NaNo Congrats

This is a late congratulations to those who participated in NaNoWriMo 2010. 

If you finished your draft, AWESOME JOB!  COOKIES FOR YOU!! 

If you stopped halfway through: DON'T GIVE UP NOW!  You can still finish!!!

If you completely and utterly failed:  KEEP GOING!  Continue your NaNo experience into December and January!  (January might be best, but I don't know your own personal schedules, so it could very well not be.)

And if you're unsure of what to do with your finished manuscript, there is a plethora of things you can do.  My personal favorite is printing out the entire thing and dropping it on a table.  The thump of the landing papers is very satisfying no matter how much you think it sucks.  The second thing would be to take a small break and start editing it.  It will call for a lot of rewriting of the scenes and reworking of dialogue and character development, but that's what writing is all about.  The magic happens with revisions, I say.  You can also forget you wrote the thing entirely, but that's completely your choice.  But why waste the idea and the month, you know?

Whatever you choose, I hope you succeed in completing that task.  Good luck on revisions and don't forget to be awesome.

In Defense of NaNoWriMo

I'm going to go redirect you all to this post by John Scalzi on his Whatever blog.  Because I didn't know professional writers didn't like NaNoWriMo.  And Scalzi makes some awesome points for it.  Which means my respect for him just increased a smidgen. 

I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo, but I know people who do and I admire them.  Because it's hard being a student and writing 2,000 a day.  Seriously, it is!  There are papers to write and odd-ball things to read for classes.  And THEN you have to do your personal work.  And if the personal work doesn't get done, your weekends are suddenly so much more cramped with things to do than usual. 

Keep working NaNo writers!  Don't give up just because it's close to slum week!  Add a new character into the mix.  Continue the story.  Write random scenes from random places in the plot!  Just keep going because those 50,000 words don't have to be the most gorgeous writing you do on the planet.  Just get it all done!

Also, when you're finished, print off your entire story and drop it.  That's right.  Drop it on a nice, hard floor (not carpet) or a table for the satisfying whump of completion.  My friend DanPan said it does wonders.

NaNoWriMo contestants, meet Dr. Wicked

Greetings fellow storytellers!

This is a late congratulations to everyone participating in this year's NaNoWriMo competition.  I won't be involved this year, but come find me when April comes around and I try my hand at screenwriting.  I might also have a personal NaNo some other time of the year (probably around spring semester finals, because I love to torture myself like that).

Now, NaNo folk, I know how hard it is to make that damn blinking cursor move with something you're willing to accept as your story.  So here's a useful tool I recently discovered that will help me get going on my own work in progress and will hopefully aid you in your endeavors be it NaNoWriMo or otherwise.

I present to you . . . Write or Die by Dr. Wicked!

The link will take you to his blog which is updated quite frequently.  Over on the right toolbar, you will see a few options.  There's the Write or Die desktop edition, which is an offline edition of the program and costs $10 for a direct download.  Below that, there is the Online edition, which I had just used myself.  All you do is input the amount of words you want to write in the amount of time you want to write it in.  Set how strict you want the program to yell at you, and off you go. 

Not only do you write, but it makes you write.  Isn't that awesome?  A program that notices when you've stopped typing for a few seconds that goes "You aren't writing! Keep going!"  The encouragements change depending on the setting you want, I believe.  But it's fantastic.  If you only have twenty minutes to dish out 1000 words, this will help you do it.  If you can't get that first draft done because you're too distracted by things around you, this will help you too. 

I read that Jodi Picoult doesn't believe in writer's block because, when she first started to write, she would only have twenty minutes here and ten minutes there.  Being a stay-at-home mom, those small times add up to hours and hours on end.   She doesn't believe in writer's block.  When you only have small amounts of time between mommy-errands, you wouldn't either.  This program will help you restrict the amount of time you have to write.  And it'll scold you if you don't make your goal. 

So go play with it for a while and when you're done, spread the word about it to other writers.  Trust me, you'll love it as much as I do!

August for NaNo!

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, hereafter referred to as NaNo) usually takes place in November.  Since I'll be abroad and most likely busy with all sorts of school work and travel weekends in November, I'm having my NaNo in August, my waiting month, but with some changes.

I'll be studying in the UK from September until January.  As of now, I have an approved visa, plane tickets, a list of things to take along, and a large amount of impatience.  Not to mention a brand new travel backpack that's just dying to be used.  Everything is in place, except now I have to wait a whole month before anything can happen.  August is my waiting month.  To pass the time, I'm moving my NaNo ahead of schedule.  Besides, I already have a story planned.

I'm modifying the rules a bit for myself.  Instead of writing 50,000 words, I'm aiming for either 40,000 or story's completion. If the story ends at 35,000 words, I'm not going to complain.  I'll just celebrate for a few days and start the editing process.  No big deal.  My final aim to finish writing the story.  

This will effect blogging.  So be prepared for late posts, missing posts, and general disorder with actual updates for the month of August.

Happy writing fellow writers!

~ story info ~

title:  (not) broken

synopsis:  After losing his Memories and Heart, Remen befriends his old rival who nurtures his growth into a new person.  At the same time, his friends Val and Burm set out to recover the lost Memories in an attempt to save the Remen they know.

goal:  40,000 words / story's completion

current status:  15,448 words / 1,661 word debt*

book cover:  for grins, giggles, and because I really liked that picture

*word debt:  my marker for how many words I'm behind

NaNoWriMo vs. Schoolwork

NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow.

As much as I want to do it, I'm very doubtful I will have the time to write 1667 words a day. Neither would I have the story. Let's face it, the plot I conceived for this particular project does not seem very long. I even outlined it, and I don't think it's full-novel length worthy. At least not 50k words.

I feel like this weekend is pivotal because it's the beginning, but I also have to:

a) review a movie at least once more for my Film project

b) figure out a thesis for my English paper

c) research and create an outline for Journalism

School comes first, though. For now, it will always come first.

There is one other thing. I've been writing my other, bigger project recently, and I'm feeling that more than my NaNo story. Sorry Nano, you're going to have to wait. I have school and a story to finish.

More about my revelation about my own writing style next post. And you'll eventually hear about Working Title, but I've been hard pressed to get to meetings on a regular basis, so that may or may not be working out. I'm seriously trying, but it's hard when things are due Wednesday and Monday is your only day to do them.

NaNoWriMo and Writer's Workshops

The Union started a writer's workshop that meets Mondays at 7p. It's called Working Title. My first meeting with them was last Monday, one week after the kick-off. It was a very welcoming atmosphere. We reviewed poems written by our own Sarah. I enjoyed those poems. They had depth, good symbolism, and interesting themes. One of the poems was about something none of us were familiar with, which I commend her for. "Write what you don't know," my high school creative writing teacher said once.

I plan on going back. They were a good group of people. And I liked their insight into the small things, which isn't usually taken with people who read your stories. "This is good," is the most annoying feedback you can get as a writer.

Speaking of writing, NaNoWriMo is November. I just made my account.

Username: Morike

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. More details can be found on their official site. Basically, the point is to get writers to write 50,000-plus words during the entire month of November. They even have tips on what to do when you finish. My November looks pretty promising at the moment, but we'll see how things go. I have a paper, a midterm, and a shot-by-shot movie analysis due that month. We'll see how this goes . . . .

Haven't gotten a chance to read much lately, besides TC's occasional short story. I may not review anything for a while, but stay tuned anyway.