September 23, 2007

National Novel Writing Month 2007

November is fast approaching, and that means dusting off the ol' inkpot, sharpening your quills and neatening your stack of parchment. Or just clicking [File][New]. Whatever floats yer boat.

Yes, it's almost time for this year's edition of National Novel Writing Month! The purpose: to motivate you to finally get started on that book you've always wanted to write. The goal: 50,000 words. Don't worry about editing or proofreading or revising or the details. Those can come later. In November, just churn out the words to your story. Get the framework in place, you can patch the plaster later. The prize: fawning adulation from millions of fawning, adulating fans. And self-satisfaction for achieving a difficult goal. One of those.

Now in 2005, yours truly wrote "Zombies of Autumn". It remains, alas, three-fourths completed. You can read it on Rocket Jones, even though I've cleverly hidden it behind the sidebar link labeled "Zombies of Autumn".

Last year, I assembled a group of over a dozen people. The idea was to each write one or more pieces that involved, however peripherally, a grand, central, unifying theme. That theme was: Giant Evil Space Robots. All those works would be collected into an anthology and we could whup ass on the 50,000 word goal and all be proud and bask in glory and such.

Ahem. Didn't happen. In fact, our word count was... let me check my notes... ah yes, the total word count was zero. But that's ok, because we had a cool group banner, which I'm going to post here again so that I can provide another link to the artist who so graciously granted permission to use it.

gesr01b-sm.jpg

Special thanks to Webster Colcord for permission to use his graphics.

Rambling on, here is the first and only story to emerge from last year's group debacle:

Hercules and the Giant Evil Space Robots

Hercules stood in the hot sun, facing the metallic invader. His muscles rippled as he hefted his bronze shield and tightened his grip on his mighty club.

[TARGET LOCKED]

*ZOT*

[TARGET ELIMINATED]

The end

This year, I don't know if I'm going to go for it again. November is such a lousy month for me. Set right between the end of the fiscal year and the end of the calendar year, it's one of our two crazy-busy times at work.

I have a story in mind, and it's been simmering in my mind for several years. Problem is, I don't have any real details beyond the vaguest partial outline. So I don't know. But that doesn't mean *you* shouldn't go for it! It's your chance to feel superior to me! Go ahead, make me your bitch. Set pen to paper, or electron to whatever electrons set against, and give it a try. Why not? What have you got to lose?

Do it for Hercules.

Posted by: Ted at 08:20 AM | category: NaNoWriMo2006
Comments (157) | Add Comment
Post contains 481 words, total size 3 kb.

<< Page 1 of 1 >>
80kb generated in CPU 0.0243, elapsed 0.1544 seconds.
68 queries taking 0.1376 seconds, 282 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.