It's over.
Dec. 1st, 2003 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ambitious_wenchWell, NaNoWriMo has ended. I am glad that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
malada and silverblue both managed to finish their novels! ("Huzzah, huzzah, the crowd at the finish line is cheering their success!")
I didn't. ("chirrip, chirrip...")
It's ok--no, really. I'm kinda zen about it all...After all, part of living is to have a wide range of experiences. This year I failed honorably. Last year I added bullshit to my novel in an eleventh hour effort to make the word count. I suppose technically, since it was all stuff I wrote during the month of november it was "legal". But it wasn't in the spirit of the writing. Call it gray. I did write over 50,000 words in the month of November, 2002. But it was for different stories.
This year I made 26,000 words.
Some of it is in the form of me talking to my therapist, Roz, talking about the book and my earlier efforts at writing alt.devilbunnies. Does that count? I think it does. At least it wasn't utterly unrelated material.
Some interesting things have sprung up around NaNoWriMo: There's NaNoEdMo--you guessed it, National Novel Editing Month. That's in March. Instead of words, it's hours clocked editing your novel, specificaly 50. I've joined up. I figure I'm going to keep going on my novel for a while, and then in March do a massive edit.
There's also The National Literary Creation Project, Which seems to have caused some offense over in the forums of NaNoWriMo.
There's also NaNoWriWe for the truly insane; 40,000 words in one week. *shudder*
April is National Poetry Month. Yes.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
napowrimo. Contact me if you want to join.
And I am really, really trying to simply add original content every time I enter something in my journal, I really am. Often it's stuff that is inspired by things I've read elsewhere. Victor (no, I'm not going to link to his journal) recently pointed out that we seem to be a culture that passes around the same information over and over, and that we tend to laugh at poeple who believe in reincarnation.
We are none of us island unto ourselves. Contact produces reactions; Stimulus->response. Sometimes that response is to repeat to our own audience something we have learned in the audience of another.
Just as translation is commentary, we all add something when we repeat what we've heard. that's why sheep-ish memes that allow us to add our own responses seem to flourish on LiveJournal. We put a bit of ourselves into it.
For those of us who don't free-form it very often, having the comfort of a template gets us expressing ourselves. And as elementary as it is, as simplistic and as color-inside-the-lines-dear as it is, it's a start.
Not all of us have the courage to lift our own voices and improvise our own unchained melodies.
Some of us do.djfiggy posts his poetry and gets spammers and trolls. And I read his work, and become speechless. I can't do no more than tell him it's good, that I like it.
But I'm proud to know him, and to read his journal. Now go, take a look at his poetry. Be sure to get on his friends list.
Edie
malada and silverblue both managed to finish their novels! ("Huzzah, huzzah, the crowd at the finish line is cheering their success!")I didn't. ("chirrip, chirrip...")
It's ok--no, really. I'm kinda zen about it all...After all, part of living is to have a wide range of experiences. This year I failed honorably. Last year I added bullshit to my novel in an eleventh hour effort to make the word count. I suppose technically, since it was all stuff I wrote during the month of november it was "legal". But it wasn't in the spirit of the writing. Call it gray. I did write over 50,000 words in the month of November, 2002. But it was for different stories.
This year I made 26,000 words.
Some of it is in the form of me talking to my therapist, Roz, talking about the book and my earlier efforts at writing alt.devilbunnies. Does that count? I think it does. At least it wasn't utterly unrelated material.
Some interesting things have sprung up around NaNoWriMo: There's NaNoEdMo--you guessed it, National Novel Editing Month. That's in March. Instead of words, it's hours clocked editing your novel, specificaly 50. I've joined up. I figure I'm going to keep going on my novel for a while, and then in March do a massive edit.
There's also The National Literary Creation Project, Which seems to have caused some offense over in the forums of NaNoWriMo.
There's also NaNoWriWe for the truly insane; 40,000 words in one week. *shudder*
April is National Poetry Month. Yes.
napowrimo. Contact me if you want to join. And I am really, really trying to simply add original content every time I enter something in my journal, I really am. Often it's stuff that is inspired by things I've read elsewhere. Victor (no, I'm not going to link to his journal) recently pointed out that we seem to be a culture that passes around the same information over and over, and that we tend to laugh at poeple who believe in reincarnation.
We are none of us island unto ourselves. Contact produces reactions; Stimulus->response. Sometimes that response is to repeat to our own audience something we have learned in the audience of another.
Just as translation is commentary, we all add something when we repeat what we've heard. that's why sheep-ish memes that allow us to add our own responses seem to flourish on LiveJournal. We put a bit of ourselves into it.
For those of us who don't free-form it very often, having the comfort of a template gets us expressing ourselves. And as elementary as it is, as simplistic and as color-inside-the-lines-dear as it is, it's a start.
Not all of us have the courage to lift our own voices and improvise our own unchained melodies.
Some of us do.
djfiggy posts his poetry and gets spammers and trolls. And I read his work, and become speechless. I can't do no more than tell him it's good, that I like it. But I'm proud to know him, and to read his journal. Now go, take a look at his poetry. Be sure to get on his friends list.
Edie
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-12-01 04:13 pm (UTC)And do I have to pay you for this little piece of advertising? ;)
payment for services rendered
Date: 2003-12-01 05:30 pm (UTC)And do you wanna join the NaPoWriMo community? You'll be our first international member if you do...
Edie
Re: payment for services rendered
Date: 2003-12-01 07:51 pm (UTC)National Poetry Month
Date: 2003-12-01 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-02 07:43 am (UTC)And I'm still cheering for you! Woo-hoo! Go us writers!
-m
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 09:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 09:53 am (UTC)I'll be happy to add your name to the community. You don't have to audition, either. All are welcome.
send me an email!
Edie