Day 10

So I didn’t actually start NaNo until just about thirty minutes ago. Here’s my Day 10 (first day for me) post to the Viddler group. Let’s hope my brain doesn’t explode from all my lofty goals.

My First Viddler Video

It’s horribly rough, but I just added my intro video to the NaNoWriMo Viddler group. I’ll be posting these both in the group and here simply for posterity’s sake.

These videos should look more polished in the future as I learn just what the hell I’m doing. In the meanwhile, it’ll be a good vehicle for connecting with this great community and destressing during the next month of caffeinated marathon writing.

Coming Soon…

My extended leave of absence from writing has made me horrendously moody. My brain and body are telling me what I already know: It’s time I returned to writing actively and blogging about it.

I’ll soon be making more frequent posts as I start writing again. NaNoWriMo is fast approaching. It’s about time I start preparing for that, even if it’s a long way away.

In the meanwhile, I’ll be writing new stories to send off to The Writers of the Future Contest. In listening to the recent interviews with the winners from Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing, I’ve discovered this could be a great deadline for me to write at least four big stories a year. This is just the sort of mind trickery I need to write more.

For now, I’m off to work. I’ll be back soon.

Know Thyself.

The summer makes everything a little bit slower. It also makes me a little bit… Okay, a lot lazier. I haven’t been keeping up with my writing, and I think I know why that is.

I don’t have a regular schedule.

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but I thrive on being busy. This may be why NaNo works so well for me. When there are too many things to do in the few hours of the day, I feel as if some sort of time warp happens and I get more time than I would ever have on a lazy day.

It looks like school will be great for me this fall. I will definitely be able to warp up some hours for writing even if I can’t during this free, lazy summer.

Ira Glass Reaffirms Sucking

I stumbled upon this on I Should Be Writing, and I have to share it with everyone possible. I’ve always been one to understand that it’s necessary to have a starting point and barrel through it. Hell, I’m still trying to get out my million practice words.

This video made me feel better about still sucking a year into my creative writing career. My taste, as Ira Glass puts it, allows me to recognize my difficulties and make things better. This is all necessary. Thank you Ira Glass, and Mur for sharing it with your readers.

NaNo Book Recommendations

Mental Mist requested a few book recommendations for NaNoWriMo. Truthfully, the nature of the challenge negates the need for books entirely.

NaNoWriMo is all about finishing a 50,000-word novel manuscript in 30 days. If you break it down, that means 1,667 words each day, which doesn’t lend itself to reading a lot of the time. Therefore, I can only make one recommendation that’s specific to the challenge itself. I’ve still got a bunch of book recommendations available via the tag of the same name. Those should grow in the near future.

The one book I’ll recommend is written by the creator himself, Chris Baty. It’s No Plot? No Problem!. It takes you through a bit of preparation that you should read before the month starts, then gives weekly pep talks and advice. This, along with the web site’s weekly e-mails, should keep any floundering writers going.

Otherwise, I’d not encourage too much reading during the month of November. Writing really should rule that month completely. Good luck to any fellow participants. I’ll write more on this subject as November approaches.

I’m Still Alive.

I promise I didn’t fall prey to the internets. My writing and other creative endeavors have swallowed me whole even though I haven’t been the most productive even there.

In the past week, I’ve started and stopped on my current writing project. It’s finally time to start drafting, but I’m quite honestly frightened about the prospect. Whenever I didn’t do any planning, it was a lot easier to just throw worries out of the window. The Inner Editor is now hounding me horribly. The extensive plans I’ve made for this novel elevate the ideas just a bit too high for me to not worry about the actual production.

Any advice?