New ideas

[fencerm2]

I blame this on liamstliam

So I read all about NaNoWriMo on Liam's Live Journal...and I went to the web site, and read up on it...and I thought, you know what?  This might be a really cool idea!  Under the gun, one month to compose a 50,000 word novel....this might be the kind of kick-in-the-ass I need.

Last night I only managed to write for 15 minutes.  :-(  Yes, I was off by 45 minutes...BUT at least I did SOME work on Seeker.  Fifteen minutes is still more, per day, than I had been giving to my writing.  But I will do my hour today, and I will probably go well over the hour both tomorrow and Sunday...I am buckling down, and really moving on this.  I want to be done editing by the end of October. 

Perfect timing.  And then, if I am working on a deadline - I think this would be awesome.

So I have a month to come up with an idea...space opera, fantasy, non sci-fi fiction, other sci-fi?  I keep saying I have dozens of ideas swimming about in my brain...time to tap one.

Comments

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

lots of people do NANAWRIMO....I've started it before in the past in fact :)

[fencerm2.livejournal.com]

I saw it first from Liam, and then another person or two mentioned it - but I don't know that I noticed it before this year. Seems pretty cool to me.

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

I first heard about it 2 years ago or so. I caught on the first time as 1 ended, and was prepped for it last year.

[xgreenjudasx.livejournal.com]

I'm on a NaNoWriMo too, and I'm surprised you haven't undertaken the madness yet. Last year I did 50,000 of free thought, this year I'm using it as an excuse to write a very very very rough draft of a story.

Write the great rapier romance novel. Cheese, poofy pants and all.

[fencerm2.livejournal.com]

That could be entertaining. Though I don't know that I want to write a romance. I almost think that would be too easy in many respects. :-)

I'm leaning towards either a space opera of some sort, or an alternate reality idea, perhaps. OR I could perhaps do one of the back-stories related to my primary novel series - but that almost feels like cheating, so I'll probably try something totally original.

[weezeld.livejournal.com]

Why is it cheating? The idea looks to be about quantity, not quality. It's about the flow of ideas. So you have something that you want to write about. It might be a good exercise just to pour it all out. Then you might find some inner motivation.

I say doing a backstory, or even a primary story of a lesser known character would be really awesome.

Assume for a second that you write a story about the barkeep, or the street urchin, or someone else in your novel that was just a "throw away". While you may not have thought much about that character, you have thought about the world. This means that you'll be able to take the things you write about the world and directly apply them to your primary story in the future, or at least have them in the background as decent facts.

[fencerm2.livejournal.com]

This is totally true. But I have actually planned some back-story things for the series. But that's because I have some good short-story materials, some about lesser characters...and some that go back in time 5000 years or so.

BUT - for the purpose of this, I think it is in my best interest to do something totally new. I have enough other worlds in my head, this is completely plausible. :-)

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the madness. :) There's a NaNoWriMo community on LJ, if you want to commiserate with your fellow sufferers.

[oceanstorm-cmk.livejournal.com]

I've had friends try NaNoWriMo and while they bitched about it, they loved it. I say go for it - it can only help, imho. :)

potential encouragement

[rlg.livejournal.com]

I've attempted it twice, last year and the year before. The first year didn't make ... 10,000 words I think, the second year, I worked on a space opera that'd been kicking around the back of my mind. All told, between stuff I'd put in the background file, the stuff I yanked out, and what I actually kept, I made it, 50,035 words in a month. The fora worth visiting, and there's a lively group of people on AIM working and encouraging each other. (word wars ... a 15 minute timer, and a dozen people typing away as madly as they can).

Just remember, you've only got to do 1,663 words on average to succeed.