NaNoWriMo 2015! 1/6

Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo 2015, and I must admit this first Sunday is not going to be an update. Instead, I'm going to give a brief overview of my plans for NaNoWriMo 2015, sinceNaNoWriMo: What Is It? gives a brief explanation and more can be learned at their official website,NaNoWriMo.org.

This year I plan on giving a brief update every Sunday, and yes, I do plan to still give updates on the campaign, which I will soon post update blogs for the previous sessions or you can reread New Campaign: LANZ Session 0 or LANZ: Session 1 . I promise I haven't abandoned it, and the campaign is going strong. This happens when players actually play their character and allow others to have play time instead of trying to show just how awesome their character is.

Alright back to my NaNoWriMo 2015 schedule. So this is the first in a series of six. Why six? Because this year, the last Sunday of November is not the last day of November. The final NaNo Update 2015 post will be made on the first Sunday in December.  Instead of trying to reach the goal of 50,000 words with an original piece, I shall be typing a fanfiction which will hopefully be put on (hyperlink) at the end of the month after editing, most likely heavily. The fanfiction will be a crossover between The Librarians and Leverage TV shows.

I have yet to title it and it will focus of Elliot Spencer being Jake Stone. Things will change within the The Librarians time line. I've decided that the first episode of The Librarians is ten years after the first episode of Leverage. Also, I can't really see Jassandra ( the Jake Stone and Cassandra Cillian pairing), so I don't know if their will be a pairing for Jake, though I could see over some length of time something occurring between Jake and Ezekiel Jones (which I will hereafter refer to as Jezekiel.) The Flynn and Eve pairing is pretty nonexistent in the first season and I'm not sure how well it will translate into my fanfic, but it is a journey I look forward to undertaking.

Now, I follow Kristina Horner on YouTube and she recently posted a NaNoWriMo Tag. It consists of technically ten questions, though two are linked and counted as only one. This gives nine lines for the questions. These questions are for NaNoWriMo and not Camp NaNoWriMo. I will answer as honestly as I can so far as my memory goes or I can find the information.

1. How many NaNoWriMo's have you done?

2015 will be my third year participating in NaNoWriMo, though I have yet to “win.”

2. How did you find out about NaNoWriMo?

I first saw the term NaNoWriMo in author's notes in some fanfictions as early as 2010 but it wasn't until 2013 that I took the initiative to learn what it was about.

3. What was the title of your first NaNoWriMo attempt?

I titled my first attempt Shambles and while it's still a work in progress, it a futuristic setting that relies on the search for one's family history. I managed what I did on it in less than half the month, I think. I know I didn't find out and actually start on Shambles until at least a week into November, anyway.

4. Give a one sentence summary of this year's attempt.

A crossover between The Librarians and Leverage, where Jake Stone and Elliot Spencer are the same person, or you could just read the first part of this post.

5. The best writing advice you've been given?

I've seen and heard a lot of advice, especially as NaNoWriMo comes around, and I've heard it from numerous walks of life. There's the time honored “Write what you know.” Or how about a NaNoWriMo fave ”Ignore your inner editor and just keep writing.” Another common one is to stop right in the middle of what you know you are going to type or write up. These are all sound pieces of advice. At least for everyone but me, or so it seems. I've tried them.

Writing what I know annoys me and to be completely honest, I bullshitted my way through papers in high school. Aced most of them, but over half the time I had no clue as to what I was trying to say. Somehow I'd still manage practically perfect test essays.

If I ignore my inner editor, I find myself annoyed at the smallest of mistakes in a piece and I either have to go back and fix it (usually after the bout of inspiration is done,) or give up until I can figure out what is bothering me so much about it. Oftentimes, by listening to my inner editor, I can usually gain some more insight which actually spurs my writing on. Instead of ignoring it, I use my inner editor when I hit some kind of block.

I've purposely stopped in the middle of writing a sentence so that I could return with something in my mind to actually continue on, and found me trying to puzzle out what it was I was trying to say. A couple of times it was because my husband or a friend called me from my work but I've done so on purpose just to see if it would work. It never failed that when I returned (and it could have been a five minute hiatus,) I just could not figure out where I was going with the sentence!

I have found however that there is a piece of advice that works for me: Write from a different perspective, from any other viewpoint. Basically take the scene that's giving you trouble and either tell it as a different type of story (my favorite is as a newspaper of magazine article) or get inside the head of someone or something else in the scene. Write as though you're the sidewalk the main character is being made to lick their bully's shoes upon or write as the bully or their shoes. Write as the wall that is being vandalized after having watched a murder the night before or write as the murderer. No matter what, if you get stuck on a scene not working the way you think it should, just rewrite from another's perspective. A really good example is to think back to those kids books we'd read (The Babysitter's Club comes to mind) where practically every chapter or book was written from someone else's viewpoint. I've got a fanfiction and original stories that make use of these alternate tellings. Sometimes that's what needed to get back into the flow of the story is to explore the story of another character, be it animate or inanimate, human or creature.

6. Have you ever taken a year off of NaNoWriMo? If so, why?

Since starting NaNoWriMo back in 2013, I have attempted each NaNoWriMo, though I almost did not this year due to the untimely demise my new computer thanks to the Windows 10 update and a lack of inspiration. However, I found a spark to ignite the NaNoWriMo fire, and can always hand write.  Transfering it at random points in time to my husband's computer with good ol' Windows 7.

7. What is your biggest inspiration when figuring out what to write?

Typically something I see or read sparks some kind of what if, like last year when I listened to the battle rounds on The Voice and the duet of Joliene starting off a capella with one voice male and the other female made me think “What if one of the men this Joliene had seduced had been gay?” Then I thought, “What if she couldn't seduce him but came really close? Ooh, and she fell in love with the man she almost stole him from's brother!” From that came my next project, which again is still being worked on, and even worse, still has no title.  This year's inspiration was actually the lack of Leverage and The Librarians craossovers

8. Read the first sentence from one of your novels.

Obviously this was meant for those who vlog. I shall however give a quote of the first line of a work in progress, meaning if it ever gets published this line might be changed. “Everyone is jealous of someone or something.”

9. And finally, why do you love writing?

I love writing because I can get things down and not worry about it strangling my brain. Sometimes I feel I have planets and solar systems and galaxies and universes even striving for my attention, yelling that that's wrong or so and so is described too prettily. It gets crazy for me, but when I go back to read it and find myself enjoying the world I created, knowing the subtle nuances and the manipulations occurring even as I submerge myself into the world I didn't even realize I was creating, it's well worth it.

Sometimes, it's too keep the voices of all the characters waiting for their story from overwhelming me, but others it's to write the story I'm trying to find that I wish to read. A few times it's because a dream overwhelmed me and keeps itself on repeat. Poems just suddenly leap on the page sometimes. It's a joy for me to write, most days, but just about every day it feels a necessity as well as so long as I can do both, I'm actually very happy.

That wrap's up the NaNoWriMo tag. Have a tag you want answered? Leave a link to it in a comment or find me on Facebook or Twitter. Planning on attempting NaNoWriMo 2015? Let me know and buddy me on the site at Ency Peterson. Answer the tag yourself and leave a link to it in the comments!