Did you forget that NaNoWriMo starts today? I DID!
I'll probably spend today slacking off getting my dentist appointment scheduled. That's how I roll. What are you doing?
25
comments:
JonathanPelikan
said...
I'm not participating as such in NaNoWriMo but I am going to take November as a month to get actually writing. Today I put down a page or two, I'd say.
That's kind of how I'm participating. It's something to stare at me and say "Did you write today? If no, then write." Well, that and a whole lot of silliness and potential encouragement from other writers.
Chris: I think writing a collection of connected short stories is allowed by the NaNoWriMo rules (I tried to check this, but the site's unfortunately down right now) - maybe your idea would work better in this format? (I realise that November 2nd may not be the optimum time to advance this suggestion).
I'm nanoing this year, and I'm pretty excited about it. Novel-length Narnia fanfic! With lots of Susan! And plenty of Edmund! All inspired by the Narnia decons and their wonderful comment threads here!
I'm 3500 words in (so have hit my target for the day), and so far I've had a scene in which Susan is awesome and thinks seriously about how to keep her family safe in this new world, a scene in which Edmund notices some of the stranger aspects of Lewis's worldbuilding and sets out to find why the world is that way (and gets some answers, via the medium of world-building trees ), and a scene in which Queen Susan has her first introduction to lipstick: a birthday present from her younger sister. I'm having a lot of fun with it.
I think writing a collection of connected short stories is allowed by the NaNoWriMo rules (I tried to check this, but the site's unfortunately down right now)
The site came back, so I checked. Here's what they had to say:
I'm writing a collection of short stories. Am I a rebel?
Probably not. There's no actual rule on this one. We define a novel as "a lengthy work of fiction." However, we the moderators feel that since you find short story collections on the shelves alongside longer works of fiction, if they're related, they count. They need to have some common theme, or linking thread that weaves them together that makes them a single, "lengthy work of fiction."
So take that however you want. I will say that even with your lack-of-defined-climax problem, your idea sounds awesome.
I decided to join pretty much at the last minute, largely because I had the idea of doing a story based on the Norwegian fairytale "Tatterhood," using my own fantasy setting.
For those of you who haven't heard the story of Tatterhood, it features something so rare as a heroic and UGLY faitytale Princess -- who's all kinds of badass, rides on a monstrous goat and beats up trolls with, of all things, a wooden ladle. She also has a twin sister who's her total opposite -- very beautiful but ultimately helpless and passive -- and the two get along famously and are inseparable throughout the story.
I'm taking the gist and plot of the story, and expanding upon it, taking a few routes that differs from the original where it goes places I don't agree with. For example, I'm increasing the role of the twins' older, adopted sister who is only in the original to kick off the plot and is afterwards forgotten about -- in my version, she's the one narrating the story and is there for the entire thing. I'm also planning on altering the ending where Tatterhood marries a dour, looks-obsessed Prince who mopes about how ugly his bride is until she cheekily says "Me, ugly? You think my sister is beautful, but I'm ten times as beautiful!" Whereupon she turns beautiful and he's immediately happy and in love with her.
While it's disappointing that Tatterhood didn't get to stay ugly, I DID like the revelation that she COULD apparently have turned herself beautiful any time she wanted but chose to stay ugly for the sheer hell of it... and I also liked that her transformation was little more than a "nyah nyah!" to the Prince. But -- why did she have to marry that jerk in the first place? He hated her, until she became beautiful, and then everything was hunky-dory. It's a somewhat hollow happy ending, because I honestly think Tatterhood had deserved better. So I'm definitely altering that part.
I got a pretty good start at the story, having fulfilled my word quota for the day and keeping on writing, though I do realize that with how I've decided to give an increased role to Tatterhood's adopted sister it'll take a few chapters before I can even introduce Tatterhood and her twin. Oh well... I'm hoping the adopted sister will turn out fun... in my version she's a smart, sarcastic sort who adds a bit of snark to the narration. (She's also a lesbian who rather than marry dour Princes hooks up with a witch's daughter.) My hope is to have her as a sort of "Dr. Watson" type narrator; she is the first-person narrator and plays an important part in the story but is not the main star.
I am doing it this year (first time attempt!) and it is just a memoir really. Honestly I am just trying to write as much as I can and worry about the flow of the story later, or at least when I've gotten a good start. I have to get all this stuff out before I can start the other story ideas I have. It is maybe too autobiographical, and already I've revealed several overlapping conflicts. I am trying to weave it in a realistic way, and I plan to speed up the the real life resolution for plot reasons but otherwise be true to my experiences.
I am having a rough day, made worse by an email that came to our general query box, very angry, abusive, and with the effect it's had on me, I can safely say toxic....
I don't try to pretend that I'm not overweight; in fact I'm working hard to learn to love, accept, and appreciate my body for what it is. I'm finally starting to internalize the idea that being a fat woman is NOT equal to being a failed thin woman. Still, it really hurts to encounter someone who thinks that being overweight makes you a legitimate target for any cruelty they care to hurl, and even worse, that the targeting of fat people is such a universal thing that they can include it in an email about unrelated topics, sent blindly to a public email account, and never even consider that the person who must read and respond to them might not agree (much less that they might be overweight themselves)....
Rot13 for vicious size/weight insults
greebevfgf va sng obqvrf
400 yo fxva ontf
whax sbbq srrqvat ubyrf
urycyrff onovrf gung unir ab pyhr gung gurl ner erfcbafvoyr sbe gurve urnygu naq jryyarff
I know none of it was directed personally at me but in some ways that almost makes it worse. I hope this is okay, I feel like this is a safe place to cry if I need to....
This is my first NaNo and I am soooo excited. (Also I am new here; hi everyone!) I actually could not sleep last night until after 4 am. I should obviously just have gotten up and started writing. Anyway, I have started now and I feel awesome about it. (And I am probably about 10 years older than I sound here. But I am not ashamed of my enthusiam!)
Hyaroo, your story sounds AMAZING. I hope I can read it sometime! I love reading about family dynamics, so the sisters concept caught my eye right away.
I'm NaNoing, loosely speaking. I'm just continuing to work on my fanfic short stories, but hoping this will encourage me to do so at a reasonable pace. Lunch seems to be a wash, but I can get some writing done after work.
That's a pretty cool comment from a Chrome browser.
I am actually going to a NaNo event tonight, with a couple of like-minded friends. None of us wanted to walk into a room of strange writers alone, but we can do it if we walk into a room of strange writers together.
Oh, someone was asking about graphic novel NaNo, right? NaNoMango on Livejournal is the main place I've found for support for the comic-inclined, though the NaNo Rebels forum on the main site might be good too. I don't know, I haven't looked.
Otherwise I am being anxious about half a dozen silly and not-so-silly things, and fighting off stress-induced back and shoulder cramps. Ow.
One of these days I will get more than six hours of sleep and that will help significantly. I tend to function best if I'm regularly getting about 9. -_-;
Bleh, pardon my rambling. I can take it elsewhere.
Did you forget that NaNoWriMo starts today? I DID!
I've found it hard to forget with all the talk about it. I look forward to watching my NaNoer friends flail amusingly regarding their progress (or lack thereof), and I wish them/you all luck.
Could you maybe take the approach of there being a reason why the creation myths need to be told in a single coherent narrative? Like, "to save the world, Chris the Cynic was called forth to Mt. Olympia to bring into being the epic history of the gods. Time was not on his side, for the task had to be completed before the dark December arrived and the deep sorcery of the Mayans destroyed all memory of the gods' efforts to build their world"
I am substantially less charged about it being Nov 1 than I was last year (or last June, for nanocamp), but that is largely because I am exhausted and harrowed by a cold that struck last weekend and will not let go. Feelings are having trouble making their way through the fog.
But intellectually I am enthusiastic. I'll head to a write-in after work today and see if I can get a better first day wordcount than last time. I feel like I don't sufficiently know what's going on when the story begins, but that's usually the case, and since the story begins with everyone getting sealed off inside a somewhat archaic city, I can invent freely about what things are like in the wide world beyond without impacting the rest of the plot too much.
I'm still waffling on how to introduce the third major character; everything seems like a Meet Cute and I want to avoid that as utterly as possible. I'm still not sure how much I want to play up the mystery and investigation of the initial murder as opposed to relatively speeding through it to get to the time travel and apocalyptics.
OVerall, I'm nervous about the number of things I will end up improvising over time, but I always end up improvising stuff (like last year's fourth main character, who appeared in a frenzy of random ideas and consequences halfway through the story and backflipped straight into my heart) so hopefully knowing in advance that I'm going to have to improvise won't hurt.
I finally decided yesterday that I'm going to toss my hat in for NaNo again (after doing/winning NaNo from 2001-2009, failing miserably in 2010, and taking a break last year). It took me awhile to figure out what I'm writing, but I'm thinking of it as a sort of prequel to a story I started but never finished for ScriptFrenzy. It's going to be loosely based on experiences from my time studying abroad, but with zombies and other interesting things!
Of course, now I have to get started with the actual writing...
Got less sleep than I should have last night, behind on reading, forgot meds this morning, in a state of "fuuuuck." Note lack of capital letters or exclamation point. It's not a shout or a yelp or a cry to the Heavens above. More of a groan given letters.
I'm thinking of my NaNo project being rewriting the Greek and Roman creation myths into a single coherent narrative. Here's the problem: No plot. This happened, then this happened, then this happened, then ... it's more like a timeline than a story. There's no climax because it never ends, just a constant stream of lesser incidents that rise and fall surrounding, basically, the same baseline. The whole rising action, mounting tension, climactic resolution/release simply isn't there.
After four hours of effort, my word count is 93. I suspect I am not increasing that any before it is time to leave for work, and by the time I get home, it will be Nov 2.
I'm plastering a smug look on my face and saying, "Me? I'm not doing NaNo this year," and secretly feeling uneasy about bucking a ritual that ran for four years. I'm also fighting the urge to tell people how to write.
I would LOVE to actually sit down and write a novel during November. I don't think it's going to happen, but I'd love to. Heck, December would be fine, too.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to take enough meds to be able to breathe through my nose again, and rebuilding our Intranet - which means importing a bunch of information, and in the process sorting out stuff that's up to a decade out of date.
Thanks much, guys..... :-( I am feeling quite a bit better and handling it better today, thanks to some very supportive words from my husband last night.... He pointed out that the stereotypes that bother me so much, being overweight, are very similar in the effect they cause to the racist assumptions about Hispanics that he tries to fight. And since I know the insults aimed at him aren't anything even close to true, and in fact get extremely angry and defensive on his behalf when anyone implies they are, I should have the same level of anger and indignation on my own behalf and not believe what stupid, bitter people have to say.
TL;DR: I have an awesome husband and am very grateful for all the hugs from everybody. <3
25 comments:
I'm not participating as such in NaNoWriMo but I am going to take November as a month to get actually writing. Today I put down a page or two, I'd say.
That's kind of how I'm participating. It's something to stare at me and say "Did you write today? If no, then write." Well, that and a whole lot of silliness and potential encouragement from other writers.
Chris: I think writing a collection of connected short stories is allowed by the NaNoWriMo rules (I tried to check this, but the site's unfortunately down right now) - maybe your idea would work better in this format? (I realise that November 2nd may not be the optimum time to advance this suggestion).
I'm nanoing this year, and I'm pretty excited about it. Novel-length Narnia fanfic! With lots of Susan! And plenty of Edmund! All inspired by the Narnia decons and their wonderful comment threads here!
I'm 3500 words in (so have hit my target for the day), and so far I've had a scene in which Susan is awesome and thinks seriously about how to keep her family safe in this new world, a scene in which Edmund notices some of the stranger aspects of Lewis's worldbuilding and sets out to find why the world is that way (and gets some answers, via the medium of world-building trees ), and a scene in which Queen Susan has her first introduction to lipstick: a birthday present from her younger sister. I'm having a lot of fun with it.
I think writing a collection of connected short stories is allowed by the NaNoWriMo rules (I tried to check this, but the site's unfortunately down right now)
The site came back, so I checked. Here's what they had to say:
I'm writing a collection of short stories. Am I a rebel?
Probably not. There's no actual rule on this one. We define a novel as "a lengthy work of fiction." However, we the moderators feel that since you find short story collections on the shelves alongside longer works of fiction, if they're related, they count. They need to have some common theme, or linking thread that weaves them together that makes them a single, "lengthy work of fiction."
So take that however you want. I will say that even with your lack-of-defined-climax problem, your idea sounds awesome.
I decided to join pretty much at the last minute, largely because I had the idea of doing a story based on the Norwegian fairytale "Tatterhood," using my own fantasy setting.
For those of you who haven't heard the story of Tatterhood, it features something so rare as a heroic and UGLY faitytale Princess -- who's all kinds of badass, rides on a monstrous goat and beats up trolls with, of all things, a wooden ladle. She also has a twin sister who's her total opposite -- very beautiful but ultimately helpless and passive -- and the two get along famously and are inseparable throughout the story.
I'm taking the gist and plot of the story, and expanding upon it, taking a few routes that differs from the original where it goes places I don't agree with. For example, I'm increasing the role of the twins' older, adopted sister who is only in the original to kick off the plot and is afterwards forgotten about -- in my version, she's the one narrating the story and is there for the entire thing. I'm also planning on altering the ending where Tatterhood marries a dour, looks-obsessed Prince who mopes about how ugly his bride is until she cheekily says "Me, ugly? You think my sister is beautful, but I'm ten times as beautiful!" Whereupon she turns beautiful and he's immediately happy and in love with her.
While it's disappointing that Tatterhood didn't get to stay ugly, I DID like the revelation that she COULD apparently have turned herself beautiful any time she wanted but chose to stay ugly for the sheer hell of it... and I also liked that her transformation was little more than a "nyah nyah!" to the Prince. But -- why did she have to marry that jerk in the first place? He hated her, until she became beautiful, and then everything was hunky-dory. It's a somewhat hollow happy ending, because I honestly think Tatterhood had deserved better. So I'm definitely altering that part.
I got a pretty good start at the story, having fulfilled my word quota for the day and keeping on writing, though I do realize that with how I've decided to give an increased role to Tatterhood's adopted sister it'll take a few chapters before I can even introduce Tatterhood and her twin. Oh well... I'm hoping the adopted sister will turn out fun... in my version she's a smart, sarcastic sort who adds a bit of snark to the narration. (She's also a lesbian who rather than marry dour Princes hooks up with a witch's daughter.) My hope is to have her as a sort of "Dr. Watson" type narrator; she is the first-person narrator and plays an important part in the story but is not the main star.
I am doing it this year (first time attempt!) and it is just a memoir really. Honestly I am just trying to write as much as I can and worry about the flow of the story later, or at least when I've gotten a good start. I have to get all this stuff out before I can start the other story ideas I have. It is maybe too autobiographical, and already I've revealed several overlapping conflicts. I am trying to weave it in a realistic way, and I plan to speed up the the real life resolution for plot reasons but otherwise be true to my experiences.
Oh urgh, that's really horrible.
I've run into similar things at work and elsewhere. Tons of sympathy and more hugs if you want them.
D:
What the frack? That's awful. *also offers hugs*
I am having a rough day, made worse by an email that came to our general query box, very angry, abusive, and with the effect it's had on me, I can safely say toxic....
I don't try to pretend that I'm not overweight; in fact I'm working hard to learn to love, accept, and appreciate my body for what it is. I'm finally starting to internalize the idea that being a fat woman is NOT equal to being a failed thin woman. Still, it really hurts to encounter someone who thinks that being overweight makes you a legitimate target for any cruelty they care to hurl, and even worse, that the targeting of fat people is such a universal thing that they can include it in an email about unrelated topics, sent blindly to a public email account, and never even consider that the person who must read and respond to them might not agree (much less that they might be overweight themselves)....
Rot13 for vicious size/weight insults
greebevfgf va sng obqvrf
400 yo fxva ontf
whax sbbq srrqvat ubyrf
urycyrff onovrf gung unir ab pyhr gung gurl ner erfcbafvoyr sbe gurve urnygu naq jryyarff
I know none of it was directed personally at me but in some ways that almost makes it worse. I hope this is okay, I feel like this is a safe place to cry if I need to....
So many hugs, if you want them. I'm so sorry this happened. :(
Put out 1600 already. A hundred more and I'm golden
This is my first NaNo and I am soooo excited. (Also I am new here; hi everyone!) I actually could not sleep last night until after 4 am. I should obviously just have gotten up and started writing. Anyway, I have started now and I feel awesome about it. (And I am probably about 10 years older than I sound here. But I am not ashamed of my enthusiam!)
Hyaroo, your story sounds AMAZING. I hope I can read it sometime! I love reading about family dynamics, so the sisters concept caught my eye right away.
And now, more writing! Good luck, all!
I'm NaNoing, loosely speaking. I'm just continuing to work on my fanfic short stories, but hoping this will encourage me to do so at a reasonable pace. Lunch seems to be a wash, but I can get some writing done after work.
That's a pretty cool comment from a Chrome browser.
I am actually going to a NaNo event tonight, with a couple of like-minded friends. None of us wanted to walk into a room of strange writers alone, but we can do it if we walk into a room of strange writers together.
Oh, someone was asking about graphic novel NaNo, right? NaNoMango on Livejournal is the main place I've found for support for the comic-inclined, though the NaNo Rebels forum on the main site might be good too. I don't know, I haven't looked.
Otherwise I am being anxious about half a dozen silly and not-so-silly things, and fighting off stress-induced back and shoulder cramps. Ow.
One of these days I will get more than six hours of sleep and that will help significantly. I tend to function best if I'm regularly getting about 9. -_-;
Bleh, pardon my rambling. I can take it elsewhere.
Did you forget that NaNoWriMo starts today? I DID!
I've found it hard to forget with all the talk about it. I look forward to watching my NaNoer friends flail amusingly regarding their progress (or lack thereof), and I wish them/you all luck.
Could you maybe take the approach of there being a reason why the creation myths need to be told in a single coherent narrative? Like, "to save the world, Chris the Cynic was called forth to Mt. Olympia to bring into being the epic history of the gods. Time was not on his side, for the task had to be completed before the dark December arrived and the deep sorcery of the Mayans destroyed all memory of the gods' efforts to build their world"
I am substantially less charged about it being Nov 1 than I was last year (or last June, for nanocamp), but that is largely because I am exhausted and harrowed by a cold that struck last weekend and will not let go. Feelings are having trouble making their way through the fog.
But intellectually I am enthusiastic. I'll head to a write-in after work today and see if I can get a better first day wordcount than last time. I feel like I don't sufficiently know what's going on when the story begins, but that's usually the case, and since the story begins with everyone getting sealed off inside a somewhat archaic city, I can invent freely about what things are like in the wide world beyond without impacting the rest of the plot too much.
I'm still waffling on how to introduce the third major character; everything seems like a Meet Cute and I want to avoid that as utterly as possible. I'm still not sure how much I want to play up the mystery and investigation of the initial murder as opposed to relatively speeding through it to get to the time travel and apocalyptics.
OVerall, I'm nervous about the number of things I will end up improvising over time, but I always end up improvising stuff (like last year's fourth main character, who appeared in a frenzy of random ideas and consequences halfway through the story and backflipped straight into my heart) so hopefully knowing in advance that I'm going to have to improvise won't hurt.
I finally decided yesterday that I'm going to toss my hat in for NaNo again (after doing/winning NaNo from 2001-2009, failing miserably in 2010, and taking a break last year). It took me awhile to figure out what I'm writing, but I'm thinking of it as a sort of prequel to a story I started but never finished for ScriptFrenzy. It's going to be loosely based on experiences from my time studying abroad, but with zombies and other interesting things!
Of course, now I have to get started with the actual writing...
Got less sleep than I should have last night, behind on reading, forgot meds this morning, in a state of "fuuuuck." Note lack of capital letters or exclamation point. It's not a shout or a yelp or a cry to the Heavens above. More of a groan given letters.
I'm thinking of my NaNo project being rewriting the Greek and Roman creation myths into a single coherent narrative. Here's the problem: No plot. This happened, then this happened, then this happened, then ... it's more like a timeline than a story. There's no climax because it never ends, just a constant stream of lesser incidents that rise and fall surrounding, basically, the same baseline. The whole rising action, mounting tension, climactic resolution/release simply isn't there.
After four hours of effort, my word count is 93. I suspect I am not increasing that any before it is time to leave for work, and by the time I get home, it will be Nov 2.
I'm plastering a smug look on my face and saying, "Me? I'm not doing NaNo this year," and secretly feeling uneasy about bucking a ritual that ran for four years. I'm also fighting the urge to tell people how to write.
I would LOVE to actually sit down and write a novel during November. I don't think it's going to happen, but I'd love to. Heck, December would be fine, too.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to take enough meds to be able to breathe through my nose again, and rebuilding our Intranet - which means importing a bunch of information, and in the process sorting out stuff that's up to a decade out of date.
Thanks much, guys..... :-( I am feeling quite a bit better and handling it better today, thanks to some very supportive words from my husband last night.... He pointed out that the stereotypes that bother me so much, being overweight, are very similar in the effect they cause to the racist assumptions about Hispanics that he tries to fight. And since I know the insults aimed at him aren't anything even close to true, and in fact get extremely angry and defensive on his behalf when anyone implies they are, I should have the same level of anger and indignation on my own behalf and not believe what stupid, bitter people have to say.
TL;DR: I have an awesome husband and am very grateful for all the hugs from everybody. <3
I'm sorry to hear you had to be the recipient of just crap, but I'm glad to hear you have a good support system in place.
If (once significant editing has occurred) I decide I'm brave enough to share it to The Interwebs, I'll definitely let you have a link.
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