NaNoWriMo?
So, I've been intending to try NaNoWriMo for a few years. I always hear the excitement on my Twitter feed, and think to myself: "Hmm... that sounds cool... maybe I should try it sometime." But I always intend to do some form of pre-planning, so I never do. Well, this year was no different. November 1st hit, I went to work and taught all day, then came home and realized "Oh right! November is TODAY!"
But instead of just writing it off until next year again, I went to the website, signed up, and started writing.
\o/ (These are victory-arms!)
I started writing something, and it was utter drek. Had some good bits, of course, but was not something I could really see my way to continuing for more than a day or so, let alone 30, and I had no idea how I was going to make it novel-length. It took until day 2 (with only about 675 words of the 1,667 goal written) to figure out what was bothering me.
I had wanted to get away from my usual comfort zone of high fantasy, but it soon became clear that my narrative style was just NOT suited (at ALL) to contemporary fiction, which was what I was trying to write.
So, I didn't delete anything, I just started a new file, scrapped the contemporary fiction idea, and moved back to fantasy. And stared at a blank page for a couple hours.
To be fair, I wasn't actively staring at it, I was doing things in other windows, stopping into the local community chat room, watching YouTube videos (speaking of which, Kristina Horner posted an updated music video for her NaNoWriMo song over here) but that blank Word Document was always there, in the background of whatever else I was doing. I found myself browsing the NaNoWriMo FAQs, and it mentioned the possibility of using characters that had already been developed.
Bolt from the blue!
I have a work in progress that I've been working on off and on for close to 10 years, and although I've been kind of stalled on it for a while, I really love the characters and the world that I've developed for it. Now, that story has a LOT of backstory, both explicit and implied, and so after quizzing a few of the more NaNo-experienced people in the chat room to make sure what I was doing was allowed (the rules are pretty vague...) I chose one of those back-story events and sat down to write it out.
I'm pretty pleased with myself at the moment. Although I'm a bit behind schedule, having effectively started writing a day late, but I managed to get over 2400 words done before lunch (bearing in mind again that the daily goal is 1,667) so I think I can manage it. Just wish the laptop was working....
But instead of just writing it off until next year again, I went to the website, signed up, and started writing.
\o/ (These are victory-arms!)
I started writing something, and it was utter drek. Had some good bits, of course, but was not something I could really see my way to continuing for more than a day or so, let alone 30, and I had no idea how I was going to make it novel-length. It took until day 2 (with only about 675 words of the 1,667 goal written) to figure out what was bothering me.
I had wanted to get away from my usual comfort zone of high fantasy, but it soon became clear that my narrative style was just NOT suited (at ALL) to contemporary fiction, which was what I was trying to write.
So, I didn't delete anything, I just started a new file, scrapped the contemporary fiction idea, and moved back to fantasy. And stared at a blank page for a couple hours.
To be fair, I wasn't actively staring at it, I was doing things in other windows, stopping into the local community chat room, watching YouTube videos (speaking of which, Kristina Horner posted an updated music video for her NaNoWriMo song over here) but that blank Word Document was always there, in the background of whatever else I was doing. I found myself browsing the NaNoWriMo FAQs, and it mentioned the possibility of using characters that had already been developed.
Bolt from the blue!
I have a work in progress that I've been working on off and on for close to 10 years, and although I've been kind of stalled on it for a while, I really love the characters and the world that I've developed for it. Now, that story has a LOT of backstory, both explicit and implied, and so after quizzing a few of the more NaNo-experienced people in the chat room to make sure what I was doing was allowed (the rules are pretty vague...) I chose one of those back-story events and sat down to write it out.
I'm pretty pleased with myself at the moment. Although I'm a bit behind schedule, having effectively started writing a day late, but I managed to get over 2400 words done before lunch (bearing in mind again that the daily goal is 1,667) so I think I can manage it. Just wish the laptop was working....