October 18, 2009

• Oh bugger. I've created a second '08 thread. Hope me!
• History never repeats.
• I've signed up. I'm going to write a beautiful novel about a man who repeatedly cuts himself shaving
• I'm writing the autobiography of a bristle, tenaciously pushing himself on through the rough epidermis of life, overcoming in his courageous quest the various strata of basale, spinosum, granulosum, licidum and corneumonly - each with their own challenges and life-lessons to be learned - until he reaches at last the freedom of the surface and has his head cut off.
• quiddy, I can't tell you how much I'm hoping that you actually write 50,000 words on that, because I would totally read it.
• Tempting. Are there any MoFi types who haven't done much writing who have entered this and gone on to do lots of writing?
• Do university essays count?
• University essays a few decades ago are the last writing I've done. I feel like I could write stuff, just wonder if this particular boot to the backside would be an effective impetus.
• I've considered it, but my final assignments are due mid-November so I couldn't possibly put in the time I need.
• I'm going to write the epic Bildungsroman of a bubble of shaving foam, who caresses the face of the man she adores for one brief instant before being ravished by the cruel blade and washed despairingly away.
• I've signed up for it. My first time. My only explanation is a latent streak of pure masochism that has heretofore lain dormant. Well, except for going to grad school.
• I'm really tempted to do this, but I'd go bananas typing the word "monkey" 50,000 times.
• All work and no play, Queso!
• Dang, I'm itching to do this, but this November is booked. Luckily, I've managed a bunch of writing so far this year, so it's not like 2009 is a wash. Best of luck to all you monkeys doing it. Post here on your progress, won't you? *wistful sigh*
• I'll be travelling alot this November, but that might actually be good for writing, since I'll likely be sitting around in airplanes or airports for hours on end.... Not that I've even come close to succeeding in the past few years :P but I'll give it the good old college try!
• OMG, I totally forgot about this site!
• Ooh.
• On reflection, I probably meant "Ook."
• *scratches her armpit, walks around with her arms in the air*
• ZOMBIES!1!
• I'm in! Not only that I have a cunning plan to use the SNOWFLAKE method: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php I sense victory already! MUHAHAHAHAHAH
• In! Are folks on the nanowrimo.com site? Writing buddies! and pretty pretty snowflakes
• 6,353 words. I'm on the site as 'Plegmund'. I'm also posting my stuff here.
• Wow, Pleg, you are on a roll! Yay! Keep it up! and super to see you yesterday. Again soon!
• This is me.
• Bloodbeard, eh? I can see some of your characteristic leitmotifs coming out there... I would love to read excerpts if any mofite 'wrimos are willing to post them.
• Okay. Although I started writing it in the first person and it was all a bit rubbish, so I'm going to start again tonight, but this time in the third person. Isn't that interesting?
• Don't start again - keep the first person bit as an illogical appendix or something. We need all the words we can get. Guy Fawkes has put me seriously off schedule, personally.
• Not as far off schedule as me, Pleggy, I promise you... (total still stands at a pathetic measly 317)
• I did the same thing, dng. Started writing only on the 5th, having near-terminal writer's block before that. After about three false starts (about 150-300 words each time), I think I have something that I can work with. Except that the world concept is a blatant mashup between something from Lois McMaster Bujold's fantasy novels about Chalion, and ancient China. Or possibly Japan.
• I seem to have ground to a halt with this, uselessly. I'll try and write something worthwhile tomorrow, and post some of it here if it isn't too awful.
• Well, I managed to actually do some writing. Unfortunately it was all on a short story that was completely unrelated to the novel I wonder what it is about deadlines and schedules which make you always do something else entirely?
• Maybe I can have one of my characters read the short story out in the middle of the action somewhere
• Good idea. I suggest you have him read it out to someone who's deaf, so that everything has to be repeated. It's all wordcount.
• I've basically given up on this now, due to rubbishness. I am sorry. Here's the short story that I wrote, anyway. The River At least I did something, I suppose.
• Its a bit ponderous
• Lovely, unsettling, dream-like story there, dng. I'd love to see and hear it as an animated film. Just as soon as you have some spare time, of course
• Doesn't seem ponderous to me. Anyone else still going? I'm on 32,000
• Nanowrimo has served to remind me that deadlines and schedules are beyond me
• Who says that the novel has to be your typical newstand affair? Having a short story embedded in it is OK! Having pomes in it is OK! Having nursery rhymes, zombies, robots, assassins coming and going. ALL FINE!
• I wrote another short story. This one is a short and stupid horror story. The beests I'm still no closer to writing any more of my mythical novel.
• That story should probably be paired with this illustration
• Show us yer NUMBERS..... 41,115. Yah!
• 53,317. Yay!
• I've got a lot of words to write tonight.
• Holy crap, Plegs! Congrats to you, sir! I'm coming around the last bend @ 46,450 and i'm running out of ideas damnit. All is not lost however, there's a restaurant nearby and i will park myself there, for some quiet work. Plus dessert after i manage 1000 words.
• You can do it!!
• Oo, encouragement like that is as good as a shot o' adrenaline. thanks T! I just got back from the resto, 48,579! I introduced a one-legged man into the story to get things going.
• Have you got an excerpt up or anything, SB?
• Failed again this year, guys. Sorry. Only managed a measly 3k words before I got my writer's block again. Just couldn't figure out how to continue the story.
• Made it! Crossed the finish line this morning. Whew. Now I rest my aching arms. @Plegs: No, I don't have an excerpt posted anywhere...but here's a sample: Mother had said that it was very important to sleep eight hours every night. It didn’t matter how many drinks of water you wanted. Nor did it matter the number of higgly-wiggly snake monsters on the ceiling. If you didn’t get eight hours said Mother, you would get sick and your hair would turn grey and fall out. And all your teeth too. Poppo ran to his parents’ bedroom and hammered on the door. His father came out bleary-eyed. “Whuh?” he said. “Father” shouted Poppo. “My blue blanket with the soft fuzz woke me up. I am not getting enough sleep and will lose all my teeth!” “Poppo, go back to bed” said Father. “It is too early to talk about teeth”. Curiously enough, P, I noticed this in your magnum opus: "Do you know Mrs Faratrin? She has big, sticking-out rabbit’s teeth.” The inescapable conclusion: Great literature demands teeth.
• @Neddy - I know that feeling. It's happened to me in every one of the nanos i've attempted. It's a bummer. This year i came prepared. I resolved that if it happened i would just got around it. I started with a story about some assassins, got blocked and ended up doing a children's story about a boy and his blanket. I got 32 pages of that before getting blocked again. So back to the assassins. I parachuted them into King Arthur's court(that'll teach 'em to block my story!) That was good for another 30 pages...and so on.
• "got around" --> "go around"
• Great literature demands teeth. Strange how many people miss this simple yet vital fact.
• Yes! We are told to make good use of our writing time and write like the Dickens but the secret is not "carpe diem" but "carpe dente". Seize the teeth!
• While reading Dickens it's often quite easy to discern the molar of the story.
• All I managed of my novel was about 1000 words in the end (here, if anyone is interested). Instead of finishing that I just put those short stories I wrote earlier into a magazine instead. How many words does a picture count for again?
• Plegmund inspired me, and encouraged me also to try this Nanowrimo challenge, even though it's 2010 now, but also I did it. Yay <:(!)
• Good on ya, Dan!
• Whoot! Way to go, Dan.