Congratulation to all who won NaNoWriMo! Even if you didn't get to 50,000 words you are all still WINNERS! I just won about 10 minutes ago with 60,452 words. My book isn't even finished! I can't wait to see it in book form! XD
~Argyle Socks
Friday, November 30, 2012
Winner!
Congratulation to all who won NaNoWriMo! Even if you didn't get to 50,000 words you are all still WINNERS! I just won about 10 minutes ago with 60,452 words. My book isn't even finished! I can't wait to see it in book form! XD
~Argyle Socks
Monday, November 26, 2012
Bahnree
Here is another encouragement note from my NaNo Near You form!
(NaNo Near You form)
Written on November 5th
(NaNo Near You form)
Written on November 5th
By: Bahnree
Happy Guy Fawkes Day! On this day in 1605, Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot tried to blow up Parliament (as one does). We can celebrate this in several ways!
1. If you hate your novel, DO NOT SET IT ON FIRE. Fire doesn't solve problems. Just keep writing!
2. If you love your novel, give yourself a treat for having a novel that is not trying to set itself on fire at the moment! Hooray! Then keep writing!
3. If you just have a lot of feelings because NaNoWriMo, make a little man out of straw or grass and set it on fire. It's totally fun.
4. I dare you to set something on fire or blow something up in your story. It can be a building or a person or a tiny, tiny toy. Make it fabulous. Make it fiery.
5. Back up your novel so bad people like literary Guy Fawkeses can't come along and destroy your burgeoning work of art.
PS: NO EDITING FOR YOU. EDITING IS THE LITERARY EQUIVALENT OF SETTING YOUR NOVEL ON FIRE, AND AS WE MENTIONED IN #1, THAT IS NOT OKAY.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Badrat - Brand New and already got writer's block
Here is another encouragement note from Reaching 50,000 form!
By: Badrat
Think of NaNoWriMo like being thrown into an Indiana Jones movie. You're being chased by crazy natives with spears, you're running for your life. Words are your footprints in the ground. When you come to a chasm, you don't stop, you just throw a plank across and keep running. In other words, KEEP GOING AND DON'T LOOK BACK. Enjoy the wind on your face, the strange foliage slapping at your thighs, the beautiful feeling of stumbling into camp every 1700 words or so knowing you can sleep the sleep of the brave and fearless another night. In 30 days you will have a sack full of treasure, a new manuscript big enough to bankroll your return to civilization. Oh, and during the moments when you're not busy running, write down everything that comes into your mind about your novel. It might look like a messy list, but it's actually a map. Consult when really lost. And above all, enjoy the experience.
Good luck and good writing,
-Badrat
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Iveritov
Here is another encouragement note from my NaNo Near You form!
(NaNo Near You)
Written on November 9th
(NaNo Near You)
Written on November 9th
By: Iveritov
This past week has been full of all the things that discouraged and defeated me last year. That's right, the real world demanding my time. When I have to go outside, it necessitates all sorts of preparations, such as finding and deciphering the use of pants. I never remember which finger to hold out daintily in opposition to my deathgrip on my coffee jug, or if it's considered good manners at all to do the electric slide on your interviewer's desk.
But I digress, my real point is that I'm one of those people who has never been good at holding myself to a writing schedule, and encroachments on my time allowed me to excuse myself last year.
Notice I didn't say forced. You see, there are many times when there are days you just have to scrap, and that's ok. You can make up the difference. If you don't, you are leaving a story untold, and that is unacceptable. It is unfair to both yourself and the story in question.
Yesterday was about catching up, today is about finding time, any small niche of time, to write. A half-hour in the car on the way to work with a voice recorder, that works. Waiting for a download, uh-huh. In the margins of the paper you were doodling on while quickly walking to your next class/lunch break/yoga session. Anything.
And since I want you to think about these little times, today's dare will focus on minutiae. A little question to start: "Do you ever think of your character brushing their teeth?" A lot of the time I read, I find myself wondering about the small things that really make up an individual. The routines, the small divergences from the norm, the quirks and faces in the mirror when no one else is looking. So often, I then look at the characters I'm reading, these wonderfully written, diverse, and complex beings sprung from another imagination, and for a moment, I see a construct, something not as real as it should be. Today, I dare you to write a single scene in which the greater plot fades away and a single character is approached from a new angle that focuses on small things that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
Bonus round/alternative dare: Conversations. Characters often speak too perfectly, too thought out for on the fly. They remember everything except when plot-convenient. The alternative dare is to write a conversation in which someone stutters, needs to pause for thought, or forgets something of little consequence that they really should have remembered.
But I digress, my real point is that I'm one of those people who has never been good at holding myself to a writing schedule, and encroachments on my time allowed me to excuse myself last year.
Notice I didn't say forced. You see, there are many times when there are days you just have to scrap, and that's ok. You can make up the difference. If you don't, you are leaving a story untold, and that is unacceptable. It is unfair to both yourself and the story in question.
Yesterday was about catching up, today is about finding time, any small niche of time, to write. A half-hour in the car on the way to work with a voice recorder, that works. Waiting for a download, uh-huh. In the margins of the paper you were doodling on while quickly walking to your next class/lunch break/yoga session. Anything.
And since I want you to think about these little times, today's dare will focus on minutiae. A little question to start: "Do you ever think of your character brushing their teeth?" A lot of the time I read, I find myself wondering about the small things that really make up an individual. The routines, the small divergences from the norm, the quirks and faces in the mirror when no one else is looking. So often, I then look at the characters I'm reading, these wonderfully written, diverse, and complex beings sprung from another imagination, and for a moment, I see a construct, something not as real as it should be. Today, I dare you to write a single scene in which the greater plot fades away and a single character is approached from a new angle that focuses on small things that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
Bonus round/alternative dare: Conversations. Characters often speak too perfectly, too thought out for on the fly. They remember everything except when plot-convenient. The alternative dare is to write a conversation in which someone stutters, needs to pause for thought, or forgets something of little consequence that they really should have remembered.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Badrat
Here is another encouragement note from my NaNo Near You form!
(NaNo Near You)
Written on November 4th
(NaNo Near You)
Written on November 4th
By: Badrat
Today is called, “Who’s in Your Lifeboat?” and it’s dedicated to the artists and writers and others whose image we call up when we find ourselves desperately sinking.
Four days into NaNo is scary, a place people start thinking they might have to give up. After a robust start, suddenly you’ve run out of words. You frantically scour your dwelling top to bottom, throw the pillows to the floor, uproot the cushions on the couch, flail a broom uselessly under the bed, annoying any number of dust bunnies, but there are no words to be found anywhere. And what’s worse, that legion of deep old personal demons, the ones you were going to settle a score with by winning, are rustling in the shrubbery outside. You pull the curtains tighter. The boat is going down.
So, when the doorbell rings unexpectedly, who’s in the lifeboat floating outside? Who do you picture standing there to help you in, give an encouraging pat on the back, a conspiratorial smile, taking their turn at the oars? The cartoonist Lynda Barry would definitely be in my lifeboat. The woman has guts to the max. She sits down every day with her special ink and brushes and draws, and she litters her drawings with bits of her past, which is as close to working with your own skin and bones as it gets. It doesn’t matter that she can’t draw because her character really move. I look at them and see that’s exactly how they move, that she’s nailed it. She’s wonderful. I think of her and I think, I can do this, I can write this novel if I just keep going. And then I keep going.
Four days into NaNo is scary, a place people start thinking they might have to give up. After a robust start, suddenly you’ve run out of words. You frantically scour your dwelling top to bottom, throw the pillows to the floor, uproot the cushions on the couch, flail a broom uselessly under the bed, annoying any number of dust bunnies, but there are no words to be found anywhere. And what’s worse, that legion of deep old personal demons, the ones you were going to settle a score with by winning, are rustling in the shrubbery outside. You pull the curtains tighter. The boat is going down.
So, when the doorbell rings unexpectedly, who’s in the lifeboat floating outside? Who do you picture standing there to help you in, give an encouraging pat on the back, a conspiratorial smile, taking their turn at the oars? The cartoonist Lynda Barry would definitely be in my lifeboat. The woman has guts to the max. She sits down every day with her special ink and brushes and draws, and she litters her drawings with bits of her past, which is as close to working with your own skin and bones as it gets. It doesn’t matter that she can’t draw because her character really move. I look at them and see that’s exactly how they move, that she’s nailed it. She’s wonderful. I think of her and I think, I can do this, I can write this novel if I just keep going. And then I keep going.
Good luck, and good writing,
Badrat
Badrat
Half Way There!
So we are now at the half way mark of NaNoWriMo! I hope that all of you are caught up for your word count. I'm at 24406 words so far and I'm still kicking! WriMo won't stop me without a fight! Here is an encouragement note I got off my NaNo Near You form. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and that you'll keep fighting for the win!
By: Blackbirrd
This is my first “dive in head first, don’t look back, keep your chin up” NANOWRIMO. I have to say the first three days went pretty well. I was feeling pretty good but then I started to slip. The following is a somewhat embellished account of what happened next:
I paced the floor of my humble cottage, not knowing what to do next. I returned to the NANOWRIMO web site and checked again. My word count was low for this day and the NANOWRIMO Stats taunted me like some Arthurian oracle:
“Keep up this pace and you will finish on December 3!”
“I’m slipping!” I said to Scout, my loyal yellow Labrador.
I worked a little harder the next day to write 1,800 words. After verifying my word count, the NANOWRIMO stats praised me: “Keep up this pace and you will finish on November 30.”
“See? That’s better,” I told Scout. “The Stats Oracle has smiled upon me. Let’s go play catch.”
But the next day, words did not flow freely into my novel. So, I took a break. I became distracted by a holiday mail order catalog. Then I became enchanted with a popular social network site. When my word count was verified that day, the Stats Oracle condemned me: “Keep up this pace and you will finish on December 5!”
Darkness loomed ahead. How could I avoid slipping further into the Abyss of Incompleteness?
I caressed my toy dinosaur amulet. I searched for my Grail: The Noveling Affidavit. I rushed to the dining room where I had staple-gunned it to the wall. Like a prayer, I read aloud the third paragraph that says, “I acknowledge that the month-long 50,000 word deadline I set for my self is absolute and unchangeable, and that any failure to meet the deadline, or any effort on my part to move the deadline once the adventure has begun, will result in well-deserved mockery from friends and family.”
The words said aloud energized me. I can slay the two-headed dragon of procrastination and embarrassment, I thought. I can prove that I am worthy of this great task before me. And I will again be ready to face the Stats Oracle by midnight.
“I lost today’s battle but I will win the war of words by November 30!” I announced to the dog.
I sat down at my laptop to write. Scout came over with her tennis ball but I was not to be swayed any longer.
“There will be other days to walk in the light of the back yard, my friend,” I said.
“Today, I must transport the novel in my head through my fingers into this magic box before me!”
Scout walked over to her bed and fell asleep. I think she understood.
Press on, fledgling and experienced NANOWRIMO participants. Together, we can lay siege to the Castle of 50,000 Words and slay that two-headed dragon together!
I will post more encouragement notes (hopefully) every day!
~Argyle Socks
Written on November 10th
By: Blackbirrd
This is my first “dive in head first, don’t look back, keep your chin up” NANOWRIMO. I have to say the first three days went pretty well. I was feeling pretty good but then I started to slip. The following is a somewhat embellished account of what happened next:
I paced the floor of my humble cottage, not knowing what to do next. I returned to the NANOWRIMO web site and checked again. My word count was low for this day and the NANOWRIMO Stats taunted me like some Arthurian oracle:
“Keep up this pace and you will finish on December 3!”
“I’m slipping!” I said to Scout, my loyal yellow Labrador.
I worked a little harder the next day to write 1,800 words. After verifying my word count, the NANOWRIMO stats praised me: “Keep up this pace and you will finish on November 30.”
“See? That’s better,” I told Scout. “The Stats Oracle has smiled upon me. Let’s go play catch.”
But the next day, words did not flow freely into my novel. So, I took a break. I became distracted by a holiday mail order catalog. Then I became enchanted with a popular social network site. When my word count was verified that day, the Stats Oracle condemned me: “Keep up this pace and you will finish on December 5!”
Darkness loomed ahead. How could I avoid slipping further into the Abyss of Incompleteness?
I caressed my toy dinosaur amulet. I searched for my Grail: The Noveling Affidavit. I rushed to the dining room where I had staple-gunned it to the wall. Like a prayer, I read aloud the third paragraph that says, “I acknowledge that the month-long 50,000 word deadline I set for my self is absolute and unchangeable, and that any failure to meet the deadline, or any effort on my part to move the deadline once the adventure has begun, will result in well-deserved mockery from friends and family.”
The words said aloud energized me. I can slay the two-headed dragon of procrastination and embarrassment, I thought. I can prove that I am worthy of this great task before me. And I will again be ready to face the Stats Oracle by midnight.
“I lost today’s battle but I will win the war of words by November 30!” I announced to the dog.
I sat down at my laptop to write. Scout came over with her tennis ball but I was not to be swayed any longer.
“There will be other days to walk in the light of the back yard, my friend,” I said.
“Today, I must transport the novel in my head through my fingers into this magic box before me!”
Scout walked over to her bed and fell asleep. I think she understood.
Press on, fledgling and experienced NANOWRIMO participants. Together, we can lay siege to the Castle of 50,000 Words and slay that two-headed dragon together!
I will post more encouragement notes (hopefully) every day!
~Argyle Socks
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