Buddies, Challenges, and NANOWRIMO

Challenges and friends to write with are important when you're writing with a day job.

Humans seem to be, by nature, competitive beings. We are not truly happy unless we have goals and someone we can share them with. Minion and Maverick are among my writing buddies. We rail together, cheer together, laugh together and cry together. We work out small challenges for one another in order to keep us all going. This helps in a normal week to keep focused and keep on track with writing, especially with so many other things going on that otherwise might be put first. For some people, these writing buddies are a loose conglomerations of friends, like ours, but can be as organized as attending a full writing group weekly or monthly. It really depends on what works best for you.

NANOWRIMO is a whole other level of challenge from a the one presented by friends. It ups the ante. As Minion has said, it offers a freedom to be limitlessly creative and a challenge to do a high volume in only one month. While it's difficult for the first time NANOer and it never becomes a complete breeze, it gives you a reason for -- as they put it on their website -- “literary abandon” that normally you wouldn't dare try. Actually, I find it opens eyes to what's honestly possible for you to do creatively, even if you have your day job.

If you don't already have a group of writing friends to work with, ask around. Find a couple of people you trust and whom you work well with. Set challenges and goals for each other. I'd say that the following are the only real rules you need:

- Keep in mind some people work well with structure, some don't. Work with your friends to find a happy medium and create something that keeps you working creatively.

- Keep it simple. Different people have different restrictions on their time. Some people can't afford to spend much time during the work week, some can't afford to give up the weekend. Remember that if you make a challenge to difficult, no one wins and no one enjoys the game.

- Keep it fun. This is supposed to be something you all enjoy.

Until next time!

-The Odd Angle (20096 and counting)

My Best Friend, My Writing Journal

The writing journal concept has been done by both Minion and Maverick before. But, for anyone with a day job, they're vital.

You never know when a thought or an idea might strike, which makes this an important tool for writers with day jobs. I'm rarely without mine, because trust me, you tell yourself you're going to remember that brilliant bit of dialogue that pops into your head while calculating expenditures or that idea to research strong female figures in Spanish folklore while you're in line at the bank. But you won't. It's gone like so much ephemera.

I wasn't much for journaling until college. I'll admit it. I was one of those kids that attempted to write diaries, but was never really successful. They, like my travel journal, were things I lost interest after a few daily entries before forgetting it altogether, and only picked up again after I found it moldering in some pile. But then, my life was certainly not as interesting as the stories I had in my head, and those I went about writing out other ways, but certainly not in a diary.

The professor who insisted on the journal as part of the class told us that once we were out in the "real world," we would "never have time to write the way you do now."

I didn't believe her until I was in the "real world" and a journal was a far easier way for me to keep hold of all those notes and ideas than endless pocketfuls of Post-it notes. Or, forbid, straight out remembering the idea. Not that there aren't loose pages and Post-it notes tucked into my current journal, but it gives me a place to put all that... well, stuff.

I write over lunchtime, on the side during meetings, or when a thought strikes throughout the day, my best friend, the journal, is there to help collect it all.

If you don't believe me, I want you to give it a shot. One month. It doesn't have to be fancy. Small is good, something purse or pocket sized, but don't rule out a good old-fashioned composition book. Take it with you everywhere. Whenever you get an idea, instead of reaching for a napkin or a sticky note, grab your book. At least once a day, put something in it. Something creative. A list of character names. A plot idea. Keep it close and when you have an errant thought, get it down.

You'll find, just as I did, how invaluable that small book can be.

And if you're using it this month, for NANO, watch how much higher your word counts are with it than without. Without it, I'd never be able to work on NANOWRIMO successfully or participate in writing challenges with Minion and Maverick. But more on this next time.

Next time: Secrets to Staying With It: Buddies, Challenges, and NANOWRIMO

A Long Way on a Notebook and A Dream

Hello. The Odd Angle here. Thank you Minion and Maverick for asking me to contribute.

I'm not in the industry, like Minion or Maverick. Like many a would-be writer, I live a life outside of the publishing world: A day job, if you will, to pay the bills. A home to clean. Family to juggle. Pets to care for. And on top of everything else, a need to create.

Writing is both a love and an obsession. And while I would love to be more in the "scene" or able to dedicate more of my life to it, I recognize that there are things that are closed to me, for lack of a better term. There really isn't much in the way of publishing where I am. No real freelance outlets either. And at my age, I think it might be a little difficult to get to where either Minion or Maverick are in their lives.

But would I want to publish other people's works? Sometimes, I admit I find the idea appealing. Sometimes, though, I don't think I could handle the responsibility over holding other people's fragile dreams -- or egos-- in my hands. And while I would love to be my own boss and write all the time, I don't know if I have the hutzpah to do what Maverick does -- give up the comforts provided by a regular job to forge my dream with my meager successes under my belt.

My interests include both academic and fiction writing, usually not at the same time. And I've been known to work on either type of project with gleeful and occasionally singular abandon when they strike me. I fill notebooks and writing journals with ideas, bites, and scenes. I bring my notebook-of-the-moment everywhere: you never know when and where an idea might strike. It's my tie to writing while I'm at work, on the bus, or waiting in the doctor's office. It's a lifeline to my dreams that I don't think I, as a writer with a day job, could do without. More on that next time, though.

Without the time or connections, though, what keeps me at it? Good question, but to answer it, I need to ask myself two others.

First: why do I write?

Because, I love it. For all of the other problems I have with my own writing, I just can't escape the fact that even if I didn't write it down, I would still be creating. I would still have this urge to tell stories. Humans are, to use an oft quoted phrase, storytelling animals. Its how we've created our societies, explained our boundaries, and imagined our futures. And I love the stories people tell each other almost as much as I love telling stories myself. Language, rich and strange, the construction of it to share hopes and fears, dreams and ideas is a beautiful -- and very human -- thing.

Second: what keeps me going in the face of all my other daily expectations of job and family?

Apart from the above? Faith in my own abilities (this includes the ability to amuse myself, if no one else), hope, and a little story I'll pass on to you.

In college, my mother's good friend was an aspiring writer. He was good, but my mother, ever the realist, would warn him that it was unlikely he'd go anywhere with it. Find a job. Drop this nonsense. But, he had faith in himself, hope, and a lot of dreams. He kept at it.

By the time I got to college, he was a bestselling author with several of his books on the New York Times Bestseller list and one book that has since been turned into a play on Broadway.

He kept at it.

He tried hard.

He believed that he could do it.

And so do I.

Even if I have a little of my mother's realism in my "don't quit my day job" attitude.

And, one day, when I finally publish I'm going to dedicate it to both of them.

-The Odd Angle

Next time: Writing for the Real World: My best friend, My writing journal