I *hate* getting newsletters on a near-daily or even weekly basis, so I can promise you that I won't abuse your email inbox with spam. I really cannot fathom a scenario that would cause me to send a newsletter out more than once a month, and probably not even that often.
So why should you sign up for the newsletter at all? Well, I know that something like 70 people are subscribed via the RSS feed link but don't comment on a regular basis. I'm not sure how often you Awesome-But-Silent gentlefolk are checking the recent posts, and I can imagine that major stuff might get lost in the RSS shuffle of 20 New Posts! (19 of them about things you don't care about!) fun-ness. I feel like a newsletter would be a neat way to bridge the gap between "how do I find out if something major is going on over there" and "I don't want to waste my whole day finding out".
So what kinds of things will go in this newsletter? Well, announcements about new deconstruction series, for one. (Claymore can't last forever, you know.) And announcements if Ana ever gets off her cushion and releases that book she keeps talking about. And announcements when a deconstruction finishes (knock on wood!) and the posts are compiled into an easy-to-download-and-hoard-on-your-hard-drive form. And, ummmm... I can't think of anything else. Well, eventually I have to go in for a back surgery, so you'd probably get an announcement about that, too. (You can see why I don't expect this to be a weekly spam thing.)
Anyway. Newsletter: It exists, it's going to be awesome, and there's a button. I can't promise that signing up will increase your odds of finding an adorable fluffy kitten in your front garden, but I'm not going to say that it won't, either.
(Feel free to treat this thread as an Open Thread for today.)
32 comments:
As someone who already checks your site possibly more frequently than a reasonable person should, I am probably not your target audience, but it sounds cool.
Taking the lead in derailing your open thread: have you (meaning anyone who happens to read this comment) ever participated in NaNoWriMo before? I'm planning to finally do so this year and I'm using the remaining weeks to get myself into an ideal position for success - there's a post about it over at my blog, where I'm trying to decide between three leading options for the story, and also trying to gather advice from past participants. (This Wicked Day made the excellent point that writing with a group can be a great motivating factor, so I'm looking into that as well. Communities: I need more of them in my life!)
I take issue with the idea that a "reasonable person" WOULDN'T check this blog 84 times a day. I mean, I do, and I'm a model for reasonable behavior and awesomeness. Ha. :P
I've never participated in NaNoWriMo. I'd really LIKE to, but I've looked at the "words per day" that have to be written and I wonder if I could make that. I rather think I couldn't. In addition to working 40 hours a week, I have "weekly goals" of 3 (meaningful) blog posts per week and 1 read-and-review book per week. (I've been falling down on that last one because I've been trying to write and format my OWN book.)
I wish it weren't in November -- that's SUCH a busy month for me. January would be so much simpler. But maybe I'll try this year. How many words per day is it again?
Strictly speaking there's no 'words per day' rule, but the goal of a 50,000-word book in a 30-day month would require 1,600-1,700 words every day on average. It's not an instant failure if you skip a day, but you'll still have to make up for the lag later. That's not bad for me in a conversational style like a blog post, but when writing fiction I keep getting tied up in stylistic things which I probably shouldn't be thinking about anyway. (That's something I should probably take into account as well - of the three ideas I synopsised on my blog, the second one would be the least likely to make me self-conscious about narrative voice.)
50,000 words total which the creators of the thing break down to 1667 words a day with a one day grace period in case you fell behind.
For comparison, the absurdly long post I made about names in Twilight after playing around with the google ngram thing, was a mere 1331 words. Or, to give an example that isn't all about me, Twilight: Gaslighting 101 was 2884 words. So you're looking at a daily wordcount of about 58% of the gaslighting post.
Hmm. I think I'm in WIll's boat, in that I get really tied up in the "correct" way to phrase stuff and that can slow down my fiction writing a LOT. I know that NaNoWriMo isn't "about" correctness, but I'm not sure I want to train that habit out of myself! :D
On the other hand, I *am* working another book project while I edit the "main" one, so maybe this is an opportunity waiting to happen. :)
I'm pretty attached to the idea of 'do it the right way the first time, no second draft', but I don't think it's helping me in terms of getting fiction down, and I need to train myself more in the direction of 'MAKE WORDS GO ON PAGES', so I think this is entirely an ideal event for where I am as a writer. In all of Pierre Berton's Joy of Writing ("A Guide for Writers Disguised as a Literary Memoir") the part that has stuck most in my head is rule #1: "Read! Read! Read! Write! Write! Write! Rewrite! Rewrite! Rewrite!" - he said that he didn't have the experience to know if his advice applied to fiction (he was a historian) but I'm thinking it very much does.
84 times a day is only slightly too much.
(Depends on how much other stuff I have. Sometimes I've finished my blog reading list by noon*, so I check for new things more. Other times the Slacktiverse has a flare-up, Runescape has some exciting new thing to play, and my bloglist declares an unofficial Let's All Post a Lot Day all at the same time, and I end up reading for six hours straight to catch up.)
Not really the Nanite type, so can't help there.
*Today is not going to be one of those days: Google Reader still has a dozen more posts in it.
...It has stuck with me so much that I mentally recorded it as 'rule 1', whereas Google Books informs me that it is rule #4. Rule 1 is 'Know and understand your audience', which is even more terrifying.
I've participated twice, but never finished NaNo; things like exams, weddings, and all the other little things that tend to infest one's life kept getting in the way. I'm giving it another try this year, though, and went to the library last night to pick up some research material. :-) The fact that I'm actually researching and planning before the writing starts has me feeling pretty good about the potential for not only finishing this year, but finishing with a strong first draft that'll stand up well to revising later.
The glory of NaNo, for me, is the hope that writing under that kind of pressure will force me to shut off the internal editor that seems to chatter at me non-stop and just get to the point, like Will said, where "WORDS GO ON PAGES." I now feel compelled to find a LOLCat picture somewhere that says it. If one cannot be located, I may go so far as to create one.
I now feel compelled to find a LOLCat picture somewhere that says it. If one cannot be located, I may go so far as to create one.
I need to use this as my desktop wallpaper until December. Actually, now I'm envisioning a four-panel procedural comic... I wonder if I could get my cat to cooperate in a photo essay.
If one cannot be located, I may go so far as to create one.
LOLCat Voltaire?
That is something I would love to see. :D
My problem is that when I'm finished and I write "The End", it's very hard for me to make CONTENT changes. Tweaks and edits and re-writes of individual paragraphs, yes, but "OK, Chapter 3 needs a major change and that's going to have to flow through the rest of the following 17 chapters" changes, NO. I have a huge huge huge hard time doing that.
Part of it is a mental block, I'm sure, thinking that what has come before can't be essentially changed. But another is that when I'm done with a project, I'm kind of DONE. I don't mind making it shiny, but I don't want to rip out stitches and go another direction and start over from that point. This is one reason why my "planning" stage is VERY long and I follow a rigorous outline and revise the future outline as needed after every chapter. Because I know I'm not going to want to come back and start over.
I'm not sure that attitude is conducive to the NaNo style. I almost think the only way I could make NaNo work with my weirdness is if I had the outline planned out in EXCRUCIATING detail prior to the November start date.
I definitely have problems with major rewrites.
It's not so much being finished with something when I get to the end (I've never made it that far) it's that once I write something in the story in my head that's how it happened, it's very hard to make how it happened into how it didn't happen.
It's not so much being finished with something when I get to the end (I've never made it that far) it's that once I write something in the story in my head that's how it happened, it's very hard to make how it happened into how it didn't happen.
Agreed. Changing it is like changing history. PLUS! It's hard for my brain to REMEMBER that I made a change, and I end up (in future writing) referring to events that didn't technically happen for the reader. :(
I try to combine the Sir Terry view, 'there are no continuity errors, merely alternate pasts', with the mythological view, 'it depends who you ask'. I mentioned Cu Chulainn the other day (he is reborn in Jacob Black!) and in rereading a bit of that story, I found that in different versions of the myth, CC might be Lugh's adopted son, or his son by way of a possible one-night-stand with a travelling noble's daughter, or his son by divine intervention, or his son by his wife and there just happened to be a travelling noble and family who were present on the night of the birth. People will have preferences, but it's impossible to say which one is actually the 'true' myth.
Part of the reason I think it's so hard for me to Make Words Go On Pages is that I tend to have a half-dozen versions of how events can go, and writing just one down feels like I'm illegitimising all the others, some of which have aspects that are really fun. But if I can convince myself that 'this is just one way things might have gone, but not the One True Way' then it's a little easier to get stuff out there to begin with (and to still feel okay about changing it later).
Will, you could write it like Justine Larbalastier (sp?)'s "Liar". After every major chapter, the narrator says "no, that was wrong, it's really this" and it CHANGES EVERYTHING. I've rave about it more, but literally everything I could say would be a huge spoiler. It's a wonderfully weird book.
Another thing pounding through my head is that I've wanted to put together an anthology of short-ish stories by different authors. I wonder if people who can't commit to NaNo would like to do *that* instead...?
@Ana Mardoll
Re: Being DONE and finished with a Draft Zero / One: That's what your editor is for - even publisihed authors get to that point in their manuscripts, and then they send them away to someone else to do the critical-eyes part. By the time the MS re-arrives and is red-penned to hell and back, there's been enough of a break that you're ready to look at it again and make it better through revisions. And you're a couple chapters into the next work, trying to make that one come together.
I personally do my best to generate a significant amount of words through blog postings, but I don't think I get to 50,000 words even in one month - NaNo would definitely be about "words go on pages. Even when you're writer-blocked on what happens next, you can probably write what happened after. Or what happened before. Or something else that's part of the adventure. You'll find the connector later. For now, just WRITE."
I am yet another rewrite-fail person. The only way rewriting really "works" for me is if I write it first longhand then I can edit as I type it up. If I type the first draft my brain just won't see it as a mutable entity, and I'm afraid I'll change a cause and forget to change the effect or something and screw myself up. Hmm, maybe if I tried REtyping it from one wordprocessor window into another? I ought to try that.
And then of course there's the true editing horror of finishing it, loving it, going to edit and finding a plothole the size of a bus that you somehow missed and have no clue how to fix. Ohnooooo! x_x And I present an example in which the writer did not fix such a huge fatal flaw: The Compound A well written well characterized trapped-underground-after-nukes horror story ruined by a flaw so huge you'll be tempted to write to the author and tell her to strangle all her beta-readers for not catching it.
I wanna read your book Ana! Finish it and I'll buy it. I need to buy Kit Whitfield's too.
Is checking this site three times a day excessive, or just normal considering how fast the Twilight discussions sometimes move? Hmm... I'll go with normal.
If you're at three times a day then I'd say you're well within healthy limits.
I wanna read your book Ana! Finish it and I'll buy it. I need to buy Kit Whitfield's too.
You're too sweet. :D I'm starting EDIT ONE OF THREE today, and I really really hope to be out by the year end. We'll see. :)
So I've been thinking of the novel in a month thingy, I have an idea I'm mulling somewhat. I'm wondering what anyone else thinks.
The setting is a random city with a superhero and a super villain. The fights between the two are absurdly non-painful for the people of the city, mostly because the super villain is very careful (never blows up a building without making double sure it's empty and checking to make sure that the resulting debris will not cause a health hazard, never steals something that isn't insured from someone who can't afford the loss, never bankrupts an insurance company that doesn't deserve it.) In fact some people (those with jobs in construction) actually like the fights.
The villain is still selfish (he's not the Leverage crew, he's in it because he wants the money for himself and likes blowing things up) but his conscience is annoyingly broad in its inclusion of other people which severely limits his ability to be evil. (Taking hostages doesn't work if everyone knows that you'll never harm them. Giant city wide fights are harder to win when you're constantly making sure not to hurt anyone.) The villain is the protagonist by the way.
The hero is the antagonist. He's sort of what would happen if one day Superman decided to kidnap Lex Luthor's girlfriend for a change. For the greater good of course. Law and order would obviously be best served by catching law breaker with explodey habits. By whatever means necessary.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Girlfriend is a reporter because I'm stealing from traditional superhero things to an absurd degree here. Except she wouldn't actually be his girlfriend at the time. Over the course of the story villain and reporter start a relationship because, just like the hero, the villain has a non-super walking around identity, in which he started dating. The breakup happened when villain finally came to the conclusion that no matter how much he liked being around her hiding the thing that would cause her to dump him simply wasn't right. (He hates his conscience with a fiery passion, by the way.)
At some point after that in one of their many fights villain does something that makes it clear to hero that he likes reporter, and hero gets the brilliant idea to abduct the reporter and use her as bait. (This does not hurt hero's conscience in the least, she's clearly been associating with law breaker and is therefore just as bad.)
Beyond that, I've figured out that villain should initially try to figure out how to rescue her the way he would an art work or a child, and finally realize that he's dealing with an adult and amend his plan to be more along the lines of, "Untie her and give her a ray gun, then see what she thinks we should do and respond accordingly."
Also, I'm not sure of the best thing to do since the plan is definitely to end with the two of them together but I don't want to have the message that if you save someone they fall in love with you. Yet the only way I see the timing working out is if they get back together after the whole kidnapping thing. I'm wondering if it might work to have her save him (she does end up with a ray gun after all) and then ask him out and have him respond by hanging a lampshade on the whole rescue=romance thing in a, "You think I'll date you just because you saved my life?" kind of way delivered with total lack of seriousness. I'm not sure if that would fully avoid the thing because it would still be villain saves his ex-girlfriend, reporter saves her ex-boyfriend, they get back together.
Anyway, I've been thinking about this since sometime yesterday, any thoughts?
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This is the NaNoW[random letters here] thingy thread, right?
You're too sweet. :D I'm starting EDIT ONE OF THREE today, and I really really hope to be out by the year end. We'll see. :)
This is the sort of question I feel uncomfortable asking because sometimes the response will be, "What the hell? I've been shouting this high and low for ages. How can you not know? Don't you listen to me?"
What is your book about? Have you said? Are you willing to say?
Haha, no, I haven't been shouting it from the rooftops. I nearly made an announcement on the blog when I started earlier in the year, but I finally decided that "I'ma gonna write a book" was probably non-news and that I should wake everyone when there was something substantial to report.
I need to make a post next week about it because I'm hoping to get a few Beta Readers volunteers. :D
As for topic, my book is a fantasy fairy tale; it's a tragic retelling of Beauty and the Beast. The beauty character is named Bella. (Make of that what you will. :P)
I love fairy tale retellings (Wrede and Tanith Lee have done lovely ones), so this seemed like a good "write what you like" subject. And it nicely meshes my love of fanfic with a comfortably public domain subject. And it's the first thing I've done where I've been able to stick to my outline and visualize the ending from the start -- that's helped immensely. :)
Gelliebean, I stole your LOLCat for my collection. :)
Chris,
Anyway, I've been thinking about this since sometime yesterday, any thoughts?
I love this idea, but if you haven't seen the movie MegaMind, for god's sake DON'T because you'll probably have idea pollution -- it's got a few of the themes you mention.
I'd also love to see the woman be a city engineer or something. She's making bucks from all the buildings being knocked down, but it's sad for her to see her handiwork destroyed all the time. Plus, doesn't it cheapen the new work they put up? They cut corners because it's just going to get knocked down again.
What a crisis of conscience will ensue when the villain realizes that the "knocking down buildings" strategies he employs has resulted indirectly in fatalities because the construction companies are cutting corners and building shoddy buildings on the assumption that they'll be knocked down before the support bits give out. :D
@ Chris: I like your lampshade, oh yes indeed.... :-D
I think there are several factors that will keep it from being as bad as you might think it would. One, they already have a history together, which means that there was already a significant mutual attraction that they were willing to act on. Two, they would have the drama of "Wait, you've been this evil villain the whole time?" thing that she'd have to deal with, which I think would preclude an instantaneous falling-into-his-arms Damsel in Distress kind of move.... (or am I making assumptions that she knows his secret identity at this point?) Third, if you have them both save each other at some point, that means they both would be fully aware that she's just as capable and strong as he is, which would also reduce the potential one-sidedness that a less thoughtful author might expose of her swooning over the big strong 'hero'. I'd love to see a couple that could tease each other in the way you suggested, with respect for each other and acknowledgement that 'this could look pretty bad, but we both know it isn't.' :-P
Does it make sense to assume that a city with frequent destructive super vs. super fights would have a labyrinth of extremely well built bunkers* under it with many, many easy to access entrances to allow the streets to be cleared within minutes and buildings to be cleared quickly, though not nearly as quickly as the streets, via the use of very large centrally located elevators that have triple redundancies on all their systems and multiple independent power sources**?
Or am I just being silly?
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*These would not be intended for living in or doing work or commerce in, they'd just be there to be a safe place to go in the extremely short term should things go to hell. (They would have toilets, places to sleep not so much.)
** Because if your plan for evacuation is an elevator instead of a stairwell you want to make very sure it will work.
I think that makes sense. I just read a good fantasy novel (Darkborn) where the sun burns people. They have a system of underground tunnels to "go underground" if they're caught out at dawn and in danger.
she could be trying to figure out where super villain is when not engaged in super villainy, which adds an additional layer of weirdness to the reveal that he's been hanging out with her.
I'm beginning to imagine this as Soon I Will Be Invincible meets The Shop Around Then Corner/You've Got Mail, and it is a good thing.
I'm liking the idea of the villain's girlfriend as a civil engineer, partly because she could be the one suggesting ideas like "We should build a vast network of bunkers and tunnels downtown so people can quickly escape superfights", and partly because it gives both of them reasons to be investigating each other - he knows that she's the city's (new?) chief civil engineer and has information that will be very useful to him in his career of low-victim crime, and she wants to find out where the @#$% this villain is who keeps on blowing up the city because holy @#$% do you have any idea how complicated municipal planning already is when it's not constantly raining debris?
Before getting much further, it would be useful to know what's going on in her head when they get together the second time - has he shifted towards good, or has she shifted towards villainy? Why doesn't she hate him for being a supervillain?
Where did my absurdly large post go? Will asking the question convince it to appear?
Another one? Besides Erin and Benjamin the Rat? I don't see one in the SPAM net... :(
No, not beyond that, I should have made an edit to say that it did indeed reappear. It was there, and then it wasn't. I reloaded the page again and again, it wouldn't come back, I asked where it went and then it came back.
Some posts in the Avoiding Stupid Ancestors thread disappeared on me as well, but they have since reappeared.
How odd! I'll have to keep an eye on that. Generally, if the "post" button was hit, Disqus seems to have a record of it, and I try to check the filters once a day.
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