Because life is never insane enough...
Oct. 8th, 2005 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readingredheadSo, I have a project for the month of November, courtesy of www.nanowrimo.org:
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and -- when the thing is done -- the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2004, we had over 42,000 participants. Nearly 6000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.
So, to recap:
What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.
Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from your novel at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: Sign-ups begin October 1, 2005. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
So, that being said...I kinda need ideas.
I have a few. I know that my story will be set in a fantasy medieval world. I know it will not be serious, though I will attempt at times to make it meaningful. At the moment, here are a few of the things I have written down on my planning list:
Dares:
• Have the last sentence start with “Once upon a time…”
Characters:
• Bob, who comes in at the last moment and has a brilliant plan for saving the day
• Tristram
• some member of royalty who doesn’t want to be royal
• some random member of clergy / religious hierarchy who’s either very doctrinal or not doctrinal at all
• someone with an insane name who is given a much shorter and completely unrelated nickname (like Tim)
• Wentworth
• a bard who’s like Mr. Vargish in that he turns everything into a story
Chapter titles:
• The Beginning
• Shadowed Lace
• The End
• Her Highness
• To Save the World
Plot revitalizers:
• introduce a completely new character who has something to do with the story
• extra points if this character is a long lost relative of one of the other characters
• end a chapter with something random exploding
• have someone try to seduce another character
• extra points if they don’t really like the character
• extra extra points if they’re doing it just to prove that they can
However, I still don't have a title for the story, and I still don't have a single plot idea at all. I have so many fun things I want to do...I just need a reason to do them.
That said, anyone with an idea for a slightly-cliched-yet-not-too-bad fantasy-story plot should feel free to comment! Heh...any and all random / absurd / insane ideas are welcomed.
I'm not too sure...but at the moment I think my main character will be this really egotistical guy who learns a bit of a lesson when he sets off to save the world and isn't able to do it alone. I just think that would be an interesting idea to play around with for a while, especially because that sort of thing can go so many ways.
No matter what, it's going to be told in third person, and I definitely want the main character to be male, because it gives me practice -- so far I only really have experience writing one kind of male character. And third person because what girl would want to get into the mind of a guy?
Eh...and I still have the Vargish homework, which I have artfully procrastinated. Go me!
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and -- when the thing is done -- the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2004, we had over 42,000 participants. Nearly 6000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.
So, to recap:
What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.
Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from your novel at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: Sign-ups begin October 1, 2005. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.
So, that being said...I kinda need ideas.
I have a few. I know that my story will be set in a fantasy medieval world. I know it will not be serious, though I will attempt at times to make it meaningful. At the moment, here are a few of the things I have written down on my planning list:
Dares:
• Have the last sentence start with “Once upon a time…”
Characters:
• Bob, who comes in at the last moment and has a brilliant plan for saving the day
• Tristram
• some member of royalty who doesn’t want to be royal
• some random member of clergy / religious hierarchy who’s either very doctrinal or not doctrinal at all
• someone with an insane name who is given a much shorter and completely unrelated nickname (like Tim)
• Wentworth
• a bard who’s like Mr. Vargish in that he turns everything into a story
Chapter titles:
• The Beginning
• Shadowed Lace
• The End
• Her Highness
• To Save the World
Plot revitalizers:
• introduce a completely new character who has something to do with the story
• extra points if this character is a long lost relative of one of the other characters
• end a chapter with something random exploding
• have someone try to seduce another character
• extra points if they don’t really like the character
• extra extra points if they’re doing it just to prove that they can
However, I still don't have a title for the story, and I still don't have a single plot idea at all. I have so many fun things I want to do...I just need a reason to do them.
That said, anyone with an idea for a slightly-cliched-yet-not-too-bad fantasy-story plot should feel free to comment! Heh...any and all random / absurd / insane ideas are welcomed.
I'm not too sure...but at the moment I think my main character will be this really egotistical guy who learns a bit of a lesson when he sets off to save the world and isn't able to do it alone. I just think that would be an interesting idea to play around with for a while, especially because that sort of thing can go so many ways.
No matter what, it's going to be told in third person, and I definitely want the main character to be male, because it gives me practice -- so far I only really have experience writing one kind of male character. And third person because what girl would want to get into the mind of a guy?
Eh...and I still have the Vargish homework, which I have artfully procrastinated. Go me!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-09 07:09 am (UTC)I really like the idea of beginning the last sentence with "Once upon a time..."
=D
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-09 04:45 pm (UTC)Come, and let us turn out terribly messy yet amazingly entertaining stories! Heh, this is gonna be so much fun...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-09 05:00 pm (UTC)