The Best Laid Plans

I prepped for National Novel Writing Month. I knew my characters, plot points, twists and turns (though more revealed themselves as I wrote), the beginning/middle/end. In short, NaNoWriMo—bring it on! 50K words in 30 Days? Pshaw! I’m “winning” again this year.

Except.

I didn’t anticipate my own life’s plot points and twists and turns. The major plot point that is going to reenergize my professional writing.

I’ve talked about needing to sever my contracts with a former publisher. Then the search for a new home. Well, it happened. On November 2^nd I contacted a publisher, and on November 3^rd I was offered a contract. I signed the contract on the 7^th and was off to the races.

My NaNo word count suffered. I blew through my banked words and instead racked up deficits because my focus was re-directed. I needed to spend my NaNo hours working on editing/revising a manuscript that can go through the production process.

Hard as it was to admit, I couldn’t accomplish the NaNo goal AND work on edits on a short time line. But, after talking to others and myself, I realized my priority has to be my career.

Getting the first book in my culinary series out is definitely more important than getting 50K done on book five this month. If the other books in the series are queued up, it will be a loooong time before the publisher is ready to see Tequila Mockingbird in the queue. I have time to finish that book. In fact, that might be next November’s project, to finish what I started this year.

So, it’s not New Year’s, but here is my resolution:

Turn in the best possible version I can of Pastabilities by the end of the month, and spend my NaNo-dedicated time to this project.

If I finish sooner than I think I will, I’ll get back to NaNoWriMo and Tequila Mockingbird gladly. But, if the past is prologue, ain’t gonna happen.

If interesting to you, please share. Thanks.

Facebook: What happens to a big goal project like NaNoWriMo when “life happens”? Sharon Arthur Moore shares what is going on with TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD and PASTABLILITIES. http://bit.ly/2AVbfl4

Twitter: What happens to a big goal project like NaNoWriMo when “life happens”? @Good2Tweat shares her new resolution for PASTABILITIES and TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD. http://bit.ly/2AVbfl4

Goals, Deficits, Plans

If you read my post yesterday on “Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time” about getting a new publisher for my culinary mystery book, you know how excited I am about signing with the small press, Red Adept Publishing and owner/publisher Lynn McNamee. The woman is a dynamo, filled with marketing and promotion ideas for her quality booklist. The attention given to each novel signals how important her authors and their work is to her company. So I’ve been caught up in the fervor of what I need to do to be successful in this company, too.

I have been so distracted with gearing up for my new publisher that I have been neglectful of National Novel Writing Month for the last week and a half. The result is that I am currently 3900 words below the target words for this date. The target is predicated on finishing the 50K word goal on November 30^th. Right now, the stats tracker on the NaNoWriMo site say that at 1667 words a day, that won’t happen. I’ll be into the first week of December to hit 50K words.

What does that really mean? What are my options?

I could toss the event this year, call it a month, and get to what is bright and shiny right now: prepping to be successful with my new publisher. After all, I have books 2-4 ready to work on putting into the pipeline. There’s no immediacy for book four. I could even finish writing it next NaNoWriMo cycle and still be ahead of the game.

I could settle into the 1667 daily goal and finish in early December. Just do the minimum (a bit more than 6½ pages a day) so I can spend time on other writing aspects. With this option, I would have this book banked and ready to work on when it comes up in the queue.

Or, I could grit my teeth, put aside future pieces related to getting ready for the launch of my culinary mystery book (about 9 months from now), and focus on getting Tequila Mockingbird off my plate. To finish by November 30^th, that means writing 1911 words each remaining day, almost 8 pages a day, every day. Or, if I wrote 8-10 pages daily (about 2000-2500 words), I would be ahead of the game with a cushion for low volume days while I travel this month.

Which would you choose and why? I know what my plan is. Can you guess?

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Facebook: NaNoWriMo word count deficits are common, especially in an event in which, historically, only ~13% of the participants meet the goal by the end of the month. I have three options. Which will I choose? http://bit.ly/2zGaIoQ

Twitter: @NaNoWriMo word count deficits are common, especially in an event in which, historically, only ~13% of the participants make goal by 11/30. She has three options. Which will @Good2Tweat choose? http://bit.ly/2zGaIoQ

Keeping the Pace

Originally published on "Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time" on November 6, 2017, and updated for today's posting.

On another of my blogs, I wrote about PlotOber and planning the fifth in my culinary mystery series so the writing of it in November for National Novel Writing Month will go more smoothly.

Well, I’m into November, one-fifth of the way through today, and by the end of the day I need to have logged a minimum of 10, 002 words to be on track to finish November 30^th with 50,000 words.

I’ll make it. Last night I recorded a word total of 8356, slightly over the 8335 that I needed. Pretty darn good, with weeklong company, if you ask me.

I started strong, as I always do. That story has been percolating for months and I focused the thoughts by using two magic elements: my Plotober massive planning elements and by brainstorming with my two critique groups. My crit partners have AMAZING minds! Have I said how lucky I am to have them part of my writer’s life?

Here’s a peek at my time tracker to-date. The far right column is  the minimum total number of words I need to have written to keep on track for NaNoWriMo. I got a strong start, “banking” words, so to speak for when I couldn’t write much.

Note, for example in the second column, that I had three days when I couldn’t make my minimum 1667 words for those days. Company. You gotta love ‘em, but there is a toll. My cushion of banked words let me enjoy my time with her.

Falling behind is inevitable, if my past years are predictive. But it is not fatal. I will just need to write more words on other days to catch up. She leaves today, so this afternoon maybe I can bank some more for the other days I’ll not write much if anything.

Have I mentioned that we are traveling for Thanksgiving this year? Again.

Each year I have about ten days of limited productivity due to company and travel. So I just have to write harder on those days that aren’t committed to fun, food, and family. I’ve got this! 

2017 NaNoWriMo Time Tracker

TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD

Book 5 “Dinner is Served”

Date	Daily Words/Pages Total	Running Total	Minimum Running Total
Nov. 1	2228/7	2228	1667
Nov. 2	2886/19	5114	3334
Nov. 3	1563/25	6677	5001
Nov. 4	725/28	7402	6668
Nov. 5	954/32	8356	8335
Nov. 6	1662/40	10,067	10,002
Nov. 7			11,669

The NaNoWriMo Merry-Go-Round is about to Open

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This post was originally published yesterday on “Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time” as will others to be cross-listed this month.

Some call it NaNovember. Some call it #$*&!^%. Or perhaps they use the more popular NaNoWriMo.

No matter what label (epithet?) you use, National Novel Writing Month is a time to remember. And dread. And anticipate. And gleefully romp around in.

Re this blog, likely, as November progresses, I will not have long posts, just short ones and updates on progress once NaNo begins on November 1^st.

I will dual post some days on “Write Away” (my writing issues blog) since the posts will be about my new culinary mystery and the writing process. Hey, that way you only have to read one blog and get credit for two this month!

I rarely struggled with planning my culinary mysteries in the past, but this one was difficult for me. I had trouble imagining, at first, my 10 key events (and ended up with 11 weak ones), and other elements that I use when planning my mysteries. Why is that, I asked myself as the deadline approached and I didn’t have a single scene card done?

I was scared.

What if I was dried up with no more stories to tell and only clever titles to toss out? What if I had a great premise and concept but not enough stuffing to prop up the saggy, soggy middle.

Where’s the tension? What are the characters’ motivations? Omigosh, “stuffingf” like that was missing. Big problem when you’re writing a mystery.

Enter a couple of brainstorm sessions with fab crit partner Sandy Bremser, and voila. I broke through the fear. We identified the major flaw (there are numerous big other ones we found, too) and brainstormed fixes. After the first session, I generated 6 scene cards. I got in another 10 after the second session. I am nearly at the halfway point (I usually create ~40 scene cards).

Now I know how the novel starts and how it ends, and I moved what I thought was a key scene in the middle to earlier so I could have a scene there that has much more tension. I created a bad guy, because, well, I didn’t have one before. Wow, Sandy! Thanks so much.

So still behinder than I’ve ever been at this point in my NaNovember PlotOber planning sessions, but I can do this. I will have those scene cards done before Wednesday morning. And, for the kind of writer I am, that is a huge relief.
Bring it!

PlotOber--When NaNoWriMo Really Begins

Thank You NaNoWriMo for the term, PlotOber. I’m not even sure I am using it as you meant for it to be used, but I appropriated it for my own purposes. The Phoenix NaNo group put up three plotting methods to aid those using October for plotting and planning. I checked them out, but I’m sticking with mine.

Yes, it’s that time of year again. I just love this fall event—National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known as NaNoWriMo (or just NaNo to many of us). What’s the big deal? And why am I so excited about it every year at this time?

I get to officially start a new book on November 1^st!

Right, I can start a new book any time I want, but NaNo is special. Somewhere upwards of a quarter to a half million people, worldwide, will embark on the adventure of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. I am part of this great zeitgeist of word energy. About 13% of us will “win” (meaning you got to goal). But the other 87% won, too. Because on December 1^st they have more words written on a novel than on October 31^st. That’s a win!

The novel I am starting is Tequila Mockingbird, book five in the “Dinner is Served” culinary mystery series published by a yet-to-be-determined publisher. I will share lots of recipes using alcohol, but I don’t promise there will be other recipes as well.

Early October is sign-up time. That means that almost all of October, for me, is spent plotting twists and turns and red herrings. I have an extensive plotting and planning process that I have described before for Potluck, book three in my culinary mystery series that powers me through to November 30^th. No more saggy, soggy middles. Wahoo! No more wondering after chapter three what I’m going to write next. No more waiting for the muse to strike. My muse showed up in October and left behind a tidy pile for me to write about.

I was eating lunch with friends at an outdoor creperie in Flagstaff, Arizona and talking about my mysteries. My friends wondered at how I got my punny titles. I told them they just pop out at me, like Tequila Mockingbird. They laughed and then, “Did you just now make that up,” my friend asked suspiciously. “Oh, yeah. It happens that way all the time.” Making up titles is easy, but then I have to have a concept that matches the title. That takes more time.

For those who don’t know, a mockingbird mimics the calls of other birds, pretending to be someone else. In my story, Emilie, a woman who escaped arrest for the murder of her husband has resurfaced with a new identity after 25 years. I have her living in the neighborhood of my personal chefs, Alli and Gina and Gina’s mother, Maria. As her past is revealed, Alli takes on the responsibility of trying to clear Emilie’s name even while Alli’s fiance’s boss is seeking to prosecute her. This is the cold case he could never stop thinking about, so he wants closure.

So I have my premise and concept. Next for me in PlotOber is planning the theme and sub-themes, ten key events, writing my story treatment, writing the microblurb (elevator pitch), writing character sketches, and planning the 40 or so scenes on a grid (Expanded from 10 key events: who’s there, where are they, when is it, the point of the scene to advance the story, and what happens in the scene).

Busy month for me, right? But, oh, what fun! I just love beginnings! Join me in NaNoWriMo? Add me as a “buddy.”

Facebook: If you are a National Novel Writing Month participant, do you plan in PlotOber? Check out how I’ll be spending this month preparing for NaNoWriMo. http://bit.ly/2fmMiJ9

Twitter: PlotOber is when you get ready for #NaNoWriMo2017 by doing big planning. With prep, the 30 days/50K words fly by. http://bit.ly/2fmMiJ9

Would You Take This Class?

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Few writers make much (if any) money. Did you know that? You don’t do this to get rich because that reason and the lottery odds have a lot in common.

Over the years, I’ve thought about a variety of ways to supplement my royalties. I could sell some of my professional/writing craft books on Amazon’s used books section. I could write advertising copy for companies. I could write quick and dirty writing craft books and indie publish them. I even considered offering on-line classes. That’s a novel idea for a former educator, right?

I approached the co-founder of one of my favorite on-line writing class sites with a couple of ideas for teaching classes for them. Might they be interested? It turns out they might.

I’m not naming the site or the person (yet) I contacted since “interest” is a long way from “implementation.” I’m just trying out some ideas here. I’m looking for help. Tell me what you think.

One excellent suggestion I was given was to offer the class to a few beta participants so I could refine the class after the initial design. Great! I will do that!

In the meantime, I am working on the 20 class lessons I could offer. Here are the general areas I’ve come up with so far. In the comments section, please offer critiques, suggestions, options, and other ideas that might help me design this course.

First the title.

The course is sharing with others and having them try the elements that I use when I plan my novels. I am a mega-planner, most of the time. The system I’ve developed over the years is what helps me “win” National Novel Writing Month, “winning” being defined as producing at least 50,000 words in 30 days.Whether the participant wants to win NaNoWriMo or whether heesh just wants to try the jump-start apart from NaNoWriMo, this course is designed to ramp up the planning process.

So what would be a good title for a mega-planning class? Planning Your NaNoWriMo Novel? Write/Writing Your Novel in 30 Days?  Planning for NaNoWriMo? Or do you have another idea?

I would pitch this as being for novels not yet written, novel ideas not drafts.

Topics to be covered in 20 lessons (some take more than one day to present):

 

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            Plotter or Pantser? A spurious distinction.

            Choosing a mentor text for assignments; what it is and

                   why it’s important

            Recommendations for several craft books for later

                  reading such as Larry Brooks' Story Engineering and 

                  James Scott Bell's Write Your Novel from the Middle 

                  and others

            What planning gets you and why you should do it

            Bell’s 14 signposts

  Bell’s five essential tent poles

            Premise vs concept

            Concepts and sub-concepts

            10 key events

            Character sketches

            Story treatment

            Scene grid Elements

            Using the scene grid for planning

            Writing the first scene

Lessons/Assignments (some take more than one day):

  

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            Advantages of plotter. Advantages of pantser. Where are

                  you and why?

            Choosing your mentor text—the components: your 

                  genre; recent; well-written

            List craft books you’ve read and their influence on you

            What does “planning” mean?

            Find examples of Bell’s signposts in mentor text

            List your concept. List your premise.

            Identify your sub-concepts

            List your 10 key events

            Write five character sketches

            Write a three-page story treatment with main characters 

                   and plot twists including the ending

            Design your scene grid

            Fill in your scene grid from the middle out

            Write the first scene from your scene grid

So the question remains: would you take this course? Do you have suggestions for inclusion or change?

Bloggers appreciate you spreading the word. If this post helped you, tell others. Copy/paste the messages and post to your social media. Thanks so much!

Facebook: Sharon Arthur Moore wonders if you’d take this on-line writing class on how to plan your novel. What suggestions do you have for improvement? http://bit.ly/2xlWx4P

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2015 NaNoWriMo the Easy/Easier Way

I have been away for a long time. Emotionally. And virtually. But things are shaping up now, so I am back to blogging again. This is a post about an old topic, but maybe not. National Novel Writing Month in November is only the beginning for us writers. Here’s what happened then and what is happening now.

I tried something very different for NaNoWriMo in 2015. I had decided to write book four in my culinary mystery series (books two and three coming out in 2016). So that doesn’t sound so different, eh? In November 2014, I wrote most of book three, Potluck. So what was so different?

2015’s NaNo experience continues the production of books in the “Dinner is Served” series. Ancient Grease follows the adventures of Alli and her personal chef business partner, Gina, in their work as demonstration chefs on a luxury cruise liner traveling back and forth in the Aegean Sea between Istanbul and Athens over one summer. Ancient Grease. Get it?

It seemed like a good idea, to use NaNo to get a jumpstart of 50K words of the 65K+ words novel. Except this one was different.

In the previous three books, I had 65K words (give or take) to create a murder mystery and solve it. Lots of plotting, clue dropping, and misdirection opportunities required, right? You’ve read before about my extensive plotting and planning. I am always ready for NaNo and crank out a bunch of words on November 1^st.

I love Bells’ craft books. Write Your Novel from the Middle was a game-changer for me. The saggy, soggy, sinking middle always gave me fits. Once I read this book, I got it! I understood what I needed to do and it has worked.

Yeah, well what happens when you decide you can’t have a single mystery for the entire cruise time because you want to drop into different locales and involve more characters?

What happens when you aren’t doing one set of extensive, forty-scene plot cards but creating five?

What happens when you have to create new characters for each new story but keep up with the old ones hoping people read the book in order and don’t jump around in the titles which are oh-so-clever?

Yeah, well, that was me in mid-October anticipating a very different NaNoWriMo. But how to keep 12,000 to 15,000 words engaging? Not long enough for a novella and not short enough for a short story, these were five novelettes I was planning.

Did I panic? Uh, yeah!

Wouldn’t you?

Then, the miracle happened. I found my savior—in the form again of James Scott Bell. His book Super Structure: The Key to Unleashing the Power of Story delineates 14 signposts that comprise the super structure of a successful novel. But, he says, if that is overpowering for you, structure your story around just five of them and you will be successful.

I did and it worked.

The magic five? Disturbance, Doorway of No Return #1, Mirror Moment, Doorway of No Return #2, and Final Battle.

I’ll give examples of how I did it and when I used the Q Factor (another of his signposts) when it was appropriate. I’ll also reveal the five titles of the novelettes so you can anticipate its publication!

Come back and see me. Be sure to subscribe so you will be notified when new posts appear.

"A goal is a dream with a deadline." Napoleon Hill

I told you in the Nov. 1 post that I need to finish It’s a Dog’s Life, my NaNo novel, earlier than November 30^th. That’s because there is a November 30 deadline for entering the OneBook AZ contest for Arizona authors. The upper word limit is 60K words. Since none of my completed manuscripts are that short, it occurred to me to enter my NaNo book for this year.

If you’ll remember, my plan is to revise/edit each day as a way to re-engage with my manuscript as well as cut down on the amount of time I have to spend editing at the end. I am convinced that revising and editing as I go--something I have never attempted before--should help me end up with a better first draft.

Sounds like a plan. Getting sick mid-month was not on the schedule, but, hey. It happens.

Last November was a busy one for me. I had 10 days with 0 word count because of travel and other commitments. This November is shaping up to be relatively free of other distractions (other than that pesky Thanksgiving--whose idea was THAT to plop the holiday into NaNo month?). I tend to bank words when I know something is coming up so I can cover the word count.

However, what if the book stinks and/or I don’t have it in good enough shape to submit by November 30? Submit it anyway? Nah, I won’t. Why waste the judges time with something that is unworthy? I can take more time, if the book warrants it, and revise/edit at leisure in order to submit it for publication.

Will I make it before 11/30? Will the book be decent enough to submit? Am I crazy? If you answered yes to all three, you and I are on the same page.

BANG! [sound of starting gun] And We're Off!

Just a quick check-in with you (I’m busy, you know!) to let you know about the start. I could have typed the first word for NaNoWriMo 2013 at 12:01 am, but I was still asleep. However, being an early riser, I did log the first words while sipping my second cup of coffee at 4:34 a.m. As of this posting, I have completed most of three scenes and 1703 words. According to the NaNo Stats, at this rate I will complete my novel on November 30.

But I have to finish sooner than that! And I’ll reveal why in another post. More on my NaNo progress another day.

Below is a snippet of my 2012 time/word/pages tracker. I will fill this year’s table every day, each time I write that day. It is my accountability tool to myself. If I have 0 words one day, I will see that every time I pull this up to update. I hate 0’s!

The final column is the cumulative total, by day, to finish with 50K in 30 days. Each time I write, I log in how long I wrote, what the word and page count was at the end of the session, and how many total words I wrote that day. As long as my 4^th column word count was more than the Running Total each day, I knew I’d make it. The Running Total column is what it takes to finish 50K in 30 days. I need to be ahead of that schedule.

I am eager to start filling in this year’s tracker! Here’s how I began last year.

Date	Time Started/Ended	Total Hours	Words/Pages	Day’s word count	Run Tot. Min. Req.
Nov. 1	3:33 a.m.-5:13 9:55 a.m.-11:55 5:45 p.m.-6:11	~ 1.5 ~ 2 ~ .5	1723/7 pages 4047/11 pages 4516/18 pages	4516	1667
Nov. 2	3:30 a.m.-5:32 3:40 p.m.-4:45	~ 2 ~ 2	6792/28 pages 7872/32 pages	3356	3334
Nov. 3	5:30 a.m.-6:00 6:50 a.m.-7:30 10:40 a.m.-11:17	~ .5 ~ .75 ~ .5	8468/34 pages 9385/38 pages 10,132/41 pages	2260	5001