Kevin's Watch

It's coming up to NaNoWriMo time again, folks. Anyone taking part this year? I did (successfully) last year, but an imminent change of lifestyle looks like thwarting my desire to participate this year.

I do tend to hang around the NaNo forum, though, and one thing I've noticed is what a bunch of amateurish clowns they all are there. Alright, not everyone, but I'd say two thirds (if not more) of the members of the forum are ignorantly inept enough to make me squirm. I make no claims to any professionalism myself, but some of the topics and posts are just...argh, words fail me.

For instance, I just popped over there and saw a topic called "D'oh! I forgot the magic!" The initial post is, as the title suggests, a NaNo participant tearing its hair out in panic because it has just realised its fantasy story doesn't contain any magic. Oh no!

Also look out for the abundance of topics asking for people to name characters, come up with plot ideas ("I need a plot - help"...GRR!) and so forth.

Well, that turned from a polite enquiry into a fuming rant. Hm.

offering some more pieces for the anthology and then doing some more multi-media pieces. so no time.

I'll be doing it, if I have the time in November. Hopefully get further than last time (~15,000 words). Might even try to plan something out in advance.
As far as the forums go, I used them for one thing: procrastination. Other than that, I don't pay much attention. NaNo is a project intended for amateurs writing just to say they did it (hey, look, I wrote a novel! Now I can tick that off the list of things to do before I die and get back to never reading or writing anything again!), so you can't really expect much.

I have a story. I don't know if it will turn out to be enough to flesh out to 50k words, but it's a story. It began to form shortly after I last responded to this thread, and I'm slowly letting it develop in my head. I think I might be able to do something with it in November.

Excellent. Fly the Watch flag for us, Murrin.

Hey Roger....that signature is spooky, but cool.

Which, the Watch one or the NaNo one? The Watch one is nicked from Trigun, and the NaNo one is an approximation of something SRD said once.

This one...

La de da de dy
Geno-cide
La de da de dud
An ocean of blood


Where does that come from?

It's from an anime series called Trigun.

Without wanting to give much away in case you ever watch it (and I recommend doing so, since it's both intelligent and humorous), the main character, Vash the Stampede (a resolute pacifist who has nonetheless acquired an undeserved reputation for being a homicidal lunatic) at one point tries to spook some villainous kidnapper types by letting word get out that the legendary Vash the Stampede is coming, then walking around in the shadows singing "Totaaaal...slaughterrrr... Totaaaal...slaughterrrr... La de da de dy, geno-cide. La de da de dud, an ocean of blood. Let's start...the killing...time..."

eep!

That is scary stuff.

Here's the man himself, striking a dramatic pose...and a not-so-dramatic one.

I've lost patience with myself. If I want to write, I need to stop arsing about and do it. So, I'm starting early. 1667 words a day target, now until Oct 31st. 35000 total is the goal. Doesn't have to be all one piece--point is, I need discipline, and if having a deadline or a target is what it takes to get me to do anything, then this might work. Then, if I think I'm up to it, I continue and do NaNo for real (though by then my workload might have increased somewhat at Uni).

Maintaining the discipline to write a set minimum word count every day is quite challenging. It works well, though, in that it forces your creativity along avenues it wouldn't otherwise have followed. Good luck.

Yeah good luck. I'm too lazy to even think about trying.

--A

454 words is not a good start. But I did start in the middle of the night, so I have an excuse.

I will be doing it again this year, once again knowing I will never meet the goal of a novel length manuscript. I will be out of town for a full week in November, and most of my weekends will be quite busy.

That said, I find a lot of fun just in the doing!

If anyone wants to add me to their friends list, I am duchess of malfi.

duchess of malfi wrote:I will be doing it again this year, once again knowing I will never meet the goal of a novel length manuscript. I will be out of town for a full week in November, and most of my weekends will be quite busy.

Hey, I did it in three evenings a week for two and a half weeks (after procrastinating for the first week and a half).

I have a story idea somewhat worked out, with a brief outline. It is probably going to be a very violent and bloody revenge story, with an odd twist or two.

Sounds good

Okay, so I didn't actually do what I said after my last post here, but i'm not going to let myself do the same for NaNo.
Sev-six minutes from now, I'll be opening MSWord to see if I can get something started.