Superbowl Sunday

Finally! I woke to temperatures that didn't fall below freezing last night. There are only a few patches of ice and snow in the shadows instead of the solid sheet of one inch thick ice covered with several inches of snow. I can venture out to get my morning paper without fear of slipping and sliding straight to the emergency room. Most of all, the national media can quit -- hopefully -- their condemnation of the DFW area for being so poorly organized that we allowed bad weather to movein the week leading up to the Superbowl.

For those of you who might not be familiar with this part of the American football experience, the Superbowl is the final game of the season. The champs for the NFC and AFC meet in a game that will crown the best team of the year. Hopefully, it will be a good game but, all too often, it's a real sleeper. The best part of the game happens to be the commercials. As well they should be. Reports are that a 30 spot this year costs $3 million.

So, what does this have to do with writing, you ask? Good question. Now, let's see if I can come up with a good answer ;-p

Actually, I'll be honest, I'm riding high - or at least foggy -- on sinus meds today and spent much of yesterday sleeping. So I don't have a post ready and don't want to try to pull something together that won't make much sense. So, here's a question and a challenge for you.

Think of your favorite commercials -- from Superbowl Sunday or whatever. What makes them so good? How can you utilize that information or techniques in your writing?

Are we there yet?

So, another Thursday approacheth, and Kate sitteth upon her well-padded cushion to compose another scintillating Mad Genius Club post. Only... Kate sayeth unto herself "What now?" Or words to that effect.

I actually had a post planned out and even pre-written, and then Rowena beat me to it. Meanwhile my brain is somewhere in the Caribbean partying, and it doesn't even send a postcard. I'm horribly offended.

The fact is, it's been a hellish year for me, and I can't wait for it to be over. I've got one more workday this year (today), then a smidge over a week to recover for next year's fun and games. Getting to the end of the work year has been something of a death march - a long, painful drag with no apparent end most of the time.

I swear, if I did to a character what's landed on me this year, I'd have people telling me there's no way all that crap happens to anyone all at once. Besides, the character would hunt me down and kill me. And probably resurrect me so he could hunt me down and kill me again.

So, instead of a sensible, thoughtful kind of post, you've got a bunch of more or less aimless rambling, some cute and funny (at least, I think they're funny), and a challenge:

Go to the Random Plot Generator, pick one or more of the options in the list, and write a short summary of a story that uses it.

Here's mine:

Advice for the Evil Overlord:

The gun turrets on my fortress will not rotate enough so that they may direct fire inward or at each other.

Story: The Mad Scientist and the Evil Overlord engage in a pitched battle over the design of the fortress gun turrets. While they are alternating between trying to kill each other and trying to sabotage the other's plans, the World's Luckiest Hero saunters in, rescues the Princess, and recruits all the Evil Overlord's soldiers and the Mad Scientist's minions.

(okay, it's crap. But you get the idea)

Nano Who?

I have an ancestor, a famous Irish nun, who was named Nano Nagle. Consequently whenever I see something about NaNoWriMo I do a double-take.

This annual writing challenge is celebrating its tenth year in 2008. My first novel came out before it started happening (oops—maybe I shouldn't admit that), so it sort of passed me by. I note that none of my fellow mad geniuses is talking about participating, and perhaps that's because they were all solidly in the professional writing routine before NaNo began. I believe they're all more experienced than me.

That's not to say that NaNo isn't worth doing. Lots, LOTS of people do it every year, and I assume most of them find it valuable.

So who does NaNo? Writers who are learning their craft, or who want to learn to write fast, or who have to write around day jobs or family and want a month of intense work, or who love the energy of attacking a goal along with hundreds (thousands!) of other writers. And, in many cases, people who've always dreamed of writing a novel, and have decided to give it a try.

Cruising the NaNo website, I found some fun stats:

- First year (1999): 21 participants, 6 "winners" (verified 50,000 words written)
- Last year (2007): 101,510 participants, 15,333 winners

Twenty-five NaNo novels have been published, and one became a NYT #1 best-seller. Not bad for a fun little challenge.

From the figures above, it looks like last year about 15% of those who set out to write 50k words in a month achieved that goal. But the other 85% are not losers. They've all written something, probably a lot. They've all made an effort to focus on writing for a month, and that's an accomplishment. They've all learned something about themselves and their abilities, and they've all had the courage to tackle what to most of them is probably a daunting goal.

I applaud the NaNo folks. I've participated in goal-oriented group writing challenges myself—with good results. It strengthened my writing and my confidence. In one type of challenge, the reward for meeting the goal was a physical trophy, a beautiful glass float (paid for in part by me, and in part by a generous mentor who sponsored the challenge). I've got a row of those beauties, and though I earned them a while ago, they still inspire me.

Why am I not doing NaNo? Well, I sort of do it all the time. I learned the lessons in other classrooms, but they're basically the same lessons.

Rule #1 is write. I have a daily minimum wordcount that I write no matter what. (This technique works for me, but not necessarily for everyone—there are sprinters out there, too.) I try not to go back and fiddle with the old stuff too much, but instead focus on writing new material until the manuscript is done. I generally have a deadline, either contractual or self-imposed, for finishing a novel.

A quote that came out of a workshop I attended, and that one of my classmates made into a sign, is "Don't think, just write." Appropriate for this kind of attack writing.

What NaNo is doing, in a way, is simulating the demands that are often made on a professional novelist. Finish this much work by this date, period. Succeed, and you get rewards, the best of which is a sense of accomplishment and knowing that you can, indeed, write 50,000 words in a month.

There's a well-known truism that anyone can write a novel. In fact, while everyone has enough command of language to enable them, theoretically, to write a novel (sigh, OK—not everyone, but a lot of people—heaven help our education system), not everyone has the determination to actually do it. Inspiration is fine and wonderful, but it's willpower that gets you to the bottom of that last page where you get to type "THE END."

So, let's see. It's about half-time for the NaNo folks. What are you all doing surfing blogs? Go write!


—Pati Nagle