Nanowrimo

Oct. 30th, 2008 11:57 pm
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[personal profile] jack
I've gone ahead and signed up to NaNoWriMo[1]. I don't expect to write a novel, nor 50k words, as I'm planning to devote what _spare_ time I can, rather than carving out some real time, but I would like to put some concentrated effort into writing 2-3 short stories, and think that's in the spirit of the exercise.

There's a nano forums Cambridge UK meetup tomorrow night in the Cambridge Blue, I hope to go along and say hi to other people

Last time I wrote anything, I adopted the practice of moving to a new file (saldini-001.rtf, saldini-002.rtf, etc) every day or so. That mostly worked, but does it make more sense to go ahead and use plain text and source control? Or to fixedly avoid ever changing anything until the end, and just have draft 1, draft 2? I assume their ought to be word processors that track edits in the same way, does anyone know if any are at all satisfactory? (I know word does something like that, but have difficulty believing it would be a positive experience for writing.)

Story #1. I think, take the lost world posts from LJ. They evolved into a consistent narrative, with interesting characters, but a lot of that was only in my head. With about as much material again, I think that would make a story. And I'd need to make sure the background is actually specified at some point in the story -- it drew into my father david mythology, but I never really wrote about that.

Story #2. Anthony Price (not really like John Le Care) meets Draco Tavern (one spacefaring race got there first, everyone else has to take passage with them, interstellar politics armwrestling behind the scenes. Funny, but about serious topics too.)

[1] I know most people I know have written NaNo at some point ages ago, and quite probably written more interesting stories than I do, but I still like to, because I really enjoy some of the stories I've written before. I've known some more-nearly professional writers, and been embarrassed to realise how far I would be from that, but I've also really enjoyed some of my stories, and think they do have some definite good in them.

[Ranting ahead] And I know most people have seized on the fixed idea that everyone who considers writing nanowrimo falsely believes (1) 50k words is a good length for a novel (2) it's useless to try write sustainably at the same level of quality, and only good to trade quality for quantity, and hence consider it a moral virtue to mock mercilessly anyone who ever writes non-professionally, especially during November. Hm, that sentence didn't end up where it started. I think I ran into people who ran into really really amateur writers...

Date: 2008-10-31 08:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] the-alchemist.livejournal.com
Hurrah for Nano! I'm going to do it sort of on that basis too (at least, I'm not going to write a novel, and probably won't write 50,000 words, though I am planning to carve out some writing time). I'm not sure whether to work on my novel or write two novellas for competitions though. Probably the former.

I'm not sure I understand your last paragraph, but anti-Nano people are annoying.

Date: 2008-10-31 01:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com
*hugs* Thank you. Have you decided yet?

Date: 2008-10-31 08:54 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I'm using source control + LaTeX. That is mostly so that I can have a funky website which shows the wordcount of the last checkin and nightly 'builds' of the novel. It's at http://nano.l4.me.uk/ (ignore the current wordcount, it is counting the placeholder 'novel').

Date: 2008-10-31 10:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com
I guessed :) Thanks, that's an interesting idea...

Date: 2008-10-31 09:16 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] woodpijn.livejournal.com
Yay, welcome on board! Lots of people I know are doing it this year, which is excellent. I'm woodpijn on the forums, in case you want to add me.

I don't use source control or new files for my NaNo novels - I just add to the file every day and save it under the original filename. This is partly because NaNo encourages you not to edit during November, just to keep writing; so none of the diffs would be ones I'd ever want to revert. (I hope pointing this out doesn't fall foul of your rant, which I confess I don't understand either.)

Date: 2008-10-31 01:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com
*hugs* Yes.

your rant, which I confess I don't understand either.

Oh dear, that's probably for the best. I knew it wasn't going to turn out to be coherent, at at least I can spot when that's going to happen in advance now, even if I can't stop myself :) Just that some people think nanowrimo is automatically stupid; and I feel defensive, because they're people I'd trust to know what they're talking about.

Date: 2008-10-31 01:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] woodpijn.livejournal.com
Oh, I see. I understand now, having re-read it.

I wasn't sure if it was that or if you were ranting about very pro-NaNo people, people who strictly enforce the NaNo guidelines like "no editing during November" and "you must start a new novel on November 1st" on themselves and others, and who do give the impression that they think quality is unimportant and snobbish; and I wondered if my comment about how I don't edit made me come across as one of those people.

I can only think of one person who matches the description of what you're actually ranting about.

Date: 2008-10-31 11:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] scribb1e.livejournal.com
Yay! It's great you're joining us.

I think it's fine to do whatever you like with the time. I'm approaching it more like Rachael - writing without revising in order to get to the end of a first draft and then revising later (after November), if it's worth it.

On the other hand, if you're planning on writing less but revising more, have you looked at the [livejournal.com profile] picowrimo community?

Date: 2008-10-31 12:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com
Thanks, but don't worry, I wasn't imagining revising much, just that writing flat out generally means ripping up a short paragraph and expanding it into many or throwing in a "[insert: blah blah]" comment and coming back and filling it in. Going ahead no matter what, but also having places to come back to when inspiration strikes. So that doesn't involve much *changing*, but all the same, working with code and image files has convinced me it's always easier to do things if you can always roll them back :)

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