Wednesday, October 27, 2004
NaNoWriMo
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Ever wake up in the morning wondering what it would be like to be somebody else? Or if you did something else for a living? That you could walk into a party and when asked you what you do/what you’ve been upto, rather than the ubiquitous ‘I’m a software engineer‘, ‘I bought a new car‘ type of replies you could instead sip at your martini and go ‘Oh, i’ve been busy working on my new novel these days. It should be out at the end of the month!‘. (the martini was purely for effect.) Well here’s your chance! NaNoWriMo is around the corner!
Nano what you ask? National Novel Writing Month. Sit yourself down at a computer, super-glue yourself to your chair and write. Just write. Don’t think. (Well you could think, but its completely optional.) Write till you reach 50,000 words in 30 days. Do I still hear you going HUH?!? Since the folks at NaNoWriMo say it so much more eloquently than I can, go visit their site for more info!
Here’s some tricks that fellow-writer C A Bridges shares —
I crossed the 50,000-word finish line on November 30 with half an hour to spare, although I’m not proud of how I did it — I decided my main character was suffering from traumatic flashbacks and I copied the entire first chapter over again.
- Never use contractions or acronyms. If space aliens are using their forehead lasers to destroy teams of bikini-clad supermodel scientists, have them explain that ‘laser’ stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation with every shot, right up until the fighter pilots from National Aeronautics & Space Administration blasts them.
- Devise a protagonist with interesting quirks, such as the obsessive habit of reciting Kipling’s “Gunga Din” — 573 words, including annotations — during times of stress. This can really up the old word count, especially if they stutter.
- Ninjas, ninjas, ninjas.
- Famous quotes can jazz up a book. Consider starting each chapter with a relevant Shakespearean play.
- If you write anything at all in November, use it in your book. Anything. Shopping lists, business memos, petitions for constitutional amendments, ransom notes, anything. Copy all of your unwanted e-mail and give it a chapter title.
- Public record government documents can add odd bits of randomness to your plot. Say, for example, bill H. Con. Res. 13, ‘Recognizing the importance of blues music, and for other purposes,’ introduced in this year’s Congress, which provides a fast 425 words and an increased appreciation for what politicians do all day.
So if you find me not blogging in the month of November you know where i’m channeling all my blab! I’ve often said that I plan to write a book one day. (Yeah, I say a lot of things) But the optimist in me says that come 30th November 2004, I will tick that off my to-do list. Here’s hoping for support of my ‘literary endeavours’ from the loyal readers of my nonsense!
Best of luck on the novel writing :). As I long suspected, you are without a doubt, completely jobless.
Hilarious ideas by Bridges to increase the word count !
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 @ 10:27 AM
Oh not bad ! ur planning to participate in NaNoWriMo..all the best :)..also its not necessary that u dont have to blog in November ..remember “If you write anything at all in November, use it in your book” tip :p…fit ur blog posts somewhere in ur novel ;), also u can include my “comments” in the novel, like reader so and so said so and so about the post :p(not sure if the rules permit all that..nyways)…what a novel way to write a novel !! have fun.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 @ 11:58 AM
You know, when I first read your post, I thought “You should never take part in writing contests unless you’ve already written a piece and it fits the contest”. I wrote Just Another Love Story for a contest I knew would be coming up in five months. That 3000-word story took me over a month to write. And then too I submitted it too early.
Then I read the write-up on the NaNoWriMo site. Must say whoever it is quite good. By the time the thing ends he’s got you fired up. I almost signed up.
Now I’m back to my “must do it the write way” thing :) Why waste a month writing something that’s only half good? Or less than that…
And now, I don’t know. I’m still thinking about it. Let’s see. I still have til Nov 1 to begin. :)
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 @ 8:47 PM
Wot a cool idea..But u know wot.. This shudnt be at the expense of ur blog…That wud leave (equally) jobless ppl like me high n dry.. So how abt writing ur stuff on the blog itself.. That way we, ur loyal fan following, can even prod u on whenever that thing called “writer’s block” happens..
Neways ATBFYBS..Can i book in advance a signed copy pls ? ;-)
ps: Rajesh, u r the one who wrote “Yet another love story” ? Then mebbe u wud like to chk out http://thewunderkids.blogspot.com to see how we murdered your effort by milking it into a (not-so-mega) serial :-)))
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 @ 11:31 PM
[Anirudh] Gee thanks! :> I’ll take any ideas I can use!
[pingoo] Yes, good point. Use my blog in my novel and vice versa. And nice idea about the comments as well ;) And rules? What rules? :)
[Rajesh] I don’t care much for participating in writing contests in the first place. Not something I’d like to do. I think writing is more of a therapeutic/cathartic experience, so to put it in the corniest way possible — I think writing is itself, the prize.
But then I don’t view the NaNoWriMo as much of a writing contest. It is meant to serve as a not-so-gentle prod to get you started on what, hopefully, is a project that will last much longer than a month. Perhaps i’ll write 50,000 words. Or maybe i’ll only write 5000. Maybe I won’t get a novel out of it, but i’ll manage a short-story. The point is — if I can get *some* quality writing out of the experience, it will have served its purpose.
A friend of mine was asking me - what if I simply cut and pasted a bunch of text from various sources and called it my novel? My answer to that - there’s really nothing that motivates me to cheat. There’s no fancy prize, fame or fortune associated with it. You cross the word-limit, you get mentioned on a list that has thousands of other names on it. So your only motivation is to be true to yourself and just write. And so I hope to do just that.
Sorry about the longish comment!
[Jupe] If I posted even half of my intended writing to my blog I would scare away whatever readers I have :| But its certainly a thought. Oh and TYFYBWFMBS ;)
On a related note - they have this idea of NaNoBlogMo floating around — using your blog to write the novel. Heard of it?
Thursday, October 28, 2004 @ 11:09 AM
Jupe,
Just saw the site. Saw that there’s one more place on the internet with my story on the page, but not my name. Then saw the first line of Episode two, and have been trying to work up the courage to read it since then… shudder…
Until then, would you please replace my story with an extract of the first few paragraphs and replace the rest with a link that says “Read the rest of the original here” pointing to http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/articledesc.asp?cid=307066 so that people know the location of the original?
To learn more about why I’m asking this, read http://rja.blogspot.com/2004/08/plagiarism.html
Thanks.
And now to go back and read what became of my lovebirds. I’m “Ramki”… :’(
…
Just read (or tried to read) Episode 2, and some part of Episode 3. Couldn’t bear it. Skipped to the Recap. Read a couple of paragraphs. Still couldn’t get through it. Brings tears to my eyes, really. :’(
(How do you do two tears using an emoticon?)
So, I’ve tried featuring you on my blog instead.
PS: Who told you it was titled “Yet another love story” initially? It was never published with that name.
Thursday, October 28, 2004 @ 8:39 PM
Good Luck for the Meghnum Opus:)
Saturday, October 30, 2004 @ 9:21 AM
Best of luck from an another NaNoWriMo contestant. Well i even went ahead and regged myself for NaNoBlogMo hehe.
Best of luck again.
http://insidevenky.blogspot.com
http://alegendslife.blogspot.com
Monday, November 1, 2004 @ 7:43 AM
:). Checkpout this link http://www.thehumorarchives.com/humor/0000460.html
Tuesday, November 2, 2004 @ 1:02 AM
[oxy_moron] Thankoo thankoo!
[Venkatesh] Thank you and all the best to you too! I haven’t yet ventured into the NaNoBlogMo territory, but hope that is inspiring you to write more!
[pingoo] Cool! :)
Wednesday, November 3, 2004 @ 8:17 AM
You write well, so its strange that the line that finally forces me to comment isn’t yours
Many quizzical looks from co workers are there :)
Thank you for helping me get through the last two otherwise insanely boring days at work
Friday, July 11, 2008 @ 2:25 AM