Hey Y'all,
So here we are on day one. It's here. It's Here. IT'S HERE!!! How are your characters holding up? Has one of them scheduled a vacation and forgot to notify you, the boss? Has a character called in sick, stepped out for cigarettes and not come back? Has a character strolled off the end of one page and found herself in the Amazon jungle with a spider on her left shoulder, a macaw overhead, speaking in the long, lost language of the Zanzow tribe and you, being unprepared for such a turn of events, forgot to pack your universal language converter--the Babel Fish?
Never fear. Such eventualities are bound to happen. Who hasn't suddenly found himself or herself surrounded by bandits in the Gobi Desert, when all you were looking for was gelato and other people crazy enough to sit down and write, in the course of one month, 50,000 words that are somehow related in some fashion?
Which brings me to your daily kick in the pants. Here it is WRITE ON! - which is not to be confused with the seventies expression 'Right on!" Just go with it. Sometimes, indeed, characters have a mind of their own and the worst thing you can do is stifle their creativity. Think about your own lives, for instance. Sometimes you simply have an intuition about some action you should take or not take. When someone asks you afterward about why you chose to act in such a manner, you don't really always have a logical or evidential reason you can put your finger on. Rather, you had a feeling, a hunch, a Magnum P.I. voice in the back of your head pushing you one way or the other. Maybe your sidekick character knows (even if you don't) that in four pages, if you continue along this course, you're going to find yourself in a room with no windows or doors or light.
No matter if you have meticulously outlined your story or are starting each day with the word you randomly chose from the dictionary (today's word is 'flourescent' or 'flour scent' if you want to write about cooking) or exist in the somewhere between, don't be afraid of the u-turn, the forgotten left at Albuquerque, the sun rising from the south. Just Write On!
Oh, and here's a little praise poem I wrote a couple of years ago when I was ML in Syracuse.
Praise Poem to the Nanowriter
Paragraph maker, paragraph maker,
breaks, breaks be to you.
May dictionary deities inspire your fingers,
grammar gods drown in your verbal volcanoes,
writing programs splay on the altar of your keyboard.
You the writer, righter of wrongs, wronger of rights.
You the system builder, world creator, prime mover.
You the seer, the knower, the chaos imbuer.
Praise to you flighting fancy,
pen clicker, paper toter,
between the lines scribbler.
May your ink keep pace always with your lines.
For you morning riser, before the children wake,
grail seeker. For you, character clamorings in the quiet
of curtain climber snores. For you, for you,
the first elevated cups of the day.
A toast to lunchtime huncher, sentences sandwiched
with sandwiches. You the earth mover and shaker,
clockwork grinder, breadmaker. The bewitched boss
to you, the lighter load, the clear commute.
You the 3am caroler, the singer by cathode flicker light,
by candle, by phosphorus. The renewing power of blinking
to you, the steam of tea, the thick of coffee, the 4am second wind.
Praise to you student stippler, piler of papers, compiler of knowledge.
You the keeper of classes, recorder of classics. For you the quiet corner,
postponed paper.
Praise to you the 50,000 word club, the scrappy scrawlers, the twilight quillers.
Praise to you in the midnights of your nights,
the noons of your days. May your insomnia provide solace,
your socks keep you warm. May your fingers flutter,
your mind compose, your computer behave.
Praise you writer. Praise to you.
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41,263 / 50,000
Nov 1, 2009 - 17 00
Thanks for the kick and the poem.
Write On!
22,852 / 50,000
Nov 2, 2009 - 12 29
Very cool. Good kick in the pants, too. I did well yesterday, but today I'm at work and can feel the creativity being drained from me syllable by syll... ooh... I think that will work for my plot!
Later!
(Inspiration - grab it where you find it!)
Sue
39,261 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 13 15
Day Two
Ahhh! the heady euphoria of pages filled with pixels that are words that you wrote. Doesn't it feel grand. Reach right up and pat yourself on the back. Do it. Do it right now. If you're at work and a co-worker comes along, and your a bit shy, turn it into a scratch. If you're not shy stand up and say, "Yay for me! I wrote more than 1700 words yesterday. I built the foundations for a world. I created a character--a thinking a being who has goals, dreams, desires and schemes. What did you do?"
Yes. Day two. Success can be smelled. All that One Step business is true--day by day, word by word, paragraph by paragraph--50000 words is a breeze. Thirty days of breeze, but a breeze no less.
Personal high fives all around!
And get back to writing.
[This message would have been brought to you on day two, had Cat 2 not decided to gnaw a little on the ethernet cord. Cat 2 can luckily tell the difference between information and electricity. Even so, all wires are now coated with pepper oil.]
39,261 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 13 26
Day Three
Oh, day three. The day I'm always tempted to stay in bed. Sleep that morning writing time away--I'll catch up tonight, I always say. You know what I say today.
NO!!!! Get up! Get up right now! Get up and write, right now! Of course, I don't really say this out loud. Writing a novel in a month is already a crazy-esque task to undertake without exclaiming other nonsense aloud in the morning. Don't be tempted by that couch potato on your shoulder, that procrastinating demon of languor (don't you love that word?), that cozy snooziness of the bed covers.
You must get up and write. Stay ahead of the game. Build yourself up a comfortable cushion. Write 2000 words a day and then on the 6th day, sleep that morning away, hit that snooze button. Better yet, reset the alarm to allow for uninterrupted congratulatory zzzzzs.
Don't be tempted, people.
Don't be tempted.
[If you missed the Cat 2 story, see day 2]
39,261 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 13 45
Day Four,
So we drove up to a poetry reading in NY last night at the Bowery Poetry Club. Outstanding, stellar cast of writers reading for the November 3rd Clubs anniversary reading! One of the poets reminded me that these poets have co-opted our month. Our month! It's not enough that they have April, they have to also take November. Greedy, I say. Anyway, during their NaPoWriMo (copycats!), they do what's called a 30-30, write 30 poems in 30 days. So, here's your challenge for today, write a poet into your mix and have him or her undertake such a task. Have your poet fail or succeed, it doesn't matter. We're just going to go a little meta on their poetry behinds. We'll comment about their writing by writing our own character doing their very writing. (Don't worry, at some point the meta-headaches dissipate.) Who knows you could have a character write 30 poems in 30 days in your novel that reaches 50000 words in 30 days.
So, what does this have to do with your daily kick in the pants? Who knows. I think I just mean you have to keep writing when the early stages adrenaline wears off. You have to draw from what's going on in the world... you know that thing on the other side of your computer screen.
Take a deep breath, it's day 4, and write on.
26,344 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 19 05
Yes I'm going to have my character write a poem every day! that's a great idea! thanks a great great ton
41,263 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 14 45
Sweet word count ya got there!
13,277 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 17 45
cool! great poem :-)
12,282 / 50,000
Nov 7, 2009 - 19 11
What I love most about the poem is that it doesn't rhyme.
----------=D
Rhymes are too ... commonplace.
Dx
-has tons of trouble writing incantations in my novel because I keep wanting to rhyme, but know that I don't want to-
Does that make sense?
[url=http://dragcave.net/view/TSAl][img]http://dragcave.net/image/TSAl.gif[/img][/url]
Please help =X
39,261 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 18 02
Here we are at Day 8:
The Daily Kick in the Pants took a leave of computer absence for a couple of days to scribble old school style. And it was enlightening. I think one of my characters has grown in a way entirely unexpected. Instead of rushing around in the mix of it all, running hither and thither at ethernet speeds, gigabytes of data tall, wearing nothing but diodes and LEDs, she strolled onto the page, a proponent of slow foods, bicycling, meditating. A great big oooohhhmmm spreading over the pages as all the tiny creatures that normally are invisible to us, danced into view.
That's your challenge this week. Pick up a pen and see what you've been racing past in your word buzzing. Details. Details. Details. Them's a lot of words too.
39,261 / 50,000
Nov 22, 2009 - 08 06
Hi Everybody,
Can I just say how proud I am to be a Philadelphian right now. Well, I am. Not only are you writing circles around our two challenge cities, you have also donated your dollars to the cause. I stand and toast you with my mug of coffee!! To You and You and You and You!
Well, the month is not over yet. Indeed, my month has just re-begun. If at first you don't get scheduled to work on Saturdays in November, just wait. THEY know and THEY are bound to get you. Ahhh, Saturdays in Dover. Not that I have anything against Dover, mind you. That just is, unfortunately, where I work. Yes, I commute 80+ miles one way each day to earn my wage. You know why I commute? Because I love Philly (yeah, I said it) and couldn't stand the idea of moving. So, daily I surreptitiously look for a closer job and drive to and fro, composing into a digital recorder, scribbling during red lights, listening to NPR, sometimes singing along to the eclectic mixes on 88.5. And for the last two Saturdays, having to work, because there are football games and one of them was my turn and the other because other people couldn't go. So, attending write-ins has unfortunately been tossed out the window. Which is unfortunate because I love InFusion and that first write-in was very promising. But, no more football games! So, next Saturday is on--2pm, not 7pm as the Google Calendar kept insisting! Unless we get snowed into upstate NY over Thanksgiving. Ahhh, lake effect snowstorms, don't miss them at all.
But, Elisha, yay Elisha. Way to represent!!!! If you get the chance, send Elisha some well-deserved kudos. She has been working her fingers and calendars and logistical skills to the bone getting events posted, postings commented upon, posts responded to and if I'm not mistaken I thought I saw her on my way home yesterday, digging holes for putting up posts. I would send her a case of Post-its if I didn't think she would break out in hives. She's been attending write-ins up and down in the city. Thanks for all the hard work you do!!
And, to all of you out there who have set up your own write-ins! Bravo! Thanks! and Super Kudos to you. It has been super-fantastic-terrific-extraordinary to see all the interest in gathering together and writing some words. To those scofflaws out there who are pronouncing the written word dead--I say Begone! Begone, I say, in 2000 word sprints, pausing only to sip from that wonderful, wonderful, wonderful elixir of my days, coffee. Begone, indeed, to those scofflaws, I banish you to the creases in each book's signature, stitched and glued, bound for eternity to the very words you dismissed. (Sorry, got a little carried away there.)
So, some of you are done. Hurrah!!! Congrats on crossing the finish line! Some of you are getting close!! Keep it up. There's plenty of time. We can make it. Oh, yes we can. Some of you are diligently working away, writing more words than you thought you could--I tip my hat to you. I stand and applaud you all.
Now, to what I was actually wanting to suggest today. If you haven't visited the Magic Garden, between 9th and 10th (I think) on South Street, YOU SHOULD GO! Wow, talk about a NaNoWriMo novel in the physical world. I have never, mind you never, seen a more perfect instantiation of (my) frenetic writing process. Never. Ever. Never. We went last night on the way to a poetry reading. Oh, goodness. From the street, it is absolutely intriguing. From inside the maze... it just made me want to sit and contemplate a tiny section at a time. Why is this key dangling here? What does or can this ceramic house represent? Is this plate broken or fully embedded in the wall? Does each individual part mean something or is it that the sum of its parts carries the significance?
And guess what, inside, downstairs in the basement, there's a table and chairs. You pay your $4, walk around, get inspired, sit downstairs and write a few 100 words. Don't forget to read the history of the place--Art can change a city.
So, that's it for now! Good luck. Keep writing. And enjoy the rest of your Sunday.