NaNoWriMo - Day 1

Day 1 of NaNoWriMo has gone scarily well. I have written more today than I have ever written in my life. To be on target I'm supposed to write 1667 words a day. Today I wrote just over 10,000 words.

I'm thinking of it like a swimming marathon in which I push myself off from the side. When you are swimming it is that first push which can be the most useful thing and give you some distance.

10,000 words! Why don't I feel elated? I feel kind of drained and a little fearful. It is going too well - it can't be this easy going all the way to 50,000 words, can it? Or am I making it harder than it needs to be? It all depends on how much the rest of life gets in the way of the writing.

The way I experience life is through my writing, through the organisation of often chaotic events into some kind of narrative. This is what people do - they put lives into story terms - even when those lives are chaotic.

I have genuinely never written so much before in a day. I once wrote so much with a pen and paper that I got blisters on my fingers, but 10,000 words is crazy.

I don't want fellow writers to feel too envious though, today's success brings with it a weird fear that something is about to go horribly wrong. It is too easy - it is flowing too well and I am too pessimistic. Perhaps I sabotage my own success, but I can almost hear life about to throw in some complication. It has been my experience and I have come to trust that experience.

The good news is that whatever life throws at me in the coming month, at least I have a bit of luxury when it comes to NaNoWriMo.

I think the tortoise and the hare analogy is about right here. I race ahead, take it easier and then I forget persistence - the very thing which has helped up until here. I have always considered myself the tortoise anyway - I have up until now been a slow writer with fiction but I'm using a couple of techniques to get around that with NaNoWriMo. And so far they are working. The tortoise is born the tortoise the hare is born the hare.

415 words

NaNoWriMo - No method to the madness

I always told myself that I would write about whatever was happening in my life. There are many things that are happening, but at the moment this is the main thing that is happening...

I've resisted the temptation to post a Halloween story this year on my blog. I have a spare ghost story called 'The Shade of Hades', but it is too long to expect anyone to read it on a blog. Anyway, it's becoming a tradition that I do it and that isn't always a good thing. So, I'm sorry to anyone who expected a ghost story.

What I am doing is participating in NaNoWriMo. For those who don't know, this is a kind of marathon for writers. All through November (NaNoWriMo = National November Writing Month) writers all across the world will be trying to write 50,000 words. Sometimes into a novel.

It is an act of total folly. There is no rhyme or reason or method to this madness. It is just a matter of writing for the joy of writing (and possibly not even that). So, because it is folly, irony dictates that I should take the subject of survival as a theme.

I'm a slow writer when it comes to fiction. I can crack out a piece of journalism to deadline, but when it comes to fiction I usually take my time. My novel ('Destiny and Dynasty' (still coming out on Dec 15th)) took me years to write. Even poetry (which I have now turned away from in favour of prose) would take weeks to write.

So writing 50,000 words (which I think is about 1666 words a day) in a month is a genuine challenge.

The only useful part of the whole writing marathon is that I have a draft at the end of it. If I manage to complete it.

I'm planning to blog about it a little next month if I get the time (bearing in mind that writing time will be at a premium).

Hopefully I shall have improved as a writer by the end of it. But I still maintain that there is no method to the madness.

'A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.'

Why I'm not rich

I've created a new book cover (above) for my upcoming book Destiny and Dynasty (now available for pre-order on Amazon here). 

Here is the old version: 

The change came about when I was playing around with creating a draft cover for this year's nanowrimo writing challenge. Nanowrimo, for those who don't know, is the annual challenge in which writers attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.

I'm a slow writer when it comes to fiction so it will be one of the hardest things I've attempted. I'm not sure I will succeed, but at least some good has come of it already.

I've become strangely obsessed with fonts during the cover design phase and was very tempted to use the following font because I seemed to come across it (or something like it) wherever I looked:

Plus, there are a few very popular books with the same tall handwriting fonts as their titles at the moment.

During the note-taking work that I do at university I sat in an accountancy lecture yesterday. The lecture was about creating the best profit margins by altering the price of a product. The idea being that there is an optimal price which you can set something at which will result in the most sales and the largest profit margin. It's a bit of an art for companies (like Apple) who want to make a lot of money.

While I was taking down the notes I thought about my upcoming book and wondered if I had set the price too low. But then I considered that there was one thing which the accountancy lecturer didn't mention when it comes to profit margins. Ethics. 

If I set the ebook price artificially high it isn't fair for people who may not have much spare money (especially as Christmas is coming up). And the only point of emulating the large publishing houses by setting an ebook price similar to the print book price is to make money.

So I've set the price of the ebook to £3, which hopefully is a fair price. I've already set the other work as low as possible (Amazon won't allow authors to publish their books for free except during promotions) and put on a lot of free promotions so that they are accessible. I think you can see why I'm not rich.

What I think indie authors don't have is the advertising. There is only so much social marketing that one person can do. Take a look at the computer game 'Destiny' which was released about a month ago. I'm not sure what the advertising budget for the game was, but it was one of the most hyped games in history. You can't really do stuff like that without the backing of a large publisher or some strange publicity stunt.

I haven't sold out yet, in any sense of the phrase. And, that fact makes you a very discerning reader.

'I have written you an opera...'

It's pretty inevitable that (barring any major life event) I'm going to be writing about my first novel over the next few months.

At times I feel like the phantom - from the Phantom of the Opera, gatecrashing a masquerade and announcing: 'I have written you an opera'. The imaginary hushed silence is, hopefully, simply a dark fear that I hold in my worst moments (of which I have a few).

I've just put together the Amazon page so that anyone who wants to can pre-order the ebook. And it will be an ebook first. There is such a huge debate about artificially enhanced ebook prices and the way in which Amazon deal with authors that I decided to set the ebook price fairly low. The whole publishing industry seems to be in flux and I worry that it is the reader who will always lose out. So at least, as an indie author, I have the right to set the ebook price.

Why should you read this book?

My answer is that it will be an escape and I would like you to enjoy it. It won't make you a better (or worse) person. It won't give you coping strategies or make you more confident at public speaking. It won't enhance you in any way apart from being an escape from the tyranny of always feeling that you need to enhance yourself.

It was written to be enjoyed and any message which the book carries is subconscious on my part. I've not set out to promote any particular agenda (or to preach). I set out to write a story. Perhaps there are hidden messages, perhaps in books there always are.

What is it about?

I've made no secret to the fact that this story is set against the backdrop of a megachurch. There is a reason that I've selected a Christian as my hero. It is because there are so few Christian heroes in story. And there is also a reason that I've selected a Christian as my villain.

It is because I can get away with it.

Although, to be fair, many modern authors get away with creating Christian villains whether they are believers or not.

So, I mean, I have an excuse. And in this case the Christian villains are almost caricatures. That is deliberate.

But I'm pre-empting criticism...

It's a story - and it is supposed to be enjoyed. Not everyone will like it, but I hope some people will at least read it. If people don't read it, it is just one of those things. As Neil Gaiman says, whatever happens, 'make good art'.

Whether it is good art or not I will leave for you to decide. But I'm deliberately calling it art because it does have depth.

So - 'I have written you an opera' and here's the link...


Destiny and Dynasty - Amazon page

Destiny and Dynasty Trailer

Okay, here is the book trailer which I've created for Destiny and Dynasty.

It is coming out on 15th December (at first as an ebook and then as a paperback).

Hope you like the trailer.

It will all make sense in the end...

Nick White has written a book!

Have you ever won an argument long after it even mattered?

I've won an argument that took place almost 30 years ago. In fact the argument has likely been forgotten by everyone but me.

Let me explain. Back in high school I decided with a couple of friends that I would write a book. We planned to write a book in the style of the fighting fantasy and role playing material which we liked. In English lessons we had just read 'The Hobbit' and we were inspired to write a similar book with a kind of 'choose your own' format (turn to page 50 if you remember these books).

We spoke to our English teacher and I got so far as to paint a storyboard picture of a castle carved into a mountaintop. But we were kids and our patience, inspiration and interest waned - especially after our English teacher gave us a lukewarm reception.

In my maths class a popular and trendy boy announced to the maths teacher:

"Sir, have you heard the latest? Nick White is going to write a book!"

There was laughter. I withered in my seat and distracted myself with the logarithm book which would never be a practical benefit in my future.

But I did end up writing a book and winning this argument even if those first plans came to nothing - my first book 'Compliance is Futile' was published a few years ago.

And now I have written my first ever fictional novel. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that this blog has a launch date on the right hand side. All being well the novel 'Destiny and Dynasty' will be available on 15th December this year.

The picture on this blog entry is a draft version of the cover.

So I won an argument years after it mattered and years after anyone but me cared.

But I kind of like that.

Sympathy for the Chaff

There are a number of responsibilities that a writer has. One of these is to understand that whatever you do to make a bad guy unlikable, somebody, somewhere is going to prefer the bad guy to the good guy. And it is the author's responsibility to make allowances for this.

I'm in the process of finishing off my first novel and I would be naive to believe that if people read it, some readers are not going to prefer the antagonists to the protagonists. This is just human nature and an aspect of reading and listening to stories. Who hasn't watched a film and rooted for the bad guy a few times (especially if the story is clumsy, full of cliches and lacking in skill)?

I've been thinking about this recently because I've just got back from a threshing festival. Many people are familiar with the saying: 'sort the wheat from the chaff'. It's a popular saying which originates from Bible times. John the Baptist described Christ in this way... 

"His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

I approach all this biblical stuff with the eyes of a writer and perhaps that is a mistake. But the 'wheat'/'chaff' symbolism is mirrored in many stories. Modern literature often attempts to give the protagonists flaws so that the distinction is less obvious. Of course there are anti-heroes too. But skilled writers can create characters who are likable despite having negative characteristics. And in the end, many fictional characters can be reduced to being either wheat or chaff.

Readers are not stupid (maybe some are but I don't want to go into that). On the whole readers know when an author wants them to like a certain character and sometimes (and for eclectic reasons), they will not do what an author wants them to do.

There are many people who believe that Christ is the greatest storyteller who ever lived. I believe this too. This is not just sycophancy (although it can be). Christ's parables have immense depth and contain symbolism, irony and a whole host of techniques which are way beyond the capabilities of storytellers such as myself. Christ also sorts his characters into the strange archetypes of wheat and chaff. There are parallels in his parables - there are worthy and unworthy servants, wise and foolish virgins, there are shrewd managers and persistent widows and unmerciful judges and unforgiving servants and powerful kings and good Samaritans and branches that remain in the vine and branches that are cut off from the vine and good and bad fish. There is wheat and there is chaff.

For the reader who is behaving while listening to a story, it is an easy choice to make - associate with the good Samaritan, the worthy servant, the wise virgin, the branch that remains resolutely part of the vine. For others there is another choice - associate with the cut off branch or associate with the chaff.

A good storyteller instinctively knows that his or her listeners or readers will do this.

So take the distinction between the wheat and the chaff. In reality the wheat is separated from the chaff as it is collected. The grains of wheat are packed into sacks and they go on to be powdered by a millstone and made into bread or shredded-wheat or whatever (see? I've probably even got that wrong - I haven't learned a thing I tell you!). The chaff falls to the ground, is blown away by the wind or else destroyed. The stalks of the wheat are made into straw and usually used as feed for animals (hold on... what about the stalks?!!).

What I'm trying to say (clumsily) is this: It doesn't matter which character you associate with when it comes to stories or parables. It doesn't matter if you associate with the wheat or if you associate with the chaff. Associating with one or the other does not in itself sort the wheat from the chaff.

And that is because of one fact: A good storyteller should know that this happens all the time.

Think happy thoughts.