Writing and Stuff by Anthony Chatfield

It’s a bit early in the month, I know, but I am planning on taking a good bit of time off of writing beyond the bare necessities of work for the next couple of weeks, so I’m doing my mid-October update a little early.

I actually sat down for a few minutes the other day and did some basic outlining of my future novel. It turns out I had a few good ideas (cool huh?) and now I have the basic idea of a novel in hand for me to get started with when November gets underway. I never know for sure how much to outline though – I don’t ever want to get too far ahead of myself. When I do, I tend to fall behind a bit and then not get as excited as I could when it all gets started.

But, then there’s the other side of things – if I don’t do some outlining early, I tend to get really caught up when it’s time to write 1500-3000 words a day for an entire month. So, I opted for the former and have a nice little outline to get me started.

I also decided to aim for something slightly less messy than the last few years – I’m just writing something simple and fun in the fantasy genre. I’m also aiming for a really long book this year. The last few times I tried to keep it short and then got stuck in that in-between space where I couldn’t quite figure out where I was going to end the book and so even when I wrote 50,000 words, it ended up being about 40% of a novel. So, this year, I’m aiming for a finished length of 100K+. I know I probably won’t write that much in one month (unless work gets really slow), but it’s a good target and will actually end me up with a completed novel, which would be pretty fun too.

Anyways, I have an outline, I have an idea, and it’s a lot of fun. Anyone else out there wallowing through October before NaNo, make sure to spend some time outlining. It’s cathartic if nothing else, plus it keeps all your ideas fresh in your head as you roll into November and start writing.

NaNoWriMo Free Time, NaNoWriMo

It’s that time of the year again, which means I’m about to commit to NaNoWriMo, the national novel writing month event that kicks off in November. Usually around the end of September each year, I get very excited and start going on at length about what I’m going to write about, how it will be written, how you can keep up with the writing, etc.

This year, I’m going to minimize all that excitement, because I don’t want to jinx it. I’ve only completed a novel once – in 2007. In 2006, I got to 26,000 words and last year I only made it to 15,000. So, what exactly is it that slows me down in that awful 10,000-30,000 range?

My Novels and their Foibles

It depends really – last year I was just really busy. I write for a living, so spending another hour a day writing, while seemingly not that bad, was just too much. Plus it was November and things are always busy in November.

Second, I tend not to plan my novels ahead of time. I never paid this any mind before because I didn’t plan anything I wrote ahead of time. Now, I write all day and I tend to write a lot of eBooks for my clients, so I’ve come to realize just how much more effective I write when I have a very detailed plan to work from.

Finally, I occasionally start to dislike the novel I write. I don’t know why and it doesn’t always happen, but it’s happened at least once before. I think I’m overly ambitious and when I can’t do all the things I had in mind within 50,000 words and 4 weeks, I get frustrated.

The Solution

So, this year, I’m going at it in a different way. I’m going to start outlining the thing in a couple of days – probably when the forums go up on October 1st. Then, I’m going to not write about it here at all. I’ll just write the novel, not think about it at all and be 100% okay if the thing makes absolutely no sense when I hit 50,000 words. Finally, I’m going to actually have an ending in mind and attempt to get there. The 50,000 word count is extremely short, and even in ‘07 when I made it, the book wasn’t really done yet – so this time around, I’m going to stretch things out a bit and see what comes of it.

All I can do now is hope that I don’t get inundated with work like last year. Thankfully there’s no WoW expansion this fall.

NaNoWriMo NaNoWriMo, novel writing, writing a book

Or at least I should be one third of the way done. It’s day 11 of NaNoWriMo and I’m at about 10K words or so. It’s a respectable amount, but still about 7,000 words behind. Luckily, I feel as though I can whip out that much in a good weekend, or more likely on Thanksgiving. So, all is well in the realm of NaNo. Unfortunately though, I am incredibly busy with just about everything else and the 2AM writing sessions have resulted in some mediocre at best style writing. Here’s hoping for a slightly better week writing and a kick in the rear for a weak as hell story.

NaNoWriMo NaNoWriMo

So, as I had guessed, things have been hectic thus far, tapered a bit by my desire to not do anything at all. Looking back, October was actually an incredibly busy month, which has given me the freedom to relax a bit in November. Unfortunatley, that means I have been slacking a bit on my novel. That’s not to say that I’m really that far behind quite yet. I’m sitting at about 7,000 words right now and should be at 13,000 by the end of today. I will likely be at 9,000 or 10,000 realistically, but I do have the entire weekend to get caught up.

The ironic part is that I did not even change my topic this year. Every year before, I have gotten within a day or two of writing and completely changed the topic on which I was going to write. This year that was not the case and yet still I managed to fall irrevocably behind. There is one solid upside to being a professional writer – 50,000 words looks a lot smaller than it used to…unfortunatetly, it’s not that much smaller.

On a side note, I sent off a pitch I wrote up the other night to a couple of magazines in hopes that it might garner some interest. Though one response is still pending, I received a reply from one editor in a matter of hours…I’m not sure that’s necessarily a good thing, considering he declined, but it was by far the fastest response I’ve ever gotten from anyone working…well anywhere really. It gives me some feedback to rework the pitch a bit and try again with another magazine.  Pardon the sketchy descriptions. I’ve learned how incredibly easy it is to track my name directly to one of my websites and more out of superstition than anything else, I feel like I should be careful with who I talk abou professionally (lest I burn bridges before I even come to them).

Well back to work. I must be getting along now.

Freelancing, NaNoWriMo

Ah, with November now in play and a whole slew of new endeavors underway, I thought I would post an update on all things in the life of Anthony Chatfield. Hint: it’s a lot of things.

First off, there’s the freelancing. I’ve recently completed and relaunched my freelance services website at SeattleFreelance.com and have hired on the first few writers to help me get things started. As the month goes along, the plan is to throw out some feelers and start dragging in some new projects, grow my existing client basis and finally get over the dependency I’ve built up in Elance and other sites. It is a loftly goal, one that will probably take a few months to accomplish, but also one that will give me massive freedom in my writing – definitely a good thing.

Next up there’s NaNoWriMo. I announced my start of the annual novel writing month last night and have so far barely accomplished my daily allocation of writing. Luckily, I have 29 days to write 48,000 words, not something I’m overly worried about..not considering the other 100,000+ words I will likely write this month for work. The nice little diversion it gives me is a good aside from the usual work for hire content I engage in every day. Plus, it’s fiction – not something I get a chance to write as often as I would like.

I’m working up a new project on the side as well, writing and publishing new websites and eBooks on a variety of topics. For a few months now I’ve been reading and writing about dozens of interesting topics, and now I’m working on congealing all of that random knowledge into my own money making prospects. Thus far, I have completed one website, outlined three more and am in the process of marketing new ideas with my partner and roommate. Regardless of how important I make myself sound though, it is a fun little side project that I am going to keep at it until I either get very rich or fail miserably – whichever comes first.

Then there’s the holidays coming up. With veteran’s day weekend, thanksgiving and the coming christmas holiday, there will be a lot of travel and a lot of off time, making it even more likely that the rest of the month is spent working for hours on end…oh and playing Guitar Hero III. I must say, I am thoroughly addicted.

Freelancing, NaNoWriMo

It is just a few minutes past midnight in the good old Northwest and I am about to start on my NaNoWriMo novel. I have been swamped to the eyebrows in recent weeks with work so my posts have been sparse, but here’s to everyone out there who is writing right now, starting down the long and harrowing path of writing a novel this month. I’m there with you.

NaNoWriMo

With just two short weeks left, NaNoWriMo is about to commence, so I made sure to sit down and start thinking about what I would do for my book. I have been so busy in the last few weeks on vacation, getting caught up on my work (still getting caught up on my work….dealing with pain in…well, you get it…customers) and trying to get a little rest.

So, now I can start working on my NaNo planning. Luckily, I had an idea from about a year and a half ago that is ripe for the picking. To be honest, I had to dig through a dozen different lists of story ideas, half finished short stories and partially postulated novels. But, I finally uncovered the perfect story idea.

With the freelance writing taking so much of my valuable arthritis inducing time at the keyboard up, I decided I needed a story idea that would be easy to write, straightforward to plot, and preferrably incredibly simple to finish. That story idea was a hybrid science fiction novel. It sounds a bit nerdy sure, but it will be much more fun than the last two I wrote, which became so convoluted and confusing that when the 50,000 words were done I was confused out of my mind and had to step back for long enough to forget about it.

Anyways, the NaNoWriMo idea, before I forget to actually outline here is the following:

Boy meets girl
They fall in love
She disappears, leaves him a locket (he can’t open it)
20 years later – He is a pilot,  engaged, about to start training at NASA
enter Sci-Fi
The moon disappears (yes, our moon)
The locket opens, the pilot goes blind, and all hell breaks loose.

That’s the rough idea. I don’t want to throw the ending out just yet (mainly because I don’t know what it is yet), but that should show you just how campy and out there I’m aiming to go with this novel. It is only 30 days right? Why not shore it up with an easy, fun idea.

NaNoWriMo

I did not have the good fortune of having created this blog just yet last year when NaNoWriMo took place. Ironically, I discovered my eager desire to read all about the trials and tribulations of my fellow writers through NaNoWriMo and thus started writing the now famous (you know they are) blog posts about three weeks after I finished my novel.

For those that haven’t signed up yet, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and that particular month is November. Basically, a few thousand people from around the world get together online in November every year to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It’s a personal challenge of sorts as “winning” does nothing more than give you the right to tell your friends and family that you wrote a novel in a month.

This year is my third time participating and as is the annual custom, October is the month in which we all start brainstorming our characters, plots, and devices – all the better to see what comes of our endeavors at least. I have yet to even begin, but I’m skewing towards something mostly mindless and wholly entertaining this year so I can actually finish a full story within 50,000-70,000 words (last year’s hit the magically 50K mark, but needs another 50K before it’s actually done…ironic, no?).

I’m trying to find a good plugin to post on the blog to keep track of my progress, so hopefully that will be up and running shortly. However, plugin or no, I’m going to drop posts on a regular basis about how things are going. What I’m basically saying is that you should start getting invested in NaNo now because 85% of my posts will be updates on my novel (and the process of writing it)

Freelance Lifestyle, My Fiction, NaNoWriMo