Thoughts on National Novel Writing Month 2022

“Beginning is hard, but continuing is harder. The most important thing creators do is work. The most important thing they don’t do is quit.” - Kevin Ashton 

I participated in November’s National Novel Writing Month for the fifth time this year. I haven't finished a novel yet but then again, I’ve never gone in thinking I was going to actually write a novel in thirty days. Instead, I’ve used the month to try and finish some of my short story ideas. 

I had the following goals for NaNoWriMo this year:

• Complete four of my short story drafts by working on one a week.

• Write 500 to 1000 words a day.

• Beat last year’s word count.

• Write every day. 

Three of the drafts are incomplete stories from previous NaNoWriMo’s. The fourth is actually a completed story, the first story that I ever submitted for publication. It’s also my first rejection. I decided to apply some of the feedback that I received and expand upon it. My plan was to work on that one and then finish the other three. 

Beyond that, I hadn’t really done any planning or preparation. But as I began writing I realized that I was still trying to figure out my characters and their motivations. I started asking myself a lot of “how” and “why” questions. This led to asking and answering questions about my character's backstories and their world. I wrote these questions down and started writing out possible answers. This helped a lot, kept me writing, and led to ideas that I was able to put into the story. As helpful as it was, it wasn’t enough. 

When I got to the middle of the month it was clear I was running behind. I was writing every day, but only 200 to 600 words a day. And I was still working on the first story. 

I decided to rethink my goals and review what worked for me last year. In 2021 I read a book on writing for motivation, Creating Short Fiction by Damon Knight. It helped a lot. But this year I wasn’t reading anything like that. So, with all that in mind I came up with new goals:

• Finish the story I was expanding. 

• Try and get to a second story. 

• Increase my word count so I can beat last year’s word count.

• Read a book on writing. I pulled Steering the Craft by Ursula Le Guin off my shelf. 

• Write every day. 

I rethought my goals again within a few days. I just wasn’t increasing my word count and I was really wrapped up in the story I was trying to expand. So, I dropped two of the new goals. I decided to not worry about getting to a second story, not worry about beating last year's word count, and just focus on completing the one story. My stress level went down immediately. For the rest of the month, more often than not, I found myself getting into a writing groove when I sat down to write.

Reading Le Guin’s Steering the Craft was a big help. I had started it before, but I don’t think that I was ready for it. Between the feedback I got from all the people who read my story before I submitted it, and the feedback I got from the rejection, I had a better understanding of what kind of things I needed to improve. I didn’t finish the book but the advice and the exercises from the first few chapters were enough to motivate me to try and apply the lessons to my writing. 

One of the things I learned from NaNoWriMo this year is to adapt as you go. I felt good about my original goals but then reality set in. It helped to review and replan throughout the month. I think it also helped that I had more than one goal. I always had one particular goal to fall back on: Write every day, and update my word count, even if it was only one sentence. It kept me going. 

So, this is where I wound up at the end of the month:

• I met one of my original goals, to write something every day.

• I met one of my updated goals, to complete the draft of one story. 

 

NaNoWriMo is over and now I have some new goals: finish more stories. 

Books I Read in November 2022

“The reality is this: Life is just a balloon floating dangerously in a roomful of lit cigarettes. At any moment, second, day or week, Pop! And then everything as you know it is different or gone. Sometimes both.” — John Bolden, Spungunion 

Four books and two comic book collections this month. 

Rosemary's Baby (1967) by Ira Levin 

Rosemary and her struggling actor husband move into a New York apartment house with an unusual past. After she becomes pregnant, she starts feeling pain in her abdomen and strange things start happening.  She starts suspecting that the people around her are manipulating her somehow. A slow burn at first but every chapter drops a clue and increases a sense of discomfort and dread until the last chapter. 

Spungunion (2020) by John Boden 

Deke is a truck driver devastated after the loss of his wife. She was murdered while he was on the road and the killer was never caught. Through flashbacks we learn how he felt when first met the love of his life and when he found out about her death. After a period of just going through the motions of living and working, he decides to find some answers by driving down the Soul Road, a road that lost souls and the damned are driven down. 

An atmospheric story about love, loneliness, and revenge. I really liked the writing style. 

The Balance (2020) by Kev Harrison

The setting is a village in Poland during the Cold War. Natalie is supposed to be watching her younger brother Kuba when he breaks his leg. With no access to antibiotics and Kuba in danger of losing his leg, she seeks help from Baba Yaga, the old woman in the forest. This upsets her mother, the townspeople, as well as the church.

The story drew me in right away and I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. I really grew to like Natalie. She tries to do the right thing when faced with difficult choices. An excellent folk horror novella about balance and sacrifice. This was my favorite book of the month.

Song of the Red Squire (2022) by C. W. Blackwell 

Crime noir meets folk horror in 1949.  Charlie Danwitter is a WWII veteran who suffers from PTSD. Now he’s an agricultural inspector for the US government. He is sent to the backcountry of North Carolina to inspect apple orchards. After farmers keep running him off, he hears about an out of the way village and decides to head there. He discovers that the village has an incredibly old orchard and some very strange rituals.

Loved the prose, the dialogue, and the characters. As much as I liked the writing, the ending left me with questions, and I wasn’t sure what to make of the epilogue.

Comics:

Harrow County Omnibus Volumes 1 & 2 (2021) by Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook 

These two volumes collect the entire run of Harrow County minus the extras from the comics and regular collections. 

Harrow County, 1930s. When Emmy turns eighteen, she finds out the truth about her past and how she is connected to the creatures and ghosts of the forest known as haints. It’s a story of old magic and backwoods horror in a southern rural setting.

I love Cullen Bunn’s mix of dark fantasy and horror, the various characters, and the engaging storytelling. I like how Emmy grew throughout the story. I love Tyler Crook’s figure work, facial expressions, and creature designs. The watercolor artwork is gorgeous. I like how the Harrow County title is incorporated in the opening splash pages of every chapter. He also does an amazing job with sound effects, having them blend into the surroundings. It was a great read from start to finish. 

Books I’m planning on reading in December:

The Winter Book by Tove Jansson 

The Winter Solstice by John Mathews 

A Maigret Christmas and Other Stories by Georges Simenon 

A Christmas Carol and Other Writings by Charles Dickens 

Christmas Gothic Short Stories from Flame Tree Publishing

I’m sensing a theme…

More Quotes About Writing

I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month again. I’ve been writing everyday but not as much as I had hoped. One thing I do for motivation is read quotes about writing. Here are some of the ones that I’ve turned to for inspiration this month. 

“Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.” — Isabel Allende

“Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it’s only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.” — Jane Yolen 

“If you write every day, the next day ideas have bubbled up from someplace that you had no idea was there.”  — Walter Mosely

“The process of writing is a really important one because even in the process of writing anything simple, your mind starts to notice connections, and connections are what fiction is made of.” — Neil Gaiman

“You have to write when you’re not inspired, scenes that don’t inspire you. The weird thing is later, you’ll look back and can’t remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired, and which you wrote because they had to be written next.” — Neil Gaiman 

 

"No action simply for the sake of action. It’s got to serve a purpose — better if it serves 2-3 purposes: illuminate character, advance the plot, add a wrinkle, add an obstacle, culminate a character arc, or set the stage.” — Scott Oden 

 

"Try to leave out the part readers tend to skip.” — Elmore Leonard 

"What occurs in your mind is a great swirling mass of half-formed notions, which are interwoven with worries, memories, songs, and emotions; the signal-to-noise ratio is overwhelming. Putting the thought in writing crystalizes it and gives it life.” —  Luc Sante

 

“There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.” — Ernest Hemingway 

“Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.”  — Katherine Mansfield 

“Beginning is hard but continuing is harder. The most important thing creators do is work. The most important thing they don’t do is quit.” — Kevin Aston 

“Writing is like breathing, it’s possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.”  — Julia Cameron 

 

Books I Read in October 2022

I only read two books last month, one of them being Stephen King’s 600-page Fairy Tale. For October I read one fantasy reference book and shorter horror books that have been on my to-be-read pile.

 

The Complete Guide to Middle Earth (1979) by Robert Foster

An excellent reference book for the world of the Lord of the Rings. Entries are listed alphabetically. I didn't read every entry, but I used it quite often while watching The Rings of Power.

The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson

A classic gothic horror novel. This started out pretty slow then got really interesting. My full review is here: 

We Learn by Writing: The Haunting of Hill House: The Book by Shirley Jackson and the Series by Mike Flanagan

Hammers on Bone (2016) by Cassandra Khaw

Lovecraftian cosmic horror meets hard boiled noir. Private investigator John Persons is hired by a ten-year old boy. The boy says his stepdad is a monster. As the reader soon learns, John Persons knows all about monsters. 

Like most crime noir, things aren’t always as they seem. Things don’t go as planned and our P. I. has to deal with them. It’s a dark story in that it’s cosmic horror but also in that the story comments on domestic violence and abuse. It’s all well done and very creepy. 

While I enjoyed the Raymond Chandler-like hard boiled prose and 50s slang, at times it seemed like it was too much. Also, there’s a reveal in the Interlude that threw me off and made me wonder how reliable the narrator was going to be for the rest of the book. 

I’m up for reading more stories about John Persons. The epilogue seems to set up things to be explored in future stories. I see there is a second book in the series, but John Persons isn’t the central character.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth (2021) by Cassandra Khaw

Five thrill seeking friends rent out an old Japanese mansion for a wedding. It was chosen by the couple getting married because it’s supposedly haunted by a ghost bride.  

I liked the setting and all the references to yokai. Unfortunately, I didn’t really care for the characters. While I liked some of the descriptions and metaphors that were used, there were times where it felt too wordy.

Mapping the Interior (2017) by Stephen Graham Jones 

A modern ghost story that explores loss, grief, and memory. Junior, a young Native American boy, lives with his younger brother and widowed mother in a small house. Junior begins to believe that the ghost of his father is walking through the house wearing full Blackfeet regalia and tries to catch glimpses of him. 

Great opening line. I liked the narration by Junior throughout. The prose was smooth, and the story flowed well. Starts out atmospheric and haunting then moves to creepy.

Night of the Mannequins (2020) by Stephen Graham Jones

A teen prank involving a mannequin doesn’t go as planned. Then the bodies begin piling up. This fast-paced novella was like an 80s horror movie with dark humor. 

This is the second book I’ve read by Stephen Graham Jones and the second time he’s gotten my attention with a great opening line. He then kept my attention with engaging narration from the protagonist even though the story got as crazy and dark as it did. I’m looking forward to reading more of this author’s work.

The Hellbound Heart (1986) by Clive Barker 

A man seeking ultimate pleasure opens a puzzle box that summons beings called Cenobites. Things get bloody. 

Fast paced and creepy. I liked the writing. For example, there are some paragraphs where Barker describes the passing of the seasons that were just lyrical. An interesting contrast to the darker parts of the story. 

This novella was made into the 1987 film Hellraiser. 

Cycle of the Werewolf (1985) by Stephen King 

Each chapter covers one month of a year in which a werewolf is terrorizing a small town. This was originally planned as a calendar with illustrations by Bernie Wrightson and short vignettes by King, but King decided to expand it into a novella instead. 

The first few chapters set up the story and then as the months pass, we get to know more of the townspeople. The story really gets going in July when we meet young Marty and his uncle. I really liked the interaction between the two. Things get wrapped up rather quickly in the last three chapters, but I enjoyed it. 

Each chapter has three illustrations by Wrightson: a black and white double page spread, a color illustration, and a small b&w spot illustration. The double page spreads that open each chapter are gorgeous. The details are outstanding.

A Night in the Lonesome October (1993) by Roger Zelazny 

Thirty-one chapters of mystery, adventure, horror, and humor, narrated by Snuff the dog. Snuff is the companion to a knife wielding gentleman named Jack. Together they are players in “The Game.” As the story progresses day by day, the reader discovers more players (The Count, the Doctor and his Experiment Man, and the mysterious Larry Talbot being some examples) and more details about “The Game,” leading up to the final confrontation on October 31st. 

This is one of my favorite books. After I discovered it I learned that many people re-read it every October. This was my third read. 

The Haunting of Hill House: The Book by Shirley Jackson and the Series by Mike Flanagan

 “No living organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

— Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (1959)

The Book:

Four people stay at an old mansion hoping to gather scientific evidence of the supernatural. 

I found the first half unbearably slow. We spend a lot of time getting to know Eleanor, one of the people invited to stay at the house and I was beginning to think that I just wasn’t going to like this book. But then I found the second half so compelling that I finished it in one sitting. As I got further into the book, the dialogue and the complex relationships between the characters drew me in. Then it got genuinely terrifying. Now I want to reread it someday and pay more attention to the first half.

I have mixed feelings about the writing style. I thought that some sentences and paragraphs went on too long. On the other hand, sometimes the writing was a sheer joy to read. While it took its sweet time to get going, in the end it was a fascinating read. 

After finishing I found myself still thinking about it days later. I decided to watch the 1963 movie adaptation The Haunting, directed by Robert Wise. I liked it a lot. It’s well-done and follows the book pretty closely. Next, I watched the 2018 series, The Haunting of Hill House directed by Mike Flanagan. Wow.

The Series:

The ten-episode series is not so much an adaptation of the book as a new story that’s strongly inspired by the book. A couple moves into Hill House with their five children and plan to spend the summer renovating it. Unlike the book we get to the spooky stuff pretty quickly. The series jumps back and forth between two timelines, the events at the house and events years later when the children are grown up. 

The series takes lines, scenes, names, and a couple of characters from the book, and tells a new story about family, grief, and trauma. It’s all very well done and while you don’t need to have read the book to enjoy it, if you have read the book, there are details that will add a lot to your enjoyment. 

I liked how each episode built upon the next. I liked how scenes were often revisited from a different perspective which gave the viewer new information. The jump scares were well done (one in particular actually made me jump out of my chair!) but the best scares came when slowly realizing that there was a ghost in the background of a scene. 

I liked the mix of family drama and spooky stuff. It was similar to what Shirley Jackson did in her book but with a larger cast. Once again, the relationships between characters drew me in. The cast, both the child actors and the adults were amazing. 

Three episodes really stood out. First, episode five. The way the previous episodes led to this episode and the reveal at the end blew me away. 

Next, episode six. It’s a great story but it’s also amazingly directed. About ten minutes in I noticed something. The camera hadn’t cut away. It eventually does but the entire episode is done in five long shots, moving effortlessly between a funeral home in the present and the house in the past. The story and the direction work so well together. It was the perfect next step after the events of the previous episode. 

Finally, episode ten, “Silence Lay Steadily.” Everything comes together and the final revelations are heartbreaking.  But the story still finds a way to end in an uplifting way. I had some mixed feelings about how things played out but then came the final lines. And because of one word, having read the book will make those closing lines all the more meaningful. 

Absolutely brilliant storytelling and direction. This and Midnight Mass (2021) have made me a big Mike Flanagan fan. 

Now I’m even more motivated to re-read Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. And when I’m finished, I’ll be re-watching the Mike Flanagan series. I believe both are worth revisiting. 

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

 “There’s a dark well in everyone, I think, and it never goes dry. But you drink from it at your own peril.” — Stephen King, Fairy Tale

Charlie Reade is a high school student who winds up taking care of an old man who lives in a big creepy house with his dog. The old man also has a secret. 

I’ve seen lots of reviews saying that the first third of the book is more compelling than the rest. I felt that way at first but then the story drew me in again. The first third is an interesting mystery and sets everything up. From there the story moves into the fairy tale aspect. It almost felt like a different book from that point, and I think the story slowed down a little. It didn’t bother me. I was just enjoying the ride and it didn’t take long for things to pick up again. If Stephen King’s version of a fairy tale doesn’t click with you, you probably won’t enjoy the book. It worked for me.

It’s not that his version of a fairy tale and the world he created is so astounding, it’s the story, the characters, and the prose. It’s been a while since I got lost in the pages of a really long book. I loved it from start to finish. 

There is one thing that I didn’t like so much. Charlie often mentions old movies, which is fine, but he mentions seeing them on Turner Classic Movies constantly. It’s a minor complaint but it got old after a while. 

Some other things that added to my enjoyment of this book: 

The dedication. It reads, “Thinking of REH, ERB, and, of course, HPL.”

Robert E. Howard is one of my favorite writers. I read the John Carter of Mars and the Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs when I was in high school and loved them. The first horror book I ever read was by H. P. Lovecraft. 

The chapter illustrations. They’re by Gabriel Rodríguez and Nicolas Delort. I especially like the ones by Rodríguez. He’s the artist for Joe Hill’s Locke & Key. 

The chapter titles. Each chapter is numbered but also includes a few phrases that refer to that chapter’s events. Those hints always kept me interested. It’s done in the style of Victorian novels.

I think it’s interesting how the chapters themselves are organized. They’re broken into numbered sections. In his book On Writing, Kings talks about the difference between books that appear hard to read because of long, packed paragraphs and books that look easy to read, because they have lots of short, concise paragraphs. It seems like the same principle can be applied to chapters. Maybe this is one reason why the book seemed to flow for me. 

I like how King demonstrates his love of reading, storytelling, and language throughout the book. Noir books by Cornell Woolrich get mentioned, as well as fantasy and horror authors Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Henry Kuttner, and August Derleth. At one point a place where Charlie is traveling through is so creepy that it reminds him of the vocabulary in Lovecraft books. I also like how language is played with once the story moves into the fairy tale aspect. 

I love that King reminds us that the current versions of classic fairy tales have been watered down from their original forms. I’ve been interested in this topic for a long time. I have a copy of The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm translated by Jack Snipes on my shelf. It’s an excellent collection of the original stories. I haven’t read anything from it recently but now I’m motivated to jump back in. 

Finally, one of the big reasons I liked this book. It stuck the landing. I don’t always enjoy the ending to a Stephen King book or story. I loved the ending to this one. 

Renegade Swords edited by D. M. Ritzlin

Renegade Swords is a collection of eight sword and sorcery and fantasy stories from DMR Books. The stories were chosen because they are either a little obscure or because they have been overlooked. As with most anthologies, I enjoyed some stories more than others, but I enjoyed them all. 

“The House of Arabu” by Robert E. Howard

Pyrrhas the Argive is a barbarian who has ended up in Mesopotamia after much wandering. He finds himself cursed and being stalked by a night spirit named Lilitu. He visits an evil sorcerer as well as the realm of the dead in order to learn how to lift the curse and discover who placed it on him. As with most Howard stories the story moves quickly, and the battles were well written.

This story wasn’t published until after Howard’s death. It appeared in Avon Fantasy Reader #18 in 1952 and was renamed “The Witch from Hell’s Kitchen” for some reason. I think the original title is much better. I enjoyed this but not as much as most of the other Howard stories that I’ve read. On the other hand, I would have probably liked reading more stories about Pyrrhas. 

“Necromancy in Naat “by Clark Ashton Smith (unabridged version) 

Prince Nadar searches for his betrothed Dalili, after she is kidnapped by bandits and sold into slavery. He eventually tracks her down to Naat, an island ruled by necromancers. Once on the island he has to deal with three necromancers and a creepy creature. 

Smith’s writing is filled with unique vocabulary and phrases which help to create a dream-like atmosphere. The story has a haunting and bittersweet ending, which I was not expecting at all. 

This story is part of the Zothique cycle, set on Earth’s last continent in the far future. It was interesting to learn from the introduction that about thirteen hundred words were cut from the story when it first appeared in Weird Tales in 1936. The unabridged version didn’t appear until 2010 in Volume 5 of the Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith.

I read one Ashton Smith story from The Best of Clark Ashton Smith years ago, but I don’t remember much about it and never read any further. This story had a much stronger impression on me. I’m looking forward to reading more. 

“The Woman of the Wood” by A. Merritt 

A WWI veteran recovering from his experiences in the war is staying at a French inn. He has an experience in the woods which leads him into a confrontation with a man and his two sons who live nearby. I’ve known about A. Merritt for years, but this is the first thing I’ve ever read by him. It’s not sword and sorcery like the other stories but I enjoyed it. I liked the writing and the atmosphere. 

“The Slaughter of the Gods” by Manly Wade Wellman

This is the last of the Kardios of Atlantis stories. The previous stories can be found in Heroes of Atlantis and Lemuria, which I reviewed here:

We Learn by Writing: Heroes of Atlantis & Lemuria by Manly Wade Wellman, Leigh Brackett, and Arnold Kummer Jr.

Kardios makes his way to a city supposedly ruled by seven gods. The gods are actually creatures controlled by a beautiful sorceress. Not my favorite Kardios story but I liked the ending. As he’s deciding where to go next, he thinks of one of the characters from a previous story. 

“People of the Dragon” by Lin Carter

Tribesmen in a prehistoric world face hardship when the weather changes to freezing. After the young narrator’s grandfather has a vision, the tribe migrates south. When a hunting party doesn’t return, the narrator and his friend investigate. What they find is very creepy. 

I like the story and how it’s narrated by one of the characters, but I did not like the writing style. More on that below. 

“The Pillars of Hell” by Lin Carter 

This story continues the adventures of the tribe from the previous story. As they are traveling through a desert, guards begin disappearing at night. This time the narrator is the son of the narrator from the previous story. More creepiness as he finds out what’s been happening to the guards. 

I have really mixed feelings about these two stories. They’re both exciting and well-paced but the writing style is filled with archaic English vocabulary and sentence structure. Phrases like “ever and anon,” “at the time whereof I speak,” and “Wither at this dark hour?” popped up so often that I found it distracting.

I’m aware he didn’t always write in this style and probably did so in these stories for effect, but it didn’t work for me. I couldn’t help but compare the writing to Clark Ashton Smith, who’s unique style I quite enjoyed. 

“The Rune-Sword of Jotunheim” by Glen Rahman and Richard L. Tierney 

This is a Norse sword & sorcery tale in which two characters, Hadding the Norsemen and Afhild the giantess, have to deal with a demon. A rollicking good story with interesting characters, an interesting world, and an appearance from Odin.

“Princess of Chaos” by Bryce Walton

This is a fun sword and planet story. Moljar, born of a Terran woman and a Martian outlaw, is being forced to fight in an arena on Venus. When it’s attacked by Mistmen, the cat-like Princess Alhone says she will free him if he gets help. He agrees and one of the other gladiators, Mahra, a female Terran mutant with silver hair joins him. I liked the interplay between Moljar and Mahra as well as the non-stop pace of the story.

I enjoyed this collection a lot and I'm happy that there are more volumes out. I have Renegade Swords II on the shelf and Renegade Swords III was released in March of 2022. It's a great opportunity to read some overlooked but interesting stories.

My story ratings:

“The House of Arabu” by Robert E. Howard (4/5)

“Necromancy in Naat” by Clark Ashton Smith (5/5)

“The Woman of the Wood” by A. Merritt (4/5)

“The Slaughter of the Gods” by Manly Wade Wellman (4/4)

“People of the Dragon” by Lin Carter (3.5/5)

“The Pillars of Hell” by Lin Carter (3.5/5)

“The Rune-Sword of Jotunheim” by Glen Rahman and Richard L. Tierney (4/5)

“Princess of Chaos” by Bryce Walton (4/5)