10 Reasons I’m Not Doing NaNoWriMo

October 8, 2014/1 Comment/in Writing/by Katherine Cowley

I spend a lot of time online and in person with writers, and so come October it seems like everyone is talking about one thing: NaNoWriMo. That’s National Novel Writing Month, where writers sign up in mass to write an entire novel, of at least 50,000 words, during the month of November. When I say writers sign up in mass I’m being serious: in 2013 718,982 people signed up for it.

I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo myself, back in 2010. I successfully wrote an entire 50,000 word novel during November. Which was amazing for me, because I’d written so many novel beginnings (maybe 6 or 7) but never finished any of them. I didn’t actually have the least idea of how to write a novel until I wrote one from start to finish during NaNoWriMo.

But I’m going to resist the temptation to join the throng. Despite wanting to be one of the cool kids, the remembrance of the thrill of writing at such rapid rates, and the cool NaNoWriMo sticker charts and paraphernalia, I am NOT participating in NaNoWriMo this year.

These are the 10 reasons why I’m not doing NaNoWriMo:

1. I’ve done NaNoWriMo before. I’ve proved that I can write a 50,000 word novel in a month. Done and done.

2. I’m not at the right point in any of my projects. I’m slogging through a 3rd draft of a novel that has somehow edged up to 110,000 words, and I need to focus on this beast. In February I wrote a first draft of another novel that needs to be revised. And I have a 15,000 word novella that needs to be transformed into a novel. And a number of short stories in various stages of completion. I don’t have room for a new first draft in my life right now.

3. There is a new novel idea I have, one that’s been bouncing around in my head for about a year. But this idea requires heavy research. Making up 50,000 words of crap about the Regency period is a really bad idea for me, given how little I know about the Regency period. I would hate myself during the second draft and have to throw 30,000 (or more) words out.

4. NaNoWriMo is a great way to develop writing habits. But I already have a writing schedule, and I write for at least an hour every day. I’ve already got my motivation.

5. NaNoWriMo is a great way to develop writing community, and a group of people that move you forward. I already have several writing communities, and while I would love more and would love to go to some NaNoWriMo write-ins (some which are being held half a mile from my house), I’ll have to pass on it.

6. My NaNoWriMo novel was so terrible that after November 30th, 2010 (the date I finished it) I have never opened the file again. To reiterate, four years later, I still haven’t looked at my first novel again. It was completely worth writing, because it taught me endless things about writing and made me feel like a writer and showed me I could do it. All of which were worth doing NaNoWriMo for. But the novel is crap. If I were to revise it, I would open an entirely new file and start over. Realistically speaking, I’m actually more likely to borrow the novel’s title and a couple of scenes and turn it into a short story. (I know this isn’t the case for all NaNos–many revise their novels. But I can’t do it.)

7. After doing NaNoWriMo 2010 I decided that I had written a novel and wasn’t interested in writing one again. I was so burnt out that I spent 2011 doing a daily video blog. It took until the beginning of 2012 for me to write fiction again. (As a side note, doing the video blog was actually great for my writing once I came back to it.) I don’t think that I’d get as burnt out if I did NaNoWriMo again, but I really don’t want to risk losing a full year of writing.

8. Once I started writing again in 2012, I learned that I am an outliner. I do lots of “discovery writing” while I’m brainstorming, and I don’t always stick to my outlines (my best scenes are where I depart from my outlines while writing), but I’m an outliner. For the current novel I’m revising I have two sheets of butcher paper as tall as I am filled with charts that outline what every single character in my novel is doing during every single chapter. (I’ve spent so long trying to resist the label of “outliner,” but really, I’ve got it bad. My first draft outlines aren’t nearly that detailed though, lest you be worried for my sanity.) My style of outlining is not the best match for me doing NaNoWriMo, though some outliners pull it off.

9. If I’m writing first draft material, in a normal month I can write about 30,000 words. That’s not 50,000, but I’m satisfied with that speed. During first drafts I often write 1667 words in a day, and I can sometimes do it in just an hour. 1667 is the NaNoWriMo daily word count. Then why don’t I write 50,000 words in a month? I need recharge days. I take a break by working on a short story for a day or two, I outline, blog, and sometimes give myself a full day off. And still end up with 30,000 by the end of a month.

10. I like writing first drafts that are 30,000 words long, not 50,000 words. I drafted a complete novel in February. It has a beginning, middle, and end. It has a few beautifully crafted scenes that will survive relatively unchanged through the entire revision process. It has every chapter it will need, though some of those chapters are an outline that will need to be turned into 20 pages. Why didn’t I force that first draft into 50,000 words? Because I could tell that those other 20,000 words would be complete B.S., and I would cut them during draft 2. I know enough about my writing and I’ve written enough novels now to understand my writing process. My second draft will take that novel up to 50 or 60,000 words, but it won’t just be an addition of 20 or 30,000 words–it will be a true revision, a re-seeing. I’m currently working on revamping the magic system and tweaking the world and the culture. It will transform, and the parts I skipped are in my head, slowly transforming until I’m ready to put them down on the page.

Participating in NaNoWriMo was the best thing I could’ve done for my writing in 2010. If you haven’t done it then I highly recommend it, especially if you’ve never written a full novel before. But I’m definitely not doing NaNoWriMo 2014, and I don’t know that I’ll ever do it again.

If you’re doing NaNoWriMo (especially a second or third time), why are you doing it? And if you’re not doing NaNoWriMo, why not?

Short Creative Nonfiction on the Weather

September 30, 2014/0 Comments/in Writing/by Katherine Cowley

In 2005 I took a college class on writing memoirs. We learned a lot about creative nonfiction, and one of my takeaways, almost a decade later, is that there is so much you can do with words in nonfiction to make something matter. You can take something insignificant and transform it into something significant just with how you write about it.

A lot of my creative nonfiction ends up on Facebook, and I’ve been writing a fair bit about the weather lately. Normally the weather isn’t very interesting in Phoenix, but it has been lately. Here’s a few of my short writings from Facebook that have made me happy lately:

The story of how I got soaking wet

1. I opened the front door so the girls could see the pouring rain.
2. The kids sat on the top stair so they could get a little wet.
3. The kids descended the rest of the steps while I watched, still completely dry, and sang rain songs to them.
4. I took pictures of the girls playing in the rain, but stayed dry.
5. The girls’ friends came outside to play with them and suddenly my daughters didn’t want to stay right next to the stairs.
6. To be a responsible adult and to supervise their fun, I went out into the rain.
7. I realized I was already soaked, so I decided to shed my adult self and play. I jumped in puddles, ran through the “river” on the sidewalk, and skipped rocks. It was freeing to enjoy myself and let my stresses slip away into the water.

I think most adults could use a little more puddle jumping in their lives.

(originally posted September 17th)

On a Day of Flooding and Epic Amounts of Rain

Some places I’ve lived, like Oregon, can handle the rain. In Phoenix it’s not just that the roads and and roofs and infrastructure aren’t designed to handle the rain. The soil, the dessert itself, can’t soak it up.

It’s 9:30 a.m., and we’ve already broken the record of the most rain in a day in Phoenix–the record we broke was set 75 years ago. Freeways are closed, cars are submerged, flooding is everywhere. The roof of a grocery store I sometimes go to collapsed.

Today we’ve received more rain than Phoenix normally gets during the three month period of July, August, and September. My husband decided to skip the class he’s auditing this morning.

Be safe out there, my fellow Phoenicians.

(originally posted September 8th. We ended up receiving more rain in a day than Phoenix normally does in a year.)

Here are a few pictures I took the day after the storm. The pond near us flooded 5 or 6 feet above where it normally is.

A Dust Storm

A dust storm: in moments, the sky turns from light blue to a chalky brown. Teenage boys at the pool grab their towels and dash to shelter. I watch through my window in wonder, as palm trees bend wildly, trying to touch their leaves to the ground.

(originally posted July 25th. This is my attempt at a prose poem.)

How to Create Sugar Cookie Paintings

September 15, 2014/0 Comments/in Arts, Homemaking/by Katherine Cowley

A while back I was in charge of a youth activity, and we decided to do sugar cookie paintings. Luckily I tested it out ahead of time, because the first set of instructions I found on the internet created a complete flop. I did some more searching and my second attempt worked much better.

Step 1: Create sugar cookies and cut them out as canvases.

I like this recipe on allrecipes.com. It has a 4.5 star rating with over 6000 reviews, and it worked really well for cookie painting.

I rolled the cookie dough rather thin–it rises a fair bit while cooking, and if you’re making a large canvas the thicker it is the more likely it is to crack and break.

If you want exact canvas shapes you can measure with a rule and cut. You can also cut your canvas shapes in paper, set it on top of the cookie dough, and cut it. I made squares, rectangles, and circles of various sizes.

Note: Because it rises, the edges aren’t going to be quite as crisp as you originally made them. But that is part of the charm of a cookie painting.

One of the most useful things you can do is roll your dough out on parchment paper. This makes it so you don’t have to peel your cookies off your surface and then lay them back on a cookie sheet (doing so can cause tears or stretching). Once you’ve rolled and cut the dough you just pick up your parchment paper and set it on the cookie sheet. Once you pull your cookies out of the oven you can pick up the parchment paper (with cookies on top) and set it straight on a cooling rack. That way your cookies don’t overbake. If you try to remove a large cookie from a cookie sheet or from parchment paper before it’s completely cooled it breaks pretty easily.

Final note for this step: I baked the cookies for 8-9 minutes. I was less concerned about super soft cookies than with having a canvas that would really hold together.

Step 2: Create paint-like frosting.

A lot of frostings don’t work well for painting–you want the consistency of acrylic paint, that dries fast.

This frosting from bon appetit worked great.

Step 3: Color creation

As with any paint mixing, you can get a full range of colors if you have red, yellow, blue, white and black.

If you’ve made your frosting, you already have white. I bought a basic box of liquid food coloring, with red, yellow, blue, and green. Surprisingly, in my grocery store it wasn’t next to the cupcake holders or the sprinkles–they had the gel food coloring there. The normal box was actually next to the spices. I also bought a box of black, so I could make darker colors.

The Food Network has a great page with instructions on how to make a huge number of colors. You can follow their directions, or just use the page for inspiration. What you’ll notice is that for minor color variations, sometimes you need to work with a large amount of frosting, because a single drop of color will change it drastically. Also, don’t be afraid to add a completely opposite color to create your final color.

When I painted my Van Gogh inspired cookie, I made a bunch of colors, and then to create slight variations in blues I mixed some of my colors together.

Step 4: Create a base for your painting

You need to create a base of paint for your cookie. A white base is a nice standard color, but if you know what colors you’re going to be working in you can use something different. I painted the whole cookie a dark blue since “Starry Night” is largely dark blue. That made it easier later on–if there was a tiny bit I didn’t paint, it was still a good color.

Tip: buy new paintbrushes that have never been used for anything else. Because seriously, you’ll want to eat this.

Step 5: Imitate a famous painting or create your own design.

I had Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” up on my phone. First I made some lines for the major designs, and then I hopped around between different sections of the painting, letting one part dry while I worked on another section.

Tip: Use a toothpick for the super small details.

Most people at the activity created their own designs: a watermelon, a smurf, a quilt, abstract paintings, etc.

My Van Gogh cookie canvas was about 5 inches by 6 or 7 inches, and it took me about an hour and fifteen minutes to do. A less complicated painting will take less time.

Step 6: Display your cookie

Because seriously, it’s going to be awesome.

And Van Gogh’s original painting, for comparison’s sake:

And a picture of me holding my cookie, so you know I didn’t just find a cool picture on the Internet and pretend that I made it:

Step 7: Eat your cookie before it goes bad.

Just like sandcastles, sugar cookie paintings can’t last forever. And that’s part of the joy. Confession: I’ve always wanted to eat a Van Gogh.

My 3 Year Old Took Pictures of Our Beach Trip…. And They Are Awesome

August 4, 2014/0 Comments/in Family Stories, Randomness/by Katherine Cowley

A few weeks ago, I took my daughters with me to Oregon to visit relatives. We spent four days at the beach, mostly in the Newport area. While we were at Nye Beach and Seal Rock beach, I gave my 3 year my cell phone and let her take pictures.

It was pretty cool to look through her hundreds of pictures afterwards and get a three-year-old’s perspective.

I was surprised by how many pictures there were of feet.

There were also dozens–yes, dozens–of pictures of my back side. Apparently, I am primarily made up of long legs. I’ll spare you all but one.

Sometimes my daughter decided to focus on more than just lower body parts. She wasn’t particularly interested in heads though.

I promise I do have a head though!

My daughter also took one lovely picture of her younger sister:

She was really good at noticing shadows, footprints, and patterns in the sand:

And I have to admit, my daughter took some of the prettiest pictures of anyone in my family:

And to finish, here’s her shadow self-portrait:

Writing Powerful Emotion Beats in Fiction

June 24, 2014/10 Comments/in Writing Lesson/by Katherine Cowley

Writing Powerful Emotion Beats in Fiction

An emotion beat is what makes the novel or short story distinctive—we can be inside a character, experiencing the emotion with her, and that makes the reading experience powerful. For it to work, the right emotion beats must be used in the right spots.

In Part 1 of my series 10 Keys to Writing Story Beats in Novels, I discussed the story beat, the beat sheet, and the pause or inaction beat. In Part 2 I discussed the action beat, the dialogue beat, and beat variation. In this post, with keys 7 through 10, I will discuss the emotion beat in depth.

Key 7: Use Emotion Beats to Connect Readers to the Characters

I heard someone say that we can’t really understand any of the people around us, and that is why we love reading. Only through reading can we can truly grasp the emotions, desires and perspective of someone other than ourselves. The emotion beat is what creates this connection between reader and character.

Writing Powerful Emotions in Fiction
Image by Kevin Conor Keller, Creative Commons License

There are four basic types of emotional beats:

1. Internal Physical Sensations

“I didn’t get the job,” said Russ.

Irene felt sick to her stomach. It was their last chance—they had needed that job desperately.

2. External Physical Sensations

“I didn’t get the job,” said Russ.

Suddenly, the warm air blowing from the heater felt too hot, stifling even. Irene opened the window, letting in the cold of winter.

3. Physical Actions (including hand gestures, facial expressions, and larger physical movements)

“I didn’t get the job,” said Russ.

Irene pressed her lips firmly together, trying not to say something she would regret later.

4. State the Emotion

“I didn’t get the job,” said Russ.

Irene was frustrated. He could’ve at least visited the company’s website before going into an interview. But as always, he insisted on doing it blind.

A great resource for physical sensations and actions that show emotions is the book The Emotion Thesaurus. You’ll notice that there is overlap between emotion beats and action beats; I’d categorize something as an emotional beat if conveying emotion is the most important function. Stating the character’s emotion should always be the last resort, though it can be used effectively.

Key 8: Use Emotion Beats that are Distinctive to your Story World or Character

The four basic types of emotional beats start to feel repetitive if that’s all you use in your story. Another type of emotional beat that’s extremely effective is using actions or thought patterns that are distinctive to your character or story world. A wizard in Harry Potter might reach for a wand or use magic in certain emotional states. A motorcycle rider may convey his emotions through how he rides his bike.

Motorcycles
Photo circa 1980s, via Seattle Municipal Archives, Creative Commons license

All sorts of things can become an emotional beat that is carried throughout your story: habits or tics or possessions. How you vary them will then create a powerful emotional reaction for you reader.

The superhero novel Dangerous by Shannon Hale is full of examples of emotional beats that are distinctive to the characters and the story world. The main character, Maisie, is half-Latina, and her cultural heritage impacts her emotional beats. Here Maisie is listening to her mother on the phone, and emotionally reacting to her words:

“Maisie, you haven’t been…contenta lately.” She used the Spanish word for content or happy, as if it were too stark, too uncomfortable to say it in English. I hadn’t realized that she’d noticed. “Are you now? How do you feel?”

This emotional beat is distinctive to Maisie, her relationship with her mother, and her cultural heritage.

One of the other characters in Dangerous, GT, often chews gum. The way he unwraps it or the way he chews it is a point of emotional control for GT, and so the description of his gum (or other taste metaphors) it is often used as an emotional beat in connection with his character.

At one point in the novel, GT is holding another Maisie’s father hostage. He has set demands for Maisie, and a time for when her father will be killed if she doesn’t agree. Maisie asks how she can know if GT will keep his word.

“You don’t know,” GT said, snapping on his gum as if we were chitchatting about the weather. “But you have no other choice. Two minutes, ten seconds.”

If at all possible, use emotional beats that are distinctive to your character and storyworld. It will make all the difference in your storytelling.

Key 9: Use Advanced Emotional Beats to Better Convey Your Character’s Feelings

In addition to beat distinctive to your character and story world, there are a handful of other advanced emotional beats that can powerfully convey feelings:

1. Setting: Use what your character notices about the setting to convey emotion.

Example of using a setting that parallels emotion:

“I didn’t get the job,” said Russ.

Irene forced her eyes away from him, out the window. The last leaf that had hung onto the tree all winter long fluttered to the ground.

2. Metaphor or Simile

Example of using a setting that contrasts emotion + a simile:

“I didn’t get the job,” said Russ.

Irene forced her eyes away from Russ, out the window. The green on the tree was oversaturated, like a poorly-made Technicolor film, mocking her with its cheeriness.

3. Mini Flashback

“I didn’t get the job,” said Russ.

Irene had known this could happen, yet his words still shook her, the way the doctor’s words had shook her when IVF had failed for the third time. She knew what would happen now—the sinking despair, the gradual recovery, and all the while the knowledge that this had been the last chance.

4. Mini Flashforward

“I didn’t get the job,” said Russ.

Irene looked at the floor. One of these days she would leave him, take her terry coat and walk right out the front door.

5. Surreal Images

“I didn’t get the job,” said Russ.

She had expected this, but that did not stop the rush of despair. The couch swallowed Irene whole.

Couch
Image by James Tworow, Creative Commons license

Using these techniques well will create a distinctive style and voice, in addition to conveying emotion. Of course if you overuse any one of these types it will probably backfire.

Here’s a passage from Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler that uses almost of almost all of these emotional beats. The main character has spent his life working for a totalitarian regime. Now he is a political prisoner for that same regime. Here is his emotional reaction when he finds out that one of the other prisoners has been tortured by steambath:

He lit his last cigarette and with a clear head began to work out the line to take when he would be brought up for cross-examination. He was filled by the same quiet and serene self-confidence as he had felt as a student before a particularly difficult examination. He called to memory every particular he knew about the subject “steambath.” He imagined the situation in detail and tried to analyse the physical sensations to be expected, in order to rid them of their uncanniness. The important thing was not to let oneself be caught unprepared. He now knew for certain that they would not succeed in doing so, any more than had the others over there; he knew he would not say anything he did not want to say. He only wished they would start soon.

His dream came to his mind: Richard and the old taxi-driver pursuing him, because they felt themselves cheated and betrayed by him.

I will pay my fare, he thought with an awkward smile.

Note: credit for coming up with these categories of emotion beats needs to go to author Janci Patterson, whose new book Everything’s Fine is an excellent example of emotion beats.

Key 10: When Something Important or Shocking Happens, Use a Complex Reaction Beat to Show the POV Character’s Interpretation of Events

Most of the time you can follow an action beat with another action beat, or a line of dialogue with another line of dialogue. Yet that’s not always enough.

If there’s an action beat or a dialogue beat that is shocking to the viewpoint character, then to take advantage of the moment we have to follow this with a fleshed out reaction beat, that includes a feeling/thought, a physical action, and speech. Otherwise something like this happens:

“I quit my job,” said Russ.

“I’m sure it will all work out,” said Irene.

We have no idea how Russ or Irene feel about the situation. This could be devastating to them. This could be an everyday thing. This could be the breaking point for Irene, yet she’s trying to put on a hopeful face. We have no idea, and because there aren’t any emotional beats, we feel disconnected from the characters. And if the dialogue or the action is truly shocking or important to the characters, a one sentence emotion beat is probably not enough.

Shocking action or dialogue must be followed by a series of beats that create the reaction—a standard way to do this is use a physical reaction beat, an emotion/thought reaction beat, and then a dialogue reaction beat.

“I quit my job,” said Russ.

Irene coughed her coffee out of her mouth, sending flecks of brown liquid across the table. She sucked in a deep breath, stood, and wiped off the table. Worry gripped her. This could not have happened at a worse time. Finally she found the courage to speak.

“I’m sure it will all work out,” said Irene, putting on a brave face.

We now understand this dialogue and what it means to the characters because a fleshed-out, complex reaction beat has been used.

Authors Janci Patterson and Heather Clark provide this formula for complex reaction beats:

Formula for Reaction Beats

In describing what he calls “Motivation-Reaction Units” Dwight V. Swain thinks the order should be reversed, with the feeling or thought coming before the physical reaction. (Also see Heather Clark’s and Janci Patterson’s posts on the subject.) Regardless of the order, if it’s a key emotional reaction, you probably need thought/feeling, action, dialogue, and potentially another powerful emotion beat.

In the classic novel Howards End by E. M. Forster, a character named Helen becomes engaged to a man, Mr. Wilcox, that she has only known for a few days. Her Aunt Juley goes to try to break off the engagement. Unfortunately she broaches the subject with the wrong Mr. Wilcox.

Reaction Beats from Howards End

Writing Exercises

Complex Reaction Beats Exercise

Here’s a passage of dialogue without any emotional reactions to accompany some rather big statements:

“I’m having a baby,” said Tessa. “You should’ve told me earlier,” said Mark. “Would it have made a difference?” asked Tessa.

Now rewrite this dialogue from Mark’s POV, with physical reactions and internal reactions.

“I’m having a baby,” said Tessa. (non-POV character)

[Write Mark’s physical reaction] [Write Mark’s internal feeling/reaction]

“You should’ve told me earlier,” said Mark. (POV character)

[Write Tessa’s physical reaction] [Write Mark’s interpretation of her reaction]

“Would it have made a difference?” Tessa asked.

If you need to, you can switch the order of the beats, sub out an emotional beat, or add additional emotional beats. My writing group did this exercise and came up with a wide variety of reactions for the characters.

Beat Mania Exercise

Take the line of dialogue “It won’t be ready in time.” (Or you can choose a sentence from one of your stories.)

Now write ten different possible emotional beats, using each type of emotion beat discussed in this post:

Internal Physical Sensations
External Physical Sensations
Physical Action
State the Emotion
Emotion Beat Particular to Character/Story World
Setting-related Emotion Beat
Metaphor or Simile
Mini-Flashback
Mini-Flashforward
Surreal Imagery

(This should turn out like the “I didn’t get the job” example used throughout this blog post.)

Of your results, which emotion beat do you like best and why?

Revision

Print out several pages from your novel. Highlight and label each of your beats (physical sensation, setting, flashback, stating the emotion, internal sensation, physical action, etc). Are you doing all one type? Ignoring one type altogether? Skipping places that need beats? Now that you’ve analyzed, revise!

Check out my new novel!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider learning about my new spy novel, The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet, coming in April 2021 from Tule Publishing.

Original drumming at the beach image by Jason Turgeon, Creative Commons license

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