NaNoWriMo: How to Win

Being one of the last kids picked for kickball in elementary school still looms large in my psyche, so this notion of winning makes me a little uncomfortable.

I know you won’t be able to get the winner’s badge for your social media feeds if you haven’t written 50,000 words, but I believe that there are more ways to win NaNo than by reaching 50,000 words in November. 

If you’ve written this month, you’ve won. You’ve written more words than you might have otherwise, even if you haven’t met the 50,000 goal. You sat down and you wrote, even while life tried to pull you away.  Maybe you wrote a little every day, maybe you sat down for a few marathon sessions.  Doesn’t matter.  You started to build some BIC (butt in chair) practice. 

If you’ve made time for writing in your life, you’ve won. You’ve started a writing habit.  The habit might be a few hundred words every day or 5,000 words every weekend.  Either way, it’s those habits that make successful writers.  I didn’t take that writing habit into the rest of the year until after my third NaNo win, but each NaNo that came before allowed me to practice until it stuck.

If you’ve met other writers, you’ve won.  Maybe you’ve only met them online, but you’ve become aware of other people, not too different from you, who make time for what matters.  My writing tribe sustains me through NaNo and beyond. Many of them I met with just to write, but our relationships have blossomed into the most beautiful friendships of my life.  They write, so it encourages me to write.  After the first year of NaNo write-ins informally organized in Yellow Springs four years ago, one writer friend and I continued to write once a week.  We’ve continued that practice and invited more writers to share it, throughout the last four years. 

You’ve made some time, maybe a little, maybe a lot, for your dreams.  Perhaps that’s the biggest win of all, creating a little space, a little opening for what you really want to do.  You wanted to write a novel, you made time for it, and whether you’ve hit 8,000 words or 80,000, that space you’ve made can be nourished so that there is room in your life every day, all year long, for what you most want. 

Keep dreaming, keep winning, and keep in touch.  I’ll be cheering for you!

In Praise of Duotrope

My writer friends have been singing the praises of Duotrope for over a year, but I resisted.  I wasn't sending enough work out to make it useful.  It was an unneeded expense ($5 a month), and I can't even remember what other excuses I made.

But as part of my impossible things year, I decided to send my work out more often.  My old index card system of tracking poems as I sent them out seemed a little outdated, so I looked at Duotrope again.  Then my friend Becky told me that when she got work back rejected, she immediately sent it out to two more places.  Rejected again? She sent it to three.

That sounded like a great idea, and a good reason to sign up for this list of over 5,000 markets for poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.  So, sign up I did.

And I'm so thankful.  It does make it easier to turn the work right around.  I have a list of favorite markets I'd like to send to, so when a poem that I'm sure is ready for printing gets rejected, I go to my favorites and send it out again, on the same day!

This morning I discovered an even better reason to love Duotrope.  On your home screen, it lists your average acceptance rate (don't know why I just noticed it today).  One rejection can send me reeling in self doubt, that's why the quick turnaround works for me.  But this is pretty sweet, too.  No way to let the negative bias take over when the statistics say this.

The $5 a month is money well spent.  Thanks Becky, thanks Lara and Debra, thanks Duotrope.

www.duotrope.com

No Way Out but Through

It must  be the beginning of week two because all day on this marathon-writing day (since I’m on a plane today for over twenty hours, it seemed a perfect plan), I’ve been battling the persistent idea that this book is stupid. My plot is stupid and slow. I’m not raising the stakes fast enough.  The characters are weak.  My writing sucks.

Ah, week two.  Since the very first time I tried NaNo and gave up during week two, this week has plagued me. That’s part of the reason I wanted to have a marathon write today, to try to kck through to the middle of the novel when it gets fun again.

I should have known that even a marathon writing day wouldn’t be able to combat the week two blues. 

If I hadn’t read Christ Baty’s No Plot, No Problem before my second try at NaNoWriMo, I fear my second try would have gone the same as the first, incomplete.  And I wouldn’t be here with you today. But Baty talks about week two and writing through.  Every year, week two has brought with it a crisis of confidence, a crisis of plot. 

Now, if you’re sailing through week two, great.  Ignore me.  But if you’ve started to tell yourself your idea is stupid.  If you’ve been tempted (and I’ve seen you on Facebook ;-)) to get rid of the beginning of your novel and start again., please take my word for it. It’s not you, it’s week two. 

So how do you get around this.

1. You write anyway.  Don’t delete anything. Don’t start over.  Remember, “The first draft of anything is [poop]

.” Hemingway said it, so it must be true.  Let  your first draft be a draft, a sad, sucky, plot-hole-ridden draft.  As Katrina Kittle says, “You can’t revise what you haven’t written,” and all stories of genius writers to the contrary, everyone revises.

2.  Show up to write-ins, virtual and in-person, and let the energy of the group carry you along.  Ignore the voice in the back of your mind that tells you that you are the only one writing a terrible book.  We’re all writing terrible books. It will take work to make them wonderful, but we’ll do that work--in January, maybe in February, maybe next summer, maybe in three years.  You are not unique in your suckitude, you are just like everyone else, writing an awful first draft.  (See 1 above.)

3.  If rereading your work brings up the desire to edit, stop rereading your work.  You need to shut that editor up.  One way to do that is to refuse to give him (or her) anything to do.

4.  Be kind to yourself.  How many words have you written so far—5,000, 10,000, 15,000.  Pat yourself on the back.  No one needs to know how awful those words are. Besides, people have made millions of dollars off awful writing.  Read the first pages of a blockbuster erotic tale recently made into a movie, and you’ll see what I mean.  You set a goal, you’re working on it, give yourself some love.  Take yourself to a movie, buy yourself a new book, go to Ghostlight Coffee in Dayton and buy a grapefruit-rosemary Italian soda and a Harvest Moon Twinkie and celebrate the fact that you had the courage to start.  That feeds the courage to continue.

5.  Whine on the boards.  Not too much, not to often, but whine a little and see how many other people join in.  Week two is tough.  I’m here to tell you though, that once you make it through week two it starts to feel better.  No, you aren’t suddenly convinced that your writing is brilliant and you should send it straight to the best editor in the business once December 1strolls around.  It isn’t; don’t. But you are convinced that you can finish this first draft. 

There’s lots of other advice out there on how to make it through week two.  Take fifteen minutes, look at the advice, then turn off the internet, set a timer for 45 minutes, and just write. Let your story take you on its ridiculous, lame, merry way. Take the next step, write the next 1,667 words.  Write through the doldrums.  Next week, the wind will pick up to blow you through the last two weeks and to victory. 

The Next Impossible Thing

It seems impossible, doesn't it?  50,000 words in 30 days.  Where will I find the time? What will I do when I don't have any good ideas? Who will clean the kitchen?  How will I do this when I have work, kids, dogs, friends, a house, company coming for Thanksgiving, sick parents, a cold?

But like all impossible things, this impossible thing begins with the next right step.  Tomorrow, I will sit down and write.  I have four hours blocked out on my calendar.  I could go shopping (in Thailand, where I am currently for work, they do love to shop).  I could go work out (the pool is lovely). I could have dinner with friends.  But I have blocked out 4 pm to 8 pm for writing.  I will put my butt in the chair.  I will put words on the page.

They may not be good words.  But it's a draft, so that doesn't matter.

I will aim to write 4,000 words tomorrow.  Why twice the amount I need to? Because I know myself.  I like to win, and I like to have a little space for the days when the writing is difficult.  The beginning is easy.  Four thousand words is cake at the start.  But no matter how many words I end up with, I will sit, butt in chair (for at least 45 minutes out of each hour, I use the Pomodoro method), and I will write.

And then on Sunday, Nov. 2,  I will do the same thing.  On my calendar, from now until Nov. 9 when I will spend 24 hours traveling home from Thailand, I have marked out at least 1 1/2 hours each day for writing.  There's time for yoga, time for the full-time work I do when I'm traveling.  Time for a little more shopping, a little more food, but there is time, every day, for writing.

I don't have to find the time.  I've already made time.  Since I've done this for four years, I know I can do it.  It still seems impossible, even though I already spend at least 1 1/2 hours a day writing nearly every day.

But I have already done so many things this year that have seemed impossible.  50,000 words in November is just one more impossible thing to add to my list.

I hope you'll join me in doing the impossible.  Find encouragement and support at www.nanowrimo.org and become my buddy (I'm gravllo).  Join me and my writing tribe at Yellow Springs Write In's (see the calendar in Ohio: Elsewhere). Let's see what's possible.

Permission Granted

The first year I participated in NaNoWriMo, 2009, my personal life was in chaos.  I was looking out at the rest of my life and trying to remember what it was I wanted to do. 

Even then, I took time to write here and there every week, but it wasn’t enough to support the career I wanted for myself.  It wasn’t enough to finish the story I wanted to tell.  I’d heard about National Novel Writing Month, and it seemed a good way to give myself permission to write.  It also gave me an excuse to tell my family, “Hey, I’m writing a novel this month, get take out” or “No time to vacuum, I’m writing a novel.”

It worked.  I didn’t finish my novel that month.  I didn’t meet my word goal.  The chaos sucked me in, but I did give myself permission to write more often.  I gave myself permission to go out at night and sit in a café and let my family fend for themselves. 

And I continued, even after that first November, to make time for my writing.  The next year, and for every year since, I have completed my 50,000 words.  Signing up on the website, going to write-ins, and watching my words stack up on the word chart help keep me motivated. 

I have given myself permission to work towards what I want.  I don’t write 1,667 words every day of the year, but I do write most days.  I saved money and paid for an amazing manuscript consult this year.  I’ve taken research trips for the novels I’m revising.  I’ve learned how to travel the world for work and still keep my writing practice (I’m writing this note to you from Bangkok, Thailand). 

My life has changed in amazing ways.  The seed of that change was in the permission I gave myself six years ago to write every day, to let the people I love fend for themselves for a little while, to take care of myself in the same way I’d cared for other people for so long. 

My wish for you this November is that you give yourself permission to take the time to write every day.  Tell the people you care for what you are doing.  Schedule time for your writing, and let your family/friends/coworkers take care of some of their own needs, just for November. 

They may pout, they may whine, they may make you feel as if you are the worst person in the world for taking care of your needs.  That’s okay.  That’s about them not you. 

Give yourself permission to do for yourself what you would do for other people.  After all, it’s just for November, right?

Haiku, You?

Haiku is a traditional Japanese poetic form.  The essence of haiku is attention to the everyday and the finding of some new understanding because of the attention. 

I’ve been writing a haiku a day for the past two months, but even before that, I’ve used the form.  Most of the poems in Come to the Garden, are haiku-like in their form and intent.  

For me, writing haiku is a natural outgrowth of my meditation practice.  It allows me to take the focused attention of the meditation cushion and turn it to the world. 

One of the most famous writers of haiku is the poet Basho.  He wrote poems in Japan four-hundred years ago.  Here are a few of his haiku. 

Wrapping dumplings in 

bamboo leaves, with one finger  

she tidies her hair

In the moonlight a worm

silently

drills through a chestnut

Under the image of Buddha

All these spring flowers

Seem a little tiresome.

Many traditional haiku contain a kigo, or a seasonal word that lets the reader know the time of  year.  

Traditional haiku can also have a cut, some grammatical or spatial element that indicates a shift of attention in the poem from one object to another or one focal point to another.  In the first poem above, we see the cut at the comma when Basho turns his attention from the dumplings to the woman wrapping them.  In the second, the second line, with its single word, serves as the cut.  Finally, the line break from the first to second line in the third poem shows the cut as the focus turns from Buddha to the spring flowers. 

You’ll notice that the translated poems by Basho don’t use the five, seven, five syllable form.  But the poems remain simple and direct, and, in this case, remain three lines.  Some haiku in English are a single line, some are four or more lines.  It’s the directness and simplicity of the words and the focused attention that define the haiku in English more than the counting of syllables.  

According to RH Blyth in The Genius of Haiku, “Haiku does not aim at beauty…. it aims at significance, and some special kind of beauty is found hovering near.”

Since I also practice contemplative photography, I find that sometimes my poems and images align.  I share some of those poems and images in earlier blog posts.  Those poems are traditional haiku, following the 5/7/5 syllabic form.  

This poem, from my children's poetry collection, In the Garden, uses a haiku form without exact syllabification. 

Daisies

Stars in the garden, their white petals sparkle. 

Or are they suns?  Bright yellow centers

igniting the other flowers, making even sunflowers bow their heads.

Read more at Ryukokyu University http://www.ryukoku.ac.jp/haiku/haiku_en.html

Matsuo Basho at Poem Hunter http://www.poemhunter.com/matsuo-basho/poems/

There's also a lovely discussion of meter in haiku here at Prolific Press.

Paris History: Village St. Paul

Across from the large section of Phillipe Auguste’s wall on the right bank, near where the Hotel St. Pol, Charles V’s final royal residence in Paris stood, rests a charming little enclave of antique and art shoppes called the Village St. Paul.

I first happened on these shops during the day, when each connected courtyard was full of antique plates, vintage clothes, and funky home furnishings.  The sight was enchanting--piles of silver napkin rings, jet-beaded dresses, and antique fans. I spent time but no money (I bought too many books to buy trinkets as well).

Though there are a number of shops open during the day, I found this little market much less overwhelming than Marches aux Puces. It’s also a bit more focused and neighborly.  It’s a neighborhood market rather than a tourist trap, and the community feel of the park across the street where boys kick soccer balls against the 800-year-old wall enhances the local appeal. Lovely restaurants sit next to wine merchants.  The people seemed to know each other, and unlike most other places in Paris, no one spoke English back to me when I asked questions. 

Later in the week, I came back to the Village St. Paul in the evening when the shops had closed and was better able to explore the remnants of medieval construction and the space that was said to contain what was once the famed gardens of Charles the Wise.

I was able to stroll from courtyard to courtyard, appreciating the construction and the remnants of wood and stone that still supported the three and four story houses that lined the courtyards. 

In the middle ages, during Charles V's reign, the gardens that were said to be located here housed a cherry orchard, lions in cages, and vast kitchen and herb gardens.  Several sources also claim that Charles V's head gardener was a woman.  I use these facts (or rumors ;-) to create tension in the first Christine mystery Bed of Bones. 

Walking here, where the beams for the buildings were harvested from forests that stood eight-hundred years ago and were dragged back by horses into the city and where the stones were likely mined from underneath the city itself, I felt again the immense history of Paris.  Now the forests are gone. Where the trees grew is only a short car ride away. The old quarries where stones were pulled up through holes in the ground have been blocked off, cellar openings nailed or locked shut (though an entire cottage industry has grown up in Paris to help tourists explore these illegal underground ruins).  But the old walls and timbers remain and the sense of community remains as well here in Village St. Paul. 

West Florida Literary Foundation Poetry Challenge

Today, I wrote my 28th poem for the WFLF Poetry Challenge. Since Sept. 17, I've written two poems a day from the challenge. Some are garbage; some have promise.  I've enjoyed writing all of them (Well, except for the second villanelle.  Who needs to write two villanelles in a single month?)

In graduate school and before Connor was born, I kept the practice of writing a poem a day.  I wrote a lot of terrible poems, but the joy and discipline of daily working with words nourished me, and all of my writing improved from the daily practice.  I had to explore new forms. I had to pay attention to the world.  I had to learn to play.

WFLF hosted the first poetry readings I ever attended, so writing poems for this challenge was a coming home of sorts. They are still fresh, and they need much work in all the ways that poems need work: syntax, rhythm, word choice, theme, line breaks, figurative language, etc. But I've rediscovered a practice that makes every day better.

Here is the poem from Day 15.

Fall Away

I raise my right hand overhead, place the tip of my thumb on my index finger

jnana, binding my self with the soul of the world.

I raise my left hand, shoulder level, palm out, varada,

my open hand a gesture of forgiveness.

My left hand says there is much work to do; my right, I cannot do this alone.

Forgiveness is the work of fall.  The brittle limbs and fading leaves I’ve held close

long to fall away, to nourish the soil for next year’s growth.

I might have shed them in spring,

but I waited to see if they would blossom.

In summer, new leaves and bursting blooms hid them.

Now, I can feel into the places

where wounds I’ve held seek release.

I let the wind move me.

Gravity adds her tug,

and the branches, dead and hollow in their core,

pull away.  Somewhere on the end
of the limbs I’m letting go, there is a seed. 

Read more about the WFLF Poem a Day for September Challenge here.  Thanks to Elizabeth Cantonwine Schmidt for telling me about this challenge.




As always, words and images on this blog copyright Lori Gravley-Novello, 2013 & 2014.  Use only with written permission of the artist/author.

Paris History: Maison d'Ourscamp

This lovely building in the Marais is home to a non-profit corporation that was formed in 1963 and was responsible for saving the Marais when the city of Paris planned to raze the district and carry out Le Corbusier’s monumental plan. 

I love Corbusier, but I’m so glad that Parisians joined to save both this building and many other in the Marais. The organization is staffed by volunteers who are knowledgeable and friendly. Some even speak better than passable English.

You’ll find an architectural gem here as you go up the stairs, noting both the staircase and the center timber of a staircase donated to them by someone restoring their home.   My guide told me that she had seen a complete staircase similar to this one n the Victoria and Albert museum in London. There are many recycled things here, Parisian homeowners donate items of historical and architectural interest, and Paris Historique uses them in its restorations.

The real treat here, though, is the cellar.  This former Cistercian abbey has a cellar that is slowly being restored by the students of the local school Compagnons du Devoir and others.  The ceiling is vaulted, the old well is visible, and there are many items of interest here including the metal bands used to support columns that began to crumble as the upstairs building got bigger and heavier in the 16th century. 

Also, behind a gate you won’t be able to go through, there are passageways into other cellars. My guide, Esther, told me that it’s possible that many abbeys in the area were linked by underground passageways. 

Finally, the bookshop is stocked with items about Paris History.  I found a map I had been searching for for years here, and though I paid a pretty penny and had to struggle to get it home in good form, the map itself was worth the trip for me.  The organization is run by volunteers and by donations. You can find out more about their work at the Paris Historique website Paris Historique.

Hanging Words in Air

Elizabeth Bishop used to hang her poems up around the house and read them as she passed by in order to get new eyes for revision.  

Robert Lowell wrote a poem for her that describes her practice:

Do

you still hang your words in air, ten years

unfinished, glued to your notice board, with gaps

or empties for the unimaginable phrase—

unerring muse who makes the casual perfect?

The wonderful find of a huge chalkboard with metal backing on the Yellow Springs garage sale page (thanks, Miracle), led to this adaptation of the practice. I may not have Bishop's talent or patience, but I'm looking forward to finding ways to make "the casual perfect."

Here's to seeing with new eyes.

Fall

A gift in the path

yellow leaf dotted with dew

autumn’s first message.

I've continued the practice of writing haiku every day so far this month, and many days, the haiku link up to the images on my Instagram account (@lorigravley). I appreciate how the practice (the poems and posting to Instagram) invites me to pay attention.

Paris History: Wall of Philippe Auguste

When I imagined the wall of Philippe Auguste, I imagined something about the height of a garden wall.  I should have listened to Mrs. Hackett in 6th grade when she told us we would all need to know the metric system someday. I had read that the wall was so and so meters tall, but since I can’t easily convert meters to feet, I ignored the measurement and continued to picture a wall maybe ten feet tall.

After a lovely walk through the native plant gardens at Arena Lutece (the ancient Roman arena uncovered under the city of Paris), I made my way up the Rue Rollin, on to Rue du Cardinal Lemoine and then to 12 Rue Clovis and the large section of the wall visible on the left bank. There is a small plaque, as there are throughout Paris, next to the enceinte that gives the history.  In this case, the wall, three Paris stories high, has been used to support the adjoining building.  A smart engineer or architect incorporated the thick, ancient wall into the design for the attached building just as the architects during Philippe’s and later times used the wall for support, insulation, and defense. 

Perhaps I’d seen the wall on earlier trips to Paris, but then I hadn’t been looking for it.  It hadn’t been important for me to understand the wall and its history.  My visit, this time, was rounded about by the wall.  Searching for and finding it was a highlight of my Paris trip.

I was impressed with this first view, and seeing the portions of the wall and old towers at the Louvre moved me to tears, but by far the most impressive yet almost pedestrian discovery of the wall is on the right bank at the Village St. Paul where a long section of the wall encloses a public park.  In the photograph, you can see a child hitting a soccer ball against this nearly 1,000 year old testament to the protection of Paris. 

(Photos: Top, 12 Rue Clovis; Middle, Louvre; Bottom, Village of Saint Paul.  All Photos by Lori Gravley, please request permission to repost.)