Welcome, writers and other non-calendar-conforming friends dropping by. It’s now 2:30a.m. where I am, so I have to knock off for the night, but I’ll look for more comments and wordcounts thru’ Saturday evening, to update the “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” NaNoWriMo chart a coupla paragraphs below.
And, good news: everyone ‘doing’ formal or sub-rosa National Novel Writing Month still has A FULL WEEK TO REACH YR GOAL! That’s midnight next Thursday, November 30. Nice, roomy lead time for a ‘change’, isn’t it? ;-)
For anyone who’da wisht to, but couldn’t, we plan to occupy January 2018 (should that be a slogan?) with our Second Annual WriteOn DailyKosWriMo — all kinds of authorship, not novels alone. Bring us your diarists, your poets, your translators and essayists yearning to write free! The scratched out refuse of your teeming computer printers, bring these, the formless, temper-tossed, to me! [h/t & apologies, Emma Lazarus]
Well, actually to SensibleShoes, WriteOn! series-originator and —for first-timers here— published author of 4 historical and 4 fantasy novels (2017-18 Kos Katalog Books etc. section) (and at least 2 nonfiction outaprint titles that I know of) back to host as usual.
Meanwhile, here are NNWM counts reported by our dauntless wordwrights. I’ll update tonight thru’ Saturday, if you’ll kindly post current figures in comments.
BlackSheep1 — 22,500 words
bonetti— 76,498 words (goal is now 83,333; stretch goal 100k)
Cassandra Waites— 42,000 words
Clio2— 50,017 words
dconrad— 30,000 words
James Wells— 7800 words (goal is 25k)
Leo Orionis— 61,698 words / 20 out of 20 chapters + most of glossary, “The Reborn Princess Caper”
MarkotheWerelynx (goal is adding five pages to webcomic)
mettle fatigue— 52,059 words
Mnemosyne — 15,000 words
quarkstomper — 2 essays + 1 webcomic rev'd & pub'ed, drafting another essay.
SensibleShoes— has revised 51 of 51 scenes
shaso— 33,005 words
Okay, so, the diary subtitle was going to start “2017 Turkey-Trot & Word-Count Edition, with Broccoli at Breakfast, True Confession[s] &...” but there wasn’t enough character space, alas; I like a fully descriptive title. Onward to confessions of the evening, challenges, and so forth!
My confession: in the years I was addicted to writing daily (or else all weekend, starting Friday night with my need for a walloping fix dragging me outa bed to desk artistically wan, sleepless, and haggard), the sheer scope of the addiction sometimes generated story ideas and characters needing author-voice beyond what I could automatically rely on me for. There’s just something about fingers flying on keyboard or yellow lined pad that refuses to wait a sec, dammit! To speed-learn how to play the right instrument in the right key in the first place (so to speak), I usta binge-read fic & nonfic heavy in the vocab, atmosphere, style, attitudes, etc., needed in my unpracticed story-of-the-moment.
This required haunting the public library. But in a nice way! (Probable need for staff’s kindly regard meant not pulling shelves apart looking for the right stuff except with putting’em back together again. So I did also get some exercise. And a realization that pumping hundreds of pounds of books a day for a living might not differ as much from pumping iron as it looked, pink-collar to the apparent contrary not withstanding.)
Back then I had capacity to read anything there was reason to, fully grasp content or only most, enjoy it or not. Sometimes hate of the material turned to like, confusion to “Ah ha!”. Anyway, I got what I came for. Those were the days.
Talking with other writers over the years, we make it a toss-up whether “acquiring voice” this way is ‘cheating’ or research. Natural/‘automatic’ voice, vocab, etc, first come from upbringing and early education other people determine, not us. As we get more choice-power growing up, our chosen reading, real-life experience, simulations of life (movies, tv, books, etc) gradually influence change. The totality affects what we think, what we think up, and how we express it. When does conscious-er choice of influence make writing “inauthentic”? I dunno. A writer can’t live all the lives first-hand that 100% authenticity takes (e.g., men writing women’s characters/lives). We live now, not 700 years ago or ahead. We live here (wherever that is and has been) but no place we didn’t, especially none —outer space, middle earth, etc— that we can’t.
I could (and often do) opine about popular simulations of life seeming to fill gaps of didn’t and can’t, but opinion isn’t confession. ;-)
So, that’s my turkey-trot, and I’m stickin’ to it.
Any cheatin’ — pardon me, research tricks of the writing addiction/trade you’ve discovered, developed, adopted or invented that you’d like to share with or confess to yer potential competition here together this evening? ;-)
Aaannnndd….
Challenge of the Evening:
(There’s an alternative challenge lower down, if preferred.)
A scene in which a confession either just cannot be avoided ...or is crucial to get. Actual confession (and/or batteries) don’t necessarily hafta be included — character interaction and/or events are the thing. Use any setting, any combination of characters: protag[s], antag[s], secondary character[s], third banana[s], spear-carriers, day-players, what-have-you. But, paraphrasing two of SenSho’s key points:
#1 — Feel free to add your challenge word-count to the total, if you’re doing NNWM (I counted this diary), just still for the challenge make every word earn its place on the page.
#2 — Even the minor-est character has her/his own reasons for everything s/he does, conscious or not, part of the story or not. Just like akshul huming beans! Make sure you know what makes a minor character “tick” when you put one on-stage, even ‘tho not a word of that need go on the page.
In case it comes in handy, here’s our stock partners in crime — WriteOn regulars please pipe up if I’ve left out anything juicy/useful:
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A Callow Youth and Stout Companion seek the magical lost Jewel of Togwogmagog to save the kingdom… helped or hindered by the Startled Duck’s innkeeper or patrons (all ranks & sizes), villagers, denizens of swamp, desert, mountains, rivers, farms, cities, bureaucracies, etc. The Least Grebe, the always-off-stage wizard Froop, and puzzlingly, the royals themselves may also aid or even oppose! A Dread Nemesis, a Magical Purple Onion of Othmar, or a Tower of Doom sometimes appear, with their own shifting alliances, motives and powers.
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Belinda is locked in rivalry with Adelaide for the affections of the dashing Lord Postlethwaite-Praxleigh (pronounced Puppy), though Adelaide seems barely to recognize his qualities or accomplishments.
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Boozy detective Scotty Blaine dodges the local mob boss to solve cases no one else will touch. His connection to the police department, if any, is obscure. Likewise his source[s] of income.
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Goodwife Thankful Goodheart keeps crossing paths with awful Agnes Addlepate who, for some reason, always gives her the stink-eye.
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When strangers approach struggling Wiltchester Dragonry to buy a hatchling, dragon-whisperer Jocasta Entwhistle is suspicous of their motives, yet desperate to save her deeply mortgaged home.
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Private investigator Celia Spunk has discovered evidence suggesting that her client is the Chainsmoke Killer.
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International super-spy James Buns is captured again by a megalomaniac bent on elaborate plans to destroy Our Hero. Buns’ unfortunately-named girlfriend always flies to the rescue… so far...
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Recently deceased Charlotte O’Hara, and the rest of the cheerleading squad in the rolled van in the river, are at a loss to grasp why they are undead. Also desperate to replace their muddy, bloody, torn uniforms before anyone who matters sees them like this. Maybe they can demand help from the ghostly figure headed downhill toward them.
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Transom alligators. There always might be transom alligators.*
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Alternative Challenge:
Does BIC-HOK-TAM force changes to your standard dietary/nourishment routines? This is where broccoli woulda come in, because for me it’s “breakfast is always whatever’s the leftovers” more than other times of year… and usually the leftovers are a lot less virtuous than broccoli.
If you tell us your noms change, intentionally or otherwise, please describe, compare and contrast, in 150 well-paragraphed words or less. Or more. Or howevermany paragraphs as the topic demands!
: )
If not, should we believe you? ‘Fess up! With recipes!
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* This explains “over the transom”, so I thought the alligators are what devours them so you never hear back from the editor. In a Sept 2010 WriteOn, SenSho reported on Bickham's more imperative species (7th paragraph from the top) in the larger topic of what’s realistically believable as distinct from what might be real but unbelievable.