| | Script Frenzy starts tomorrow! And if you're anything like me, you've written two-thirds of an outline in your head, and you've already demoted the group you thought would be your main characters in favour of a secondary group who turned out to be much more interesting on reflection. At some point today, I should probably commit this to a physical medium; right now, all I've got is a list connecting some of the characters to the ones in Reservoir Dogs. And believe me, those connections are loose. | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment   |
| So groovy! Tonight from 5 to 9 PM, we'll be at Nihao Tea House in the Gloucester Centre, out by where the Silver City Cinema is. Go in the entrance nearest the Blair transitway station and it'll be just to your left. Or you could stay home and watch hockey, but where's the fun in that? Way more entertaining to flip on the radio on the drive home just in time to hear that you're down 5-0 and right before yet another top-shelf franchise player gets his spine bent into a pretzel that puts him out of commission until after the all-star break.
Also: do you like graphs? Of course you do! Graphs make everything better, and NewMexicoKid from our pals in Naperville made one for us! It takes its data from the introduction thread, so add yourself if you haven't already, and in a matter of hours you'll be part of the system. According to this thing, I'm projected to win in another six days -- obviously the algorithm doesn't take into account the effects of screaming my lungs out at the Alouettes on Sunday. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Today is not Tuesday. It is Wednesday. Y'know, in case you forgot. I don't blame you! It's becoming a common malaise.
I tell you what I did last night: I pre-empted the pep talk, the one that came in from Janet Fitch while I was at the write-in. She recommends that you do something mean to your characters (skin their knee, crash their car, etc.) to keep the plot going. Well, without even coming across that excellent advice, I managed to one-up it. I took two of my characters and broke their hearts. Whoops! This isn't even a romance novel! But it was either that or make them have sex, and sex is usually dull to write about, although it would've padded my word count. Hey, it's not the size of my text file that counts, it's what I'm doing with it.
So anyway, I recommend that today you do something particularly mean-spirited to at least one of your characters. Look around and ask yourself, what would bother you right now? Your computer exploding? Your desk collapsing? Your carpet spontaneously rolling up, flipping your couch over with undue force? Well, these sorts of things bother your characters twice as much, because they've already got enough to deal with being a character in your book just anyway. Give 'em hell. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| "Ahaha," I thought to myself on Monday afternoon, "I'm so darn far ahead that I could just not write today!" Now, in fairness I was doing lots of other things that were useful (putting away my bike and BBQ for winter, sorting laundry, taking the empties back to the beer store) but still, I did a little math and came up with a disturbing figure.
I had 33,000 words as of Monday. At the standard pace of five thousand per three days, that meant I was technically caught up to the middle of the 20th -- this coming Thursday -- which was... three days away. A lot can happen in just three days: you can play an entire game of Test cricket if you hurry, or the moon can crash into the planet and totally wreck your Festival of Time. Heck, it didn't even take them three days to elect the pope in 2005! (I remember it vividly, because they cut into the end of The Price Is Right to broadcast it live and I never found out if $22,000 was high enough without going over to win the fabulous Showcase.) So if you're ahead of the curve and you find yourself thinking, "oh shucks, it doesn't matter, I'll do it tomorrow," well, think again, because you never know what tomorrow's gonna bring.
Now Thursday is only two days away, but fortunately I did a bit more work and kept my buffer alive, and I'm up to next Friday. But I'm not stopping and neither should you! Come on out to the Public Library main branch and write with us, 4:30 to 8:30 this evening, and keep your wordcount alive and running. And if you're not one of those "shucks I'm way ahead" folks, I recently gave some of my discouraged buddies at Starmen.Net permission to scale it back to 25K, and I hereby extend the same right unto you. I can do this because I am King of the Internets. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| In the east, we've got the "D" room at Ray Friel from 6 to 9 PM. It's upstairs and overlooks the hockey arena. Fancy.
And in the west, we're at the Barrhaven Sports Centre from 7:30 to 10:30 PM in the Pool Room. Ask at the Pool Desk when you show up (near the squash courts) and they'll show you in.
Bring your zany ideas and maybe a couple of bucks if you'd like, to help cover the rental costs (anything extra can go to our "Halo Box" donations.)
If you're halfway between both of these write-ins, then I suggest going to whichever one you think is going to rock harder, which is obviously the Barrhaven event (because I'm going to it.) We're gonna get way more words than those eastenders! Oh yes, the gauntlet is thrown! >:D
Nineteen thousand words and counting... --- Agent Robertos | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Week 2 is apparently the difficult one. The old-fashioned metaphor has been utilized to convey the sensation of waning enthusiasm. I'm sorry, I've been wading through finished honeymoons and romantic flowers lacking in petals, and the multitude of ways to say, "gee, this is starting to be less fun!" is really getting to me. If you can think of an allegorical situation to your personal decline, then you can think of a new exciting plot element to throw your characters back into that revved-up narrative! For example: at tonight's write-in, I'm finally going to let my space alien savior bug character crash-land in front of the Eternal Flame. His time has come. If you've got something in your outline that represents a big ol' plot shift, tonight is the night to let it run wild; alternatively, if you're flying by the seat of your pants, tonight's the night to come up with the big curveball that causes fresh turbulence. You can even take that literally by putting Sandy Koufax on a Boeing 747. (Wikipedia mentions that "[Koufax's] overhand curveball, spun with the middle finger, dropped vertically 12 to 24 inches due to his arm action." That would translate nicely into 1,200 to 2,400 feet of suspenseful plummeting, I think.)
I mentioned a write-in, did I? Tonight, we're down south at the Great Canadian Bagel at South Keys (southwest of the corner of Bank and Johnston.) There's lots of parking as the Sens are in Montreal, and plenty of buses and the O-Train all hit Greenboro station, which is just up the hill.
Then on Thursday, there are two potential write-ins, one in Orleans and the other in Barrhaven. There's also talk of setting something up at the Chapters at Kanata Centrum, so check the forum if you're interested.
Finally, we have details for Saturday's Marathon Write-In Of Doom: from 9 AM to 11 PM (yes, PM, you're reading that correctly, it lasts for fourteen hours) we'll be at the Starbucks Room in the Desmarais Building on the University of Ottawa campus. (It's the one that looks like a big tetris block.) There is also speculation of seeing a spy movie in the evening. Apparently this is an installment of a famous series of spy movies! I don't know, I don't really pay attention to news from England aside from The Streets, the b3ta newsletter, and Liverpool FC. Never walk alone, right? Right.
Alright, back to Koufax's problematic flight for me. Something like 15,000 words and not counting as I left my USB stick at home this morning. --- Agent Robertos | | comments: Leave a comment |
| You've been busy, right? And not with writing, either. The first couple of days, you got a good head start, but then you had that dentist appointment, and your weird uncle decided to visit just when you were setting up one evening, and now you're actually a little bit behind where you should be. I've been there, folks. Feels like you're never gonna catch up, and with that attitude, you won't.
But there's hope on the horizon. It's an introspective Friday afternoon, and we are on the cusp of the weekend. As soon as you leave work or school today, the expectations and responsibilities go down, the entertainments and relaxations go up, and the world settles back for forty-eight hours. So take advantage of it! You can bring your wordcount back up to the pace, which is 15K words by Monday morning, or even rocket ahead and recreate that buffer zone: it's possible to write seventy-five hundred words in six and a half hours if you maintain the relatively decent clip of 20 WPM, and that includes a fifteen-minute break to put Visine in your eyes and/or pet your beloved animal companion. Do that on both days, and you can stamp the "15,000 Word Weekend" box on your Secret Agent Dossier!
"But Simon," I hear some of you saying, along with a few "but Kevin" stalwarts at the back who don't believe in addressing people by their online handles, "I can't do anything for six and a half hours, even with a fifteen minute break! I need some sort of structured system to write in!"
That was our secret word! Tomorrow from 11 AM to 2 PM, there's another one of those awesome Alta Vista Library Branch writing partays with coffee and desks and so forth. Don't forget to RSVP: 613-737-2837, ext. 3.
Then on Sunday, we switch it over to the Main Branch from 1 to 5 PM, where there will be Word Wars this time because I will announce it the second I walk in the door. Winners get stickers, and there are no losers because padding (or should I say extending?) your novel is always for the win!
And finally, a few of you might be entrapped in the unfortunate situation of close proximity to people who don't get writing. "It's so boring," they say. "Why are you doing that? Writing sucks, etc!" These people aren't normally a big concern, but if they're trying to actively coerce you into doing things other than writing, they could be trouble. The ideal solution is to tell these word-hating willies that you need to watch sports. For some reason, people who think writing is a total waste of time have no problem with spending three hours watching the BC Lions defense shut down Wes Cates on every last second-down run. (Prove me wrong, Riders!) Plunk your laptop down in front of the telly, fire up some Hockey Night, turn the volume down if you're the overly distractable sort, and you have an impenetrable do-not-distract zone which nobody can possibly argue against. Anyone who has no feeling towards writing or sports is a robot, which you can deal with by throwing magnets at them.
8329 words and counting! --- Agent Robertos | | comments: Leave a comment |
| The Write or Die guarantees your continued participation in Nanowrimo. Worth checking out just to see what happens when you don't type for 20 seconds, particularly on Normal strength. Kamikaze mode just eats your text for you, and if I wanted that I'd go back to using WordPerfect 7 on my parents' Pentium II.
Also: there was in fact an update about the write-in yesterday, but I stupidly posted it to the wrong account. So tomorrow we'll get it right for a change.
5050 words and counting! --- Agent Robertos | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| If you haven't heard, LiveJournal is going to donate a buck per winner to the Young Writers Program this year, but you gotta roll over to the community and post a comment with your nano username first. Easy enough for me -- "SimonBob" is my universal constant, because nobody else seems to want a name this dumb. :D
Also: don't forget the Plot Workshop, tomorrow from 1:30 to 4:30 at the World Exchange Plaza food court! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| There's no excuse to miss a write-in this November now that the good Nano people have decided to make us all us Google Calendars! It's dead easy to import into your very own calendar account -- just click the button in the botton-right corner and it'll set you up.
Looks like the next event is our pre-game plot workshop on Oct. 25th. "Get together with your fellow Wrimos as we help each other hammer our plots into shape," it says here. Hm, my idea is so vague right now, it'll probably take a sledgehammer... | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Ready to gear up for November? Wipe the dust off your laptop and come out to the World Exchange Plaza, this Sunday at one o'clock! This pregame write-in doubles Sandra's going-away party, as she's taking off for Regina (go Riders!) next Tuesday. Get your writing prowess back just in time for the big month!
(World Exchange Plaza on Google Maps) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Ah, September. It wouldn't be right to see you come and go without three things: the harvest moon, the autumnal equinox, and the first gear-up email from Nanowrimo headquarters. I'd say something pithy like "start sharpening your pencils!" but dang if we ain't got six more weeks until we even get to ride on it. Nevertheless, there's a little action up on the Ottawa forum if you're really jonesin' for that old-fashioned November feeling.
How's everybody been? Gotten any writing done recently? I just dragged myself through the 3-Day Novel Contest, which was a fun way to get comfortable with my new laptop. 30K in one long weekend makes 50K in a month seem far more manageable. | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| Find yourself glancing over your shoulder, suspicious of December tiptoeing up behind you as you race to fiftykay? Come to these write-ins and give yourself a rear view mirror! Failed metaphors are my bread and butter.
World Exchange Write-In
Tuesday, November 27, 6-9:30
Up the stairs, on the south side of the mall around the corner from the food court, across from the washroom. Plenty of electricity for laptop users, sturdy tables for paper-writers.
Timothy's World Coffee Write-In
Thursday Nov. 29, 6-9:30pm
This one goes out to our west-enders: it's at the Timothy's in College Square, at the corner of Baseline and Woodroffe. Despite being roughly five minutes away from Algonquin College where I spent three years learning valuable things about international hockey competitions and how to overdose on nicotine gum, I have never been to this particular coffee shop in my entire life. Easily locateable from the Baseline Transitway station - it'll be just north of the large posters of scantily clad women on the back of the La Senza. Hey, I work with the landmarks I remember best.
And if you're free Thursday morning, the Pen & Paper Writing Group meets from 10am to 1pm, room 1B at the Nepean Centrepointe Library. I believe that Centrepoint doesn't have the "collapsible floor" feature that they've got at the main branch.
Just four more days to go - pour it on like gravy on fries, folks! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Write-ins are coming up! Tonight, we're at the fantastic South Keys Denny's from 6:30 to 9:30 PM. "But Simon," you exclaim, "are they really going to let us plug in our laptops there?" No, they're not. That's why you're all going to bring pencils, paper, pens, ink cartridges, index cards, whatever you need to write Unplugged! It's really not so bad, my wrist usually goes numb about thirty-five minutes in. Besides, Jack Kerouac wrote "On The Road" on a giant scroll, so there's an inherent element of glamor involved.
I have to admit it, though: I took a look at my struggling word count yesterday, and I decided to give in to the power of electricity. Knocked out 3,500 words in an hour and a half. Apparently I type more than twice as fast as I write, which coincidentally is how fast I have to go if I'm gonna win this year. So stick to your guns, folks, there's an electric light at the end of the tunnel and it ain't just a freight train. Chris himself is rolling up 22K if his profile is to be believed.
Additional bonus calendar item: this Friday, we shuttle out to the west end for the Lincoln Fields write-in, 6 to 9 PM in the eastern part of the mall. No, I don't know Lincoln Fields that well either. Don't worry, we'll just wander around with aimless looks in our eyes until somebody hollers at us, and then we'll sit down with them - unless it's a security guard, in which case we'll hoof it.
Regional Challenge update: we're blowing past DC, but Naperville is holding out a slight lead of just 41.8 words per writer! So next time you're padding your plot, don't stop when you're tired - take that one-more-minute to fish out an extra 50 words so that we can catch 'em again! Just because a race is going down to the wire doesn't mean we have to hang by a thread. ;D
The first big blizzard of the year is upon us, so no matter how you're joining us, be careful out there! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| There's a write-in in the east end tonight! It starts in an hour and I probably should've posted about it earlier, like yesterday or something.
So in the interests of not forgetting about it: don't forget about our marathon write-in on the weekend! There'll be food and light entertainment and we'll probably go to a movie afterwards. I'm holding out for Love In The Time Of Cholera. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Howdy all!
So we have two awesome write-ins coming up in the next couple of days, and the RETURN OF THE MARATHON WRITING SESSION to announce. November's going awesome so far, and we really encourage all of you to try to make it to a write-in. A lot of writing is getting done at these, and we've got Word Wars to help boost your word count quickly!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9:
Where: World Exchange Centre. A map to this event can be found below. When you enter the building, go up to the second floor, into the food court. Follow the signs for the bathrooms in the food court, and they'll lead you to our little room.
When: 5:30 to 9:00 PM.
Map to the WEC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10:
What, you ask? Two write-ins in a row? Crazy! This is our weekly Ottawa Public Library write-in, which has been moved to a Saturday because of Remembrance Day. We'll meet in the basement of the OPL's Main Branch, at Metcalfe and Laurier. Follow the signs, and the sound of frantic typing and writing!
When: 1:00 to 5:00 PM
Feel free to bring your own snacks, or money for the Tim Horton's that's a couple of buildings over!
ANNOUNCING THE 2007 MARATHON WRITE-IN OF DOOM!
This epic event will involve sitting in a room (a nice, comfortable room, mind you) for an epic amount of time, in order to write an epic number of words. Don't believe me? Check out more in the forum thread, here.
Questions? Comments? Don't hesitate to email us at any hour of the day or night (one of us will probably be up). ottawa_on@nanowrimo.org
ps, sorry ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) simonbob for taking over your job... I already had it all typed up and formatted, though, and figured I'd quickly cross-post it | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| The Warning: do NOT attempt to give yourself food poisoning in order to excuse yourself from work in the vain assumption that you'll have more time to write your novel. I inadvertently turned my stomach into a war zone yesterday thanks to some anniversary cheese, and when I wasn't tossing my bedsheets on and off in an attempt to regulate my body temperature, I was trying my best to get both of my eyes to point in the same direction. Reading was barely tolerable; daytime TV was more masochistic than usual; setting pen to index card was right out. Don't make the same mistake I did: check the expiry dates on your lactose-based products.
The Reminder: bring your tribal council torch and your spare change for lemon tea, because we're meeting at Oh So Good from 6 to 9 PM tonight! Trust me on the torch - this place specializes in "mood lighting," which is great for ugly-but-romantic types ("the Kevin Williams special") but not so good for seeing what you just wrote about your main antagonist's top-secret poodle defense system. Luckily, it's easy to reach on any given bus that goes past the Rideau Center - the 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 14, 85, 95, 96, and 97 all come to mind. It's also the only place on York Street between Sussex and the Byward Market that isn't either a bar or a strip club. See you there! | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| Alright, I've gotten off my lazy bum and dusted this community off.
simonbob is now a mod for this community, so I'm gonna leave it up to him to run it, I guess. But I've opened up posting to all members (I think? Well, I tried to, at any rate, hopefully that worked), so you're welcome to post here with any questions or comments that you have.
And, um, now I'm going to class, because otherwise I'm going to be super late.
Michelle | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Sorry for the incredibly short notice, my net has been really screwed up lately. The next write in is tomorrow evening!
Write-in #3, Thursday, 10 November (7-11 PM)
Hello all! It's time again for another write-in! This one was originally scheduled for the Second Cup coffee shop, but we've had to change locations because so many NaNo'ers have been showing up that we wouldn't all fit in the small shop!
So, we'll be meeting this coming Thursday, the 10th of November, at the World Exchange Plaza. The WEP is located at 111 Albert St. (between Albert, O'Connor, Slater, and Mectalfe), and we'll be on the second level, just above the whales, where the tables and chairs are plentiful and the aroma of theatre popcorn is just a tantalizing dream. Look for us on the Slater side in the little nook that looks like it leads to the bathrooms.
The food court will likely be closed by the time you arrive, so plan to stop at one of the bajillion coffee shops in the surrounding block on your way in.
The write-in will be from 19:00 to about 23:00 (7-11 PM), so feel free to drop in any time during those hours to catch up on your writing, or continue in your quest to get ahead!
ALSO! We'd like to try a little... writing activity at this write-in! If you decide to attend, please bring any ONE object, approximately big enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Keep it hidden in your bag when you arrive, though! At some point during the evening, we'll have everyone get out their object and pass it to the person on their right, and have a session of about 15 minutes to write a scene in your NaNovel using that object! PLEASE keep all objects suitable for all ages though, okay? :)
If you have any questions, feel free to reply here, or email Lee-Anne or myself at ottawa_on@nanowrimo.org.
Hope to see you all there! Keep up the writing and good luck going into Week Two! | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
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