NaNoWriMo 2005

2005-10-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

So as to relieve the anxiety of NOT being able to start my NaNoWriMo novel yet, I broke down and bought a copy of Chris Baty's No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days.

It's worth the money.

Part cheerleading section for getting the task done, part ego-deflater to keep one from taking this activity too seriously, it's the perfect foil for my Internal Editor which, even in the middle of October, is sticking its ugly, ichorous, intrusive head into the dim, dark recesses of my cerebral cortex.

I'll be keeping this little tome with me at all times.

2005-10-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

Just for kicks and giggles, I purchased a used Compaq Armada 1750 Notebook Computer from eBay this afternoon.

From the review:

"We decided to go for it, since Jerry Pournelle (a popular computer columnist and science fiction writer) had an Armada at that time and found it to always be quite reliable (at one point, I think he even had one fly through the window of his truck when his truck rolled on a dirt road, and the computer part survived, although the screen was trashed)."

Well, hell! If it's good enough for Mr. Lucifer's Hammer, then it's good enough for me.

Especially at $150!

This way I don't have to worry about my workplace's rule against personal computer use plus I have a degree of mobility for when I need serious caffeine infusions.

In other NaNoWriMo news, I've dumped the idea of a fictional memoir for what will essentially be a humorous, modern-day Lovecraft pastiche, Squidboy Rising: A Cthulhu-esque Rom Through Time and Space.

2005-10-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

Oooooo! Unofficial NaNoWriMo icons!

LiveJournal user sforzie (in nano_icons) created the two I like most:

2005-10-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Useful As Hell, check out NaNoWriMo Tips and Tricks by LiveJournal user wondersheep.

2005-10-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason, this has been my year to read "Memoirs of Dysfunction," to wit...

Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania by Andy Behrman (2002).
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen (1993).
Running With Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs (2002).
Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs (2003).
Permanent Midnight: A Memoir by Jerry Stahl (1995).
Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher (1998).
This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff (1988).
Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in Hair Metal L. A. by Anne Thomas Soffee (2005).

...which got me to thinking, maybe my NaNoWriMo entry could be based on my rather dysfunctional, alcoholic, drug-addled, college career in the '70s--highly fictionalized, of course, with names changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike, and the more tragic parts spun into something approaching humorous. So as to be manageable in length, I'd condense a number of the more interesting incidents of that time into a single wild-ass weekend and, somehow, work in a number of explanatory asides for those with no feel for the time and place ("Farrah Fawcett? Who the hell is that!).

I'm assembling some notes and I'm starting to believe this is doable.

2005-10-02T09:23:00.000-07:00

Well, as is typical for the first twenty-four hours of sign-ups, the NaNoWriMo site is acting pretty funky--yer basic server overload; however, I did manage to snag a participant icon...

...which I'd post somewhere besides here, but I'm not sure I want to make my intentions that public yet.

In other news, I found a very useful .pdf file, A Writer's Toolkit, by science fiction author Rudy Rucker. Lots of great suggestions here! Also, Mike Shea, son of author Robert Shea, has a nice article on what he calls Method Writing, which seems particularly applicable to NaNoWriMo.

There's Gareth's Tips on Sucks-Less Writing by Gareth Branwyn, which seems potentially useful as I prepare for the unabashed orgy ahead, but may be inhibiting during the actual NaNoWriMo writing itself.

Anyway, just some random thoughts while I wait to sign up.

2005-10-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

I'm still not sure what insanity has beset me, but I've decided to participate in NaNoWriMo, an exercise in self-imposed torture wherein a slew of people attempt to write a 50,000-word novel (okay, a novella, but let's not quibble) in 30 days.

50,000 words.

In 30 days.

That's about 1667 words per day.

Which doesn't seem like that much until you realize that most published writers are happy with churning out one page of usable prose per day.

50,000 words translates to approximately 175 pages.

Now, the organizers of this event emphasize over and over again that the point is quantity, not quality, that part of the "fun" is generating 50,000 words of "laughably awful yet lengthy prose together." "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."

Yeah, well, they don't have Mrs. Forbes living inside their head.

See, Mrs. Forbes was my 11th grade English teacher and pretty much forced us to use what Peter Elbow referred to as "the dangerous method of writing". We had to get things right the first time we set words to paper.

Spelling. Grammar. Point-of-view. Structure. Characterization. Dialogue. Etc. Whatever, it had to be right the first time

This is not the way real writers write. Real writers do a brain dump, writing "laughably awful" prose at first because the most important thing to them is to get the words on paper. That's actually the hard part and probably the Prime Mover of NaNoWriMo--get it down on paper. Editing, refinement, reasonable plot structure, realism (if necessary), all these things come later.

Unless you live with Mrs. Forbes inside your head. The Inner Critic. The Harsh Mistress. The Ilse Koch of English. Nothing, nothing I write escapes the intense scrutiny and unrelenting criticism of Mrs. Forbes, which means that even today the act of writing is an exercise in fear, humiliation, and anxiety.

So, my participation in NaNoWriMo is as much an attempt to smother my metaphorical Mrs. Forbes as it is to try my hand at telling a story, an exorcism of sorts. I have the germ of an idea, I have some notes, I have a sense of the direction I'd like the story to go. We'll see what happens.

And maybe I'll have the opportunity to do the Vicious Spite Jig atop Mrs. Forbes' grave.