NaNoWriSpr: On Vising and Revising

Here's the primary difference between what I'm doing this spring in what I'm calling NaNoWriSpr, in which I'm trying to write most of a 75,000 word novel in 4 months, and what is usually attempted during NaNoWriMo, in which writers try to write 50,000 words in a month: I'm researching, planning and especially revising as I go.

Of course, this doesn't mean I hadn't planned and researched in advance. I didn't have an outline, but I'd first conceived the novel (and written the first two paragraphs) in 2007. I've been researching on and off since then. And starting last fall but particularly over the Christmas break I tried to finish reading what I thought were the primary research texts, having all the supplementary ones (I thought) ready to go for when I needed them. I had a big picture idea of what might happen in my story, at least the first part, and the primary characters were coming into view.

And I am so glad I wasn't thinking I had done enough to plow this out in a month or two.

See, this is a complex novel, and as I'd mentioned, it's set in a different place and time. I had looked into the era a little bit--read a book or two--and had done a heck of a lot more research on certain aspects of the story and its genre, but that didn't mean I'd read enough memoirs of the time or the times before that my characters would have lived through or had read through enough books or articles about my setting and events of the period. I'd spent a lot of time developing my main character and getting into his head, but I still felt some distance from him and was still working to get to know the others.

And so the first stages and drafts of the early chapters have taken a lot of what I've come to call vising time: others might call it visioning or planning. I've needed to immerse myself by researching the era and reading memoirs and watching documentaries, much as one seeks to learn a language by immersion.

And like learning a language, I've of course tried writing about these people and their times and given the early efforts to a few other people to see whether they felt I was getting it right to communicate engagingly with the modern reader (which is of course the bigger trick, as in this case I'm learning a language only for translation to those who aren't familiar with it). The workshops in my fiction-writing class have been tremendously helpful in this, as have a few helpful friends.

As with learning a language, they've been kind in these early efforts to point out the places where I wasn't quite getting it right. This has supplemented the clarity a sleep can bring to my own distance from my writing to see where it can be improved. And both processes have encouraged me to go back and hone my writing to make sure I was going in the right direction. I'm still working on this, but I can already tell the efforts have borne fruit.

See, for me, I really can't imagine trying to make a draft without all of these processes involved at once, which is why NaNoWriSpr feels so much more reasonable and manageable than NaNoWriMo to me. At the same time, I'm thankful for the NaNoWriMo model, as it reminds me it's okay to push myself and that immersion in the writing act is a useful way to go.

So even though I haven't technically hit my "new pages" limits,  I'm pleased to announce that I've written 60 on-their-way-to-good pages with six weeks down and ten to go.  I'm thrilled about this, in fact, as the early parts of the novel are the most important to get just right in so many ways, and now that I know where I'm going and I've introduced most of my characters it will go faster, I hope.  But even if I stick to my 10 pages per week average (which wouldn't be surprising as I expect to continue to revise a lot as I go, and the amount of pages for revising continues to grow) I'll get to my goal within six or seven months, with a much much better draft than I had for my Novel in a Drawer after I finished the first draft in 18 months.

I'm getting better at this. And faster. I can tell. Which is encouraging, as this is a much more complex project than the previous one.

Man, this is fun. Exhausting at times, but fun.

New Year Relief; or, Not a Fraud Quite Yet!

This week and a bit, thanks to the timely completion of the syllabi, has been sponsored by the letter H for Holiday-ing and the letter N for Novel-Prep.

Between hanging out with family and friends and reflecting on the blessings of the year past and the audacious goal of writing a novel in the year to come, I've been reading more source materials for my novel, delighting in picking up a lot of useful facts and a few highly useful facts.

Hoping against hope that this huge amorphous project would eventually start to jell and I could think my way into a few characters and plot points.

And finally, yesterday, little bits of a sentient, moving novel began to squirm and kick within me.

Woohoo for not being a fraud for telling people I was going to write something this spring!

It's coming, folks. I'm going to have something to write. Love it!

A Plot, a Plot!

I'm ridiculously excited. I love the creative process when it goes this well.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been doing extensive research for this creative writing project for my assistantship. I've been thinking through all the pieces of information I know, and seeing if they fit with the very rough story framework I came up with last week.

Talking with various people to confirm. Floating my ideas past people as the story evolved.

Last night, after I lit my candles in the living room, I was trawling through the web doing some more research and came up with a potential ending for my story.

I slept on it. I woke up. I called around to a few people to confirm that my story was feasible and sounded like it would work for the client. It is, and it does.

I've got a plot! Now just to write the story! Currently I'm waiting a bit on some final key research from some of my contacts, but that should arrive later today. And before then, I can at least start jotting down some parts of the story that don't relate so closely to it.

I love it when a plan comes together (visualize evil tenty fingers).

On the Joy of Research

So last night sometime around 1 or 2 a.m. I got inspired to do some research.

This research had nothing, really, to do with my studying for the Big Nasty Tests I've been studying for.

It was only rather tangentially related, or so I thought, to my dissertation.

Primarily, it was (primarily academic) background research for one of my creative projects.

In searching through Google Scholar and WorldCat for sources to interlibrary loan (reminding me of the beauty of having full access to the academic library system) I found a source that will help my understanding of my dissertation topic, as well as inspiration and good material for that and other potential creative projects.

I also remembered why I like researching these kinds of things. The thrill of the unexpected discovery is fabulous. It's these moments that remind me why I started doing this grad school thing in the first place, and why it's worth sticking it out through the annoying and difficult times.

Now just to plow that delight back into all the other projects I'm supposed to be working on.

So Much Material: A Rejoicing

Okay, after my lamentations of the last couple of days, it's fair that I say that I went to my first couple of classes yesterday, and they were amazing. They're going to be incredibly helpful both in my academic and my creative lives.

My "Rhetoric of Conspiracy" class--with Dr. Charles Stewart, a master in the field of rhetoric who's retiring in the spring, is going to have me thinking of interesting connections between conspiracy theories and mystery-detective narratives (which is the focus of my dissertation). And as a bonus, it's also going to have me thinking of lots of great plots for thrillers.

And then there's my interdisciplinary Archival Theory and Methods class. Beyond learning about archives and archival theory (which will be fun for me with all the library work I've got in my background), we're going to be actually helping local organizations--including the local West Lafayette library--to dig through some of their less organized collections of documents and paraphernalia and helping them with them. In the process, I should be able to:

• figure out whether an archival analysis could yield what I was hoping for my dissertation;
  
• build relationships with people who could advise me of important material that might be available, both for my dissertation and for other creative writing projects I'm working on;
• help out with something that will potentially help those that use the collections in the future;
• dig through archives of material that's bound to help me with current creative writing projects and inspire me with others.

Since some of my fiction ideas tend in the historical direction, I can see this course will be a treasure trove that will give me a better idea of how to move forward in those projects, if not actually giving me the information I need itself.

My third and final class--on historical-critical approaches to rhetorical study--is tonight. I expect that will pair well with the others, particularly with the archives class, to help me see one way I might be able to apply archival work in the comm. discipline. That will be helpful as well.

Yeah! It's going to be a good semester, bearing all sorts of interesting fruit, both foreseen and unforeseen.

Before I go, one more exciting bit of news: not that any set of rankings are that important, but it seems that Purdue's Communication dept. has been ranked as tied for #1 in the area of narrative. Since that's so central to what I'm doing here, it's nice to have an affirmation that I'm in the right place.