Tag Archives: nanowrimo

The Problem of Writing a Romance When There’s No Romance in Your Life

Relationships, Writing, , , , ,

 I found myself thinking back on one of those great romance stories, specifically the one that plays out really well in Romancing the Stone, with Kathleen Turner. In this movie, Turner plays a romance writer who stumbles while realizing she doesn’t know what her romantic hero would look like, but has a basic idea of his characterizations only, and then goes on her whirlwind romance where she finds the “hero” to become her shining knight (as that kind of story generally requires). Well, recently, while working on my novel in progress, I’m come to a similar situation.

Okay, not exactly like the movie, in that I’m some romantic novelist looking for my knight in shining armor, or even my knightess in shining armor. But as I put together the basic framework of the novel and built the edges of what would need to be filled in, I’ve come to a horrible conclusion that is making this novel very difficult to write. You see, romance has never really been a part of my life.

Adventure? Yes, there’s been a lot of that. Intrigue, conspiracies, espionage, and action? Yes, those have all been a part of my life at one time or another. And I’ve written extensively about those sorts of subjects. I’ve even used the elements of adventure and crafted science fiction and fantasy tales of great imagination.

But romance? Well, that’s really never been a part of my life.

Sure, I’ve been involved in relationships, but to be honest, most of my relationships have been a lot more Woody Allen-ish than Jame Bond-ish. To be even more honest, the kinds of romances I’ve lived in my life would fill a bunch of comedy novels and screenplays, and that’s fine, but that isn’t what I set out to write this time around. I was trying to write what would end up being a powerful romance of a completely tragic nature. There’s very little comedy in that area of what I’ve been trying to capture.

Which leaves me with the dilemma that hits a lot of writers, in that it is often very difficult to write about what one wants to write rather than what one knows. People who know a little bit about writing (and quite often those who know very little bit about it) constantly harangue writers about “write what you know”. And that can be very good advice for when you’re starting out. The usual journey of a writer goes like this:

Novel 1: Write out that unique idea you’ve been thinking about for ages.

Novel 2: Write about killing off your family/parents/friends (either physically or metaphorically).

Novel 3: Rehash an idea that’s been bothering you for awhile (and complete the requirements of Novel 2 if not already done so in Novel 1 or 2).

Novel 4: Reinvent Yourself as a Writer

And every novel after that serves as a reawakening as a writer, in which you learn new techniques to try to build upon the skills you already have, so that each new novel becomes the reinvention of you as a writer, writing something you could never have achieved in a previous novel because you just weren’t ready.

Working on my 13th or 14th novel (one of them is always hard to quantify), I’m way past the stage of killing off one’s parents. In each new novel, I find myself trying to reinvent the very idea of writing, tackling new techniques I never would have attempted before but now feel ready to attempt.

This one has been no different, in that the chronology of the novel serves as a mechanism for revelation and storytelling, to the point where it’s not a gimmick, but a necessity. However, with that in place, I now find myself in the earlier period of the courting stage of two of the main characters, and I realize how little experience I have in this area. Sadly enough, I even had to delete a few chapters because I found myself mimmicking old movies that had dating scenes in them because it was easier to fall back on past remembrances that weren’t mine than to orchestrate them myself from a fabrication that is completely unfamiliar to me.

It would be different if I had participated in dating rituals when I was younger, but I never did. Going to a club or something like that was never my thing, and my first experiences along this line didn’t happen until I got to the Academy. But that was so different an experience from what an average person would experience, as young cadets dating in a club environment does not equal what happens when college students meet each other in that same kind of environment that occurs around a university setting (not an Academy setting). The rituals of dating were never really something I participated in either as I tended to date very unique women over the years who definitely did not fall into the “normal” categories of dating. To explain the quandary further, let’s just say that when I find myself trying to describe a dating ritual for my main characters, I find those types of encounters somewhat simple and almost cliche, in that nothing I ever went through fell into such normal parameters. But to try to integrate the kinds of relationships I’ve had over the years into a story that requires a solid, normal foundation is somewhat bewildering.

But I did go into this project hoping to stretch myself as a writer. I guess it’s doing just that.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is about to begin again….

Writing, , , ,

The yearly ritual of NaNoWriMo is about to begin on Tuesday. What this means is that thousands of people will participate in a process that challenges them to write a novel of at least 50,000 words. I’ve been participating in this ritual for the last three years, and while I’ve succeeded before, not always do I end up with the full 50,000 words. Last year, I kind of got stuck at around 30,000 words and started playing World of Warcraft. This year, I don’t play that any longer, so I have no complications of that nature to hold me back.

This year, I actually have my novel being planned, unlike some previous years where I tried to write it on the spot, making up as I went along. This year, I am taking one of my award-winning short stories and turning it into a full novel. For those wondering, and that would probably refer to the fantasy people I imagine are reading my blog on a daily basis (who are often standing next to the fantasy women who are lining up to date me…sometimes, they’re the same woman!).

The novel has the working title of Buried Memories, although I don’t think that’s the title I’ll end up with in the end. It is a mainstream fiction novel, but it borrows a lot from the romance genre, something that is not my normal area of expertise. Like most of my later novels, it involves telling the story from multiple perspectives, where even the reader is perceived to be an almost participant viewer (not involved in the story, but kept somewhat sheltered from all of the details as a storytelling element, kind of like how people experience life in reality). The basic premise of the story involves a 20 year struggle between Eric and Jennifer, when she begins the novel by finally forgiving him for betraying her those 20 years ago, involving their best friend Annie.

The novel, much like the short story, is told backwards in time from the moment of forgiveness back to their marriage 21 years ago. But unlike the short story, the novel will then jump 25 years back to when Eric and Annie were a couple, and Jennifer was their best friend, leading to the events that brought Eric and Jennifer together and Annie to become the outsider. Then it will lead to the events that provide the mechanism for the betrayal, and then culiminate with the events of the betrayal itself. The linking mechanism throughout the novel is a tree planted by Eric and Jennifer that has been growing for 21 years, a tree that was planted with the words: “this tree stands as a testament to the power of our love, and like our love, will endure forever.”

Tuesday begins the adventure.

Taking a Break from Writing to Talk about Writing

Writing, , , , , ,

As most people who know me already know, I’m in the middle of writing a new novel. As this is November, and the start of National Novel Writing Month, I’m sure a lot of people who wouldn’t normally say so can say that they are also writing a new novel. And that’s great. But I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about me.

This isn’t my first novel, nor do I believe it will be my last. I’ve written 13 (or 12, depending on whether we use new or old math) before, and I’ve been generally happy with the novels I’ve written. For me, each novel is a new adventure into the whole discipline, and it’s mainly that I want to talk about. Because I think people are kind of missing the point of writing a novel in the first place.

Over the last few years, there have been quite a few novels written by celebrities who don’t normally write novels. Mostly, they have been quick turnarounds that went from conception to print in the time it takes to make a press release. As a result, quite a few of them have been dreary, dismal affairs, and mostly they’ve been non-events, much like the television show of the same name. Publishers realize they can make a quick buck by having a celebrity announce a novel and then they’ll publish it and hope that that celebrity’s fans rush out and buy it, thinking that because they like how someone acts, models or sings that they’ll also like how they write.

Writing isn’t normally like that. Even people who are really good at writing short subjects are not very good at writing novels. Yet, everyone who has a bit of education, or has written something short, is convinced that he or she is also going to be a great novelist. My own history is filled with the numbers of people who all thought this, and as I have been writing most of my life, it has always been really annoying, irritating and frustrating.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Not everyone can write a novel. Nor is everyone really supposed to. Yet, quite a few people are convinced that they have something to say, at least until they sit down and actually try to say it. Then they flounder for a while until they either give up or churn out a piece of crap that they should have put back into a drawer the second it was completed.

Having said that, I would also like to say that writing a novel is something everyone should actually try. I know that sounds a bit contrary to what I was saying before, but I really believe this. Not because everyone should be published, but because I think writing is a great exercise in expanding one’s own capability of communicating.

I see the process of writing novels as an education. While I’ve written tons and tons of short fiction, I think my real growth of a writer has come when I have actually sat down and tried to write a novel. My first novel was an exercise in frustration, as I lost the last 80 or so pages of it due to a fluke accident and had to rewrite the ending to what I thought was the greatest piece of work I had written to that date. I almost gave up writing that day. But I sat down and finished it again.

The second novel was probably the hardest novel I ever wrote because I kept telling myself over and over (while writing it) that book number one was a fluke, that I was a fraud, that I really shouldn’t be writing another novel. But I finished that second novel, and it told me that I was capable of doing more than one. The success of that moment is hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it yourself.

The third novel was my first attempt at writing what I thought was an “important” nove. I had finished my suspense novel and my science fiction/psychological novel, and now I was going to sit down and write something serious. Never happened. My third novel was in fact my fourth novel, because the third one was tossed into a drawer where it lives to this day. In the end, I wrote a thriller, and it was definitely the right choice for number three.

From that point on, I started to push out novels at one and two a year, no longer thinking about whether I should write, but when I should. I continued on this path until I had quite a few novels under my belt. A couple were published, but mostly the act of writing was more important to me than the act of publishing.

And then I stopped writing. I had been dating a woman who had a degree in psychology and was someone I considered much smarter than I would ever be. At some point, she criticized my writing, and I realized that if I couldn’t please her with my writing that it wasn’t worth my time. She told me she was going to be writing her “novel” one day, and even though she never wrote word one, I was always convinced that of the two of us, she was the one who deserved the writing accolades.

And then she dumped me. For several years, I kind of floundered in my inability to write another word. And then I started writing plays because someone asked me to. And I wrote a lot of them. And then they started being performed, and I discovered a humorous talent I didn’t realize I had. In the beginning, I was writing a lot of humor as a balance to the anger I was feeling about how that relationship had betrayed me. And then I started to heal, and the humor continued, so I kept writing more. And people liked it.

Then I sat down and wrote my next novel, which was my first comedy. It took me five years, and in the end, I had what I still consider to be my greatest achievement in writing.

After that, I didn’t know what to do, so I sat down and finished a novel I had started many years before. And it was a very good one.

Which brought me to NaNoWriMo, which is a project where you write a novel in one month. I had this idea for a novel running through my head for years now, and I just never got it started. But then the contest came around, and I decided, it’s time to be the writer I know that I am.

So I started writing, and it’s still building upon itself today. I’m 27 pages into a novel that I consider quite important to my career of writing.

Because that’s the thing I hinted at in the beginning. Each novel is an examination of the writing I am capable of doing today. And that’s what a writer should be doing with his or her writing with each and every project. Sure, we can write drivel if we want, but a writer should sit down and try to reinvent his or her own writing each time a new project begins. The masters of writing reinvented the writing process each time they brought out a new book, and we study them to find out what they were thinking. That’s what a writer should be doing today…reinventing the very nature of writing. Each time you sit down and write, you should always be thinking, “I couldn’t have written that novel a year ago, but I sure can today.” And then ten years from now, you will be writing things you never could have written today.

That’s the reward of writing and one always worth striving for. Let the celebrities write their crap. The rest of us should be struggling to put forth the very best we can of ourselves. To do any less is a waste of time and a failure for the future novel one might one day be able to write, if only able to take that first step today.

NaNoWriMo is starting again

Writing, , ,

For those of you who write, perhaps this is not news for you, but National Novel Writing Month is about to begin on November 1st. For those of you who don’t know what it is, this is a month where writers attempt to start and complete a novel. Last year, I spent my time writing Plato’s Perspective. It was a very rough draft, but it was interesting to churn that out in one month. I’m still working on it to this day, but it was definitely worth the effort and the time involved.

This means that this year I have to come up with a new novel idea that I will start writing on November 1st, which is less than a week away. To be honest, I didn’t realize a whole year had already gone by.

For me, this is a huge event. That’s because I’ve been a novelist for about as long as I’ve been an adult. I’ve never wanted to be anything else. I have a friend of mine who is a movie director who puts on all sorts of different hats to complete his projects, but as I keep telling him, that’s not my way. I’m a writer, and that’s all I’ve ever claimed to be. It’s all I ever plan to do as well.

Which brings all sorts of possibilities for the future because in 6 days I have to have an actual idea and start writing on it. I don’t even know what genre I want to cover, so this could be interesting.