NaNoWriMo Day 8: Reflections So Far 📝
Just popping by for a quick update about my first week of National Novel Writing Month. Here’s the scoop and the skinny on my progress. On this sunny November day, I feel like a bulleted list, so I think I shall. [Razzle-dazzle formatting, 🧚♀️done! ] Proceed:
I’m working on draft 2 of a novel about two sculptors that I finished a first draft of in September and purposely didn’t look at again since. I like to let first drafts marinate a few weeks while I work on other projects, so that when it’s time to edit I see what’s really there and not what I think is there. #writerproblems #tookabreaknomistake
Instead of writing new content this time, I edit a little each day. No certain word count each day. Unlike a traditional NaNoWriMo and yet in the spirit of NaNoWriMo’s creative marathon, I’m going rogue and savoring the process as it evolves each day. #keepingitcopacetic
I’m not writing at a particular time of morning, afternoon, or night. Each day has been different, but each day I’ve been both pleased with some dialogue and character insights as well as (on some other pages) frustrated by clunky first-draft stuff I’d forgotten about in my draft. #plotholesIgotem #charactersmademelaughandcrythough
One day last week, I edited three chapters around 11 pm-1 am. That was my longest writing day. Later that week, I had a four-sentence editing day one afternoon for about twenty minutes, aka: my shortest day. Most days, I averaged 2 or 3 pages in 45 minutes or so of the early evening. It’s ALL good and motivates me through the second draft, bit by bit.
Yesterday, I edited around 8 pages in a chapter where my protagonist finally has her own studio. #virginiawoolfvibes #aroomofherown For the first time in a week, I found myself adding two or three pages to a scene, rather than focusing on trimming. Both are needed and will happen in drafts 3, 4, etc., but it was refreshing to tie a bow on the first week by being so back into the characters’ POVs that new ideas were percolating again. #writergoals 🌻
Supporting my fellow intrepid and awesome NaNoWriMo 2021 authors! How’s it going? What projects are you working on? I want the tea. Merci beaucoup, and write on! ☕📝
Photo Courtesy of Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash.com .
"Within Reach"--Ekphrastic Work Featured Today 📓🖊📸
I’m thrilled to announce that a poem I wrote, “Within Reach,” based on a fantastic photograph by talented film photographer Martí Blesa was published today as part of Film Shooters Collective’s NATIONAL POETRY MONTH, DAY 5.
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Check out all of the posts each day during April at Film Shooters Collective!
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Within Reach
by Melanie Faith
It is, indeed,
something
good to be
one and small
Photo courtesy of: film photographer Martí Blesa
of many who are
one and small.
It is, indeed,
filled
with gray
potential,
elemental
to advance
in ordinary sandals
against cement.
More and more
rectangles
await our future.
Stacked lenses
mirrored,
so when we wave—
that pleasant
pain bloomed
there in the back
of the neck—
we wave back
looking up.
Poetry in a Time of Pandemic
It’s my honor to have a poem published in the St. Charles Arts Council’s project, Poetry in a Time of Pandemic. My poem, “Quarantine III,” was just published. May these poems bring comfort, insight, and hope to us all as we wait out this terrible virus.
“Quarantine III”
I cracked open a window, to be touched
by chilled arms: shrill April winds better
than nothing. Sister says she’s started
having nightmares about social distancing.
She wandered through a hall, body shaking,
shaking a fist at duos in sweaters carelessly
entwined in chaste hugs. Last night, I dreamt
of an anniversary party in a giant ballroom.
I asked at every festooned food table for
pretzel rods. I was that specific; they weren’t
just pretzels. The punch was Hawaiian red but
all I could scoop into my cup was pale pink,
square ice pellets that tasted of run-off and
blankness. Not even water could quench
as it vanished. I took more anyway.
My Article Published: "4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing"
Great news! My article was published today. If you like writing & photography, then this one’s for you. Enjoy the writing exercise at the end.
“4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing”
By: Melanie Faith
Last week, I shot my first roll of film in over a decade.
Up to this point my photos, like a lot of my writing drafts, were entirely digital and screen-manipulated. This analog film process was nothing like that computerized process, refreshingly; it shook up the way I thought about crafting my work.
That first roll of film last week was also a lot of other firsts: first roll of black-and- white film, first time loading 120 film (I used to shoot 110 and 35 mm), first time shooting medium-format square negatives, first time using a cute, plastic Diana F+ camera.
120 film has just 12 negatives per roll. Unheard of in the digital world of endless do-overs and deletes. I still love digital, but practicing image-making on film is teaching me to approach my making creatively.
What can photography lend to our writing process?
• Renew your beginner’s mind.
I’ve been photographing since I was a teen, and yet here I was, trying several new photographic styles that were entirely fresh to me.
Many of us have been writing creatively for years, yet we, too, can capture that beginner’s mind and use it to create innovative drafts.
If you normally write prose, give poetry a shot. If you often write novels, try a short story or two.
Or pick a genre you’ve never practiced: perhaps flash memoir or writing a graphic novel or jokes for a stand-up routine.
Or switching POV from your standby third-person to first-person or second-person.
Or it could be as simple as writing a first draft longhand.
These changes won’t necessarily be permanent; they will, however, bring out new ideas and imagery that will surprise and motivate.
• Add a few restrictions to your art and watch it flourish.
In both photography and writing, sometimes if you put obstacles or limitations in your path, you can create something remarkable.
I know: paradoxical.
When shooting with film, I had just 12 clicks of the shutter. I also couldn’t preview it after taking the shots; the Diana F+ camera has a tiny viewfinder, but it’s not entirely accurate to what the lens will capture—it’s more like playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey than aiming at a dartboard. It’s a machine made for teaching how to approach and then let go of expectations.
I had my film for four days before I took that first roll for a spin; four days of narrowing down possible subject matter “worthy” of my twelve little compositions. Seven turned out well enough to submit to a literary magazine. I certainly don’t approach my digital photography that way.
• Approach your writing with more of your full attention.
Because the camera and the shutter-release (on the side of the plastic lens!) and pretty much everything else about the camera was new to me, I had to slow down… and then slow down again… and then a third time. I watched a YouTube tutorial on loading the film about 12 times; no joke.
I quickly learned to trust my instincts more and to rule out certain subject matter in favor of other options, because I knew that I was paying $7.50 for the roll of film and almost $20 for developing.
Even though the cost isn’t exorbitant to practice film photography (especially getting third-hand cameras at an auction site like I did), that it COST me something made each shot precious.
What does your writing cost you? Sleeping in? Time out with family or friends? We value our art more when we sacrifice something for it.
• Think thematically.
Just like writers begin a novel, short story collection, poetry manuscript, or series of essays that surround the same theme or characters, photographers often challenge themselves to create a series based on the same subject, setting, or motif.
The other day, I took a twenty-minute walk with my new camera and then found, in storage, two lawn chairs that had almost been thrown out several times—their worn green webbing and silver metal bases redolent of my parents’ youth and endless picnics and fireworks displays. Yet they’d been stored away.
Gleefully, I dug them out from behind the staircase and arranged them in various configurations on the lawn. Six of out my twelve shots became a mini-series about the chairs.
If I’d had limitless shots would I have found the chairs as compelling, especially for a series? Maybe. But probably not.
It’s very common for writers, like photographers, to take part in creativity challenges that encourage such project-based thinking. Practicing your art with a group of like-minded people for consecutive days will more likely yield workable results.
We writers have NaNoWriMo in November and NaPoWriMo each April. Photographers have challenges like the 365 Project and monthly challenges, such as at Instagram where photographers post themed lists of ideas.
These challenges are often informal but incredibly liberating.
Both writing and photography rely on intuition and self-exploration. A mixture of knowing some things and making up the rest. Both arts often include elements of self-doubt or curiosity that are assuaged with practicing your craft on a regular basis.
Try this exercise: Make a list of five themes you could explore as a series in prose or photography.
Want to learn more? Try my May 2020 online Imagery Power: Photography for Writers class.
Take a perusal of Photography for Writers, my exercise-packed, creativity-fueling book. Signed copies also available at my Etsy: WritePathProductions.
Courtesy of Women on Writing https://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/classroom/MelanieFaith_Photography.php
National Poetry Month <3
Break out your pens! Happy National Poetry Month!
Here are a few ideas for sharing, writing, reading, and enjoying poetry while quarantining.
Let’s make bunches of verse this month!
Image courtesy of Nicole Honeywill at unsplash.com
NaNoWriMo 2019-- Check! :)
Hearty congrats to my fellow NaNoWriMo 2019 writers.
We made it! [High-five.]
Welcome to the World, Photography for Writers!
At long last, it’s release day for my new book, Photography for Writers!
Buy your copy today at Vine Leaves Press. Signed copies also available, via my WritePathProduction Etsy Shop or via pm.
Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash .
A NaNoWriMo Interview with Christin Rice :)
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
Happy Week Two of NaNoWriMo November!
After clocking in my writing this morning, my tally is holding steady at 8,181 words and counting. I’m 100% certain that I wouldn’t have written half this much without the daily writing practice.
But don’t take my word for it: I’m thrilled to introduce fellow novelist, MFA graduate, mom extraordinaire of a super-cute baby daughter, and all-around awesome friend, Christin Rice, who kindly talked with me earlier today about her NaNoWriMo 2019 journey.
*What inspired you to take part in the challenge?
I really like a short term challenging challenge, especially for writing. It propels me and a project forward to have a short-term focus, knowing I can work at a pace that would be unsustainable in the long-term. In my pre-baby life, I could do back to back challenges like that, but with a nine-month old I am focusing on just the month of November.
I also was realizing how good the timing was: December writing is always interrupted by holiday stuff. I travel in January whenever possible.
And my baby turns one in February which is my self-imposed deadline to figure out when/how/what to go back to work. Which means if I want some pages of first draft, November is my best bet. That's good motivation to just get going and keep going.
*What project are you working on?
It's a new novel, and man it feels GREAT to work on first draft fiction. I haven't done that in a year because I've been focused on revising a novel, then writing some creative nonfiction, and oh yeah, having a baby.
The novel is not about IVF and infertility, but that plays a big part in what is happening in the character's lives.
It's really fun to mine some of my direct experience, but put it in a very different context and explore how complicated it can all be through two complicated female characters (I looooove complicated female characters).
*Anything else you'd like to share about the NaNo process?
Don't revise while writing!
Don't let yourself read more than one paragraph back, and that's just to ground yourself on where to go next. You can revise in December, but no editors in your head in November.
Check out more of Christin’s amazing writing at her blog: Invincible Summer.
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Taking your own NaNoWriMo 2019 journey? I’d love to talk to you about your project. Email away.
Photo by Tim Mossholder at unsplash.com .