Tag: National Novel Writing Month

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Twas the Day Before NaNoWriMo

October 31, 2012 jcladyluv

Okay I know it’s Halloween and most of you are probably busy getting the children ready to go trick-or-treating in their costumes or off to their Halloween parties. In all of the Halloween candy rush don’t forget what tonight is. For those of you who have signed up to get lost in the world of words this November (National Novel Writing Month) it is the last night of freedom (in a sense) that you have to not be stressed over whether you met a certain word count requirement for the day.

By now you have hopefully already completed your outline, done your research, gained an intimate knowledge of your characters, and scheduled your time to write to suit your needs and your daily responsibilities. If you’ve gotten all of that checked off your to do list, then you are practically ready to go come November 1^st (that’s tomorrow by the way) but if you haven’t prepared then don’t panic. You could always do what a lot of writers do during NaNoWriMo anyway, wing it. Just start from point A and continue from there.

Also an important thing to remember for those who have not put tons of preparation into this, you DO NOT have to start your story from the very beginning. I must admit that I myself have a hard time starting a story in any other place but the beginning but I’ve tried starting at a different chapter but number one a time or two and, to my surprise, it did not kill my passion for the story or disturb the flow once I went back to the beginning.

If you can’t think of how to start your story off, then begin with chapter two, or three, or why not even start at the end. No matter where you start your story on November 1^st, just start! I’ll be blogging helpful tips and tricks to get through the crazy event that is NaNoWriMo throughout the month so make sure you check back from time to time. Until then…Happy NaNoWriMo-ing!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

NaNoWriMo Reminder: It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect On the First Draft

October 25, 2012 jcladyluv

I was reading blog posts this morning, catching up on posts from the last couple of days of some of the blogs that I subscribe to. I came across one by Catherine Ryan Howard discussing National Novel Writing Month and some of the backlash that the yearly event gets from “real writers” who turn down their noses at the idea of creating a novel in 30 days. Her blog post listed a whole host of reasons why she discarded the notion that NaNoWriMo is just nonsense and somehow belittles the profession of writing.

Until reading her blog post I had never known anyone to say anything bad about NaNoWriMo or that indicated that NaNoWriMo was something that was not for “real writers”. After all, I’ve done NaNoWriMo for many years and I don’t consider myself anything less than a real writer. It got me to thinking about just how many people that we don’t realize actually get the novels that they began writing during a National Novel Writing Month event published and just how important something like NaNoWriMo really is.

It also made me think about how many people do themselves in by trying to actually complete a novel (writing, editing, rewriting, and re-editing again many times over) in those 30 days. Maybe that’s where people get overwhelmed at with the thought of NaNoWriMo. So many people (myself included) have tried to complete the impossible task of writing and actually finishing a novel in 30 days that they forget to have fun while they are doing it.

Yes writing is (hard) work, but I think that a lot of times what we writers tend to forget during the month of November is that it should still be fun as well. There should still be passion behind the words we write and not just a continuous rush to get it done no matter what. If you are striving for a perfect draft the first time out the gate during NaNoWriMo then you may just be disappointed.

Don’t get caught up in exactly what the end product is supposed to be. After you’ve come up with the plot, you’ve done your outline, and you’ve mapped out your schedule, just sit down and write.

Don’t try and make it perfect, don’t go back and edit while you’re writing, don’t agonize over whether you’re going to be able to get it published once it’s done. Just sit down, enjoy the characters that are honoring you with telling their story, and write! I promise you that if you enjoy what you are writing, then people will almost certainly enjoy reading what you have written.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

7 Ways for You to Get Ready for National Novel Writing Month

October 17, 2012 jcladyluv

So as I stated in my last post I will not be doing NaNoWriMo this year, at least not in the traditional sense, but I thought for all of you out there who are planning on participating in the crazy notion of attempting to complete a novel in 30 days that I would make a few suggestions on getting ready for the month of November. Obviously the first thing that anyone getting into the novel writing spirit needs to do is to sign up by registering on the National Novel Writing Month website at http://www.nanowrimo.org/. That’s the easy part. Other things to better prepare for this month are:

1.) Brainstorm a clear idea for your novel: Hopefully you already know what you want to write about but if not that is the first thing that you need to figure out.

2.) Know the most important details of your novel upfront: You may or may not be a person that likes to outline. If you are an outliner, this is what your next move needs to be. Outline the major points of your novel so that you know where your story is going to start, and where you think it might end up. If you are more of a detailed person then you will want to detail ALL of the major and somewhat minor parts of the novel in this outline. If you are not a person who likes to outline, at the very least you will want to know that major plot points in your story.

3.) Get to know your characters: Some might consider this to be a part of outlining but I see it as being totally separate but just as complex as creating an outline. You have to know who your characters because if you don’t know who your characters are your soon to be readers won’t know who they are either.

4.) Research now rather than later: Do as much research for your novel that you can do before starting your novel. Once you get started writing, you are not going to have the time to really go back and do extensive research so get most of your research out of the way now.

5.) Begin mapping out a workable plan: Come up with a schedule that works for you to write during the month of November. If you are a morning person then you will want to make time available so that you can write in the mornings and get your best work done. Whatever time of day works better for you, you are going to want to maximize to produce your best work. This is also when you will want to let the people around you know that you may not have as much time as you normally do because you will be busy…Writing.

6.) When November 1^st comes around, be prepared to start writing and be prepared to be very busy for those thirty days.

7.) One final thing: If you should happen to get stuck or have a bad day and are not able to write, don’t be too hard on yourself. Putting extra pressure on yourself to write only makes it harder for you to produce good solid work.

I hope that these tips were somehow helpful to anyone who is getting ready to embark on their 30 day journey into novel-land. I know that following these steps helped me last year when I participated and all of the years prior to that. I will be cheering all of you NaNo-er’s on from the sidelines but don’t think I won’t be getting some writing done on my part. I just have to focus on the business end of things right now, as well as putting my Write 2 Be Magazine together for its launch in January 2013. I wish all of you well in November!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

No NaNo For Me This Year

October 11, 2012 jcladyluv

Normally around this time of year I would be preparing for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) by getting my outline together and doing the research necessary. However, I am not participating in NaNoWriMo this year and really I am a bit saddened by it. I feel in some ways, because I have done it every year since I have heard about it, that I am letting myself down by not doing it but I just don’t think that I can commit to it this year as I do every other year. I don’t have my outline completed for the novel I want to do and I haven’t even begun the research and on top of that, I am not quite finished with the novel I started last year during NaNoWriMo.

So to make myself feel a little better about not being able to fully commit to NaNo this year I have decided that I will use the time during NaNoWriMo to focus more on a novel that I have completed (a couple of years ago) and pitching it to agents and also pitching article ideas around to various magazines and newspapers and also working on my Write 2 Be magazine that is set to launch in January of 2013. I guess it would also be a good idea if I finish up the novel from last year’s NaNoWriMo.

With all of that I think that I will be pretty busy during the month of November even without having a new novel to focus on. If you too are a person who traditionally participates in NaNoWriMo and will also not be able to this year, don’t dwell on what it is you can’t do. Instead come up with another plan of something else within your writing that needs to get done that you can place your focus on. I plan on still making the best out of this NaNoWriMo doing a lot of things with my writing that I have been putting off and just can’t put off any more.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

Too Many Stories to Juggle, Not Enough Discipline To Keep Them All From Falling

July 26, 2012 jcladyluv

It’s starting to happen again. All of these different ideas and characters are circling around inside my head and trying to tell me all of their stories, ALL at once. Now I know what many writers may possibly be thinking. How could this possibly be a problem? In fact a lot of writers have the opposite problem, no ideas and no characters speaking to them.

Well the problem that presents itself is that I have yet to finish the novel that I started writing last November for National Novel Writing Month. I have no idea why I haven’t because it’s not as if I’ve lost interest in telling the stories of those characters. In fact I am very intrigued to see if the main character in that novel will end up how I once thought she might end up. It’s not as if she hasn’t been begging me to finish telling her story either, in fact I think she may just have some adjustments that could change a lot of what was going to happen.

My problem is that I am a serial story hopper. It’s not that I have never finished a novel. In fact I am actually a published author (although you wouldn’t know it due to my inability to do a better job at marketing myself—yet another thing I must work on sooner rather than later). I actually have another novel that is also completed that is currently in the hands of my editor now. However, if you had any idea of the novels I have already started and stopped because I had another story enter my head and another character that kept shouting at me to tell it, you would probably laugh at my lack of discipline.

That’s what it is, a lack of discipline to stick with one story from start to finish. But how do you silence the characters that come to you in the midst of telling another character’s story that has nothing to do with theirs? I mean you can’t completely ignore the ideas that come because if you lose them you might never get them back again. On the other hand feeding into the constantly flowing stream of ideas is the reason why I have at least 5 or 6 novels started but left unfinished.

I read one article that suggested writing down the ideas as they come and then setting them aside to finish the current project. The problem I have with that idea is that once I get started writing that idea out, then I start sketching the characters, then I start to outline the story and the setting. Next thing you know I’ve moved completely from one story to the next. So what am I going to do about it?

Well it seems that when I knew I was under the pressure of National Novel Writing Month I had no problem sticking to my one story. So NaNoWriMo is having this thing they call CampNaNoWriMo where they do the same thing they do in November, just in June and August as well. Since I’ve already missed June’s, I am going to do the one that they have in August.

Technically you are supposed to start a new novel from scratch but I think that I am going to use the one in August to finish the one I started last November. Perhaps that will give me some focus and discipline and then I can finally complete this novel before moving on to the next one. Who knows, I might just finish this one and move on to another one that I already started earlier and finish that one up too. Discipline is extremely key to a writer’s work because without it you would just be all over the place with more stories going on than any one person can handle. Kind of like me!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

The No Matter What of It All

April 5, 2012 jcladyluv

“No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you’ve come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.”

~Madonna

This week I have actually been really productive, or at least more productive then I’ve been in a really long time. I am starting to feel that drive again to get what I need done no matter what. I heard a celebrity say once that those three words were words that drove her to the level of success that she had reached. She said that if she always told herself ‘no matter what’ the job or task had to get done then she would be driven to do it. It may not be done perfectly or maybe not even in its entirety, but it will get done. I’ve been thinking a lot about those three words and this week that is what I have had in my mind. Instead of trying to make everything perfect and get every single thing done, I have just been content on getting whatever I could get done, no matter what.

I was talking to Ms. L. last night and I told her about the submission that I finally sent off to a magazine. It sounds like something that you would think I had been doing on a regular basis by this point but sadly it was not. I have spent months agonizing over whether editors will like my article ideas, whether my writing was really as good as I thought it was that they would even pay attention to a query from me, but mostly I had been trying to figure out how to write the PERFECT query letter. I have stacks and stacks of books (and internet research) on how to write a perfect (or irresistible) query but none of them seemed to help me. I had sworn that I would not send out a query until I got the query letters just right. The problem with that theory was that none of my query letters were coming out perfectly, so of course nothing was being sent off.

This week I said that I was just going to start sending query letters, even if they weren’t perfect, even if they weren’t even close to being right, because if I don’t send anything out then obviously no one will see my work and I will never see my byline in any national magazine. So I did. I sent a submission, and it was indeed imperfect, but it also indeed felt really good. The thing is that I can’t promise that the queries will be perfect, but I imagine that with more practice in sending them out on a more consistent basis, they will get better.

I also told Ms. L. that I was going to work on my latest novel that I have yet to finish because I honestly haven’t touched it since the end of National Novel Writing Month (I’m not sure why I haven’t). I said that even if I didn’t write much on it that I would at least work on it for half an hour, no matter what. I in fact did work on my novel, and though I did not write much on it, I did write for a half an hour. I plan on working on it tonight as well.

I am finding that this week is turning out to do for me exactly what I wanted it to do for me (at least on the writing level) which is re-light that fire under me to get moving and put all my plans in motion. I think now that I have really started to visualize my dreams I can begin to see them as my reality. It’s helping me put some action into all of the planning that I have been doing. It feels really good to feel that fire starting to burn again. I just hope it doesn’t go out again anytime soon. I’ve got too much lost time to make up for. But I will get the job done, No Matter What!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

Slow Progression

January 14, 2012 jcladyluv

It is coming up on the third week of January and I already feel like I am so behind on my action plan to accomplish my goals this year. Yes I know that it is only week 3 of a new year and I have the whole year ahead of me. But in case you’re not aware of it, that time will fly by without you even realizing it. I suppose that the important thing is that I acknowledge I can be doing better and I put forth the effort to continually make progress.

I know that next week will be a challenge because I am finally going to get around to getting started on sending out at least one of the four query letters that I set out to send on a monthly basis (I might increase that number later on in the year). Also I plan on getting back to the novel that I worked on during National Novel Writing month which I took a longer than unexpected break from. Not to mention that I have a Magazine to finish putting together for its debut.

With all of that said I am going to go read now because to be a better writer I also have to become an even more avid reader. I know that I’ve got to get moving on my goal list (because it is quite long) but I am just glad that I haven’t completely stalled. I am making progress, even if it is a slow progression, it is progress nonetheless. Until tomorrow…What counts is that you make progress, not how quickly the progress is made.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

The Importance of Finishing

December 1, 2011 jcladyluv

“Winning isn’t always finishing first. Sometimes winning is just finishing.”

~Manuel Diotte

Earlier today I was reflecting on how good I felt about completing National Novel Writing Month yesterday (50,002 words) and I began to think about the fact that if I finished everything as strong and with as much determination and staying power as I did those 50,000 words I might be further along in my journey to being successful. Looking at my list of what I was supposed to accomplish in this entire year I ran over the things I started and just didn’t finish. For whatever reason, be it frustration of it not working fast enough (I admit I need to work on my patience), or just pure self-doubt that I wasn’t good enough to have the success I was trying to carve out. There is something to be said for finishing what you start and not giving up halfway through the mission.

I was listening to the news earlier this morning and they were discussing the whole Herman Cain controversy and there were claims that he was “reassessing” his campaign, which of course people automatically took as him contemplating dropping out of the race. Now before I say this I want to make it clear that I am not a Herman Cain fan, neither of his politics nor how he chooses to govern his personal life, however, having said that, if he is in fact considering dropping out of the race, I do NOT think that he should. Yes he is struggling right now on so many fronts but no person is perfect and the person running for the President of theUnited Statesis not going to be an exception. He started something, and I believe that he should finish what he started. If he doesn’t I am almost certain he will forever wonder what would have been and what could have been if he had just finished.

Now no one likes to lose or have that feeling of defeat. But isn’t it defeat if you have a continuous pattern of starting these grand missions and then never finishing them and seeing them through? I have a notebook full of a lot of things that I got really excited about and jotted down all of these notes and ideas for projects and how I was going to put those ideas and plans into action and then I would hit a snag and it would seem impossible to envision me being able to complete that project. I got it in my head that because I hit that snag, there was no use wasting time on an idea that could never really go anywhere. I just wouldn’t finish.

When I look back on several moments of my life that is where the majority of my mistakes have been. That I didn’t finish. Here’s what I’ve learned from all of those unfinished mistakes. It doesn’t matter if you’ve started something if it never gets completed and put into action. Even if you finish and find it not to be a success, at least you’ve finished. This month I will be making my lists for what I want to accomplish next year. I can tell you that no matter what, I intend to finish whatever it is I start from now on. No more unfinished business for me.

Until next time…Always, Always, Always, finish!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

NaNoWriMo Day 30: Just In Time

November 30, 2011 jcladyluv

Okay I was really beginning to doubt whether I could make it. But I DID IT! 50,002 words. I completed this year’s National Novel Writing Month successfully. And let me tell you I think this might have been the hardest day of the whole month. The feeling of not being sure whether I was going to finish or not was lingering over my head. With all of the other characters that were beginning to tell me of what the next book in the series should be about I could hardly concentrate.

Well as most of you writers out there, a novel consists of way more than 50,000 words so as you might imagine my novel is not actually finished so I still have the personal challenge of finishing this novel. But that won’t be hard because I am so excited to finish and so excited to see where this book will end because I had an ending all planned out in my outline but as so much of this story has gone off the course of the outline, so to will my ending. I have already seen the vision of the new ending in my head and by time I get to the end that might change as well. Well I am going to bed now to rest my fingers and my mind so that I can come back to the keyboard tomorrow but this time I won’t have the added pressure. Well I take that back because I have a new online Magazine to finish putting together for its release in January. Goodnight all you writers out there. I hope you were successful as well and if not, trying is half of the battle and it is better to have tried then to never have tried at all. Until tomorrow!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”