author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Wow. Not a heck of a lot of novel gets edited in an hour and a half. I got through about... three pages. Three well-marked pages, and lots of accompanying mustn't forgets in my notebook.

I have realized that A) the first scene in my novel sucks, but B) it has to stay, so C) I may end up utterly rewriting it.

This must be why the fate of so many 1950s-era story drafts was to end as a crumpled-up ball on the floor. Not unlike the fate of several clinically depressed writers, sadly enough.

Well, more tomorrow. I'll be getting on a plane and heading off to Seattle. Which is fortunate, because the first scene in this novel involves a plane taking off at Seatac. I mustn't forget to notice exactly how the preflight briefing speech goes, exactly what Seatac's geographical relationship to Seattle is (with reference to I-5), and exactly how (and whether) the name of that aiport town is supposed to be punctuated. ("Sea-Tac"? "Seatac"? "SeaTac"? Er...)

In a way, that means my vacation is a paid vacation. I would be more jolly about that fact if I knew I actually would get paid, of course. But, as noted in the previous entry, you don't get contracted pre-novel until after you've novelled pre-contract. Whee!

In other news, I've started working on the definitive PDF template for archiving Neverending Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Stories. And I finally got a working cron job in place on that site and scheduled to prune the deleted items list every morning at five past midnight. Yes, it's procrastination, but it's productive procrastination, so shut up.

NaNoWriMo writers in search of something to get pissed off about should go here. (Nota bene: While this particular article is safe for the work environment, the rest of Ms. Case's blog is decidedly not.) Those who would like to refrain from bringing the gunpowder kegs of their tempers into close proximity with the sparks of Ms. Case's small-minded ignorance might wish to read this brief excerpt instead.

There is no market for 50,000 word novels. No real publisher will look at a novel that short, but it is too long to be published as a novella. It is pretty much the most useless length of story someone could train themselves to tell. Different word counts lend themselves to different sorts of stories, with different levels of complexity and character involvement. The 50,000 word length is what happens when a real writer gets stuck and has a story too complex for short fiction but not rich enough for an actual novel. A 50,000 word story is a tragedy which will never see the outside of the writer’s desk drawer. And NaNoWriMo is trying to teach people how to turn a passing interest in writing into a failure.

There is nothing wrong with writing only for yourself or for yourself and a few loved ones or for yourself and few drinking buddies. Writing to satisfy only your own passion in fine. Writing to only amuse a small group is fine. Writing a professional word count because the rent does not pay itself is fine. But forcing yourself to write crap for a month? That is just pathetic and the people encouraging this should be embarrassed.

A winning NaNoWriMo manuscript is a first draft. This is the main bit Ms. Case appears not to get. She is under the impression that a 50,000 word manuscript can't grow to a more acceptable novel length (or shrink to a lovely novella) on the rewrite. (She may also be unaware that 50K is actually right on the money for a YA novel.) She is under the impression, furthermore, that those 50,000 words are set in stone. That if they are crap on November 30 they will remain crap forever and thus be a waste of the NaNoWriMo competitor's time. Foolish woman, I say! Foolish, foolish woman! And you know what else?

The process of writing a 50K-word plot in 30 days is worthwhile regardless of whether a rewrite ever happens. Ms. Case is under yet another foolish impression: that our efforts are doomed to failure and our time is wasted thereby. I beg to differ. I have heard the anecdote repeated by various published writers (the source, according to Neil Gaiman, is Raymond Chandler) that every writer has a million words of crap in him, and the trick is to practice through those million words as fast as possible. 50,000 words is a fair bit of practice! And it's not just timed writing exercises a la Goldberg or morning pages a la Cameron. It's 50,000 words on a single story. So it's an exercise not only in writing, but in sticking with a single story for a whole month, and in getting that story told on a month's deadline. These are all worthwhile skills. No writer who takes on the NaNoWriMo challenge should be called a failure - and no writer who wins at that challenge should ever be considered to have wasted his or her time.

The people encouraging NaNoWriMo ought to be proud of themselves. By providing a well-publicized dare and an organized online community to share in that dare, Chris Baty and his Minions Of Love And Carpal Tunnel Syndrome have given us that psychological kick in the pants that many people need (and should not be ridiculed for needing) to go from "I'll write a book someday," to, "I've written a book!" The career writer ends up with a serviceable rough draft; the non-career writer ends up with an outlet for whatever thoughts have been prowling restlessly inside. And, hey, check this out, NaNoWriMo as an entity has raised enough money this year not only to pay its own operational costs but also to build three, going on four, libraries in Cambodia.

Ms. Case thinks that Chris Baty et al should be ashamed?

I think Ms. Case should be ashamed. I mean, libraries in Cambodia!

Now, the question of whether a NaNoWriMo winner should be encouraged to call him/herself a "novelist" is of course up for grabs. My friend Alma, for instance, says no. And her opinion, not unexpectedly, has made quite a few NaNoWriMo participants pretty angry. Rereading her article now and comparing it to the follow-up conversation I had with her last year, I think that's mostly because in her vehemence she appears to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But I don't think baby-disposal was actually her intention - she clarifies her opinion in a calmer manner at the bottom of this page. If you find yourself getting upset with her article, do read this follow-up before saying anything rash.

Alma's opinion is simply this: if all you have done is pounded out a 50,000 word rough draft, claiming the title "novelist" makes light of the hard work that the career of a novelist implies: you write and revise book after book and you send them off to agents and publishers and you steel yourself for rejections and you hope against faltering hope that this time it's a buy because you've got a mortgage to pay and dinner to put on the table. Until you've been through that wringer, she says, you can brag that you've written a book, and it's a great brag, but you shouldn't call yourself a novelist, and Chris Baty oughtn't to encourage you to call yourself a novelist.

It's a valid opinion, and it differs from Ms. Case's in that it gets my respect. Alma's opinion is informed by somewhat more knowledge of what NaNoWriMo is about than is Ms. Case's - she understands the bit about it being a rough draft, you see, and Ms. Case does not. Alma's later clarification makes clear that her objection is simply to the use of an unearned word; Ms. Case's problem, as her encore elucidates, is with NaNoWriMo participants' use of their time, "using NaNoWriMo as their excuse to be inconsiderate lovers and friends.... making these excuses to people who have real keep-food-on-the-table deadlines to make and acting like theirs were more important." Perhaps Ms. Case only cuts slack for writers whose deadline is imposed by people who sign paychecks? All other writers - you know, us slackers who compose manuscripts on pure hope, not having yet enjoyed the level of success that brings a publisher's multibook contract - we're not following our dreams; we're just being "inconsiderate." (Gods only know how we're supposed to get to that level of success if we're not allowed to take the time to write now.)

And don't think she's backed off at all from her original epithets for NaNoWriMo participants:

...trophy wives trying to prove they have a few brain cells now that they are getting older and less pretty.... unemployed leech boyfriends who need to claim they are doing something besides shooting up and watching cartoons while their girl is at work.

Unlike Alma, who is simply arguing for one definition of the word "novelist" over another, Ms. Case has utter contempt for the entire NaNoWriMo she-bang and all its participants. She would be made happiest, I think, if one day she clicked on this link and got redirected to one of those "This Domain Could Be Yours!" sites. And she has advice for her NaNoWriMo participant friends:

There is also nothing wrong with loving books in general and novels in specific and not wanting to write one. Reading is a perfectly good pastime. Internet technology makes it really easy to keep a journal about whatever you actually do feel moved to write about. So maybe next November, fewer people will bring up the NaNoWriMo travesty. At least to me.

Yes, the ending still makes me cry.

There's hope for this novel yet.

From NaNoEdMo.org:

What counts as an hour?
For the purpose of this event, an hour is any amount of time spent making actual edits. Clacking out words on the keyboard, crossing out things on the page, writing new words in the margins... Big structural thinking is more pre-prep. Besides, if I clocked every moment I spent thinking about my novel, I'd finish the 50 hours in just over 2 days. But actually working on it? That's another story altogether. And that's what NaNoEdMo is all about.

So, yes, I'm going to try for that 50 hours in a month thing. The month will be December. Ish. I'm actually attempting to get through one cycle by Jan 5, as outlined previously. (I think I need some sort of place to display that goal, prominently, on this blog somewhere. But I think I need to think about that later, and write now.)

Go see this movie. Go see it right now this minute well OK tomorrow. It is pure sublimity in a 90 minute package. It is beautiful and sad and uplifting and full of a goodness that is in rare short supply.

My husband said he liked the movie very much, and would have liked it even better if the second half of it weren't so blurry.

When you go, bring with you half a box of tissue, and, if you have one at your disposal, bring also a small child to tell you that the movie's over you can stop crying now no really.

OK, so it's not really a misery journey. I admit I am misusing the term. But, never having revised a book before, let alone one of my so-called novel drafts, and knowing how I start to get the creeping horrors when it's time to revise a short story... I am being duly pessimistic. Misery! Horrors! Novel Revision Hell!

Why am I doing this now? Well, it's too soon to start revising my 2004 novel. I am a firm believer of composting the first draft, having that quiet faith in round new potatoes springing from the rotten, sprouting remains of the old tubers you pitched out into the backyard. Also, which is more to the point, having the too-close-to-the-text syndrome something awful. And as for my 2002 NaNoWriMo expedition, well, it didn't seem as good a fit for what I have in mind...

Wizards of the Coast is seeking proposals for its brand-new line of fiction! Our exciting new imprint will publish science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternate history, magic realism, or anything in-between. If it can be shelved in the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror section of your local bookstore, we want it! We're interested both in the first book in a trilogy or longer series as well as stand-alone stories.

We are looking for the best, most original idea as well as compelling writing. We'll consider any style and subject matter. Please be aware, though, that what will count most for us is your ability to tell an exciting, original story in prose that makes us want to keep turning the pages.

To launch this book and the new imprint under which it will be published, we are planning a substantial marketing campaign. This book will be one of the most important that we publish in 2006.

So I'm considering submitting this novel right here. Worse case scenario, I have a ready-to-flog book that didn't get accepted. Best case scenario, I have a humungo monster marketing machine jump-start to my career.

Actually, the worst case scenario, if my paranoia is at all well founded, is that I submit it, they like it, they don't feel like paying me for it, and they'll run off into that misty territory where the legal agreement's "idea submission" subclause (c) meets the "waiver" clause, and they'll steal my novel. I'm hoping that someone who's more knowledgeable than I in the ways of publishing contracts can take a look at the legal agreement and advise me as to whether I should even be considering touching this contest with a ten-foot pole. (Yes, yes, I know that "but what if they steal my manuscript?" worry is frightfully amateurish. Look, I'm willing to quack like that duck if it keeps me from getting slaughtered like a lamb.)

But what the hell. Even if I oughtn't to submit, I'll have a finished novel. To submit elsewhere. And to shake happily in the face of Jethro and his Greeley Novel Finishing Month Pledge, which I have Undersigned myself to as follows:

Welcome to the Greeley Novelists Finishing Month!

We the undersigned vow to reach our own personal goals by January 5, 2005. We will encourage and applaud each other to strive to reach these lofty goals (unless, of course, we fail to reach those goals which gives the other GreNos free reign to change your middle name to "Nunn.")

We undertake this challenge knowing full-well that our friends, family and loved ones will be largely ignored for large blocks of time. We understand this is the same month as Christmas, New Year's Eve and probably lots of auto-ped accidents and that no sane people would even attempt it at this time of year. We don't care. We will do this...

Name: Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

Personal Goal: Completing one (1) revision cycle on my 2003 NaNoWriMo Novel (working title: "The Drowning Boy") with option to submit it to WOTC's Novel Proposal Contest by mid-February.

So I got started thinking about it last night. I printed me out a copy of Holly Lisle's One-Pass Manuscript Revision technique and scrounged around for a one-subject spiral notebook and wrote down, "Theme:" ... and then I played video games until bedtime. But it's a start!

Better still was taking a longish walk down to the Whole Foods at Pearl and 30th Streets for some groceries, and rehashing the story arc in my head. Those who know me (and those who have lived with me) know that such rehashing was prone to coming out of my head. I talk to myself think out loud. Well, how am I gonna know what I'm thinking unless I tell myself, eh? Anyway, by the time I got home again with the cat food fixings and the sushi elements and the dishwashing liquid and the toilet paper (and the painful shoulders buckling under the weight of the two canvas sacks)... I had all sorts of insights about the story. To whit:

• The parallels, symmetries, and contradictions between the main character and his brother
• The odd sort of moral relativity introduced by positing a species that reproduces only by mating with drowning humans and refraining from rescuing them
• The difference between said reproduction and true sexual predation
• The way the main character's two closest acquaintances react to his time on land growing short
• And how life's basic unfairness doesn't let us off the hook from the responsibilty of acting justly.

Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes.

I have not only crossed the 50K line, but I have also finished the story. That is so cool!

Well... there's probably a few loose ends that could be tied up. I still haven't decided whether Diane's parents get divorced or get back together, or exactly how Diane met Mitch. But these and other "what happened" sort of questions haven't left big holes in the novel - they've been sort of touched on and glossed over in vaguely satisfactory ways. No, the real problems with this draft have to do with the plot being as subtle as a concrete block falling on your head, and the moral of the story getting thwacked home with a sledgehammer. Editing this sucker will be a matter of making the basic story happen a little more gracefully.

Oh, and finally managing to memorize the Lenner/Wodemeier family tree. I kept forgetting which grandchild belonged to which daughter and how old each was and whether everyone's ages were plausible for the timeline. I'll sketch that one out when NaNoEdMo comes along.

So. Yay!

Tomorrow I'm probably going to get that short-short I mentioned turned in to somewhere or other, and not get a lot more done than that. Then, Wednesday, the first of December, will see those of us who can be bothered to show up having a bit of a celebratory dinner at Conor O'Neill's.

And then it's back to life as usual.

Now, if I can manage to keep up the 2K-a-day pace on all my writing projects, I will be a Golden Writing Goddess!

But unlike NaNoWriMo, in a normal writing life, I'll take weekends off.

That's all I have to say, really.

Oh, yes, and my contribution to the pot luck was Mom's Fabulous Spinach & Artichoke Dip, only with hearts o' palm instead of artichoke.

ML stands for Municipal Liaison. I got volunteered for this position when our previous ML, sgmoo, let us know that she'd be out of town for most of November (and indeed has not been heard from yet). She said, "I'm so glad vortexae has volunteered for the position; she'll do an excellent job." And I said, "I did what?" And she said, "That's the spirit!"

So I'm the Boulder ML this year. I get to try to organize write-ins and meet-ups, let folks know when said write-in and meet-ups are happening, and use my magical ML powers to do stuff like put these events on the calendar.

I also get to be the contact point for Fatty, the Goddess Of All NaNoWriMo Goodies. That means that when she is able to get those goodies together, I'm the one she's mailing 'em to and I get to distribute them to my Boulder-area NaNo buddies.

So today I got to start with that. I got to put on one of these classy little NaNoWriMo buttons, and I got to give one to Kandybar.

And then I left the Tea Spot for to catch a 205 back to my end of town, headphones trailing out of my bookbag and book in hand... and I left the Goodies Envelope behind.

It's OK! It's all right! I spoke to Mr. John Little, barista extraordinaire (and no relation to my husband - there are a lot of John Littles in this world), and it seems the envelope has already been discovered and turned in to the lost and found box.

(I think the conversation must have gone something like this: "Hey, I found this envelope here addressed to a Niki LeBoeuf-Little... do you know this person?" "Yeah... that's the very confused young lady that called me thinking she left her wallet here last week.")

So my husband has gone with a friend to Acqua Pazza, the Italian restaurant next door to the Tea Spot, for dinner, and has pledged to pick up the envelope and bring it home to me so I can continue distributing the NaNoWriMo Goodies. And tomorrow I should have better luck with holding onto them, 'cause the meet-up and write-in tomorrow evening is at my house. Nice and simple.

Now I just have to figure out what to cook us for dinner.

1. No sex, at least none onstage.

For some reason rape is an exception to the unwritten "no sex in YA novels" rule - I guess that's because rape is actually an act of violence, not of sex. Violence always seems to be more accepted for younger readers then sex is. (I say "accepted for," not "acceptable to," because younger readers will read anything you throw at them that doesn't make them feel too uncomfortable. It's when adults choose reading material for younger readers that these filters come into play.) I think it really comes down to our weirdly neurotic American puritanical heritage: you're never too young to suffer, say the Godly ones, but you must not under any circumstances be allowed to enjoy yourself until you're of statutory age of consent, married, and planning to stuff yourself with babies.

2. Adults mustn't see the supernatural thingie.

Oops.

3. The magic stuff has to go away by the end of the novel.

I always hated how the wing-juice ran out and the ponies all left forever and the Egypt game lost its appeal (Zylpha Keatley Snyder) and the girls stopped believing that they were witches (E. L. Konigsberg, Edmund Wallace Hildick). But I think in this story I've come up with a compromise between magic lasting forever without giving the girl superpowers forever, in a way that at least meets my standards for story necessity.

So are there any rules I missed?