published weekdays
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plotting
You may not know this unless you are a lover of writing, but November 1st marks the start of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, a month which is celebrated by writers around the world by speed-drafting a fifty-thousand word book through a span of just thirty days.
Each November for nearly twenty-five years thousands, then tens of thousands, and now hundreds of thousands of would-be authors settle into their keyboard with nothing more than an idea and a collective sense of motivation as they begin to tell their stories.
I’ve been plotting myself, with the intention of starting my own novel today, November 1, 2023. I have completed the NaNoWriMo challenge four times in the past, and if I manage to pen another fifty thousand word novel again this year it will be my fifth.
I have been sketching out ideas. I have been shuffling together threads of a plan. I have been creating characters and imagining places and inventing villainous schemes to weave into sinister motivations by which to drive a story.
All that is to lead in and say I have simultaneously been plotting out a different scheme: to write and reflect on the process right here on this little blog.
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worldbranding
The parallels between what company marketing teams do in creating brands and what fiction writers do in building worlds is a connection I’ve seen having travelled through both worlds.
A brand is a collection of ideas about what a company (or in modern times an individual) wants to be. It is more than logos and slogans. It is clearly stated messages. It is the font used in an email. It is the formality of language used by its representatives. A brand is based on values, goals, and plans. It is that exact shade of green. And it is a hundred other tiny details that are noted and collected and (in good companies) put into a brand book as a set of rules and guidelines for engaging their customers through business.
A fictional world-build is a collection of ideas about what a story wants to be. It is more than maps and place names. It is the feel of the place and how the seasons affect the characters who live and work there. It is the slang used by the residents. A world is populated by the hopes and dreams of everyone inside it. It is the interesting twists in the roads through the world. And it is a hundred other tiny details that are noted and collected into the files of the novelist as a set of rules and guides for traversing that world through story.
Personally, I’ve been doing a bit of both lately.
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details
Switching your perspective on approach can make a lot of difference to create something amazing.
I do a lot of drawing and most often I draw big shapes and fill in the details afterwards. But lately I’ve been flipping the process and starting with details, and iteratively working to build something big out of lots of little pieces. You do need to always think about the big picture and sometimes starting with strategy is fine. But other times when you just start building the pieces you know are important, then time and persistence turn into something you might not have planned but is exactly what you need after all.
There’s a project management lesson in there somewhere if you’re looking for it.
Watch my first Sketching Zen video.
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challenges
As October draws to a close I find myself standing at the start line of a race that I’ve run previously but yet is not quite as familiar as the running marathon I tackled earlier in the month.
For the fifth time I’m about to challenge myself by doing National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) the novel writing challenge where writers are tasked with penning the first draft of a new fifty thousand word novel in the thirty days of November.
Thousands tackle the challenge each year. Many succeed. Some even find success beyond simple completion and have published their work.
I have written four novels in my life.
And all four of those novels have been completed during previous NaNoWriMo challenges.
You could even call me a true believer in the value of public challenges, and you would be absolutely correct. As silly as it is to publicly declare your intention to do something like speed writing a novel in a single month, I’m going for number five this year …and that’s no joke.
(It might even be more than a coincidence that I completed my fifth marathon this year, too.)
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succession
First we learn.
Then we do.
Then we teach others.
In all good communities of people who have skills, talents, or understanding, there is an order to the succession of that community.
Beginners enter the community and are excited to learn and grow and get better. Mastery is a long, slow process of doing and practicing and ever-improving. And eventually those who reach a state of skillfulness — while not forced to become mentors and instructors in their craft — are met with the choice of challenge of giving back to their communities by teaching and supporting the beginners and everyone as a means to keeping the craft alive and strong.
For those who believe in the sustainability of what they practice, that choice is an obvious one, maybe even a moral imperative.
Some days I find myself as a beginner learning new skills in new crafts from the thousands who have gone down the path before me.
Some days I just do.
And some days I pause to lead and advise and offer support in the things of which I seem to have gathered decades of experience and can nurture those twenty years behind me.
What is your day’s work? Learning, doing, or teaching?