Barbara Neville's Blog - Posts Tagged "kick-ass"
NaNoWriMo
National Novel Writing Month is approaching. Twenty-nine days from now a number of writers, scribblers, finger painters, pencil and pen addicts and, more likely, keyboard users will join the race to write 50,000 words (Yep!) in the 30 days of November. Turkey day, black Friday, Cyber Monday and all.
Me, too. I did it last year, something in the neighborhood of 66k in 20 odd days. I was on a roll. Will it happen again? Only time will tell.
Everyone who hits 50k wins. The contest is against yourself. My favorite kind. I can be a tough opponent. Another beer, more chocolate, feed the livestock, eat meals. I'm heartless about these silly distractions. I mean, it's not like if I don't feed the livestock they'll die. Oh, wait...actually they're on pasture, so they won't die, but they'll miss me. Anyhow, I was indeed on a major roll.
NaNoWriMo is worth a look in any case. True 1,667 words a day is a lot. I'm pretty prolific, but weak under pressure.
I recommend trying though, there is no shame in losing. And, you might surprise yourself. Be sure (this is my hard and fast rule in any case) to write something you love. True, there's always agony. We lose our way. We notice that there is no plot. Our characters are blank chalk outlines with no personality. We left out any action at all.
Be sure that your guys breathe, at the very least. I could go on forever.
Breathing first, your story should breathe, it should sing, the character's lives should flow. If you hit your stride, they will flow, maybe not in the direction you are trying to push them. Aha. Maybe the hero is actually an evil slut. That's okay, she can be a closet bad guy. Or the villain.
My best writing days are the ones where I'm typing away and I lose track of the passage of time. I get to at point where, I've written the scene, chapter, part and I look up, at the room around me and I don't know if it's morning or afternoon. I wonder if I ate lunch.Or was the last meal dinner? I actually don't know. I've been in my fictional world, totally.
I've had no angst about where my characters are going, no anxiety about whether they should be going there, because, they are running the show. They do it much better than I do. Sure, I'll go back and edit and revise, upgrade my sparse sentences with atmosphere, action, whatever I left out in the rush to type.
But, the essence of these days is the essence of my guys (I am including girls, my protagonist is a kiss ass woman). It's my people and their unique world.
During NaNoWriMo you can let yourself go, vomit those stories out onto your screen, into your Scrivener screen, or whatever software you use. I love Scrivener, just saying.
On NaNoWriMo, I like the freedom to win or lose, it doesn't matter, you don't even have to put your manuscript into NaNoWriMo. Although no one reads it, unless you want them to, they only count the words you upload.
But, NaNoWriMo provides impetus, and, even if you don't communicate with anyone there, you still feel and can see how many people in all different nations of the world come together (virtually) for this one month and write. There are workshops and local meetings. Last year in my area, a small town nearby, we had a group of nine or so members, I didn't meet or communicate with any of them or even know who they were, being pretty much a hermit. I I may actually know them and not realize it.
Anyway, we had our own chart of how much each of us wrote each day, if we wanted to post it. We were ranked against other groups big and small all over the planet! How awesome is that?
Anyhow, check it out if you like: NaNoWriMo.com
And, cheers, mates, maybe we'll see your numbers there next month!
Me, too. I did it last year, something in the neighborhood of 66k in 20 odd days. I was on a roll. Will it happen again? Only time will tell.
Everyone who hits 50k wins. The contest is against yourself. My favorite kind. I can be a tough opponent. Another beer, more chocolate, feed the livestock, eat meals. I'm heartless about these silly distractions. I mean, it's not like if I don't feed the livestock they'll die. Oh, wait...actually they're on pasture, so they won't die, but they'll miss me. Anyhow, I was indeed on a major roll.
NaNoWriMo is worth a look in any case. True 1,667 words a day is a lot. I'm pretty prolific, but weak under pressure.
I recommend trying though, there is no shame in losing. And, you might surprise yourself. Be sure (this is my hard and fast rule in any case) to write something you love. True, there's always agony. We lose our way. We notice that there is no plot. Our characters are blank chalk outlines with no personality. We left out any action at all.
Be sure that your guys breathe, at the very least. I could go on forever.
Breathing first, your story should breathe, it should sing, the character's lives should flow. If you hit your stride, they will flow, maybe not in the direction you are trying to push them. Aha. Maybe the hero is actually an evil slut. That's okay, she can be a closet bad guy. Or the villain.
My best writing days are the ones where I'm typing away and I lose track of the passage of time. I get to at point where, I've written the scene, chapter, part and I look up, at the room around me and I don't know if it's morning or afternoon. I wonder if I ate lunch.Or was the last meal dinner? I actually don't know. I've been in my fictional world, totally.
I've had no angst about where my characters are going, no anxiety about whether they should be going there, because, they are running the show. They do it much better than I do. Sure, I'll go back and edit and revise, upgrade my sparse sentences with atmosphere, action, whatever I left out in the rush to type.
But, the essence of these days is the essence of my guys (I am including girls, my protagonist is a kiss ass woman). It's my people and their unique world.
During NaNoWriMo you can let yourself go, vomit those stories out onto your screen, into your Scrivener screen, or whatever software you use. I love Scrivener, just saying.
On NaNoWriMo, I like the freedom to win or lose, it doesn't matter, you don't even have to put your manuscript into NaNoWriMo. Although no one reads it, unless you want them to, they only count the words you upload.
But, NaNoWriMo provides impetus, and, even if you don't communicate with anyone there, you still feel and can see how many people in all different nations of the world come together (virtually) for this one month and write. There are workshops and local meetings. Last year in my area, a small town nearby, we had a group of nine or so members, I didn't meet or communicate with any of them or even know who they were, being pretty much a hermit. I I may actually know them and not realize it.
Anyway, we had our own chart of how much each of us wrote each day, if we wanted to post it. We were ranked against other groups big and small all over the planet! How awesome is that?
Anyhow, check it out if you like: NaNoWriMo.com
And, cheers, mates, maybe we'll see your numbers there next month!
