Anyone participating in NaNoWriMo this year?

I am not planning to sign up, BUT I am going to set a private goal of 10 000 words on my ongoing fantasy-novel; a goal I think will take a lot of work for me to achive, though I believe I will be able to reach it in time. For the moment I have written 37 000 words this year, so it will be a great challenge for me to come up with 10 000 more in just 30 days. A fun challenge though, which is what NaNoWriMo is all about, right? =)

So how about you guys?

It's been really quiet here of late, one can just wish it's because of writing-time eating all your online-time, and not real life eating up ALL your writing-time. For my part, Real Life is hungry! But so is Writing.

Merry Monday!

Just came across this article from The Guardian on Sexism in horror novels. It looks at the growing assumption that the only horror females write these days is paranormal romance. Thought a few of you might be interested.

Hi guys!

Just checking in for some help here. I have two printed sheets in front of me filled with questions designed to help character building. They are divided into such categories as Background, Physical Appearance, Favourites, Attitudes, Goals, Interaction with other people, etc. Now I swore I had an electronic copy of this, but I have been unable to track it down. Does anyone know where I might find a copy? I'm too lazy to type it all out.

In return, I come offering a link. Here is Australian author Richard Harland's writing tips. He tends to focus on fantasy writing, but they are applicable across genre for the most part.

I found another Wiki today that I thought might be useful for us writerly types: WikiHow is a how-to Wiki. I was specifically looking up how to make chocolate straight from the cocoa bean to see if it was feasible for my pre-tech culture to have such a thing. Turns out it's unlikely, but they might be developing it maybe! But yes. Thought it might be useful for others, too :D

Diamonds and Toads is hosting a fairytale retelling contest for US residents. (Yes, I know that effectively rules out at least half of us.)

Anyway, the deadline is July 31st. Goal is to retelling Sleeping Beauty in 1,000 words or less. (Clickety-click for prize info.)

Although, in light of the contest, we could maybe steal the theme and challenge ourselves to retell the story anyway, just to get the creative juices flowing a little... No requirement, but consider it if you're stumped for ideas at any point, ne?

Pretty nearly forgot about them, for all I wanted to share them here, but... Links!

Jill Myles talks about wordcount.

Diana Francis asks about titles.

Enjoy!

How do you make large storyverses, with multiple settings, key characters and storylines work? I know I tend to treat each set of stories as fairly independent from each other, and let readers spot the little links rather than trying to fill in the backstory of every single place or person which gets mentioned in passing. There are a few key things which need to be established in most stories (I can do the 'Light wars ever against Dark' spiel off by heart by now, and the underlying principles of magic remain the same, as does the importance of being able to move between worlds). Even with those key things, though, I don't include them in every piece. Even with those precautions, I try to be aware as I'm writing that my reader might not understand the piece if they haven't read other things. My fear, particularly with my main storyverse, is that I'll end up getting so self-referential that it will become incomprehensible.

So how do you deal with really, really complex settings?

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Not going to be a long ramble this week, I'm afraid, as LJ seems to hate me today and this has taken hours already. So, I'm curious - what's the weirdest bit of feedback you've ever had for a story? (I'm still revelling in a recent story rejection which informed me that one of my Saisorhi sounded like a fourteen year old who had overdosed on King Lear ^___^)

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I can't remember where I heard it or who said it, but I do have a question for you all to ponder if you choose to. Anyway, so the statement was that writers learn more from a completely new story than reworking on an old one.

Agreements? Disagreements? Reasons? Experiences? I think it was either Elizabeth Bear or Sarah Monette who said this. Personally, from what I'm noticing in my newer stories and my rewritten ones, I'm very tempted to agree with the statement, but I'm also aware that might be because all the completely new stories I've written so far are all a very distinct narrative voice, with varying degrees of success. So what I'm learning of those stories is pretty big stuff, all things considered, whereas what I'm learning from rewriting is smaller stuff you might not notice so immediately. Like... Where details can go and when you need to cut something. There'll be times where I learn very little because what I'm doing, effectively, is reworking the whole thing so much the old plot is also non-existent. (Which begs the question 'Am I still rewriting/revising at that point?')

So, for me I think it may depend on more factors than what was given in the original statement as I remember it. And at the same time I do agree because what you learn is often far more noticeable than when you're learning smaller things. Learning to write 'too' when you mean 'too' is far smaller than, say, learning to keep your voice consistent, after all.

But, yes, discuss. ^-^

I've seen a few published authors say that the story they hate the most is always the one they're writing at the time. Now me, I have a different reaction. I've been doing a final proofread of a short story all week, fussing about with commas and consistent capitalisation, and have come to the conclusion that the story I hate the most at any given time is the one that I'm editing.

So, what about you? Which stage in the creative process has you snarling at the computer screen, tearing your hair out at the roots and chewing lumps out of the end of your biro? Planning, writing, redrafting, proofreading? Is it exposition that breaks your brain or are you someone who hates fight sequences? Would you always choose a line of stars over a love scene, or does your heart sink at the prospect of describing a view? Have a rant about a technical aspect of writing you really, really loathe.

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Well, it's been a while since we last had a round-up (4th Jan), and even longer since I last got off my arse to write one. Here goes.

I've been looking at some of the discussion which came out of the last round-up, and we seem to be agreed that general writing discussions get the most interesting responses and would be a good addition to the round-up. And, as there was a reason that I starting thinking about these round-ups again (apart from marking procrastination - I swear, Sisyphus had it easy), I thought I'd take that as a starting point. I've been very focussed on Wind's Road lately, possibly to the detriment of other projects, but I've found myself increasingly bogged down over the last few weeks. It's partly because of a slowing of pace for plotting and structure reasons, of course, but I'm finding it hard to push through to the next crisis point.

So I tried to remember what I've done in the past to tackle this sort of sludginess, and realised that my usual trick was to pick up one of the weekly challenge words. The chance to write something quick and self-contained is very refreshing, and they were always an easy way to explore a new character, different perspective or to play with a new style or setting. I've used some of our other recurring challenges in the same way (chain-haiku, anyone? Go on), and it can be quite effective.

So how do the rest of you deal with being bogged down with a particular story? Do you write something else for a while or slug on through the sticky patch? Is writing unrelated snippets too much of a distraction? Do you become so absorbed into one world that you can't even consider other stories?

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http://chipmacgregor.typepad.com/main/2009/02/critique-groups.html

I'm curious whether anyone here would be interested in being in an official online critique group for writers. I know several of us don't have time to write much. And I also know that a fair amount of us read each others' work here anyway. But I'm wondering if it could be beneficial to have a group meeting once a month or so to group together and focus on one or two pieces of work in real time.

Ideas on how it might work:

• Online chat room a la chatzy? I know we've had a general one for talechasing before
• forum?
• Possible MO: Two sign-up lists (one to critique, one to be critiqued), one or two ms to be emailed to everyone on the critiquers' list, to be discussed at the meeting.
• Other ideas?

If there is interest, here's some other things we might want to consider:

• What is the minimum/maximum number of people that we could do an effective critique with?
• How often would we want to meet?
• How many works would we want to discuss per meeting?
• Approximately how long should each work be?
• How do we accomodate time zones?
• Other considerations?

This is totally theoretical right now. I'm just trying to consider if it's realistic to simulate a face-to-face, regularly meeting critique group online, and what we would want from it if it is.

( Write what you don't know )

This has all got me thinking about that old adage 'write what you know' again. Is it ever genuinely possible to fake it with a real-world setting? A fantasy world has to be conceivably plausible, but the real world has to be real. Even with books written by Australians about Australia, I find it's incredibly easy to sort the city-dwelling writers who might have seen the outback on TV from the real thing.

Historical fiction is a bit more perilous than pure fantasy, but still, there aren't any falconers wandering around to notice you've not got their job description right; you're only at risk of upsetting historian experts and afficionadoes (probably fine, since they seem to like being upset ;D). But when it comes to the real world, everyone is an expert.

So here's my Ponderment for the Day: Do you think it's really possible, short of skimping on visual and general lifestyle detail, to fake residence in a country you've never been to? Is there a story you've read which pulled it off or nearly pulled it off well? How about one that really, really didn't?

It's been a while since the last round-up. Actually, it's been a longer while than I planned/wanted/feared. But there you go. First round-up of the year 2009. I hope everyone's (calendar) years are off to a marvellous start!

This round-up will look a little differently, in that I'll just list things as I find them and try to ramble it all into one whole. Unintentionally (or not, of course) giving you some insight in how I gather the information in the round-ups.

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Aaaaand... that's it for the round-up. Let me know if I've missed something! Oh, and your non-pressured prompt of the round-up... Resolutions! Write, if it sparks anything!

Sharing this from drazzi, have a look at this Writing resolution challenge.

I know we've all been working hard on NaNo, but this isn't some huge writing scala (unless you decide you want to redo NaNo, or such like of course), so it could be more than doable and a lot of fun, no?

I've not decided if I want to participate yet, but I thought I'd pass the word/link along all the same in hopes that someone else can enjoy it too.

Shortly after my previous post here, meirionwen directed me to WriYe 2009. The basic set-up is like NaNoWriMo with two exceptions:

1. it runs for an entire year, as the name suggests.
2. you set your own target to aim for. The minimum seems to be 50 000 words.

They also have a list of what counts towards the total.

I don't intend to sign up. However, being someone who regularly keeps track of their word count, I do intend to set myself a target for the year.

Any other takers?

December is traditionally a bad time when it comes to my writing. I'm lucky if I can get any words on the page at all during the month and I'm a slow writer to start with.

It has been rather quiet here in the wake of November and NaNoWriMo (or equivalent efforts), so I thought I'd attempt to stir things up by asking everyone what their writing efforts are like in this silly season. Does real life swamp you or do you manage to make some time?

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I am so, so sorry this is late!

But NaNo has ended and, from what I can tell, people's word counts are all in the green and we've reached our intended targets and gone beyond them. So!

I wanted to say to everyone,

Congratulations for surviving November!
Congratulations for the wordcount!

November may not always have been easy, and it may not always have been fun, but it has, for all of us, definitely been rewarding. And we've survived into December, which Nano technically reserves for editing. But I say we go for celebration instead!

The question is, how should we celebrate? Discuss!

I know it's a little early, but I thought the song was fitting. For the end of the day, but never mind that!

silvanime has recently made her 10K target too. annarti has lost track of her word count, but it's bound to be around the 20K, so that's a substantial amount of words as well!

Me? I'm slowly struggling through the scene rewrite I started. I never expected it to be a breeze, but I didn't expect that I'd be struggling to put together a sentence either! I'm confident that I'll reach my target too.

And in two more days we'll be in Decembet and the NaNoWriMo maddness is behind us. To those of us still trying to reach our target, good luck! To those of you who made it, congratulations! To everyone still working to get as many words out of November as we can, good luck!

We can survive these last two days, my dears! And then we'll sit back and celebrate all the work we did and didn't believe ourselves capable of on the first of November!