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Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 8:33 pm
by LilBee91
Err...I'll see you guys in a thousand words or so. I will not fail today!

Mergh. I really need to turn off my inner perfectionist.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:05 pm
by VelvetElvis
I failed already . Had fabric washed, pressed, ready to cut but I didn't. Maybe next week!

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:55 pm
by Mich
Err...I'll see you guys in a thousand words or so. I will not fail today!

Mergh. I really need to turn off my inner perfectionist.
That's the spirit! YOU CAN AND WILL DO IT.
I failed already . Had fabric washed, pressed, ready to cut but I didn't. Maybe next week!
You have failed no one, not even yourself! You have only proven through your determination that you shall succeed, and on your own terms!

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 10:02 pm
by VelvetElvis
I feel so motivated.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 10:08 pm
by LilBee91
50,000 really crappy words still count as words right? Because I think that's what I'm going to produce.

ETA: I'm only going to make it to 1000 today. I'll get caught up tomorrow.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 6:39 am
by Wind Swept
Off to a slow start. I wasn't accounting for Battlefield 3 coming out at the end of October.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:51 am
by Young Val
So I made the mistake of reading over what I wrote yesterday, and now I'm gripped with the manic urge to FIX it, instead of moving forward. This is the trap I always inevitably fall into whenever I'm writing anything. I go back and polish what I've already written until it's PERFECT and I never ever write what comes next.

HELP!

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:15 am
by Mich
So I made the mistake of reading over what I wrote yesterday, and now I'm gripped with the manic urge to FIX it, instead of moving forward. This is the trap I always inevitably fall into whenever I'm writing anything. I go back and polish what I've already written until it's PERFECT and I never ever write what comes next.

HELP!
Don't do this! Don't fix it! Remind yourself that it's not meant to be perfect or even near perfect, and that it will all be fixed later. You'll have a huge revision party later, there will be candy and champagne and awesome things that you love. Besides, what you need to fix about it will change as you flesh out the rest of what you're writing, so it would just be redundant fixes, anyway. Once you're done writing everything you will also know everything. But for now, you need to keep moving forward!

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:25 am
by Young Val
Whew. Jeff, you need to follow me around and keep me motivated for everything. I'll bake for you.

I've added a bunch of you guys as writing buddies on the nano site. I'm bookishchick. The excerpt and description of my novel are terrible. Fair warning.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 1:26 pm
by Jayelle
50,000 really crappy words still count as words right? Because I think that's what I'm going to produce.
That's my plan! My writing is very rusty and needs practice, so I'll bang out these 50,000 words (though it probably won't be that high) and it'll help me to be in the headspace of "writer" for the coming months.
The excerpt and description of my novel are terrible. Fair warning.
Of course they are. Book descriptions always suck the big suck. I remember this very vividly from Ender's Game most of all.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 6:06 pm
by locke
So I made the mistake of reading over what I wrote yesterday, and now I'm gripped with the manic urge to FIX it, instead of moving forward. This is the trap I always inevitably fall into whenever I'm writing anything. I go back and polish what I've already written until it's PERFECT and I never ever write what comes next.

HELP!
Create a folder for your novel, let's say it's called Run for the Money. In that folder create a separate word doc for each day of nanowrimo. Title each doc with a shorthand title for your novel and the day's date such as RFTM 11-01-11. don't ever open any of the previous days docs until the end of the month. by the end of the month you have thirty docs you can put together and revise to heart's content.

This makes it much harder to scroll up and start fixing/working on what's already written. I have the same problem, and I just have to take away the possibility of scrolling up by starting a new doc. :-p

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 7:13 pm
by LilBee91
Ah, genius! That could make coherency in my story go to crap, but that's preferable to my current problem. I know it's a bad sign when I get bored with what's going on with the story, but I'm have the hardest time figuring out how to transition gracefully to the next thing. Might as well start with a new thing every day--I can make it all fit together later!

I am adding you folks as writing buddies. My excerpt and summary are awful. I feel this is a common problem. Don't judge my embarrassingly low word count right now. It'll be fixed before the night is through.

Question: In real life, who writes the book jacket synopsis?

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 7:30 pm
by Young Val
Question: In real life, who writes the book jacket synopsis?

The marketing team at the publisher.

ETA: Although I've written my fair share of jacket copy in my life time, for catalogs and submissions and so on, and damnit, I'm usually REALLY GOOD at it. Too close to my own work, though, I guess.

And hey, I should be writing right now...

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 7:37 pm
by OSCjunkie
What, pray tell, is NaNoWriMo?

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 7:53 pm
by Young Val
Oh, wow.

National Novel Writing Month.


Write an entire novel in the month of November. It's ridiculous, but amusing in a whole variety of ways.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:03 pm
by Claire
My production has improved greatly now that I've started viewing this not as a novel, but as a 50,000 word in-depth outline. I've never written like this before; I usually write one sentence or one paragraph and then edit it until I'm happy with it...which takes AGES, and I would therefore never get to 50k at that rate. It took me about 2 months to write my 700 word personal statement. But at least I like what I wrote! Now, I'm just constantly groaning to myself. I'm keeping pace with my self-imposed deadlines, but I hate nearly everything I write. That is normal, right? I can't wait to completely rip this apart, though I'm scared that once I do, the length will shrink from 50k completed words to the 5k words I actually like.

I'm moving a little faster because I plan to take Saturday through Tuesday off while I am off exploring in HK. So I reached 5k last night! Hoping to hit 8k before I leave tomorrow night...

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:06 pm
by Young Val
WHOA.

First of all, you are awesome for getting out that many words! I still don't even have 1667 after two days of writing! (I'm not done for the night yet, though).

Secondly, yes, loathing every word you type is normal. And, Claire? I am SO WITH YOU on that. I just reread the most recent sentence I wrote and it was actually painful. Not to mention that I'm pretty sure I'm sailing right on by without any of the require exposition. C'est la vie!

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:31 pm
by LilBee91
Man. This is hard. I need someone to remove my backspace button so I'll stop correcting things, and someone to turn off my internet so I'll stop getting distracted.

Claire, you are my hero.

*is officially adopting the new-document-a-day, in-depth outline strategy*

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:36 pm
by zeroguy
Man. This is hard. I need someone to remove my backspace button so I'll stop correcting things, and someone to turn off my internet so I'll stop getting distracted.
Clearly you should be doing the entire thing on a typewriter!

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:38 pm
by LilBee91
That really would be ideal. Aside from the whole word counting thing, but that can always be done later.

Why don't I have a typewriter?

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:40 pm
by Claire
Please remember that I am 12 to 15 hours ahead of you folks as well! I've had more time to write more terrible words :P.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:44 pm
by OSCjunkie
I guess since I'm at a 2 day disadvantage (seeing as how I had know idea what month it was), I'll be cheating and using a novel that I already have 10K and an outline on. I haven't touched it in months though so I'll have to reread it three times before I can begin. Urgghhh.

Anybody else get White Snake's "Here I Go Again" playing in their head. No? Just me?

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:51 pm
by Mich
Clearly you should be doing the entire thing on a typewriter!
I thought about doing this once, but realized it would be a nightmare to count, and a nightmare to retype the entire thing and then submit it to officially count as "winning" (although I could just submit ANY ol' 50k words to win).

But yay everyone! We're doing great! Can't believe you're at 5k, Claire, although it's obviously awesome. That's three days done in two! [NINJA EDIT: Oh, right. China. PFFTHTBHTBHTBHT No but really you're doing awesome!]

So what's our official opinion on passive voice? I consider Kelly the ultimate voice (ha ha) on this, but I've had good arguments against and bad. Most of the people who have bad arguments are the ones who are just like "ugh I hate reading passive voice it throws me off so badly ugh," but lots of my favorite authors use passive voice indiscriminately and I didn't even notice until looking up the issue and finding their names on lists.

I guess since I type in a manner that's pretty much a slightly more succinct version of my speaking voice, this means that I use a lot of passive voice when I tell stories. But I can never understand the reason that passive voice is bad. Adverbs I get. They are, most of the time, almost exclusively in conjunction with dialogue, shortcuts. But passive voice = bad makes no sense.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:01 pm
by VelvetElvis
Comment from the peanut gallery:
I think the occasional passive voice is ok. Overuse is not.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:04 pm
by LilBee91
Weird. Turning off my wireless actually helped. Now I just need to implement this and I will be productive forever.

Made it to 2400 words so far, a little on the short side, but still good progress I think. Probably a good 90% of them are awful, but that's okay. I get to start a new day document tomorrow, and that will make everything all better.

I have no major problems with passive voice, but I am a serious abuser of it so I'm probably not the best judge. Some of my favorite authors use it and I think it works great.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:10 pm
by steph

I'm moving a little faster because I plan to take Saturday through Tuesday off while I am off exploring in HK.
Jealous!!!! If you happen to go to Ocean Park, could you pick up a Panda aviator style winter hat for me? Tyler buried his on the playground at school and no one (multiple adults, most of Tyler's first grade class and a huge chunk of 2nd and 3rd graders) has been able to find it. I've already searched online to buy Ocean Park souvenirs and I can't get them online. :(

I want to hear all about it when you get back! Brian and I are really missing it.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 9:15 am
by Young Val
So what's our official opinion on passive voice? I consider Kelly the ultimate voice (ha ha) on this, but I've had good arguments against and bad. Most of the people who have bad arguments are the ones who are just like "ugh I hate reading passive voice it throws me off so badly ugh," but lots of my favorite authors use passive voice indiscriminately and I didn't even notice until looking up the issue and finding their names on lists.

I guess since I type in a manner that's pretty much a slightly more succinct version of my speaking voice, this means that I use a lot of passive voice when I tell stories. But I can never understand the reason that passive voice is bad. Adverbs I get. They are, most of the time, almost exclusively in conjunction with dialogue, shortcuts. But passive voice = bad makes no sense.

The passive voice can be really effective in places. I think a blanket statement denouncing it is silly and you should ignore people who make such statements. However, an ENTIRE book written that way can be problematic, only because it could discourage the reader from ever fully engaging in the story. That said, I highly doubt your use of the passive voice is so obstructive. Carry on, I say, and if you want me to read it to give you the official ruling, then, hey. I'm available.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:31 am
by Caspian
[English Professor]All kinds of writing and all permutations of sentences are useful in their place. The passive voice is, as the name suggests, passive. It is usually weaker and it is always less direct. Writing is almost always better if it is more active, more engaging, more direct, and more clear.

But you choose the subject and object of your sentence, the word order of your sentence, the simplicity or complexity of your sentence, to convey something. So if it's important for your sentence, for your paragraph, or for your story that the tomato is being eaten--because the story is ABOUT the tomato in some way--then you might be better off using the passive voice: "The tomato was eaten by Steve" rather than writing "Paul ate the tomato," which is a sentence about Steve instead of a sentence about the tomato.

As a general rule, if you want your writing to be clear then you want your standard sentences to be active, simple, subject object verb sentences, and you want to vary that frequently but only for a reason.[/English Professor]

Tomato.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:40 am
by Young Val
[English Professor] "Paul ate the tomato," which is a sentence about Steve instead of a sentence about the tomato.

Is Steve the tomato? Is Steve Paul's alter ego? I'm so confused... :wink:

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:46 am
by Caspian
D'oh! :oops:

In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, I wrote but did not proofread or correct my writing. Yes. That's it.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 3:00 pm
by LilBee91
My main character just ranted about how stupid constellation names are. Only day three and I'm already in the NaNo desperate stages.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 6:47 pm
by Mich
My main character just ranted about how stupid constellation names are. Only day three and I'm already in the NaNo desperate stages.
Wrong. You're exactly in the right mindset. Going off on strange tangents is exactly what you want to do the entire book! Then, when you edit, it will be that much more cathartic to cut out the unnecessary ones (and that much more fun to keep the engaging ones). Think about all of your favorite authors and their favorite, random tracts. I like to remember how Douglas Adams was the quintessential master at this; that's what the entire Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy was about. And Dirk Gently's. So, really, any fiction he wrote.

And thanks for everyone on your input on passive voice. Like almost every other amateur writer, I try not to take my criticism personally, but the specific person in this context that made me so self-conscious about it is probably the most pretentious writer I know, and I really wanted him to be wrong and be reassured of it as much as possible. Ugh, editing his NaNo from '07 was an absolute nightmare. I even went into it thinking it was going to be interesting and fun and found something that was absolutely meaningless, messageless, and pretty much what you expect every NaNo to read like.

Meaning nothing like what you guys will write.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2011 9:11 am
by Young Val
So I just passed 1,753 words, which is where I should've been on day one. BUT. I am writing every day and I am resisting the urge to go back and edit instead of moving forward! I hope to do some serious catching up today, and keeping steady over the weekend.

Parts of me are taking pleasure in how terrible my writing is. Most of me is horrified.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2011 10:26 am
by Wind Swept
557 words. On track to finish in October of next year.

I was okay with this, thinking I had all day Saturday and Sunday to catch up, but apparently, my mom is visiting. So... Crap.

Re: NaNoWriMo

Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2011 11:05 am
by LilBee91
Was so proud of myself because I reached 4000. Then I realized that I'm supposed to be at 5000....