Posts Tagged ‘NaNoWriMo’

So… Let’s not talk about how bad I did on NaNoWriMo this year. Instead, let’s look off into the distance until the subject changes…

Look behind you!! It’s a distraction!!

…and that’s pretty much how my November went.

I didn’t start out well at all. I didn’t get any work done at all the first day, I think because I had a long shift at work that day and yadda yadda… didn’t feel like it after that. As it turned out that was my second last day at work, the last complete shift.

The whole month was a little like that. A repetitive cycle of declaring that I would get the work done, that I would be a powerhouse of creativity, typing each day until my fingers bled.

But that never lasted long. Something would distract me and I was back to avoiding the keyboard and the blank page.

And then I got lost, choosing a style and direction for the story to be heading in, and I couldn’t continue without revisiting the drawing board.

And that’s where the final third of my November went…

Pretending I was at the drawing board.

However, on the up side, I did have a brand new and super-fantastic idea for another novel.

And isn’t that what NaNoWriMo is really about?

It’s not? It’s about writing 50,000 words in a month?

Shit.

AKA – A long post about what I’ve been up to lately…

Due to unforeseen circumstances, it looks as though I may not complete NaNoWriMo again this year.

I say “may” because there is still time left, and if I were to write just over 5000 words per day for the next week I might finish… Though a daily word target like that is highly unlikely to be hit around here. I haven’t even finished cleaning my place yet.

But I have come up with a list of ways to NOT get it finished. Here is the top ten things to do if you don’t want to finish NaNoWriMo this year.

Number Ten – Procrastinate.

…Obviously. Putting things off is a great way to not get things done and there are so many ways in which to do this.

A few personal favourites include watching Tv, cleaning, twittering, or even just going for a walk. All of these are a great way to push work away for a good chunk of time.

When all else fails, I like to use coffee as an excuse to put things off for a few minutes. This works well as I love my coffee and it sounds quite reasonable to say “I’ll get started right after a coffee”

Number Nine – Quit your job.

This sounds like a good idea, and in most ways it is.

But it won’t help you if you’re looking for more time to write. With so much extra time there is no longer any urgency to get any of it done. There is always time to do things later, you have all day tomorrow to catch up and next week you can work extra hard all week to make up for what you didn’t do this week.

I quit my job a few weeks ago. For other reasons, not to make time for writing, but I did think that with all that extra time and with a little tenacity I might be able to get a lot done.

That was until I…

Number Eight – Burn your hand

A great way to keep yourself from writing is to incapacitate yourself. And what could be more laborious and slow than typing with one hand? I mean apart from typing with no hands.

Nothing. Exactly.

So that’s what I did.

This happened to me one night while saving a box of kittens from a burning building, I was set upon by a group of ninjas and robots… and robot ninjas. They were all packing microwave meals, overcooked and only seconds out of the microwave. They demanded the box of kittens and when I didn’t comply they began throwing the meals at me. I managed to dodge most of them except one, which gave me second degree burns on the fingers and palm of my left hand.

I swear all that is true… Except the building, the kittens, the ninjas, the robots and the robot ninjas.

Number Seven – Watch Television.

I know I put this under number ten as a form of procrastination but there are two reasons that it needs it’s own spot.

For one, Television is the enemy of creativity. It really is.

Just by having it on you’re slowing yourself down, but added to that it dulls the creative process. I’ve always found that days in which I watch less television, I get alot more (and better) work done. Unfortunately television works much like any addiction in that unless you cut yourself off from it completely, including all access to it, then it will slowly and inevitably creep back into your life.

And I’m not ready to do that just yet.

Maybe after this season of Dollhouse has finished…

And the second reason this got it’s own entry – I accidentally miscounted and when I realised I didn’t have something for seven this was the first thing I came up with.

Number Six – Get Tattoed

A great way to spend a sunday afternoon, having needles stuck in your arm and/or leg and leaving deposits of ink there. Ah, good times.

Got two done myself last week… After six years since my last tattoo, I finally got around to getting some new ones.

And if you wanted to waste a little more time you can do what I did and walk to the tattoo parlor. Then, once the tattooing is done, you can find out that you’re in some backwards place that doesn’t have eftpos and so you’ll need to spend some more time walking to the shopping centre down the road. All in all, I spent about an hour and a half walking that day.

** A haircut could be substituted here if you prefer not to get tattooed… Or you can do what I did and get a haircut aswell.

Number Five – Buy a new computer

Who doesn’t like a new toy? Especially a nice big-ass super-expensive one like this –

This is my spanky new bitchin’ all-in-one touchscreen multimedia high definition yada yada computer. Ain’t she sweet? The touch screen is fun to play with. It’s heaps big monitor-wise and it’s all new and pretty.

The best thing about new toys like this?

You can spend all day just setting it up. Installing all your favourite programs and getting all the settings to how you like them and so on. I’m still not finished doing all that.

Number Four – Have a personal life

I’ve been trying this out lately. Doesn’t seem to be working for me. I’ve learned that there is nothing better to get in the way of writing than to have a personal life. Especially one as disasterous as mine.

People lie, people betray, people confuse and humiliate, people leave voids and people leave sorrow.

And you can’t control them or understand them like you do the characters you’re writing.

Bastards.

Number Three – Work on plot

Stop and think about your plot. Are things flowing as you want them too? Is the right information revealed at the right stage? Which scene goes next? Is the story moving to slow? Or too fast? And so on…

This is a great wait to slow down your writing. And if you really think about it, it may stop you altogether.

I did this. I decided to do a bit of plot planning, starting with listing all the scenes/elements that I wanted in my story. I came up with a list of 105 things, and it’s still growing… much more slowly now but still it’s growing.

Here’s a wordle of the list -

(because I haven’t posted a wordle in a while)

Anyway, working on the plot always seems to lead to –

Number Two – Starting from scratch.

Yeah, I’ve started to do this…

Well, I will when I’ve finished with everything else on this list. I’m still working on the plot a bit more. I’m going to put all of the elements/scenes that I listed in order and then write more on each one… and all the rest of it. You know how plotting is.

Writing is like eating soup with a fork, only you keep missing the bowl and stabbing yourself in the forehead.

Number One –

Instead of writing the story, write a top ten list about how to fail at writing the story.

To be fair, it’s not exactly a top ten list. It’s more of a ‘first ten things I thought of that I’ve been doing lately instead of working on NaNoWriMo’ list…

There are probably more that I could think of but I have some writing to do… So I’m going for a nap now.

So how’s your NaNoWriMo coming along then?

I hope it’s going much better than mine.

I started my NaNo a day late. After waking late, working all day and coming home mentally exhausted and then staring at the blank page for a while I just didn’t get any of it done that first day.

My second day, after a while of staring at the blank page for a while longer, got me started. Barely. I still fell short of my goal by a few hundred words.

Later that night, while at work at my shitty job, I got into an argument with my boss. The sort of argument where all the crap that has been piling up inside for months finally blurts out. And then, in a move that even surprised me, I yelled “I’m done, I quit!”

I quit my crappy job.

It was kinda cool.

The next day I was still in a mood. You would think after working at that place for over five years they would at least attempt to ask me back. I would’ve said no but still, would’ve been nice.

Then yesterday, my progress didn’t get much further. Made a bit of progress until a friend came round for coffee. Made a few unemployment jokes, and afterwards I decided to watch a movie and continue with my writing later on.

With work out of the way, I could easily pull an all nighter whenever I wanted to.

But then this happened -

Don’t expect an interesting story here. I never get cool injury stories, they’re always dopey things.

It was frozen shepherds pie for dinner last night. It had just finished cooking in the microwave and I pulled it out and was carrying it over to my room to enjoy it and watch a bit of Tv.

The plastic tray was still softened and twisted up, spilling the contents all over my left hand.

I swore and swore and swore.

It hurt.

then I swore some more.

Then I ran it under cold water and took it, holding my hand in a jug full of water, down to the medical centre.

It’s all blistered up now.A big one right in the middle of my palm and several down my pointer finger. And it still hurts like a bastard.

I can still press keys with my ring finger, but that’s about as much as I can manage. So, it’s slowing my down a fair bit.

Also, my computers being a jerk.

So… I’m one handed, Jobless, with a jerky computer…

But I’ll be damned if that’s going to stop me finishing NaNo this year…

It’ll be because I procrastinated to much, just like every other year.

Look! A puppy!

Tomorrow it begins, the NaNoWriMo.

Are you as ill-prepared as I am?

I’m quite excited to be getting started. Surprisingly nervous as well.

I’ll be working on a post-apocalypse based story, one that I’ve been unable to write for several years now. The story as morphed and warped and twisted and turned over the years but I think I’ve finally worked it all out. It is now ready to be put down on paper… ah… computer.

I’m going to a first person narrative with a non-linear plot. Choosing this has not only opened the story up and given me opportunity to cut out all the boring parts that held me up before. But it has also made way for several ongoing jokes to run throughout the book.

And isn’t that what you want out of a post-apocalypse world?

Follow my progress, or add me >>Here<<

Nanowrimo, the competition where people attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel over the course of November is on its way. Just over a week till it starts. I’ll be participating yet again, only this time I’ll be finishing.

With NaNoWriMo coming up so quickly, you’d think that I was getting all the planning out of the way…

nope.

Not an ounce of planning has taken place. A little bit of intention.. “I’ll do it tomorrow…” but no actual planning.

So what have I been up to instead?

Well… I’ve been drinking coffee, I’ve been working on a few new short stories. Editing some old ones. Got some great stuff done, I’m sure you’ll agree… One day…

And also I made This guy -

His name is Curtis. He’s a robot.

He’s also a shirt.

At first he was just going to be a funny little picture. I’d post it up here, or put it on my website banner (which it is at the moment.) but when he started turning out so well I started thinking of putting him on a shirt. I was just going to make a shirt for myself over at cafepress, but then I thought why the hell not paste it on whole bunch of junk and put it up for sale. I believe that’s how a lot of people start out selling stuff.

I have mine on order, due to arrive in a week or so. So if you want one, buy one. You can click here, or click on the tab up top there. If you don’t want one, Well why did you bother reading this much? Weirdo!

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll get on to that planning for Nano soon.

Get me a coffee.

Just over a week ago now my brain shut down. It suddenly, for no apparent reason, stopped working. It blue screened and rebooting hasn’t helped. I even undid a few screws, unzipped the flappy bit at the back and slid my brain out of it’s slot (and yes, I remembered to disconnect the power leads first) I did a complete check but still couldn’t find what was the problem.

(By the way my brain looks hilarious when you sit little bunny ears on top of it and make it bounce around and pretend to eat carrots.)

…and so I haven’t written more than a paragraph or two in the last week and a half. I figure if I want to finish NaNoWriMo this year I need to write about 7000 words a day. And that is not going to happen. So, it’s official -

So, while I’ve been avoiding writing for the past week and a half, I’ve been doing other things. I’ve hired out a whole bunch of movies. There has even been a good movie or two in there. I quite enjoyed Mongol and the new X-Files movie had it’s moments too. And Val Kilmer was great in Felon .

I also bought myself Legend of Zelda for my Wii. It’s been quite addictive. But then that’s one of the reasons I don’t buy many computer games. I get addicted to them pretty easily and spend most of my time playing them until the game is finished.

I’m still deciding on what to work on next. (Which is probably why I haven’t been working on anything.) These are my choices-

1. There’s a new short story that I have an idea for but it isn’t fleshed out yet. But I do have a cool title and a great first two words.
2. Start work on another project. It’s a relatively new idea and I think I have enough plot for the first couple of chapters.
3. Keep working on the present project. Which will begin by rewriting most of it before adding in missing pieces.

Well, that’s about it for now. Remember – brains look funny with bunny ears.

P.s. The first episode of Season 2 of The Guild is up. Hoorah! Watch it Here

It’s another NaNoWriMo update and I have some good news and I have some bad news. And I have some moderate news that can be perceived as either good or bad.

And a decision.

And an Icy pole.

It’s getting to be freaking hot these days. It’s at 31.5 Celsius today. It’s supposed to be five degrees cooler tomorrow, so I’m crossing my fingers.

It’s going to be a bitch of a summer this year.

So, here’s the reason why I’m here today and not trying to hit my NaNo word quota while wiping the sweat from my forehead.

I kind of… well… finished.

I know! Right? I’m quite a number of words short of the 50,000… in fact I’m still short of getting halfway.

I knew this story was short. It wouldn’t make a thick novel. But when it was just a black spot on my brain I thought it may reach 50,000 words.

Ha.

Half way into it I thought it may reach 30-40 thousand words.

Ha.

I just wrote the last word which was word 19,134.

Now, some of the scene’s were a little glossed over and some were a little *cough* left out. There is also something missing that I haven’t quite put my finger on yet. But even with a complete rewrite I don’t see adding another 10,000 words.

Anyway, it’s definitely in the novella category. But hell, I’m not padding the story out with crap I don’t want just to make the thing longer.

I have learned a couple of things from NaNo this year already…

- I shouldn’t have any trouble hitting 10 grand of words every week. It’s pretty easy If I don’t procrastinate so much. So I plan to keep this up.

- Writing is still fun. It’s obvious but you forget sometimes.

- And some other stuff too.

So here’s my conundrum – which is mildly humorous as well.

Last year I got bored with my story and gave up to work on something else. This year I was going well but ran out of material. HA! (I did say mildly humorous…)

Now, do I…

One – Begin my rewrite now? (Which I believe counts for NaNo since I’m still working on the same novel(la).

Two – Start work on a fresh project and still count it toward NaNo? (Which is a bit iffy on whether or not it counts. It’s a different project but I’m still aiming for 50,000 words)

Or

Three – Forget the NaNo thing and just work on what I want with no set goal… or a personally set goal…

Well, what do you think?

It’s funny cause it’s true…

All that I’ve written so far is absolute dreck.

But even still, the story is coming out and there have been some rubies in the dirt. Sometimes things that I had imagined vaguely have come out exactly as I had imagined them.

But other times the opposite has happened. I haven’t achieved the atmosphere that I’ve wanted. And I wonder, told as it is, If anyone would bother reading past the first page.

I’ve just been writing it in a very linear fashion. Beginning, middle, end. And I wonder if that’s the best way to tell it.

BUT that isn’t the real reason I’m here.

I’m at that point where I have to write a scene but have no idea how to write it.

Yesterday I managed barely 500 words. That’s a whole lot short of my word count goal.

---

I put that line there because that was the moment I reached this decision.

To move forward.

I spent all day yesterday trying to work out how to write this scene. How to inject a dream-like beauty into what is essentially an undignified act.

So I’ve now given myself a deadline of twelve o’clock today.

If I’ve not finished it by then I’m going to write an marker and move on to the next scene.

- Well, that’s it from me now. I didn’t write what I came here to write but all the same it has helped me out.

Don’t look now, it’s another NaNo update!

It’s been going pretty good. I’m still a little behind on my word count, but I’m not letting that get to me. Today had been a great writing day for two reasons:

Reason One: I have now reached:

That’s right. Thirteen thousand, three hundred and eight words. Which, even though I’m behind schedule by a couple of thousand words, is –

The most I’ve written on any one story ever.

Awesome, huh? Are you as excited as I am? Just barely? Thought so.

It also beats out my last years NaNoWriMo by about 4000 words. (If you don’t include the short story and a half that I wrote during November as well.)

Now, on to…

Reason Two: One of my characters was a little one sided. She was more of a plot piece than an actual character, something of an ingenue.

Until I gave her a knife.

She pulled it from nowhere. Suddenly, she’s sticking up for herself. She’s lighting fires. She’s doing stuff I never expected.

It’s such a shame I have to do horrible horrible things to her in just a few chapters time.

Anyway, Back to work…