NaNoWriMo, why the fuck not. - by WritersBlock

WritersBlock

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Shane Cartledge @WritersBlock

Age 33, Male

Curtin Uni

Perth, Australia

Joined on 1/8/07

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NaNoWriMo, why the fuck not.

Posted by WritersBlock - September 24th, 2009

Over the past couple of months, I've been investing a lot of time into the possibility of a career as a creative writer. After I got published in Grok #4 2009 I've been talking with the editor about possibly getting some more stuff into Grok #5. Nothing confirmed as of yet. On my desk is two short stories ready to be mailed off to a literary magazine, and I'll likely send off another short story to a magazine in the United States. I'll probably look into scholarships/government grants some time in the future, when (thinking positively here) I get more publications under my belt.

As well as this, I've been reading a lot more, and only today I bought The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Dune, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. I tried to get A Game of Thrones, but it was out of stock. Maybe in a couple of week's time.

This afternoon I've just been browsing around for magazine publishers (found a good nationwide magazine I might try talking to soon) as well as novel publishers for when I start writing (and completing) full length novels. So, after some contemplation, I've decided to sign up for NaNoWriMo this year. I know I'm not the only one (I remember seeing Lost-Chances post about it here) so if anyone else here is aiming for the 50k novel in November, it'd be good to know.

Since the username "WritersBlock" was already taken (obviously), I signed up under the username STC. So, yeah, I just thought that I'd let you guys know that I'm going to give this a good crack. Uni gets out towards the start of November so, aside from work, I should have plenty of time to get the fingers working hard.

[EDIT] I've just made a few additions to my literature blog, including a short story, a haiku series of poems, and chapter 1 of an epic novel I started on last year.
The Disapparatives (short story)
Crunch (haiku series)
The Wilder Saga Chapter 1 (novel exerpt)
Part 1 and Part 2

Comments

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Whirlguy 2009-09-24 04:17:23

Niceee! Good luck man!
Don't you hate it when your username is being used by other people... D:

WritersBlock 2009-09-24 04:17:23

Yes, well, kinda. I mean, for a writing site, WritersBlock is an obvious choice. On a flash site or a music site or a small site, not so. I would have gone with my alias AlexanderWilder, but that just doesn't feel like me because it's just a character of mine. STC=condensed me.

jmalouin7 2009-09-24 04:38:58

Curious incident is a fucked up book lol they made us read in in english back in high school, and I laughed so much at that book. it is very entartaining to read.

WritersBlock 2009-09-24 04:38:58

I had to read an excerpt for one of my units at university. I enjoyed it, and it interested me enough to grab a copy.

:)

Magik-Waffle 2009-09-24 13:49:43

It's about time you got LotR. Start that right now. Hit the red X up in the right-hand corner and get reading.

WritersBlock 2009-09-24 13:49:43

But wouldn't that contradict your 'one book at a time' policy? Besides, I'm estimating that Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" shouldn't take longer than a week to read, so, straight after that.

Magik-Waffle 2009-09-27 21:32:18

Check out the (extremely) short story on my userpage and tell me what you think. pl0x?

WritersBlock 2009-09-27 21:32:18

Done. Too harsh?

Lost-Chances 2009-09-28 02:53:18

Heh, bad luck about having your username already taken. I never have the problem since Riobux is a completely made-up name that, to my knowledge, no one has ever used. Then again, I have yet to Google the name and find out for sure.

WritersBlock 2009-09-28 02:53:18

I googled it. From what I noticed, it's pretty much all you.

Magik-Waffle 2009-09-28 08:51:47

Nope. Good advice. Thank you, sir.

WritersBlock 2009-09-28 08:51:47

Cool. For a couple of months now, my creative writing tutor's been on my back about the cliches I use in my work all the time. At first I was like "I don't think that's a big deal" but then I've started reading through my work and going "eww... that reads horrible". The reason? Cliches. He climbed the mountain with the pack on his back, carrying the weight of mankind upon his shoulders. The protagonist entered the room and heard the voice of his nemesis from the shadows; "I've been expecting you". It was a dark and stormy night. I've gotten to the point where I die a little inside when I read them. But as I read more, I see how some writers have innovatively structured their delivery of those same cliches so as to pass off as more original. In "The Road", they're trying to remain alive, and in doing so, ensure that humankind doesn't fall into extinction, but rather than the weight of the world on their shoulders, or the fate of humanity resting in their hands, instead they're "Carrying the fire", which is certainly a grand symbolic statement, but it's sure no cliche.

Magik-Waffle 2009-09-28 20:05:19

Very good point.

I just finished The Road today. Awesome. Have you started LotR?

WritersBlock 2009-09-28 20:05:19

Cool. I really enjoyed that book. I loved how he used tension for the cannibalistic sections of the book, especially since the actual acts of cannibalism were given only a paragraph or two on the page, yet they managed to shock so well.

I started LotR last night. It'll probably take me a long time to read, especially since the words/page is a lot more than The Road or Fight Club. I also started reading Dune. From what I've noticed already, it's not as dense as LotR but a lot more so than the others I've read recently. So my plan is to swap between both in the hope that my reading of Dune will pick up my reading pace so that I can get through LotR quicker. Because it can feel like I'm getting nowhere when I'm spending so long reading each page. Especially since I've been able to tear through Fight Club and The Road at around 50 pages per day.

WritersBlock 2009-09-29 03:03:45

I don't know why, but I decided to give the dvorak keyboard style a crack. For some reason, it didn't change in open office, but that's ok. It took me long enough to get a good speed with qwerty, but, yeah, just testing it out. Man, that took long to write.

Lost-Chances 2009-09-29 04:40:37

What's the difference between the keyboard styles? Why change?

WritersBlock 2009-09-29 04:40:37

Well, it's supposed to be much better for touch typing. The key placement's supposed to be more efficient, and so basically, once you've gotten used to it, you can type faster. Just something I thought I'd try out.

Lost-Chances 2009-09-29 06:23:19

Ah, fair enough, I mostly type with my index fingers though that lay out probably wouldn't help much. Hell, it'd probably just hinder me rather than help. Good luck getting used to the layout though and hope it helps you in the future.

WritersBlock 2009-09-29 06:23:19

Haha, thanks. I remember in high school where I'd get bored every so often and do a couple of those touch typing lessons. I think this is kind of like that, instead I'm starting fresh off the bat, as, right now with qwerty, I think my typing style is some sort of touch-type dictionary where a lot of words I automatically touch type from writing them over and over and over again, although my fingers don't exactly remember where the keys are all of the time.

Lost-Chances 2009-09-29 10:24:42

Honestly, it's probably how I learnt a faux-"Touch typing" scheme. Just using the computer so much I know just instinctively where the keys are. Almost to the point of being able to turn around and carry on typing with very few slip ups and very little speed being dropped, but honestly I've been using computers since I was about 9ish probably. Which likely explains it.

WritersBlock 2009-09-29 10:24:42

Yeah, I had 'computer lab' classes in primary school, although I never really fully got into the touch-typing thing the education department wanted for us. I guess I'm not bad as far as touch typing goes, but I'll occasionally look at the keyboard, and often fumble letters, and I'm rarely in the preferred 'home position', as I frequently type keys on the right side of the keyboard with my left hand, it really depends on what words I'm writing as to which fingers do the typing.

Magik-Waffle 2009-09-29 11:01:02

I've never seen a keyboard different from qwerty. Can you show us a pic?

Also, what's Dune? Would you suggest it?

WritersBlock 2009-09-29 11:01:02

It's basically just the qwerty keyboard with the letters rearranged to a more logical layout. There's a setting in the control panel on Windows that allows you to change over to dvorak. I've heard that you can buy dvorak keyboards, although they're more expensive, but you can still type the dvorak keys on a qwerty keyboard. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvor ak_keyboard

Dune is the best selling sci-fi novel of all time. Others have suggested it to me, and of the first few pages or so, yeah I can't complain so far. I'll let you know later on in the book of what I think.

Magik-Waffle 2009-09-29 11:06:57

I wanna do this contest, by the way. How do I sign up?

WritersBlock 2009-09-29 11:06:57

http://www.nanowrimo.org/user/reg ister

Just sign up there, and do all the planning and preparation you want. Then come November 1, type away 50,000 words before midnight on November 31 and you'll have succeeded. They've got a word counter application thing on the site that verifies how much you've written. They've got a lot of good information on the site that I've been browsing through lately, so, yeah. Good luck. :)