6 posts tagged “nanowrimo”
I've been able to add one to my blog. Hopefully it will be a good reminder as the month drags on.
1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
9. Ulysses
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
11. The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
12. Girl With A Pearl Earring
13. Candide
14. For One More Day
15. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
16. King Arthur
17. The War of Art
18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames
20. Five Little Pigs
21. Boudica
22. The Writer's Journey
23. A Cat Among Pigeons
24. The City of Falling Angels
25. The Hollow
26. Taken at the Flood
27. Devil May Care
28. Walden
29. Echo Maker
30. Three Act Tragedy
31. Dead Man's Folly
32. Don't Know Much About Mythology
33. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
34. The Last Lecture
35. Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
Yet another excellent murder mystery. I won't belabor the point.
36. No Plot? No Problem by Chris Baty
I've had this book for a while (since the 2007 NaNoWriMo, I think). I honestly garnered more good knowledge from Stephen King's book on writing that this. That said, it was a little helpful to skim through this and just remember to think about the characters themselves. They write the story, not the other way around.
Next on my plate: Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (a hefty piece to absorb) and As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.
So it'll be a respin digitally (i.e. typing on my laptop).
The respin is based only on an image in my head and that's where I'm going to start. All of the previous information and ideas are in my head, but there's going to be no reference to anything other than my mind. Whether or not it works out, but at the very least I will have accomplished one thing: a complete first draft.
I grabbed this book to skim through the myriad of ramblings and musings to sort out how I want to go about the 'work' of a novel:
It's not a great book, but since I had just finished Stephen King's book (and it's a ridiculously easy read), I figured picking this up again would be good. I think there are great parallels between the two. Thus far:
1. Plot is not important. Characters are, and they write their own story.
2. Writing is work.
3. Make time to write. (This one I find a bit profound because I used to tell my students and friends who try to exercise (for health and military physical fitness reasons) and it's the same exact reason. "If you make time for something, you'll find that you DO have time for it. You just have to give it that time instead of excuses."
4. Be consistent in writing. Same place, same time, every day. That's the same very very good advice.
We'll see how it goes!
Okay, I'm officially in NaNoWriMo this year, and the effort to write and participate is there.*
For anyone who cares, here's the link to my counter. Let me know if it works. I'm not a great writer. I have a tendency to be over wordy and descriptive, which causes me to lose what I'm writing about. I'm not up for losing it, but I don't know how it's going to come out. Want to find out?
Two questions:
1. I have an old idea that I want to respin with everything new about it. Should I go for it or an entirely new idea?
2. Digital (i.e. computer) or Analog (i.e. pen to paper)? I'm fairly comfortable with both, though I type faster than I write.
Weigh in if you have any thoughts or if you're going to be in it too.
*Bonus: With my new job, I get the entire week of Thanksgiving off. Better make the best of it, eh?
1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
9. Ulysses
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
11. The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
12. Girl With A Pearl Earring
13. Candide
14. For One More Day
15. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
16. King Arthur
17. The War of Art
18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames
20. Five Little Pigs
21. Boudica
22. The Writer's Journey
23. A Cat Among Pigeons
24. The City of Falling Angels
25. The Hollow
26. Taken at the Flood
27. Devil May Care
28. Walden
29. Echo Maker by Richard Powers
30. Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie
31. Dead Man's Folly by Agatha Christie
Continuing string of Agatha Christie kick, these two books are very good. The first, I thought, was predictable, and that's perhaps either because I've sorted out the formula or (most likely) that I've seen this story or character set before. The latter had a lot of modern mystery suspense to it, and I'm sure it was the basis for at least one CSI episode....
32. Don't Know Much About Mythology by Kenneth C. Davis
I love mythology, especially Greek and Norse. I still have the first mythology book I read in high school (I suppose I never gave it back to my English teacher when I should have...). While not quite very deep, this book covers the breadth of mythology, from European to Asian, African and Australian. There are a lot of holes in my knowledge, but I love the Jungian connections these mythologies have in common. Well worth a read if you're into mythology.
33. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
I found this via a small post in 43 Folders while thinking about the upcoming NaNoWriMo starting this Saturday. It's a great little book that shares Mr. King's early writing days, his thoughts on what you should know to be a writer, how to go about being a writer, and the accident he suffered to make him finish this book. I've read a few such books off and on (most recently, the War of Art by Steven Pressfield) and I'm not surprised that it has similar themes: work hard, consistent, and often. It really brings me to mind Edison's quote: "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." How you go about the work doesn't matter (King does no more than 2 1/2 drafts; Kurt Vonnegut rewrites every page until it is perfect for him), just that you go about it with an end in mind. That's my goal. Not only to get to 50,000 words by Nov. 30th, but to get to a complete first draft by then. It won't, by any means, be a good book. Just a complete one. But that's an upcoming post.
Wow, I might not make 50 books this year. Damn.
