| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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This is exciting. I've had a bunch of characters and a basic plot in my head for about 10 years, but have never written anything because I couldn't figure out at what point in the story to start. I really like the idea of writing anything, even the worst crap, just to reach your goal of 50,000 words. Screw writer's block, just get it out and think about editing later. Nate, Sarah - think about this. Y'all have a novel in you. OH, this is exciting, too, because I need structure when I write. I minored in Creative Writing in college but haven't written a thing since graduation because I lacked support and feedback. This gives me support and feedback! Only 2 days to prepare... |
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i tried it two years ago and failed to reach the goal. i think nate recently said he was thinking about trying it this year. |
i'm also moving and a variety of other activites in november, so we'll see how it goes. but then again, no work. so, no excuses. |
. Primed. |
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my 'feh' wasa comment on what i wrote in the other thread. tomorrow is day 1! are we going to sorabjisupport each other? i can discretely provide a place to post novels if anyone doesn't have hosting to do so. |
I'm enthused by the "Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap." I know it. I'm trying to plan out my plotline and I keep running into major points that involve stuff I know nothing about, save what I've gleaned from TV and movies. Like police procedures, immigration laws, medical stuff....I'm just going to make it all up, just to get the story out of me. Wheee! |
What do you want to do? |
nothing until monday! |
I've often tried to write. But, my grammer is terrible. And, I've never gotten beyond the beginning of any of them. I really wished I had the time for this. It would be great to even finish a piece of crap. At least compared to the many false starts I've had. |
Anything to start fiction again. I might try getting into my first diaryland page to get it online. |
. I was origionally going to whip together a PHP page where I could submit my work so far and keep backups, count my words, etc. . But haven't done it yet. . I've got the shakey hunger high. Zing! |
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I've only written 636 words so far. I was distracted this weekend. I have an outline of the different parts, though, and the story has been in my head for so long I've got everything figured out.....the problem is actually committing it to paper. I'm so uptight, I need everything to come out perfectly the very first time. (Heh, having to type this thing on an electric typewriter doesn't help me loosen up.) I'll agonize over, like, "there was a dog on the porch" vs. "a dog was sitting on the porch" for ten minutes or something ridiculous. JUST SAY IT. *smack* |
i'm at 1089 words. i do the same thing with the self editing. i keep telling myself that the point of this thing is quantity, to get the book out of the head. the critic won't shut up, though. after all this back and forth in my head for months about 1st person or 3rd person, the motherfucker pours out of my head in 2nd person. wtf. i'll start posting my progress to a website in the next few days. probably chapter by chapter, instead of daily progress. |
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So, just go for it. That's what editing is for. |
are you doing this nanowrimo, tiggy? |
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But I do have a book in me. It's just not coming out now. :) |
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how is your nephew doing? |
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i dunno if its because im a father, and seeing those images reminded me what its like to hold such precious, fragile life in your hands but that lil man looks like an old soul who is going to be around for sometime. |
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so, by the end of today the nanowrimo crowd will be on schedule if they have 5001 words. i think. mine is here. if anyone wants me to host their novel for some reason, in exactly the same format as i have mine in, send me an email. you can send me chapters and i'll do up the xhtml or whatever. or i'll just host it if you want to mark it up yourself. |
I'm going to withhold judgement, but I will say that I really enjoy the perspective, it's fresh. |
thanks for reading, sem! -- i want to know if anyone is going to read spider's novel? you're writing the whole thing on a electric typewriter? or do you have some hope of gaining a computer? |
Last night, I wrote 1,834 words. I was flying, boy. The writing is terrible, but I don't care -- it's very freeing, being able to write utter garbage without fear of anyone seeing it and laughing. I was dumb, though, and started writing at the climax of the story. I should have only gotten to that point after I had developed my prose skillz through the practice of writing the rest of the story. (Though please don't take the way I write here as an indication of my style.) Anyway, that was dumb. I'll tell you about it, though -- it's about a woman whose sister is killed and the way her grief and guilt affect her in the years following. Last night I wrote about the night her sister died, and this morning it hit me that I had written the scene all wrong. This scene is going to be the second-to-last chapter in the book, so as you've been reading, you've always seen and heard the sister described by other characters, but in this scene you finally get to see her on screen, so to speak, so she should be a very vivid and powerful presence. Instead I had focused too much on the main character. I'll have to fix it this weekend. |
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My problem is I don't have the skill to write delicate scenes well. I could tell you exactly what will happen in it and what small details I want the reader to notice, but I can't actually write out the words to my satisfaction. |
Um. Yeah. |
Anyway. See why typing on a typewriter is a bitch? |
I've got some general ideas, but the plot is pretty ethereal. I haven't really had any just-for-writing time yet either. Over the weekend I had school work that needed doing, then my mother arrived for a visit. . Tomorrow, my mom will be gone and I'll have a while before any more school work needs my attention. I'm heading to the Raven after work to get a few thousand words out. I'm all impressed and intimidated by you folks with your thousands of words already. Grr. . You guys rock it. Keep up the good work. I'll catch up. |
that would be huge. there would be such a high percentage of 'people who have written an, ahem, novel' around this joint. or, higher. we need pezuli to check in. who all is writing? spider, tbone, lapis, me- anyone else? i wish sarah was writing. tiggles. fucking hal. heather, too, though i imagine she'd say 'there are too many novels as it is.' |
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and goddamn motherfuck, fucking droopy. where the hell are you droopy? |
Not going well, I actually cleaned my room yesterday, instead. I don't think I'll go for the 50,000. If I can get 5 pages of decent, non-biographical fiction, I'll be satisfied. Two of my housemates went to the NOLA Bookfair and received two plays, an opera and a booklet of poetry from some guy who was totally punked out. They handed them off to me. Fun. |
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create some characters and make the report the dialog of your novel. |
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Why the hell does my story have to be so depressing? |
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I have a scene in which my main character and her husband are in their house, getting ready to go out to dinner... but I need their milling about to take up around 7 pages, or nearly 3,000 words. (This is on the typewriter. 1 page = 450 words.) Anyway, what interesting things could they be doing/talking about before dinner? It doesn't have to be *right* before dinner, while they get dressed, or anything....it could be in the afternoon before. This is going to be the opening scene in the first chapter, so the reader doesn't know these characters yet. Oh, and they have a very healthy, happy relationship, so no serious arguments can occur in this scene. This deadline thing is killing me. If I had no deadline, I could easily come up with an idea, but I feel like I'm wasting writing time when I just daydream. (I daydream in realtime.) |
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or killing someone or a dark secret. maybe one is hiding something from the other happy healthy relationships can be really boring when it comes to a novel. the opening scene in the first chapter is very important [imo] it should strike you somehow. what's the point? where's the tension? you guys are making me want to write. but i never have any ideas that fill more than a page. |
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Heather: DO IT. |
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that my writing is insane plus it's very self-indulgent [tee hee] plus i find that people have trouble following my stories there are great writers. i do something else. is that SO wrong!!! <smirk> i am achey from a cold[?] but i am silly today. it's chilly. it doesn't rain here but everything is wet. i played poker last night, there isn't enough time for all the fun. and everyone i ever knew should live within walking distance, please. thanks. |
even if you had a book that only six people in all history could even kind of understand, there are hundreds of thousands of people who would read it just so they could pretend to understand it. |
How about tripping over the cat or dog or both. Mine are always under foot. |
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. So I don't have many words yet, and I don't know if it's gonna be any fun to read. But that's not what's important! . But anyway, here's where it lives: boing! |
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i did a lot of outlining last night. zero new word count, though. |
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yes but berkeley is biggish |
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On Sunday I wrote about 1500 words and then realized I was purposely writing filler just to increase my word count, and I thought, what is the point of writing crap *on purpose*? Shouldn't I take my time and craft my sentences better? I understand that writing anything is good practice, but isn't it better practice to make some effort into creating quality? I think so. Plus, at this rate, I'd have to write, like, 4 hours a day every day until Nov. 30th to make the goal, and I don't have the time. But I'll still write. |
i had a random thought last night when i was washing dishes and singing nonsense to eva. you made a statement a long time ago about wanting to teach. im just curious if your move to Berkeley has anything to do with that desire if its still something you'd want to do. |
So how are the rest of you coming along? |
i should learn to write but, oh yeah, my computer broke. nevermind. |
*sigh* perhaps i should learn to write afterall |
. I have this really bad habit starting to daydream while I write... which would be great, since it's good story stuff, but I start dreaming and stop typing... and then I lose track of what I'm doing, get frustrated, and bugger off to find something to eat. But I'm getting better. A little. . I also have a tendancy to mess around way too much with stuff like the little site for my novel and stuff. Like I decided suddently to do it it LaTeX. That meant I had to learn how to use LaTeX so I could get on with writing the damn thing. Fortunately it was easy. . You can do it, Spider. Go for the 50k! You'll have more to work with when you go through and brutally edit the thing afterward. |
Sigh. Heh, you know what I wrote yesterday? I wrote about someone telling the synopsis of another story I had in mind. It's like a faux George Eliot novel....I would be beside myself with joy if I could actually write it as a real novel, in Eliot's style. That would be the neatest thing ever. But seriously, I sat down at the typewriter, wrote furiously, and when I looked up at the clock, an hour had passed in what had felt like 15 minutes. Why can't my job be like that? |
. More words! Need more words! |
im kneeling before the god of quanitity unfortunately, i'm less than halfway, and have somehow run out of words i know, so ive resorted to making up some new ones chapter 16 The mayel bofe schummelled the smafing reculter... |
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a little late in the month, but wtf. 44 pages when i double space them, which i think approximates the number of novel pages. having typed in a page from several different novels and found it to fill a MSWord page at double spaced. |
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I got this idea to create a Cliffs Notes guide to that George Eliot-like novel I'm thinking of. I think I could do it. |
http://www.cyberiad.info/english/dziela/microworlds/microworlds.htm |
"I always tried to limit the amount of plot to the very minimum. I am bored hearing that "the marchioness left home at five". I don't care about the marchioness, her house and five o'clock. Only things that are necessary should be said. By writing reviews instead of writing books I managed to accomplish much more in terms of experimenting than if I were to dedicate full energy to each of these works, like a craftsman." I grok that. I need to find these books. "One Human Minute" sounds great. |
i passed over the 1/3 done mark today (yesterday). 32,712 words to go. 4,673 words per day. i'm still going for it. |
i haven't yet, but i probably should concede defeat. Total Words: 24,094 of 50,000, 48.18% |
bet your novel is really great! |
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i've been following along this whole time... and have been more than impressed, not just by the writing, but by your tenacity. |
i'm not done. projected 80K words, 300 novel pages. |
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85,368 words. |
I can't wait to read it. Ima gonna print out the whole thing on pretty colored paper when all of my papers are done. I am so proud of you. |
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I am! I'm doing that Lem-ish, Eliot-esque, Cliff-Notes-to-a-novel I mentioned upthread. That idea's been percolating for five years, and it feels just about ready. |
as for myself, a line from a borges story comes to mind: "like every writer, he measured other men's virtues by what they had accomplished, yet asked that other men measure him by what he planned someday to do." |
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I regret that I had not decided to do this earlier in the month. The notes I made regarding The Big Idea five(!) years ago are woefully sketchy. |
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