ROW 80 Check in 5 - How Not To Do A 30 Hour Novel

 

I have not failed in doing the 30 hour novel, I have very successfully found useful information on how not to write a 30 hour novel!

Based on my day of experience, here is my top advice for anyone that wants to write a 30 hour novel:

1. Don't. 

This is not to totally discourage you, but to make you think about why you would want to do this?

I admit, I wanted to do it to show off. This is not a good reason at all. 

If, say, I was totally excited about an idea, so much so that it kept me awake at night, and I decided I would take all the passion for that idea, and just lock myself away from the world and pour it all out over 30 hours, this would be a perfectly good thing. But if you are writing solely to write 'a 30 hour novel', it is a waste of your effort and time. If it is a good idea it deserves being developed properly, if it is a bad idea don't waste the 30 hours on it. 

2. Have a character to start with. 

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you will know that I'm a big fan of letting your creative youth take over and doing discovery writing. I am now revising this theory just a little bit. 

You need to have something to start with. 

Yesterday I sat down with absolutely nothing. No name, no image, not even a time period. I started writing, and then just kept going with all the weird stuff that came up. This is not the way to start a time-pressured writing piece. 

I came up with some good concepts, but 3,000 words in realised what I had were a few points that needed to be sorted, brainstormed and extended, in amongst a whole lot of confusing not so good stuff. It was not the beginning of a story. It might, just might, have been the beginning of an idea. Trying to turn it into a story without sorting it out was a mistake.  

I am now coming to believe that for me I need to have a grasp of my main characters and the overall feel of the book before I can be expected to sit down and do long writing sessions. If I had taken the time to plot out my characters and understand the environment I was going to put them into, then I could have done the discovery writing much more successfully, and without feeling like I was trying to sculpt using my own brain matter.

3. Run Away Where People Can't Find You.

So, one of the guys I was meant to be having a date with, but called off because I was going to be writing all day, offered to drop off some supplies. This seemed very sweet, and I reminded him that I would be writing. However, if felt super rude to have this guy turn up, give me food and then kick him out, so I offered him a drink. His reply should have alerted me potential problems:

'Just water for now, I'll have a tea later.' 

Um, excuse me? Later? How long did you think you were going to stay? Writing, remember? 

But I wanted to be polite, and the food was great (market cheese and dips with crackers), and did enjoy talking to him, but after over an hour (!!) I suggested I needed to get back to writing, and it took another 20 minutes to get him out the door. 

Then my little sister rang to say my brother Tim had just flown in from Brisbane as a surprise for Australia day, was I coming up for the family dinner? 

Seriously people? What part of 'writing, all day' did you not get? 

But as I was getting nowhere, I gave up and went up to my parents. 

So, conclusion: no 30 hour novel, but some good advice.

If I were to do it all again, which maybe one day I will, though not on the first day of my holiday when I'm still stressed and tired and people are wanting things from me, this is how I would approach it:

1. Read more motivational material before starting. 

2. Spend the week before brainstorming and developing enthusiasm for an idea. Do some in depth character description and build up an emotional context for the story.

3. Run away with no communication and lots of supplies to a place where I can be totally self-indulgent and just write with no disruptions. 

And I would have to seriously consider if this was the best thing for my book and my mental health. 

So, sorry for letting everyone down, and I do feel I broke very easily, but I think if I had continued on I would have made things even worse. 

From now on, I'm going to be setting ROW 80 check-in by check-in goals because, frankly, I'm really tired and need to take better care of my mental capabilities. 

So, I'm now officially on holidays (yah!), so for the next few days, until the Wednesday Check in, I want to edit the introduction and first day of my e-book, I want to write at least 3 articles, and finally get my fitness blog transferred and up and running. 

We'll see how that goes. 

Thanks everyone for the support, I really appreciated it.

8am - The Beginning of My 30 Hour Novel.

Good morning all, well, anyone else stupid enough to have gotten up early on the first day of a long weekend (and their two weeks leave). 

Just me? Right, thought so. 

So why have I woken up so early? 

 So I could get ready to spend 15 hours today and 15 hours tomorrow trying to write a novel (novella) in a single weekend. 

And no, this wasn't actually my idea. I was just one of the people crazy enough to agree to do it. It was much better in theory, let me tell you. 

Unfortunately, I am not sure if I will be allowed (let alone able) to compete properly. Just got an email part way through the night saying they expect everyone to do it on UK time. This does mean starting later, but also working through the night. Some advantages, I admit, but I'm here now and I'm just going to sit down and write. 

I'll give a brief hourly update on my Facebook Fan page for those who are interested in the process. 

Don't judge me too harshly if I get to 2pm and just want to curl up and sleep. Definitely not feeling at my most creative. However, one of the major points of my blog is that you write even when you don't feel like it, just because you are a writer.

ROW 80 Check In 4 - the 30 Hour Novel

Photo stolen from the Kernel's 30 Hour Novel post.

So, on Saturday and Sunday I've agree to sit down and do the 30 Hour Novel. Of course I knew it was ridiculous: writing for 15 hours a day two days in a row. But you know, there are 24 hours in a day, so why waste them doing something that isn't writing? 

Well, as happens often in Buffyworld, I agreed to the challenge, and then did the maths: this means starting to write at 8am in the morning and not stopping until 11pm at night. 

But my bedtime is 10pm. And when do I eat? And waking up before 8am on a weekend just seems cruel. Can I include my tea breaks in the 15 hours?

Add to that I have now been asked out on 2 (two!!) dates on Saturday. Seriously? Nothing for years, and then 2 dates on the same day? I've had to say no to both, because I'm writing. What, all day? Um, actually, in this case, yes, all day, and a bit into the night. 

Felt like telling them they could be like my pit crew and bring me energy drinks during the day (though I'm trying to be super healthy because I'm going to The Golden Door Retreat for their 7 day health program, which is going to be super amazing (and is super expensive, thank God I won the lottery) but can't have any caffeine or sugar while I'm there, so trying to cut down now so I don't spend the whole week curled up in a ball crying. On that note, made super delicious date and almond balls, with just a hint of vanilla... highly recommended!). 

Point of that long side track: no binge energy drinking for me during my 30 hours of madness, or other sugar packed props which were my regulars during all nighters at Uni.

Also, feel I cannot ask people who want to go on a first/second date with me to be my personal slaves. Not just yet. But if I have any volunteers from people who actually know me... Just to bring me supplies and check that I haven't tried to kill myself, that would be great. :D Anyone? Anyone at all?

Anyway, this week I haven't been focused on my writing as I know I have this mammoth weekend effort, so have been doing other things. (That is my neat way of saying: no, I haven't met my ROW 80 goals). 

Started the Celtic mythology book my sister gave me for Christmas, as thinking maybe the 30 hour novel will be a mythological fantasty. Though, am seriously struggling with the names. I'm sure they have made up sounds. 

Managed to get Telstra to cancel my contract without charging me (which since in 3 weeks they hadn't managed to get my internet actually working I think is fair.) Also renewed my lease on my super cute apartment for another 12 months, and managed to negotiate the rent down (pretty proud of myself for that, though probably means I was paying too much before, but still.) So am going to get naked dsl set up here if I can. (So instead of Telstra's 4GB per month, I'm going to be getting like 50GB, for less. In your face, Telstra. Not that I'm bitter or anything.) 

Haven't written any more articles, even though I really should have. So, might try and do one tomorrow. 

Pretty proud of my last blog post. I know it looks like I just copied Pat Flynn, but it was a lot of conceptual work to realise that what is what I wanted, and to make sure it all worked for writing, and delineate all the different aspects. Well, I just hope it is useful. And now I have to put it all into practice for my own work! (Yeah, I teach because I can't do :D). So have write the required number of blog posts. 

And that is pretty much it. 

I should point out that the 30 Hour Novel is closing for entries today. The big advantage of the competition is that everyone gets to upload theirs at the end, then its open to a public vote (no, that's not the good part, that might be quite horrific depending what you write). However, HaperCollins has actually said they will publish the winning entry! Okay, so I don't really expect to win, but still, it's a great motivation - cut through all the trouble and hassle of trying to find an agent and then a publisher. Just saying. 

Will be tracking my progress on my Facebook Fan Page. Stop by if you want to see how I'm going and leave me any encouraging message (or you can leave them here on the blog, either is fine).


 

And You Thought NaNoWriMo Was Insane...

So, there are a lot of people out there who think that the concept of NaNoWriMo is insane: to write the first draft of an entire novel (at least 50,000 words) in a month. 

I was therefore pretty proud of my efforts to write a draft in two weeks, until I saw this...

NaNoWriWee: Write a Novel in a Weekend (aka The 30 Hour Novel)

So it's slightly tongue in cheek, but over the weekend of 26th-27th of Jan, some crazy Brits are planning to sit down for 15 hours a day and see what they can produce. 

Now I count myself pretty insane in writing terms, but I don't think I've done more than 6 hours of writing in one day, and that leaves you almost blind with the inside of your brain twitching. 15 hours just seems ridiculous.

So ridiculous that I might just have to try it!

Who's with me?

(Was that crickets I heard?)

I've actually got 2 weeks leave starting that weekend, and for the second week am off to a health retreat, which is going to be awesome, though I don't know if I'll be doing much writing. So spending two days to knock off that fortnight's novel would then leave me time to do other things during the week. 

I won't have any particular word count in mind, because honestly I have no idea how much I can do or even what sort of novel I'll be turning out. 

But I am accepting the challenge that for two days, and two days only, I will sit down and write for 15 hours a day. So sorry world if you wanted me to do anything else. 

Don't have anything planned for it at all, because the projects I have lined up will either need a bit more time, or I've already got a little bit started. However, for Christmas my little sister gave me 'The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends', so I thought I might start reading that and see what my creative youth came up with. It will be completely discovery writing, no plotting at all. 

If you are also looking for something to just blow your socks off, check out their website and sign up for the challenge: http://www.kernelmag.com/scene/3669/the-30-hour-novel/

One added benefit is that it will make NaNoWriMo in November seem like a breeze :D