Salon post: November 2nd

[jenett]

Hello!


Useful notes
Consider tracking this post to get notifications of new comments. Select the bell icon (or the words 'track this'). More help over here, and more about notifications in general here.

Comments are welcome whenever you get a chance - even if that's hours or days later. Feel free to jump into whatever sub-threads intrigue you. More discussion is the point of the salon posts!

Got a question you're trying to sort out, or a thing you'd like to discuss? Lots of thoughtful interesting people with a wide range of interests show up here! Feel free to ask about things you're thinking about or trying to solve, as well as other kinds of chat.

Topic of the week
Many many people are currently hard at work in the first days of Nanowrimo. Are you doing Nano? How's it going? Do you have any particular goals for this time around, other than "make more words happen"?

If you don't do Nano, do you do other projects like it - fanfic exchanges, Inktober, etc? What do you enjoy about them?

What I've been up to
This week is always wonky for me it - it's Samhain, it's the anniversary of my father's death just after midnight tonight, I'm doing Samhain ritual with my students tomorrow, I have prep to do for that and a (very routine) doctor's appointment this afternoon.

(Pause to return a call from my doctor's office. No, not doctor, she's out sick. Ok, that simplifies the afternoon, yay.)

I did words on Nano yesterday, I am pleased with where it's going, so that's good. (More in a comment.)


House rules:
This is a public post, feel free to encourage other people to drop by, just note the 'if posting anonymously, include a name people can call you in responses' rule.

* Consider this a conversation in my living room, only with a lot more seating. I reserve the right to redirect, screen, and otherwise moderate stuff, but would vastly prefer not to have to.

* If you don't have a DW account or want to post anonymously, please include a name we can call you in this particular post. (You can say AnonymousOne or your favourite colour or whatever. Just something to help keep conversations clear.)

* If you've got a question or concern, feel free to PM me.

Comments

[badfalcon]

I'm not doing Nano because I'm like the slowest writer EVER. But I am intending on finishing editing a 40-odd page Stargate SG1 fic with the hopes of posting by the end of the year. I'm about 1/4 of the way through the editing and so far it's going really well and I'm excited to see my writing so polished and the story coming out the best it can.

[jenett]

Yay editing!

[auroracloud]

The NaNoWriMo word count is too ambitious for me - I know I can do it, technically, but it's not a good way for me to produce a first draft, because the hurry makes me write so much padding that I lose interest in the story. Partly this is because I write my original stuff in my native language, and it uses maybe 30 % fewer words for the same thing than English, so the 50,000 words is a lot more than it is in English. I would love to take advantage of the momentum, especially since now I have novel ideas that really want to get written.

Someone in my circle mentioned mini_wrimo, however, where you commit to a certain daily word count goal you choose yourself - the lowest being 100 words - and then report back for your daily progress. This sounded like the kind of thing that'll help me now, so I signed up for 300 words a day - it's the sort of word count that I can do even on a bad day (if not by anything else, then by writing more fluff on the 20 or so cuddle-themed prompts I took from a prompt post I found), but it will push me to do more than the minimum. On a bad/tired/busy day I'll easily settle for a hundred words or less. Pushing myself to a little more for a month won't hurt, especially since currently writing is a good way to take care of my headspace. But it's hopefully enough to help me get somewhere with both my fanfic and original fic plans.

I nearly always have a fanfic exchange going on, because exchange prompts and deadlines are the surest way to get me to actually finish fic, and I enjoy the feeling of community. Currently I've got Public Call (a Doctor Who exchange, deadline in late November) and Yuletide (if someone doesn't now, the biggest rare fandoms fic exchange of the year), with deadline in December. I've also vowed to post at least one fic this year which isn't for an exchange/fest/bingo/prompt community/contest/anything with a deadline. I've got tons of fic that I write just because I love that character/pairing/idea, but I never seem to finish and post them! So I've still got two months to fulfill that promise... I probably have a couple of first drafts that would fit the bill, and some of the aforementioned cuddle prompt fics would definitely work, because the prompt post isn't for any sort of deadline.

[jenett]

I've been doing GetYourWordsOut this year (DW community, and resources) - I committed to their habit (I have completed that, because I committed to 240 days, and I have only missed one day this year.)

It was really helpful for me learning that writing every day is a thing that really really ups my writing in general, in ways I both like and find productive, so that was handy.

(In contrast, prompt stuff almost never helps me, becuase I want to write the stuff already in my head, and I have plenty, I just need to get myself to sit down and do it.)

I also need to work on my Yuletide story.

[auroracloud]

I've also found daily writing really good for me; for me it's the Write Every Day Challenge, which you've probably seen making rounds in my and possibly other people's journals.

(In contrast, prompt stuff almost never helps me, becuase I want to write the stuff already in my head, and I have plenty, I just need to get myself to sit down and do it.)

For me original stuff is like that, I don't need prompts, I have too many ideas already and I just need to get as many of them written as possible. But with fanfic, often my thoughts and ideas are all over the place: "I like this character! I like them so much! I like everything about them! I like this and this and this and this and this! I love this relationship so much! I want to write about them doing everything! All the things!" So prompts help me focus the ideas on something, coalesce them into a story. The prompt tables and prompt lists and such that I use are usually general enough that they just get me going but aren't dictating a whole story for me.

It's a bit like that grain of sand you need for the pearl to start forming. Or the tiny concentrations of matter with slightly stronger gravity within a cloud of stellar dust that stars begin to form around. Not that I'm likening my writing to pearls and stars, but you know, the process. Needing some tiny concentration of something so that my ideas and inspiration become more than just an endless cloud of vague glowing dust.

That isn't the only way in which I write fics, but it often helps. Especially when I'm just getting to know a character/relationship.

[artan]

I don't do any group-prescribed projects because there's just too many other projects to do and they don't hook in well.

Though also my internal pressure sense doesn't do well with group-set group-accountable goals unless I can parse them as an actual cooperative project instead of the sort of semi-competitive/motivational-accountability systems of NaNo/etc.

November is also not good timings for such things, even if write-a-novel was anywhere near things I had intention of doing. Most of my longer story arc parse out as rpg-story and I definitely don't have time to do that right now.

[jenett]

I like the theoretical 'lots of people doing this together' - one of my other goals this year is to make it to at least a couple of write-ins (there's one at my local library, and a couple in Watertown and Belmont, which are also well-timed and located for my schedule.)

(November would not be my preferred month either, mind you.)

[jenett]

So, I am attempting Nano in the classic sense this year for the first time: doing 50K on a single work of fiction, rather than somewhat piecemeal.

I've seriously levelled up my wordcount in general this year (I came in at about 38K for October) so it is much less of a jump than in previous attempts, but I often achieve that by jumping between projects depending on how much brain I have (creative work takes me a lot more oomph to get going than stuff for Seeking.)

So 50K on a single project is a thing.

[jazzyjj]

I don't do NaNoWriMo, or at least I haven't yet. But that may change depending on how much time I have. But I've been working on some of the recent prompts from a local writers workshop in which I've been a member ever since its inception in 2009. The workshop creator has been dealing with some personal/health issues though, and moved to a different state just recently. I haven't been attending the workshop in person as of late, partly due to social commitments here in my building. But everyone wants me at their annual holiday party next month and I think I'll oblige.





Today is my oldest sister's birthday, and we're celebrating as a family with perhaps some friends, on Sunday at a local restaurant about which I've heard great things but never been to. We're going to their brunch. I think one of their claims to fame is that they actually have tongue on the menu. Sounds interesting, but I'm not sure it's on their brunch menu.





Other than that, it's been another good week for me. Been playing around with my iPhone, and I'm beginning to see why and how these devices have changed visually impaired people's lives for the better. Also the lives of people who have other disabilities.

[jenett]

That does sound like a good week! And I'm glad the iPhone continues to be working well for you!

[alexseanchai]

I've sort of already achieved one goal for this NaNoWriMo? I have an actual, solid, I know what happens in the whole story, outline.

I mean yesterday's writing [on the main project] was mostly describing three scenes that aren't in the outline, but are important for getting characters between two scenes that are while conveying necessary info for future scenes? But still!

Here's to 50K!

[jenett]

Yay outline! And sometimes you have to go write a thing so you know how the other things go. (I had to go write "X interviews two other people" for a thing I was working on the last few months, so I knew how it actually went with the main character.)

[(Anonymous)]

I don't do NaNo because it demotivates me. I am allergic to competition and even have trouble competing with myself. Keeping a daily word count is very stressful, so I don't. I peek at my word count every week or two, and it's a distasteful chore that must be done so I don't go wildly off track in some unbeneficial way. I'd like to better be able to determine which off-the-track meanders are going to be useful and helpful and which turned out to just be lollygagging, but it's difficult to tell while one is meandering.

I really like reading about how other people are doing NaNoWriMo and am happy to cheer you all on on. People's processes are endlessly diverse and diverting. I get a kind of reflected benefit when people are done with their drafts and start revising or despairing or both. That does tend to motivate me to work on whatever I'm supposed to work on.

P.

[pameladean]

I'm sorry; as you could possibly tell, that was me, having forgotten to log in. P.

[jenett]

I can indeed tell you by your writing and what you say! (But the log in is likely very handy for people who are not me.)

[jenett]

I find the different ways people do things utterly fascinating.

(And I'm going to be talking more about writing stuff in the not too distant future, because wow have I learned a lot about specific kinds of ways writing works for me this year.)

[havocthecat]

I am, but if it happens, great, and if not, oh well.

I'd say more, but. UGH, it's my busy season.

[anne]

I don't write, but I've been doing KALs in a favorite designer's Rav group. Turns out I can do a small shawl in 2 months! And I'm on my second test knit for her. I'm less sanguine about that one...it's complicated and I missed several days because life.

[hunningham]

This is me doing a very small writing thing. I want to post a dreamwidth entry every day in November. (But if I miss a day, a few days, I'm not going to beat myself up or surrender ; I'm just going carry on with the next day.)

[silveradept]

No NaNo for me. I don't think I have an idea for anything that would stretch to 50k words, and so I don't usually do it. But I have written at least 50k words this year in fic alone across all the exchanges that I've done this year, with a few still yet to go for this year's word count, even if some of them reveal early on next year. It's much easier for me to wipe to someone else's prompt, if they give one, than to make something appear on my own terms and ideas. But it's still good practice at doing it, and so that weird stuff doesn't count all the other words I've written on other topics and issues and so forth, so the creative output is again doing pretty well.

[alexseanchai]

I mean YuleNaNo is a thing people have talked about doing, and I would be unsurprised to learn multiple people have done it

(but yeah)