7 Things To Consider When Contemplating Your First NaNoWriMo

     There's a lot to learn every time you put pen to paper.  When you put fingers to keyboard 50,000+ times in a single month, you're sure to learn a thing or two.  My brain's a little fuzzy from all the wordage so I'm probably not including everything I figured out during NaNo, but here are seven things I do remember!
     Fair warning:  Most of it has more to do with the actual NaNoing than the writing itself.

1. November is the best month to write a novel.
   
        November is a perfect month to write a novel.  It's the only month I know of in which hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world are all working hard to accomplish the exact same goal in the exact same frame of time, and writers are everywhere!  Online, IRL, even your relatives become writers during NaNoWriMo!  It's a great time to dive into the writing community, because everyone has something to say, everyone's ears are wide open for advice, and everyone is looking to both support and be supported.
        Really, November is the only month out of the year where writing becomes a truly social event, and it's glorious.
   
   
   
   
2. November is the worst month to write a novel.
   
        Yeah, everyone is writing in November, but everything happens in November.  There are birthdays galore pouring in from the yearly Valentines-day procreation vapors, there are deaths to mourn, Thanksgivings to plan, Black Friday sales to either murder people over or altogether avoid, plans you have to make to see family members you don't want to see (and a lot of exercises in self-control undertaken in order to not to get in any major arguments), long stretches of time where you may not have access to the internet (which, if you're using an online word processor, can be a major set-back), plans to make to talk to family members you do want to see, etc. etc. etc.
        The point is, November is chock-full of Stuff To Do, and it's a real challenge to be able to fit it all in and then pound out roughly two thousand words a day on top.  Like adding sprinkles, only they're made of keyboard keys and make your head hurt.
        (Really, feel free to vent about all your set-back events in the comments.  It can be a tough month to get through, and I know how much it helps to just complain every so often.)
   
3. Fast drafting is like cocaine
        Not that I've ever used cocaine (that stuff on the table's just sugar, I promise), but I've heard some stories and I think the analogy holds up.
        Trying to Fast-Draft like that makes you feel like that guy from Owl City, blending up rainbows and shooting them right through your veins (or your eyeballs, but that's heroin, I guess.  So, Fast-Drafting is like... um.  Don't laugh at me, it's drugs.  Cocaine, Crack, Heroin, Ecstasy, the difference doesn't matter if you're a clean-as-a-whistle word junkie like me wink wonk).
        You're on high, forcing yourself through fifty-thousand tiers of excitement, frustration, bliss, and exhaustion.  You're screaming words into the void, doing your damnedest to make them sound pretty but not really caring as long as they're /out,/ and that feeling of progress is pretty fucking intoxicating.  You want to punch dragons and piss on ogres, and when you're on a roll you feel invincible!... but when you crash, you feel like you fell into a bespiked pit of shit from which there is no exit.  The more you touch that high, the more you crave it--but the longer you go without it the closer you get to being clean; once you reach that point it's easy to give up, get a nice respectable job as a shit-sweeper, and stop dreaming about that old silly notion that you could be a pen jockey.
        I um.  I forgot where I was going with this.  I blame fast-drafting.  *Snorts the sugar on the table and rides away on a horse-sized fountain pen*
        I guess the point is, it's not always easy to tell what's up and what's down once you get in the zone.  You're so focused on the words that nothing else seems to matter, and you want more--which makes it feel so unsatisfactory and so much like drudgery when things get hard.  You really have to either push to make everything come out, or skip around to the parts that make you feel like you're flying.
   
4. There's burn-out
   
        I finished my draft in the very extremely early morning of the twenty-ninth of November (it was like one, maybe two AM, which I still count as the twenty-eighth since I hadn't yet slept), and with 50K under my belt I was ready to see what else I could accomplish.
        "Another ten thousand before November ends!" I said to myself, riding the final wave of endorphins from accomplishing my goal.  "I want this monster finished by mid-December so that I have time to put it away before Edit January begins!"
        December fifteenth is still my goal for finishing.  My goal per day is probably going to continue to be two thousand words a day, but this blog entry is the first real piece I've been able to write since finishing Nano.  "But Maggie, it's only been two days!" you say, and yes, that's very true, my treasured reader.  Insanely true.
        But it's more than that--I can feel this exhaustion looming in the word parts of my brain.  Putting my fingers back to the keys for Captive Stars feels like an overwhelming task right now.  I may need a few days to get back into it--the hope is that spending a few days away will give me plenty of time to turn my gears back to the story.  I've tired of stories before, I've had periods of time when I didn't want to write, but it's been a few years since I've been in a space where the prospect of writing was mentally and physically repulsive.
        The best thing I can suggest for anyone else suffering from burn-out (and I'm sure there's a lot of you; writing a novel is a task of extreme exertion, and our brains can only take so much at a time) is rest.  Put on some nice music, maybe read a book or veg out on TV, take plenty of naps, and try to just let your mind recover.  It did a lot this month, and it deserves a little pampering.
   
5. Other responsibilities will suffer
   
        I'm in line to be valedictorian of my class this year.  Since it's senior year, that's kind of a big deal.  I've been working really hard to keep my grades up, especially important since I'm only taking three academic classes, but I was resolved this year to put NaNoWriMo first--it'll be a lot harder to put those words in once I'm in college, after all.
        So the second marking period ended and, as it turns out, my grades have certainly suffered.  I'm still doing great, just not ME-great.  More like, classmate-great (said the perfectionist to the happy kids).  It got harder to find time to study when I was trying to make time for NaNo.
        It was also difficult to make time for family and friends--I know my mother was disappointed that I wasn't able to help with a lot of Christmas preparations because I was either writing or sleeping (to make brain-room for more writing).
        Was it worth it?  Yeah, I think so.
   
6. After all that goal-holding, it can be hard to continue the novel
   
        Maybe it's all that burn-out, but it feels almost like a drag to keep going now that the rush is gone.  I'm really going to have to find a way to keep myself motivated if I want to be able to edit in January.  It's a little easier to hold yourself accountable for word count when you're competing against an outside goal and there's an ABSOLUTE deadline. At least for me.  I tend to give myself too much lee-way with deadlines.
   
7. Don't go back for information
   
        During NaNo I became very good at just writing and writing and writing--without going back to check for accuracy.  It really helps you to push on through the narrative, resolving to fix it in the editing process; speed's the key and 50K is the lock!  Or something like that.
        Toward the end there (the last three days or so) it almost felt like momentum was the only thing keeping me going.  This ties back into the above--the more momentum I gained, the higher I felt.
   
   

     I wish I had more to share with you, especially after my very long, very sudden hiatus, but my brain is all tapped out.  Maybe I'll have more NaNo tips after Camp NaNoWriMo (which I hope to see you all at in the summer).  

     Fare thee well!

How To Write Tourette's Part One: Neurology

Neurology:

     Tourette's is a neurological disorder in which one experiences both motor and verbal tics.  There are a myriad of tic disorders, but the defining aspect of Tourette's is the presence of at least one motor and one vocal tic each.  These are caused, it's believed, by malfunctions in the dopamine system, dopamine being a neurotransmitter.  What happens, essentially, is that excess dopamine rushes through the system at uneven intervals, causing parts of the body to move on their own, and on occasion a scarcity of dopamine can cause body parts to become stiff and immobile.  This dis-regulation is the heart of the disorder.

     Cases vary greatly in severity.  Tics can be as small as a grimace and a cough, or as wild as full-body thrashing and ear-splitting screams.  Sometimes tics can be immobilizing, or they can look like seizures or seem purposeful, though they are most certainly not.  I'll provide a thorough list of tics at a later date for your perusal (though to call any list of tics "complete" would be utter hokum), but for now keep these generalities in mind.

     Interestingly enough, the nervous system is not all that's affected by Tourette's Syndrome.  In the brain, we have four motor cortices, and in a typical human being, only two are active at a time.  However, in an individual with Tourette's all four cortices are active at once, which can make it more difficult to multi-task, but can also cause the individual to feel a need to multitask; in my case, I need to always have something to do with my hands.  If I don't have anything to do with my hands, I end up ticking more frequently, and I'll wind up chewing my nails and fingers.

     The four cortices being active at once mean that the individual is trying to both watch and do, listen and speak.  Overactive mirror neurons in the supplementary motor cortex are believed to be partially to blame for some tics, echolalic and echopraxic tics in particular, and are likely the reason that it can be so easy to set someone off.

Research and Statistics:

     Now you may have noticed that I've been speaking in uncertainties.  The reason for this is simple:  there aren't many certainties.  Tourette's being a relatively rare disorder, which isn't deadly or, in and of itself, harmful, it's pretty low on the radar of the public.  There isn't much research being done, and what is being done isn't getting big-money funding or huge pushes from a large and concerned populous.  "Tourette's" isn't in the common vocabulary as anything other than a joke; most people don't believe it's real, even if they've heard of it at all, and most kids who have it don't realize that they do.

     The statistics are about one in every three-to-eight hundred children, but as our understanding of the disorder becomes more prevalent and parents become a little more understanding of the honesty of their children, we find that the disorder may be more common still--perhaps as many as one in every hundred children afflicted, the ration male: female being 3:1.  Most children have only small tics--coughs, trills, finger-snapping, grimaces, blinks, etc.--which can be seen as nothing more than annoying habits by adults and lead to the absence of diagnosis.

     Children typically begin to show signs of tics between the ages of seven and twelve, but I've heard of children showing their first signs as young as two and as old as thirteen.  A childhood disorder, the onset cannot begin in adulthood, as that would be an entirely different type of tic disorder.  It's commonly said that tics start to decline around the age of eighteen and may disappear altogether in adulthood, likely due to the adult's ability to control their own environment, craft their own schedule, and better regulate their moods.  However, Tourette's does not stop when you get older; even if symptoms decrease, in times of stress tics are likely to return, no matter how infrequent, and the more research I do, the less true the myth of "never after eighteen" seems to be.

Diagnosis:

     Diagnosis is a very simple process.  Once my tics became more violent and noticeable, we went to our family doctor.  He knew nothing about Tourette's, but tested my blood, found nothing, gave us a tentative diagnosis and sent us to a neurologist.  Our neurologist interviewed me, performed a series of tests to check for a brain tumor, and handed me a slip to give to the school nurse.  It's a simple process because, like I said, there hasn't been too much research done.

Medications and Co-Morbid Disorders:

     Now when the family doctor first saw me, he prescribed fifty mg Clonidine twice a day, which did nothing and may have worsened the symptoms.  When I saw the neurologist, he upped the dosage and told me that if after a certain amount of time it continued to be ineffective, I should wean myself off the meds.   That's what I wound up doing, and come to find out, Clonidine is a drug used to treat ADHD and high blood pressure, which doesn't actually surprise me.  Due to history of heart problems and a desire to keep my mental functions intact, we chose not to medicate further and simply deal with the severe case I was dealt.

     The truth is, there are no medications for Tourette's Syndrome, due again to rarity and poor amounts of research.  There are seizure medications, which can either help to plug up parts of the brain that might cause tics, or can do absolutely nothing for the syndrome.  The drugs can be very harmful to the heart and can cause your mind to become foggy and dull; to some people, it's worth it, but personally I couldn't stand feeling like I was running at only sixty percent just to keep myself from spasming.  Tourette's can have my body, but it sure as fuck can't have my mind.

     Since you can't treat the Tourette's itself (not effectively, at least), what most people do is treat the co-morbid disorders.  Very rarely does Tourette's occur all on its lonesome--probably due to the neurological nature of the disorder, most people have something co-morbid, usually OCD or ADHD, but it can also be anxiety disorders, poor impulse control, neurological disorders, mood disorders, behavioral disorders, developmental disorders, etc..  Recently, DD officials have been opening their eyes to the possibility of certain "behaviors" in their populations being not "behaviors" at all, but tics.  Often we find that if you treat the co-morbid disorder, the tics decrease, largely because stress is a huge source and instigator of tics.  The less stress a child feels, the less apt they are to tic, and the more likely their tics are to be harmless.

Pet Peeve:  People who call it Tourette or Tourettes Syndrome.  It's called Tourette's Syndrome because it's named for  Georges Albert Édouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette, a French physician and neurologist who documented nine cases in his lifetime.

     Part Two will be about the more personal aspects of Tourette's Syndrome, so be on the lookout!  If anyone out there has anything to add about the neurology of Tourette's, feel free to comment!

To Swear or Not To Swear

     I missed a lot of updates because blah blah blah life happens, nobody cares, let's move on.  Hopefully I'll be able to make that up to you all, so here's an "I'm sorry" article that ends with almost everyone already in the right!  Excellent job, you beautiful readers and writers, jolly good form!

     So, should you swear in your book?  Should you not swear?

     The answer is yes.

     We live in a world in which cursing is the norm--whether you yourself swear or not, you know people who do, and many of the people who don't typically condone swearing will swear from time to time--when their kid gets themselves arrested, when they stub their toe, when they mindlessly repeat whatever their parents just said without thinking.  And it sells!  People care less and less about vulgar language these days; my generation (and those before and after mine, naturally) is casting aside the stigma as the words lose their power, and we'll probably be seeing brand new curse words coming in to take their place in the future.  People swear, and that's realistic.

     But if you aren't comfortable with cursing?  Don't curse.  There's still a large population that dislikes vulgarity, and unless the dialogue is written poorly, no one who does swear is going to care that the F-bomb hasn't been dropped.  They probably won't even notice!

     So ultimately, it's up to you!  Find what you're comfortable with and stick to it.

     If you're torn up about it, though, here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. Your Characters.     If you're on the fence, this might be the most important question of all.  What kind of person is your character?  Are they rough, tough, tumble?  Crass?  Do they delight in offending others?  Or are they sweet, demure, easily embarrassed or overprotected?  Or somewhere in between?  Maybe the latter fits Clarissa to a T--but she loves watching the look on others' faces when they hear a high-voiced little darling call her teacher a cunt.  Or perhaps the former more accurately describes Thomas--but his mother died when he was young, and since she never cared for foul language, he pays homage to her by trying not to cuss.  At the end of the day, who your character is will best determine whether they'll swear.  Try to analyze each of your characters closely and determine the best lingual choice for each.  When in doubt, let the characters talk it out.                                                                                                     
2. Your Audience.     This is one I personally pay less attention to, but if you're writing for a specific audience it could be important to consider.  I mean, nine times out of ten you wouldn't write a picture book where every fifth word was fuck (although the exception is a masterpiece), and a devout elderly Christian probably wouldn't care for something like Stephen King's Firestarter (true story--I borrowed the book from the library a couple years ago only to find that someone had run through every curse word with black sharpie).  If you're writing for an intended audience, you might want to analyze what that audience wants and make your decisions based on that.                                             
3. Levels and Balance.     There are levels to cursing.  You have things like My Little Pony, without a curse word in sight, or books like Harry Potter, where only one curse word was ever really used.  Then there's Stephen King, sowing and reaping casual cusses as far as the eye can see, and Homestuck, where nothing would be the same if it weren't for Andrew Hussie's famed flagrancy.  My Little Pony and similar shows find ways around swearing that seem organic and realistic for the age group appealed to; same thing with Harry Potter.  None of the dialogue seems tacky or unintentionally hilarious/infuriating, and the one use of obscenities is, without a doubt, grand.  

                My mother and I listened to The Deathly Hollows on CD a few months after the book came out, and when Molly finally cut loose at the end and cried, "Get away from my daughter, you bitch!" it had us standing and cheering.  It was a superb use of powerful language, made all the more powerful by its absence in the rest of the story.  If Molly had been known to curse like a sailor, the line would have fallen a little flat due to common exposure--you probably don't go outside and ogle every tree you see, because trees are pretty commonplace in this world.  It's the same for cursing--most people don't jump when a teenager swears, but when a seven-year-old tells someone to go fuck themselves, holding about their person all the vicious malice they're capable of, it can take a few minutes for the words to settle in.  Exposure causes expectation.  Keep that in mind.

                At these levels, it's a delicate balancing act for people who are typically exposed to cursing.  For those who aren't--well, I've never really been one of those kids, but for nine or ten years I WAS a kid who didn't believe in cursing.  For myself, at least.  And it was easier then to write for children than it is now.  Growing up is tough on your sensibilities, kids, I don't recommend it.

                At the more "vulgar" level, the balancing act shifts to retaining intelligence and coherence without sacrificing realism.  People swear; people swear a lot, some more than others.  Some people (Second Selectman Rennie in Under The Dome) use substitutes for actual curse words while others (Doc Scratch in Homestuck) curse almost not at all, and others still (Karkat Vantas) don't seem capable of speaking without spewing forth a volcano of molten obscenities.  King does an excellent job with his character development, and typically doesn't swear in narration unless it's attached to the thoughts of said characters.  Hussie, on the other hand, swears whenever the fuck he feels like in his narration--the intelligence in his work is demonstrated instead through advanced lingual skill and the plot itself.

                Whether you curse or not, it's about balance.  Do you think it's easier to avoid cursing and preserve intelligence, or to curse and preserve intelligence?  Either way, that's what you're aiming for; preserving intelligence and coherence.  Think it over, look at a few different styles of writing, and try to figure out which option you think is best for you.  Not for anyone else; just you.  It's your story, after all.


     Like I said, in the end, whatever you choose, if it's right for you, it's the right decision.
   
     Justification for not cursing:  It's not realistic, it doesn't fit the characters, it doesn't fit the story.
 
     Justification for cursing:  It's realistic, it fits the characters, it fits the story.

     Just one request, though, from the depths of my heart--please, whatever you do, don't demonize cursing or the people who curse.  No, it's not a large population, less than ten percent of the roughly 2.4% of children with Tourette's have it, but children and adults with coprolalia can't control that they curse, and the looks and whispers and insults garnered because people so highly associate swearing with uneducated, uncouth heathens can be overwhelming.  I might get into that in another post, but just remember that while swearing is sometimes a choice or indicative of lesser mental capacities--sometimes it's just a product of genetics or society.

     TL;DR:  Do what works for you.

Holiday Building and a Bulk of Holiday History

     Happy Independence Day everyone!  In honor of the holiday (and due to unforeseen time-vacuums), I postponed my Thursday post for today.  What to talk about?  Holidays, of course!

     In any fantasy or sci-fi world (or country, or time-frame, etc. etc.), there's a good chance you'll be starting from the bottom up.  At the very least, you'll likely not be playing with a world with a Christian/Jewish/Muslim God as the predominant deity, with Christmas in winter, Easter in Spring, Halloween in Fall, and a secular celebration of your nation's birth on July 4th.  Or maybe you are.  Whatever!

     Still, in fiction, carbon copies of these (albeit usually carefully photoshopped) are strangely widespread in worlds that are meant to share absolutely nothing with ours.  Even if your religions (and, unless well-explained (actual God-to-human communication, public burnings of nonbelievers, hive-minds, XYZ, ABC...) there should be at least a handful of religions scattered around your world.  The less centralized, the more there are apt to be--in a tribal society, there might be a different religion or sect to every village, while on a planet that has completely globalized, there may be one or two majority sects with a hundred or so lesser-known religions scattered across the globe) purposefully share marked similarities with real-world counterparts, there should be major differences in the holidays so that they more closely fit the layout of your world.

     Your secular holidays, meanwhile.... Honestly, if your secular holidays in a different world closely resembled modern-day America's (or whatever country you live in/take inspiration from), you might want to ask yourself why.  You may find yourself answering, "convenience" and realize that some changes are necessary.

     Here are some questions to help you build your holidays.  First, Religious:

 
     1.   What are the major religions in your world?  What is your viewpoint character's religion?

               Even if your viewpoint character worships Shamalk The Destroyer while the rest of the world is bowing down to The Most Holy of Rollers Garba-Kane, you can't pretend that only Shamalk matters.  This God/religion and everything associated with them will shape Viewpoint Character One and their family, but as we see in America, the dominant religion tends to hold sway with the government.  Atheists still get Christmas off, and while Jewish children can legally take time away from school to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, you won't see many polytheists running around without homework.

     Remember: the society at large is just as important as the individual household.

     2.   How much power does the dominant religion have in government?  

               If the dominant religion has little pull in government--maybe your society has an honest separation of church and state, or most politicians are atheist or something--then the likelihood that national holidays will be based on religious holidays are much more slim.

     3.   Who are your deities?

               Is there one?  Two?  Eighty-nine?  What are they associated with?  Are they equally important, or are there degrees of importance?  Are they mostly human, or incomprehensible?  Do they have a physical presence in the world?  What symbols are used to represent them?  Do these hold power, spiritual or physical?  What are their jobs?  What purpose do they serve in your world?  How do people relate to them?  Are they all equally important to individuals?  Does everyone know every God in the pantheon, or does each study one or a handful of Gods, going for total understanding of a few rather than an overview of many?

     4.   What is the history of the religion?  What are the myths that are associated with the religion and the Gods?  What has your religion appropriated from others?

               For Jews, the time of enslavement in Egypt and their freedom from its clutches inspired Passover;  Jesus not only set up the basis for Christianity, but provided the dates/inspiration for Christmas and Easter; in Islam, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Ishmael gave birth to Eid al-Adha.  History--and whether you believe in a God or not, history is what these things are--can be a major source of holiday joy.  Whether it was a great boon for the church or people at large, or a huge tragedy that people desire to recover from, history is a wonderful resource.

               If you know your world's history, you've already gotten up on the right side of the bed.

               Myths are also important.  These may come from history, or explain natural phenomenon, and holidays may come from them, or from the phenomena being explained.  Harvest and spring festivals are seen in nearly all cultures, and are often very closely tied to the Gods associated with such things.

               Along with history and mythology, appropriation can also add a lot to the religions of your holidays.  When the Christians were converting people around Europe (and beyond), they often found themselves incorporating things into their roster of symbols, holidays, and religious officials to make the new converts feel less like they were being attacked, more at home with the new if they could keep a little bit of the old.  A number of Christian Saints were actually pagan Gods that had been stripped of their deity but kept in circulation.  It's like patching a child's safety blanket into a quilt--the child is forced to "grow up," but they don't cry as long and the resident adult can eventually get back to sleep, feeling better about themselves even if they don't really deserve it.

              Christmas traditions are largely pulled from pagan religions--for instance, Jesus was born in March, scientists tend to agree, but we celebrate in December.  Why?  Because the pagans celebrated Yule in the winter, and it was convenient.  The evergreen, a symbol of eternity, was adopted by Christians as a symbol for Christ, since he (and all he stood for) was supposed to be immortal.  Thus the Christmas tree!  There was also a Norse answer to Jesus--I can't remember the specifics right now, I'm sorry, I may have to check my brother's tomes--and if I recall correctly, they held a candle ceremony for him in late December.  It made sense to just join the celebrations and let everyone feel good about themselves.

               Even if the heads of your religions are not appropriating from others, try to think about the relationship the Church of Shamalk has with Garba-Kane's Church, and with the churches of each religion.  This is also rooted in their history--how did they get along then, how do they get along now, and how might it affect their celebrations?  Maybe they have a mutual holiday--Midsummer, for lack of something more original--and Shamalk orders that idols of Garba-Kane be burned, but Garba-Kane asks that Shamalk's likeness be covered in flowers.  Remember that there are two sides to every story, and they don't always match.

     5.   Put it all together.

               Okay, so you've pulled together your religions, your character's religion, your government involvement, your history, myths, deities, and interactions. Now use it.  Ask yourself, what holidays would be realistic?  Where did they come from?  How are they celebrated?  Do different people celebrate in different ways?  Do they get work off?  Whether they celebrate or not?  Or do people just kind of nod and say, "yeah, happy Shamalk Day, now get back in the ditch, your break was over six minutes ago"?  Are there gatherings, or is it a private holiday?  Does family play an important part?  Friends?  Or is it mainly celebrated between strangers?  Think.  Write.  Play.


     Now come Secular Holidays (and also the ones that ride the line).  Don't worry, we've laid the groundwork, this one is shorter.


     1.   Analyze your religious holidays.  Are there any that might be subverted into a secular tradition?

               Halloween (my favorite holiday) is a wonderful example of a secular holiday born of religion.  Beautifully, it was taken from the Celts and originally had strong ties to harvest time--from secular to religious to religious to secular.

               In ancient times, the Celts believed that on Samhain, the day of the harvest and halfway between fall equinox and winter solstice, the veil between worlds was thinnest.  They would light candles to guide home wayward spirits, but, fearing the wrath of ghosts and Gods alike (also called the fae, in this case), they left out offerings of food and drink to appease them and ask protection for the winter.

              When the Christians converted the Celts, they adopted the holiday as "All Saints Eve," to celebrate the saints and the dead.  Candles were lit on graves, masses held, and traveling performers (often children) would go from door to door, singing religious songs and putting on short religious plays.  People would give out "Soul Cakes" to the kids as a reward, much as carolers were traditionally given treats come Christmas time.  Skip forward a few centuries and viola!  Children of all faiths going from house-to-house, costumes bared and yelling "TRICK-OR-TREAT" to collect candy from grinning neighbors and strangers.
             
               Your holidays could follow the same route--they might pass through several phases of religious-to-secular-and-back before finally settling on something that might not even be recognizable as analogous to its original version.  Maybe they only see one conversion.  Do all holidays make this switch, or only some?  Why?  What's the history there?  How much of that history do most people know?  For everyone who can spew out something similar to the above on command, how many people don't even realize there's a true purpose to the holiday?  To what extent does the government endorse the holiday?  What kinds of people celebrate it?  What kind of opposition does it see?  Why?

     2.   Again, examine your history.

               History, history, history.  God damn, history is important, and dude, if you don't like history I honestly am not sure why you're doing so much world building because that's where the fun of it is!  Everything is history!

               What wars has your country fought?  What victories have been won, what losses mourned?  Did it secede from another nation? Did it quell a rebellion?  Who is it proud of and want to commemorate?  What accomplishments have been made?  What issues have been solved, or still need solving?  What kind of economic system do your people have, and what holidays might it inspire (modern-day Valentines may technically have religious roots, but most people are more than willing to admit that it's mostly a way for candy stores to drum up business between the Christmas and Easter rushes)?

               What kind of celebrations are appropriate?  Why?  Do they set off bombs to celebrate victories of war?  Sing dirges to mourn the loss of a hero?  Punish themselves and drink away the pain of slavery?  Display symbols and colors to denote pride?  Put a cat in a barrel and beat it to death, then burn a witch at the stake?  It's up to you.


     *Big breath*  Okay, I'm done for now.  There's probably a whole ton of stuff I'm forgetting, but if I remember it later I'll post about it later.  I guess what you should take away from this list is, if you want to make holidays (and unless it's explained away by a society run by Jehovah's Witnesses or something, there will be holidays because, let's face it, humans get bored), is know your religions, know your history, and ask questions.
 
     If nothing else, you can sit down and ask yourself what would be really cool/funny/weird/creepy, but totally makes sense in context.  You are a writer.  If you can find a way to justify it, you need no other permission.  So go forth and do writerly things.  Like waste your entire Fourth of July listening to Under The Dome on audio book, writing a blog post about holidays, and reading articles about a guy watching Back To The Future.  Or something.

     Yeah.  Day well spent.

Character Development: Idiosyncrasies

     People are weird.
 
     We all do weird things now and then, with or without reason, and when you get to know someone well enough, repetitions of the behavioral pattern can result in head-shaking and laughter, maybe a few, "Oh, Donald"s thrown in (unless of course their name isn't Donald, but whose isn't, amirite?).  Humans have idiosyncrasies, and they add a new layer of depth to the people around us--they can be revealing or puzzling, amusing or disgusting, frustrating or embarrassing....

     We all have them, so why shouldn't our characters?

     As I see it, there are three main types of idiosyncrasies--Reasoned, Reasonable, and Weird.

1. Reasoned:  These are the types of traits that make complete sense once you know someone's history or inner self.  Maybe someone flinches when someone tries to touch them, and once you know that the character was abused, it makes perfect sense!  Or someone is boxed in by people on all sides and runs away to cower by themselves.  Maybe they have claustrophobia, or, if they're comfortable in tight spaces, they could have social anxiety.  Reasoned Idiosyncrasies just make sense--but not until you know the person. 
2. Reasonable:  Reasonable Idiosyncrasies make sense... kinda....  These are the idiosyncrasies that don't seem to have a root cause.  They just kind of exist, yet no one really questions it too much because the behavior is within our sphere of understanding.  Maybe the character collects rocks, not because they like geology, but because they just think rocks are pretty, or they laugh when they're nervous--a pretty common "nervous tic," at least in fiction.  Many nervous tics fall under this category.  You can't explain them, but you really don't have to.  They're just there.
3. Weird:  This is the interesting one.  These are the things people do that just make no sense whatsoever, things they might not be able to explain.  Sometimes it's situational--when the guy who hit Stephen King with his van told King that his leg was probably broken in five or six places, King's response was "I'm sorry."                                                                                                                           It doesn't make sense, but it's so human, something a number of us can imagine ourselves doing.  Show of hands, how many of you apologize to people on a daily basis for things you had no control over?  Things other people did to you?  ((You can't see them, but there are so many hands up right now, I promise, just trust me.))  And have you ever just gotten up in the middle of the night to sort through your bookshelf and rearrange everything by author?  I have.                                                           Other times, it's just a person being themselves.  Maybe they suck on their middle finger as opposed to their thumb, or they always feel like they have to have exactly the right pair of pants to wear, or the day will be horrible.  Maybe they always carry around a water bottle full of mud, and they might not be able to tell you why, just that they think it could come in handy, or they mutter ancient incantations under their breath instead of curse words, or they repeat every thirtieth word two times.                                                                                                                                                        Sometimes these things can overlap with the other two--the character could be recalling that mud helps draw out bee poison, or their parents were wizards, or they might have palilalia, or any number of things.  But weird is weird, and if no one can understand it, this might be the category it fits in best.

     If your character has at least one of each of these, they're on their way toward roundedness.  Multiples of some or all of these can flesh your character out further still.  Just make sure that your character doesn't become one big walking idiosyncrasy themselves.  If your character is too weird, they might not be taken seriously.

     On the other hand, if you're writing a comedy, go for it!  Try to find a balance that works with your story and characters.  Straight-laced heroes may only have one or two of each, where the less held-together heroes (or villains) might be riddled with them.  The more you have, the more potential for silliness, or for drama, depending on what kind of idiosyncrasies you use.

     Are there any idiosyncrasies you'd like to see more in fiction?  Any you'd like to see less?  Send it my way and I'll compile a list!

Cup-Stacking

     Last month, as a final for gym, I had to take a skill test.  I had my choice of hacky-sack, juggling, or cup-stacking.  Since I have no idea how the hell you keep a hacky-sack suspended in the air and I don't always have control over my limbs, I of course chose cup-stacking.

     It took me a while to figure out how best to approach the challenge--to get full credit, I had to stack and unstack a three-six-three pyramid formation in under eight seconds.  It was harder than it looked.  I listened to music to help mellow me out a little, and I discovered a marvelous thing; when I let the music carry me, when I followed the cups with my body, I timed a lot better.  It became--dare I say it?--easy.  Simple.  Fun.

     I let my body flow--with the music, with the cups, with my hands--and the fluidity with which it was done brought on improved results.  In writing, the experience isn't much different.

     If you try to force yourself to write without bowing to the word--if you stand stock still and refuse to let your work breathe, you won't succeed.  You need to be willing to experiment with your work, to let things happen as they will, to open your mind to what occurs beyond what you've planned.  Whether you plot your novels or not, you'll find that when you open yourself, when the prose flows through you, the cups will seem to stack themselves, and seconds, minutes, hours, years--they will simultaneously stand still beneath your pen, and fly past you in a sudden rush of inspiration.

     A tree bends in the wind to keep from snapping; to keep your words alive, you'd do well to do the same.

Discussion: Are Your Characters Your Children?

     You'll hear a lot of writers say that they hate it when people refer to/think of their characters as their "children."  This is because they feel that the authors who act this way favor some of their characters above others and make things too easy for them--which makes for a boring (or, sometimes, masturbatory) story.  They're not wrong--your protagonist should not have it easy, people--but I think it's unfair to push all thought of the parenthood of our characters into one umbrella group and call it "bad."  See, it's not seeing the characters as your offspring that's bad--it's seeing them as babies.
 
     Here's the main distinction; children can grow up and take care of themselves but babies, confined to your care, cannot.

     Our characters are, for all intents and purposes, our children.  We create them by thought and pen them by hand--sometimes we adopt them, and I'll be the first to admit that I've done it more than once, but we care for them in a way that only we can do, raising them up from a carbon copy of their birth parent(s) into something all their own, something we can call ours.  And there's no shame in favoring our own characters over the characters of others--that's one of the finest rights of the parent, you know.  Otherwise who would you root for come time for school competitions?

     The problem comes in two forms: not allowing your children to grow up, and favoring some of your young over the others.

     A parent might keep favorites--they aren't supposed to, but they're only human.  However, a good parent will not let on.  They will treat all of their children fairly, with equal degrees of love, and react to them as individuals.  Even with twins, good parents will differentiate between the two and encourage the separate interests they may cultivate, and while some children, usually the frailer ones, will need more attention, it doesn't mean that their parents love them any more or less, and it doesn't mean that their parents stop trying to challenge them and help them grow.  Other children, self-reliant and resilient, may need less and give more, but a parent will still try to spend time with them, comfort them, help them through in difficult times.  How does this translate from offspring to character?  Like so:

     You need to love and encourage all of your characters equally.  Some will not need equal time--minor characters, cameos, walk-ons, one-liners, and the various background characters which people your world can be considered mostly grown, independent younglings.  They are off to college, so to speak, and while yes, every once in a while you may need to call them up to get in touch, make sure they're okay, see that they're happy and haven't burned down their apartment yet, for the most part you can leave them be; they can take care of themselves.

     Then there are the supporting characters, who may be somewhere between the ages of ten and seventeen (metaphorically speaking), old enough to stay home alone, feed themselves, maybe walk around town and hang out with friends, but they'll need a much closer eye kept on them to keep them out of trouble.  You need to watch and make sure they face the consequence of action, but that they retain their individuality.  You're cultivating a future adult here, remember!  They need to be able to function in the real world.

     And then there's the protagonist(s) and antagonist(s).  For the sake of our extended metaphor, these are the children that give you the toughest time.  Somewhere between the ages of twelve and fifteen, these characters are probably born of the same stuff, or similar stuff--possibly twins themselves, they could be extremely similar or as different as night and day.  They're probably both likely to be misunderstood, bullied, or generally dissatisfied with life, and somehow their interests are extremely conflicted.  As a parent, you are not technically allowed to take sides.  You have to let these two sort it out on their own terms, or the end result will be unsatisfactory.

     But as a parent, it is your job to make sure your characters--especially the protagonist--reap what they've sown.  You may love them, you may care, you may want what's best for them, you may even give them trinkets along the way (though it's wise to deal these out to other characters as well--antagonists can always use something convenient to help them out), but if your protagonist burns down the house he better get the shit beat out of him for it, because shit like that can't fly.  And if the antagonist manages to destroy the protagonist's favorite toy while he's bent over your knee.... Well, you didn't see it happen, did you?  It was probably just destroyed in the fire anyway.

     If you are going to favor any of the characters, it should actually be the antagonist--all interesting things will come from your protagonist's pain, frustration, and fight against opposition, and it can be easy for loud, whiney, or manipulative children to sway their parents in their favor; your antagonist is likely to be at least one of these things.

     And then there's the age-old problem of coddling--this ties into the favoring of some characters over others, but some writers can actually be afraid to let their characters so much as breathe without their permission.  Here's a little secret; as a writer, the best thing you can do is to let your characters live.  Sure, at the start you have to help them along, tell them to do things, move them hither and thither and yon, but they grow a lot quicker than actual babies, and pretty soon you'll find them doing things you didn't tell them to, maybe things that might conflict with what's in your head.  And that's what you want.

     When characters start to live, to breathe, to wonder and run and travel on their own, you have successfully raised your child to sentience--and instead of clamping down on their attempts at independence, you need to nurture it.  Follow where they lead!  They may be on to something--and if worse should come to worst, you can always trace back your path to find where things went wrong.

     If you keep your characters too far under your thumb, they'll forget there's a sky, and eventually, stop breathing--at which point you may have to decide whether to keep them on life support or pull the plug.  So don't be afraid to let go, and don't be afraid to hurt them--it's for their own good, and it will benefit everyone.

     So yes, I believe that my characters are something like children to me--but I maintain a healthy distance, and let them be themselves.  This mindset only works if you make sure not to coddle your characters or treat them as saints.  Sometimes they will do good things, and you might reward them--sometimes they will do awful things, and even if they meant well, they need to learn that meaning well and doing well are not the same thing.

     Now what do you think?  Should people consider their characters offspring, or detach themselves completely?  How do you feel about your own characters?  Are they friends, siblings, cousins, neighbors, those loud assholes who live down the street with the aggressive dog that's always going after your kids?  Let me know! I'm eager to hear your responses. :)

What Work Can Do For Your Writing

     Now, if you have the money or guts to decide to write full time, I'm in awe of your prowess/courage.  But you can definitely gain something from working, whether it's a paid job or career, or just physical labor done around the yard.

     One very important thing that a job can do is expose you to people--school does the same thing, students!--and if you listen with a writer's ear, it can teach you a lot about dialogue and help jump-start creativity.  I clean shop for a local computer store on weekdays, and I've learned a lot about what a dirty floor can indicate, how to read the mood of the room, not to mention the tidbits I've picked up listening to my supervisors chat and bs.  Anything can become a story, any skill or quirk could help flesh out a character, any small observation can lead your protagonist to the cracking of a code, and the observations you make in life are the difference between the Anyman's writing and your writing.  The flavor is in the seasonings, as they say.

     Work--particularly physical labor--can also give you a lot of time to think, to move stories around in your head, find new paths for characters to travel, etc. etc.  It's good to make time to just let the information flow, and if you work daily, or even just weekly, it gives you a set time for just that.  Even if your work is too heavy in conscious thought to allow you that time, something as simple as doing the dishes or pulling weeds can have the same effect.  Take a walk!  Walks are wonderful things, I recommend them to everyone.

     And of course, at some point I'm sure at least one of your characters will set to some kind of work, and the more personal experience you have with whatever they set to, the better.  Maybe they need to farm the land, and you have no idea what it feels like to farm the land--but you've spent hours in the heat of the day mid-summer raking leaves and planting flowers, and while it's not the same, some of the experiences--the sweat, the heat, the aches of labor--are a good place to start.  The places you've worked, the streets you've walked, the smell of your office, the sound of your coworkers' chitter-chatter in the background, the thrill of appreciation and the blow of insults placed upon your work--your experiences are invaluable, so take mental (or physical!) note of each and every one.

     The devil's in the details, but so are the angels.

Salutations!

     Greetings, internet!  Let me inaugurate my first writing blog with a fond hello to all the writers, artists, hopefuls, and to-bes out there!  It’s hard to collect my thoughts for this post, but I think it’s appropriate to ring in the blog with an entry about beginnings—specifically, a writer’s beginnings.

     I know that there are a lot of aspiring writers out there--people who desire to set pen to paper and pour their souls out to the world--and that many of them are afraid to do so.

     It's natural to be afraid.  Really!  We all got scared, especially when facing down something so personal--there is no part of writing that isn't, honestly, because the art of the written word is derived from us and us alone.  We take our thoughts, our feelings, characters we become attached to, storylines we can't live without, and we throw it out at the world, hoping it will strike someone's fancy, and that our audience will come to us with affection in their eyes rather than disgust.  I've been writing novels since I was nine, and I'm still afraid.  So let me tell you why you don't have to be.

     I was not afraid when I was nine, not of anything.  I was top of my class, I loved books, and damn it, I was going to be a famous author if it killed me.  For Christmas I received a little green notebook with a few pretty flowers on the cover and said, "The time is now."  I wrote my first novel over the course of maybe six months, and I thought it was amazing.

     I typed it up on the computer, single-spaced, unformatted, with space-bar indents and a crude understanding of all things grammar--they don't teach that in school like they used to, I'm told. It totaled out at ten or twelve chapters, coming to forty-two pages in all; the main character was literally myself, only a superhero, and all her supports were direct copies of my best friends and our pets, also superheroes.  The villains were bullies from school who had no motive except to fuck up my life who somehow woke up a dragon sleeping under the school, which the protagonist befriended by pulling a thorn out of its foot, and in the end all of the bullies were frozen in blocks of ice and carted off by the police while the heroes basked in the glow of the commoners' praise.

     Oh, and in the middle, there was a three-page digression where the protagonist discovered a new species of rainbow-colored weasel and set them to breed for the sake of science.  Beautiful writing right there, just wonderful.

     Okay, so I'm sure you're asking why I'm telling you this right now.  Do I just want to ramble about a scrapped story?  No.  No, that's not it.  So what's the point?  The point is, it.  Sucked.  Ass.  And I didn't die!

     As I started to realize how far from ready it was for the public eye, I was frustrated, yes, and I wanted to make it perfect, only I didn't yet possess the skill set.  Young, undisciplined, and a little put off, I didn't dwell too long.  Recognizing my limits, I dutifully filed it away on a flash drive and promised to be back for it later, then moved on to the next thing, absolutely certain that it would be a thousand times better.  I've tried to come back several times but, ultimately, if it will ever be worth reviving, it hasn't been yet.  That's okay.  I failed, and that's okay.  Better than okay, it was what I needed!  I can learn from that, I can look at everything I did wrong and I can say, "I won't do that again," because I know, first-hand, that it doesn't work, and there's no authority to spite in trying.  There's only me.

     My point here is; start.  Whatever it is, no matter how old you are, how much you've read, what you want to accomplish, how complicated your story is--start.  Once you begin, you'll find it's hard to stop.  As a stone rolls down a hill, it gathers momentum, and the more momentum available, the more force it takes to halt the object in motion.  Our brains are wired to be more likely to finish something if we start it, and we're more likely to learn from our own fuck-ups than from someone else's.  Skill, finesse, experience, they're all important, but you will never have them if you don't put pen to paper and write.  Write, finish, and learn.

     Seven and a half years later, and the very worst thing that first, awful, despicable manuscript gave me is something to laugh at when there's nothing else to think about.  Three pages of rainbow-colored weasels?  What was nine-year-old me on?

     You don't need to be perfect the first time.  No, let me rephrase that; you will not be perfect the first time, but that's what the revising and editing steps are for!  That's what practice is about!  It's why you read these kinds of articles in the first place!  So go pick up a notebook or open a word processor, and start honing your skill.  You don't have to be afraid--more importantly, you don't have to let your fears consume you.  The only way to finish is to start, and the only way to start is to start.  So start!  There's no one to impede you but yourself.

     To beginnings!