NaNoWriMo

I'm writing about MS, but my MS is preventing me from writing. At least that's what I'm blaming it on.

 

4342, so I'm about 2300 behind. On discovering I didn't know feck, I'd taken a detour to read a book on how to write novels. I think I avoided getting bogged down later by letting myself get bogged down now as I discover this thing called 'outline'. Either that, or I've stuffed up the whole thing by asking my inner centipede Which Leg It Starts With.

As it is, I've got a hero who, unwittingly implanted with a sentient neural nano-chip, is rebooted into the world minus his memory of who he was before the operation. And a writer who, unwittingly immersed into Nanowrimo is rebooting into the world of writing minus knowledge of more than feck. And all I know is that there'll be 50, 000 words of ... something ... at the end of November.

I hope I don't sink to the depths of padding it out with last month's shopping lists ....

Hungry, Winnar von Hero noticed a gnawing in his gut. "I am hungry," Said he. "I need food, and drink, to quench my hunger. I shall have them."
So having said that, his eyes begun to glow with that gleam of decisive resolve which it always did each and every time he knew that he was about to do something, because that was the kind of man he was. And with powerful strides he covered the distance between home and Walmart which he entered and got three packs roast Chicken breast, three packs peppered ham, a carton of greek yoghurt and punnet of strawberried, boil-in-the-bag mixed begetables, Thai ribbon noodles, three french sticks and a bag of mixed nuts and raisins. He strided past the potato chips "I won't have those," said he, with that aformentioned gleam of resolve I already told you about earlier, and paid the lady at the checkout who thought he was sexy and put them in two carrier bags and went out of the shop and went home and cooked them.

Hungrily, he ate them and noticed his gut was not gnawing any more. "Now I am no longer hungry any more", he broodingly said with a faint but meaningful smile playing about his cruel but passionate lips, which seemed to say "I'm the kind of man who has more than a blank bit of skin between my chin and my nose," jeeringly at a world he mocked the very gods of.

 

11043

These last few days, the bit of me that knows that I am a failure in life has been striding around my psyche like a Bollywood male lead with that sneer and slow nod of arrogant certainty. Well, I, a gerbil who's had all he can take, flung myself at the wheel in the corner of my cage, and have been scurrying on it, with brief breaks to gnaw at it, emitting high pitched squeaks of 'Fuck you' at the buzzing hordes of Distractikons, and lower pitched "Hey sweethearts, I'll be back this way another day, but not now" to the Sirens.

And what I have written today will be every bit as interesting as watching that gerbil on the wheel, and, I promise you, far less fun than chilling with the Sirens.
However, the most solid bit of the previous sentence is "I have written today". And that is what I cry to the Gods of Derison, "I Have Written Today!"


But bloody hell, it's shit. Really, it is rubbish. But when I signed up for Nanowrimo, part of the deal was it's OK if it's rubbish. I'd never have had to gall to sign up if being better than rubbish was part of the deal. And I am back on track with my word count, and I doubt that I'll slip again. I did devote three days to study those books on how to write a novel. I had also been flailing around in the first throes of learning to use Scriven. And now I have made them back up. And Scriven is now my text processor of choice. The way I used Word 2003 was so basic, that Scriven easily covers those functions, whilst giving me access to a very powerful and user-transparent structure engine.

The books on story-telling let me know that I know shit about any of this.
Scriven's clear overview of my work confirms this.


I'm predicting that at the end of November, I'll have written 50, 000 words of rubbish BUT, like stroking a magnet along an iron nail enough time, it turns the nail, itself, into a magnet, and throughout 2013, that magnet will become an increasingly effective compass with which to navigate, plot, themes, character, voice etc. Already, my innocent enjoyment of TV programs is being compromised by dawning awarenesses that would have been useful when I was studying English Language at school. Well, maybe the Mercury Principle will apply: It's late, it's late, it's late, it's late, it's late, but not too late. /motivational paragraph

 

i am moving along in my micro-incremental way. i think the sentences are kinda pretty. it's strange to me that the pieces are so short. a friend of mine said they are like water striders. so maybe it's ok.

 

I love this! I hope some day to be able to participate in the written experience. It is a dream to be able to write well!
Kudos to everyone that is writing.

 

1387. Phew. I am now no longer behind word-count schedule. AND Thursday evening is th esecond NaNoWriMo write-in meeting at Costa's Coffee house. With those nice ladies. I will enter with my head held high and ready for two hours of silence. At the back of my mind, I'd had the sneaking fear of having nothing better than a weebling set of apologies and excuses when they say "How's it going". They'll have their lap tops. I'll have my pen and paper. Heck I MUST kick the ass of the Stuctural Elements. I've got fifty scenes mapped out, most of them are 'untitled'. At costas, i can't do any of the actual typing. So .. two hours of doing something structural, that will give me a week's workload of 'filling in with text'. Wow ... if I could achieve that tomorrow, I'd be happy.

All strength to you two, Baraka and Roachboy. ZS .... LOTS of strength and everything to you. And Hello Freetofly

 

i put the first 10 pieces up in my blog...if you're feeling so inclined, have a look at them.

i'm trying to see what folk who are not in my head think is going on with them as a series and to get ideas about directions in which i might take them.

for some reason they're tiny pieces. i write many more words then start rearranging and cutting, printing and wandering around with them, and they get smaller and smaller.

the idea to this point is to make a world that's under continuous surveillance and stage it through the surveillance equipment. but i think that's starting to break down a little with the last one. hard to know.

anyway, there we are.

 

17603 so far.

I've not finished for tonight ... but I had to take a break to recover from the following:

These characters may well be in line for Darwin Awards. If not from Darwin himself, then from me when I start editing it in the new year.

Anyway, my old school motto: "Pavlatim Ergo Certe".
Tea break over. Back on my head.





A few hours later, and I've got to 20296 words, and, for the first time, am ahead of schedule. Nanowrimo software predicts that I'll finish on 27th Nov.
Talkabout learning about myself! Even at my best, this is going to be crap BUT, my low self-esteem is prompting me to write WORSE than my 'crap' best. As writer, I'm 'infecting' all my characters with a sheep-like incompetence. An elite team of mercenaries totally fail to catch up with my good guys in a foot race across a park and into the rear loading bay of a Mall. The good guys, knowing they are being chased, go shopping in the Mall for supplies, including snacks to keep their energy up.
I, the writer, am cringing at the lives I am giving them. The hero, though he does not know it, has a top of the line, cutting edge nano-chip implant which gives him special powers that emerge as it integrates with his present psyche.

Lovely. Deus Ex takes that premise and goes world-conspiracy ballistic with it. Me and my hero ... feck. The awakening of his special skill is that he's sitting on a swing in a kiddies' play ground, is able to launch himself from the swing, and land in a rolling break-fall, then to crawl very quietly to a two foot high wall of a sand pit, and climb over that wall very quielty to land, laying down, on the other side.

Oh I am transformed. I .... AM ... Ninja!

I mean, a bloody Nanochip. I't got to do something better than that.
I mean, I could do that then I was eight. In fact, it just occurs to me, that's where I probably got the ruddy experience to write about to begin with.

My writing experience tonight reminds me of the following BlackAdder clip.
The Discovery of Green.



And at the moment, i can't see my standards changing, bercause i'm just too bloody nervous that I might not reach the finishing line at all. I reckon I'm going to do a 'literary' march of shame ... one hand typing, and the other hand in a permanent face-palm. Then at 50000 words, force myself to read it like a cruel owner rubs his dog's nose in its own vomit.

--------------------------------------

And a message from ME ... the bugger who's going schizophrenic with all this: I AM making my inner critic stand ouut of the way. That was my promise to myself. That was my promise to the Nanowrimo contract. Fekc it, that was my promise to you, Baraka, when you placed the 'woulda, coulda' concern on the table, and my core jolted and I responded by putting my 'will' on the table.

I'm NOT disputing my inner critic's comments. I actually agree not only with his crits, but with the standards of quality that he represents. I actually want to publically repsect him in front of witnesses, and to promise HIM that he gets a free hand with the manuscript ........

AFTER BUT NOT BEFORE Nov 30th, when the first draft of at least 50000 words shall have been written.

I WOULD like to close this post by fist-bumping myself, but at the moment, it's not going to happen. I am alone in my head except for sad views of elements of myself who are receding, disgusted at me, and fixing on tripping me up as I cross busy roads or otherwize sabotaging 'for my own good' this POS.

 

25,000 and I'm totally stopped for tonight. Week end's over, and I'm contemplating the choice to throttle back, just do my fifty and call it a day, or to push to do fifty ASAP, and spend the remaining days tidying it up. Some bits of the plan were there to begin with. Others seem to emerge as I go deep into content. The whole thing therefore gets unbalanced. This is exacerbated due to my being totally naive about my 'writing styles' for different kinds of fictional content. When improvising on the guitar, I have that sense of a database of single notes, short phrases, long phrases, rules of combination, places to keep the rules and places to break them. Here, the database is being built from scratch. If I CAN get 50, 000 words done at all, and IF I CAN spend, say, the remaining three days tidying up what I've got, then I think my learning will benefit a lot.


Ah ... Baraka_Guru , can you help me here: At the Nanowrimo website, I see where I can upload a synopsis and a sample of the novel ... but where do I upload the whole thing ... I mean, when I have got it completed and compiled here, what am I supposed to do next, and how am I supposed to do it, so the organizers can actually know that I have completed the task?


Best wishes

 

Hi Baraka_Guru

This is just what I needed, thank you

 

30,000 - but includes too many loops of people offering and refusing cups of tea. And the 'show, don't tell' rule is being ignored at every p0ossible opportunity. more's the pity. And when it comes to plot reprises ... more for the benefit of the writer ... Double face-palm, I tell you. I'm sure envious of your editing and literary experience, Baraka, but heck, I'm still having a great time, coming out with stuff I'd never have dreampt of in a million years.

I hope you've got to where you want to get to so far. Aiming for the 25th sounds like a good idea. I'm sure aiming for something similar. I've a feeling that those final five days can then be put to unexpected good use before final submission. My reasoning being that then the pressure will be off, the thing can be uploaded at any point, so the only thing that can happen will be improvement of an already winning entry. Anyway, take care, and all strength to you

 

i have another 5 elements in the nano series. i pasted the whole thing up again in my blog. i think it's starting to open up a bit, but i'd be interested in (and grateful for) input, particularly about possibilities for taking the sequence further.

i think the individual pieces are pretty strong. what i'm most interested in is how it comes across as a sequence to folk who don't reside in my head---so who don't see what's there in terms of the game(s) or procedures that shape making the sequence...the idea is not to make something difficult, but rather to make something that inclines you to pay attention and pulls you along in various ways while leaving enough space for you to dream over (from heart of darkness, a line about the white spaces on a map)...

pleased to see things moving for the folk who are running with the word count constraint.

what i'd say about feeling as though you're filling in too much detail about little things in order to jack up the count is experiment with not doing that as you get closer to the end---you might find that you start moving toward a way of thinking concerning how to edit the piece.

meanwhile, addicted to editing, perhaps too much, i continue to inch forward.

one of the ideas behind roachboy is: in the end, roaches will rule the world because they just keep going.

 

Good luck with those action sequences! Mine keep turning into Proust/madeleine sequences. Think tarrentino gun-ballet where 90% of the sequence is flashback to falling out of prams and playing on the swings. Intention = Karate Kid Miyagi "Paint the wall" connections. Actual = spurious memories of questionable relevance to martial arts or ... or anything.

I've not written anyting today, but I HAVE managed to empty most of a bottle of Australian Shiraz, though that does not qualify as word-count.
I'm So glad you gave me that "woulda coulda" motivation. And because the wine has had a strong effect on me, I can get all emotional and say that you've reawakened a 'story writing' side of me that 'lived' between the ages of 12 and 15, when my English teacher was a HERO named Clifford Gould, who gave me some of my only feelings of worth when it comes to putting creative pen to paper. From the bottom of my heart, Baraka, I thank you.

Roachboy's got me thinking, with his notion of leaving space around bits. I've been learning a lot, having a read of his work, but I know it will be a few years, if ever, before I can move in those literary/conceptual circles. However, he's brought to light an unnecessary 'density' in how I've been writing my stuff. I don't think I'm giving the reader 'space to breathe'. I think 'wordcount panic' is partly responsible, but I reckon he's highlit in me a confidence issue that would be putting me into 'gabble mode' regardless of deadlines.

Anyway, all strength to you, both.