NaNoWriMo

In case you were wondering, I am doing NaNoWriMo this year.

I have no firm story idea.  Well, nothing well developed that I feel strongly about doing at the moment.  Writing is work, but NaNo should be fun so I prefer doing fun things, not dark stories I mean, for NaNo.  So of course all the things poking at my brain at the moment are on the darker side of things.

Oh well, I’ll think of something.

NaNoWriMo Took Over My Brain

I look forward to NaNoWriMo every year and I try to participate even when I know I really don’t stand a chance of finishing it. I love it. It’s a lot of fun. I’m essentially a hermit but I love being a part of this. But there are consequences.

You may know how it is, either with this or some other passion, however small.

By October at the latest you’re trying to figure out just what you’ll do for NaNo. If you don’t have any ideas you start scrambling to get one nailed down and if you have more than one idea you start scrambling to decide which one to use. Then there’s the countdown, and once November starts, word count.

You write like crazy – even if you only get a chance to write a few minutes every other day that’s still writing like crazy when you can. You work on characters and plot points and conflict and narration and dialog and how do I get this thing written In ONE MONTH.

At first it just enters your brain in the down moments, when work or life lets you think about. Oh sure, it’s there in the background, nudging at your forebrain every chance it gets. But you control it, you moderate it, you fight it and wrestle and struggle and only give in when the moment is right. In those moments you brainstorm and type, your fingers flying like the wind. Or if you’re like me your fingers fly like a gentle breeze that lightly stirs the autumn leaves. Whatever.

Eventually, though, those thoughts become more persistent and more frequent and just plain loud. Sure, you keep doing your work and going to the grocery store and doctor appointments and family gatherings. Except those other things, the non-NaNo things, start to get in the way.

Work? Auugh! Eat? OK, but fast! Why am I so tired? I can’t sleep now, I need to get more words out!

I can’t stop thinking about my plot. A new character just showed up and an old one just said something I didn’t know and I have to figure out how to get to the next chapter. What’s in the next chapter, anyway?

NaNoWriMo is not a month and it’s not an event and it’s more than a brilliant idea and a great concept that has done great things for humanity. NaNoWriMo is a way of life. For at least one month it takes over your brain.

I noticed it two weeks ago, just a few days in. I noticed it, but I don’t think I can do anything about it. I just have to learn how to live with it. And then I have to learn how to channel it into the rest of the year so that I keep writing, all year long, with a similar intensity (for relative values of intensity). There needs to be a balance between life and intense writing, but I need to let myself write more. That’s my goal for after November.

But for now, NaNoWriMo has taken over my brain.

Too many plots, too few words

While looking at that last post to see if it posted, I realized that there were two errors in it.

First of all, I can type fast – it just doesn’t come out as recognizable words in any language known on this planet. If you want real words, then it gets real slow.

And the plot situation is more like there are too many and I can’t narrow things down enough to write only one. The question, for NaNo, is which will be the most fun.

It’s that time of year again

NaNoWriMo is soon to be upon us. In just about a week, a vast number of people are going to attempt to write a novel in one month. Just thirty days to write 50k words. In November. It’s not like there are any distractions in that month or anything.

Much to my chagrin I have not finished the novel I tried to write last year. But that will not stop me from trying again this year. A pathetically slow typing speed, mental fogginess, no energy, time consumed by doctors appointments and a total lack of plot and a dearth of characters, now those will stop me. Well, they won’t stop me from trying but success is looking iffy at the moment.

Who cares? You have to try, so I will.

Now if I only had a plot.

And they're off!

Or maybe it's just me. No, there are definitely other people involved.

So, here I am, back again after nearly a month away. I was waiting for things to resolve a bit in my head. They didn't, but I'm back anyway.

The title refers to NaNoWriMo, which has now begun and I am again participating in my own inimitable - and really, who would want to copy it - way. I have chosen what I hope will be a fun idea to work on. This is all about cranking out the drek and having fun doing it. I'll worry about something that anyone could tolerate reading some other time.

For now it's just stringing words together in some semi-comprehensible way. I can't wait to see whay my brain comes up with and how my fingers interpret it.

More tomorrow.

Still working on November

Well, since NaNo ended on the 30th, I meant to post this yesterday and I'm barely making it today as it is. But yesterday my computer's hard drive started making some very interesting noises. So I spent most of the day first trying to get the machine to start, then making sure that everything was backed up. Such fun. I did have much of it backed up, but it wasn't until that sound started that I realized there were some other things that I really needed to keep.

Today I had to get a few things done, including getting some x-rays. On a good note, as I left the radiology shop, I saw the crescent Moon and Jupiter and Venus. I only got a few moments look because the clouds moved in, but if you get a chance take a look. It is an amazing sight. Of course, on the way home my glasses broke while I was driving and my left lens bounced onto the floor. I had to drive home in the rain with one eye closed. I have glasses that have a nylon cord on the bottom to hold the lenses and it broke so I couldn't just pop the lens back in. Luckily, the less than a year old America's Best Contacts and Glasses near home was open and they fixed it for me for free. Lucky them - I need new glasses so they'll get my business.

On to yesterday's news. I won NaNoWriMo. I now (yesterday) have just over 50k words of gibberish. Pay no attention to any word counts you may see, apparently the NaNo word counter interpreted some of my more esoteric punctuation as extra words. But I do have just over 50k. I said that I expected to have a Draft -5 completed, but now that I am done I would have to say that this version is actually Drat -7.2. Now the task of turning this into something presentable.

Now I have to catch up with some of the things I wanted to get done in November.

Remember to get a look at the astronomical sight, it really is pretty cool.

Time to make the word count

I went missing from here again for awhile. Sorry 'bout that.

I had a few rough days and I've been kind of tired. Both my wife and I have had a lot of appointments lately, not to mention some bad days. I needed a few days in between doctors and such to recover. I had in mind to do some new things in November. I wanted to try some realignment - rethinking how I handled parts of my life and working out new strategies for moving forward. I also wanted to get some more content on this blog, and not just words. Well, best laid plans and all that. Life got in the way just a bit with me doing things in general, with day to day stuff, and in a big way with me blogging. My brain has been fried, so no coherent thoughts on here.

But I'm still working on it. I have the ideas about life, but I need to put it into words and deeds.

Writing-wise I've had some lousy days, but I've also had a few good ones. Now, I'm not saying that I'm writing anything great. I'm just saying that the words are there.

I am embracing the NaNoWriMo ideal of just writing - no editing, no deleting, no spell-check even, just typing. So, if a finished first draft of a novel is draft 1, and a very rough draft is draft 0, then if I get this thing done I will have draft -5.

What I have is not just in need of polishing, it is in need of, well, fire-polishing in the cleansing heat at the heart of the sun.

Low Word Count Weekend

This will not be a profound post. That may not be a surprise to some of you.

I have been in a bit of a mental fog for a few days, so I need to sort that out before any deep thoughts come your way on here.

I will say that I actually liked what I wrote on Friday. It's not great, it needs polishing, but it is a scene that fits and does what needs to be done. Saturday, however, I will refer to as No Word Count Saturday. I wrote not a word. I said I was in a fog.

I got a surprising 1200 some words today, just describing a location and modifying a scene. So, not as productive a weekend as I had hoped. I'll just have to wait and see what next week will bring.

NaNoWriMo Day 3

Just keeping Monday more or less light and frivolous.

Went with my wife to the doctor today. Still, with my sleep pattern I was writing last night after midnight as well as this evening. So I got through another day with decent word count, even though some of it will definitely not make it into a final product. I like parts of it, but not the whole thing yet. I need to get further into the story and introduce some more characters. Maybe then I'll like it better. It seemed OK in my head but not OK as much when I started to write it.

Oh well, we'll see. I do like the characters though. They're a lot of fun and I think interesting.

Some day, someone else can tell me what they think of them.

Day one done and day two done

Day 1 went OK. I got a good start, even if none of it made any sense. I got a decent word count, but I am not in love with this story. It just seems to be missing something. Oh well, I’ll just wait and see what happens.

Day 2 was pretty good as well. I expanded the beginning - I got an idea while I was being used as a bed by a cat. Then of course I went back to what I had thought of before that. Either way, I have a beginning. I also have a few other things going on and I am starting to see some potential, but it still isn’t really there yet.

So, I have a decent word count. Emphasis on the count. This is still utter crap. Of course, the idea of NaNoWriMo is to focus on quantity, not quality. Just get it done and edit later.

Well, that’s where I am, quantity, but I want quality. As much as I don’t love this story, writing it is fun. Well, once I get past the spot I’m working on at the moment it will be.

OK, even this is fun, but the rest will be more fun.

The game is afoot!

12:00 November 1^st. NaNoWriMo 2008 begins.

I have, for now, moved to a default position. The pseudo-steampunk story and the silly fantasy still have no plots. Therefore I am going to start on an old idea, so old that I have no notes in electronic version for this one. I have a semblance of a plot, a decent framework anyway; a few characters but only one has a name, and that is a last name, and he doesn’t actually appear in the body of the novel; and I have already removed one character before I have even started.

It is, since you ask, a horror novel. Not the fun story that I wanted to do, but I like the idea and the characters.

Now on with the writing.

Good luck to one and all, whether you are in this crazy game or not.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to everyone.

I hope everyone has a great day and a fun evening just as spooky - or not - as you want it to be.

It is also my 21st anniversary. We wore masks to our reception, and yes, we gave out candy to trick-or-treaters. I will leave it to you to figure out the logistics.


By the way, did anyone hear about things going on in Grovers Mill last night? I can't seem to get any news out of the area.




The countdown to NaNoWriMo continues.

Further that last post

I said that I wanted to write something fun and I realize that the ideas I listed may not seem like fun stories.

To be clear, the fantasy idea is definitely a fun one, albeit with elements of conflict and such as necessary to make it an interesting story.

The silly horror story doesn’t sound like it would be fun, but it definitely might be – or not, now that I think of it.

I have to admit that the SF story would not really be fun, but it is familiar to my brain – notwithstanding the constant changes in plot elements – and while serious it is not a dark story. That doesn’t sound like so much fun either, does it?

The alternate history/pseudo-steampunk one would be fun in parts and will be partly in nature because it is an adventure story, and it sure would be a blast to write.

So, that’s half. Not so much fun in there. I either have to change my list, redefine my idea of fun or change my criteria. Or pick one of those two stories. Oh well, with my luck I’ll come up with some other idea next week, that is fun, but with no plot, then I’ll get hooked on that idea and I’ll have no clue what to do.

Now that sounds like fun.

Like a whirlpool it never ends

I spent half of yesterday dizzy – no comments, please. Well, except “Blech.” I've had worse episodes, but it was not a fun time. I imagine that it was something in my back and shoulders and neck messing with nerves that did it. You’d be surprised how problems can spread. Doctors are always asking me if I get dizzy. Yeah, I do. Now what are you going to do about it?

Anyway. As far as this NaNo thing goes, I have a few ideas bouncing around in my head – hey, there’s plenty of room in there. At the moment the front runners are the silly fantasy idea, an SF idea, a pseudo-steampunk/alternate history concept and a silly horror story (no that is not an oxymoron, it really is a combination of the two). The problem is that I have no plot for the first, no coherent idea on the second (it keeps evolving), the third would actually require research and the fourth is really just a two word idea at the moment which is only in the running because I just thought of it.

I think that I may be revealing too much about how my mind works. Medical history is one thing, but this is way too much information.

It must be later...

…because here’s more

Now about this NaNoWriMo novel. Here’s the thing: I don’t have an idea. Well, OK, I have tons of ideas, but I don’t have one for November. I want to do something fun. And I have an idea that might be fun – well, writing is fun but I mean a less dark idea. Only this one is only enough of an idea for about 5,000 words; if I’m, lucky. That’s barely a short story.

Now if I just let stream of consciousness go who knows what that could turn into, but starting off with such a thin idea is a little daunting. Then again, that is the whole idea behind NaNo – just let yourself go. One of their mottoes is “no plot, no problem.”

So I may just run with this idea. At the moment, I’m keeping it to myself. Partly because I like to keep new ideas close to the vest, partly because it’s a silly idea. I’ll let you know more once I finally decide.

Which I better do soon as November is fast approaching.

If you’re interested in any more info about NaNoWriMo, you can find it here http://www.nanowrimo.org/.