Six things I learned from five NaNoWriMo wins and one loss

I've published a number of books, none of which was written during NaNoWriMo. I have "won" NaNo five times, most recently this past November. That means that five different times, I wrote 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. None of those has been published.

This year, my November total was 62,000 words. Today I'll write the final few paragraphs of the rough draft of that story, totaling out around 77,000 words, and I will not be publishing this book. That doesn't mean it was a waste of time, though. I learned some important things about myself, my writing process, and writing in general.

As I look back at the nine novels I've written in the past decade-plus, here are the top six things I've learned. Your mileage may vary, but there's truth in these lessons for every writer.

1. It is possible
My first NaNoWriMo, in 2005, taught me that I could actually complete a novel-length manuscript. It was brutal after the first week. By mid month I hated the story, hated the characters, felt a little lost in the plot. But I kept with it because I'd never written a complete novel before. 2005 taught me I could, if only I kept focused on daily goals and the idea of the ultimate product.

2. It never gets easier
I expected my second NaNoWriMo, the very next year, to be a breeze. After all, if I'd done it once. I could do it again. How charmingly naïve I was! That November was brutal. I wrote more than the previous year, but neither the story nor the writing were as good as before. And there was nothing easy about this year, my 9th novel and 5th NaNoWriMo. Every day requires discipline, hard work, focus. Even producing this year's very mediocre manuscript was brutal.

3. It's okay to quit
One year I managed about 12,000 words on a NaNo novel before quitting mid month. I hated quitting at the time. I always hate quitting. That year, I knew the story actually stunk, the book had no future, and I was only writing to try to get a NaNo Winner badge. To me, that was no longer a worthy goal, not when I had another story brewing in my mind that I really wanted to write. (That idea eventually turned into Semper.) Quitting NaNo that year allowed me to grow more than finishing the crappy novel would have.

4. A cheering section helps
Part of NaNo's strength is belonging to a community of people all struggling through the same brutal schedule toward a shared goal. Cheering each other on, meeting other writers--these things help when writing gets hard. This is true for me even when I'm writing on a more reasonable pace. Having a couple of trusted friends or critique partners to keep tabs on me and occasionally offer validation stokes the fading embers back into a blaze when necessary.

5. Crap makes for good fertilizer
After that first win in 2005, I waited six months and then read that novel back. I didn't hate it nearly as much as I had while writing it. In fact, it had a lot of promise. This year, I started with an idea and characters I loved. Somewhere along the way, in striving for word count and just to pound out the draft, my writing got weak. The characters got predictable. The plot became linear and shallow. It's crap. But crap can make great fertilizer, and the sheer effort of completing the story has enriched the original idea and deepened it to the point were I can build something really good from it, eventually.

6. This is not a race
When I slow down and take a year to write a first draft, that draft is nearly complete. By that I mean it includes subtle foreshadowing, rich symbolism, clever echoes and intricate interconnections, and characters that have some depth. It still needs revision, but it doesn't need to be thrown out and rewritten. When I write fast, I get what amounts to 70,000 words of detailed plot summary. This novel I'm finishing today has little foreshadowing, a whif of symbolism, some intricacy that happened mostly by accident, and characters whose depth rarely makes it to the page.

And I think that's the key: a gripping story in a complete fictional world with intricate politics and deep-seated social issues is there in my mind. It took NaNoWrimo to help me see that world and work through its details, but it will take me a year to put that world, that story, and those characters onto the page so a reader can see them the way that I do.

NaNoWriMo 2015: win number five

2005
2006
2007
2012
2015

Wrote over 53,000 words in November on a new story that I hope to finish in December. While the book will clearly need revision (a lot of the writing is loose), the story itself is pretty well set. I think it may end up being the first in a five-book YA adventure series.

Peter's awesome spectacular very cool year (performed in blogs and photos)

If you're sick of everyone else's "here's how my 2012 went" posts, you can just skip this one. But if that's the case, what are you doing reading blogs in the first place?

My 2012 was a pretty awesome year. Come bask in the glow of my self-satisfaction.

The awesomeness began in January when I published Semper all by myself. (With the help of CreateSpace and KDP and Aerin and Phoenix.) I really didn't know what I was doing, but boy was I having fun. I made a little money in 2012 with Semper (enough to pay my Starbucks bill while I wrote the sequel), and including freebies the book was downloaded over 10,000 times in 2012.

February got even better despite car trouble. I volunteered for the fifth year in a row at the San Francisco Writers Conference and met some great people and reconnected with fabulous publishing industry folks and writers I'd met before. But the most awesome part of February was a weekend retreat at the Sanctuary spa in the Phoenix area Maria and I attended for work. My work is all about corporate philanthropy, and I represented my company at this event called Escape For Good because my boss was busy and couldn't go. Got to hang with celebrity athletes (all of whom are very community minded) for the weekend and talk philanthropy and community involvement with Athletes for Hope and U Give. Among the highlights: Dinner with Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy, Muhammed Ali's 70th birthday party emceed by Johnny Bench, hearing about Andre Agassi's work with underprivileged youth in Las Vegas, an awesome wine tasting, a swell mixology class, getting called an "old guy" by Lance Armstrong, chatting with Tom Jackson, a fun "Iron Chef" competition where Maria cooked with Annika Sorenstam and chef Julian Serrano, and meeting new friends and business contacts. Memories:

Lunch on the patio.

"The Cowboy" from 2012 American Idol. Better than I expected.

Me & Tony watching the chefs at work.

Lance, Maria, and some old guy.

Me and my new BFF.

I know, right? I actually made some business contacts and had a few followup meetings from the event (not with any athletes, sadly). Still working on some ideas with some of those folks.

March came in not so much like a lion but more like a deep breath between hurricanes of awesomeness. It saw my cousin Cassie's wedding, a skiing day with the boy scout troop, and a good corporate citizenship conference in Phoenix. I started in earnest writing Forsada, the sequel to Semper, and I watched actual sales of Sember grow slowly but steadily. (Think frozen molasses flowing uphill.)

April, though... wow, April. I started with a trip to New York for the Charities @Work conference (I'm on the advisory council), followed immediately by a flight to Kathmandu, Nepal. When we got back, Maria had a girls weekend in Denver, then I went on business trips to Las Vegas and Charlotte. All in April. A brief recap of the Nepal trip (the actual blog posts have all the photos):

• Day one: 32 hours to Kathmandu, some shopping and a fantastic dinner, plus a neat hotel
• Day two: Kathmandu historical tour, rough roads, and cows sleeping in the streets
• Day three: A jungle, rhinos, WE RODE AN ELEPHANT, and a twin otter
• Day four: Bathing the elephants, rowboating for crocodiles, and spiders
• Day five: Nepal countryside, insane bus drivers, a near-death experience
• Day six: The most stunning view in the world (perhaps)
• Day seven: Day hike through rural Nepal

Some of my favorite pictures from the trip:

Flying flags at the Monkey Temple

The patio where we took tea and ate breakfast

Crazy bus drivers, crazy bus passengers

Believe it or not, Rhino, we do see you.

In May I had some big work wins. Specifically, my volunteer program won a Summit Award from United Way Worldwide (a big honor), and my workplace giving campaign was named #1 in the country for the third year in a row. Pretty big honors for me and my team at work, who are the most awesome and fabulous crew ever. We get some pretty big results. In May I also was sworn in to the Workforce Investment San Francisco board. And I also did my first ever author reading from Semper.

June smacked me in the head with my 45th birthday, which I spent at boy scout camp. Bigger news was Beth and Chris' wedding on a day that climbed well past 107 degrees.

In July, Ethan turned 16 while we were on family vacation in Washington, DC. Our whole trip the temperature never fell below 143 degrees, or so it seemed. Still, we had fun visiting all kinds of museums and hanging out with bro Mark and sis-in-law Maria. My favorites: July 4th fireworks on the Mall, Newseum, the Supreme Court, Mark's lab at NIH, and the Library of Congress.

At the time, this house was still up for grabs.

Ash and paper fell on us. It was awesome.

LOC. One of the coolest places on Earth.

Brother Mark in his natural habitat. Cures cancer, he does.

Supreme Court.

Still in July, I did business trips to Phoenix (yes, again!), Portland, and Seattle. And in the middle of all that we drove to Mammoth Lakes to meet my mom for a long weekend. We took the tram to the top of Mammoth Mountain but only hiked around a few minutes because it was dog-cold and wicked windy, and the staff said that lightning was seen within ten miles, so we had to get down the hill quick.

Ruler of all I survey. Take THAT, Yertle.

August was a month for staying home. First, my dad and stepmom visited for a week from the east coast, and we did a whole bunch of fun things. Then, I gave up our four nights at a Tahoe timeshare because (a) someone bailed on the plans we'd made earlier in the year, and (b) I had to coach a soccer tournament. But that doesn't mean I'm not bitter about (a).

In September, Ethan got his driver's license, and I went on business trips to Minneapolis and St. Louis. Ethan started 10th grade and Sam moved up into 7th. We ran our employee giving campaign as we do every year at work, this time kicking butt once more and pretty much locking up a fourth #1 year in a row. Plus, I helped judge the Lascaux Flash contest.

October took me to Denver and Colorado Springs for work, and I finished Forsada and sent the manuscript out to beta readers for the first time. I also injured my knee playing soccer. It's not too bad, but I really shouldn't play on it for a few more months. We saw some America's Cup racing and the Blue Angels, and the F-22 was an incredible sight.

I did, in fact, take this picture.

In November I won NaNoWriMo for the fifth time, with a new story that I may finish in 2014 after I write the third book of the New Eden series. I collected feedback on Forsada and completed my first revisions. Over Thanksgiving the family visited my nephew in Portland, shortly after he moved there. We had Voodoo doughnuts and visited the Japanese and Chinese gardens as well as the Mercy Corps headquarters and the Saturday Market. I am getting to like Portland a lot. Wendy Russ produced covers for me for Semper and Forsada, and I relaunched Semper with the new cover.

December was another stay-at-home month, after one business trip to Los Angeles. I got the proof copies of Forsada and had some revisions, so I'm waiting for the final copy to arrive. It will be published January 13, so be sure to go get it then and then review it on Amazon or Goodreads. My mom came to visit over Christmas, then the boys drove back to Las Vegas with her. They came back last night as unaccompanied minors on Southwest, their first time flying alone.

Tonight we're having a New Year's Eve party. I can't imagine 2013 being nearly as good a year as 2012 was, but I seem to remember saying something similar at this time a year ago.

May your 2013 be the best year ever for you.

Book stats and accidental cover reveal (blog), and a #nanowrimo WIN

On Wednesday I "won" NaNoWriMo, clocking 50,000 words in just 27 days on a new novel I didn't even know I was going to write until I thought it up in October. It's not done yet, but today I'm setting it aside because...

I am on the verge of publishing the sequel to SEMPER. I'll be posting details of the sequel, FORSADA, over the next few weeks until its publication in mid/late January.

I've also got a new cover for Semper. The current cover is not totally hideous (I did it myself) but it doesn't really scream out young adult science fiction post apocalyptic adventure page-turner, does it? Here's the current cover, which has served me well since publication on January 22, 2012:

It actually looks WAY better in print. Although I have not yet approved the new version through CreateSpace, Amazon is already displaying the new cover. So, my accidental "cover reveal" day is today. Here it is:

Writer and designer friend Wendy Russ built that. Nice, huh? She also built the cover for Forsada, which is not yet ready to be revealed. Stay tuned.

After an initial honeymoon during the first half of the year, the old cover was holding back sales. Still, with minimal promotion (less than $100 out of pocket, not counting copies I donated or gave away), the book did okay in its first year:

• Over 400 total units sold (349 ebooks, 110 print copies)
• 8,334 free downloads of the ebook

That means that in 10 months this book has over 8,700 copies in circulation. Of course I don't for a minute believe all those have been read. A free download is easy to get and forget. But the book also has generated

• 29 ratings on Goodreads (4.14 average) with 7 reviews
• 25 reviews on Amazon (4.64 average)
• 2 independent reviews by book bloggers
• 1 high school book report
• 1 photo of a kid 30 feet up a tree reading it on a sunny Saturday

I can't wait to get Forsada out and hear what people think of it. Early readers give it high praise. Some even like it better than Semper. Either way, I can't wait to have two books published. Stay tuned for details.

A discovery on my way to 40K #nanowrimo (blog)

Oh, I was such a naive young thing back in October of 2005, ready to step into NaNoWriMo for the second time. I had already proven to myself that I could write 50,000 words in 30 days. A few months later I proved to myself that I could complete the whole 65,000 page manuscript.

I didn't yet know how much I had to mature and how much better my writing would get over the next seven years.

I wrote three more NaNoWriMo novels, twice getting more than 60,000 words written during the month of November. Each novel got progressively better, and the fourth one was actually quite good. After a few years dabbling in short stories, I wrote Semper over the course of an entire year and spent another half year revising it. Forsada, the sequel to Semper which I will publish in January 2013, also took a little over a year to write.

This year I plunged back into the NaNo madness. So far: 20 days has yielded 40,000 words, plus one big lesson about my creative process.

As I'm writing this book, I'm making great word count. Some of the scenes are exquisite--tight, active, lucid, brilliant. Others wallow in stagnation. I find myself having characters recapping the action so far to other characters, as happens so often in HGTV shows or The Da Vinci Code. When I notice this, I force the characters to move, to go do something. The problem is, the story is stagnating because I don't exactly know what should come next.

You see, my modus operandi is to journal my story idea and character sketches, longhand, while commuting on the train to and from work. I'll journal the hell out of it until I feel like I've got realistic characters, a strong plot arc, good themes, and as few plot holes as I can manage. That's when I let myself start writing. I'll get maybe ten thousand words in and find I need to let the ideas simmer some more, let the next episodes take shape in my journal. Often I'll sit at a word count for a few weeks while I work out the next sections and any other big changes.

Ideas are like that. They get better the more you exercise them (unless you exercise them to death).

The problem with NaNo is that there is no time to stop and mull over this new secondary character that's inserted himself so dramatically, or to figure out just how the main character extracts himself from an inescapable chamber, or what the landscape looks like in this mythical place my characters are about to enter for the first time. No time to journal it. No time to let it simmer. Gotta turn up the heat and cook.

And that's okay. Pushing forward, torpedoes be damned, is a great way to get a first draft written. My first drafts of Semper and Forsada were very strong, very tight. Revisions still necessary, of course, but most of my revision was done in my journal before I ever wrote the manuscript.

This draft of this new NaNo novel will be a good story. But it will be loose, and the writing will need a lot more trimming and rework. The only difference is that I'll be doing that rework after writing the first draft rather than before it. For Semper and Forsada, I did previsions, then writing, then revisions. For this NaNo book, I'll write, then revise, and revise again.

Same destination, same amount of energy expended. Just a different route.



And that's not only okay, it's a revelation for me about my own creative process. I'm finding my strengths and learning to exploit them in different environments. And that, I think, is the essence of NaNoWriMo for me.

 And just because you read this far, a couple of kittens.

Oh boy, I'm glad I didn't quit

I got an email yesterday from someone I didn't know. It said, "I loved your book. Please let me know when you put out your next one." This person went out of her way to find my web site, find my email address, and call attention to her email with a subject line that would make sure I didn't mistake her email for spam. That's pretty cool, right? Totally made my day.

This afternoon I followed a link on Twitter to Rachelle Gardner's blog of November 7th, which presented a succinct collection of writerly roadblocks, along with a pithy collection of ways to avoid falling into despair when confronted by them. You should go read it.

An optimist by nature, I tend to look at life as a huge pile of opportunities, a pile so big I can only experience a tiny fraction of them during my lifetime. Despair is not something I experience often because I simply dump the un-fun activity and go do something more worth my limited time.

Writing a book takes tons of time, but it's also really fun. Navigating the cruel and merciless publishing industry? Not fun. Rejection is a "rite of passage," if you get any response at all. Acceptance is usually just another step on the path to a different type of rejection. And at the end, two years later if you're lucky, you get three months to prove that your book was worth that measly advance you got.

After I'd written Semper, I held my completed manuscript and stood between two options. On one side, the publishing industry. On the other, my huge pile of opportunities (like exercise, traveling, reading, time with my kids, etc.). I just about tossed the manuscript aside and dove into the pile. Why jump into a pit of despair when life could be full of fun things?

Even so, I did despair for a while. I didn't want to give up writing, or my life-long dream of publishing a novel. And here I stood, with what I thought was a pretty darned good one. On the verge of quitting writing altogether, I started discovering, on my own, the other truths that Ms. Gardner describes. I had options. I could take control. I could carry through my dream in a different way. So I published Semper myself.

Had I quit, I would never have written the sequel (due out in January 2013). If I hadn't written the sequel, I would never have gotten these notes from the friend of a beta reader who also read the draft:

I started reading the book Monday and couldn't stop reading. So, I finished reading tonite (Tuesday) at about 7:30pm. ... That book was gooddddd. I need him to get that 3rd book out. How in the heck did he get his ideas of this book on paper. What an imagination. WOW!

Now, is that the best review in the world? Naw, of course not. But it's a validation of my decision not to quit. It's a validation of everything Ms. Gardner says. Do not despair. Things might not work out the way you initially envisioned, but things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out. And there are more options for writers today than ever before. You may need to reexamine your goals as I reexamined mine. But never despair. If you truly love writing, there's no need for despair. Certainly, life is too short for it.

NaNoWriMo Update
As if I weren't busy enough, I've committed myself to a NaNoWriMo novel that is totally unrelated to Semper. It's a middle-grade fantasy novel. After six and a half days, I'm over 16,000 words into it and having even more fun than I expected. I am so glad I didn't quit. I spend half my day wishing I could find more time to work on it, and half the night trying not to think about it so I can get to sleep.

Are you doing NaNo? If so, leave a comment or drop by the nanowrimo site and friend me. On the NaNo site, I'm PJD.

Why I'm voting absentee, and busting elitist prejudice

(Playing along for the first time ever with Road Trip Wednesday at YA Highway)

I voted absentee four years ago because I expected to be traveling for work. This year, it's a different reason:

NaNoWriMo!

(cue gasp)

What, you are screaming to yourself right now, is a talented and experienced author like Peter doing slumming around with the amateur word-count hacks in NaNoland?

My friends, drop your academic literary elitist prejudice for a moment and join me on a journey. It's a journey of a young man who strayed from his passion, who followed the siren songs of family, prosperity, and homeownership. It's a story of despair and triumph. But most of all, it's my story.

Turn the Wayback Machine to 1987. Picture a college apartment with an Apple ][+ in the corner surrounded by spent packets of Top Ramen and empty Coke cans. Next to the 21-pin dot matrix printer sits the first 80 or so pages, on continuous-feed computer paper, of a 20-year-old young man's first novel manuscript. On top of that sits the young man's first rejection note, a form rejection from the fiction editor at Redbook magazine with "good work, please send more in the future" scribbled in black pen.

Set the dial two years ahead. The young man is flush from his first publication success, a dual contest win for short fiction and poetry in his Engineering school's annual literary publication. His mother, visiting for graduation, makes him pose with the check he won.

The young man graduated and took his engineering degree to Seattle for his first job. His sweetheart still had one year of college, so he spent his evenings at his electric typewriter, alone in a dim economy apartment kitchen, working on short stories and a new novel. (That first one he unceremoniously stowed away in a box somewhere.)

A year later, that new manuscript was left off after chapter four, and that sweetheart had become his wife. He moved back to Berkeley for a different job, a better job, with high hopes for his career. At 26 he and his bride bought a home. His career managing a technical publications department at a software company was exciting and dynamic. And he hadn't written any fiction in months.

Five years later, the demands of two children and a larger home and a bigger job kept him far from the joy of writing. He was important now, an up-and-comer, a father, a husband, a homeowner. What little extra time he had, he spent keeping children safe as a school crossing guard.

When he turned 35, he knew he had strayed from his dream. He had no regrets, but he wasn't sure how to get back on that path that he had loved so much. He dabbled with poetry again, bought a blank journal and filled it with a lame-ass story he would never show to anyone today in a million years. He started another novel, got to chapter three, and decided it was crap and not worth finishing.

By now, you've figured out that I, I was that young man. A sad story. The story of millions of people; the story of a single soul. It could have ended there.

But a magical thing happened. November came. November 2004, specifically.

I discovered a thing called National Novel Writing Month. A few thousand people were involved. I could do that, I thought. And I did. It was hard. I started with only a vague idea of character and setting, and the plot unfolded as I wrote. By December I had 50,000 words. By February I had a completed manuscript at 69,000 words. I had done it. It wasn't great, but it wasn't awful.

Most of all, I knew I could do it again. Better.

And I did. The next three years I completed novels in November, each one progressively more accomplished, more polished, more complete than the ones before. I learned to avoid plot holes, to study and refine character motivation, to wipe out -ly words. Like Batman, I had my daytime persona--husband, father, laborer, homeowner--but my secret identity as a writer began taking over my psyche bit by bit.

All told, I completed four NaNoWriMo manuscripts. I haven't published any of those, but I did go on to publish my fifth novel, Semper, which was not a NaNo book. Today, I'm on the verge of publishing its sequel.

Might that have happened without the magic of NaNo? There's no way to know for sure.

But this year I'll be jumping back into that frenzied rush of adrenaline and caffeine to start a new project. Because I've been to the mountaintop, I know what it takes to succeed. And I'll be prepared. Oh, I'll be prepared. Words will tumble out like Halloween candy from a bowl with a note on it saying "please take only one," and analogies will thicken the prose in the way that peanut butter sticks to the roof of a dog's mouth. And cliches will wallow like pigs and soar like eagles while metaphors mix like dead horses being beaten. And in the end, when all is said and done, when all is done and said... things will have been written.

This didn't have to be my story. It could be the story of any number of people. Six, for example. Or ninety-one. That doesn't really matter. What matters is that NaNoWriMo picked me up, dusted me off, and told me, "You can do this, mister. Never forget who you are and where you came from. Now get up, get back on that horse, and write."

And that's what I intend to do. Just as soon as I finish this game of Words With Friends and respond to this guy's political rant on Facebook.

Discovering yourself through to-do lists - blog #amwriting

We all have favorite self-evaluation tools. Some people love the Myers Briggs MBTI type. Some tell me they're a "red" or I'm a "blue" or something. I don't really get that one. Then of course there are various Zodiac assessments. Personally, I enjoy the Gallup Strengths Finder program.

Many of us use these and other methods to determine who we'll date, what we'll eat, or what career path we'll follow.

Several years ago, I discovered a different way to focus my career path. I call it the To-Do List Method.™

Early in my career, I became a jack of all trades. I ran a tech pubs group, programmed, ran a tech support group. I found things to like and things to loathe about every job I had. But I was at an inflection point in my career--to progress for real, I'd need to turn myself in one direction and go for it. Marketing? Writing? Programming?

At the time, I happened to be director of marketing at a company that made embedded system software for routers. (Not everyone can successfully market embedded router software, you know. Check out my portfolio; you'll find some articles I authored for technical journals during that time.) But as with all startups, and with every job I've had since, my daily to-do list was longer than the available time. Every day I'd start with, say, 25 tasks, but I had time for only 20 of them. Some of course were mandatory, and those always got done.

Over a few months, I paid attention. Rather than chastise myself for not getting everything done, I studied those items and realized that nearly all those leftover tasks had a few things in common. Most of them involved the telephone. A lot of them involved salesy activity. Nearly none of them involved creative output--design, writing, or problem-solving. And other things.

I also found that this method highlighted my strengths. Communication, creativity, storytelling were among them. I always thought I was bad at those things because I hate hate HATE talking on the phone. With anyone. Ever. But that's just the phone. I was a whiz at tasks that used those skills in writing. Press releases? Mine were really good. Support collateral for the sales team? Awesome. Brand development? Check.

My career has developed in directions I never planned or predicted since then, but I've helped it along by knowing what tasks will fall off the list at the end of a busy day. I avoid jobs that have a lot of them because if you have 25 tasks you enjoy, doing 20 is easy. But if you have 25 tasks you hate, doing 20 will make you miserable.

This came up recently online when someone opined on whether writers are born or made. Someone said, "People who love writing will find time for it." NaNoWriMo winners often joke about leaving the laundry and dishes unwashed for weeks at a time to get the word count. So yeah, I agree. If you have talked about writing for five years and haven't actually done it, you might do a little to-do list analysis of your own. Stop being miserable about wanting to write and focus on the things you do love. And if it feels like 100% of your daily tasks are mandatory obligations for someone else, then you need to reprioritize your life, not just your tasks.

For me, writing is one of those things I find time for most days, most weeks. Even if I don't write, I'm thinking about my stories, spending my downtime in writing mode. And I'm a happier person when I can do that.

Look at your to-do lists for the last few months. What things do you consistently leave undone? Don't be afraid of or embarrassed by them. Treasure them, because they are the buoys that mark your safe channel. Thank them, because they tell you what jobs and activities to avoid in the future. And if you care to share, let me know what they are in the comments.

Donation report for June #ebook #contest blog with photos from camp!

You all might remember that I'm running two contests during the summer, and also that I'm donating all my royalties from all sales of SEMPER between June 9 and August 18.

By any measurement but mine, the response so far has been, well... Underwhelming. Disappointing. Pitiful. Lame. My measurement, however, indicates that things are going really well. Because, well, some people are reading my book, and there were two new unexpected 5-star reviews posted to Amazon recently. Plus, the effort I've put into promotion has been, well... Underwhelming. Disappointing. Pitiful. Lame.

You might see the cause and the effect there, if you look really hard.

Anyway, on to the Results So Far (excluding free downloads):

Semper e-book sales (US)	19 copies	$32.64
Semper e-book sales (other)	0 copies	$0.00
Semper print sales	5 copies	$13.58
Total	24 copies	$46.22

So, not a lot. The good news for all of you is that there are very few contest entries so far, and the contest runs another 6 weeks or so, so you've got plenty of time to win a $50 donation to a teacher, and a $10 gift card for yourself.

Oh, and I had the very, very great satisfaction of learning that the boy scout camp where my kids go one week every summer has a library. So of course I inscribed a copy and donated it to the library. I hope some of the kids read it.

Sequel Update

Going well but slowly. I'd hoped to have it out in November, but that's looking unlikely due to things like Day Job obligations and really awful stuff like spending quality time with my kids in the wilderness of the Sierras (last week) and the heart of our nation's capitol (next week).

Photos from camp!

The Program Office and flags

Lovely mountains surrounding this gorgeous valley on the Stanislaus River

Finally arriving at camp after 2+ miles hiking!

The boys getting ready to break down camp after a week.

My truck. Probably the only 1994 Toyota SUV in the country with
stickers for Obama, Glacier National Park, and NaNoWriMo.

#nanofail

I'm not fishing for affirmation, really I'm not.

Really.

No, really. You don't have to comment to say how much you all love me. That's not why I'm posting.

You know when it's that big rivalry game, like USC vs UCLA or Harvard vs Yale or whatever your alma mater is vs whatever school your alma mater hates? And there's six minutes left in the fourth quarter and your team is down, like, 65 to 3, and you're saying things like, "Just a TD and a 2-point conversion, then all we need is seven successful onside kicks!" and "Stranger things have happened!"

Yeah, that's what NaNoWriMo was like for me, about two days ago.

Today, I let the denial end. It's always a sad moment when the inevitable is acknowledged. I am not going to get my 50,000 words in November, 2009. It's possible I'll top 30,000 before December. But this ain't youth sports. There's no medal awarded for finishing tenth out of 14, which my U12 soccer team did this season. (We came 4th in the 8-team tournament of the bottom half of the league. Which won us a medal.)

I could, as some do, give one of my characters a sudden, astonishing affinity for reading the New York Times aloud. Or I could just go gangbusters on knocking out "plot notes" for the remainder of the novel. Either way, it would be throw-away word count. And what's the point of that? Garbage time points by your starters against your rival's walk-ons may be points, but it's hard to feel good about them.

And so I resign myself to failing at NaNoWriMo in 2009. I gave it a good college try, including a 7,000 word day, but ultimately life defeated me. I did learn some valuable lessons, however. I learned how I want to structure my novel. I learned what motivates my main characters. I learned how the story will come together in the end. And I now know I can write it over the next year or two, little by little. Now that I've got the first 30,000 words down.

And the only other thing I have to say is..

GO BEARS!

WE HAVE THE AXE!

NaNoWriMo technology time saver!

A lot of people trying NaNoWriMo for the first time wonder how they can get 50,000 words written in just 30 days. Some people keep a notebook with them all the time; others write in the wee hours (i.e. on the toilet). Wherever you can steal a few minutes to boost your word count.

Personally, I love mobile technology. Four years ago I bought a Palm TX and a wireless keyboard because my laptop had a seventeen minute battery life and took nineteen minutes to wake up from sleep mode. The Palm is instant-on, and I only have to wrestle with the bluetooth keyboard connection for a few seconds before I'm banging out eighty typos a minute. I have written about 20,000 of my current 27,000 words on this little baby. Great for airplanes, coffee shops, and anywhere that everyone else is crawling around under tables on the filthy, gooey floor looking for electrical outlets. And because it uses an SD card, I can pop the card right into my laptop. And since the TX has wifi, I can connect at most hotspots. Very cool setup.

But NOW I find out about this new product, which is perfect for all us NaNo-ers to steal some writing time while we're on the road. It is a steering wheel laptop table, and I can't wait to get one and put my TX on the dashboard, my keyboard on the table, and hit the highway. One of the best ideas ever.

You must go to this product's link right now. Be sure to look at all the product photos and read, at a minimum, all of the five-star reviews.

NaNoWriMo 2008

I think this makes it official. I am insane.

Two weeks ago I had my first "one on one" meeting with my boss (silly me, I wore my converse hi-tops and Kurt Rambis goggles, but that wasn't what he meant). We have a huge task coming up next year, and I said I was excited about it, even though I didn't really know how to accomplish it. My boss noted at that time that I was, in his word, "insane." I couldn't really argue. I took it as a compliment.

Now I've signed up for my fifth tour of duty with NaNoWriMo. As if huge workload at Day Job, family and house, coaching soccer and playing soccer, cub scouts, boy scouts, and the occasional six hours of sleep didn't keep me busy enough. I haven't even submitted my current novel, Gold Miner's Daughter, anywhere for ages. (Note to self: send that sucker out!)

Any of you out there also playing NaNo this year? My user ID is "pjd" (wow, how ironic is that?), and my profile page is here. Let me know if you buddy me so I can buddy you back.

Four More Years!

Ha, you thought this was some political rant, didn't you?

No, it's my personal chest-thumping post to say that two days ago I flew past 50,000 words in my quest for my fourth consecutive NaNoWriMo achievement. I still have about 5,000 words to go to finish the manuscript, which will weigh in at about 60,000 when all is said and done. Since it's young adult genre, that's in the ballpark from what agentquery.com says about manuscript lengths.

Here is a brief history of my NaNoWriMo experience:

Before I Discovered NaNoWriMo:
I was among the legions of tortured souls who know that someday they will write a novel. My problem was that I'd get a terrific idea and then write the first two chapters and discover, to my horror, that my writing was mediocre, my plot trite and also full of plot holes, and my characters contrived and flat. So I'd abandon the effort and plan to start again when I had time.

NaNoWriMo 2004: "Jumping The Stream"
I sort of snuck into the deal, telling only my wife that I was trying it. She showed support in the way that a mother might show support for a five-year-old who says he is going to grow up to be president of the United States and drive a backhoe. "That's nice, dear." So I wrote the first two chapters, then the third and fourth. I thought my writing was mediocre, my plot trite and full of plot holes, and my characters contrived and flat. But I wrote on, ignoring the problems, committed to hitting 50,000 words in 30 days. And I made it. And I finished the full manuscript at about 65,000 words in late December. And I set it aside. And I read it a few months later. And I saw that it was not utter crap, that it was passable. And a friend read it and said it was not utter crap. But this was a lonely, solitary experience.

NaNoWriMo 2005: "Crossings"
I resurrected a plot I'd developed some years earlier for this one. I went into it full of confidence and vigor, knowing that if I could do it once, I could do it better the second time, and I'd have a literary masterpiece, a best-seller on my hands for sure. Turns out that although this one was not quite utter crap, it was little better than the first one. But I wrote it, it had some good moments in it, and I was proud of it. Sort of. I set it aside. This NaNo I started attending write-ins and joined the online forums a bit.

NaNoWriMo 2006: "Forced Air"
NaNo 2005 led to my connection with a great writing group, which led to a frenzy of short story activity for me. In 2006 I sold my first three short stories to small, literary magazines Thereby Hangs A Tale, THEMA, and The First Line. So when I went into NaNoWriMo in November, it was with the confidence of a home run hitter fresh off a BALCO treatment of "flaxseed oil." I had another literary novel brewing, and while I liked the characters and the premise, the middle was a bit lacking in clarity when I started. But I dove in anyway. After 20,000 words, my characters revolted because the story was so boring, and one of them killed another, and I was whisked away into a frenzied thriller. This schizophrenic novel was not literary enough to be a literary novel, yet it was not really a thriller either. I shelved it.

NaNoWriMo 2007: "Gold Miner's Daughter" (working title)
I really feel I have something this time. For two years I've wanted to try my hand at Young Adult, having enjoyed reading many books with my 11-year-old son. So finally I decided to have a go. The plot and characters came to me in mid summer, and by the end of October I had a workable plot. I've heard happy noises from those who've read excerpts so far, but these are people who have to like me. Like my wife and my friends. When my 11-year-old son reads it, I'll get my first brutally honest feedback. I've hit the 50,000 word level and have just a little to go before I'm done with the first draft.

I've learned a lot over the past few years. I learned I love writing more than I realized. I learned why so many people never finish their books (lots of reasons). I learned why most novelists don't publish until their 3rd or 4th manuscript. I learned how the publishing industry works, and how easy it is to fail. And I learned quickly how much I had to grow as a writer in order to get to where I am today, and how much farther there is to go before I reach my goals.

I'm proud to have written four novels and sold four short stories in the past few years. I'll be much more proud when I see this new manuscript on the shelf at Borders and Barnes & Noble. After learning why the first few manuscripts were not really salable, I believe I've got a shot with this one.

rained out!

Of the fourteen people I talked to about our town closing their sports fields today because of the "rain" last night, exactly zero thought it was the right decision. This means that Day Two of our two-day soccer tournament for the under-nines is postponed three weeks. Meanwhile, when the kids' tournament was canceled I ran out to play in my over-thirties game on a field in a nearby town. That field was in the best shape it's been all year; the light rain softened it up, but not enough such that it was dangerous to ankles or such that cleats would destroy it.

And the day was G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S. Sunny, warm, brilliant. Perfect soccer weather for mid November.

On the plus side, I was able to get in two hours of writing today and managed over 3,200 words. This is a Good Thing because when I started the day I had just finished all the scenes from my first planning session and was a little unsure what came next. But it all came to me in the shower, and the words began to flow. Now I've got some more momentum and am approaching the next big plot point. Started slow, but I'm really beginning to like this book I'm writing.

has it been a week already?

Hard to believe it's already the 7th of November and I'm already 11,000 words into this year's NaNoWriMo, which I wasn't even sure I'd do because everything else was so busy. But I'm keeping pace and gaining momentum as my story grows out of the intro phase and gets into the meat of the plot.

Keeping word count up is tough, though. Last weekend I lost the entire weekend to a cub scout campout. Thirteen scouts and seven dads on a local mountain where the weather was simply perfect. We all expected to be in clouds at about 40 degrees when we woke up Sunday morning, but it was sixty degrees and clear, and we didn't even need to break out the sweatshirts. Unfortunately, the only camera I had was in my cell phone, so the photo of the campfire and sunset doesn't nearly do it justice.

This coming weekend I'm coaching three or four soccer games in the U9 boys tournament, and we have our end-of-season party as well. I expect to lose two days' worth of word count, so I'm trying to forge ahead of pace so I'm at least on track when next Monday rolls around.

So if I'm not blogging, you'll know where I am... hard at work on this year's NaNo effort, "Gold Miner's Daughter."

Script Frenzy

Those of you who know me know that I've now won NaNoWriMo three times, writing three novels in the process. The first I revised and shopped to six agents, four of whom rejected it and two of whom never replied. I've since mothballed it, at least for now, because, well... it suffers from some "first novel" ills that, while not insurmountable, I don't feel much like surmounting at this time. I'm not sure if the second one will ever see the light of day. The writing is pretty good in spots, but the plot and characters are a bit clichéd and vanilla. The third novel, Forced Air, has commercial potential and is in revision now.

But there's this new thing called Script Frenzy, wherein you write a full-length screen or stage play of 20,000 words in one month. I wrote a short one-act a few years back, and I strongly recommend it to every aspiring writer. The focus it takes to move a plot along by dialog alone and to restrict yourself to a manageable cast and settings is a challenge indeed. And, if you do it well, it is a terrific learning experience.

As for Script Frenzy, however, here's how I feel about it [link to original]:
(Calvin says in the final frame, "I can't imagine mastering the skills involved without a clearer understanding of who's going to be impressed.")

While it does, potentially, sound like fun, my extremely limited writing time is sucked up with revising Forced Air and with trying to get these three pretty good short stories I have sold somewhere. So I won't be frenzied about a screenplay in June.

Are you participating in Script Frenzy? Or are you a fellow NaNo winner mired in revision and needing a shot of enthusiasm and momentum?

Work Update: Still crazy busy. We have a contractor coming in to help. I travel twice in June: an overnight to Seattle and an entire week in Minneapolis.

Writing Update: I've gotten through chapter six of Forced Air but still have a long way to go. "35 Across," a story that everyone seems to like a lot, just got another door slammed on it, so it's going out to try again this week.

Yard Update: No more contractors or landscapers crawling around! The pool is in great shape, and the hot tub is a dream come true. Just some planting to take care of. Sweet. Photos to come some time soon.

we have a winner!

Got to 50,000 words on Monday high in the air somewhere over Colorado. I needed about 4,000 for my final push to the NaNoWriMo goal, and I hit it thanks to my mother-in-law, who sat on the other side of Southwest 267's aisle with the kids.

I figure I've got about 10,000 or 15,000 more words to finish before December 15th (self-imposed deadline). That will be my short rough draft. Then I'll do the synopsis and ferret out the holes that need filling, then I'll add in the new scenes with the goal of getting it up to 75,000 by the end of the first revision. Then I'll let someone who likes me read it.

If you'd like to read the rough draft, email me or drop me a comment here. Caveat: It needs a lot of revision, though it does hang together as a coherent story. I think it even has no significant plot holes.

42000 and counting...

I feel quite confident that I will hit my NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words by the 30th. I might even make my personal goal of 60,000 by then. The story is really falling into place, and I am beginning to think that some sections of the writing aren't awful enough to make your eyes bleed. You know, a word here, a phrase there. Even the occasional sentence.

The trick now, since I find I'm writing an accidental thriller, is to tie up all the loose ends. When you do 50,000 words in 30 days, though, it's hard just to identify all the loose ends, let alone corral them and force them into something resembling a knotted rope. But the story is almost writing itself at this point, and my main concern is that I will only get to about 65,000 words and it'll be all over. I could then either write a 20,000 word denoument or add some scenes and plot twists and such upon revision. I think I'll go with the latter.

Anyway, this is my third novel, and I think it will be the most commercially viable after revision. I'm actually feeling pretty good about it.

Plugged in Utne Reader!

OK, I don't exactly get a plug in Utne Reader, but the debut issue of Thereby Hangs A Tale does, and that means my pub credit will be seen by a wider audience, sort of. Hey, you take what you can get when you've only got three pub credits so far.

[link]

On another note, my NaNoWriMo novel has taken a turn. My characters told me flat out that my original script was boring and flat, and they didn't relish the idea of taking 80,000 words to get to the tedious end. So they murdered someone and informed me that they would much rather take part in an action story. And the words are flowing a lot more smoothly; another 1100 and I'll be at the golden 25,000 (half way, a day early).

NaNoWriMo site is open

Just one month away from National Novel Writing Month. Their spiffed-up web site is now on line, the forums are open, and the store is stocked with tee shirts and mugs and posters. My day job has commanded so much of my time recently that I have written just a few minutes here and there, but November 1st I sit down and pound out the novel that's been fermenting in my mind for two months already now. Before that, I have two short pieces to write and send off somewhere.

Any of you all who regularly (ahem) read this blog going to join me this year? 50,000 words is not that hard if you have say two hours a day to commit. The trick for me will be to make the 50,000 word goal and to have it be quality work. This will be my third novel. The first was publishable. The second... well, I haven't read it yet, so I don't really know. I think it's a little boring, to be honest, though in sections the writing looks really good. This third one will not only be publishable but will be published (eventually). I have little doubt of that.

Unless, of course, I get hit by a bus or something.