PinoyWrimos

Hello Pinoywrimos!

I just got back from my trip to Makati where I met up with 15 other Wrimos to eat pizza and talk, talk and talk! It was such a fun afternoon — good thing we ruled Yellow Cab. :P Thanks to everyone who attended!

Anyway, I’d like to say congratulations to everyone who joined this year’s NaNoWriMo. To the newbies who reached 50k for the first time, to the veterans whose won NaNo for more than a year, to those who have been a part of NaNo for a while but only won this year, and most especially to those who did more than 10k yesterday just to reach the word count goal: CONGRATULATIONS! You proved that 50k in a month is crazy, but doable. :)

If you did not reach 50k, I still congratulate you! The very fact that you joined this year and tried writing is an achievement already. What matters is YOU WROTE, so don’t feel bad that you didn’t reach 50k. That, and I hope to see you guys again next year! This time, we’ll all make sure you reach the word count goal!

To those who missed this afternoon’s event, you can still attend the TGIO party! You don’t have to have reached 50k last month, as long as you participated in NaNoWriMo, you can attend the TGIO Party. It’s going to be on December 12 at Fully Booked U-View at Bonifacio High Street, from 7-9PM. This is your time to talk to fellow Wrimos and people from the industry and win exciting prizes! Remember that wooden journal back in Kick Off Party? That’s up for grabs on the TGIO, so be there to get a chance to win it! Please do sign up here, and if you have any questions, you can email/YM me or just post a question at the TGIO thread. :) Much thanks to Talecraft again for sponsoring the party.

And so here’s a bittersweet feeling. I always have this feeling after November, like the days seem emptier and less…well, exciting. Of course, work’s always waiting for me, so now I must focus on work. I’m resting from writing from December, but I promised myself that i’d pick it up again as 2009 comes. I gotta get serious with this, y’know? :P

So here’s a collective question I can feel from everyone: WHAT NOW?

1. The NaNoWriMo HQ gives us plenty of things to do after on the I Wrote a Novel, Now What? page.
2. I believe the website will be up all year, so we can keep on posting here until they wipe it off before next year’s NaNoWriMo. They’ve also opened some new forums for December, namely:
   - Critiques, Feedback and Novel Swaps
   - Novel Draft Aftercare
   - Life After NaNoWriMo
3. If you’d like a new challenge of writing scripts, you may also join Script Frenzy on April. :)
4. We’ll also be having a 2008 NaNoWriMo Anthology, so watch out for emails about this!
5. If you have any suggestions for activities, or if you know of any writing events that you want to share to the group, please do email me about it so I can send it to the groups and post it on the website. :)

We won’t be having the weekend chats anymore, but expect random conference invites every now and then just so we can all talk and update each other about life and such. :) I’d miss you guys too much if I don’t get to see you or talk to you every now and then. :D Who’s up for Laser Tag sometime next year? :D

Anyway, I really should get started on some of my freelance projects that I’ve pushed away this past month. I’m proud of you guys. :) It’s been such an honor.

See you at the TGIO!

P.S. Oh guys, donating to NaNoWriMo is still open — if you guys can donate, please do! This will help NaNoWriMo stay online for the rest of the year. :D You can donate here. If you’re broke, you can still help out here. To find out where your donations go, click here. :D Let’s help keep NaNoWriMo alive!

To any NaNo enthusiast, October is the month when you get to plan out your plot, do your research, and rub your hands together in front of your keyboard, counting the days until the first second of November 1st strikes. It’s a full 31-day preparation period, where you get to break your ties with the rest of humanity so that you can lock yourself up in your room and get your novel written. To me, October 2008 was anything but.

I had the flu in the first two weeks of October. As I emerged from bed rest and got ready to write out a plot, I accidentally scratched my cornea with my fingernail and ended up with a temporarily blinded right eye. And just as my eye was healing, just as I was ready to scramble for a last minute outline – as well as a real plot, because I had no story to show for all my weeks of forced confinement – I received word that my grandmother back home in the Philippines was dying.

Now here’s the thing: I’m working on my PhD at Purdue University. I live in West Lafayette, Indiana, which is twelve/thirteen time zones away from the Philippines. I am far away from everything that I love. I have papers to finish, statistics homework to do, and a dissertation to prepare for.

The grandmother who had always been my biggest fan was slipping away fast. When November 1 came, I was with my friends, escaping from the world in a Firefly-themed party. My grandmother died on November 5. My cornea is still healing. My flu is coming back from time to time. I finally started writing my NaNo novel on November 6.

This year, my novel is called “Weird and Lovely,” and it’s about a girl who loses her grandmother to cancer – but who regains her strength and finds herself after spending time with the ghosts of her dead grandparents. One week after I had first started writing “Weird and Lovely,” on November 13th, I passed the 50,000-word mark.

A lot of people ask me how I can type out a lot of words, and how I can come up with a story. I usually joke that I don’t stop drinking coffee. But the truth is: it has nothing to do with caffeine. It has nothing to do with anything that I eat or drink. It doesn’t even have anything to do with advanced planning or outlining the plot ahead of time. It’s just that, for the longest time, I’ve never really had a hard time coming up with words. I’m just naturally talkative. The trick is to get me to shut up, or worse, be concise.

The words, however, come pouring out when a story means something to me. This year, my novel is my way of healing my own wounds, of looking at my own past and seeing how it made me what I am today. I also got a few pointers from my professors this semester, who were privy to my affairs. One professor told me to celebrate my grandmother’s life by writing, because I truly was bent on giving NaNo up this year. Another professor told me to tell the story of my family before no one would be alive and around to tell it.

So, really, this novel is my therapy and my contribution to my history. It has stories from my childhood, tales that I heard from my aunts and uncles about my grandparents, and my own wish to see my grandmother once again.

I may have taken the roundabout way to tell you how to survive NaNo mid-month, but I needed my own story to tell you this: no one can tell your story but you. This means that no one is there to correct you, no one is there to tell you that you’re wrong, and no one is going to jump on you and tear your hair out if you make mistakes. You need only to set that story free, that story locked behind the bars of that prison in your head. Only you hold the key.

If you love your story, and if you have a story to tell, the words will flow easily. But some days, you may find yourself lagging behind, lacking inspiration, and thinking, “Why did I even attempt this?”

For you, I offer this advice: take a break.

It might sound counterintuitive, but really, if you want to get the words out, you can’t squeeze them out of your brain. You need to let the words flow naturally, by their own force. Do something else, something brainless: play the piano idly, take a walk and look at the world around you, go to the mall and watch people, hang out with your friends, mend the hems of your torn jeans, draw, design ballroom dancing shoes for Yao Ming, watch TV, watch a movie, and, if all else fails, sleep!

It’s not you that’s getting burned out: It’s your head. Recharge, get yourself some energy, and then return to the fray. You’ll find ideas pouring out of you; in fact, the most menial tasks are great ways for your brain to suddenly wake up. You may get that eureka moment as you’re sipping your coffee, listening to a sad song on the radio, or looking at yourself in the mirror and asking what the heck you’re doing on this planet.

Here’s another piece of advice: learn to read the language of your own body. When you feel that the words are coming out quickly, that your fingers are starting to take on a life of their own, and that your story is moving as though it had its own breath and soul, then you know that you’re on the right track. But when you feel that you are forced to write the novel, when you feel that you are being pushed to do something that you aren’t in the mood to do, and when this feels like an obligation, then stop. Rest. Do something else. Don’t turn NaNoWriMo into torture. Remember, the best writing should set you free, not imprison you.

You’ve reached the halfway mark – and you still have fifteen days to go before November 2008 closes. You will be tired out, thinking that you can go no further, and finding ways to push yourself so that you can at least get another thousand words to meet your quota, or another hundred, or even just one word. Rest when you can. Read your body language. Now is not the time to quit.

This is your moment to shine: this is your moment to tell your story. Whether you started on November 1st or November 6th; whether you had nothing at all happening to you in October, or cried yourself dry; whether you planned your novel or not, you have a story. You alone are the storyteller. Weave your tale. Write it down. You have that power.

Inez is a writer, editor, journalist, designer, scientist, educator, and dreamer. She was the ML for the region in 2005, and this is her fifth NaNo win (sixth, if you count her two novels last year). Her first two NaNoWriMo novels, THE SANCTUARY and THE ROMANTIC, are available via Lulu.com. You can visit her website at http://illustria.thefreebizhost.com/ .

Dear Pinoywrimos,

Hello everyone, here we are at the second weekend of November, and officially onto the second week of November. The first week brought about tons of excitement with our novels and as with every single NaNoWriMo year that has passed, the second week has always proved to be the toughest week.

Novel writing is fun, yes, but the novelty wears off quick. So far I’ve seen everyone is still excited, but at some point in this week, the word counts would slow down and everyone, including me, would start wondering, “Why the heck am I doing this in the first place?”

Ladies and gentlemen, week 2.

It’s dull, drab, and boring. But week 2 is the necessary part of a Wrimo’s November life, and no matter how dull this week can be, sticking with your novel through this week will be totally worth it once we get to Week 3. :) I promise.

Some tips on getting through Week # 2 right from No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty coming up:

1. If you feel like trashing your novel and starting over…well don’t. There is always something workable in a story, no matter how drab and boring it may seem. Flesh out your characters, throw in a very different plot twist, grab a dare from the NaNoWriMo forums — there’s many resources at hand for you to use, use them! You can bring your story back to life, and the entire NaNoWriMo community is willing to help you out.
2. No matter what happens, don’t let yourself edit! I’m serious about this. Tuck that internal editor away — you won’t need them. Resist the urge to edit!
3. Don’t get it right, get it written. Related to #2, the important point of NaNoWriMo is to get your first draft out. First drafts aren’t really made of gold, so just keep writing and don’t worry about getting it right. You have more than enough time to make it right AFTER November. Let me quote Dory and twist her words a bit: “Just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing…”
4. In case you feel burned out, consider this as a ticket for a one day break from noveling. One day break, and that’s it, okay? Having more than one day of break can do serious damage to your word count.
5. Engage in Guerilla writing. One of Dean Alfar’s advice is to engage in guerilla writing. Whenever you have a few minutes free, write! 1000, 500 or even 100 words will make a lot of difference. :)
6. Feeling the need to rant, wail or complain? Vent it out! That’s why we have the boards. You’ll find that there’s a lot of sympathetic ears around. :D

We shall conquer Week 2, yes! We can do this! :) Happy writing!