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Geek Culture / NaNoWriMo 2012

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2012 00:17
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That time of year again, I think the last couple of times this was brought up nobody entered it, but there's a thread every year, so why not? I'm gonna try and give it another go this year. It has been almost 4 years since I've completed one.

I'm gonna be writing more of my steampunk stuff this year, hopefully hit the 50k again. Some of my friends are entering too, it'll be interesting to get a group of TGC's writers here together to offer peer pressure - maybe hook up on MSN, Skype or Steam?

For those who do not know. NaNoWriMo is the National Novel Writing Month, it is a challenge for people to write a 50k+ word novel in a month, but only an unedited rough draft. It's not a competition, so you're not looking to come up with the best, but it's more like a marathon, you can also get sponsorships for charity.

The website is here.
http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Also, my profile is here

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JLMoondog
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2012 03:52 Edited at: 2nd Nov 2012 07:34
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Already?? I always seems to start one then never finish..

Might try it again this year. Maybe do something different then my usual sci-fi. Thinking more horror story deal.

Here's mine: http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/moondog49

Got a nice outline done so I know where I'm taking this story, will get some words down tomorrow when I get the chance. I've never done a horror type story before, so it should present a good challenge. The title should give some indication on the plot.

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2012 09:29
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That'll be an interesting one. As I've got you on MSN, expect some peer pressure. That is if you log on. I am going to be working on the continuation of what I started for Camp NaNoWriMo, which I wasn't able to finish.

The challenge for me will be me being nice to my characters, this is a sequel to my novel where I'm actually pretty mean to my characters, but for the first half of book 2 I want to be nice to my MC...she's earned it after all. In that regard I think I was doing well in Camp NaNoWriMo, but I was getting to the point thinking, "there needs to be conflict here".

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nonZero
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2012 13:31 Edited at: 2nd Nov 2012 13:31
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Well, I've joined up now too. I did say I would, remember? Anyway, here's my profile (surprised nobody nicked my handle yet):

http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/nonzero

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JLMoondog
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2012 15:25
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Quote: "The challenge for me will be me being nice to my characters, this is a sequel to my novel where I'm actually pretty mean to my characters, but for the first half of book 2 I want to be nice to my MC...she's earned it after all. In that regard I think I was doing well in Camp NaNoWriMo, but I was getting to the point thinking, "there needs to be conflict here"."

Is this the novel you were telling me about before?

nonzero: What kind of novel are you shooting for?

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2012 15:45
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Quote: "Is this the novel you were telling me about before?"


That would be the one, currently it's a 2 parter, dunno if I'll write a 3rd part yet, chances are end of part 2 will have closure.

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JLMoondog
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2012 17:13
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Well got 600 words in and now am only slightly way behind. Will try and make up the other 2k this evening.

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nonZero
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2012 19:14
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Quote: "nonzero: What kind of novel are you shooting for?"

A fantasy-like thing but not in the traditional fantasy sense of, say, David Eddings, etc. This is more going to be a sort of hybrid of something a little darker but with fantasy elements... Hmm, the closest I can think of (and this is waaay off but the only thing that springs to mind) is "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" - well worth a read btw.

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Ortu
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2012 01:55 Edited at: 3rd Nov 2012 07:57
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Let's do it! I'm IN

http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/ortu

I'm going to try an old-fantasy/cyber-punk hybrid I think.

Update:

Ok, I pushed out 1106 words tonight. Still have a lot of catching up, but progress is progress. I threw out the first two paragraphs as an excerpt.

For me, when reading something new, the first few paragraphs are critical as they do much to set the tone and expectation of the story to come. The first page should just grab you. It doesn't have to be epic, but it should certainly catch you up and carry you on wanting more.

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nonZero
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2012 20:43
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Well, I got 1430 words (I subtracted 6 as I don't think the title counts). Man, I've got some catching up! I'll believe in myself and in the force! I'll prolly only get a few hundred this evening but it's early to bed and early to rise so I can use "Caffeine Rush".
Will also be posting an excerpt soon but I'll have to be careful not to give anything away and not to be misleading either. Tough choice.

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2012 21:57
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nonzero, you on any kind of instant messenger? I suppose when I'm on I can give peer pressure to make you stay on target. Bear in mind if you do get behind, it's not the end of the world, because you may have good days where you exceed the limit. Or do what I did when I beat it and just burn to make up for lost time.

Also, I wrote an article a few years ago with some advice on beating NaNo, it basically just relays my experience into it and the experience of folks I spoke to at the time.

http://www.squidoo.com/survivngnanowrimo


Also, this tool is a godsend when it comes to avoid procrastination when writing:

http://writeordie.com/

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nonZero
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Posted: 4th Nov 2012 19:24
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Quote: "nonzero, you on any kind of instant messenger?"

I have a Skype account. Only signed up recently as I mainly text on WhatsApp, lol. My Skype name is
<- that's my handle with an underscore and my real name appears as nonZero too. Don't have any other messaging or social networking accounts atm as my cellphone is my main chat device.
Tks for the article, it was a good read. I agree about sleep. I've also noticed that sleeping in late doesn't make up for lost hours and a while ago I actually had to make a general lifestyle change because of my health and bedtime was on the list.
Writing tool looks fun but I don't think I could handle a digital whip-cracker as I have human ones to contend with.

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Ortu
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Posted: 6th Nov 2012 04:06 Edited at: 6th Nov 2012 06:13
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Day 5 update, I'm at 5214 so now only two days behind. I'm aiming to be caught up and current by Wednesday. Pretty sure I can do it. How is everyone else coming along?

Thought I'd share some of my thoughts on the whole thing. At first I was super conscious of the clock and felt like I was having to rush through it as if I had skipped my homework the night before and was scrambling to finish just before the bell. Now that I've settled in to things the clock has faded away and it's flowing more naturally. That's is really a must as watching the clock will only leave you feeling guilty, stressed, rushed etc it'll drive you crazy and works against you.

The hardest part is resisting the urge to reread, revise, change this and that. It's important to remember that this doesn't need to be a complete and continuous work from start to finish in the month, just 50k words worth of progress on it. it's an important distinction and can really affect what you are expecting to accomplish in this as well as how you go about achieving it.

With this in mind anytime I hit a point in which I'm unable to visualize the scene clearly and completely I'll leave it for later and jump to another scene which is more visible. Holes and gaps can be filled later, post november if necesary. Typically when I hit a fuzzy patch I'll set the whole project aside or plink away slowly at the scene until it is resolved and I can continue in a single continuous stream, so this is really a different mind set for me. Now jumping around is only really possible when the plot and characters are fairly well planned in advance as you need a pretty good idea of where you are heading in order to keep it all reasonably coherent. I expect at least some of the blocks will have to be largely reworked or scrapped all together, but this is a first draft and I think that overall the amount of wasted effort will be minimal and is a fair price in order to avoid getting bogged down and maintain the pace of overall progress required by the time frame.

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 6th Nov 2012 08:37 Edited at: 6th Nov 2012 09:46
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Quote: "The hardest part is resisting the urge to reread, revise, change this and that."


What I tend to remind myself is that if my internal editor is nagging me now, he'll still nag me when I reread it and come to edit it. When you reread it, it's likely to be a painful experience, BUT you've got a detailed structure, it's then just a case of shaping it. It was very painful when reading my 2008 piece, but in terms of content? I liked what I came up with.

In regards to things like writer's block, try to remember something about your day, something you read in the paper, somebody you came into contact with, something you heard, it can be some inspiration for something that happens in your story - might be an opportunity for character development, or it might be something useful in your actual plot.


[edit]

Would it be really evil of me to take all these "yay life is getting good" scenes with my character and end with the line: "And then I woke up from a deep sleep."?

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nonZero
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Posted: 6th Nov 2012 21:10 Edited at: 6th Nov 2012 21:12
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Yatta! Catching up! I was on only 2k odd this morning and I'm on 5142 tonight!! The phrase "Impressive Snake!" comes to mind. I should be roughly on 10500 odd words so in about a week or less, I may even be ahead. I got this great formula from a leprechaun:



*Disclaimer: This formula is provided as-is without any warranty guarantee of accuracy. I take no responsibility for the formula repeatedly equating to 42, 111, 666, 999, 911, 1310, 5.13 or any other symbolic numbers.

[edit]
Quote: "Would it be really evil of me to take all these "yay life is getting good" scenes with my character and end with the line: "And then I woke up from a deep sleep."?"

No, that would be known as Epic Literary Troll!

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JLMoondog
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Posted: 6th Nov 2012 21:49 Edited at: 6th Nov 2012 21:49
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Quote: "Quote: "Would it be really evil of me to take all these "yay life is getting good" scenes with my character and end with the line: "And then I woke up from a deep sleep."?"
No, that would be known as Epic Literary Troll!"


Hey you stole my idea!

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nonZero
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Posted: 7th Nov 2012 11:25
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Quote: "Hey you stole my idea! "


Our idea

Quote: "Jung distinguished the collective unconscious from the personal unconscious, in that the personal unconscious is a personal reservoir of experience unique to each individual, while the collective unconscious collects and organizes those personal experiences in a similar way with each member of a particular species."


Humans allow for inheritance then?

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nonZero
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Posted: 8th Nov 2012 11:14
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Update: Darn, didn't write last night but did some editing on my book - quite a lot. I think I may not hit NaNoWriMo target but it's keeping me in "Writing Mode" so it's actually helping me with the editing of my already written novel. This makes me pretty happy so even if I fail, I'll be getting somethings out:
Working on my hope-to-be-published novel.
Much needed discipline training.
Good "writing workout" when I do write.
An Achievement to try and get Unlocked


@Seppuku and Josh:
I dunno if, like me until just now, you guys haven't updated your word counts in a while or if those stats are accurately reflective. If you guys are sitting on such low word counts, I guess this is a nag message.

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Ortu
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Posted: 8th Nov 2012 20:58
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I managed to get caught up yesterday, but the three to five k word per day i put in to get there was exhaustive and my new concern is burn out. I'm looking forward to slowing down a bit and hopefully just stay even for a while. I'm still super hyped about the story which is great, my mind is just starting to feel a bit fried from the focus

Good to see an update nonzero! Editing comes later, Skip it and keep with the new content, victory isn't out of reach yet

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 8th Nov 2012 21:32
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Quote: "@Seppuku and Josh:
I dunno if, like me until just now, you guys haven't updated your word counts in a while or if those stats are accurately reflective. If you guys are sitting on such low word counts, I guess this is a nag message."


I've not updated my word count, I'll count it up later (I am using 1 file per chapter for redrafting purposes later) so I'll add them all together for a word count to give an update.

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