First week is over.

Well done SoCNocers, you have nearly made it through the first week!  Not only that, but thanks to our monarch (Gawd bless ‘er), the kiwi kiwiwriters amongst us have been granted a public holiday today.  As the weather forecast looks grim for most parts of the country, even sunny Wellington, this is the perfect opportunity for knuckling down and catching up on any lagging first week word counts.

            This is my second SocNoc and so far so good.  For one reason and another (one of which was laziness), I did virtually no planning this time, despite all the wonderful prep exercises that we were given in the run up (thanks KarenJM and others!).  And I am someone who likes to plan things in advance.  I think it was Hemingway who said that a novel should be like the tip of an iceberg – that the reader only sees a small proportion of the complex and detailed world that the novelist has created.  I think planning is an important part of creating the underwater part of the iceberg: the backstories, the character foibles, the setting, in fact, all the things that make for a fully rounded and convincing story.  And research provides some excellent hooks for the story line – for example, my novel is set in Chile and I skimmed through a travel guide to remind myself of what it was like.  The travel guide mentioned that Chilean maps are often inconsistent and inaccurate.  So there’s a handy pointer for my plot – my characters can get hopelessly lost as they try to find their way through the remoter reaches of the Chilean Altiplano.  And being an argumentative bunch, it will probably all end up in a big fight. 

Having said that, people like me who are really into meticulous planning and researching, can get completely bogged down in detail that they might never ever use and put off getting started on the actual writing.  I’m speaking from bitter experience here … I did a huge amount of research on sheep farming in 1960s Yorkshire for one novel (now abandoned), but when I read through my draft, I realised that the parts where I had used my extensive sheep farming knowledge were really boring – they definitely belonged in the underwater part of the iceberg that the reader doesn’t see!  And there’s nothing like launching straight into something for spontaneously generating ideas and developing characters on the hoof. 

For SocNoc, I’ve been doing a minimal amount of planning and research as I go along.  My novel is based around a journey, which provides me with a structure (one of the things I struggle with), and I’m quickly reading up on the different places where my characters are going – travel guides, web searches and Google Earth are all great ways of finding information quickly, especially the photos that people attach to Google Earth.  I also find my 45 minute morning walk to work is a great time for thinking out what I am going to write that day.

I still don’t know what the best balance is for me between planning and research.  But that’s one of the best things about SocNoc – approaching something differently, challenging yourself, getting right out of your comfort zone and all at breakneck speed as we hurtle through the month of June.

When I say comfort zone, by the way, I don’t mean physical comfort.  So turn up the heating, surround yourself with motivational treats, enjoy the rain lashing on the windows … and have a great writing day!