There are two things I found as I entered the second half of my fifty thousand words for Camp NaNo. The first was that I was doing a bit more on the actual story; while my initial run had been a small amount of novel-relevant writing and a whole lot of company fluff, now it’s [...]
Categories: For Writers, Learning from NaNo |
Tags: Camp NaNo, fear of completion, writing | 
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Camp NaNo has, it’s probably clear, not been easy for me this year. I’d known that inspiration was going to be a problem from my last attempt on the story in question; I’d known free time was going to be an issue, from the fact that last time I participated in the real NaNo, I [...]
Categories: For Writers, Learning from NaNo, The Real World |
Tags: avoidance tactics, Camp NaNo, reading, real world, writing | 1 Comment »
My biggest problem with this month’s Camp NaNo attempt at major progress in my story, as with the first time I tried to NaNo Almagest, was underpreparedness. There were a few characters in my head, but not enough; can one truly do a good heavy court intrigue with only four, and most of them on [...]
Categories: For Writers, Learning from NaNo, Motivation, Technique, The Real World |
Tags: Camp NaNo, motivation, NaNoWriMo, writing | 1 Comment »
It begins the way these stories always begin: Shinali talks me into signing up for (a variant on) NaNoWriMo, and chaos ensues. This time, though, is different. It isn’t the official month—it’s June, and we’re doing the “Camp” version instead. This time I’m leaving the Generic Villain behind and taking a stab at Almagest again, [...]
Categories: For Writers, Learning from NaNo, Motivation, Technique, The Real World |
Tags: Camp NaNo, motivation, NaNoWriMo, writing | 3 Comments »
First of all: I won. All right, moving on.
I have to admit, NaNo has done wonders for my productivity. While I’d made some progress on the GV project, including a pile of sketches, a couple of pseudo-outlines, and the introductory arc with its dramatic-sounding prologue, I’d gotten dead stuck somewhere around the time I needed [...]
Categories: For Writers, Learning from NaNo |
Tags: impressions, NaNo, writing | 1 Comment »
During my sojourn into NaNoWriMo this month, I found myself not merely torn between writing longhand and typing, but actively doing both, and needing in some cases to choose between one and the other. This gave me an active chance to compare the two in a way that no other work had really allowed.
The bulk [...]
Categories: For Writers, Learning from NaNo, The Real World |
Tags: longhand vs typing, NaNoWriMo, real world, writing | 1 Comment »
Two days ago, for the first time this month, I fell behind on National Novel-Writing Month.
It’s not that I wasn’t expecting to at some point. I went in fully aware that I was operating against pretty titanic odds by my standards, that what I was trying to do was considerably more complicated than either of [...]
Categories: For Writers, Learning from NaNo, The Real World |
Tags: block, freewriting, motivation, NaNoWriMo, Round 2, standards, writing | 1 Comment »
This year, egged on by participatory friends, I decided to take another stab at National Novel-Writing Month. The project: that serial/graphic novel hybrid featuring the Generic Villain that I’ve been threatening to write for a good chunk of this year now, which will probably be a lot more than 50,000 words by the time I’m [...]
Categories: For Writers, Learning from NaNo |
Tags: Generic Villain project, hurdles, NaNoWriMo, Round 2, writing | No Comments »
One of the biggest problems I’ve had with my attempt at participating in NaNo is how the emphasis on speed interferes with the ability to produce good names. Names are important to me, to the point where I can ignore the question on Mary Sue litmus tests about whether the name means something relevant because [...]
Categories: Characterization, For Writers, Learning from NaNo, Names, Technique, World-building |
Tags: names, NaNoWriMo, placeholders, writing | 4 Comments »
Write what you know. It’s one of those truisms verging on clichés that you generally hear three or four variations on before you’ve gotten very far as a writer. Its advantage is that it’s rather hard to mess up something you know inside out; even if your writing has issues, the subject itself will not [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Learning from NaNo, Player Advice, Technique, The Real World |
Tags: knowledge, NaNoWriMo, roleplaying, writing | 2 Comments »