Okay, I'm Almost At 25,000, And Still Not Sure What To Do In NYC
I'm just about to make the final push to 25,000 which will actually put me ahead of the game by a significant margin for the first time this NANOWRIMO - I'll actually be a day ahead of pace (which makes sense since I'll be missing an entire day this weekend since I'm the best man in a wedding in Michigan). The recommended word count for the end of the day today is 23,333.
Though there is a small problem. The reason I've stopped writing right now is that I just finished Chapter Nine and the group is out of the building.
I know that now they'll have to deal with being homeless for a brief time and that the people from the building across the street are going to help them but then I face the big question, "now what?"
Of course I know the characters from different world will interact with each other, complex societal issues will be discussed, and taboos will be broken. But they can't just sit around on a fire escape and kill time for the rest of the novel.
I mean they could as I could have them internal monologue and I could pontificate in the third person for 25,000 more words (though I'm hoping for more) but that would be boring.
Not to sound too fantasy here, but fantasy thinking is needed. I need to think of a quest for this group of five intrepid strangers to accomplish that only they can do. And it's not like these people are the Mayor of New York City or anything so it's got to be something that an ordinary group of people can do.
I'm thinking they should just try to get to Brooklyn somehow to try and find one of the character's parents. But that's kind of a boring thing. But at least it gets them started in some direction other than sitting.
Kind of what I'm doing right now. Sitting waiting for something to happen to my characters in my mind that I can put on paper.
---
NANOWRIMO has finally hit the big time this year it would seem. It used to be that I would talk about my NANO and people wouldn't want to hear about it. This year, as I'm not that proud of the dreck I'm writing, I don't initiate a conversation with anyone about it.
But the weird thing is that people at work are asking me about it.
In fact, I went to dinner with my friend Maggie who works in our Washington D.C. office and she actually pried information out of me about what I was writing. She also brought in a cover story from the entertainment section of the Washington Post on NANOWRIMO. Of course, like every year it was published after November 1 so I don't know how much good it did in getting people from the D.C. Metroplex to sign up for NANO but it is a paper of record running a story in a prominent place.
Then, of course, you had Yahoo making NANOWRIMO a news headline on November 1 (which was a big thing since it was just before the election) and a bunch of people coming in for that.
Each year NANOWRIMO is getting bigger and bigger and it's now something that's almost part of the national vocabulary. I don't think it will ever be something Paris Hilton thinks is hawt or anything but it definitely feels good when four years ago it felt like no knew what this speed writing contest was all about.
Now when I'm not the only person in my office doing NANOWRIMO (my office, being an real estate appraisal education company has actual editors for our text books and such) or when I see people frantically typing away on laptops on the train, that's when I know NANOWRIMO has made it.
But, I actually kind of like the fact that in some circles it's still the butt of people's jokes (mostly because I myself don't take it that seriously, I just do it for the thrill of writing a novel once a year).
So when I saw this in Busy's blog, I kept meaning to link it, but I didn't.
Home On The Strange's So, What Are You Writing For NANOWRIMO.
Maybe if I write Groundhog's Day slash next year the process will go smoother than this one.
---
CURRENT WORD COUNT: 23,375 words
Though there is a small problem. The reason I've stopped writing right now is that I just finished Chapter Nine and the group is out of the building.
I know that now they'll have to deal with being homeless for a brief time and that the people from the building across the street are going to help them but then I face the big question, "now what?"
Of course I know the characters from different world will interact with each other, complex societal issues will be discussed, and taboos will be broken. But they can't just sit around on a fire escape and kill time for the rest of the novel.
I mean they could as I could have them internal monologue and I could pontificate in the third person for 25,000 more words (though I'm hoping for more) but that would be boring.
Not to sound too fantasy here, but fantasy thinking is needed. I need to think of a quest for this group of five intrepid strangers to accomplish that only they can do. And it's not like these people are the Mayor of New York City or anything so it's got to be something that an ordinary group of people can do.
I'm thinking they should just try to get to Brooklyn somehow to try and find one of the character's parents. But that's kind of a boring thing. But at least it gets them started in some direction other than sitting.
Kind of what I'm doing right now. Sitting waiting for something to happen to my characters in my mind that I can put on paper.
---
NANOWRIMO has finally hit the big time this year it would seem. It used to be that I would talk about my NANO and people wouldn't want to hear about it. This year, as I'm not that proud of the dreck I'm writing, I don't initiate a conversation with anyone about it.
But the weird thing is that people at work are asking me about it.
In fact, I went to dinner with my friend Maggie who works in our Washington D.C. office and she actually pried information out of me about what I was writing. She also brought in a cover story from the entertainment section of the Washington Post on NANOWRIMO. Of course, like every year it was published after November 1 so I don't know how much good it did in getting people from the D.C. Metroplex to sign up for NANO but it is a paper of record running a story in a prominent place.
Then, of course, you had Yahoo making NANOWRIMO a news headline on November 1 (which was a big thing since it was just before the election) and a bunch of people coming in for that.
Each year NANOWRIMO is getting bigger and bigger and it's now something that's almost part of the national vocabulary. I don't think it will ever be something Paris Hilton thinks is hawt or anything but it definitely feels good when four years ago it felt like no knew what this speed writing contest was all about.
Now when I'm not the only person in my office doing NANOWRIMO (my office, being an real estate appraisal education company has actual editors for our text books and such) or when I see people frantically typing away on laptops on the train, that's when I know NANOWRIMO has made it.
But, I actually kind of like the fact that in some circles it's still the butt of people's jokes (mostly because I myself don't take it that seriously, I just do it for the thrill of writing a novel once a year).
So when I saw this in Busy's blog, I kept meaning to link it, but I didn't.
Home On The Strange's So, What Are You Writing For NANOWRIMO.
Maybe if I write Groundhog's Day slash next year the process will go smoother than this one.
---
CURRENT WORD COUNT: 23,375 words
posted by incendiarymind at 7:32 PM
2 Comments:
Nano hitting it big time? For me, it sort of seems unreal--I see the numbers and the news stories but none of it registers. The only time I meet other nano-ers are at write-ins and even then, there aren't very many of them.
I think it will always be a subcultural phenomenon rather than a full fledged one because the amount of people who even want to write a novel are limited. It's not like Sudoku where anyone has the patience from it (well almost anyone because I don't).
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