I want and also how to get it. For now, I’m happy where I am, but I need to figure out more direct avenues to get to what I want and how to get my work into other people’s hands. Which brings me to the next bit.
While I’m taking on NaNoWriMo in November, I’ve (mostly) decided that I’ll take to posting pieces of the novel to the blog and occasional updates and rants on my progress. For the rest of October, I’m looking forward to writing my outline, but I’ll also keep posting my general musings much like I have been. In an effort to get out and start exposing what I like to write best, I might start including excerpts from the personal essays and memoir-type things I’ve written that I hope will be my primary focus one day.
While I’m prepping for NaNoWriMo, I have some other things to look forward to, mostly in the form of playing host. First guest: KATHLEEN! My Australian bestie (okay, she’s American, but we met in Australia) will arrive this weekend. We haven't seen each other in a year, and my excitement is not containable. Short version: I. CANNOT. WAIT.
The following weekend: MY PARENTS ARE COMING! AND my uncle and my cousin! YAY! Okay, enough exclamation points. Bold font and capital letters aren't adequate expression of my excitement, so I don't know why I'm even bothering with the exclamation points. Still, I get to show them around this wonderful city that I have the privilege to call home. It’s especially cool, because I really miss all of them a whole lot. Hooray impending reunions.
I feel like I’m going to be particularly all over the place over this next month, so I sign off with the utmost sincerity:
Here and there,
Kiley
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