It’s vital for you to realize that I do not recommend books unless I really like them. I also don’t blurb books unless I really like them. Folks have occasionally described a blurb-sharing universe that is at best morally corrupt, where agents and editors and authors trade blurbs in back alleys for, I dunno, exotic pets or fancy Japanese sneakers or multidimensional designer drugs. I have never received these things. I talk about books I love — and I’ll blurb ’em, too — because I need you to trust me. I can’t just go blurbing any ol’ hunk of monkeyspunk — that’s regardless of whether you’re a friend or someone I’ve never met.

So, right now I’m going to recommend a pair of books, each by a close friend, but I want you to realize that my recommendation is in no way corrupted by this fact.

I loved both of these books, and you may, too.

First up: Lila Bowen’s Wake of Vultures. It’s a wonderfully weird-ass supernatural Western. It has shapeshifters and monsters and monster-hunting. It has knives. It has harpies. It tackles issues of identity and gender and objectification. It’s violent and funny. (I might recommend it, actually, to folks who like my Miriam Black books.) Nettie Lonesome is your new jam. Thing about this book though that really struck me is the way it was written — it’s sodden with voice. Just drips with it. The prose stomps right up to the edge of almost too damn much and then stops and stays there, and it’s just fucking perfect. (Reminds me a little of Pretty Deadly, in fact.) So, hell, mount up and take the ride, will you? (Indiebound | Amazon)

Next: Adam Christopher’s Made to Kill. This is another book where the genres kind of bleed into another a little bit — it’s a Raymond Chandlerian story set in the 60s with a robot “detective” (cough cough assassin) at its heart. He loses his memory every day due to his tapes erasing. He’s got a cantankerous AI named Ada in his head. He takes on a job from a young girl who might be the damsel in distress or might be the femme fatale or who might be something else entirely — and in classic noir fashion, the story everyone thinks they’re getting is really just the tip of the sinister iceberg. It straddles the line between silly and serious, and it’s a lean book with nary an ounce of fat on it — Adam’s writing is forthright and no-nonsense and quick as the stick of a switchblade. (Indiebound | Amazon)

So, I’ve named two books I liked recently.

I’m asking you to name just one.

Go into the comments, talk about a book you read within the last few months that you really liked. Tell us why you liked it. Tell us why we should read it.

Looking at that title, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was my snapping moment — that finally I have achieved total author meltdown, and now I’m running through the streets, pants on my head, frothing on about how WRITING ADVICE IS MADE OF PEOPLE and CONTRAILS ARE HOW GMO BIG PHARMA SOMETHING SOMETHING OBAMA and BEN CARSON SHOULD BE PRESIDENT.

This is not that moment.

I know, I know, it’s very disappointing.

It’s just — it’s that month. It’s the month where lots of folks entertain the idea of being a novelist and they hunger for information, for direction, for truth.

My blog hits go through the roof during October and November.

I sell a lot of books about writing during this time.

Which is nice.

It’s all perfectly lovely.

It’s also all bullshit.

Now, before I go further into the cuckoo mines, I want to say — here’s another thing that happens during this month. People get mad at me for telling them how to write. I am, quite admittedly, a privileged guy even beyond the Normal Reasons. I’m a full-time writer. I make actual money writing. Not like, fake money. But the kind of money where I can support my family on it. I can pay all my bills and then buy Star Wars toys. I can buy myself a magical fucking writing shed to plonk down in the woods like a very pretty apocalypse bunker where I have an arsenal of books instead of an arsenal of guns. I’m not wealthy, I’m not famous, but I’m doing more than just surviving. I’m plump (hey shut up I lost weight) and pleasantly keeping on.

So, folks get galled that I would be so presumptuous to tell them how to do this thing. Which is both fair and also strange — yes, I’m privileged, but I like to think that I earned it. I didn’t buy my way into this gig. I have been working at it for almost 20 years (*weeps into open hands at the ineluctable march of time*). I have gone through many full time jobs, most of which sucked mightily. I have had years where my writing made me alarmingly little. I have endured the tooth and claw of rejection, countless rejections, so much rejection, goddamnit rejection. Plus: hey, occasionally crippling anxiety. That’s always a hoot.

Oh, and I still get bad reviews. I still get rejected. Writing is hard. Easier for me than many. But still hard. And publishing is harder. Publishing can be “passing pumpkin seeds through your urethra” hard. It can be “pushing a rock up a hill until the rock rolls back down onto you and then vultures eat your fingermeats but now it’s time to push the rock again, dummy” hard.

That’s me yelling at the clouds and shaking my fist at trees, screaming: I EARNED THE RIGHT TO YELL AT YOU ABOUT WRITING. And then I hiss at birds. Stupid birds.

I have an educated, practiced — if also narrow! — view of writing, storytelling, and publishing.

But please, let me reiterate: it’s all bullshit.

To explain:

Nothing I say is right.

Writing advice is not science.

About the only provable thing you can say about writing is that to be a writer, you have to write, and hey, it’s probably a very good idea to finish most, if not all, the things you begin. My “secret to writing” message remains: WRITE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN, AS FAST AS YOU CAN; FINISH YOUR SHIT; HIT YOUR DEADLINES; TRY VERY HARD NOT TO SUCK. And that’s it. That’s the end of it.

Everything else is just opinion.

Gassy, half-formed opinion.

What works for one person won’t work for another.

What reads well by one author will read poorly when written by another.

A technique works for me, fails for you. Or for you it is amazing and for me it is puzzling.

I love my word processor. You hate it.

Don’t ever open a story with weather, except when you should.

You should write in the morning unless you can’t or shouldn’t or won’t or whatever.

Be more literary! Be more genre! Be less this more that wait no the other thing.

This won’t sell until it does and then it sells a lot until it stops selling and nnngh.

You should do XYZ except unless ABC or 123 or wuzza wooza buzzy fuzzy.

Here you might be saying: well, then, why do it? Why yammer on about writing at all? WHY ARE YOU WILLFULLY HORSESHITTING US, YOU FANCY ASSHOLE?

It’s for a few reasons.

First, because as I have noted in the past, because I like to yell at myself, and this blog provides a convenient platform to scream at my presumed Audience Of One.

Second, because I am a noisy, opinionated jackhole.

Third, because bullshit still works as fertilizer. What I mean is this: the things I say at this blog and in my writing books is just advice. It’s not right. It’s also not automatically wrong. It’s just advice. It’s like if you ask me about sneakers and I’m like, “I wear these sneakers called Hoka One Ones, and they’re really great.” They are a real sneaker. I actually own and wear and love them. They’re great for me. It’s true. It’s like walking on air. It’s improved my running. They’ve ended my plantar fasciitis and also ended other associated running pains. And they might be great for some of you. For others? You might fucking hate them. But these shoes are what I know and so I will recommend them if you ask. Hell, even if you don’t ask.

My writing advice is that.

I have been doing this for a while.

I have learned lessons applicable to me and possibly applicable to some of you.

And so, I share them in the hopes that you will swill this briny brew around your mouth — maybe you like the taste, or maybe you make a face like you just licked the ass-end of an irritable llama. The goal is that somewhere in the spongy fungal morass I grow here at the blog you will find that the bullshit sprinkled about has been a proper fertilizer instead of just a nasty-ass, stink-making air-destroyer. But at the same time, don’t treat what I say — or what anybody says — as gospel truth. Consider it. Taste it. Smell it. Lift it in your hand. And then use or or lose it. You do you. I mean, shit, even if the writing advice gets you pissed at me — good. Then it’s making you think about this thing that we do. It challenges you. That’s a good thing. Maybe it clarifies why you do what you do even if it’s not how I do it. Good. Great. Rock the fuck on.

So, yes.

Writing advice is bullshit. But maybe, just maybe, you can use it to fertilize your own work.

Emma Newman is undeniably an epic talent, and her wave is about to break on your beach with her newest, the astounding Planetfall. She wanted to come by and talk about a piece of advice with which she disagrees — that ol’ classic, WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW. So, without further ado: 

* * *

If you’ve read anything about how to write, you’ve probably stumbled across the old chestnut “write what you know.” Being someone of fine taste and refinement, seeing as you’re here at Chuck’s place, you’ve probably also figured out for yourself that this advice is thin at best and downright untrue at its worst.

You could say “hey, it doesn’t have to be taken literally – ‘what you know’ can incorporate emotional experiences that can be applied to new situations, not just intellectual experiences, and you’d be right. But what I want to talk about here, is how you can approach a gulf between your own experience and that of your character.

The easy ways first

Let’s get these out of the way. If you want to write about something you don’t know, there’s good old bookish research (which can only take you so far – especially in some areas of SFF) and there’s talking to people. With regards to the latter, it can be hard to find someone who fits the bill completely, so it may be that you need to speak to several people. This also helps to reduce the chance of repeating mistakes and churning out trope-ridden material.

What about things that don’t exist?

What can you read or who can you talk to if the job or experience you want to explore in your writing doesn’t exist – either because it is too fantastical or hasn’t been invented yet? Or what if it is only experienced by people you have no hope of being able to talk to?

That’s the situation I was in when writing Planetfall. My protagonist, Ren, lives in a colony that has been founded on a planet millions of miles from Earth, using technology that is in its infancy in the real world. She is a 3-D printer engineer and is responsible for maintaining the 3-D printers that the colony depends upon. She’s also responsible for building whatever the colonists need, be it housing or equipment. Industrial 3-D printers have been around for a few years, but not as sophisticated as the ones in Planetfall and the home printer technology in my novel is decades ahead of what exists now.

At no point in my working life have I been an engineer. I have an uncle who is and I talked to him about the 3-D printers they use at his workplace, but the technology he uses is well behind that which I wanted to write about. What I learned from him, coupled with my own research about current 3-D printing technology, enabled me to make decisions about how I think it could develop.

What we’re really talking about here

What I was much more concerned about was making the character of Ren seem plausible as an engineer. That’s what people are worried about when they stress the whole “write what you know” thing, after all. Drawing upon personal experience is an easy way to make a character sound and feel right. Ren suffers from an anxiety disorder and whilst it’s not the same as the one I wrestle with, it does have some similar aspects in terms of experience, so I could draw upon those for that aspect of her.

In writing Planetfall, I learned that making Ren seem plausible as an engineer isn’t just about what she says or does. It isn’t just the terminology she uses or the technical knowledge she has. Those are all important, of course, but for me, the most important thing to get right was the way she sees the world. I had to find a way to convince the reader that they are experiencing the world and events through the eyes of someone who thinks like an engineer. That was the real challenge.

Transferable skills

Some years ago, back when I was busy screwing up my life to avoid writing (that’s a whole different story), I was a designer dressmaker. I ran my own tiny little business designing and making predominantly ball gowns, wedding dresses and some RPG costumes for people. I did it with skills that were self-taught, so I was probably doing all sorts of things wrong, but for about two years or thereabouts that’s how I earned a living.

One of the things I remember about that time was how my highly specialised job changed the way I saw the world, in particular, the clothes I saw people wearing. I never really noticed it before I knew how to fit clothes properly (I used to draw up my own patterns from scratch, so fitting was a critical part of the job right from the ground up) but once I learned, I was suddenly living in a world where it seemed 95% of business men wore ill-fitting suits. I would find myself walking down the high street having to force myself to not run up to random people and start pinning their clothes so they would fit properly. It made buying clothes for myself at high street shops practically impossible, as an off-the-peg ‘good enough’ fit wasn’t anything close to that any more.

Another effect of that job was the ability to effectively mentally “explode out” clothing into the separate pattern pieces it would have been made from, and also mentally get an idea of the way to cut a pattern in the early stages of a design. Clothing and its construction became a technical thing as well as an aesthetic thing.

Thinking back to that time helped me to write Ren because it made me consider carefully how being the one that made things in the colony would affect the way she sees it. The details matter – details that wouldn’t even occur to anyone else – like what exactly the outside of the buildings are covered with and why and how the doors work. Memories of decisions made in the design process are just as valuable as the end result. Problems are approached logically and systematically, and the ones that defy logic are wrestled with uncomfortably, as unnatural, unfamiliar things. She notices who designs their own printed objects and who merely uses standard printer templates – and judges them on it too.

We’re back to write what you know, aren’t we?

This is a form of that advice, I suppose. I know what it’s like to see the world through the eyes of a designer and constructor, only my experience was in dressmaking rather than 3-D printing and engineering. But it was enough to enable me to see the world as I imagine Ren would, rather than as a writer sitting at a computer dreaming it all up. For me, rooting myself in experiences as close to my characters as possible – even though they may not be exactly the same – is the most joyous thing about both roleplaying games and about writing. Seeing and experiencing the world as someone else is the thing I enjoy most as a role player and the thing I am always striving to convey in the characters I write.

So the next time you want to write a character with a very different job to your own, and all other avenues of research are exhausted or non-existent, I invite you to see if you can match a skill set you have in a different area with one your character has, and use that as a way to get into their mindset. If nothing else, it can be an interesting way to think about your own skills differently and it will definitely help with your roleplaying too. What’s not to love?

* * *

Emma Newman writes dark short stories and science fiction and urban fantasy novels. ‘Between Two Thorns’, the first book in Emma’s Split Worlds urban fantasy series, was shortlisted for the BFS Best Novel and Best Newcomer awards. Emma’s next book, Planetfall, will be a standalone science fiction novel published by Roc in November. Emma is a professional audiobook narrator and also co-writes and hosts the Hugo-nominated podcast ‘Tea and Jeopardy’ which involves tea, cake, mild peril and singing chickens. Her hobbies include dressmaking and playing RPGs. She blogs at www.enewman.co.uk and can be found on Twitter as @emapocalyptic

Planetfall

Renata Ghali believed in Lee Suh-Mi’s vision of a world far beyond Earth, calling to humanity. A planet promising to reveal the truth about our place in the cosmos, untainted by overpopulation, pollution, and war. Ren believed in that vision enough to give up everything to follow Suh-Mi into the unknown.

More than twenty-two years have passed since Ren and the rest of the faithful braved the starry abyss and established a colony at the base of an enigmatic alien structure where Suh-Mi has since resided, alone. All that time, Ren has worked hard as the colony’s 3-D printer engineer, creating the tools necessary for human survival in an alien environment, and harboring a devastating secret.

Ren continues to perpetuate the lie forming the foundation of the colony for the good of her fellow colonists, despite the personal cost. Then a stranger appears, far too young to have been part of the first planetfall, a man who bears a remarkable resemblance to Suh-Mi.

The truth Ren has concealed since planetfall can no longer be hidden. And its revelation might tear the colony apart…

Planetfall: Indiebound | Amazon

I do NaNoWriMo roughly every month. That probably sounds like a humblebrag, and maybe it is, though you’ll note I’ve said nothing about the quality of my writing and am only noting its quantity — but I write anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 words every month. Is this how everyone should do it? No. Is this how I do it? Yep. I’m a full time writer and I get to do this pantsless, coffee-soaked, and in a shed specifically designed to house my dubious word count. As such, I’d damn well better dance for my motherfucking dinner.

I figured it might be helpful to outline for you, then, how I manage to survive this pace.

So what follows are a mighty smattering of tips and tricks. You may find them useful. You may find them distasteful. Feel free to take a nibble and see how they taste. Taste yucky? Spit it out.

Here we go.

1. I write from an outline. You don’t have to do this, but it helps me. My outlines generally cover big tentpole stuff, but not always the nitty-gritty details.

2. I give the appropriate quantity of fucks. Meaning, I do not overfuck, but I do not underfuck, either. I do not care so much that I feel all the weight and pressure of the world pinning me between the shoulders, but I care enough to actually, y’know, do the work to the best of my ability.

3. I do not edit as I go.

4. I do one reading pass of the previous day’s work — and here I’ll allow myself minor tweaks.

5. When I’m not writing, I’m thinking a whole fucking lot about the story. I take specific moments out of my day to do this. Showering. Walking the dog. Mowing the lawn. I roll the story around my mouth like a pebble. I’m like a human stone polisher over here. It helps me stay focused and concentrate on what I did today and what I have to do tomorrow.

6. When I end one day of writing, I write a few notes — a few words to a few sentences — that give me a clue as to what I need to write tomorrow. So, I open the file and there are some vague stage directions to get me going. THE CHIMPANZEE DETECTS TREACHERY. Or EWOK JEDI FLORGIN RAT-BEAR CHASES ANCIENT SITHLORD THROUGH A PEORIA WAL-MART. Whatever. Something to grab hold of when I start the next day.

7. I shut off THE SHRIEKING GESTICULATING ATTENTIONFEST THAT IS THE INTERNET using a wonderful piece of software called Freedom (avail for Mac and Windows, I think).

8. I do about 45 minutes of writing, then 15 minutes of dicking around.

9. I get up and move my ass. Like, not literally that — I don’t merely stand up in my chair and shake my booty for a few minutes. (And here I quietly hope no one hacks my webcam to provide proof that I do exactly that.) But sitting down for so long is an act of indolence and torpidity and it’s like I can feel my blood thickening to corn syrup. The blood needs to get to my brain, not pool in my heels. So, I walk, I move, I run, I dance (sometimes Flashdance, sometimes Footloose, sometimes I’m Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing).

10. I do not listen to music because music distracts me.

11. I try not to eat shitty garbage-food during the day. Carbs make me boggy unless I’m running, so I try to keep this slugabed machine moving with nuts and cheese and stuff like that. I also don’t drink while I’m writing. I mean, I drink and eat shitty garbage-food sometimes, but I do it properly, which is to say, at midnight in the dark while weeping and aggressively touching myself.

12. I let the characters lead the way. When I doubt, I ask what do they want in this scene, what do they want overall, and what is most important? I let them run with it. And this usually runs them into other characters who are either competing for the same thing or who want opposing things. Characters have problems. They use the fiction to confront those problems (often poorly). This is the engine of storytelling. Seize it, let it guide you. Do not let “plot” dominate this core character-driven component.

13. I also like to let characters just talk. I’d say about half the time I keep it. And the other half of the time, just letting them talk still lets me know something about the characters.

14. I make sure I’m having fun when I’m writing. If I’m not enjoying a scene or worse, I’m bored writing it, something is wrong. If I’m bored, you’ll be bored. If I’m having fun, I hope you will, too. I like to think each of my stories is you buying a ticket and taking a ride. I never want you to regret getting buckled into my NARRATIVE LOG-FLUME SPACE MOUNTAIN FUCKSTRAVAGANZA. When I’m writing a scene or a chapter I also think very hard about if I’m giving you a reason to drop out. If I am, I try to reverse that trend and course correct then and there.

15. When in doubt, seek danger. Er, not for you, but for the story. Seek danger that’s physical, but also that’s emotional, spiritual, emotional, social. Fiction is often an act of taking your plane and flying it right at the ground. Sometimes you pull up at the last minute. Sometimes you crash the thing and the story becomes what happens after the crash. But it’s never about a few safe stunts. It’s about the conflict found in the world around us, but more importantly, in the human heart.

16. I try to always second-guess the reader. Every scene I try to guess where you think I’d go, then I try to do differently. Or, in rare cases, do the same just to keep you on your widdle toes.

17. I write in the morning. In the morning I have all my IEP — Intellectual Energy Points. I have not yet spent them on things like answering emails or making dinner or dealing with the daily ennui of HUMAN EXISTENCE. Which means I give the writing high priority. When I used to have a day job, that meant getting up before the day  job and banging out 1000 words.

18. Comfort actually matters. The myth that art is born out of hunger and discomfort is as pervasive as it is toxic. Have a keyboard you like. Sit in as nice a chair as you can afford. Avoid eyestrain. Be fed. Have water. Make sure your giant bunny costume is washed and deodorized and that the assless window gives proper access to your botto… *checks notes* Okay that last part is for a different post. So. Uhhh. Just be comfortable.

19. I know that community is a big part of NaNoWriMo, but for me, I like writing to be as isolated an act as possible. I don’t care what you’re doing. I care what I’m doing. Comparing yourself to others is a no-no. It’ll just make you feel like you can’t measure up.

20. I endeavor to write five days a week, and then don’t write on weekends. I need that break. Every day that I do write, I write regardless of how I’m feeling — I write through illness, anxiety, life trouble. This is not saying you need to do that. (What did I tell you about comparing yourself?) You have to find your pace. Maybe you write all your weekly count on Monday at 2:15. Do what’s best for you. The good news is, for the most part, routines are valuable. Establish the routine and stick to it and after a couple weeks, you’re good. The bad news is, NaNoWriMo asks that you have that routine up and running by the time the month starts.

21. I post notes around my monitor or my desk. Little things — questions, plot points, plot holes. Things of which I want to remain mindful.

22. I also jot notes at the beginning about my characters — never more than 100 words, and sometimes enough to fit on a smattering of Post-It notes. I write the things about them that I think are most important. These are usually character traits — even writing down three significant traits (“OBSTINATE, INCONTINENT SEX MACHINE”) gives you something to keep in mind as you write that character.

23. I do not read the same type of thing that I am presently writing. It crosses too many wires, and the signal starts to bleed. Ideally, I read non-fiction. But key thing here is that while writing, I am also reading. Reading is a vital, revivifying act. Writing without reading is like running without food. Eventually, you’re running on empty.

24. I ask myself, “Is this making sense?” If not, I course correct.

25. My writing life is not a sprint but a marathon. I’m running a long con, here. This is a heist where I’m stealing the Crown Jewels, not just knocking over a liquor store. You can’t sprint to 50k in a month without shattering your tender little brain-vase. You gotta measure it out. Gotta find a workable, steady pace — then stick to it consistently and confidently.

26. The daily mantra: “I can fix this in post.”

27. CAFFEINE, MOTHERFUCKER. DO YOU SPEAK IT.

28. I type fast. This sounds a-doy durr hurr obvious but seriously, I practice typing and I type hella zippy. Also, HELLA ZIPPY is my roller derby nickname.

29. Don’t think about publishing, don’t think about finishing, don’t think about next week. Think about yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and that’s it.

30. Repeat after me: “I am my own Muse.”

31. Repeat after me: “Don’t panic.” Clutch your towel and realize this isn’t making or breaking anything. This isn’t BRAIN ROCKETRY. Again, see #2 on the list: care less.

32. PANTS ARE A TOOL OF THE OPPRESSOR

33. When in doubt, escalate.

34. Eschew shame. I find shame to be half a ladder. It feels like you’re climbing somewhere, and you are… at least until you’re not. I don’t find shame valuable in writing (or really, anywhere else).

35. Also? Fuck writing advice. I know, you’re reading this here and now, but you have to know where such advice belongs. While writing, it rarely belongs in your face. Give it minimal priority. Every writer does things differently — this post is a good example because smart money says you do things at least somewhat differently from how I do them. “Writing Rules” are rarely that, and they’re a good way to make you feel like you’re on the wrong track. Writing advice is just that — advice. It’s advice on what to order on a menu, not a mandate on how to live your creative life. I read writing advice between books. I think about writing and read what other writer’s do during down-time. It doesn’t help me in the midst of the thing. It’s too much noise. Before and after I write? Yes. During? No.

36. I try to remember how amazing it is to be a writer. Because it is. Even when it’s not.

37. I try to be aware of self-care issues. I’m practiced enough where my writing schedule remains unpunctured by anxiety or health issues, but I also remain aware that when they happen, I am excused for writing badly, or shorting my word count, or just taking a much-needed day off.

38. In fact, I’m always comfortable with writing badly. Because that’s why WRITING JESUS invented that thing called “editing.” Thank you, Writing Jesus. Thank you.

39. If I’m stuck, I babble on the page until I am unstuck. Sometimes I blow stuff up.

40. I am vigilant about protecting my time and my space for writing. This is my TERRITORIAL BUBBLE and none shall puncture it lest one be shanked by a broken coffee mug.

41. I back everything up a billion times. I back things up on an external time machine drive. I back them up via Dropbox and with reiterative file names. I email myself the drafts. I also save obsessively. Any time I stop writing for more than five seconds, I do the keyboard shortcut to save. Nothing is more dispiriting than losing what you’re working on.

42. I write for me, not for you. I am my first audience. You can come later.

And that’s the end of that.

Behold Things And Stuff

30 DAYS IN THE WORD MINES is a 30-day writing regimen. $2.99 at Amazon, or 33% off directly if you use coupon code NANOWRIMO.

The NaNoWriMo Storybundle is live — 13 books with another 12 if you meet the $25 threshold. You will note that the bonus tier contains one of my books so go grabby-grabby.

If you want a lot of my tips and tricks and DUBIOUS WORDTHINK agglomerated, look no further than The Kick-Ass Writer, out now from Writer’s Digest: Indiebound or Amazon.

If you’re a fan of mine, you are apparently called “Wendigos,” and hey now there’s a t-shirt by House Organa shop, so, jeez, go be stylish and rad and WENDIGO SEXY.

Now, go forth and —

So, some of you are probably doing NaNoWriMo.

I’m going to pop this post up and leave it here — this is where you can come and talk about how it’s going (or how it’s not going). You can ask for help or tips or ideas. You can rage and froth and grit your teeth. You can ask for commiseration and hugs and high-fives. You can oil-wrestle? I dunno. Whatever you want to do, you can do it here. Consider this a tiny little slice of community conversation for those of you jumping in and doing National Novel Writing Month this go-around.

How’s it going?

What are you writing?

Will you share the work as you go, or after?

What’s your editing plan?

And so on and so forth. Stop by, say hi, tell everyone what’s up.

Last year, I did an official NaNoWriMo pep talk.

This year, I’m doing an unofficial one. With more swearing.

LET US BEGIN.

* * *

Behold, the novel.

The novel is a big thing, a meaty thing, all the meatier if you’re holding an epic fantasy or a literary magnum opus or pretty much anything by Neal Stephenson. It is big and it contains multitudes because at the end of the day, a novel is a bit like a machine. A machine is a working apparatus comprising several interlocking and often moving parts who work together with power applies to accomplish a single goal. That is a novel. A novel is a narrative apparatus. It contains many moving parts: characters, plot, theme, words, sentences, ideas. These parts do not exist separately but operate together in order to tell a story and, ideally, make you feel stuff and think things. You power the novel with your own attention. Eyes scanning paragraphs. Fingers turning or swiping pages. Your mind drawing the story forward with desire.

The novel is a machine, and a machine is meant to be meticulous in its design.

A machine has to work almost perfectly in order to work effectively. If it’s canning peaches, it can’t not can some peaches and leave them sloppy on the conveyor belt. If it’s a power tool, it has to work effectively and regularly — if your drill does not drill or your saw won’t cut, you won’t buy it. If you’re designing a sex machine, the sex machine must sex. Nobody’s going to apply their genitals and their partner’s genitals to a sex machine that won’t sex, goddamnit. I mean, I’m sure somebody will. I expect there are whole hosts of people wandering the streets who will apply their genitals to any immobile object — parking meters, chained bicycles, espresso machines — but you’re not designing a machine for them. You’re designing the machine to meet the larger need. You’re designing your machine for the greater group.

And a novel is like that. You’re designing it not for one person, but for people all over who like the sort of thing you’re writing. It can be niche, but the niche is likely broader than Dave from Topeka.

As such, it’s hard to envision National Novel Writing Month being a good way to build a machine. The iPhone wasn’t designed by a bunch of wine-drunk chimpanzees in a weekend. The space shuttle isn’t the result of some hermit throwing shit together in his garage with duct tape and a soldering iron. These machines took time. They took effort. They took design after design, iteration after iteration. They took endless hours of thought and planning and agitation before execution even began. And NaNoWriMo certainly isn’t that, is it? It’s right to execution. It’s pen to paper, rubber meets road, go, go, go. Turn off your brain and create.

Ah, but here you may think — and you’d think it somewhat correctly — that NaNoWriMo slots very well into that iterative process if you let it. It isn’t the end result. It isn’t the final machine. No, rather, a novel written with NaNoWriMo is just one creative oscillation — it is a hastily barfed design. It is the equivalent to a late night drinking coffee and scrawling blueprints. It’s like a programming hackathon: sit down in order to ideate and iterate. So, that works, right?

You know, though, I’m gonna call bullshit on that.

Because really, a novel isn’t like a machine at all.

A machine is meant to perform a singular task and it is meant to perform it that way for most of the people who use it according to its design. A novel ain’t that.

A novel is a big, messy thing. It is a tangle of ideas. It is a subjective expression where the experience of one reader will different from the next. It’s a meth-addled Escher print.

No, a novel is not a machine. A novel is a creature. A creature who eats ideas and craps art. A creature who is adorable to some, disgusting to others. The novel is a wonderful beastie who will not be easily contained, who can be trained but not programmed, who has personality and imperfection and is unlike any other of its kind despite looking an awful lot like others of its kind. A novel features the flaws and foibles of the nearly-miraculous human body — a human body where we can bite the inside of our cheeks or stub our dumb monkey toes or go bald or get rashes. A novel is driven by its imprecision, by its charming inexactitude. A novel lives in the shadow of perfection and it does just fine there, thank you very much.

Striving for perfection is a fool’s game. You can never get there, and frankly, you don’t really even want it. Because perfection is boring. Perfection is the elegance of an unwritten page — a gleaming white unmarred expanse. As I have noted before, your job is to fuck that all up. Stomp on it with muddy footprints. Get your jam-stained fingerprints all over it. The creation of a novel is an act of glorious imperfection, a ruination of the vacuum where your novel did not exist before. The perfect is always the enemy of the good. The machine is the enemy of the art. As was said in Glengarry Glen Ross: fuck the machine. Fuck perfection.

NaNoWriMo is your opportunity to do exactly that.

Sometimes you gotta go to Wal-Mart drunk and buy everything you shouldn’t buy.

Sometimes you gotta stay up all night designing monsters and destroying worlds.

Sometimes you need to light yourself on fire and run through an orphanage.

Go have a gangbang in a mud pit. Go base-jump off Godzilla. Go punch three clowns.

Embrace chaos. Break the machine. Make some art.

Go be reckless.

Go write a novel.

* * *

30 Days In The Word Mines takes you on a month-long journey of writing, offering pages filled with practical writing tips, motivational throat-punches, and meditative ruminations on the craft of writing and art of storytelling.

Whether you’re running with National Novel Writing Month or just want to hunker down and write to see just how far you can get, this book will help you every step of the way with a new tip, trick or thought every day of the trip.

Grab the book at Amazon.

Or, right now, nab the book for 33% off here using code NANOWRIMO.

And don’t forget to check out the NaNoWriMo Storybundle — 13 writing-related e-books, plus another 12 if you meet the $25 threshold. Money split between authors, Storybundle, and charity.