NaNoWriMo
I realize that I haven't written much--or, in fact, anything--about National Novel Writing Month here, but I did sign up, and yesterday evening I saw the pretty little words "You Won!" when I uploaded my story.
So, the gory details.
The main reason I signed up for NaNoWriMo was that I hadn't finished a fan fiction story in over four years (any possible correlation between that and the age of my daughter? Nah...). I thought it would be a good way to kick-start the writing process again. Okay, that's also what I thought when I signed up for fests, writing communities, challenges, and zine deadlines, but I was still willing to try something else.
Wonder of wonders, it actually worked. In fact, the NaNoWriMo deadline felt, to me, pretty much exactly the same as a school paper deadline, and I kick ass at those. (Granted, it was a little bit different, because I typically began writing a paper [one-page-per-day = number of days] before it was due--for instance, I'd need to be finished with the research and prepared to start writing 30 days before a 30-page paper was due. That means that I'd have started my NaNoWriMo sometime around May. But I digress.)
My story, for the morbidly curious, is a Doctor Who story. I considered writing one of the numerous unfinished ideas I had on my hard drive, but I decided to do something pretty much brand new. Or really old, since Doctor Who was my first fan fiction fandom some twenty years ago. In any case, I wanted to do a story that was fun to write, so I spun a cracktastic tale of hurt/comfort, time travel, and characters from different eras of Doctor Who.
The plot, such as it was: Doctor, Rose and Jack find time travel experiment, rescue Turlough from clutches of time travel experimentors, discover evil plot, thwart same. It allowed me to indulge in my enthusiasm for the new Doctor, my long-standing fascination with Turlough, and my secret desire to write a hurt/comfort story. It also gave me the chance to write Jack/Turlough slash. I saw no downside to this plan.
50,280 words later, the story is done. It mostly involves the characters sitting around engaging in lengthy plot-exposition dialogue, but it's done. I have a story, I have motivations, I have characters (including an unexpected major appearance by Captain "I had five lines in 'Planet of Fire'" Lamond). And with any luck, I will get it edited before Boo goes to college.
So, the gory details.
The main reason I signed up for NaNoWriMo was that I hadn't finished a fan fiction story in over four years (any possible correlation between that and the age of my daughter? Nah...). I thought it would be a good way to kick-start the writing process again. Okay, that's also what I thought when I signed up for fests, writing communities, challenges, and zine deadlines, but I was still willing to try something else.
Wonder of wonders, it actually worked. In fact, the NaNoWriMo deadline felt, to me, pretty much exactly the same as a school paper deadline, and I kick ass at those. (Granted, it was a little bit different, because I typically began writing a paper [one-page-per-day = number of days] before it was due--for instance, I'd need to be finished with the research and prepared to start writing 30 days before a 30-page paper was due. That means that I'd have started my NaNoWriMo sometime around May. But I digress.)
My story, for the morbidly curious, is a Doctor Who story. I considered writing one of the numerous unfinished ideas I had on my hard drive, but I decided to do something pretty much brand new. Or really old, since Doctor Who was my first fan fiction fandom some twenty years ago. In any case, I wanted to do a story that was fun to write, so I spun a cracktastic tale of hurt/comfort, time travel, and characters from different eras of Doctor Who.
The plot, such as it was: Doctor, Rose and Jack find time travel experiment, rescue Turlough from clutches of time travel experimentors, discover evil plot, thwart same. It allowed me to indulge in my enthusiasm for the new Doctor, my long-standing fascination with Turlough, and my secret desire to write a hurt/comfort story. It also gave me the chance to write Jack/Turlough slash. I saw no downside to this plan.
50,280 words later, the story is done. It mostly involves the characters sitting around engaging in lengthy plot-exposition dialogue, but it's done. I have a story, I have motivations, I have characters (including an unexpected major appearance by Captain "I had five lines in 'Planet of Fire'" Lamond). And with any luck, I will get it edited before Boo goes to college.