I'm still debating. The first year I tried it, I was in school and won. The second year, I was in school and lost. Last year I didn't try it because I was in school. This year, I'm not in school, just working so I'm thinking I might do it again but I tend to not actually decide to do it til a couple days before November 1 because I keep waffling. I think I really want to this year though.
If I do, I'll be rewriting the story that I didn't win with, since I liked the story but didn't like the way it was coming out. I'll try to plan more this year to avoid that happening again.
This one is looking like it's going to be a heck of a thing. I'm running with an idea that I've had tangling in my head since high school, which I'm nervous about because it involves complicated time travel that I suspect won't work as well on-page as it does in my head, probably leading to the later sections feeling more episodic than continuous, but I'm hoping it'll play out all right.
The external complications are that 1) I'm probably going to be very busy with work in the first half of the month, and then 2) I'm going to New Zealand for the last 10 days, which is awesome, but I don't know if it'll mess with having time/energy to write that much that continuously. It'll probably be fine, but I've got various little stresses related to the trip, so anxiety remains.
Open question for anyone: if you were going to a magic convention, what things would you most want to check out? Food Wizard cooking competition/classes? Non-Euclidean fashion shows? Arcane menageries? Four-hour symposia on the logistics and ethics of telepathy?
Ana, how much do I love your avatar? That is adorable.
I am embuddying people whose names I recognize. ^^ My username is the same there as here, even though I can't be counted by their counter because I'm actually doing graphic novel pages (1 penciled page a day, for a month. Whee.)
This is actually a re-try too, so I'm twice outside the NaNo rules, but I think it will go better having actual, y'know, character designs and important stuff beforehand. Designing the characters is much like doing novel worldbuilding - it's crucial, it takes a lot of time, and if you muff it, it'll send the whole thing south.
The fact that this is based on the first arc of a tabletop game (Exalted!) that I really enjoyed helps, because the plot and characters are set and I have everyone's permission to use their characters in this project, I just have to chronicle All The Things. :D :D :D
Non-Euclidean fashion shows? Arcane menageries? Four-hour symposia on the logistics and ethics of telepathy? All of these, please! But if they conflict for some reason, logistics and ethics of telepathy wins, because I'm a dork like that.
If we can also have 'uses of spellcraft in animal handling,' 'how to create your Very Own [somethingrelevant],' and suchlike, all the better! Tutorial panels are always my favorites anyway. :D
Wow, New Zealand. I hope your trip is made of epic and win.
There is no reason for panels to conflict with sufficiently advanced magic. I can go to ALL of them, because I can step back in time just long enough to go to that one really cool thing as well as the thing I really ought to because interesting, or someone else who is sufficiently powerful can make it so that the panels end five minutes after they begin, or something.
Time travel is well-known to be possible at this point, and minor timewarping is fairly standard (e.g., activating a time dilation field around a person who's been badly injured, so that they only experience half the time it takes to get them proper medical attention), but actual travelling back in time has so far proven irreproducible, in addition to being dangerous like whoa.
So naturally it's absolutely core to the story and will happen so many times that the three-day convention stretches out into a blurry marathon as the heroes fail again and again to figure out how to stop sothothic horrors from consuming the world. As I said in another thread, it's basically Cthulhu Groundhog Day. But one of the cast will indeed live through so many repeats of the convention that she becomes proficient in every single presented field. It is entirely possible that, having barely cooked before, she will (in one iteration of events) win the Food Wizard cooking competition.
Oh, what the heck. I'm just going to keep working on my fan fic short stories, but I guess I can sign up again anyway. (Oddly, on looking at the "am I rebel" post, if I hadn't already been working on this stuff, it'd count, since it's a series of connected short stories. Go figure.)
Magic convention: those all sound cool, though the idea of a magical cooking competition/exhibition/classes strikes me as particularly awesome for some reason. Maybe because I don't think I've encountered it anywhere before.
...actual travelling back in time has so far proven irreproducible, in addition to being dangerous like whoa.
So naturally it's absolutely core to the story...
Hee! I got a chuckle out of that. Mostly because I described some of the worldbuilding for the Epic Webcomic Project to Six!Spouse, whose response went like this:
Six!Spouse: So a one-in-ten is still a one-in-ten, but a one-in-a-million is a sure thing. Six: You got it! But that doesn't mean a one-in-a-million will happen to YOU, or where you need it to.
... so naturally, such events are central to the plot, and several of them will occur at inopportune times, forcing the characters to run all over the place picking them up.
I like the idea of Cthulhu Groundhog Day. Would read. *nodnod*
Also, Food Wizard. LOVE. Does that imply magical ingredients, magical methods, both? Is there an Orichalcum Chef competition? This is awesome.
Food Wizard is a title belonging to a friend of mine, who would be able to give you more details. She may get a cameo. Presumably both ingredients and methods have magical options. (There was a period of a few weeks in which I was planning to NaNo with a major focus on a cooking competition set in a wuxia world where cooking and martial arts were considered complementary halves of a single discipline.)
Is the one-in-ten versus one-in-a-million thing inspired by Discworld probability theory?
I don't think so in this instance, given SixSpouse hasn't read any Pratchett. In the thing I'm plotting, it's sort of a necessary consequence of the worldbuilding, which makes me laugh and will make my characters stressed.
I need to read more Discworld. ^^ Is there a specific one that's got the probability theory in it?
I would get a major happy to see a magic conference structured after something like the continuing medical education credits I have to audit for doctors.
"The Frog Prince: a Case Study of Transformative Magic Intersecting Local Politics"
"Diagnosing and Counteracting Rooster's Egg-Based Curses"
"Human Test Subjects and Informed Consent" (Follow-up course on recognizing compulsion spells to be held tomorrow)
"New Developments in the Treatment of Pixie Dust Addiction"
"Some Ethical Considerations on the Practice of Necromancy"
"I need to read more Discworld. ^^ Is there a specific one that's got the probability theory in it?"
That's Guards, Guards - the first one with Samuel Vimes (who just happens to be my favorite character). But in general, everyone should read more Discworld! :-D
I will stand over here and cheerlead. There bajillions of things in life that I beat myself up over failing at or not doing or not feeling up to doing or whatever. So it's kind of a relief to feel, about NaNo, that it's a thing that's cool that I'm not up to doing and not that interested in doing, even though it's kind of my kind of thing, and That's OK.
As Gelliebean noted already, Guards! Guards! has an extended discussion on the nature of probability, specifically in the form of "Everyone knows that if you say 'it's a million-to-one chance, but it just might work', then everything works out all right", and then trying to game the system to ensure that something important ends up as a million-to-one chance, because they don't want to take any unnecessary risks here. They were concerned that their chances were too good at first, and "It's a near certainty, but it just might work" is obviously doomed to failure.
A number of other books make minor references to it, such as when one character who's had a life filled with incredible escapes and feats meets up with The Lady (the opponent of Fate, who is kind of a jerk) and gets all up in her face about it. She protests that he should be grateful to her, because she is 'the million-to-one chance', but the mortal snaps that she's the other 999,999 as well, and no one ever hears about those folks.
I have buddied you! I'm Falcon Whitaker on there. As for NaNo, I definitely want to do it, but I have two different ideas and I can't decide which one I want to play with. It's most vexing. :/
By Nov. 1, edit and submit the current short story I'm working on (12k words in raw draft form, about a violinist who winds up in a fantasy world where magic is controlled by music and has to fight the evil overlord before going home), as well as write, edit, and submit other one I've planned (4k-ish words, about a former arsonist whose life is saved by a fire spirit and who decides to join the spirit's group and use fire to help people). If any of my stories currently in submission get a rejection by then, I'll get those sent out again too. I've found a good list of 10 or so venues that I can send my stuff to. For NaNo, I'll be editing/revising Solving Chess, my NaNo work from last year. I kind of got distracted from it after finishing it, and I want to take the chance to go over it again and make it solid. I have some fairly significant plot changes. (I don't expect to finish in the time frame, but I want to at least get through a good chunk of it).
Oh! I've really wanted to do this too! I like the idea of NaNoWriMo, and forcing yourself to just give over and produce but I'm far more comfortable in graphic rather than written novels. Do you know, are there any communities supporting that? Or is it just people on their own?
I am "icecoldblank" over there. Doing a rebel-ish kind of thing this year, I'm planning a series of short stories that are based on a future dystopia after the so-called "War on Women" is won.
I'm also a big fan of word wars, and can typically be found on AIM (same username) when I'm in the midst of writing.
Graphic novels tend to mesh better with ScriptFrenzy (which runs in April) but it's likely that you could find other graphic novellers on the NaNo forums (Rebels, possibly), and in general the community remains useful regardless of the actual medium you're working in - if you're trying to put fiction together, your participation is valid.
Despite the fact that I am already working on 2-3 novels at a much slower pace, a friend has talked me into working with them on NaNo this year, novelizing a dream I had about an apprentice vampire hunter. Call it a Road Trip Bildungsroman Vampire story, I guess.
There was a period of a few weeks in which I was planning to NaNo with a major focus on a cooking competition set in a wuxia world where cooking and martial arts were considered complementary halves of a single discipline.
No idea what I'll do this year. Last year I burnt out like whoa.
Did give me insight on another way to try to communicate what being depressed is like "Depression is like writer's block in that..." but I screwed up the execution on my first attempt.
@Probability: Elan the Bard from the Order of the Stick also notes that 10% is unlikely, but a million-to-one is a sure thing.
@Magic Convention: The arcane flora and fauna are a must-see, assuming they don't eat the visitors. Some sort of multi-colored pyrotechnics thing would probably draw the crowds, even if it isn't really my bag.
Will be doing a story about my Magneri race - it's a reptillian/bird hybrid race that I'm developing for my Netori Project series. Am going to explore their world a bit, and write about their first encounter with humans. Because it's just interesting to me to see it from the alien side. What humans may think is being kind and open to communication, the aliens may see as hostile (or not). It makes me wonder really... how could you communicate with aliens? Especially if they have no freaking clue how to interpret our signals? Maybe they don't see light as we do, or don't recognize certain sounds as language or whatever? Maybe they don't even recognize humans as sentient ... at least at first? Stuff I think about.
27 comments:
I would like to participate in NaNoWriMo, and probably will, but November remains a really crummy month for me.
Remember to friend me on NaNo, because I pretty much measure my worth as a human being based on how many Twitter/Facebook/NaNo friends I have. (J/K.)
http://nanowrimo.org/en/participants/anamardoll
I'm still debating. The first year I tried it, I was in school and won. The second year, I was in school and lost. Last year I didn't try it because I was in school. This year, I'm not in school, just working so I'm thinking I might do it again but I tend to not actually decide to do it til a couple days before November 1 because I keep waffling. I think I really want to this year though.
If I do, I'll be rewriting the story that I didn't win with, since I liked the story but didn't like the way it was coming out. I'll try to plan more this year to avoid that happening again.
I have embuddied you.
This one is looking like it's going to be a heck of a thing. I'm running with an idea that I've had tangling in my head since high school, which I'm nervous about because it involves complicated time travel that I suspect won't work as well on-page as it does in my head, probably leading to the later sections feeling more episodic than continuous, but I'm hoping it'll play out all right.
The external complications are that 1) I'm probably going to be very busy with work in the first half of the month, and then 2) I'm going to New Zealand for the last 10 days, which is awesome, but I don't know if it'll mess with having time/energy to write that much that continuously. It'll probably be fine, but I've got various little stresses related to the trip, so anxiety remains.
Open question for anyone: if you were going to a magic convention, what things would you most want to check out? Food Wizard cooking competition/classes? Non-Euclidean fashion shows? Arcane menageries? Four-hour symposia on the logistics and ethics of telepathy?
Ana, how much do I love your avatar? That is adorable.
I am embuddying people whose names I recognize. ^^ My username is the same there as here, even though I can't be counted by their counter because I'm actually doing graphic novel pages (1 penciled page a day, for a month. Whee.)
This is actually a re-try too, so I'm twice outside the NaNo rules, but I think it will go better having actual, y'know, character designs and important stuff beforehand. Designing the characters is much like doing novel worldbuilding - it's crucial, it takes a lot of time, and if you muff it, it'll send the whole thing south.
The fact that this is based on the first arc of a tabletop game (Exalted!) that I really enjoyed helps, because the plot and characters are set and I have everyone's permission to use their characters in this project, I just have to chronicle All The Things. :D :D :D
Non-Euclidean fashion shows? Arcane menageries? Four-hour symposia on the logistics and ethics of telepathy? All of these, please! But if they conflict for some reason, logistics and ethics of telepathy wins, because I'm a dork like that.
If we can also have 'uses of spellcraft in animal handling,' 'how to create your Very Own [somethingrelevant],' and suchlike, all the better! Tutorial panels are always my favorites anyway. :D
Wow, New Zealand. I hope your trip is made of epic and win.
There is no reason for panels to conflict with sufficiently advanced magic. I can go to ALL of them, because I can step back in time just long enough to go to that one really cool thing as well as the thing I really ought to because interesting, or someone else who is sufficiently powerful can make it so that the panels end five minutes after they begin, or something.
Time travel is well-known to be possible at this point, and minor timewarping is fairly standard (e.g., activating a time dilation field around a person who's been badly injured, so that they only experience half the time it takes to get them proper medical attention), but actual travelling back in time has so far proven irreproducible, in addition to being dangerous like whoa.
So naturally it's absolutely core to the story and will happen so many times that the three-day convention stretches out into a blurry marathon as the heroes fail again and again to figure out how to stop sothothic horrors from consuming the world. As I said in another thread, it's basically Cthulhu Groundhog Day. But one of the cast will indeed live through so many repeats of the convention that she becomes proficient in every single presented field. It is entirely possible that, having barely cooked before, she will (in one iteration of events) win the Food Wizard cooking competition.
Oh, what the heck. I'm just going to keep working on my fan fic short stories, but I guess I can sign up again anyway. (Oddly, on looking at the "am I rebel" post, if I hadn't already been working on this stuff, it'd count, since it's a series of connected short stories. Go figure.)
Magic convention: those all sound cool, though the idea of a magical cooking competition/exhibition/classes strikes me as particularly awesome for some reason. Maybe because I don't think I've encountered it anywhere before.
...actual travelling back in time has so far proven irreproducible, in addition to being dangerous like whoa.
So naturally it's absolutely core to the story...
Hee! I got a chuckle out of that.
Mostly because I described some of the worldbuilding for the Epic Webcomic Project to Six!Spouse, whose response went like this:
Six!Spouse: So a one-in-ten is still a one-in-ten, but a one-in-a-million is a sure thing.
Six: You got it! But that doesn't mean a one-in-a-million will happen to YOU, or where you need it to.
... so naturally, such events are central to the plot, and several of them will occur at inopportune times, forcing the characters to run all over the place picking them up.
I like the idea of Cthulhu Groundhog Day. Would read. *nodnod*
Also, Food Wizard. LOVE. Does that imply magical ingredients, magical methods, both? Is there an Orichalcum Chef competition? This is awesome.
Food Wizard is a title belonging to a friend of mine, who would be able to give you more details. She may get a cameo. Presumably both ingredients and methods have magical options. (There was a period of a few weeks in which I was planning to NaNo with a major focus on a cooking competition set in a wuxia world where cooking and martial arts were considered complementary halves of a single discipline.)
Is the one-in-ten versus one-in-a-million thing inspired by Discworld probability theory?
I'm envisioning the "Saotome School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts Barbecue" now.
The wuxia cooking competition sounds amazeballs.
I don't think so in this instance, given SixSpouse hasn't read any Pratchett. In the thing I'm plotting, it's sort of a necessary consequence of the worldbuilding, which makes me laugh and will make my characters stressed.
I need to read more Discworld. ^^ Is there a specific one that's got the probability theory in it?
I would get a major happy to see a magic conference structured after something like the continuing medical education credits I have to audit for doctors.
"The Frog Prince: a Case Study of Transformative Magic Intersecting Local Politics"
"Diagnosing and Counteracting Rooster's Egg-Based Curses"
"Human Test Subjects and Informed Consent" (Follow-up course on recognizing compulsion spells to be held tomorrow)
"New Developments in the Treatment of Pixie Dust Addiction"
"Some Ethical Considerations on the Practice of Necromancy"
"I need to read more Discworld. ^^ Is there a specific one that's got the probability theory in it?"
That's Guards, Guards - the first one with Samuel Vimes (who just happens to be my favorite character). But in general, everyone should read more Discworld! :-D
Embuddiment, yay!
I will stand over here and cheerlead.
There bajillions of things in life that I beat myself up over failing at or not doing or not feeling up to doing or whatever. So it's kind of a relief to feel, about NaNo, that it's a thing that's cool that I'm not up to doing and not that interested in doing, even though it's kind of my kind of thing, and That's OK.
As Gelliebean noted already, Guards! Guards! has an extended discussion on the nature of probability, specifically in the form of "Everyone knows that if you say 'it's a million-to-one chance, but it just might work', then everything works out all right", and then trying to game the system to ensure that something important ends up as a million-to-one chance, because they don't want to take any unnecessary risks here. They were concerned that their chances were too good at first, and "It's a near certainty, but it just might work" is obviously doomed to failure.
A number of other books make minor references to it, such as when one character who's had a life filled with incredible escapes and feats meets up with The Lady (the opponent of Fate, who is kind of a jerk) and gets all up in her face about it. She protests that he should be grateful to her, because she is 'the million-to-one chance', but the mortal snaps that she's the other 999,999 as well, and no one ever hears about those folks.
I have embuddied ye as well. Last year was my first win, so I'm doing a sequel of course.
I have buddied you! I'm Falcon Whitaker on there. As for NaNo, I definitely want to do it, but I have two different ideas and I can't decide which one I want to play with. It's most vexing. :/
My current plans are:
By Nov. 1, edit and submit the current short story I'm working on (12k words in raw draft form, about a violinist who winds up in a fantasy world where magic is controlled by music and has to fight the evil overlord before going home), as well as write, edit, and submit other one I've planned (4k-ish words, about a former arsonist whose life is saved by a fire spirit and who decides to join the spirit's group and use fire to help people).
If any of my stories currently in submission get a rejection by then, I'll get those sent out again too. I've found a good list of 10 or so venues that I can send my stuff to.
For NaNo, I'll be editing/revising Solving Chess, my NaNo work from last year. I kind of got distracted from it after finishing it, and I want to take the chance to go over it again and make it solid. I have some fairly significant plot changes. (I don't expect to finish in the time frame, but I want to at least get through a good chunk of it).
Oh! I've really wanted to do this too! I like the idea of NaNoWriMo, and forcing yourself to just give over and produce but I'm far more comfortable in graphic rather than written novels. Do you know, are there any communities supporting that? Or is it just people on their own?
Embuddied!
I am "icecoldblank" over there. Doing a rebel-ish kind of thing this year, I'm planning a series of short stories that are based on a future dystopia after the so-called "War on Women" is won.
I'm also a big fan of word wars, and can typically be found on AIM (same username) when I'm in the midst of writing.
I'm kind of really excited for nano this year...
after the so-called "War on Women" is won.
Brrrrrrr. Eeeek.
Graphic novels tend to mesh better with ScriptFrenzy (which runs in April) but it's likely that you could find other graphic novellers on the NaNo forums (Rebels, possibly), and in general the community remains useful regardless of the actual medium you're working in - if you're trying to put fiction together, your participation is valid.
Despite the fact that I am already working on 2-3 novels at a much slower pace, a friend has talked me into working with them on NaNo this year, novelizing a dream I had about an apprentice vampire hunter. Call it a Road Trip Bildungsroman Vampire story, I guess.
There was a period of a few weeks in which I was planning to NaNo with a major focus on a cooking competition set in a wuxia world where cooking and martial arts were considered complementary halves of a single discipline.
It's been done.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_of_Cookery
No idea what I'll do this year. Last year I burnt out like whoa.
Did give me insight on another way to try to communicate what being depressed is like "Depression is like writer's block in that..." but I screwed up the execution on my first attempt.
@Probability: Elan the Bard from the Order of the Stick also notes that 10% is unlikely, but a million-to-one is a sure thing.
@Magic Convention: The arcane flora and fauna are a must-see, assuming they don't eat the visitors. Some sort of multi-colored pyrotechnics thing would probably draw the crowds, even if it isn't really my bag.
I'll be doing it. I'm Anarya Bird there.
Will be doing a story about my Magneri race - it's a reptillian/bird hybrid race that I'm developing for my Netori Project series. Am going to explore their world a bit, and write about their first encounter with humans. Because it's just interesting to me to see it from the alien side. What humans may think is being kind and open to communication, the aliens may see as hostile (or not). It makes me wonder really... how could you communicate with aliens? Especially if they have no freaking clue how to interpret our signals? Maybe they don't see light as we do, or don't recognize certain sounds as language or whatever? Maybe they don't even recognize humans as sentient ... at least at first? Stuff I think about.
You totally don't know me, although I'm a fan, so I hope it's ok that I buddied you. I'm minorinterruptions over there.
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