NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

The writing process, writing advice, and updates on your work in progress
bcomet
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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by bcomet » November 12th, 2010, 6:00 pm

Sommer,

You are the BOMB at pep talks! Seriously, you serve up Super Food for the writer!

Thanks!!

-bc

P.S. I put my head in the head and body and moment of the next scene I was writing.
Maybe it was short, but it came out much more powerfully for me anyway.
(Sprinting in a new genre with new POVs really IS challenging)

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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by Sommer Leigh » November 13th, 2010, 12:40 pm

Day 13 -

Library Science Degree is a website for those going into Library Science, but it features articles like:

The 50 Most Hated Characters in Literary History ( http://librarysciencedegree.org/the-50- ... y-history/ )

5 Famous Artists Who Lived in Exile ( http://librarysciencedegree.org/5-famou ... -in-exile/)

Top 10 Fictional Feminist Icons of All Time ( http://librarysciencedegree.org/top-10- ... -all-time/ )

These are all awesome articles, but the one I’m making today’s cookie is all about genres. Specifically, 10 Emerging Genres and Subgenres You’ve Probably Never Heard Of. ( http://librarysciencedegree.org/10-emer ... -heard-of/ )

Including:

* Hindi Dalit
* Cashier Memoirs
* Bitpunk
* Twitter Novels
* Picture Books for the Elderly
* Progression Literature
* Lucid Fiction
* Kinetic Poetry
* Combinatorial
* Hmong-American

Granted, I’ve never heard of most of these, but I do remember back in the late 90s and early 2000s before blogs were popular (possibly before they were even called blogs), there was a girl cashier at a video store that also had an XXX area and the blog was all about life as a cashier there. If I remember correctly, she eventually got a book deal. I have also heard (and LOVE) Kinetic Poetry.

So consider this a Double Cookie Day 13, here’s some Kinetic Poetry for writers about how you must sacrifice if you want to be a writer called “So You Want A Social Life, With Friends” by Kenneth Koch. This poem really encapsulates the NaNoWriMo individual because if you want to finish all 50,000 words, you're going to have give something up to get it. I think day 13 is a very good time to take a look at what we've given up and really decide what we want to get out of this project. 50,000 words? New writing friends? New habits? A new sense of creative self? A better handle on writing in a new POV? Whatever your end goal is, I hope you acheive it, I really do.

Good writing, writers.

May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by Sommer Leigh » November 14th, 2010, 11:45 am

Day 14.

Today’s cookie is a tiny article and comic by author Seanan McGuire – who I have never read but I hear is amazing, although I HAVE read Feed by Mira Grant, Seanan’s awesome other self and I can tell you with 100% certainty that I’d hand Feed to anyone who likes words. So I’m assuming that since Seanan and Mira are one and the same, anything that Seanan does must be equally as spellbinding.

Article here: ( http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/ ... an-mcguire )
Comic here and below: ( http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2804/419 ... 2c84_o.jpg)

Have you ever wondered about the identity of that guy sitting in the International House of Pancakes at eight in the morning, hunched over his laptop and hammering away like he’s trying to save his work before the apocalypse? How about the woman on the bus with the notepad on her knee, scribbling away and glancing around like she’s doing something wrong? The odds are good that they’re writers, trying to steal more minutes from the day. – Seanan McGuire

The reason I picked this as a cookie is because it sums up the writer’s life in a really important way – we are kind of clueless about the world around us when we have a word count to make. This goes for November during NaNoWriMo or any other time we are working on a story that is important to us. You don’t even have to be a professional, published author to be constantly aware of your self-imposed deadlines. “I will finish chapter 3 before I sleep.” Even when that means you don’t sleep until after Saturday morning cartoons have already started.

There have been points in my writing adventure where I had the Jimmy John’s delivery page queued up nightly for when my husband came in wondering when I was going to feed him.

I imagine it is worse in November as we fight to get to some magical word count ending place. Remember back at the beginning of the month where I congratulated you on being well fed and washed? Yeah well, I’m guessing you’ve started skimping on the daily showers and you’ve probably been subsisting off of mini candy bars, diet soda, expensive coffee, and licorice for the last seven days. It’s ok, you don’t have to be ashamed. We’re all in this together.

Be fierce, writers.

Image
May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by Sommer Leigh » November 15th, 2010, 8:17 am

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Day 15.

What is it about the half way point that gets writers thinking they are completely and totally in over there heads? It doesn't matter if it is NaNoWriMo or not. Whether it is halfway through the book, halfway through edits, or halfway through November, the halfway point is where we tend to sit down and go, "Am I only dreaming? What am I even doing anymore?"

Our journey is lonely. We can socialize with other writers but the weight of our dreams is ours alone to bear. It can be very easy to fall prey to our own self doubts. My favorite is, "Am I even good enough? How will I ever know?" Somehow, I doubt even publication would erase that nagging demon.

I believe the only way to keep going is to just keep going.

For me, I think writing a new story feels like falling in love. At first it is flirty and fast and everything is new and unaltered by preconceptions and darling one liners and the only voice in your head is the one jumping up and down screaming "This is really happening!" You call all your friends and gush about your new idea and over-analyze what people are saying about your intended genre. And then after you've spent some late nights with the new idea you start to get antsy. You pick fights with the plot holes and you over-analyze characters, motivations, and bad guys. And once the shine of your initial excitement has diminished and you've spent too much time with the same characters, you start to see glaring writing problems, and you're not even sure the idea was all that good to begin with. That's when you either break up with the story or you take some time and reevaluate. If you're lucky, one night after you're sure the relationship is over and you're a complete and utter failure at commitment and oh my god why did you ever think you could be a writer anyway, a flash of inspiration hits you, you realize which hole your plot fell into, and a string of dialogue comes to you that must be written down immediately. Suddenly the relationship doesn't seem so stale after all. Suddenly, you're actually quite remarkable.

I hope at the end of today you will all realize how remarkable you are after all.

(Just a heads up, there are a couple of swear words in this song, but it's totally worth it.)

May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by Robin » November 15th, 2010, 7:43 pm

Sommer, You are the best!!!! THANKS!!!!!!

(((((BIG HUG)))))))
Robin
"A glass slipper is only a shoe. Dreamers who only dream never have their dreams come true."

http://www.RobynLucas.com/

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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by Sommer Leigh » November 16th, 2010, 8:13 am

Robin wrote:Sommer, You are the best!!!! THANKS!!!!!!

(((((BIG HUG)))))))
Awe thanks! Glad you are enjoying these!
May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by Sommer Leigh » November 16th, 2010, 8:18 am

Day 16 and the Forgotten Word Orphanage

26,672. If you've met all of your word count goals, after today you will have 26,672 words. That's a lot of words. If you're anything like most first drafters, 87% of those words involve looking, glancing, gazing, sighing, breathing, shifting, watching, and hesitating.

Why not change it up a bit, at least for the first draft, and adopt some words that have gone out of or are quickly on their way out of style?

Oxford (of the dictionary fame) has created a website called Save the Words at http://www.savethewords.org where wonderfully quirky and forgotten words are waiting at their little word orphanage to be adopted and reintroduced into daily conversation.

The first random word I clicked on was Magophony.

Image

Which I then adopted IMMEDIATELY. We haven't had a good magophony of magi in a while. I can't understand how this word ever fell out of use. Seems like a gross oversight to me.

The second random word I clicked on was Patration.

Image

Which I thought was kind of perfect since we are all currently attempting to complete something. I adopted both words and so in an effort to bring both back into common use, here's my Save the Words attempt for today:

As you move one day closer to your NaNoWriMo patration, if you are worried about word count might I suggest a magophony of evil magi to spice up a few action chapters? I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to include two.
May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Robin
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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by Robin » November 16th, 2010, 11:35 am

Sommer Leigh wrote:Day 16 and the Forgotten Word Orphanage

26,672. If you've met all of your word count goals, after today you will have 26,672 words. That's a lot of words. If you're anything like most first drafters, 87% of those words involve looking, glancing, gazing, sighing, breathing, shifting, watching, and hesitating. [/i]
Awww man!! I'll have to cut at least 1000 of these words ;)
Robin
"A glass slipper is only a shoe. Dreamers who only dream never have their dreams come true."

http://www.RobynLucas.com/

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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by Sommer Leigh » November 16th, 2010, 1:36 pm

Robin wrote:
Sommer Leigh wrote:Day 16 and the Forgotten Word Orphanage

26,672. If you've met all of your word count goals, after today you will have 26,672 words. That's a lot of words. If you're anything like most first drafters, 87% of those words involve looking, glancing, gazing, sighing, breathing, shifting, watching, and hesitating. [/i]
Awww man!! I'll have to cut at least 1000 of these words ;)

When I started doing the first rewrite/edit of my main WIP, I was incredibly embarressed by the number of these words/sentences I edited out and changed. My poor MC was looking up, down, away, off in the distance, into eyes, over shoulders...poor girl. I cut hundreds of these words.
May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by sierramcconnell » November 16th, 2010, 4:15 pm

Everytime I start to write "and he took a breath" or some variant there of, I stop, take a breath myself, and find something else to write. Because I had to cut that out of my first novel so many damn times it was ridiculous. There was so much BREATHING it was a wonder the manuscript didn't live on its own.
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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by bcomet » November 16th, 2010, 4:18 pm

The elementary reading primer in the US used to be: Dick and Jane:

Look, Jane, look! Look! Look! Look!
See Spot run!
Look, Sally, look! Look! Look! Look!
Spot is funny!
Look! Look! Look!


(Oh, dear. What can the matter be? Johnny's so long at the fair...)

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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by Sommer Leigh » November 17th, 2010, 11:24 am

Day 17.

Today’s a quick cookie since we’re all trying to keep the momentum going. Moxy Fruvous is a band that absolutely no one seems to have heard of, but I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t kind of love this song once I play it.

(It is a particularly fun listen while driving with the windows down and singing at the top of your lungs. Not that I would, uh, know.)

Moxy Fruvous and My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors

May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by sierramcconnell » November 17th, 2010, 11:27 am

That's one of my favorite songs~! XD I got it on an FST once. XD
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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by ganstream1 » November 18th, 2010, 6:10 am

Nice song. Really like it. Thanks for posting :)
Read my blog novel at: Aku-Stories

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Re: NaNoWriMo Daily Cookies: 30 days of support & encouragement

Post by Sommer Leigh » November 18th, 2010, 8:32 am

Day 18.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but all this trying to be an amazing writer is exhausting.

So here’s a little break to recharge. I find that comics are an awesome way to hit the brain version of a restart button. That is, as long as you don’t spend 4 hours in the archives. Instead just bookmark it and come back later.

Dresden Codak ( http://dresdencodak.com/ ) is a comic that is not regularly updated, but I suspect that has a lot to do with the beautiful artwork and the super-intelligent storylines. I don’t understand a third of this comic, especially when it gets into mathematics and philosophy, but when I do understand I’m so proud of myself I chose two comic pages for you because they are stand alone and won’t suck you in for more than couple of minutes. Also they have to do with writing and writers so I’m staying relevant.

First, 42 Essential 3rd Act Twists. This is just a tiny sampling, the whole poster is quite large, but funny because they are all true. Especially the Shyamalan and Double Shyamalan twists. Click here for the full poster. ( http://dresdencodak.com/2009/05/11/42-e ... ct-twists/ )

Image

Second, a small storyline called Dark Science. Page 1 ( http://dresdencodak.com/2010/06/03/dark-science-01/ ), and Page 2 ( http://dresdencodak.com/2010/06/10/dark-science-02/ ). The storyline is a little science fictiony literary humor about the power that can be generated by authors spinning in their graves after a Hollywood type “adapts” their classic novels. Enjoy!

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May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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