Now that the Camino de Santiago is behind me yet again, I’ll attempt to stop talking about it on here for a while. I can’t make any promises, though (like, I could drop a pic from the Camino without warning at any given moment!).
Galicia Morning, Unfiltered Light.
I’m moving on to my next passion for a bit. On July 12th I participated in a 3 day novel writing marathon in Huntsville, Ontario. During the 72 hours, I wrote almost 40,000 words. My goal for October is to finish the first draft of this novel. Let’s see if I can keep the momentum going. I’ve been at it for 2 days so far and I’m feeling pretty good about it.
The manuscripts written at the marathon are entered into a juried competition at the end of the weekend. My novel, NO VISIBLE DAMAGE, was awarded Runner Up in the YOUNG ADULT category of the competition. I’m thrilled with that outcome. First draft, written frenetically in 72 hours? I’ll take it!
A bookmark gifted to writers at the Muskoka Novel Marathon!
So I’m locking myself into writer mode for a bit. This may mean that I come at you with some exuberant writing advice every now and again. When I’m in that zone, it’s all I think about. Adios por ahora, mi Camino! Writing is my October jam!
One last story from my Muskoka Novel Marathon weekend prior to diving back into my manuscript. The bookmarks pictured above were given to ALL marathon participators. The back of each bookmark was blank. My fellow marathoner, Colum (who is literally the sweetest most kindhearted person) took my bookmark down to a local store in town and had the back personalized after I told him about a line that POPPED out of my manuscript. I wrote the line about a laptop that was thrown across a room in the story. During our conversation about the line in question, I told Colum it sounded like a great name for a punk band. Colum said it sounded like a perfect novel title. That’s the exact second my THE EPOQUE OF ETHAN manuscript became NO VISIBLE DAMAGE. Thanks, Colum! Both for giving me the TITLE and for getting the personalization of the bookmark done!
I usually write about my Muskoka Novel Marathon (MNM) experience shortly after it’s over. But I wasn’t sure how to deal with this one. I’ve been home from it a week today. I felt like I got nothing done this year. But I also managed to write almost 40,000 words in 72 hours. Perception and reality vastly conflict with one another. It’s the same ole same ole.
Another of the many distraction tactics I look forward to every year at the MNM…a long walk up a short hill to this place. LION’S LOOKOUT. Down below me, in the background, is the MNM venue.
Why is it this way? Because of the automaton feature that writers will often tap into. They can begin a project by being a writer writing and end up just being writing. Writer disappears at these marathons. Writer becomes writing. The act itself…with no one at the wheel.
This is why I always underestimate my creative output and my productivity. I disappear.
These are the 10-Page marker ribbons that all writers add to the clothesline every time they get to another 10-page milestone. They add up over the course of the 72hr novel writing marathon!
I was driving yesterday and a thought about my Muskoka Novel Marathon novel came to me in a flash of brilliance. It was more like a eureka moment. ‘I really should have my one character meet with a therapist.’
I mean, something big and terrible happened to them. Most likely, a therapist would be foisted upon them practically against their will in real life after experiencing what they experienced. I should write a scene where they visit a therapist.
This is the Active Living Centre in Huntsville, Ontario, at night. Shot from the dock at the water’s edge down below during Saturday evening’s distraction period of socializing. (-:
Then, when I finally sat down in front of my manuscript to continue my read-through, a funny thing happened. I came upon a fairly long scene (several pages in length) where my character visits a therapist. Who knows, there may even be more therapist meetings in the manuscript. I’m still reading through. This is one of the reasons I try not to edit while doing that first read-through after arriving home from the marathon. I often have no recollection of what my manuscript contains. And I never know what I’m gonna find. Literally, I have no idea. The therapist scene is a case in point. Blindsided.
A shot from the dock beside the Muskoka Novel Marathon venue.
I also know that I’m a monumental distraction to other writers at the marathon. I do my best focusing when I’m not focusing at all. I have too much energy to do things in another way. I write my ass off while drinking coffee and eating garbage candy and shooting myself madly off in every direction. Somehow, I walk away from the marathon with most of a novel…and somehow I get that novel completed in the few weeks immediately following the marathon. It’s how I function as a writer.
Another year in the can, another diabetic coma narrowly avoided. My novel is coming along. I may even like what I came away with. I’ll like it more once this read-through is complete and I know exactly what it is I wrote.
I woke up this morning with Writer Instructor dialogue running through my thoughts. I notice this phenomenon ratcheting up as the yearly Muskoka Novel Marathon slowly approaches. This is the time when I truly begin to think about the writing process in general and the upcoming MNM novel in particular. I become this super coach who prepares a team of ONE for a marathon that does not involve any form of running, jogging or walking.
This morning I woke up thinking about all the stuff the writer has to do to learn about their characters, their plots, their settings, their universes. We have to write the stuff down that we don’t use in our story. I’m not talking about the stuff we’ll sneak in as the dreaded INFO DUMP. I’m not really talking about backstory, even, even though I am. I know that doesn’t make sense on the surface, but trust me…it makes sense.
Backstory, in general, is stuff you sprinkle into your story for the reader—stuff they discover about the characters’ pasts. Their motivations, their goals, etc, etc, etc. BUT—there’s another kind of backstory the WRITER should think about. Yes, there are motivational epiphanies we should share with our readers. That’s obvious. But there’s a whole life behind every character we create. Have you ever thought about writing out memories and experiences the characters have that have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE STORY YOU’RE WRITING? I mean, HAVE YOU? Because you should.
This is not a new concept, even for me. But it is one I keep going back to. I wrote an article for a writing newsletter once upon a time about diary entries. It’s now on my blog and for some reason it’s one of my most popular posts. People come to it by these bizarre Google searches about writing and diaries and characters and the like. I linked the blog post above…and I might be repeating myself today.
The backstory you give your characters stays inside you and you remember it as you’re navigating your way through your story. You become an expert on what your characters would or wouldn’t do, how they would or wouldn’t react based on this backstory. And again—I’m not talking about the backstory you feed your readers. I’m talking about the backstory ONLY YOU KNOW. So, the more you explore the people you create, the more you know them…the more you intuitively know their path through the story you create. This is why I spend a lot of time this time of year in developing my people for my Muskoka Novel Marathon novel. We 40 writers get together for a long weekend in July and we all attempt to write a novel in 72 hours. I like to know who my characters are before I leap into that kind of an abyss.
Now, you can write their unseen-by-any-readers-ever backstory on paper or on your word processor, OR you can just chew away at it in your own little head. Either way works. The more stories you create about their past, the more it helps you to predict their future. And the future is the arc in which they travel through your novel. By setting up these pre-story lives as much as possible, you are doing a kind of homework that would otherwise be impossible. Even if you ‘practice’ with these characters for a hundred pages and then toss it away…those hundred pages are not wasted words. They are a foundation on which you can build the first sentence of your novel, and the second and the third.
For me, this works. Especially since I hit the ground running on a Friday evening and attempt to walk away on a Monday evening with a fully written first draft novel. I need every edge I can get.
Random photo because I wanted to add something to look at. There’s a magical place along the Camino de Santiago where you get to walk through vineyards and it’s gorgeous. Here’s a peek.
Do yourself a favour and try this. Write situations, scenes, memories with your potential characters. Form a backstory for them that you will NEVER use in your finished work. Get to know them. They’ll pay you back in spades when you’re deep in the heart of your novel and trying to decide what your character will do next. If you know your character, you know how they’ll choose to move forward in your story…
KEVIN CRAIG 