NaNoWriMo - Pre-game

WHY, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE. That's what this post is about.

Why: A friend of mine was asking herself this question today. She was going to participate in NaNo this year but today began to question whether she really wanted to spend her time this way. She questioned whether her time could be spent in ways that were more fulfilling to her. I think that's an important question that everyone should be asking themselves today. There's

this idea in the writing world that there are two types of writers: The types that do it for fun and the types that do it for money. I don't think that's true though. Sure, some writers sell stuff, but if writing isn't fun for you, whether you're getting paid or not, then why do it?

So why am I doing it? First and foremost because I love writing. But mostly because this is like a marathon. I know I can write a book, but this is like an endurance test. I have something to prove to myself.

What: The all important what. Having figured out why I'm doing this, the second most important question is: What am I going to write? I'm going to write a middle grade novel that I've been thinking about for some months now. I'm not a crazy outliner. I admire those types, but for UNDO BUTTON I only really know two things for sure: how the story begins and how it ends. To some people, that may sound like a lot, but it's really not. There's that whole middle section--how my characters get from the beginning to the end--that I have to worry about. I have some ideas...lots of ideas actually...but most of the time my best laid plans go out the window when I'm in the thick of things. And that's kind of the fun part.

When: After the what is the when. When am I going to write an 80,000 word novel in 30 days. Because that's about the size of the book I'm envisioning. I've already done a great job of carving out 4 days a week that I'm able to work uninterrupted for 3-4 hours. But I need more. So for this month I'm going to put aside television (for real this time--no cheating!!), books waiting to be read, and most everything, and just focus on the writing. I know that sitting in a chair for most of my waking hours won't fly. I'd be writing my book in dirty limerick by day five, so I'm going to take frequent breaks to exercise. I have my elliptical here at home and my

knee is feeling good enough again that I'm going to get back on track with running. So that's it. For the next month my schedule will revolve around doing 4 things: work, writing, exercising, and sleeping.

Where: Well that's actually the easy part. I think I often get too tied to ritual. In my old apartment, I could only write outside in the fresh air. In my new apartment, I only write

inside at my desk. I enjoy coffee shops, but lugging my laptop is a pain. I have a 15" Macbook Pro, and it's a heavy beast. Plus, the battery life stinks and finding a seat next to an outlet is usually nigh impossible. But this month I'm unshackling myself from ritual. I'm going to write whenever and wherever I have a few free seconds. To that end, I hacked a Dell Mini 10v to run OS X. Best move I ever made. The thing is tiny, light, and I've equipped it as just a writing computer. It's got no games, not extraneous applications. Just Word, access to my cloud where I keep my documents, and a good writing mix. The keyboard is a touch smaller than what I'm used to, but I've typed this on it with no problem.

So those are my W's. And since everyone approaches writing differently, I'm curious to hear about your W's. Even if you're not doing NaNo, I'd love to hear why those of you who write, do it and what your other W's are.

Also, my demon dog says to have a happy Halloween!

The Nook - Why I'm Going to Pass

When it comes to buying e-books, there's a larger issue than device that turns me off. It's the concept of DRM. DRM basically says that I don't own the books on my terms. I own the books on another person's terms and thus can't do with them as I please. That's a simplistic summary of my feelings on DRM so that I can put it aside and talk about why I'm passing on the Nook.

I WANT an E-Reader. Badly. I want something I can carry all my book on while traveling, something I can proof my manuscripts on, something I can take notes on. The Kindle was an awkward first step but so limited as to be unusable to me. When the Nook was announced, I was excited. Very. To the point that I started reading everything I could about it. My primary concern (after DRM) is an inability to share books. I think I've discussed this in a post about the Kindle. The nook advertised an ability to do just that. Loan an e-book out to one person at a time for 14 days. In my opinion, that's a reasonable trade.

But within a couple of days I learned that B&N couldn't reach agreements with most publishers to allow books to be shared, so the sharing capability is so severely crippled as to be useless. But that's not why I'm passing.

I'm passing because the Nook has made it clear that the e-book market is simply too immature to adopt into. book sellers are tossing out products left and right, trying to make something appealing and mostly failing. Publishers are being resistant by meddling with pricing and staggering the electronic releases and the physical releases. Both of which leaves readers in a dark space between the two. Why buy a product that imposes limits on the way you currently do things? Until I can do with an e-book, everything I do with a book, then I'm staying out of the game.

Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon. Publishers are acting the same way record companies did when music went digital. Instead of embracing the technology and finding ways to make it profitable AND fun, they sued everyone on the planet and put up roadblocks in the way of anyone who tried to make digital music work.

Dear Publishers, say this with me: CUSTOMERS ARE NOT THE ENEMY. Say it every day when you wake up, every night before you sleep, at every board meeting. Because that's the key. If you make it easier for your customers to get your product and stop putting draconian limitations on those products, you'll see things begin to look up. Look at the iPod. The reason Apple dominates the music download market is because they made getting and listening to music DEAD SIMPLE.

Right. So that's why I'm passing on the Nook. But kudos to B&N for inching closer to the mark. Unfortunately, "almost as good as a book," simply isn't good enough.

UPDATE: For a different opinion, take a look at Shannon's blog Daily Pie (which is almost as awesome as real pie by the way).

30 Days of NaNo

I consider myself to be a fast writer. I wrote the first draft of The Deathday Letter in six weeks. But I have a schedule. I write in the morning, averaging about 2600 words four days per week. Usually I'm too mentally drained when I get home from work to write in the evenings.

However NaNo is going to force me to work a little differently. If I write every day, I'll need to average about 1667 words per day. I figure the best way for me to do it will be to get out of my comfort zone. Get away from my desk. Away from my favorite comfy shorts with the rip in the bum. I'm going to have to work at night and in the morning and before work and on lunch and at the beach and in my Jeep.

To help me in my endeavor, I bought a Dell Mini 10v that I'm going to hack to run OS X 10.6. Gizmodo has a great tutorial on doing this. I found a refurbed one on Dell's site with 6 cell battery for about 7 hours of use for $319. Sure, I could use my regular laptop, but it's a beast to carry and it's got a functional battery life of about 2.5 hours, and the point is to get out of my comfort zone, to push my boundaries. That's what this is all about.

In keeping with the theme, I'll be posting every day. My stats, challenges, how much coffee I've had, how much I spilled on my pants.

So, write on.

That was lame. I know.

Week In Review

This has been a long week and, frankly, I'm glad it's done.

This week's theme seems to have been: Picking Your Battles. Growing up, I viewed the world as a black and white place. There was right and there was wrong. To an extent, I still view the world that way. But, now that I'm older, I'm more inclined to weigh the consequences of taking a stance over the reward. My senior year of HS I nearly didn't graduate because I took a stance. It was fairly stupid but I was sure I was in the right. I refused to ever go back to that class and as a result I failed and nearly didn't graduate. At the time, that was huge. But I was armed with my belief that I was right, and the rest didn't matter. I believed that compromising my ideals was the worst thing I could do.

These days I face those types of decisions with far more frequency. I'm asked to do things at my job that aren't necessarily wrong, but that I don't agree with. But I do them because I don't want to jeopardize my career and my ability to maintain a lifestyle to which I'm grown accustomed. The old me wouldn't like the new me so much, but then again, the old me didn't have to keep food in the fridge.

I saw Where The Wild Things Are last night. I'd read that it was visually beautiful but lacking in story or depth. I couldn't disagree with the second part of the statement more.

As I began to get old, I frequently wondered when I'd feel like an adult. When I'd grow up. When I'd stop feeling like I was just making it up as I went along. It wasn't until my late twenties that I finally realized that never happens. We just get better at faking it. Adults are just big kids who have forgotten how to live in a moment. And that's what I think WtWTA was about. Or to put it better: The Wild Things are Max. The movie portrays, with aching accuracy, the alienation, loneliness, and confusion of being a child. All anyone really wants is to sleep in a real pile with the people who love them, and to live in a fort that cuts out the brains of the people they don't want to come in.

I get the criticisms people had. There really isn't a driving story. There's no external conflict or action driving the story. It's just an angry boy who wants people to love him and pay attention to him. It's what happens when he becomes the parent. It's his realization that being a child is hard, but that being a parent is equally difficult. It's a beautiful, sad, haunting story that conveys a simple message: being a family is difficult, but worth it.

As for the technical stuff: The little actor who played Max was spot on. Everything about his performance felt genuine. The monsters and the visuals were holy-crap-awesome. The soundtrack by Karen O was inspired.

I've been working my way through my copy edits. This is one of my last chances to go through The Deathday Letter, so I'm trying to be extra careful. It's tough though. I've seen these words so many times that they're all jumbled together. I can't wait for everyone else to see the words though, because I love them so.

NaNo is coming up and I'm über excited.

Also, if you haven't been watching Dollhouse, please do so before it gets cancelled. And watch Glee.

Finally, since I finally got and released my cover, I also now have my book tattoo.

Blog Chain: Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me

Back on the blog chain again and this time the topic comes from Kat who wants to know:

What are the primary fears that drive your characters? Do they battle aliens of gangsters or monsters? Or do they battle unreconciled issues in their lives? Which do you prefer writing about? What do you fear?

This is a really fantastic topic and my fellow blog chainers have given some spectacular answers. Hopefully I have something new to add. I'm going to start with my own personal fears. Clowns. Despise them. I think it stems from watching IT. If I even think of that movie, showering becomes a nightmare. I'm also not a big fan of fire or falling. But I'm less afraid of those things than I am afraid of their consequences. For instance, I'm not afraid of fire per se, I'm afraid of being burned. And I'm not afraid of heights, I'm afraid of falling from a great height. But my biggest fear is being too afraid. And that's what personally drives me. My fear of being burned didn't stop me from trying to get through the academy to be a fireman. Or climbing up ladders or anything at all. I use my fear as a propellent for the rest of my life. When I'm most afraid, like when I sent out my manuscript for The Deathday Letter, is when I know my life is about to change.

As for my characters...well my writing is influenced in a huge way by Joss Whedon. Sure, he doesn't write novels (unless you count comic books) but he uses his characters' outer worlds to expose the conflict and fear of their inner. He's a bit of a genius at this. My concept with The Deathday Letter was to have this fictional object--the letter--expose my character's greatest fear: that he'd die without accomplishing anything.

I guess I don't have one specific thing, but I do like the outer world to be an amplified reflection of the inner. In a MG novel I'm writing for NaNo, my main character fears being invisible, fears that everyone hates him and no one wants him around. Then children from the future come and actually attempt to erase him from time. His biggest fear made larger than life. Tying back to that, one of my favorite Whedon episodes was about a girl in high school who became invisible because she thought no one noticed her. Great stuff.

Hope I was able to add something to the already awesome discussion. Why not check out the fantabulous Michelle who came before and then head on over to Cole's blog to see what awesomeness she's got in store for you! Happy Halloween.

The Deathday Letter: The Cover!

Today I got the finalized cover for The Deathday Letter along with permission to share it. So, sparing you the theatrics, here it is:

Blog Chain: Pack Your Bags!

It's blog chain time again. This awesome chain was brought to you by Sandra who asked:

What kind of journeys do your characters make? What effects do they have on the characters and the plot? Also, if you wish, please tell us about one of your personal journeys and how it changed you.

When I get an idea for a story, I generally begin with the characters and what their stories are. 99% of the time, when I sit down to write, I know two things: Where my story begins and where it ends. That includes physically and emotionally. Then I sit down and try to plot out the actual journey and my character's journey.

For instance, one of the first books I wrote (which ended up in a drawer thankfully) has a character whose twin brother is kidnapped by a carnival. He believes he has to travel through a mirror maze and into another world to save him. By the end of the story, he's taken both of those journeys. The physical one has led him all across a fantastical land filled with danger. His emotional journey brought him to accept that his brother is never coming back. By the end of the story, my character ended up in exactly the same place he was at the beginning of the story. He was in his town missing his brother. But emotionally he'd come to accept his brother's death and move on.

Not all of my journeys are so circular, but they all involve my MC coming to accept and embrace the circumstances that life has given.

The personal journey that really taught me that was the time I went to Italy. I'd been given a vacation on short notice and tried to gather some friends and family to go, but couldn't. I wanted to go to Europe but I didn't want to go alone. I nearly didn't take the trip, but in the end I decided to do it. I spent two weeks in a foreign country with zero knowledge of the language or culture. It was the most amazing experience of my life. Not only did I learn how capable I was, but I learned to embrace the unknown. I'd go into restaurants in Rome and just tell them to bring me whatever they enjoyed eating the most. Rarely did I actually know what I was eating, but that made it so much better.

Anyway, this post is feeling a bit fractured and rambly. So to sum it up I'll simply say that I like to send my characters on journeys that help them discover the truth within themselves. Everyone's strong, everyone's a hero, they just need to be given the chance to be those things.

Awesome. Don't forget to visit Michelle's stellar take on this, and then nip on over to Cole's blog where I'm sure she'll give you something to laugh about.

NaNoWriMo and Book Review: LIAR

I want to begin with NaNoWriMo. I've wanted to do this for a couple of years now. Last year I was busy with Deathday and didn't have time, but this year I'm just diving in and doing it. I've been having the book two blues and think NaNoWriMo will be a good way to just forget everything and do it. It'll be interesting seeing as I'm not going to use any of my normal writing time for it. My mornings will still be devoted to working on my followup to Deathday, whatever that may be. No, for NaNoWriMo I'm going to work on a middle grade novel I've been dreaming of for almost a year. It's only recently that I've come up with an idea to bridge some of the plot holes.

Anyway, if you want to follow my progress there, I'm shauniedarko.

My review of LIAR. I'm going to keep this spoiler free, which means it might be a bit thin, but worth it. LIAR was the kind of book that made me proud to be a writer, and also made me feel like a hack. Really, I thought it was that good.

Okay, so it's the story of a pathological liar named Micah and the death of a boy in her class that she may or may not have been secretly dating. That's all I'm telling you about the plot.

I loved this book because it made me examine every word. The major twist in the book was more than a shock and while some people found it annoying, I thought it was s stroke of brilliance. On top of that, Justine Larbalestier's writing and structure are top-notch. The best books, in my opinion, are the ones I can lose myself in, and I devoured this one in an afternoon.

I wish I could go into greater depth but I think part of the value of this book is discovering it for yourself. That said, I recommend this book as one of the best I've read this year. Go buy it!