Posts
That was one of those typecasts that needed revising, but, well, I typed it, and I don't have any Wite-Out. Was it clear that the laptop I am bitching about is a Mac?
Forgot to add, isn't it soothing to ponder Nano technology (or lack thereof), or one's next typewriter acquisition, instead of thinking about the U.S. economy tanking like the SS Andrea Doria? Whenever I catch wind of the news, I just close my eyes and think about fountain pens.
So, I'm wanting to know which of you all are taking on the Nano beast this year. Am I the only scallywag who isn't typing mine?
nothing ain't worth nothing, but it's free
5 hours ago
16 comments:
I'm only typing mine because it is my first year and I don't know any better.
Also, I like being able to hold my work in my hand.
I'm in. it will happen, I will win nano. It's all about the right subject.. the right story. mine shall be about collecting. something I know a little bit about. it runs in the family...
I'm still waffling. 1) I have no freakin' clue for a story. 2) When I do have five minutes of free time, I'm so brain-dead that it's nearly impossible to form complete sentences.
Add to that the situation that although the house is huge, it's old and carries sound like a John Cage experimental music device. It turns out that one of the only places I can type and not wake the spawn process is out in the car in the detached garage.
I'll forgive you for the PC thing. The typewriters prove that you're not completely darned to Heck. ;-)
Yep, I'm in, but at a reduced word count. I have an idea of where to go with it.
I'm not a big fan of the latest Mac laptops. You'll have to pry my Al PowerBook G4 out of my cold dead hands. Well, not specifically *you* of course. The EMT probably ought to handle that.
Good luck with the Alphasmart. Looking forward to reading what you think of it in daily use. I've been considering one but need a trusted opinion or two first.
Ugh. You people. Do I need to have my muse come over to your houses and bitch-slap you a bit?
Strikethru:
I think I have the same or similar laptop, a
"Pismo" G3. It saw Office as well, though on its System 9 disk, never on OS X. Only OpenOffice is allowed on this side of the OS divide. Mine's also slow and tethered to the wall. Sadly, it offers wireless-enabled distractions by the web-full. And since I not-so-secretly lust for an AlphaSmart, you get a pass, but just barely.
Speegle and Klowry:
That's the right attitude. In it to win it. Power to the word. Word to your, um, mother. There is no "try", etc.
Olivander:
The muse is packing her bag now. Free time is for watch peddlers. You need a story idea? Murderous typewriter goes on rampage, consuming authors at the ends of their careers. It passes from hand to hand via estate sales. 50K. Go.
Any chance of using a little soundproofing? I'm going to approach my lovely bride about allowing the Royal and its table into the carpeted family room for November, since that's at the opposite end of the house from The Progeny. I may not even need the typing pad underneath it, I keep overestimating its noise level. It's really quite quiet, especially across a room or two.
Surely in that massive collection of yours you have at least one noiseless or lower-noise machine? And besides, I know what November's like where you live. Sneak off during lunch hour to some lobby someplace and get a little typing done.
Sottovoce:
Reduced word count? The muse is staring a sardonic eye your direction, too. Luckily, she's busy nagging my wife who is making the same comments.
All:
With three darlings of my own and a job that kicks into overdrive from November 1 through November 30 (really), I should be wimping out, but I'm not. Perhaps this is just the sophomore-novel-high, but hearing your tales of woe makes me want to win this sucker even more. Bring on the excuses! Bring on the lousy schedules! Fuel for the forge.
I'm still on the fence a bit. I mean...I'm going to participate in some way, but I really wish I had a plot. And some motivation.
I'm also toying a bit with doing a good portion of the writing by hand, only because the quality of my writing goes down the further I get from the paper. Hand-writing is the best, albeit the slowest. I know, I know...NaNo is more about quantity than quality. But that's precisely the concept I'm struggling with this time around. I know I can write 50,000 words in a month. I've done that and done that. But I hate it that most of those stories aren't really worth touching again. The exceptions, interestingly, are the one I hand-wrote and the one I typed. Coincidence? Or just because they're the most recent?
I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts on the Neo if you get one!
Oh my, don't' even get started on the bailout. Insanity, in a bad way. I might be typing mine, or some of it. Like...a page, realistically. But in my head I can just see me typing away the whole darn thing!
I'm sorry your Mac is such a piece of crap; I'm dieing for a MacBook Air.
Yes, Mike, I have two Noiselesses (ok, three, but the third one has some functionality issues I've been unable to overcome).
Another factor I didn't mention is that last year I had a miserable time with my story--eventually devolving into sillyness, which I hate doing, because to me NaNo is about getting an actual, viable story on paper--and I clashed with my co-ML. After four years, it just wasn't fun anymore. I quit my position as ML this year, but with additional pressures at home (for one, a spousal unit who doesn't really want me doing NaNo) and no ideas that I feel passionate about, I'm not convinced it will be fun again. And I don't see the point in forcing myself to do something I'm not really looking forward to.
The one I am looking forward to is the muse bitch-slap. Does she look like Olivia Newton-John?
Actually, I fear that she looks more like Jeff Lynne
(and now that Xanadu is stuck in my head, thank yew...)
Sorry to hear about the negative NaNo experience. Last year's novel for me was more about a friendly contest between me and another parent at my kid's school -- we'd meet up in the morning and compare word counts, then I'd scurry off and try to best him by a few hundred.
As for no ideas, maybe a little roller-skating down the boardwalk would solve that. You never know who you might run into...
You guys are giving me room for another NaNo rant (particularly Olivander with his "devolving into silliness" comment. Any Olympia, WA NaNo-ites should cover their ears. Er...eyes. Or something.
My first experience with doing NaNo in a populated area (Northeastern VT was short on NaNo people) was in Fort Collins, CO, and I can't say enough about the group there -- as it was then, at least. We had mad write-ins several times a week, and I got TONS done at them (me and da Neo). Mostly we staked out coffee houses or restaurants and wrote wildly for a couple of hours, communally but silent; but I also bounced ideas off other writers when I needed to, and others did the same. And I really liked the folks I met there. I've kept in touch with some of them.
I expected the same when I moved here, but the write-in I attended started off with a writing exercise, completely separate from our novels, in which we added paragraphs to papers others had started -- passed them around the room until everyone had added to each story. It would have been fun in another context, but it took away from writing time and I found it really aggravating. Then when we DID get down to writing, they kept giving us topics to supposedly include in each word war -- I vividly remember being supposed to write in a purple unicorn. Say what? It was soooo stoopid. I completely ignored any instructions and just wrote, albeit distractedly (almost no one else seemed too serious about getting much done), and never attended another write-in. But after the joys of FoCo, I feel rather lonely. *snif*
< /rant>
I don't think silliness is a bad thing, unless you let it stand after the first draft. I'm trying to look at the word-count goal as just exactly that: a word count goal. Good words, bad words, serious or silly, the goal is 50K in 30 days. Although I've been making note cards like crazy this year, I'm promising myself that if I have to spend a night writing pages of silly garbage, so be it. I have the major story arc in mind, and I want to get that down on paper, but the exact path is allowed to be meandering for this first go. I don't see how I can avoid it, honestly, being the chronic pun-ster that I am. All the silliness can go during the edit. And I will edit this year, dang it.
Elizabeth, the second type of writing group would just piss me off. I'd like to get together with my local WriMo's, but I fear something like that might happen which would waste Valuable Writing Time. (No, I *don't* want to convolute my plot to include a monkey ballerina, thank you.) At the same time, I really want an excuse to pull out the Skyriter and talk everyone's ears off about the Ideal Machine for Writing.
Urgh. I'm torn.
I'm going to save extrapolation on this statement for a typecast, but IMO, NaNo is about getting your butt in gear and writing down a story you've had in your head but kept putting off, not about spewing out 50k random words. The hardcore and casual WriMos will debate this point ad infinitum, but that's just my stance.
I agree that random spew isn't the ideal end-product, but unless you're a rigorous outliner and researcher, Spew Happens. Hopefully not pages and pages worth, but if it does, the Quantity goal of NaNo is met. For me, the real "win" of NaNo is establishing good habits, time management, and a hardcore caffeine addiction. I would like very, very, very much for this year's book to be readable by other people. Hell, I'd like it to be readable, period. But I'm also trying to steel myself -- the anal over-planner -- into not being afraid to Let Go and just see what happens.
I'll fight with you more when you typecast about it. :-)
Anyone need a red Neo?
I kind of agree with the spew method, I routinely start nano without idea one about where I'm going with it. Somehow it worked out for three years but I'm a little rusty now after two years off, so who knows what kind of crap will issue forth from the Neo...
Yeah...speaking of spew, one thing that is both good and bad about the Neo is that, for me, it is the fastest keyboard I have ever encountered. I can *fly* on that thing. Which means, pretty much, that my thoughts go directly from my head to text.
Which sounds great, doesn't it? But my thoughts tend to be overly wordy and slightly jumbled. Typing or hand writing slows me down enough to clean up the mess a bit.
I guess it mostly just means a different approach is needed for editing. When I hand write, a lot of the time my sentences need some smoothing out and a bit of fill, and sometimes I use the same phrases in more than one place because they get stuck in my head with the slower writing. With the Neo, I have to go back and remove some places where I ran in swift verbal circles or blathered my character's every thought for several pages.
Even so, I confess, I may be joining Strikethru in the Alphasmart Rebellion of 2008. With work being extra busy and my own serious lack of motivation this year, I'm just not feeling the same enthusiasm for writing and transcribing as I did last year and the year before. I'm sure I'll still use the typewriters, but it's beginning to look like the Neo hasn't outlived its usefulness. Bought the little guy some new batteries today, so I'm good to go for about another year.... I still don't have a plot or even a central character, but I have an old story idea I'm thinking of recycling in a new way.
Post a Comment