National Novel Writing Month!
That magical month in which we try to distract our internal editor/critic long enough to spew 50,000 words of dubious quality into our word processor of choice, and then never showing those words to anyone ever. Well, that's how I understand it anyway. You might have different ideas. I've done this 4 times now, and failed miserably every time, but I love the idea of it so much I keep coming back, because
this year will be different.
Someone posted this in the confessions thread and it blew my mind a little bit. I am going to read it every morning from now until November 30th, or until I see it when I close my eyes, whichever comes first.
“What nobody tells people who are beginners - and I really wish someone had told this to me... is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.
But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story.
It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."
- Ira Glass
Now, in the time honoured literary tradition known as "plagiarism", here are some resources to help plan for November, courtesy of one
@Quoth over in The Writer's Block (which is a totally cool place filled with people who seem intimidatingly talented but are actually quite friendly)
So what's up, SE++? Who's doing this? Do you know what you're doing yet? Do you have any tricks for getting your own internal critic out of the way and just writing?
We've got 17 days until we need to shut up and write, for now let's chat.
Posts
I doubt I will make it to even 1000 words but it should be fun
I should really do this
but it is so hard to not be apathetic about writing
I'm incredibly stubborn and driven to finish things I've started or attempted, so I'm slightly terrified of this, especially given I've not ever really tried my hand at creative writing in this manner.
Pretty much all of my writing experience is worldbuilding and adventure design for roleplaying games, and that LP linked above, both of which I think of as being very different kinds of writing. I really have no idea if I'm any good at this.
Although that Ira Glass thing @Fearghaill post makes me think that yeah, I'm a perfectionist with high standards i won't be able to meet, but that's the point.
every link in the OP should sneakily lead back to the amazon page for the elements of style
But then a friend text me today to ask if I was doing it, and then I saw Fishman's post in the confessions thread, and then I saw this thread, and now I'm thinking eeeeehhhhh maybe I'll give it one more go.
No ideas yet though. Thinking of retrying one of my past ideas but that might just make me get bored quicker.
Btw Fearghaill the thread title gave me a good laugh.
nah, that's for December. If you're worrying about perfect grammar, you're probably doing NaNo wrong.
A novel written in a month is going to be bad.
Unless you are some kind of literary savant that has been blessed by the witty ghost of Shakespeare and no less than five of the nine muses, whatever you write for NaNoWrimo is probably going to be shitty. The purpose of NaNoWrimo is not to produce quality work, but to produce any work. It is to force you to actually write, because something you can't write well until you write in the first place. It puts you under the gun and gives you a hard deadline so you are writing practically every single day in November. If all goes well, you will simply get used to writing every day, and it'll become a habit after NaNoWrimo ends. That's the whole goal: to get you writing EVERY day. Because the only way to get good at something is to practice, practice, practice.
So please, for everyone's peace of mind, do not come in here bemoaning that you would do this if only you didn't suck at writing. Everything written for this event is going suck. That's expected, and you can opt not to do it if writing isn't really something that thrills you. However, if you aspire to do writing, then this may be something you should get in on. It's another exercise to help you improve and, while absolutely not necessary, if you want to make writing Your Thing and you're not writing a whole lot, then this is a good way to get on that wily horse.
Can I do it, but come in here on a daily basis and bemoan that what I'm writing is shit?
It's like filming a movie in a month. You can only stop to appreciate the B-Movie you are creating.
My last one had some nuggets of promise, though
Like the sudden twist that Bigfeets were actually a race of inter-dimensional beings who were the guardians of humanity against supernatural threats
What do you mean "twist"
Do you have something you want to tell us Grey Sasquatch
I'm aiming for a kind of pulp rote-by-numbers that might not stand in too poor a light when put next to the glorified fanfics that are pop culture EU novelisations.
Star Wars, Star Trek, videogame universes... oh dear.
Or maybe I should just find some weird as-yet-unserved niche erotic lit kindle publishing thing.
So instead I think I'm going to write about a surprisingly civilized post-apocalyptic Canada, with magic and superpowers.
bullshit
grammar and composition are the foundation of all good writing and the first thing you should work on perfecting
and it is far easier to write a lot in a short timeframe if you understand the principles that guide your work and don't have to be constantly guessing at shit like word choice and sentence structure
learning this stuff off by heart is not that difficult and makes the writing process infinitely more fluid
But I actually want to try to do that for real, so it's not suitable for NaNoWriMo
Man I'd watch the HELL outta that movie
But damn it, I'm gonna try and write some kinda words that month
God help me, I'm gonna at least try and get partway to the word count goal, even if it's not all on a single story
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
I guarantee she too thought the first book she wrote sucked.
people have said I write p good
I think I'll try to give my proudest forum contribution the 50,000-word treatment it undeniably deserves
well, I mean, I hit 50k, and didn't touch the novel again even though I was only like halfway through the story
but I did the 50k dammit
I'm gonna actually do a script this year, so I might drop in and give you a script progress report, but good luck to everyone going for their 50k, it really is all about shutting up and sitting down
I mean, I wrote an 87k manuscript last June/July in I think about 5 weeks? And a 55k novel in 14 days last spring.
If I didn't already write 3000 words a day this'd be a good exercise (because really, the hardest part is to sit down and just fucking write).
For those of you who want to do this, here's what I recommend:
"Fuck it, fix it in post": you're shit will be terrible. It will be worse than shit. Here's shit:
<>
and here's you
down here.
It will be terrible, but that's what editing is for. Hell, I'm working through a second draft of my manuscript and it's still not a completely readable copy. I'm hoping the third will be, but even so. It's what the editing process is for.
"Start slow": work a goal into your routine. One sentence. One paragraph. One page. 500 words. 1k words. 2k words. 3k words. Etc. At my highest points for the first draft I wrote 6k a day, but those were the absolute highest points. Start small, start slow. Let the story come to you, let it build up in your mind until you spend the majority of your day thinking about it, planning it. Let it work its way into your mind until the only thing you think about as you fall asleep in bed is what comes next.
I find listening to music helps with the creative process. Imagination and what not. Also looking out the window, staring and taking in what goes on outside and writing out the words in my head that describes what happens. The trees swaying, the leaves falling, the rain dripping over the escarpment of the apartment across the street, etc., etc.
Hopefully this helps.
and I will tox myself and allow any moderator to change my name to WHATEVER THEY WANT if I don't hit 50K
FUCK THIS, NO WAFFLING ALLOWED, THIS IS THE INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PRODUCTIVITY, MOTHERFUCKERS
I haven't finished the game, but GTA5 has me sort of wanting to write about old friends who aren't friends any more. Maybe old band mates.