novelfilter

January 5, 2008 12:48 PM

New Year resolution: write a novel this year. Need some resources

-motivation. I have a full-time job, how can I make sure I write at least a page/day on average?
-information: the novel will be about the decline of civilization due to global warming and its effects, described through the main character's diary. As a long-time fan and reader of post-apocalyptic literature, I am pretty familiar with the topic of total collapse, but via catastrophic, quick events. I plan to describe a prolonged, agonizing collapse of basic services and disintegration of the social fabric under the threat of nature - the novel should span about two-three years.
-characterization: I want to make my character believable, I want him to evolve, and I want to flesh out the other characters in the novel with quick, striking descriptions that allow the reader to 'know' them without long expositions - remember, this is going to be an epistolar novel.

posted by spacefire to writing & language (22 comments total)

For motivation, buy The War of Art and re-read it often. Trust me on that.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:59 PM on January 5

For motivation, I would suggest joining a writers group. Being involved with a group will give you some support to keep you motivated, and will make your writing seem more like a commitment than a personal hobby that you can drop at any time.
posted by burnmp3s at 1:04 PM on January 5

Accept that you will not always feel motivated- and then write anyway.

You have a job- so I assume you usually show up on time for work, whether you feel like it or not. Approach writing the exact same way. Build an hour (or however long you need to write a page) into your daily routine, before or after work. "before" works better for me, I am too wiped out after the work day.

Make a routine and stick to it. set benchmarks- promise to show X amount of pages to someone by Y date, so you are accountable.

This is all easier said than done. I try to keep up a writer's routine and I fail constantly. In some ways it's harder work than the writing itself. Try to do it every day, but if you fail one day, as everyone does, don't get down on yourself. Just come back the next day.
posted by drjimmy11 at 1:05 PM on January 5

and yes, seconding "burn" - writers groups are great. ideally find a group of people you AREN'T really good friends with- so you aren't too comfortable blowing off a commitment to them.
posted by drjimmy11 at 1:06 PM on January 5

this always reminds of a quote from Andy Richter about why he works out with a personal trainer:

"I need a commitment to someone else to make me show up. A commitment to myself? I'll break that every time. Fuck that guy."
posted by drjimmy11 at 1:09 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]

I don't know about anyone else, but I can't write to a schedule. (Maybe that's why I don't bother trying to make money at it.) If I write when I'm not inspired the result is invariably crap.

(Whether the result when I am inspired is also crap is not relevant to this discussion.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:21 PM on January 5

You can't wait to be inspired. If you were on a deadline, you wouldn't wait to be inspired. As Neil Gaiman says, do you think dentists have dentist's block? Do cellists have cellist's block? No.

Do be a writer, you have to write. One page a day is a great goal. Just sit down and do it. Butt in chair. Lest you think that I'm tossing this off lightly -- go back through the archive of my ask.me questions. I struggled with this for a long time.

For your first draft, especially for your first novel, don't let yourself go back and edit. Just write. Every day, write. You can worry about the rest of it later. You learn more by actually writing than reading about it.

A page a day is a novel in a year, which is a good pace.

Writers groups can be great, but they can be hell. You may love them, you may not. The bottom line, though, is that you have to learn to keep a commitment to yourself. At the end of the day, it is you and the blank page. It is terrifying.
posted by sugarfish at 1:31 PM on January 5

What drjimmy said. You won't always feel motivated, and you will not always be inspired. In fact you will sometimes be sick of the sight of what you've written and your head will hurt from rethinking the same sections, the same problems and the same phrases over again. But it's important to sit in front of your work often. You needn't schedule it or make an itinerary, just get down to working on it as often as you can. And you needn't write anything or make any significant progress at first, it is just valuable to learn early that it is hard work that makes plays, novels and poems - not a flash of inspiration, a great idea, or any talent you think you might have. Put your stall in hard graft before anything else. Get the hard and sometimes painful hours in in front of the pad/laptop, and the rest will follow.

That all might sound obvious, but it constitutes the difference between the reality of writing and that student at the bar who is "working on his novel."
posted by fire&wings at 1:32 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]

sorry to contradict, Steven, but most professional writers will say that some days they feel like shit, some days they feel great and "inspired," but when they look back later the quality of work ends up being just about the same from both cases.

If you only write for fun, then waiting for "inspiration" is fine. This Asker sounds like he wants to write on a professional level, or at least finish his novel promptly. In my own experience, if I waited to feel "inspired," I would probably only write 6 or 7 times a year. I find the word dangerous, because once I give myself permission to work only under ideal conditions, I know I will use it as an excuse to hardly ever work.
posted by drjimmy11 at 1:33 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]

i would shoot for 2-3 hours per day, rather than 1 page a day

you need to get up and flowing, and a page isn't going to get the flow going.


Stephen King's book "On Writing" helped me to write my first novel.
posted by Salvatorparadise at 1:41 PM on January 5

Less about the craft of writing and more about the motivation to sit down and do SOMETHING: you can try Jerry Seinfeld's "Don't Break the Chain" motivator.
posted by bcwinters at 2:14 PM on January 5

For me, a hard word limit per day was more helpful than a hard time limit per day. I used 1000 words per day; that'll get you to the end of the novel well before the end of the year, but that's good, because if the novel is going to be worthwhile you'll have to start from the beginning and rewrite everything after the first pass through. No banking -- if you write extra one day, you've still got to do 1000 words the next day. When I was doing this, I didn't have a job other than writing the book -- if this just isn't working for you, try 600.

Read your sentences aloud.

Don't read books that are anything like your book. You've read a lot of post-apocalypse novels, so you're going to have ideas that are on some level borrowed from other books. You can't avoid this, so don't forbid these ideas. But once you have them, hammer and distort them until they're your own.

Don't worry too much about flow. You may occasionally experience it, but most writers, most of the time, don't. Writing is painstaking, difficult detail work. If you sweat the details enough, you can create the convincing illusion that the words flowed right out.

Resist the temptation to judge what you're writing. Resist the temptation to revise as you go.

Read John Gardner's _The Art of Fiction_. He is excellent on the need to avoid wasted words and to draw in quick strokes.

Good luck. This probably won't be fun, but you'll always be glad you did it.
posted by escabeche at 2:37 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]

here is your plan B in case your word count is still stuck at zero in october : do the nanowrimo.
posted by Baud at 2:43 PM on January 5

You can also read this on climate change or the lengthier reports of the U.N.
posted by ersatz at 3:12 PM on January 5

Motivation is very well covered in the posts above mine, I'd nth tons. All I can add is that I've written one short novel and the experience was dramatically different from writing anything else, fiction or non-fiction. You'll likely find that some of the tactics above work for you, some don't. As far as that goes, pay attention to the successes, don't worry about the failures.

Information: Emptyworld covers the genre of apocalyptic fiction pretty well. Wikipedia also has a list. If you decide to go with escabeche's suggestion and avoid the genre, mundane science fiction is a somewhat related substitute that might be helpful.

Characterization: Your goals are broad enough that it might be worth sitting down with a guide. The two books I like that deal specifically with novel writing are Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing and Plot and Structure. The latter is part of a Writer's Digest series, and the characterization book might also be worth your time -- haven't read it myself.
posted by gnomeloaf at 3:13 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]

Some resources that had both technical and motivational power for me:

The Novelist's Notebook, Laurie Henry
How To Grow a Novel, Saul Stein
A Novel in a Year, Louise Doughty (paperback out this month; was posted in installments online before that)

Some people think he's kind of hokey, but I like Lawrence Block's books for writers (listed at lawrence block
posted by frosty_hut at 4:15 PM on January 5

Readerville.com is a community of writers and readers. Lots of support resources. Their software sucks hugely, and they ask for subscription money. But they've really helped the careers of a number of writers.
posted by theora55 at 7:29 PM on January 5

You don't have towait until November, check out the NANOWRIMO website for support and encouragement all year long. I've found it to be a helpful resource. I also found some good stuff at Holly Lisle's website, and from the Steven King book, as the pp mentioned.

As a side note, make sure your desk, chair, and keyboard are ergonomic. I got carpal tunnel and f'ed up my wrists for three months doing NANOWRIMO one year. Don't let it happen to you.
posted by lisaici at 9:28 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]

You might want to check out the Snowflake Method as a way to get started and your thoughts organized. The outline you'll create will help you with your goals.

You definitely need to find yourself a time for writing. Do you commute by train or bus? I know a few writers who use that time to write.

I'll second the others with joining a writer's group to keep you going. Remember that you'll be asked to critique others' work too.

Don't edit as you write. Just write it and when you're done, stick the rough draft in a drawer for a month before editing. You'll be surprised how errors pop out at you.
posted by Kioki-Silver at 11:40 PM on January 5

bcwinters, I never thought I'd gain inspiratoin from anything Jerry Seinfeld said or did, but I liked that. A lot.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 8:17 AM on January 6

Go somewhere you can stay for an hour or few that has no distraction with just pen and paper. That's the only way I've gotten (most) of a novel written. Cafés work best for me, but libraries have worked well too. Mind you, that may not be the solution for you. My problem isn't writer's block but that I'm easily distracted and a very slow writer on top of that.

As to longer time-span post-apocalyptic stories, check out these two British tv movies, Threads and When the Wind Blows. Neither fits your timeframe exactly, but they should give you ideas. Both can be seen online, When the Wind Blows on YouTube and Threads on Google Video. Note that I haven't actually seen either film, but from descriptions they sound like what you're looking for.
posted by Kattullus at 11:12 PM on January 6

this howto actually seems to be quite practical
posted by canoehead at 2:00 PM on January 7