Tag: NaNoWriMo

IWSG, December 2021

John Winkelman

Welcome to the Insecure writer’s Support Group post for December 2021.

Well here we are, the day after the end of NaNoWriMo 2021, and I am actually feeling…good? Hyped? Pumped? I reached 50,000 words on Thanksgiving Day, which was fortunate because the rest of the holiday weekend was fraught and full of family drama.

But I won NaNoWriMo 2021, in one of the most stressful years of my life. It provided for me a distraction and an escape from all the [gestures at everything], and I made good progress on the sequel to the book I didn’t finish last year, which means I am now in a good place to go back and finish my book from 2020.

This month’s IWSG question is the following:

In your writing, what stresses you the most? What delights you?

The stresses in my writing life vary over time, depending on many outside factors. But the stress factor which pops up most consistently is when the words just…don’t…work. I don’t mean writer’s block, or any kind of general malaise which prevents me from getting my head in the proper space to put words to paper. I mean the disconnect between the thing I am trying to say and what ends up on the surface in front of me. I have a great idea for a poem or a story, and I sit down to get it out of my head and onto the screen, and the words just kind of…sit there. Whatever energy went into transcribing the multidimensional multimedia images from my imagination down onto the page is now gone. The words are stagnant, uninteresting, completely lost in translation.

Riffing on Michelangelo’s quote about finding the piece of art inside the stone, this particular stone, if I hacked away at it, would only contain a slightly smaller stone. This is the state of mind where I can easily slip into the impostor syndrome mindset, which is difficult to overcome, as it provides its own sort of self-sustaining energy.

In contrast, what delights me the most is when I get some words written and they are exactly what I was trying to convey, and instead of sitting there like a lump of rock, they glow in all their myriad facets of wonder. And even if (to abuse the metaphor) they sit there like a lump of rock, this time they are the rock which contains within it a sculpture of sublime beauty and detail. These are the drafts within which you can already see the story in its final, perfect form, and all you need to do is remove the extraneous and polish the remaining.

The process of writing which results in such a feeling tends to provide its own sustaining energy; the groove or flow or zone where time seems to disappear and I feel like I am writing in an eternal now, though in the mundane world that eternity may only last for a few minutes.

I couldn’t say which I feel more often while writing – stress or delight – but since I am still writing, thirty-plus years after I first started, I would say that a single moment of writing success makes up for almost any amount of writing stress.

 

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Complete but Not Finished

John Winkelman

Books which arrived in the week of November 21, 2021

Another brief post, because life is busy right now.

Four new books arrived at the house in the past week. The first three are from an order I placed with Books and Mortar. The last is from a recently-fulfilled Kickstarter.

First up is Out of the Ruins, an anthology of apocalyptic stories edited by Preston Grassman. Since I like writing stories in the “salvage punk” subgenre, it seemed appropriate to read stories about events which would lead to the state of needing to salvage to survive.

Next is Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, the sequel to the most excellent Gideon the Ninth, which I read last year.

Next is Shadowboxing by Joseph Rios. I picked this one up based on a single poem of his which was featured in the Poem a Day newsletter distributed by Poets.org. This is the first book of poetry I picked up in many months.

Last is the Volume 19 of the Girl Genius comic created by Kaja and Phil Foglio, titled Sparks and Monsters. This one was a long time coming, thanks to *gestures at everything* happening during the course of production. But it is finally here, and it is wonderful as usual.

In reading news, I spent a couple of hours at a laundromat this week, which gave me time to read four of the five stories in Jean Davis’ collection Dreams of Stars and Lies, which I picked up, oh, some time ago. I read the fifth story on Friday, making the book the only one I read to completion in the month of November.

I also made a little headway in David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years, which I will probably finish by the end of the year. Maybe.

In writing news, on Thanksgiving Day I passed 50,000 words in my story, Racing the Flood Down to the Sea. That puts me at about 75 to 80% done with this the pre-first-draft version of the book. If I complete it, and if it seems to have potential, then at some point in the future I will edit it to get a proper first draft. Then the real work will begin.

A Cautious Anticipation of Success

John Winkelman

Books from the week of November 14, 2021

As of today I am past 40,000 words in National Novel Writing Month. This is not as much as I had hoped, but, well, I am 52 and don’t have the burning energy and contempt for sleep and other healthy lifestyle choices that I had in my 40s.

Four new books arrived at the house in the past week.

The first three are purchases from Books and Mortar bookstore here in Grand Rapids.

First up is Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, a collection of the central texts of CRT, edited by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and several others. With all of the white supremacists squealing and crying about how their children are being taught to be ashamed of being white, I thought that becoming well-informed on the subject was a necessity. And frankly, white supremacists should be ashamed of themselves.

Next up is Anti-Oedipus, the first volume of Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. I picked up A Thousand Plateaus a couple of year ago, and it has been slowly warping my brain. I look forward to diving into this one, probably sometime this spring.

Third is Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. I only recently became aware of this book, in a thread somewhere on Metafilter. It came up again, in another thread, and since I was heading to Books and Mortar to pick up the previous two books in this post anyway, I grabbed it from one of their tables.

Books and Mortar is just the best!

And last is Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre, from a recently completed Kickstarter run by PM Press.

In reading news I am still working my way through David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years. I had thought to be done by the end of the month, but I have had almost no time at all to do anything besides write, thanks to several unexpected time sinks popping up this month.

In writing news, as stated above I am just past 40,000 words into my text, and should hit 50,000 by mid-week. After that, we will see. I have a short story I would like to complete, as well as the story to which the current effort is a sequel. But as long as I keep writing, it’s all good.

Writing, Writing, Writing

John Winkelman

Books which arrived in the week of November 7, 2021

Here I am, almost halfway into NaNoWriMo and well past the halfway point in my word count. I haven’t done this well in NaNoWriMo since, I think, 2019. Today I reached 30,000 words, and with due application of virtual ink and elbow grease I could possibly hit 50,000 by end of day of Friday. That would leave me eleven days to finish up the book and maybe work on a couple of other writing projects. That’s the real goal, after all – finish this draft of the book.

Three volumes arrived here at the Library of Winkelman Abbey in the past week.

First up is Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, which has the honor of being the first book I purchased from Books and Mortar after they re-opened the store in their new, improved, and much larger new space.

Next is the latest issue of Peninsula Poets, the biannual magazine of the Poetry Society of Michigan, of which I am a member when I remember to pay my dues.

Next up is Michigan Roots, the once-every-five-years anthology of the poetry of the members of the Poetry Society of Michigan. This is of particular significance to me, because it contains one of my poems! “Afternoon Traffic”, which was originally published by Portage Magazine in the 2020 edition of their online magazine, is reprinted here thanks to the efforts of editor Jennifer Clark, who reached out to me this past spring to see if they could include my poem in their anthology.

In reading news, there is nothing new to report, because I’m spending all of my spare moments writing. 30,000 down, 20,000 to go, and 16 days in which to do it. I feel cautiously optimistic.

Back Into the Writing Life

John Winkelman

Reading material for the week of October 31, 2021

I have written more in the past two weeks than in the entire previous year. I wouldn’t say I have recovered from anything; more that I have grown accustomed, finally, to the way things are now. The new abnormal, if you will, which could also be a newbie-friendly version of the New Weird genre. Like, Annihilation for junior high.

But whatever needed to click, clicked, and now I can write freely again, if not well. I am a little out of practice.

Four new readable things arrived this past week at the Library of Winkelman Abbey.

First up is The Interim by Wolfgang Hilbig, the most recent delivery from my subscription to Two Lines Press.

Next is the new issue of the ever-excellent Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, to which I will, one day, submit some writing.

Next is the latest issue of Jacobin. I have cancelled my subscription to this one as, though I like the magazine and appreciate what they do, I have a stack of over two years of mostly-unread issues sitting in my office.

Next is the latest issue of Salvage, subtitled “The Disorder of the Future.” I will continue my subscription to Salvage for as long as they continue to publish. Though their topics are grounded in the present their viewpoint seems to be about five years ahead of the consensus reality, and I find that invaluable as I think about the events of the past few years.

In reading news, not much has happened because I have been too busy…

WRITING! NaNoWriMo started on November 1, and as of this post I have completed 17,000 words, or just over one third of the 50,000-word minimum to be a NaNoWrimo Winner. One third in one week is a comfortable buffer and I think I have it in me to get to 50,000 by the end of the month, though I have looked that particular gift horse in the mouth enough times to know that I shouldn’t take my time/energy/motivation/health for granted.

IWSG, November 2021

John Winkelman

Welcome to the Insecure Writer’s Support Group post for the month of November, 2021.

Hmm. What am I feeling insecure about this month? What could it be. Could it be…

SATAN*?!?!

No! Not Satan. Just NaNoWriMo. It’s always NaNoWriMo.

My confidence took a big hit last year when I failed to complete my 50,000 words worse than in any previous NaNo. I blame burnout, family stress, COVID stress, and attempting to continue a partially-completed work, rather than starting something new. For me, NaNoWriMo works best when whatever I work on is completely contained within the month. This is why I do so well with short stories at this time of year.

So for 2021 I am trying a different approach. I plan to write a book, so nothing new there, but instead of writing in chapters, I have created 30 documents in Google Docs, one for each day of the month. Whatever I write on a given day, no matter what it is, where it starts or where it ends, goes in the doc for the day. I’ll take notes about where chapters should start and end, but rather than worry about chapter (or short story) length, this year will be all about the writing. Just get it down and get it done. The editing will happen in December. Or January. Or never. Anywhere but in November.

Therefore I am cautiously optimistic that this month I will be able to get the 50,000. And so far, two days in, I have averaged about 5,000 words a day. So it may actually happen.

If you are participating in NaNoWriMo, here is my profile page at nanowrimo.org. Hit me up with a buddy request!

Anyway.

This month’s IWSG question is the following:

What’s harder to do, coming up with your book title or writing the blurb?

That’s an easy one: The title. I say this simply because I have not yet had to come up with a blurb for a book, because I have not yet worked a book the point where it requires a blurb. Maybe this year. Or maybe next.

I suppose that makes it another thing to feel insecure about.

*If you didn’t get the Satan reference, do a google search for “SNL Church Lady”.

 

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is a community dedicated to encouraging
and supporting insecure writers
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Another October, Put to Rest

John Winkelman

The Tai Chi Tree at Wilcox Park

Yesterday was the last outdoor session of the year for the tai chi and kung fu classes. We were extremely lucky with the weather. Since late March we were only rained out twice, and had to cancel one class due to extreme heat. Three classes in eight months. We could probably tough it out on Saturdays for a couple of more weeks, but since all of us are vaccinated and okay with masks, we are moving classes to From the Heart Yoga for the winter. With a little luck our original practice space at the downtown YWCA will open after the beginning of the year, but we are prepared to move locations for the long term, if necessary.

No new reading material arrived at the house in the past week. This is becoming a regular occurrence.

In reading news, I am slowly working my way through David Graeber‘s Debt: The First 5,000 Years, which has put me in a state of information overload. I think it is brilliant, but a more nuanced opinion will need to wait until I compete the book.

In writing news, I wrote most of the first draft of a short story which has been bouncing around in my head for a few months. I would have completed the draft but a migraine laid me low for a couple of days in the middle of the week. Still, this is the first creative prose writing I have worked on this calendar year, and it was a good practice run for NaNoWriMo which starts tomorrow.

And tomorrow starts in about six hours.

Autumn Weather and Autumn Energy

John Winkelman

New arrivals in the week of October 17, 2021

Yesterday I wandered over to Books and Mortar to help Jenny and her crew move the store from their old location at 955 Cherry Street SE, across the street to their new location at 966 Cherry Street SE. The moving event was supposed to take three hours, and I set aside a couple of hours more because I know about moving locations. I also expected maybe a dozen people to show up (again because I have lots of experience with moving) because the day was cold and intermittently rainy.

But instead, the weather broke and the sun came out, and at least 75 people showed up and formed a human conveyor belt to move the books across the street, and the entire inventory and most of the fixtures were in the new space in less than an hour. Books and Mortar have photos and video of the event up on their Instagram. I look forward to seeing the new space when it is finished (grand re-opening November 5!).

Two new bookish things arrived this week, and one shirt.

First up is the latest issue of Poetry, which continues to be a balm of sorts for when the world gets a little too chaotic.

Next up is Gaia Awakens, a new anthology of climate crisis fiction from a recent Kickstarter created by C.D. Tavenor and Meg Trast of the Two Doctors Media Collaborative. I backed their project at the tier which included the “Eco, not Ego” tshirt, which I will happily wear to conventions, if the conventions I attend ever happen again.

In reading news, I started David Graber‘s Debt: The First 5,000 Years, which should keep me good and angry through the end of November.

In writing news, I am slowly amassing a pile of notes for the kickoff of NaNoWriMo in a week and change. I am trying something new this year – instead of breaking up my writing by chapter or story, I created 30 documents in Google Docs, one for each day of November, and will just put everything I write on each day in each document. I’ll worry about redistributing the words to their final resting places after the end of the month. What comes out of NaNoWriMo is the zero-eth draft of the work. The first draft will appear out of the random pile of typing once I have time to review what I have written.

Is the Writing Mojo Returning?

John Winkelman

new books for the week of July 25, 2021

It appears that the writing energy is slowly returning! In the past week I have written outlines for a couple of short stories, and am also developing a plan to completely re-write the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2013 in order to (a) rid it of its many, many problematic elements, and (b) make of it a coherent story. This will in effect be a first draft, as most of what is produced during NaNoWriMo is, well, not quite ready to be called a first draft.

This was another week which was light on new reading material. The only arrival this week was Jacobin, which like the last dozen or so periodicals which have arrived at the house, will end up somewhere on a TBR pile, awaiting my attention.

In reading news, I finished The Road Home and Automating Inequality. I am about halfway through Berardi’s The Uprising, which is bending my brain a little, as all Semiotext(e) texts do. I just started Michael J. Sullivan’s Theft of Swords, and at around a hundred pages in am quite liking it! Sullivan spins a fine yarn.

In writing news: Soon. That is all.

The Sunny Warm Days of…November?

John Winkelman

I took this picture in the late afternoon of Saturday, November 7. At the time the temperature outside was around 70 degrees, Fahrenheit here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The air smelled of dry leaves and moist earth, an odd juxtaposition of the scents of spring and autumn.

Two books arrived this week at the Library of Winkelman Abbey, from an impulse purchase from Subterranean Press. On the left is Seven of Infinities, and on the right is On a Red Station, Drifting, both by Aliette de Bodard. The first was published by Subterranean Press; the second by the now-defunct Immersion Press.

I have not read much of de Bodard’s work; a handful of her many, many short stories, probably in one of the superb Long List anthologies. With these books I will begin my 2021 reading project early, to wit: exploring the novella, much as I spent the first few months of 2020 exploring the short story.

Speaking of novellas and short stories and the like, NaNoWriMo 2020 for me is on the very cusp of crashing and burning. I started strong, with 2,000 -3,000 words a day for the first four days, but the election, work, family, and life in general sapped my time and energy and I am several thousand words behind schedule with little time available to make up the lost ground. I will keep writing, however, and if I can get back to 2,500 words a day for the remaining days of the month I should be able to squeak through on the 30th.

In reading news, I finished the Sealey Challenge (referenced in my previous blog post) and in the midst of all that read the publishing memoir For Exposure by Jason Sizemore, head of Apex Publications, and Road to Heaven, Bill Porter’s magnificent travelogue of searching for the Buddhist and Taoist hermits of rural China, back in the 1980s. These nonfiction works, plus 31 poetry books and chapbooks, helped me keep my head in a good place for emotional and psychological stability during the run-up to, event of, and long, torturous denouement from, the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden won, and while things are far, far from good, at least they are not getting bad quite as quickly as they were last week.

Whether that changes remains to be seen.