Dear WriMos,

Sorry for the delay in sending this–I know December ended four, almost five days ago, but as we learn in NaNoWriMo, life so frequently gets in the way.

So. First of all, congratulations! You’ve made it to December. Whether or not you’ve made it to 50K, you’ve already achieved something for having tried. After all, NaNoWriMo is about learning the discipline of writing. And you’ve just proved that you’re willing to take on this challenge.

But in the aftermath of our one-month word sprint, you may be wondering about what comes next. Well, there are a number of things you can consider. Here are just some of them:

1. KEEP CHUGGING ON.

If you haven’t gotten to the point where you can write “The End,” then you may want to keep writing until you do. After all, while getting to a word count goal is satisfying, your novel won’t be complete without a beginning, middle, and end.

2. CHECK OUT THE GOODIES YOU’RE ENTITLED TO.

I know a lot of you have been eyeing the free paperback copies of a finished book offered by CreateSpace, and I know of at least some keen on taking advantage of that 50% discount off Scrivener. Well, check out the special offers at http://new.nanowrimo.org/en/offers.

3. GO TO THE TGIO PARTY.

It’ll be on the 10th of December, and details will be posted on the forums and the PinoyWrimos Facebook page.

4. DONATE TO THE OFFICE OF LETTERS AND LIGHT.

Help keep NaNoWriMo and its causes going by making a donation, if you can. For details, go here: http://new.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/asia-philippines/threads/42351

5. FIND OUT WHAT OTHER PINOYWRIMOS ARE DOING.

Head for the forums and talk about it in this thread: http://new.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/asia-philippines/threads/44019

6. HAVE FUN!

Go and do the things you skipped while writing out your novel. Hang out with friends. Go to parties. Watch movies. It’s December, and Christmas is coming! Have fun, guys!

So, again, congratulations to winners and non-winners alike! In my opinion, everyone who’s tried is already a winner. So even if you don’t have that purple bar, congratulations, and hope to see you at the TGIO Party and again in 2012!

Cheers!
Purplyana (AKA Liana)
Co-ML for Asia :: Philippines

I must say: I love these year’s NaNoWriMo stickers. For those who haven’t seen it, or haven’t gotten the chance to get yours yet (they’ll be available again during the Thank Goodness it’s Over party, so be there if you want one!), you can see them all in the NaNoWriMo store, or here:

I think, out of all stickers I’ve seen while I was a Municipal Liaison, this year’s pack contained the most number of pep, and the most I have related to in the last seven years I have been doing NaNo (although nothing will probably beat the 2007 sticker that says, My novel is better than yours! and Don’t bother me or I’ll put you in my novel! Or something like that). While I was thinking of my last pep talk for NaNoWriMo 2011, I found myself thinking of these stickers and realized that there is a really good reason why these became our stickers this year.

Let me elaborate.

1. You are part money, part ninja, part stairmaster cyborg.

Some of you may have entered NaNoWriMo without any thought of all the other things you are also supposed to do for November. Some of you may have thought of all these things, but decided to join anyway, since it’s just writing. What could be so hard about that? And them sometime in the middle of November, you realize how hard writing a novel was, and how many other things you need to do for November. You realize that you can’t be a novelist and something else, too, and you wonder if you are crazy for really undertaking this challenge.

This November, I was not only a novelist and your Municipal Liaison, but I was also an employee, friend, a sister, a daughter and overall in charge for our household things. Suddenly, all my friends wanted to see me. Suddenly there were books I want to read. Suddenly, I had to deal with learning a snake got in our house one morning. I was on night shift, so going out on a morning of a Saturday was torture, and sometimes all I want to do was sleep when I get home and not write. I also had to take a certification exam at work, and my performance evaluation is at stake with that certification. I’m sure you guys also realized how many other roles you had to fulfill during November too: business owner, boss, husband, wife, father, mother, brother, son, boyfriend, girlfriend, student, unemployed but looking for a job, [insert your own role here]. More often than not, we have to juggle multiple roles during November and we wonder for the nth time why even joined this challenge in the first place.

But you know what? That’s the thing: we are never made for simply one role in our life. We are often asked to be more than a monkey, more than a ninja and more than a stairmaster cyborg. Sometimes we have to be both the monkey and the ninja. Being a novelist is just adding another role in our plate, and while sometimes it feels overwhelming, we still somehow can do it. It doesn’t feel like it, but when November ends and you look back, you’ll see that you were doing pretty good being a part ninja, part monkey and part stairmaster cyborg in one.

2. Run whooping through the valleys of your imagination.

Okay, the idea of a “valley” is really not so much as whimsical as it is made, because a valley usually means darkness, or a dark time. People often want to get out of the valley, because the mountain top is better than being in the darkness of the valley.

But here’s the thing about valleys: we learn a lot more being in a valley than being on the mountain top. The mountain top usually means a reward, and but to get that reward, you have to do some pretty difficult things first. There were probably times when you felt dry, felt like you can write no longer. That’s a part of the valley. That’s why you need to run whooping through it — if you keep on thinking that your valley is a sad and dry place, it will take you a long time to get out of it. But if you want to get to your mountain, well, you better hurry and run. Run as fast as you can, and whoop while you’re at it. Because whooping is fun.

The best part is, you’re not whooping alone. Everyone in the region who’s also doing NaNoWriMo is whooping with you. Everyone in the world who’s also doing NaNoWriMo is whooping with you. So run whooping through the valleys of your imagination, because soon, you’ll be out of it and you’ll be able to claim your reward.

3. Whatever you think you are, you are more than that.

Whenever I am doing some crunches (and just so you know, I am so not fond of that exercise), I always try to make myself do one or two more reps when I am done with a set, just because. I remember reading somewhere that the trick to doing more crunches even when it’s painful is to say that you will do ten last ones, and then when you’re done with that, you say just ten more, and so on. Then later, when your entire abdominal area is screaming with pain, you would be surprised that you made a hundred crunches (or even more).

I think NaNoWriMo is like that. When we near the end of the season and our story is hard and our characters are stubborn and you want to do everything but write and you can’t possibly write another word, it’s tempting to throw the towel and quit. But just like doing crunches, don’t. As long as it’s still November, as long as everyone else is still writing, tell yourself that you’ll write 1,000 more words. And then when you do that, 1,000 more. And more. Then you’ll be surprised to see how close you are to the goal, and you’ll just want to keep writing. This year, take this sticker’s message to heart, because it is true. You are more than what you think you are, and you can do more than what you think you can do.

4. Your story matters.

I’ve shared this a couple of times in other pep talks already but for the benefit of those who missed it: I lost NaNoWriMo on my first try. I made it to 33,000+ words and stopped writing because school got too busy and I started to not like my male main character. It was really more of neglect, and back then we had no regional support to get me to writing. I consider it a battle scar, because at least I know how it feels not to win NaNoWriMo out of all my other wins.

And how does it feel not to get to 50k? Well, it kind of sucks but it’s also not so bad. The thing with not getting to the goal then made me want to finish my story and even more determined to win the next year. My 2004 novel was the first I wrote and finished, even if it didn’t make the word count goal that November and I consider it a special one. Granted, it’s kind of cheesy, but you never forget your first child.

The point is, whatever your end word count is this month, and whether it’s your first or fifth time doing NaNoWriMo, the most important thing in the end is that you wrote. And 20,000 words is better than zero. Every word you have written this month is important, and it’s something to be proud of.

Remember this, as November 30 and the end of NaNoWriMo approaches: whatever your final word count is, YOUR STORY MATTERS. So don’t give up on it.

A few days ago, an article came up after the Manila International Literary Festival with insights from local writing “legends” that asked, Where is the next great Philippine novel? If I was there, I would have waved our banner (if we had one, that is) up high. This is my eighth year doing NaNoWriMo and my fifth year as ML and I still stand by what I say about this community: I am among some of the best writers in the country and you guys have never ceased to inspire me.

See you at the finish line.

Sometimes it still surprises me when I realize that NaNoWriMo 2011 is my eighth NaNoWriMo. That meant that in the past seven years, I have been joining this craziness and haven’t stopped. I’ve won six out of seven times: two finished novels, five unfinished and two of them will probably never, ever see the light of day.

So when this year started, I admit that I am running dry with ideas. Normally, I would be thinking of plots and twists and scribbling a vague outline on paper or on my iPod Touch to prepare myself for November. This year, I have an idea of a plot and I have a main character. Real life and ML stuff got in the way of actual novel planning, so I was really expecting to wing it, until I uttered these words on Twitter:

Well, I actually want to finish something this year that I won’t want to bury in my hard drive.

I guess this put some pressure on myself, because this really made it hard for me to write. Oh I loved my idea, and I think it will get me somewhere, but I knew in my heart that if I wing it, I’d end up hating it and I really do not want to hate another novel I wrote (believe me, the 2010 novel was excruciating to read through again).

But I tried. Oh yes, I tried. (That is a song, I think?) I had to change my timelines and agonize over how my novel will end for days, until I hit 11,000 words during the Ayala Triangle write-in. YAY, FINALLY.

And then.

On my way home that night, something was nagging me. The chapter I was writing was going well, but I was scared to figure out what would happen next. Because honestly, I do not know. I have no idea where my story will go even if I knew the ending. I wanted to write it, but I don’t know how. And that presented a real problem for me, because like I said, I do not want to hate this year’s novel.

Then I thought some more, and I realized that maybe I was having a hard time with this because it’s been such a long time since I read chick lit. Some of the NaNo vets know me as the “chick lit girl”, the one who always writes fluff. Well, I think I have only read two chick lit books this year, and the rest are young adult novels. So that made me wonder: why am I not writing a young adult novel when that is practically all I have been reading for the past year?

And then, I decided to go crazy.

On the 8th day of November, I trashed my first novel and started again.

I know, I know. We always say that in NaNo, you shouldn’t delete, you should just stick to what you are writing and you’ll find it will work somehow. I do not recommend what I just did (but if you’re crazy enough like me, then why not?), and if you feel like jumping ship, too, then better do it NOW because if you do it later, it’s too late. Some suggested mid-stream plot change so I won’t lose the word count, but knowing my old plot and my new plot…well, it wouldn’t really work.

But the plot change isn’t really the point here. Here’s one thing I learned as I started writing my new novel: what you like to read is really the same as what you like to write. Chris Baty said it well: “What should I write about?” is a hard question. “What would I like to read about?” is easier. The answers will be the same for both. That is true. I couldn’t write my chick lit novel because as much as I love chick lit, I haven’t been reading it much. But now I love (see the emphasis there? ) reading contemporary young adult novels, so why wasn’t I writing it?

If you’re having a hard time writing now, if you’re running out of words or plot, ask yourself why you decided to write what you’re writing in the first place. Chances are you want to write is also what you like reading. Or what you like watching. Or what you like discussing with friends, even if the rest do not understand what you are talking about. What you want to write about is something that makes you grin, something that makes your heart race, something that excites you. I don’t think it’s copying ideas from someone else. I’d like to believe it’s getting inspiration from something you’re really passionate about.

There will still be bad days of course. Days where I would be stuck, days when I’d hate my characters, but it would be a welcome problem because it’s a problem I am more willing to face. Oh the final product of this month is still going to be crap, and I don’t think I’d want anyone to read it yet, but I am pretty sure it would be something that I like. And I think that makes a world of difference.

As for the plot I discarded this year? Well, that will be reserved for next year. After all, it was supposed to be an apocalyptic novel, and when is the best time to write it but 2012?

Right now, I am at 6,623 words — behind quota. Usually at this time of the month in the past years, I would be doing pretty good with quota. But you know what? It’s okay. Because now that I like what I’m writing, I know that I have enough fuel to get me through the next days, and beyond, up to the end of my novel.

So, ask yourself: I hope that by asking this question, you find your inspiration to keep on writing this month. It’s far from over, but trust someone who’s been doing this crazy thing for eight years — it gets better. And getting to the end and that purple winner bar is absolutely worth all this craziness.

Dear NaNoWriMo writers,

I grew up, probably like some of you, reading books about writers. My favorites were Little Women and Anne of Green Gables—both books about would-be authors finding out that they didn’t really need to venture too far from themselves in order to come up with good stories. The lesson at the end of these books was that you just needed to write about what you knew in order to get somewhere.

It might seem farfetched to look into your own life for inspiration for your science fiction novel or that mystery thriller you’ve been dreaming of writing. Keep looking for something that connects you to your character, your setting, or your plot. Regardless of what genre you’re taking, what Jo March and Anne Shirley said—that you ought to write about what’s close to you—still carries weight.

Forget about the readers, who one day, will be analyzing, criticizing and dissecting every single word you’ve written. Forget that people will wonder how everything connects to your actual life. For now, it’s just you and your keyboard and no one’s going to judge you for turning your main character into a funnier, more appealing, even “better” version of you (or turning someone you can’t stand in real life into your book’s main villain—you know you want to). If that’s what it takes to access feelings that will take your readers to a real place and allow them to feel real sentiments and be with you wherever your writing takes them, then that’s what you should do. Go with your gut—as a writer, that is one of your most important tools.

“Novel” is such a big word and putting it out there, telling the world that you’re writing one is equally scary. Do a little every day to take the edge off. It’ll be amazing and absolutely worth it when you reach the end of November, scroll through your pages and see how much you’ve done.

And, in the end, when you’re finally published and when people will try to figure out exactly which parts of your book are the rawest parts of you and your soul, remember you can always shrug your shoulders, smile and tell them it’s all fiction. Jo March and Anne Shirley were certainly imaginary (and obviously offshoots of the authors that created them)—but look at how much these fictional writers and their real life counterparts changed the world as we know it.

Good luck and love the process!
Chinggay Labrador

———-

Chinggay Labrador is the author of Popped and Popped Too, two novels revolving around the world of K-pop fandoms, both published by Summit Books. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Sparkling, a magazine devoted Korean music, fashion, and more. Follow @superrrfudge on Twitter for updates from this author.

Let me begin with a quote from William Shakespeare that I read in an issue of WWE Magazine.

“Be not afraid of greatness: Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

By now, you may be among those who pat themselves on the back for meeting or surpassing their quota or those who are tempted too smack themselves silly for falling short. Whichever of these two scenarios best fits your situation, you should be glad that you’ve made it this far.

I haven’t always been great at giving advice but here are a few tips to get your creative juices pumping before, during, and after the writing process.

1. Set little personal goals and exceed expectations.
Not only is this applicable in this year’s NaNo, but in anything you do. As for the case of NaNo, most of your fellow participants settle with 1,667 words a day to reach 50,000 at the end of the month. Instead of simply 1,667 words a day for the month of November, try reaching 2,000 words before bed time every day of this month. I did that in my second year and before I knew it, I reached 50k ahead of schedule.

Your personal goal need not be necessarily 2k a day. Your personal goal could be finishing a very important plot-relevant scene before going to sleep. Whatever your personal NaNo goals are, the list is up to you.

2. Don’t fret if you have writer’s block.
Procrastination is the writer’s enemy. If you experience writer’s block, don’t panic. You can draw inspiration from anything of the same genre. For example: If you have trouble coming up with a build-up for your Mexican standoff involving your main character who is a convicted felon, the antagonistic corrupt police chief, and the two-faced hitman hired to kill your MC, get ideas from crime novels or action flicks with a similar plot.

Chances are you might come up with ideas, but moderate your idea-getting. Don’t forget that you have a deadline to beat and, unlike publishers, you can’t cut a deal with Father Time to keep the clock stuck at the 11th hour.

3. Don’t hesitate to ask for help if necessary.
Michael Jackson wouldn’t have been crowned King of Pop without the help of the rest of the Jackson 5. Chuck Norris wouldn’t have been the star of “Walker, Texas Ranger” if Dean Martin didn’t offer him a role in “The Wrecking Crew”. Will Smith would have languished into rap mediocrity if The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air didn’t give him his big break in acting.

In the same way, some of us budding writers can’t achieve the 50k mark by ourselves. We have mentors and fellow PinoyWrimos willing to give you their (hopefully *wink*) unbiased critique, words of encouragement or, in my case, pep talks via mail. In my years as a NaNo participant, I have grown to love each one of my fellow PinoyWrimos as a friend or a sibling.

4. If you fail to win, there’s always next year.
Here’s the dialogue from an old commercial of Michael Jordan for Nike.

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”

If you’re a newbie and you fall short of your quota, don’t worry. Most, if not all, of us have been there. In my first year, I didn’t win NaNo. In fact, I lacked the preparation for the whole month. I didn’t set out specific goals for NaNo that year. Basically, I was just in it for the hell of it. By December 1 at 12 midnight, I was about 8,000 words short of victory. But that didn’t stop me. Writing wasn’t always my forte but it was something I liked to do. My first year of NaNo was responsible for my drive to hone my writing skills.

Always remember, “The first draft is always s***.” You are out to write a 50,000 word novel due November 30th but your English teacher wouldn’t be checking your work. Leave your errors alone for now. Save your editing for later. Let’s say, a phrase doesn’t sound right. If the editing bug continues to bite you on the caboose whenever this happens, a trick of mine is to replace it with a different phrase with the same number of words.

5. Plan ahead of time if you can.
Sometimes, you have to pretend that this is an actual competition among writers. Race car drivers are each others’ friends but once the checkered flag is waved, they outrun each other to win first place. That has always been sort of my train of thought when it came to NaNo. The competitive spirit in me had always revealed itself in contests and sometimes, it pays to be competitive.

Pre-planning can be a tricky process. It’s as if you’re shopping for clothes because a lot of factors should be considered. In the case of writing, the factors are your elements of literature (plot, characters, setting, genre, etc.) and how you can fit your writing time in 30 days.

Planning early has its advantages and disadvantages. When you have a plot set early, you have the “edge” over your fellow PinoyWrimos but you can be confused easily when a new plot idea comes along. A quick suggestion is listing down plot ideas then consulting people near and dear to you on which to write. Best option though is to write what you feel you can pull off the best. Pick the plot where you can come up with the most scenes relevant to it.

Now that I have given you some wisdom about my writing tactics, I hope that this November becomes a fruitful month for pros and rookies alike. It ain’t over ’till the calendar says December 1 but procrastination is not an option. Winning is a primary objective but it’s not always “If you ain’t first, you’re last”.

Now you know and knowing is half the battle.

————

Emjay Lapus is a college student at the University of the Philippines Los Banos, taking up a Bachelor of Science in Development Communication, majoring in Educational Communication. This is his fifth year doing NaNoWriMo and he has been writing since he was 13 years old. He is known to love food, wrestling, video games, and basketball among other things. He also unofficially represented his alma mater, Claret School of Quezon City, at World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, Australia and maintains a tumblr at http://hustlinontheflow.tumblr.com/