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Today is #queryfail day on Twitter. If you haven't been following this, essentially, literary agents make fun of lame query letters. I was going to paraphrase but I can't do it justice. 
Searching #queryfail on Twitter will provide hours of authorial schadenfreude and I highly recommend it.
Speaking of manuscripts agents might laugh at, I have taken on the Nanoedmo challenge this year. Wait, you say. Speaking of fail, didn't I, Strikethru, fail to produce a Nanowrimo manuscript this year? That is correct. However, I have three of them from the early 2000's, languishing electronically somewhere in a poorly named folder on my laptop. And this year, my friends, I am rewriting one of them. I've already been at it for several days now, and I am learning some hard lessons about the perils of the second draft.
My question about virtual writing groups originates from this effort. I'm hoping to track down a few people who want to virtually trade and discuss Nano manuscripts after a round of Nanoedmo is complete. I'm looking in particular for literary fiction writers, and/or, genre fiction writers with a literary style. Who's with me?!
Still thinking over this matter of the typewriter journal. Everyone's comments on this idea have been intriguing, as to whether, and in what format, such a journal is worth creating. J. B. Rabin has called for a brainstorm-- so I plan to head back to that post and keep rambling about the project, if anyone wants to keep that discussion going.
Nanoedmo, people, Join me. Finishing a novel, lousy or no, is one of those things I need to do before I perish. I sense you might feel the same.
Banning the Big Black Box
5 hours ago
7 comments:
Your motives were pretty transparent, 'tis true. First off, yay for you in actually making some progress.
The extent of my on EdMo?
1) Wrote synopsis of this year's draft, including all those places in the middle where I kept re-writing, fiddling with the timeline, and rejiggering character motivations, actions, dialog, etc.. It reads like this:
"Sally did X. Then she did Y. Then Z. Actually, not X. She did B, then Z, then Y. Maybe X after all. Or C."
I have offered it to my wife to read/critique/mock as needed.
2) I spent an evening gathering up my Rollabind-punched pages that had come unleafed, and re-bound them. I felt very productive.
3) Spent an evening watching fluffy documentaries on TV instead of cracking open the stacks from #2 because I'm scared of #1. Downside: no progress whatsoever. Upside: I know know how polar fleece is made, so you know, learning stuff and all.
What I really need is a literary Chuck Norris to hover over me and my manuscript and dispense with some ass-kickery to get me to sort out my plot. If I can get the big blocks in place, the rewrite hopefully won't be that daunting.
Oh yeah, and I'm planning for 2009, because nothing says "I can't edit my novel" like "because I'm busy writing a novel."
Oh hell typos. And I previewed and everything. Damn damn damn.
Hopefully this year I can finally get the Nano motivation all the way through. Edmo - that might be pushing it. For now, at least.
I just can't bring myself to join Twitter, or Spacebook, or MyFace, or whatever they are. There are only so many hours in the day.
I resisted the twitface and mybook and all that stuff for a long time too. Then caved.
So. Is anyone in my writing group?
MPC, what is your book about? Or wait, did you say this already in another comment... commence digging...
I'm afraid I don't fit the profile for what you're looking for. I'm busy whipping my 2008 NaNoNovel into shape, but it's more of a young-adult thingummy, and kind of genre-ish.
The 2003 and 2007 novels are more literary, I think, but I'm not quite ready to tackle those yet.
My plot's in the same general genre as Duffy's, I think. Certainly not "literary" in any sense, and currently a bit of a sprawl.
I've totally slacked off on finishing my '08 novel....
But this weekend I did some rearranging and have Bernard in a better spot, and I'm itching to do some typing again. I'm not up to EdMo yet, but maybe by May?
That is...if I can avoid the fluffy documentaries Mike mentioned. Those and the Food Network are my downfall.
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