Strive for consistency in your daily word count. Try to make yourself write every day in November, instead of scrambling at the end of the month to reach the 50,000 word finish line. If you have gotten into a pretty good writing habit outside of NaNoWriMo, then now’s the time to really push for higher word counts, or experimentation. Find a voice you’re unfamiliar with and run with it.

My number one rule for surviving NaNoWriMo and learning from the experience: high confidence, low expectations. Believe in your writing and your ability to produce a finished manuscript—perfection is not the goal.

That comes in December. :)

Good luck!

It’s hard. Some days it feels impossible. And it’s definitely not pretty: I’m a sweaty mess with hair wisps jutting out every which way, and my shirt keeps riding up and my pants keep riding down. I thought I was in decent shape reaching for better conditioning, but running makes me feel horrendously incapable of the slightest exertion. But every time, it gets easier.

So I’ve been staring at a stack of notecards for a story outline these past few weeks. (I WARNED YOU.) I know the layout of the book, more or less, and I’m satisfied with the prologue, but the first few chapters are killing me. I tried blaming it on the voice—it’s mostly third person, which I haven’t written in for several manuscripts now—but I think it’s just fear. There are so many elements I want to pull into this story, so many things influencing it (it’s also set in contemporary times, something else I’ve been lacking for several mses), that I feel overwhelmed.

So I’ll push through it. I’ll bang out those first few chapters in their sweaty glory and get on with the scenes that I know I can do. Each time, I’ll get better. And once I master it, I have plenty more ideas who deserve to be written as well!

And yes, absolutely, you want your reader to stop whatever they’re doing—fidgeting in the bookstore, sorting through their bookshelves, or half-heartedly browsing “Look Inside”—and sink into their chair with a stunned look on their face. Front-load the intrigue, and work the narrative in later.

But you can get away with a narrative opening. It’s tricky, and it’s rare, but it can be done. How do you make it work? Treat it the same way as you would any other opening—arrest your reader’s attention with details that make them ask questions and wonder about more.

Here are some of my favorite examples of an expository opening that works wonders:

Amelie

On September 3rd 1973, at 6:28pm and 32 seconds, a bluebottle fly capable of 14,670 wing beats a minute landed on Rue St Vincent, Montmartre. At the same moment, on a restaurant terrace nearby, the wind magically made two glasses dance unseen on a tablecloth. Meanwhile, in a 5th-floor flat, 28 Avenue Trudaine, Paris 9, returning from his best friend’s funeral, Eugène Colère erased his name from his address book. At the same moment, a sperm with one X chromosome, belonging to Raphaël Poulain, made a dash for an egg in his wife Amandine. Nine months later, Amélie Poulain was born.

This one sinks us into its peculiar details. Why do we care about this date and time, and what does a fly have to do with anything? And the narrative doesn’t stop there—we learn about all of Amelie’s quirks, like her love of the sound of creme brulee cracking, before we really delve into the actual plot. But they’re such unusual details, that we are left wondering at their relevance and their strangeness.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N. K. Jemisin

I am not as I once was. They have done this to me, broken me open and torn out my heart. I do not know who I am anymore.

I must try to remember.

[…] My name is Yeine. In my people’s way I am Yeine dau she Kinneth tai wer Somem kanna Darre, which means that I am the daughter of Kinnet, and that my tribe within the Darre people is called Somem. Tribes mean little to us these days, though before the Gods’ War they were more important.

Yeine tells us exactly who she is and where she stands in her culture, but it raises more questions than it answers. What is the Gods’ War, and who are these people who have torn out her heart? Why does her tribe no longer matter? Why can’t she remember?

Her uncertainty about herself, despite her certainty of her place in the world (for now), leads beautifully into her inner discovery throughout the book, and we learn just how honest she really is in these uncertainties.

Rocknrolla

People ask the question… what’s a RocknRolla? And I tell ‘em - it’s not about drums, drugs, and hospital drips, oh no. There’s more there than that, my friend. We all like a bit of the good life - some the money, some the drugs, others the sex game, the glamour, or the fame. But a RocknRolla, oh, he’s different. Why? Because a real RocknRolla wants the fucking lot.

What I particularly love about this narrative is that the man speaking the line, Archy (Mark Strong), wants you to believe he’s talking about the only actual rock’n’roll star in the film, Johnny Quid. And Johnny certainly lives for the money, the drugs, the sex game, and the music. Archy is none of these things. And Archy is such a modest narrator he scarcely introduces himself before diving into another narration of other characters’ troubles.

But by the movie’s end, there is no doubt that Archy—despite not fitting his own description of a rocknrolla—is way more of a brilliant badass than he’d ever give himself credit for. So much so that Johnny Quid tells him, “I’m gonna be just like you, Uncle Archy. A real rocknrolla.”

Anna and the French Kiss, Stephanie Perkins

Here is everything I know about France: Madeline and Amélie and Moulin Rouge. The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, although I have no idea what the function of either actually is. Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, and a lot of kings named Louis. I’m not sure what they did either, but I think it has something to do with the French Revolution, which has something to do with Bastille Day. The art museum is called the Louvre and it’s shaped like a pyramid and the Mona Lisa lives there along with the statue of the woman missing her arms. And there are cafés or bistros or whatever they call them on every street corner. And mimes. The food is supposed to be good, and the people drink a lot of wine and smoke a lot of cigarettes.

I’ve heard they don’t like Americans, and they don’t like white sneakers.

Anna betrays a certain modesty here, too: she actually knows a decent amount about France, and in revealing this knowledge, she reveals much of herself. And what she reveals of herself also conveys her trepidation that she, as a white sneaker-wearing American, won’t be well-received.

What are your favorite expository openings?

We have to be our own nag. Our own inspiration. We can’t wait on others to help us along.

When I feel like my writing has stalled and I’ll never improve, I plunge into a great book. I’ll linger over every beautiful phrase and taut scene. (See Weronika Janczuk’s post at WriteOnCon for some inspiring openers.) I never want to stop growing as a writer, but every sentence I lay down comes with the fear that I’ve used these words—images—emotions before. Keep reaching. Keep filling your head with gorgeous art and words and ideas, so it never turns stale.

But don’t dread the times that the skill you want just isn’t there. My favorite stage of the writing process is when I’m line editing. I’ve already thrown down the clay of the basic story and sentences, and now I get to shape them into whatever I want. Because I know I can make these changes for the better, I have an easier time pushing myself through the rough draft. It’s okay if the best way I can think to say something in the draft is “She got pushed out into the street by the thick crowd,” because once I’m line editing, I can take the time to find what I really mean to say: “The crowd washed her onto the street.”

Pushing yourself into unfamiliar territory can be the scariest task imaginable. The past few weeks at work, I’ve been in an environment so incredibly foreign to me that demanded me to exert aspects of my personality (namely, extrovertedness) that I wasn’t even sure I possessed. The first few days, it exhausted me so much that I came home and immediately went to sleep. But after about day 4, I wasn’t so tired anymore. I wasn’t so terrified, because I’d been confronting that terror head-on for so long that I had no choice but to cope.

Dive into something new and flail. Make mistakes. And keep pushing. It’ll become second nature in time.

DOMINION

Technically more a card game, but without the pesky “collectible” part that makes games like Magic: the Gathering such a cash sink. In Dominion, everyone is a landed noble who must deploy numerous skills to increase their prestige in the kingdom: you can send spies and saboteurs at your enemies, research architecture and economics to improve your fiefdom’s efficiency, recruit an army, send witches to curse your foes, and more. It’s highly addictive, and don’t be surprised to find yourself playing it for far too many rounds with far too many beverages. “Come with me, Woodcutter. But leave the shirt.”

Word of caution: do not attempt to play using the online client for Dominion as a beginner, unless you like when ruthless Germans steamroll you, steal your lunch money, and tell you to go eat a hamburger, you American pig.

CASTLE RAVENLOFT

This is actually a Dungeons & Dragons campaign in board game format, and it’s crazy-fun. I threw together a Bauhaus and Dead Can Dance playlist for our session with this game, and set out to destroy some vamps and wights. Infinitely better way to D&D than wrestling with character spreadsheets and THAC0.

LAST NIGHT ON EARTH

Zombies are invading your small town! Are you the high school quarterback, ready to crack some zombie skulls? How about the old preacher-man, shepherding the townsfolk to safety? Or you could be that crazy drifter down by the truck stop, who may or may not have an M-16 in his cab. Take your pick and don’t get bitten. (Or do. That’s fun too.) WOLVERINES!

We play-tested this game at GenCon several years back and adored it. Definitely want to check out this company’s other titles as well.

ARKHAM HORROR

I have mixed feelings about this game. On the one hand, it is a loving and exhaustive tribute to H. P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre, full of kitsch and creepiness and occultish delights. On the other hand, it can drag on for hours. Days, even. I know someone who was so bored once that they played this game by themselves—and lost. Definitely worth trying at least once, however, if only for the mad delight of slipping through a portal into the Mountains of Madness, and swinging by Miskatonic U to visit ol’ Herbert West.

We just acquired the Caribbean pirate-themed game MERCHANTS AND MARAUDERS, and I have my eye on the Battlestar Galactica game, as well as a space exploration adventure called EMINENT DOMAIN. I’ll review them soon!

Paintings are hung.

People are hanged.

I have posted the Nerdrage Man once. Pray that I don’t post him again.

~L

It works for me. But probably not anyone else.

I think a lot of new writers come to social media, blogging in particular, looking to build that elusive “platform,” but for want of exciting news like book deals and signings and genre-saving crix de coeurs, they default to dispensing writing advice. I was certainly one of them. And that’s all right! A number of these blogs gave me the inspiration and insight I needed when I was a nobody without a single finished manuscript (as opposed to the nobody I am now, with two finished manuscripts!). But I tried to be one, too, and …

I really, really wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

So I’m going to shift focus in the blog here. I’ll still talk about writing quite a bit, I’m sure, but it will be less instructive and more ruminative. For instance, I’m working on a post about alignment influencing character creation. Writing issues where there’s no clear answer.

I also want to talk a lot more about the books I’m reading, and the books you’re reading and writing. (So please, feel free to jump in!) I want to talk about my ridiculous, fun, sad, expensive, tasty city, and gaming; and I’ll probably post pictures of my dog doing dumb doggy things. To wit:

If you are still looking for thorough, stellar instruction as you develop your writing style, then I highly recommend Janice Hardy’s blog, which offers countless detailed looks at all the aspects of telling a great story. I also suggest watching some of the weekly web round-ups out there: Kate Hart, a woman after my reptilian analyst heart, does an excellent one on YA Highway when she’s not making badass infographs. Adventures in Children’s Publishing and Eric @ Pimp My Novel are also great filters.

So, thanks for sticking with me so far! I think it’ll only get better from here. If edits don’t kill me (and they like to try).

2. I’m so, so close to finishing my current work-in-progress, SEKRET, that I can taste the ashy, fiery destruction. Next is not so much a problem of not knowing what to write next, but choosing between about 8 possible things to write next. I have a full Book 2 outline for UNDER A DEAD MOON, but don’t feel that I should start it just yet. I could outline Book 2 for SEKRET, but I’ll be in a similar situation. And I probably shouldn’t be writing the first book of yet another series, hah.

3. I have a serious case of ComicCon Envy. I’m not going to GenCon or BlizzCon this year, which are my usual Con lurks, and I missed out on the big book events this year as well. Watching G4TV’s coverage of the video games aspect of CC makes me wish so hard there was a publishing channel. Book reviews, interviews, bestseller charts … Yeah, let me get a couple billion dollars and I’ll look into starting one. I think the only way to make it operate at profit would be to have every single ad spot purchased by Kindle …

4. I have the opportunity and motive of late to really get out and enjoy my wonderful city but it is TOO DAMN HOT. Cabin fever, you are my frenemy.

5. In our large but nonetheless sheltered little writing world on the web, it is so easy to forget how many people out there really don’t read with any sort of regularity. Pick out a really great book and give it to a non-reader you know. Bonus points if it’s a kid.

I have this problem; I think the DSM-IV classification is “nerdrage.” I get so invested in a series—book, TV, film—and its wonderful setting, awesome characters, gut-churning plot-twists that as the inevitable conclusion looms, I look at the chaotic state of the series’ universe and panic. The ending can never be perfect enough! I’m not ready to say goodbye! I want more!

Well, ideally that’s why I’m stopped before the final act. Unfortunately, far too often, it’s because something or a huge accumulation of somethings has so jarred me from what I thought the series was all about that I throw my hands in the air and surrender.

Here is my embarrassing list of series that I really should have finished by now. This will be spoileriffic, but obviously I don’t know how it all ends so NO SPOILERS PLEASE:

The Wheel of Time: Book 1 was fun, in a “my first hero’s journey epic fantasy quest saga” sort of way. Books 2 and 3 were amazing, and seriously: BALEFIRE. How can you not get excited about balefire?! But then Books 4 and 5 passed, and I would be hard pressed to tell you a single thing that happened in them. Lanfear might have made a snippy remark. But I’m trudging along, because there are crazy artifacts around the world, and I want to see them mess people up, and can we get some more BALEFIRE?!?

Then pritty pritty desert princess Aviendha shows up and nearly gets hypothermia in Book 6 and can only be revived by Rand’s sweet, sweet lovin’? Really? REALLY?

That may have been the first time I ever threw a book at the wall in rage. It wasn’t the last, but it was definitely the end of that particular weave of the wheel for me. Sometimes I think I owe it to myself to know how it all ends, but then I realize I was only a third of the way through the series, if that, and would have to re-read the 6000+ pages I’d already invested just to recall what in all the hells is happening. Because all I remember? Balefire, too many demons to remember, secret wind tunnels of death, balefire. I think I’ll stick to those memories.

Battlestar Galactica: I hadn’t quite reached breaking point on this one, but I do remember planning our days around the delivery of each subsequent Netflix disc so we could gorge on four episodes at once. Netflix only had half of the final season available at the time, though, and that last disc with the half season finale was fairly treacherous. Congratulations, Starbuck, you found Earth. Too bad it’s probably located halfway inside our expanding, dying sun at this point, and frankly, even that’s less screwed up than your marriage.

We’ll finish this one, but I want to rewatch it from the beginning. Relish the early days of Adama/Roslin. Mostly I want to know if those crazy old kids make it out okay, and I want to find out who’s the final cylon (NO I DON’T KNOW PLEASE DON’T TELL ME OKAY).

Harry Potter: This one’s through no fault of Harry’s (or J.K.’s). I read the first five books; watched the first five movies. I even read Book 2 in Russian (Garry Potter and the Secrety Room). No, the only strike against HP is that Books 6 and 7 had the misfortune of being released while I was wading through a wizarding morality tale of my own called Lindsay Smith and the Deathly Online Gaming Addiction. I’ll finish this, but only once I find a nice box set of the books.

Dude, where’s my son?

LOST: I endured the circuitous dialogue. I forgave them for killing Juliette (because, really, no one dies on that show in any meaningful way). I accepted the time travel madness of season 5. I think what really did me in was the show’s tendency to use five characters where one would do. This led to the ever-growing hierarchies: ah, but it’s not the Tail Section, it’s the Others! Oh, it’s not the Others, it’s the Dharma Initiative! Oh, it’s not Dharma, it’s these crazy militants on a ship! Oh, it’s not the militants, it’s PHYSICISTS! No—MONKS ON AN ISLAND! But wait there’s ANOTHER conspiracy group who have spent thousands of dollars in airfare just to prove some guy who’s dead is really dead, except he’s alive except for when he’s not, and it’s not really him anyway, because really Locke is the Monster is the Jacob is the Richard is the Man in Black is the Man in White is a polar bear is Christian Shepard is dead but not really.

Mind you, I only saw snippets of the final season so I’m probably horribly wrong in all of these assumptions, but it’s just too much. Any time the show painted itself into a corner, the solution was to introduce twenty new characters who Knew Things but still provided no real answers as to the show’s greater truth.

I finally asked J to spoil the ending for me and tell me what happened in Season 6, but he said he couldn’t explain it if he wanted to. I guess I’ll either Netflix this one (agony!) or find a nice write-up online.

What series have filled you with the Wrath of Nerd? Do you regret not persevering, or do you consider yourself lucky to have escaped when you did?

I'm pretty strict when it comes to my characters' actions. If something seems way too altruistic, way too sinister, way too snobby, way too ignorant an action to be believable, chances are, it is. I like my characters to be thick, complicated, hot messes of personality. My "good guys" do awful things. My "bad guys" have their moments of true generosity.

On the whole--people are like that. No one sets out to be the world's biggest jerk, and lets that dictate 100% of their actions. And when your heroine always makes the right choice, always has the best answer, always figures out the puzzle before everyone else, then chances are good she's made of cardboard.

But sometimes people can astound you when they play to type. You know someone's ruthless, but you didn't expect them to be that evil. Isn't that only supposed to happen in fiction? How many other people have you misjudged?

So let your characters surprise you. Don't make them complicated in the same way. You never really know what someone will do until backed into a corner. Leave them without any options, and let their real personalities come through. And if they make some bad choices along the way, get someone hurt, break their own rules, then congratulations. You've made more than just a character.

You've made a human.