Writing Sya

Writing Sya: A Personal Nanowrimo Site

Updates

12.03.2007

Until Next Year

There probably won't be any more posts in this blog until next year (in which the URL will be changed from 2007 to 2008) so all of my weblog postings until then will be concentrated on my main weblog.

Meanwhile, I will leave you with a compilation of Types of WriMos:

Ahead-of-Themselves Worrywarts: People who are way too worried about what publishers will accept, and whether they're going to get in legal trouble for some part of their story. Can I use names of real people? Is it okay if my character blows up a McDonald's? Can I use X word in my YA novel?

Anachronistic WriMo: who insists on writing out their novel on paper before typing it and therefore has to first write fifty thousand words and then type them all in order to get validated. This person can usually tell you exactly how many words can fit on the average college ruled piece of paper.

Annoying WriMo Who's Won Every Year Since 2003 (or earlier if you like) And Finishes Around Week Two With Little Apparent Effort: Self-explanatory.

By-the-Book Writer: This is the writer who has read all the "How to Write" guides ever published, and pays attention to all the "rules" in these manuals -- unless they contradict each other, in which case s/he goes looking for which author is more popular/successful, and listens to them. This person lives to scream about how you mustn't use adverbs, how you mustn't be cliche, how your every sentence must be as they read it should be in Orson Scott Card's guide to writing sci-fi and fantasy, or Stephen King's "On Writing," or "Bubbles the Retarded Chimp's Guide to Writing Dreck," or whatever.

CareFree WriMo: someone who decided to do this just for the heck of it. The CF type has no conscience qualms about abandoning the housekeeping chores to other family members who are not doing NaNo this year. Because of this, and because his or her standards for "what makes a 'real' novel?" are ridiculously low, the CF has no trouble getting a lot of writing done. This WriMo doesn't worry about ANYTHING--whether it's shamelessly drawing people and incidents straight from real life (including real names, locations and dates--such details can be very therapeutic for a WriMo who is trying to make sense of his or her muddled life by doing a massive journaling experiment disguised as a novel), or maintaining some kind of recognizable plot line. They snicker to themselves when anyone asks, "Do you think you'll ever publish this?"--WriMos in this category not only don't plan to publish their work; they may not even plan to edit it. It is nothing more nor less than 50K words of fast-paced writing practice for them.

Clueless: They have no idea what NaNoWriMo is, even though the name is on every page, they never bothered to read ANY FAQs, they don't look at the stickies, but they still manage to sign up for a user id in spite of all of that, just to post in the "Suggestions" forum: "What is NaNoWriMo?" and mean it.

Cranky Old Wrimo: He/she often gets annoyed with all the other types of WriMos.

Drama Queens: People who revel in how difficult it is and how much coffee they've drunk and how they've had no sleep since Nov 1st and their laptop just ate their novel and they are 10k behind and are thinking of giving up (they've been thinking of giving up since 1st Nov.)

Drunk NaNoers: who can only write while under the influence (but they have a really great time, at least until the hangover!) Many of these people are single or childless, and a lot of them smoke. They'd make Hemingway so proud.

Easy Peasies: People who knock off two thousand words a night, every night, from their meticulous outlines despite the fact they have five kids, two jobs, seven cats and their in-laws are visiting. They don't drink coffee. They get eight hours of sleep a night.

FanNoWriMo Crowd: Easily confused with the Slashers, these authors find it fun to dive into a prepublished world and wreak some unholy havoc. They have an addiction that can not be satisfied solely by the published material in their favorite story, so they write ... more. A lot more. Hey, at least they know there'll be a good audience!

Focused Bast***: This one writes, writes constantly, lets nothing distract him/her for long, and is often rather smug about that.

Forum Addict: They refresh the site on September 30th in the hopes that the forum will open early. When the site crashes on October and November first and is slow for the first few days of both month, the veteran addicts will refresh the site frantically until the site is back up, not realizing that they are in fact adding to the problem. They take a lot of pride in their post count and will compare it to that of other participants, trying to get a higher post count than other participants, and will often be disappointed when they don't. These participants are often seen in the Games and Procrastination forum because of the potential for post count gain, but Forum Addicts can be seen all over the site because they want to show off their post count by making as many posts as possible. They are typically part of huge discussion threads that few people participate in due to intimidation by the Forum Addicts who invade it by their own conversation. Forum Addicts visit the site year-round and can be seen until the closing-down of the forums, claiming the Last Post and trying to kill the Thread Killer thread.

Fretters: People who fear that everything they write is breaking some kind of carved in stone NaNo rule and they won't be able to validate. Or that it's a big problem that their WP program is different than the NaNo word count. Or that they can't validate because they can't scramble their text. Or that they can't validate because they don't use Word or... you get the picture.

Frequently Asking Questioners: People who ask questions that are covered in the FAQ, in stickied threads, in the About NaNo page, in the next post down in that forum...

Fun Seeking Wrimos: The opposite of the Drama queens. They can't wait to make funny posts about disasters like exploding laptops. They sit hiccuping behind their computer about their own and everyone else's typos. The first threads they check is the Nanoisms, followed by the Sporks, tissues and You Know Nano Ate Your Soul...They find their own story too boring and rather hang around here.

Genre Fretters: They don't know what genre their story should be in. And they fret about it. Related to general Fretters, just more "single issue".

Gremlin-Stalked NaNoers: who are either really technologically inept, owners of crappy hardware/software, or victims of extreme bad luck. Because their computers inevitably crash and destroy a major chunk of their novel, throwing them seriously off their stride, and the backup somehow gets wiped or corrupted as well.

Grim WriMo: sits down each day to write with a scowl. Pounds out words with sullen determination. Must...finish, must...win. It's a question of honor.

Hat Constantly Flung Over the Next Fence Nano: Also known as "make it harder on yourself, why don't you?"

High On Wordcount NaNoers: This species gets so hooked on NaNoWriMo that they not only want to do it again, they want to up the ante. Like writing 100,000 words in a month. Or more. Or doing the same thing repeatedly, 12 months out of the year. Or signing up for that 3-day noveling contest.

High Word Count - Just Not in the Novellers: People who write hundreds of words a day on the forums, their blogs, in emails and IMs about how low their novel word count is and how hard it is to find the time to write.

Hyper Thread-Starting Nanoer: This sort of Nanoer wants to be the first to post all the awesome threads every year, like Nanoisms, or the book swap thread.

I Just Joined This Year Wrimoer: These are the people who think that they're royalty just because they're new this year.

It's November TWENTIETH Already? Novelist: The one who doesn't update at all for the first two or three weeks then goes into a frenzy trying to get his or her wordcount back on schedule.

I Would Do NaNoWriMo, But I Want to Put Real Thought into a Story: This wrimo-er isn't exactly a real wrimo-er! You tell them about NaNoWriMo, and they say 'Oh, I would LOVE to, but I want to put real thought into my novel.' They watch your wordcount increase and they might read your NaNo, then you might get it published and it might become a bestseller, but that story that they wanted so badly to put tons of thought into just never seems to get on paper.

Latecomers: It's 21st of November. They just heard about NaNo last night from some guy at a party. Could they still get the 50k? Everyone tells them yes, sure you can! They do. Grrr... I mean - HOORAY!

Luddite: This wrimo comes in many forms. it might be the one who is wed to his typewriter, or the one who only gets on the computer once a year, so can't figure out how to use it. It could be the devote pen-and-paper-er. This wrimo shuns technology, or just plain doesn't get it.

Mary-Sue-phobes: Those people post a lot of threads going "here's a Sue -- there's a Sue -- this published author is jampacked with Sues," and they also put all their characters through the Mary Sue Litmus Tests online, they have long discussions about whether their characters might be too Sue-ish, and so on and so forth.

"My Characters Won't Obey Me" NaNoers: whose imaginations run wild to such a degree that their characters become uncontrollable. Then they post a lot of threads wailing, and begging for help with keeping their unruly plots on track.

Non-Participating Participants: NaNo veterans who remain at 0 / 50,000 all month but who cannot resist the energy of NaNoWriMo and the call of the forums. They might even start some of their own threads in Character and Plot Realism Q&A... because when else do you have nearly 100,000 other knowledgeable writers at your disposal?

Not in a US Time Zone Type: They miss all the excitement and come along when it's all over and everyone has gone to bed.

Obsessive Researcher Authors: who ask oodles of questions for verisimilitude and surf Wikipedia for hours, but it takes them forever to actually write their novels.

Oh God What's Happened I Guess I'll Keep Going Anyway WriMo: Technical difficulties, plot failure, death in the cast ... they keep going anyway. And learn a bunch of dirty tricks on the way.

Oh wait, I CAN do this! Wrimo: A first timer who spent the first 23 days wondering what got into her to even sign up and wondering if she should give up writing all together because everything comes out wrong (but frets silently)...! And then on November 23rd suddenly decides "Well damn you all to hell, I'm doing this for me and no one else so let's go for it...!" and within a matter of days managed to work away a pretty big word gap. And then realization dawns "Wait.. I CAN do this!"

Old-School WriMo: These WriMos remember the 'old days'--before Young Writers Program, before WrimoRadio, before the Newbies and All-Ages forums, and before Pencil Guy. They remember when Cybele was the only forum moderator, when NaNo had phpBB forums, or even the Yahoo! groups. Sometimes they even remember busty lesbian cabbage pirate ninjas and writing enemies. This is fine and dandy, but they always have to point it out in forum posts and comment on why the old way is always better than the new way, and it confuses or annoys newer WriMos.

Overachievers: Anyone with a higher word count than yourself.

Pace Yourself WriMo: Plugging away at almost exactly 1667 words per day.

People Who Have No Real Life, But Still Are Only A Tiny Bit Aheaders: These are the ones that manage to get a few words ahead of the daily word count, but they have absolutely no life, so they should be a lot more ahead, but they're not, for whatever reason.

Pleasantly Surprised Returning Wrimo: This is the wrimo who has done this before and, expecting the battles and hardships of writer's block, found themselves pleasantly shocked when...miracle of all miracles...the story cooperated and came along easier than ever before.

Prolific WriMo: Does NaNoWriMo, but also April Fools, Script Frenzy, JulNo, AugNo, SeptNo, JanNo, NaNoEdMo, NaNoFiMo, and just about every other WriMo out there. Laments a month that's interrupted by vacation and/or sickness; if there's an online community, there's a way!

Shadow WriMos: They posted in the forum a few days, you see them in a few different forums...and they have 0 words. And all their posts date to October 31st, or November 1st. They gave up without even starting.

Shoutout Superstars: Everything they type warrants a shoutout thread. 500 words! 1000 words! 2000 words! 26,319 words! Let's make another thread about word count! And then let's make ANOTHER!!! Because if there's anything better than a shoutout thread, it's a HUNDRED shoutout threads!!

Silent Wrimos: They join, they type their novels, and they rarely post anything. They frequently win.

Slasher: All (or most) of their characters will be gay or bisexual, far more than you would ever see in any real-world situation. Even if they are writing fanfiction in a fandom where it's been firmly established that Character X is solidly straight, they are suddenly bi or gay -- and often for reasons that a soap opera writer would be ashamed to write. And if anyone calls the Slasher on to the carpet over the ridiculous number of gay/bi characters in their novel, or the violations of established sexuality in a novel-length fanfic, that person is immediately labeled a homophobe.

Slow and Steadier Wrimo or a Tortoise Wrimo: See Pace Yourself WriMo.

Social WriMo: Is always comforting others, handing out sporks and tissues, pep talking and helping out others with new plots. Then he or she realizes the month is almost done, their word count is still pathetically low and there are no plots left. But...they can always write a NaNo Self help book.

Speedsters: Those who reach 50k within the first 5 days much to the disbelief of everyone else.

Sticky Addicted: A much rarer breed of Hyper Thread Starter, the Sticky Addicted is obsessed with putting stickies up so that people can reach common information more easily, and not clog up forums with similar topics.

Successful Procrastinator: Those who spend what seems to be their entire time procrastinating, making forum post after forum post, making sure they're up to date on everything in real life from homework to their job, barely spend much time writing at all, yet somehow are days or weeks ahead on the word count, or have been finished for over a week already.

Thanksgiving Marathoners: Those of us lucky U.S. WriMos who have no Thanksgiving travel, work, or responsibilities beyond contributing a batch of mashed potatoes to Thursday's dinner (and profiting in leftovers). We sit in our pajamas from Friday through Sunday and add masses of words to our blue bars as we race toward the finish line.

The Thankful: Everyone outside of the US who is not missing an entire weekend of writing because of Thanksgiving.

Those Who Aren't Really Writers For the Rest of the Year, and Their Procrastination Is Most Likely Carrying Over From Their Art Classes, In Which They Always Waited 'Til the Very Last Minute to Even Start a Painting: Self-explanatory.

Vitriolic Rule Monger: Their responses to people are along the lines of "if you don't follow the rules exactly you should not be on the forums or waste the nano resources by, horrors, daring to validate your word count!" Plus snobbery and holier-than-thou attitude.

Voyeuristic Guests: They are not technically NaNoers, bur more NaNoWannaBeish. They sit at home, lurking on this site, anonymously laughing, crying and poking fun at our collective triumphs and woes. More than likely, they are cutting and pasting these threads together to make one heck of a novel.

[ posted by sya on 11:38 PM : (6) comments ]

12.01.2007

Woohoo!

It's the end of another NaNoWriMo. Congrats to everyone--whether you've finished or not. The goal was to reach 50,000 words, but really, anyone who has written anything is a winner. One word written on paper or typed on the computer is simply one word closer to writing that novel.

But since Nano is over for the year, what now? Well, you could do similar challenges for the other eleven months--if you're up to it! (Many thanks to the municipal liaisons on the forums who've compiled this.)

December - NaNoFiMo
December - NaNoExMo
January - JanNoWriMo
January - NaNoArtMo
February - FAWM
March - NaNoEdMo
April - Script Frenzy*
April - April Fools
July - JulNoWriMo
September - 3-day Novel Contest**
October - 24-hour Comic Contest
November - NaSoAlMo
November - NaNoMangO
November - Naplwrimo
November - NaBloPoMo

All year - NaNoPubYe***
All year - NaNoWriYe
All year - Mad Challenge
All year - NaNoWriDay****
All year - NaNoGiveMo
First week each month - Book in a Week
Varies - 48-hour Film Project

*Organized by the same people who manage NaNoWriMo
**Not a Nanowrimo spin-off
***Also sponsors FebNoWriMo, MayNoWriMo, etc.
****Self-organized, write 50k in 24 hours

[ posted by sya on 1:27 AM : (1) comments ]

11.30.2007

On Other Projects

I think I'm going to try NaNoFiMo again. (I first signed up in 2005.) Maybe this year, I'll actually get somewhere. Some possibilities:

Grayed - started around 2002-2003, science fiction/suspense. An investigator searches for answers as the death count of an icy mining colony rises.

Salamander Hill - unofficial 2004 July Nano, fantasy western. A band of adventurers search for treasure in a fabled place called Salamander Hill.

On Vacation - 2006 3-day novel, modern fantasy. The Eater of the Dead takes a cruise ship vacation--except it might turn out not to be a vacation at all.

Baliser - 2006 NaNoPubYe warm-up, biopunk. The night janitor inadvertently stumbles onto a plot to kill people who are carriers of a very unusual disease.

Greenglass - 2007 3-day novel, historical fantasy/steampunk. A prequel to this year's Nano Vellum and Green Vitriol

Right now, I'm leaning towards doing Baliser because I have most of the world building done up and it relies heavily on my expertise (microbiology). I'm also quite fond of the main character who is a down-on-her-luck cleaning lady.

[ posted by sya on 1:23 AM : (0) comments ]

11.29.2007

Heh

For some reason, the Chris Baty fan club thread makes me think of the ending of the 2004 Nano novel I wrote:

As the editor of the magazine Hot Tread slammed his office door shut, Stuart pulled out the newspaper that Mad Dog had so carelessly tossed. He opened The New Halis Times to the front page and began reading the headlines aloud.

"New Halis' most eligible bachelor receives inheritance. Ralph "Mad Dog" Bartlett, the editor of the up and coming magazine Hot Tread and most eligible bachelor of New Halis came into his inheritance that was willed to him by his great-uncle, Rodger Pellington, billionaire and founder of Pellington Industries..."

"Mad Dog?" said Rita, wide-eyed.

Mel peered over Stuart's shoulder. "Ah, so that's where his latest idea came from. That article is written by Eddie Outman."

A loud bang suddenly diverted the three journalists' attention from the newspaper. Plastered against the glass door was a horde of screaming women. Even from the closed door, they could hear chants of "Bartlett! Bartlett! Bartlett!" One of the women held up a sign that had been written with marker. It said, "I love you Mad Dog!"

"No wonder he locked himself in his office," said Stuart.

Mel shook her head. "Let's just call security."

[ posted by sya on 1:20 AM : (1) comments ]

11.28.2007

Personal Stats

Well, I just figured I'll put in some of my personal stats for all the years I've done Nano, including this year since I'm finished with the story. It appears that my pace has been quite consistent from year to year to about day 15. Then things start diverging.

[ posted by sya on 12:37 AM : (1) comments ]

11.27.2007

Nano Finished!

"I'm going to soak you in a nice vintage liqueur and slowly burn each page with one of those branding irons master chefs use to caramelize crème brûlée."

That bit of dialogue is from my villain. Who has a fetish for destroying books. Vellum and Green Vitriol is fantasy adventure, taking place in a 1920's England-esque landscape where grimoires are the main characters and most humans are clueless. Comparisons to badly written books are insults, paper cuts are deadly, and ink blots are far from ordinary. Or, as I tell people who inquire what it's about even though they're completely uninterested, it's about a magic book searching for her brother.

It's 67,251 words. You can read it here.

(Cross-posted on Syaffolee.)

[ posted by sya on 3:25 AM : (1) comments ]

11.26.2007

Make Backups, People

And It Goes Like This! This anecdote is more academic related, but it can be applied to pretty much everything. So go backup your novel. I have various versions in my writing notebook, my computer, my flash drive, a CD, in e-mail, and on this website. Where's yours?