Positive Reinforcement

The subject of a reward system has come up before, and it's such a tailored subject, unique to each writer (or general craftsman), that a simple list of suggestions would do little more than establish a base for personal extrapolation at the risk of boxing in the imaginations of others.

That said, it is my birthday, and so I am rewarding myself by being lazy :)

For those already a week into NaNoWriMo, I wish you the best.  As of this minute, you should be about 7295 words in.  Now stop wasting time reading blog posts and get back to it.

I myself am exactly 4284 words behind, a deficit I plan to make up during my errand-free day tomorrow.  I'm not aiming for a true NaNo, as I started my 50,000 word aim in September.  Having crested 50,000 by the seat of my proverbial pants in 2008, I made a pact not to attempt the feat again until I had fully recovered.

In truth, NaNo is not nearly so difficult as it sounds.  Much like losing twenty pounds, the difficult lies purely in the doing:  the simple sacrifice of that which you love (or would rather do) for the self-made promise to complete what you began.  It may seem easy at the start (or shortly after you start).  Too easy, really:  you will find yourself lazing, confident in your ability to "make up the difference" at an undisclosed time hence.  And then somewhere towards the ides, you realize that the turtle is winning.

The trick to NaNo is honestly the same trick that a select few learned early enough to excel in school at a young age:  if you just do the homework, first, early, before launching into the things you love, it will be done and out of the way and leave you in peace.

If you have to write 1,667 words in a day and you work a nine-to-five, make a point to sit down right after dinner and start writing.  Before CSI, before the House marathon, before football or the Food network, before you lose an hour playing with the cats or reading Twitter or reorganizing your photo collection, WRITE.

You don't have to pen all 1700 words in one go.  Knock out a page and give yourself a break (15-30 minutes only, not long enough to get caught up in a show that may leave you wondering if Tony really is a spy for the Russians but-wait-there's-another-episode-coming...).

Jogging is an overused metaphor, but it honestly fits, if not in the way some of its users might have intended.  For the average non-athletic person, jogging goes about like this:  big run, walk and pant, little jog, more panting, speed walk, hands-on-hips lazy walk, collapse, pant some more.  Writing often follows the same pattern:  if you get that first sentence out, things start to flow.  The stored energy of an unimaginative day explodes onto the page, and before you know it, 400-600 words appear as though sprung from the head of Zeus.

Then the panting starts.  You hit a word you don't know, you stick on a piece of dialog, you go to research something about your setting and lose half an hour chaining Wikipedia references, etc.  You will slow down.  Now writing becomes arduous.  It would be very easy to just sit down on the sidewalk and catch your breath.  There's nothing wrong with that, right?

But what applies to running applies to writing:  if you take a break to catch your breath, if you don't keep your feet or your fingers moving, if you stop, it becomes damn difficult to start up again.  Those 400+ words you're so proud of will look like a shameful sample by the end of the night.  So keep your feet moving.

It doesn't matter if it takes you half an hour to pen the next sentence.  Get the sentence out there.  Slug through.  Use placeholders if absolutely necessary (just make them easily searchable later).  To wit:

{WORDS GO HERE}

will sometimes be enough to launch you to the next scene, where you can keep writing.  Something in that scene may well jar the parts of your brain dedicated to filling in the missing piece into action.  This can be especially true for turning points, mystery clues or tricky moments of dialog.  If what has your brain stuck is the crux of the scene, mark it, set it aside, and let the pieces around it point back at where they came from.

So long as you keep momentum, it doesn't matter if you've slowed to a crawl.  Keep crawling.  As embarrassing and disheartening as crawling is, it moves you forward.  Crawling can surprise you:  sometimes the 200 words you slug out in an hour can be the toughest part of the entire night's work.  After that, everything else feels like a breeze.

Speaking of breezes:  you will get your second wind.  Until you're sincerely exhausted (and believe me, you'll know), keep moving forward until you find that next slick patch of earth that zips you ahead.  Those sudden shifts, where gravity takes hold and you go for a ride without even realizing it's begun, will often add another 200-300 words a lot faster than you might expect.  Add that to your first big push and the short stretch you slugged your way through, and you'll be most of the way done with the night's writing.

Often times, the first second wind is all you need to wrap up a NaNoWriMo night.  It can take on a life of its own, pulling you forward without your noticing as you work desperately to commit to paper (or pixels) the thoughts now screaming across your brain.

Other times, the second wind is more like the little half-hearted jog in the middle of a run:  you're still exhausted, still panting, but too embarrassed, stubborn or impatient to crawl all the way home.  You force yourself to bounce a little, hoping the mere motion of it will somehow translate to forward speed.  It feels like work.  It feels like torture.  It is also necessary.

At times the best emotion you can foster when trying to slug through your remaining wordcount for the night is anger.  Imagine it's the last mean little hill standing between you and home, where epsom salts and a footrub await.  Get pissed at this hill.  Promise it new heights of pain.  Swear an oath against its children.  Assert your dominance with each heavy footfall.  Let the hate flow through you.  Attack the hill with singleminded resolve.

Now, this practice may seem contrary to some scenes:  if you're writing a sweet, romantic balcony scene, the raw passion that comes with anger could lead to a rushed and tumultuous night for your main characters (not that they'd mind, I'm sure).  You can tone it down in the editing.

Or don't.  If you're passion comes through into your work, why fight it?  The recklessness that comes with genuine you-will-not-stop-me-you-stupid-hill emotions can lead to some remarkably unscripted, notable human entanglements in your narrative.  Clean up the in-between bits later, but let the sparks shine through.

Lastly, understand that this technique means being a little angry and a little worn down every night for a month.  If you haven't already alerted your friends, family, cats and significant other that you are writing a novel in 30 days or less, now is a good time to stop and write up an email to forewarn them that you will be unavailable or unpleasant to be around for a month.  If you're dating a coder, relax, he or she already understands exactly how you feel.

You're going to lose about two hours a night.   Accept this as truth.  You lose as much watching a movie.  The difference is you're writing this one.  You're creating it.  And when it's all said and done, you'll be most of the way to a publishable piece of print that most people spend decades promising themselves to "get around to."  So fish out the sweat bands, get to running, and show that hill who's boss.

(Fun fact:  This post?  1355 words.  312 short.  Took about an hour.  Now get back to writing!)