Author Topic: NaNoWriMo 2008  (Read 736 times)

rushingwind

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NaNoWriMo 2008
« on: October 28, 2008, 04:15:58 am »
Anyone participating this year?

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

nightmare975

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2008, 04:43:36 am »
Yeah, but yet again, I'll bet I'll fail.

Thought

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2008, 10:18:20 am »
One of those things I'd like to do someday, but every year it seems like I come up with a good excuse not to. This year's excuse is that I have gradschool applications that are due dec 1st and I need to fancify my writing sample (which, to be fair, is longer than some books).

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2008, 04:10:51 pm »
Nah, unlikely. I do write, and not entirely badly, yet my style is not well made for something as this. I write random points in the story, rather than in continuous fashion. More than this, I try and write my very best, rather than simply writing, and as such one must wait on the muse, rather than rambling off the first thing that came to my head. I'm not even writing much of anything at all in my current projects, and as such it'll be years before any of it is done, as I think it sould be. I'm not all too much in favour of a deadlined competition. Were some great concept to come to me, I know I could write something... yet I do not think I'd be happy with it.

That said, I might all the same be a trifle tempted, if next month weren't hell with school. Grad studies has a way of doing that to people. I've never before had to write two bloody 8000 word essays... argh. That'll be about all the writing I'll be doing next month.

Thought

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2008, 04:52:34 pm »
More than this, I try and write my very best, rather than simply writing, and as such one must wait on the muse, rather than rambling off the first thing that came to my head.

What is writing if it is not τέχνη? It isn't just art, it is skill as well. Though no poet might win a laurel wreath save by the grace of the muses who dance on the slopes of mighty Olympus, a poet may still put word to noble verse so that when the muses sing for him his skill will be worthy of their attention.

You will always write best when the muses grace you, but you will write better always when you practice even when they are not.

Write, O Krispin, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought untold woe upon the Achaeans! ... or something like that.

Daniel Krispin

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #5 on: October 28, 2008, 06:16:32 pm »
Heh. Well, for me it'd be of the death of Amphiaraos, son of Oikles.

rushingwind

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #6 on: October 29, 2008, 06:49:58 am »
Nightmare, if you're looking for a writing buddy, my author name is "timebound" on NaNoWriMo.org.  (that goes for anyone else, too)

And Nightmare, this will be the third time I've attempted it, and I haven't succeeded yet!  I get a little closer every year, so I know that victory will come eventually.  It'll be stressful, painful, and exhausting, perhaps.  But when I do cross that finish line, all the years that I didn't make it will become sweet, sweet reminders that I had to eke out my own victory, and what a wonderful victory it will be!  (seriously, there will be partying)

Krispin, perhaps a new style of writing is exactly what your muse needs?  You don't have to publish or even share anything you write for NaNoWriMo.  If you enjoy writing, and you've got a spare idea floating in your head, try it!  It doesn't matter really whether you make it to 50,000 words or not, so much as it matters that you began the journey.  NaNoWriMo, even with its many participants, is still a road less traveled by.  Take the road less traveled, Daniel Krispin!  :)

I get excited like this just before every November.  NaNoWriMo is like my own personal hell holiday.  :)  I wonder why I put myself through it while November goes on, and then in December, when my mind is calmer, I am glad I tried. 

You know, I sound brave now, but give me a few days.  I'll be regretting the day I ever heard of NaNoWriMo.

Thought

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #7 on: October 29, 2008, 10:33:56 am »
NaNoWriMo is like my own personal hell holiday.  :)

Helliday, perhaps?

teaflower

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #8 on: October 29, 2008, 06:32:40 pm »
Most of what I do I don't count creative. Plus, I'm not good with deadlines.

Daniel Krispin

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2008, 07:52:57 pm »
Krispin, perhaps a new style of writing is exactly what your muse needs?  You don't have to publish or even share anything you write for NaNoWriMo.  If you enjoy writing, and you've got a spare idea floating in your head, try it!  It doesn't matter really whether you make it to 50,000 words or not, so much as it matters that you began the journey.  NaNoWriMo, even with its many participants, is still a road less traveled by.  Take the road less traveled, Daniel Krispin!  :)

No, not really. My muse doesn't work like that. I don't work on spare ideas. Or even if I have them, I have to wait for the right moment. My muse works on blasts of inspiration, not sitting down and trying to write. I mean, I could write something half decent at any given point, but the point in writing for me isn't just to write something, it's to write something beautiful or good. Indeed, I don't write stories at all like other people do, especially these days. I don't write with an eye to just 'telling a story' as most seem to wish. For me my motivation tends to be to examine and teach, to write things that are beautiful, and what not. This mentality doesn't fit in well with writing quickly and letting the ideas 'flow', as it were, which I think is the intent of this project. In short, actually, I'm not much of a novelist. My style isn't a novelist's style. It's a tragedian's and epicist's. Novelists try and write natural situations and dialogue and so on and so forth in an attempt to capture base reality, and through this understand human beings. Much like Euripides, I must say! They favour witty dialogue, things that are pertinent to every day lives, and so on and so forth. But I'm not like that. It's not my voice, and not my spirit. I'm Aeschylean. When I get going, like Aeschylus, I can strain the language intensely, I can write with much force... though I lack the wit at times, I write with weight. Now, this works eminently well for tragedy and epic, but is difficult for the novel, which was written precisely from a desire to move away from the old formal forms. Now, some manage in some extent to draw from the old types... say, fantasy stories in particular, as they have such a grounding in myth (or try to, at any rate... most of the time they fail miserably.)  This is where the old tragic/epic form encroaches on the novel, and is usually what I go for (though I myself don't write fantasy per say... more directly mythological.) But to be done properly, this can't be done in short order, as it's not based simply upon having a good progression of plot, having movement, and all that, but requires a certain force that only the haply given muse can grant. Ah, nah ja, this is difficult to explain. But I find something about the concept of 'just writing' a bit off the mark.

Yes, I could write something. Yet I would probably frustrate myself to no end in forcing something to come out, rather than waiting for some flash of inspiration to come to me. I would also like to add that I have to write the sum of 20,000 words in papers next month anyway, so I doubt I would have time for writing anything else (this is beyond my regular 200 lines of Greek a week, as well as Latin.) Being a student swamps me, and logistically I simply couldn't do it.

nightmare975

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #10 on: November 01, 2008, 03:16:05 am »
Well, got to wait an hour here for November 1st, then I can begin.

teaflower

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #11 on: November 01, 2008, 07:04:18 pm »
I'm actually doing it. Wish me luck!

Lord J Esq

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Re: NaNoWriMo 2008
« Reply #12 on: November 02, 2008, 07:49:01 pm »
Good luck!