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Posted on 09/07/2006 10:11:42 PM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Aha! I like Ranger, too. He's so very patient with Stephanie!
Yeah. Now picture him with a herd of Scouts. Heh.
Hi, welcome to Free Republic!
Thank you so much! I've been lurking for a while, so I know that you all might be interested in doing the NaNoWriMo... My writing circle here in Israel wrote me about it. It's taken me a year to come up with 115,000 words for my novel...I can't imagine doing 50,000 words in one month! Good on you if you can do it!
I did it last year for the first time. And I had never written that much for anything. I did not finish but I did make 30,000 in three weeks. That is the usefulness of NANO. Being forced to break pasted all they blocks and distractions and just get words on 'paper' in large quantities.
You are to be congratulated for 30,000 words. That is tremendous! That's how the writing circle advertised it as well. To break out of your writer's block. I suppose the beginning might be a bit weak, but towards the middle a good idea might hit so it would get easier as you go along.
Jen dragged us all into it a few years back...at this point I've managed to finish three times and flunked out one. Gosh...doesn't seem like it's been that long!
But the first year, I'd never written anything longer than maybe 15,000 words, and I'd never even so much as committed myself to writing daily for a full month. I came out of it knowing I *could* write a real novel...but that I'd need to do a *lot* more writing to produce anything good. ;-)
But it was fun anyhow. And is every year. And we talk about it here in the Hobbit Hole every year until we drive the non-participants to distraction. Heh.
When you write that novel, you will have to let me know so that I can purchase it!
The best skill I learned to smash writer's block was a good idea. Since those do not come along every day, you will have to let me know your little tricks.
I've got 10 points outlining the main conflict between TheGoodGuy and TheBadGuy. Need some minor characters with their plots and minor things like setting and character names. Hmmm....how about a cat with an agenda....
It would certainly be a trek THEY'D never forget!
He's going to be a very quiet character. Only speaking when something important needs to be said. He's going to let the crew leader, a Scout, make all the decisions that the crew leader is supposed to make... and make lots of mistakes in the process. Often adult advisors become overbearing and don't let the kids learn to lead. It's very sad to see. And often they're in poor physical condition so their tempers are very short. This trip, with all of is physical and emotional trials, is nothing compared to what the ranger character went through in the special forces. I think he'll bring an interesting perspective to the story.
Toaster? Badger? Guido?
Guido and the Toaster struck out last year. I suppose I could have a badger...
Last year I had a badger named Guido.
It was a very strange year.
The two things that work for me are:
a) Just keep writing, one word at a time, even if it's so boring I could scream - until I find the story moving again (easier said than done, I know). Then I go back to delete what didn't fit if necessary.
b) I sit and write stream-of-consciousness style about the story. I'll take a notebook and brainstorm about the story, pointing out the holes and throwing out ideas on how to fix them until I find one I like enough to run with it. For last year's completely goofy story, I have pages of things like "Why would the Toaster of Doom use llamas to do his dirty work? What is it about llamas that makes them ideal henchmen? " Etc.
This year I'm writing slightly more serious stuff, but the brainstorming works about the same...
Or something like that.
Ermkay.
I'm still not fitting them into my story. Just...doesn't work.
But...congratulations. I guess. ;-)
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