Pumpkin Pie & Monster Eyes

I have to be honest, November is one of my favorite months. First off, I love the colder weather, and here in MD it really doesn’t start to cool off until mid-October most years. Secondly, I love pumpkin pie. And thirdly, I love NanoWriMo! (That’s National Novel Writing Month, if you hadn’t heard of it). The goal of NanoWriMo is to write 1,667 words per day, for a total of 50k words at the end of the month, which comes out to roughly a short novel. So far this year, I’m ahead of the game. This is my 11th year and hopefully my 10th win, and it gets easier every year. (Also, if you want to help out, consider donating to the non-profit’s Young Writers Program!)

So this year, I have three goals:

·         Main goal: 50k words in a month (which is about 1667 words per day)

·         Stretch goal: 60k words in a month (which is 2k words per day)

·         Stretch-stretch goal: 75k words in a month (which is 2.5k words per day)

That said, I’m currently hovering at about 2600 words per day, so if I can maintain that pace, it’s possible I could even beat my stretch-stretch goal (which would be awesomesauce). If this happened, though, I’d have to start on a new book, because I’m pretty sure I’d run out of material for my current WIP (which is Book 5 of Land of Szornyek).

I’m only about halfway through the month so far, so we will see where we end up! You can check out my progress here.

I’ve had a few questions since the beginning of the month about how I can possibly write this much, this fast, etc. etc., and I have two very quick answers:

1. It’s my full-time job, so I have all day to hit my word count goals if I need it.

2. Practice. Ask a guitar player how they can play so fast or such complex pieces and they’ll say “Practice.” It’s the same with writing. The more you practice, the faster you get, the better your rough drafts get. It’s really quite simple.

Also this month, I’m doing a series of monster drawings which I am posting daily on Instagram. I’ve done this for the last three years and it is a great amount of fun (though I don’t know what I’m going to do once I’ve finished the monster series!), though this year I have made a slight change, which is that I am no longer naming every monster unless I plan to use it in the series. Turns out, I can do the drawings pretty quickly, but all the world-building details take me a lot longer.

It seems that November is a popular month for “doing things”: for example, there is “No-Shave November,” in which people refuse to shave for the entire month; “No Spend November,” in which budget-minded people attempt not spend any month on anything outside of their regular necessities like food; and “November Photo Challenge,” in which you post a photo a day based on a specific pre-determined theme—and of course, there’s NanoWriMo.

Are you doing anything interesting this month?

On Covid

First off, let me just say: I am not sick. Nor have I gotten sick. Nor has my spouse. Or my dog, lol.

But a lot of people have. As of today, over 10 million people in the US have had the disease, and almost 250k people have died from it. Even if you love conspiracies and are like, “that’s not true, only 50,000 people have died from it!” or whatever number you’re throwing around—it doesn’t change the logic. Because those lives were still important. They were still somebody’s child, somebody’s parent, somebody’s grandparent. And there are a lot of them.

Remember 9/11? Less than 3,000 people died then. And we launched a war against the people who caused it. 250k dead from covid, and people are still arguing about wearing a mask.

At any rate, Josh and I have been locked down pretty much this whole time. I go grocery shopping once every 3 - 5 weeks, and he is working from home. We rarely even go out for our sanctioned outdoor exercise, because here in the city, so many people are out in the parks it’s incredibly stressful, and most don’t wear masks. We even bought a mini-freezer so we can store more food in the house, and thus have to go out less often.

During the point of the pandemic during which there was a decreasing number of cases, I went walking with a friend, and he went golfing twice. We also visited his parents for a few weeks in NH during the summer, doing a full two-week quarantine before and after.

We now own about 10 masks between us. I should probably get some more.

I have to say, rolling into 2020 was not great. But this was certainly not how I expected it to be.

I’m not entirely sure what I want to say on this topic, but I have spent a lot of time thinking about it, so I wanted to write it down.

I think the short version of the story is this: I’m sad.

I’m really, really sad.

I don’t even know anyone personally who has died, but when I think about all of the people who are gone, and all of the people who are still alive who loved them, it makes me so, so sad.

When I think about those who don’t think the virus is real, it also makes me sad. And a little angry. But mostly sad. Because those who don’t respect the mask and social distancing guidelines are putting themselves and their own families at risk, along with everyone else they come into contact with. And the main argument is “my personal freedom, though!”—which basically implies that an individual would rather risk spreading a deadly disease than give up their own “personal freedom.” Meaning that they have little to no concern for the lives, health, or safety of those around them. I do know there are those who struggle to wear a mask because of anxiety and other reasons, but if everyone ELSE wore a mask, then those individuals could have the flexibility to address their needs, as opposed to having to worry about catching the disease from everyone around them.

Last year, my grandmother died. She was old, and had Alzheimer’s. We were not surprised by her passing. But I was fortunate enough to be there with her when she left, holding her hand and loving her with my whole heart.

But when a person has covid, they die alone.

If the pandemic had begun only a few months earlier, I would not have been able to be there with my grandmother when she passed from this world into the next.

I experienced a great amount of pain when she died. And I can only imagine how much more pain there would have been if she’d had to die alone.

I know that our world is confusing and messy and terrible. Everyone is stressed. Everyone is upset and miserable, for wide ranging reasons.

But it hurts so much to think of all the grandparents and parents and children and siblings and friends who have died alone from all of this. And I have no idea what comes after we die, if anything at all. But this amount of pain, all the pain that is rolling off of each one of us—it has to go somewhere.

When I was in college, the student body president, Eve Carson, was murdered as part of a gang initiation. It was awful. The day after we found out, it was like this fog had settled down over the entire campus. There were no smiles. There was no laughter. Everyone was in shock.

But that moment was nothing compared to the moment that we are in now, and that fog was nothing compared to the fog we are in now. And this moment isn’t going to end when the pandemic ends. This moment is going to live on. The cloud that has settled over us, the darkness, and the pain—we will carry this with us for the rest of our lives. And we will share it with our children. And their children.

There is going to be a lot more pain before this is over.

I have no solutions. I have no pithy platitudes.

I can only hope that we will endure.

Fairy Tales & Pants

In the last newsletter I wrote, I talked mostly about monsters, but I wanted to switch over to fairy tales this time. After all, I do love me some fairytales.  Like, a lot.

So far, I’ve written a bunch of fairytale retelling short stories, have four fairytale retellings published [link to midnight wings again], and have five more in the works (and plan on many after that). I also read retellings quite often, watch all of the terrible movie versions, have read many of the original tales, and studied various different ones from all over the world (though, let me be clear, I do not consider myself even close to an expert, lol).

So what is it about fairytales that I find so appealing? Especially since fairy tales and tales of monsters seem like two completely different things on the surface.

The first thing I like about fairytales is that they’re comfortable. I know that when selecting entertainment, a lot of people are looking for the next new thing, the next unique story, or something that is different and interesting. But the truth is, when I read books or watch TV, more often than not, I’m looking for something more comfortable than unique. It doesn’t have to be exactly the same as what I last watched or read, but I want it to at least feel similar enough that I’m not wandering off into some deep dark, magical forest of doom, death, and destruction (okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration lol).

I’ve been exposed to fairytales from the time I was a small child—from fairytale themed dolls, to Disney movies, to reading YA novels based off of fairytale characters or set in fairytale worlds. My favorite book at a teenager was Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted, and I have probably read it at least twenty times at this point. So when I dive into a new fairy tale, I know exactly what I’m going to get.

(That said, the most disappointing fairy tale retelling I ever read turned out to be an allegory for domestic abuse. Which is probably much closer to the intent behind original fairy tales than the more modern “happily ever after” stories. So, when I say I enjoy the “comfortable” nature of fairy tales, I should clarify that I like the comfort of the modern retellings—the ones that take terrible stories of horror and fear and turn them into something happier.)

Another thing I love about fairy tales is how flexible and adaptable they are. Even now, writers are taking the fairy tale retellings from their own childhood, and trying to rewrite them to remove the parts that they find problematic, and include issues and concerns that are more relevant to modern issues. And the last generation of fairy tale tellers did the same thing, and the generation before that.

These stories have some key thematic elements—love, strength, courage, honesty, generosity—that are still relevant, but the way we communicate those ideas have changed. And so the way we tell the stories might change, the core ideas and concepts remain the same.

The last thing I’ll say about what makes fairy tales great, is that anything can happen. They are completely magical in nature, and literally anything can happen.

A person who can shapeshift into a bear? Sure.

A magical house made of gingerbread and candy? Done.

A half fish-person who wants legs? Easy.

Fairy tales have it all: dwarves and dragons, wizards and wilderness, and most of all, changing hearts and minds. The magic is endless.

Comfortable, flexible, and magical—interestingly enough, that’s also how I like my pants lol.

Below, enjoy this picture I drew when I was 16 of two knights trapped in a bubble by a wizard.

A Couple Quick Updates

This month is National Novel Writing Month, and this is a special year for me—it’s my 11th anniversary! If I had been thinking about it, I would have celebrated more last year on my 10th, lol, but palindrome dates are good too. Anyway, I have competed in Nano for over a decade. Out of those ten years, I have won 8 times, and I’m planning to make this year my 9th win. So hopefully, after Nano 2021, I’ll be able to say I’ve won ten times, which is also a cool marker.

Anyway, this month I’m working on book 5 in the Land of Szornyek series, tentatively titled “Voro’s Return.” I’ll also be posting monster sketches on my Instagram!

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Monsters, Magic, & Mayhem

It’s October and everyone has been putting out their Halloween decorations, so it probably makes sense that I’ve been thinking about monsters a lot. Also, I’m reading a book about the way monsters are used in fiction, I listened to a podcast episode about monsters, and I write about monsters, so yeah… lots of monster contemplation going on over here, lol.

Monsters are an interesting storytelling technique because aside from your average human monster (serial killers, etc.), we don’t really encounter very many “monsters” in day-to-day life. We can live in a city or an urban area, and it’s highly unlikely that a lion is going to show up and start stalking us or a wolf is going to get a bunch of its buddies together and hunt us down. And even in more rural areas, we have houses and guns and electric fences and all kinds of tools and resources to protect ourselves, so the danger is a lot less than if we only had a spear or a knife.

Aliens haven’t shown up yet (as far as we officially know), Lovecraft’s creatures haven’t come knocking, dragons and other magical monsters don’t exist—and so our exposure to monsters in real life is limited to human monsters, wildlife safaris, and the occasional run-in with a black bear or shark (if you live where they do—I’ve not had that problem in Baltimore haha).

And I think that’s one reason we have such a fascination with monsters—it’s that we don’t face them in real life. And trying to imagine what it would be like is exciting, interesting, and reminds us of the things our ancestors faced back when they lived less digitally and more closely with the natural world.

At any rate, as Halloween rolls around, I’ll be enjoying the depictions of ghosts and demons and witches and monsters all over the city, and maybe, if the mood strikes me, watching a scary movie or two. And of course, working on writing my own monsters!

Do you have a favorite scary movie I should check out? (Preferably featuring monsters, of course!)

In celebration of Halloween, enjoy this image of one of one of my creepier monsters (at least, that’s what people tell me lol). It’s a hulla. They use human skin and human brains to reproduce. Yup, lol.

A couple quick updates:

I’m killing it on new manuscripts! I finished the rough draft of a brand-new urban fantasy trilogy (yes, all three books are drafted) that I’m excited to tell you more about soon.

I also got back the fourth book in the Land of Szornyek series from my betas, and just sent it out to my proofreader.

In Rove City news, I finished a short companion story specifically for my book release newsletter subscribers (click here to subscribe and get the short story for free!) and I have five more books in the series either partially or fully drafted. It’s been a productive couple of months!

I’ve also got a deadline for the audiobook version of Land of Szornyek (holding off on sharing until it’s confirmed!) and have started the process of creating an audio version of the Rove City series.

I’ll also be participating in NaNoWriMo for the ELEVENTH time (I can’t get over that it’s been OVER a decade since I did my first Nano), so if you follow me on Instagram (@arielesieling), you’ll be seeing an uptick in monsters over there.

I’m also working on a few other things (because I’m not great at sitting still lol) and I will check back in with more details once I have them!

Happy October, friends!

How To Do A Writing Sprint

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If you’ve never heard of a writing sprint, let me first say, Welcome to the World of Writing Sprints!

(I’m imagining saying that like the guy in Futurama episode 1.)

Anyway, doing sprints is one of my number one techniques for producing content quickly.

Here’s how they work:

You set a timer, close Facebook, and write until the timer goes off. And if you want, you can measure the number of words you have at the beginning of the sprint and at the end.

That’s it.

It’s that simple.

You can even race with other people if you want. (Though, remember, writing more words doesn’t make you a better writer, more competent, or more qualified. I can write “banana” a thousand times in twenty minutes and totally hack the sprint and make it look like I’m the fastest writer, but that’s stupid and pointless and don’t be a banana.)

My personal preference is to set the timer between 15 - 30 minutes, and take a 5-minute break between sprints. These days, I tend to be closer to the 30 minute range. I find less than 15 min too short to really get into it, and longer than 30 is too long and my attention starts to wane. Other people like to set the timer for five minutes. Or an hour. Or two hours.

It’s really about what works best for you.

Back in the day (way back, think like 8 - 10 years), I had heard of sprints and thought they were stupid. “Why need a timer?” I asked myself. “What’s the difference between writing for twenty minutes with a timer and without?” and so it took me a while to try it.

But there’s definitely a difference. Something about having a defined beginning and end point works really well for my brain. I also find that sprinting with others helps. Something about the social pressure of not having produced any words at all during a sprint makes me want to get my brain into gear.

There are plenty of tools you can use to do the sprint. You can set a timer on your phone, download a desktop timer, use online sites—some people even have browser blocker extensions that make it so you can’t use the internet for that interim of time. What ever works for you.

Quick tip: If you’re writing by hand and sprinting with other people, the easiest way is to do a quick average—count how many words per line for maybe 10 lines, and then how many lines per page, and multiply.

So for example, if you have a sheet with 20 lines, the top ten lines might look like this: 7 words, 8 words, 11 words, 13 words, 15 words, 7 words, 10 words, 8 words, 9 words, 10 words. Add them up (98), divide by the number of lines (9.8 — you can round up to 10) and that gets your per line average = 10 words per line. Then, when you do your calculation at the end, just multiply the average but the number of lines. So if you have 20 lines on the page, it’s 10 x 20 which is 200 words per page.

I know sprints don’t work for everyone, but I’m a big fan. Lately, I’ve been working on my speed.

I use a bot in Discord as my timer (you can join my server if you want; I do monthly prunes, so lurkers get booted, though), and my top speed is 52 words per minute, which beat out my previous personal best of 48 words per minute.

That said, quantity isn’t the important part of sprinting.

The important part of sprinting is the focus.

It doesn’t matter if I write 50 words during a twenty minute sprint or 500 words or 1000 words. What matters is that I stayed attentive to my project for the entire sprint.

Sometimes, I can get into the zone for the entire sprint, and my wordcount is insane.

Sometimes, I need to go back and read some of what I wrote previously, before I can continue forward. Then my wordcount is lower, but it’s fine, because I was doing what I needed to do in order to move forward.

Sometimes, I need to go back and fix something, I delete a few sentences, and my wordcount actually goes down. But it’s fine, because I was doing what I needed to do in order to move forward.

Sometimes, I don’t even write during sprints. I often edit (and count pages) or do completely other things, like responding to emails or setting up ads or whatever it is I’m working on that particular day. And then I make up completely random numbers (for the Discord bot—it counts wordcount to measure sprints), but it doesn’t matter, because I’m doing what I need to do in order to move forward.

As we move into November, I’m going to be doing a lot of writing sprints because it’s National Novel Writing Month! I’ll be writing a whole book in Nov, so I’ll be needing that word count to succeed.

And if you’re interested, I invite you to join me!

A couple of last minute thoughts:

• Sprints aren’t for everyone. If they stress you out, don’t do them!

• You don’t have to share your real wordcount. Nobody cares. Make it up if you want. It’s the focus that matters.

• Even though doing sprints with other people is structured as a competition, it really isn’t. It’s about focusing. It’s about getting words on the page. Or getting some work done. And if the sprint helped you move forward, you’ve succeeded.

In the end, it comes down to focus. And sprints help me focus. <3

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