Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Novel challenge

So, for those of you who don't know what National Novel Writing Month is, go here, do a little quick reading and then pop back. We'll wait…

Are we done? Good.

I've been trying to tackle this son of a bitch for several years now. My good friend, and eerie psychic, Anne (she predicted myself and Cathy would get married about a month after we started dating) has been pestering me on this for years. It got to the point that she attempted to withhold a Christmas gift until I gave her the first chapter of my book. Others have also bugged me, most recently OM, who took a delicate little shot at me during that Book Tag meme by writing that the novel not yet written she'd most like to read would be mine.

The thing is, writing a novel is goddamn hard. I have lamented this before and will do so again, just for the record. It involves moving and using mental muscles that have never been used before. It's not enough to just have an idea, although count yourself fortunate if you have a good one. It involves developing a plot, story and character arcs and dialogue. Not to mention grand ideas such as theme if you want to get really fancy.

I've tried National Novel Writing Month before and failed. I normally get a couple of thousand words in and then the story dies a slow, miserable death of neglect. Yet, I am once again going to try it this year. Because I am that big of a masochist.

But this time, there are a few catches.

First, I'm going to be posting my writing online. No, not on this blog as it will clutter things up. I'm creating a separate blog, either on Blogger or Wordpress, where I will post my writing. I will try every day, but the goal is to hit 50,000 by the end of November. It will, just for the record, be unbelievable crap. So those of you with smoking jackets and pipes, who like looking for the themes in Sylvia Plath books and are eagerly awaiting the chance to make snide comments should wander elsewhere. It's a big Internet; feel free to get lost there.

Next, if I'm going to be miserable, who wants to join me? That's right, kids. It's a challenge. Not only do I want to see people do the National Novel Writing Month challenge, I want them to post their writing right alongside mine. I'll make the blog one of those where people you become a member and can also post. I'll work on the details. I still have two weeks.

The point being, those who take me up on this challenge get to post their writing up there with mine. And hopefully the quality and frequency will inspire us to get better.

This is the plan. Oh, and just in case this gets out of hand, as plans of mine sometimes tend to, we'll limit it to 12 people.

So...any takers?

8 comments:

The Mommy said...

Your living up to your blog name.

Sigh. Do I have a choice? I have been bugging you for so long to do this, I kinda *have* to as well, don't I.

If I can come up with an idea in the next few days, I'll give it a go. If not, I'll cheer from the sidelines.

But be warned, it's more likely than not that I'll try for a bodice ripper of some sort - I figure it's a pretty established formula, and how hard can it be to write if you're anticipating that it's going to be cheezy?

Oh, and I refuse to worry about grammer and spelling, it's about churning out product, right? Lord knows, I suck as a typist.

I guess we'll see.

Bastard. This is brillant. Who else is in?

Curtis Groom said...

Hello,
Sounds like a terrible idea, absolutely horrid, dumbest thing I've ever heard of, Mindnumbingly stupid adveture of failure and ego bashing. Love to give it a try. But I have to ditto the idea of spelling and grammer unless you set the blog up with a grammer challenge as well and have another dozen people correct grammer and spelling, then we have a game, can we screw things up faster than thy can fix them???
Anyways, let me know if I make the cut.
Take Care,
CG

Anonymous said...

Incredibly this is the second time I've heard about NaNoWriMo in less than a week. Check with Jeff at Newnavut, he's been thinking about tackling it.

towniebastard said...

Curt, as long as people are having fun with it, that's the important thing. I'm still feeling a little stung by some recent comments on the blog. But I intend to leave the comments section open so that people can make suggestions, edit, gentley chide and have fun.

OM, I look forward to reading your porn (bodice ripper/porn. Tomato/tomatoe). And yes, I am a bastard.

Corey, glad to have you aboard.

And hey, because this needs to be done, I'm calling Dups out. I mean, I always knew OM was a superior drinker to Dups, but I didn't think she had bigger balls as well...

Melissa said...

can i do this with a new baby?

i'm thinking about it, really!!!

Anonymous said...

now... craig... sigh...

Anonymous said...

Fine... I've thought about it. I will take up the challenge... means writing close to 2500 words a day (10 days of the month I am too drunk to type).

Should be a hoot. A riot. A hootenany. A riotonany even.

Anonymous said...

Dups -

Words you make up don't count towards the 50,000. Unless your novel also contains a glossary, and possibly a map. Which do not count towards the word count.

OM