I was about to begin by writing, “we’ve all had writers block at one time or another,” and then I thought better. Besides being bad writing, reason enough to start over, that sentence presupposes that writer’s block is not supremely personal, a solitary experience that can’t be made relevant to any other’s malady. Anxiety attacks are likely a first cousin if not a sibling to that invisible barrier between the act of writing and the writer’s own psyche, and successfully grappling with one disorder can offer parallels in overcoming another.

That awful feeling of intense, yet vague dread, frequently with physical symptoms, quickly becomes self-perpetuating for either writer’s block or anxiety. When your work or studies depend upon your ability to produce written text, such as newspaper reporters or students attending an online university, this potentially debilitating disorder can spell disaster

As a college student in my mid-twenties, I began experiencing frequent, acute anxiety attacks. I was relatively happy, pursuing a bachelor’s degree and working in a job I enjoyed and had no more troubles than most, and in fact, relatively speaking, I had fewer problems than many. Again, none of that mattered to my unwelcomed guest.

Natures of the beasts

While anxiety and writer’s block have many similarities, knowing the features of these conditions that don’t overlap is instructive when considering ways to rise above either. Anxiety attacks stem from free-floating, often irrational fears that commonly defy attempts to articulate by a person experiencing symptoms. Writer’s block, on the other hand, is believed to stem from the ill effects of some inner critic developed from external sources from the person’s formative experiences. What is important to note, though, is the shared difficulty in both instances for the sufferer – and that’s truly an accurate term for anyone who has experienced either or both – of not being able to identify any one source of the problem. The good news is that overcoming either writer’s block or anxiety attacks don’t necessarily rely on knowing that source.

Turn and face the problem

For over a year, I would suddenly feel the onset of an attack. With no discernible trigger, I could feel the tingling announcing hyperventilation. At times, limbs would become weighty to the point I questioned their ability to function. Not surprisingly, I found that my schoolwork was becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish my written work. Quite by accident, though, I stumbled upon my own relief for both issues.

One morning, that familiar dread began again. In the past, my own fears fueled each attack, and presumably, every subsequent one. This time, however, my writer’s curiosity began to concentrate on each symptom. Over time, focusing on my anxiety with interest rather than distress had an unexpected, yet noticeable effect. By embracing the symptoms, my attacks became less frequent, less intense and then finally extinguished. I applied a similar bend to my writing block—again spurred on by that wonder of intrigue I suspect is fairly common among all writers.

I’ve since found articles that echo my own actions, but I’ll claim my own actions as independent at the time. Virtually unable to write my school papers at the time, I began simply journaling my own writer’s block. From free association to a stream of consciousness—I wrote, and I wrote. I wrote so much about my own writer’s block that I soon began to stray in my focus–to my coursework. Call it a trick, but the more I wrote about my writer’s block, the less frequently it occurred. While it became a standard pre-writing exercise to journal my block, after a few weeks my practice evolved into merely recalling the last time I experienced writer’s block, after which I wrote my assignments without fail.

Exorcising your doubts

Just as fear-based disorders are very personal, they all share the unwelcomed pairing of you and your symptoms. Trying to ignore or distance yourself from writer’s block tends to only stoke the problem. Using your skills as a writer, your innate wonder that makes you believe you have something worth saying in words, and your willingness to face your problem makes for a pretty potent remedy. Journaling about your writing blog may not work for everyone, but it’s a proactive means of taking charge of your issue.

Another October ends, another month of crazy writing starts.  Yep – it is time for NaNoWriMo!  Shane (the overachiever this week) already has a post up on this via Novelnaut, but wanted to get a post up myself.  As of starting this post – there is 7 hours till midnight!  My tradition is I stay up and write for a solid hour till 1am… and then since it is usually a work night, head to bed knowing I at least accomplished something for the first day.

This will be my fourth nano.  My first was 2008 and a spectacular fail… think I dropped after the first week.  2009 – now that was the year of my first nano victory and where I really found I loved this whole writing thing.  2010 was also a win, though less satisfied with the product of the month.  I think that novel is going to be perminantly relegated to truck status.  It was a good experience, but not worth investing further effort in at this point.  Perhaps I might canabalize charters or minor plot points from in the future.

This year, for NaNoWriMo 2011, I am going to take a different approach.  With work and life events, I view it as the most “high risk” nano since I started doing this annual adventure.  I have been wanting to work more on my short story form, so have decided to combine that with nano this year.  Still go for the 50k goal, but in the form of ten 5,000 word short stories.  This is technically not true nano form, but I go more by the spirit than the letter of the law here.  The whole purpose of NaNoWriMo is to inspire one to write, write regularly (and in volume) so that at the end of those 30 days you have a solid platform to work from.

In a way, this is achieving two things for me.  First, it makes it a bit more challenging as I am forcing myself to build 10 different plots, casts, and whatnot, all within the same month.  True, plotting out a 5,000 word short story is a bit different than a 50,000 novel – but still.  I am going for a few different genres, a couple of which I haven’t tried writing in before.  The second thing it achieves for me is – success in the event of failure.  With my serious doubts on my time availability this year, more so than any other year, by doing short stories instead of the single novel, if I say only end up with 30,000 words… that still gives me six short stories to revise and edit.

If you haven’t ever attempted NaNoWriMo or tried to write that sort of volume (or greater!) in a single 30 day period, and wish to give it a shot, by all means do so!  Go with the usual rules and hit that 50k mark.  You will learn a lot of things during your first nano or two.  (Well every time you try pushing yourself really.)  That is one of the reasons I am breaking the rules this year.  I KNOW I can write 50,000 in a month.  I have done it – twice now for nano alone.  Heck I know I can write well over 5,000 words in a single day… so I am giving myself a different challenge this year with the multiple short stories in multiple genre’s.

I am going to have a follow up post on this, but I use Scrivener to keep nano writing going and organized.  There is both a Mac and a Windows version – the windows version has just gone up for sale.  I highly recommend the software, so keep an eye out for my article soon on why.

If interested, you can follow my NaNo progress here, or Shane’s can be found here.

Over on Tor.com they have an except from Patrick Rothfuss’s long awaited sequel to The Name of the Wind.  The Wise Man’s Fear is the second book in the Kingkiller Chronicles.  It is a fun read if you are familiar with the first book.

Sadly I won’t be able to read it right on March 1st when the book is released.  On the bright side however, I will get to read an autographed copy as soon as my order from Shawn at The Signed Page arrives.  So it is an even trade, though I still thing Pat should just come visit us North Dakota folks.

If you are a fan of Pat’s writing and haven’t visited his blog, be sure to do so.  He updates regularly and its just fun to follow along.  Though the highlight of the day was getting to read the excerpt.  (Particularly since I wasn’t able to get my hands on an ARC of it.  Just a thought for Day 3 Pat….)

Wow, where has the month gone? Between work, Fire Dept, NaNoWriMo, and other projects 3/4ths of the month have just flown by. First, Happy Thanksgiving to my US readers! Adding NaNo into the mix proved enough to hit max capacity for the month, but still has been immensely enjoyable along with the usual ups and downs of trying to crank out that much text.

My progress has been mixed.  I didn’t hit any of the increased goals this year and have struggled from time to time to keep on track for the 50k.  Last weekend I was able to have two 3k days to bring myself back on track.  I had been hoping to get ahead to finish by Thanksgiving.  We are heading out of town, so I will be away from a computer from Friday to Sunday, so no writing during that time.  That will only give me Monday and Tuesday evenings/night to get finished up.  Since I didn’t, I pulled in my reserve today.

Now my reserve is an interesting thing.  I put all writing work that isn’t directly related specifically to the main story in a separate location that isn’t included in my daily wordcounts.  (In Scrivener which I have been using the Windows beta during NaNo this is really easy.  I created a folder in the Research section and been placing a copy of work in there.)  This has included blog posts, hardware reviews, a couple of random story ideas unrelated to this specific one, totaling around 5k worth of text.  Since it is work completed within the month of November, I track it.  It counts, but i like to keep it separate from the main work.  I keep it in reserve in case anything comes up that i get behind.  Now that is my interpretation of NaNo rules.  Others might disagree whether or not it should be considered valid text.

Personally, I view NaNo is not only helping get a body of text to edit, but helping develop consistent writing habits.  So far this year, I have discovered I have a much higher words per hour count than I did last year.  Last year I was satisfied if I hit 750 words in a hour.  This year, I found during sprints i could hit 1200 words in 30 minutes.  Now averaged out over a hour or two, I have been somewhere in the 1200-1600 words per hour range.  This is at least double of what I was doing last year.  Now, it isn’t really the speed of the typing.  I have always been able to type fast.  It has been that I am far more confident in writing down as I develop a concept.  So, I would say it is confidence that has increased in productivity.

All in all, I am very happy with my NaNo progress this year.  The story itself, I think it will need a lot more work editing than the one I did last year.  Though, that is ok.  After this NaNo, I plant to shelve this novel if I am at a stopping point in the plot and go back to editing the one from last year.

Well, that is enough for now – hope everyone else is having a good Nano month!

Today is day 10 of NaNoWriMo.  As of right now, I am on track to hit the minimal goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month.  I still have hopes of hitting a higher word count in the 60-75k range, but we will see.  Life outside of NaNo has proved extremely busy, but I am comfortable with my progress.

Epic Plans, as you may have noticed, has taken a consistency hit.  Though I had anticipated that.  The novel I am working on this year, Stardust Mage, has already undergone shifts from the original plot outline.  That also was anticipated.  Once I start writing and getting to know the characters, things change.  Or one scene ends up different than I had thought it would, so subsequent scenes shift, become irrelevant, etc.  It’s a fun process to see something develop.

I have noticed something interesting when contracting against NaNo 2009.  Hitting that minimum goal of 1,667 words in a day isn’t as difficult as it was last year.  My pace of writing is roughly double, though i suspect a lot of that is confidence.  I *know* that it is well within my ability to write 2,000 words in a single sitting and that a little here and a little there easily adds up to the requisite word count.  I seem to be on a general pace of around 1,000 – 1,200 words a hour.  So on busy nights like Monday night, I knew I would be able to get to the goal line by writing a hour before bed.  Some nights like last night (Tuesday), review pieces came in, so didn’t get working on it till later than I had planned  However, I was still able to hit my goal mark.

All in all I am enjoying NaNo this year.  I am managing to keep up with (or in front of hehe) my writing buddies.  My personal stats tracker confirms that I am right on track to finish by Nov. 30th.  Below is the tracker that I use offline.  It shows that I am off from the max goal, though a couple of big days will get me back in line for that.  I am shooting for somewhere between the lines though.

So haven’t yet reached my other goal of passing my “most words written in a day” mark.  Last year had around 5,000 words in a single day.  So I am hoping to have at least a single 6k+ day.  (More than one wouldn’t be bad either!) I think I will get there though!

How is everyone else doing?

Scrivener for windows has been out for a week now.  I have had a good week to work with it and give some first impressions.

To sum up the first week in a nutshell, it is clearly an initial beta.  There are bugs, but it is going to be perfectly usable for NaNoWriMo..  The way I set things up actually avoided a few of the bugs people reported.  Since it is a NaNo project, I didn’t do a lot of importing.  Also, didn’t use the pre-made NaNoWriMo template, but started with a blank one.  The beauty of Scrivener is that it is very flexible, so I could set it up like I wanted to.

As far as the beta process is going, I have been quite impressed.  Lee the Windows developer has been extremely active, helpful, and just a downright friendly guy on the forums.  He has already released two updated versions of the program exe with bug fixes.  The only real downside has been the forums seem to get a little cluttered with reports and duplicate reports.  Though there is a vibrant active community forming around the windows version, so a few (myself included) are helping out as we can.  It has been great being part of that and I look forward continuing to do so.

A few tips if you are using the beta version of Scrivener for Windows:

1) Watch the bug hunt part of the forums.  Particularly watch for “Lee’s Daily Update.”  It hasn’t been quite daily, but dang close.  Lee has been doing a great job of letting everyone know what critical issues have been fixed or how progress is going.  Also, on those posts, so far twice he has released updates that fix a few of the initial issues.

2) Take a look at the settings and options.  Some easy tweaks can make Scrivener more customized and comfortable for you to use.

3) If you are going to report a bug on the forums, two things.  First, take a look around see if someone else has reported the same or similar issue.  Not just because it prevents duplicate threads, but someone may have posted a workaround or suggestion for how to deal with it.  Second, post the version of windows you are working with and the version of Scrivener you are using.  It will help us troubleshoot if possible.

4) Backup – backup – BACKUP.  It goes without saying, but frequently back up your work.  It is betas and quirks may crop up.  Plus it is just good practice even if nothing happens with the application itself.  Myself, I use the backup option in Scrivener and have it create a zip file in my dropbox folder.  That way its locally backed up and on the cloud as well.

Those things being said – I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.  With NaNo off to a start, I anticipate a lot of users joining in on the testing.  I really think this will help stress test the program.  When it is released in Jan/Feb of 2011 – we will have a great and solid product.

Play around a little bit with your project setup.  Some folks like a highly structured approach with chapters and scenes.  I do that myself with some projects.  This year for NaNo I am going to make a more concept approach – which I think when finished will develop into logical chapters.

The best post I have seen on the forums actually came from Lee, the Windows developer.

LAP wrote: It’s not just the software – it’s all of us chasing our crazy writer dreams and having the guts to live out our passions, we just happen to congregate in a community around some great software.

Lee is helping us chase those dreams.  He deserves a big pat on the back, a good nights sleep, and encouragement to keep up the great work.

Are you ready?  NaNoWriMo 2010 is about to start.  Some parts of the world have already crossed the threshold, though here in the US there are still a few hours to go.

Personally, I am spending my time enjoying the day, getting some blog posts queued up, and getting ready for the marathon of a month.  Sadly this year the first lands on a Monday, so won’t be able to stay up too late getting a start.  Though, I will stay up for a bit.  Kind of a tradition to start at midnight and see how much I can get done before having to go to bed.

For Epic Plains NaNo is going to translate into a couple of things.  First and foremost – a decent percentage of posts relating to writing and quite possibly specifically NaNoWriMo itself.  Secondly, NaNoWriMo is going to be where I put most of my writing time and energy.  This may translate to somewhat spotty posting, but I hope not.  Paige, who has been writing book reviews for us, (and is also attempting NaNoWriMo for the first time this month!), has stepped up and queued up 3 book reviews for us!

All and all I am really looking forward to the month.  After last year I remained on a roll (as far as writing goes) for quite a few months.  I anticipate carrying that a bit further this year and hopefully not only meeting but exceeding my goals.

For those participating – good luck and have fun!

The beta for Scrivener for Windows is now out!  If you want, you can skip the rest of the article and find the download link here. (Or download via this handy Download Scrivener for Windows Beta 1 link)

It is an exciting day for me.  I have been wishing I could use this software for over a year since I discovered it.  Till now it has been Mac only.  Seeing as I also review PC Hardware, going Mac hasn’t been realistic much less desirable.  Though to each their own.  For the Mac users, version 2.0 of Scrivener is coming out on November 1st.  The beta is being released in time for NaNoWriMo.  This will give the software a very solid beta test period with a lot of users actively trying to use the software in real life scenarios.

Now it is important to note, this is beta software.  If you use it, you may and probably will run into bugs and various issues.  Also, not all features that are planned for final release (Jan/Feb 2011 time-frame) have been included.  I contacted the folks at Literature and Latte and Julia was kind enough to send the list for you guys.  Some are minor pieces, others sound a bit more intensive to get ready.  The lack of any of these features sure won’t prevent me from using it though.  (Note I left the list exactly how I received it in British English.)

Not included in the beta, but planned for final release:

• FinalDraft import and export
• Switching documents by dragging a document from the binder into a header view
• Implement Format > Options > Typewriter Scrolling
• Customise the look of full screen mode.
• Shortcut keys for multimedia play back i.e. play, pause.
• Corkboard setting for number of cards to display horizontally/vertically.
• Corkboard background settings i.e. allow change of graphic and color.
• Import of ODT file format should be added as QT supports this.
• Media files get displayed on the corkboard as Polaroids, should be option to display as regular index cards.
• Documents in binder to show synopsis in tooltip upon hovering mouse.
• Outliner: Alt-click on a twisty triangle to open all subfolders inside the folder automatically.
• Holding the Alt key down while dragging restricts drops to between-only for binder, corkboard, outliner.
• Doc and Docx support.
• Change the colour of an annotation by clicking in it and changing the font colour.
• You can also create Scrivener links by dragging a document from the binder, outliner view or corkboard.
• Assigning keywords is by dragging them onto documents in the binder or the outliner and corkboard views and assign groups by holding down ALT key.
• Edit of toolbar buttons for display in Scrivener toolbar via a dialog needs to be added.
• Line spacing icon in format bar to be added for editor, preferences, and compile draft options.

With those features added and 2-3 months of solid beta testing, the final product should be very impressive indeed.  Once I have used the beta for a few days getting ready for NaNo I will have a follow up “first impressions” post here on Epic Plains.

I did have a chance to use the Mac version this spring for about a month while writing a short story.  (Long story short I tried to run MacOS in virtual and it ate itself around the time I finished the story.  I haven’t tried again since.)  The methodology behind Scrivener is the main reason I like the software so much.  The tagline – “Outline. Storyboard. Edit. Write.” – fits my writing style very well.  I love to brainstorm with the corkboard getting ideas down.  Then I fill out some notes (or in Scrivener those are called the Synopsis on each card), then drill down into each card and start writing a chapter or scene.  I use folders to then later group things into chapters.  At any point during that process it is very quick and easy to go into the “edit Scrivenings” mode which basically takes you straight to the text editor and all the selected file.  IE – you can use it to scroll through and work with the entire body of text.  Oh, and do that in full screen mode to remove all distractions if you wish as well.

So, this year I will be giving the beta a full run through as I transition from yWriter.  yWriter works great, is free, and depending on your style is certainly an option.  Myself, I like to jump between a more structured approach and a fairly free form.  Scrivener is great at doing that.

It has been said many times on the forums, but it must be reiterated.  Backup and save your work often.  While I am sure the beta will be fairly stable, it is beta software.  Be prepared for quirks and other issues.  Frequent backups are just a good idea anyways.

With just a little over a week of preparation for NaNoWriMo, today seemed to be a great time for another NaNo Prep Friday. The biggest thing I have been doing to get ready is jotting down ideas and generally brainstorming on *what* I actually want to write about. I have a synopsis, some notes, a couple of characters, and a (very) rough outline.

Other thing I have been working on myself is seeing what other folks use for their process.  As November gets closer, quite a few writing blogs have posts of some sort relating to NaNoWriMo.  Over on The WriteRunner for example, Andrew had a great post on character development.  Andrew has a number of great NaNo related posts, so certainly worth checking out!  He also has some good posts on plot development and plot structure.

Jane over on Writers Digest also had a good post.  While not a NaNo’er herself, she did a good writeup with suggestions and links to four other articles that might be of use to folks.  Take a look around – there are a number of great articles out there with useful advice.  Don’t forget to check out the forums too of course.  A lot of tips and suggestions.  Seeing how other folks do things may help.  The key is to not get discouraged.

Next to last, I am working on tweaking my writing setup this year.  I am using FreeMind to work on the plot structure and simple text files to hold notes.  As soon as the beta for Scrivener for Windows is out, I will start migrating into that application and getting things organized.  That way I can hit the ground running on November 1st.

Last but certainly not least, I have been collecting desktop Wallpapers and whatnot that I can use during the month.  There is a whole thread on NaNo Wallpapers for 2010.  A lot of great ones in there. A few good examples….

(75k and 100k versions are available as well.)

(Some great Harry Potter variations.  Follow the thread for different sizes.)

(A few versions of this one, but I love it.  Helps that I have a mug like that on my desk.)

As a stats junky (it is either the geek in my or I do way to much reporting at my day job), I also like to track my writing status outside of NaNo.  This thread on the forums has a few different options for tracking your NaNo progress.  The various spreadsheets folks have made allow you to do a little more in depth analysis of how your writing is going etc.

Basic rule is – whatever helps keep you going and inspires you.  Have fun and good luck!

Well a little late with the post today, but better late than never!  I have been working on outlining and scribbling down notes for my 2010 shot at writing a NaNo novel.  Today I took all of that and put together a brief synopsis of the story.  It is not perfect yet of course, but I can revise it once the novel is actually written.  If there is one thing I learned from last year, who knows what directions events might take!

Also, raising the bar this year.  The NaNoWriMo goal is 50,000 words, well I am raising it for myself to a nice even 60,000 words.  I updated my NaNo user page with the novel information, but I am going to post here as well.