savannah storytelling

Chappas conquers her quest to produce a novel in a month

To quote Savannah’s favorite son, the late, great John Herndon Mercer, “Hooray and Hallelujah.”

On Nov. 28, two days before the deadline, I completed 50,243 words for the National Novel Writing Month Project, NaNoWriMo. If you think because I finished early and with a few words to spare that it was easy, you’d be wrong. There was much teeth grinding, hand wringing, head banging and un-lady like language along with the many, many hours at the computer.

Close to the end of the month of November, I was literally empty of words; I was “wrote out.” My purpose was to have a rough draft of a memoir about my mother, and, although I had written everything I knew about her early life and everything I remembered from the time I was old enough to be aware of her as my mother, I still didn’t have enough words.

I didn’t want to give up. I couldn’t give up. It would have been embarrassing since I had elected to share my project with the readers of Closeup.

I went back over the manuscript and added details, embellished the stories of Mama’s life, but it was still not enough.

I reached out to family, my brother and my three children, to send me stories of what they remembered about my mother.

My brother, Pete, and my number one daughter, Dori, came through with memories of their relationship with Mama. I got nothing from my other two offsprings.

What I received from Dori and Pete helped. I added their memories, in my own words of course, but it still wasn’t enough. On Thanksgiving Day, I was approximately 3,000 words short.

That evening, I sat at the computer and dug deep. Yes, I had recorded the facts, but where was the emotion? What did I feel about this woman who was my mother?

I wrote until late in the night. The next morning, I still needed 983 words. I took my mug of coffee to the computer and sat there and wrote until I was done.

According to the NaNoWriMo Web site, the total count of words collected this year is 2,427,190,537. There were 167,150 participants. From that number, 32,173 writers met the required 50,000 words or more and were deemed winners.

I am curious to know how many other Savannah writers participated, but I don’t have that information. I did read in the “stats” that Atlanta was one of the areas with a high number of participants.

Also, it was announced that $651,159 in donations has been sent in from participants. NaNoWriMo is a nonprofit organization.

What did I gain from this experience? I gained a sense of accomplishment that I could finish a difficult writing task. I have a manuscript, albeit very disorganized, that may be a book someday.

At the very least, there is now a written record of my mother’s life that my children and grandchildren can enjoy and pass on to future generations.

Will I work on the manuscript any time soon? No. I put the manuscript in a manila envelope, all 140 double spaced pages, and placed it on a shelf in my closet.

I don’t want to look at it for a long time.

Do I want to sign up for NaNoWriMo again? No way! But then, one should never say never.

Original article can be found here.

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Savannah writer continues her quest to produce a novel in a month

It’s Nov. 20 and I am two-thirds of the way to the finish line, writing a novel for the National Novel Writing Program, aka NaNoWriMo.

For those of you who didn’t read my article in the Closeup on Nov. 18, I should explain that I am attempting to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. It will be a rough draft only. In order to reach the target amount of words, I have to produce at least 1,667 words each day.

What will I gain if I do this? The personal satisfaction of completing a difficult project, 50,000 words toward a memoir that I want to write and, oh yes, NaNoWriMo will send me a certificate.

The last 10 days have been easier than the first 10 days. There was more time to write, as I wasn’t as busy and there was no computer crisis. I did have a cold last week. Even though it was uncomfortable for a few days, it worked to my advantage because I didn’t leave the house for a couple of days, therefore, I spent more time writing. Because of this, I made up the 542 words I was behind and have 1,600 words more than my target number for Nov. 20.

I’ve even had time to read the e-mails from other NaNoWriMo writers, giving advice and support. The e-mails were interesting, but not a lot of help. I found the one by Lynda Barry, who is a writer and artist, rather curious. She advises writing the novel by hand. She says that there is a kind of story that comes from writing by hand that makes the experience more lifelike.

She claims that the physical activity of writing by hand involves many parts of the brain which are used in story making, such as time, place, action, characters and relationships. She also advised not to read over what has been written for a few days; a week is best.

Here’s my problem with her advice: In writing by hand, the writer would have to eventually type the manuscript to send it to NaNoWriMo to be counted so that would take additional time, and time is of the essence with this project.

As for the second piece of advice, yes it is good to set your work aside and look at it again after a couple of days, but again, in this project, time is very important and quantity is more important than quality.

Lynda, your advice is good but not suitable for this project.

The book I hope to eventually write will be a memoir about my mother, Theodora Turner, who died last year at the age of 98. She was one of the thousands of strong and courageous women who left their families behind in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s and followed their husbands to America to start a new life. Many of these women never saw their families again because of World War II. They didn’t know the language and most were not well educated, but they worked to give their children more opportunities and a better standard of life.

I want to honor her, and the many like her, by telling her story. The problems she faced and how she adapted to the American way of life will be the theme of the book.

I have one concern about the next 10 days. I’ve been writing so fast since the first of November, that I find I have finished my story. Many times, in my hurry to produce the required number of words, I’ve written only the bare facts. Now, I have to go back to elaborate and put in details that were left out.

In the next 10 days, I need approximately 14,000 words to reach the 50,000 required amount. Will I be able to do it? We’ll find out together.

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