NaNoWriMo

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Keeping It Real

December 9, 2009 in Blogging, Mind, Writing by faltarego | No comments

So what's the deal with me anyway?

I embarked on this blogging thing back in August with guns blazing and pedal squashed to the metal. I wrote a blog entry every day for seven weeks without so much as a hiccup (a couple of cheats, but no hiccups). I was on a roll, baby. I was smokin'. I was in the zone. I was—

You get the idea.

And I was professional about the whole thing. I wrote movie reviews, music reviews, book reviews, superhero reviews, and the occasional thoughtful or humorous blurt.

Life was good.

Or was it? Read the rest of this entry »

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How NaNoWriMo Saved Christmas

November 30, 2009 in Blogging, Mind, Writing by faltarego | No comments

The blogging has taken second seat to NaNoWriMo this past month, but that flurry of fictional formulating is now at and end for me. Today is actually the last day of NaNoWriMo, but I finished my story the day before yesterday, with a total word count of 66,333 (a supremely bizarre number, but I'll take it as a good omen). I've submitted my lengthy file to the NaNo website and am a confirmed winner.

Unsuprisingly, this feels incredibly good. First of all, to have written over 66,000 words in twenty-eight days is a major accomplishment. But for me, that wasn't even the best part. The capper for me was actually finishing a novel. I've started novels before; I've even written many, many words and many, many pages of novels before. Three novels, to be exact. But until this very month, I have never before in my life brought a novel-sized story to a full and satisfying ending.

And it all happened rather magically, I must say… Read the rest of this entry »

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Badges? Yes, We Need… er… Badges…

November 23, 2009 in Blogging, Internet, Writing by faltarego | 1 comment

Just to show you how non-bloggy I've been the last month or so, and how fully immersed in NaNoWriMo, let me confess to you right here and right now that it's been so bad that I completely forgot to even mention the writing contest that I won earlier this month.

Well, this brief post is to remedy that. Read the rest of this entry »

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Yep, This Is It, All Right…

November 8, 2009 in Blogging, Movies, Music, Writing by faltarego | No comments

Being in the throes of NaNoWriMo this month, I haven't had a lot of time or attention to spare for blogging, but today I had to take a quick break from thoughts of plots, characters, and sentence structure to write a bit about a slightly longer break (like two hours or so) I took earlier today.

This afternoon I went to see This Is It, the documentary film about Michael Jackson's preparations for the concerts that never happened. I thought that I'd missed my opportunity, but it turns out that the film was in theaters longer than I'd thought it would be.

And, boy, am I glad about that.

My eyes were glued to the screen for the duration of the film. It was absolutely riveting. I've never seen anything like this on the big screen, and it was probably the best eight dollars and change I've spent in a long time. Read the rest of this entry »

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NaNoWriMo Day 1 – The Honeymoon Begins

November 1, 2009 in Blogging, Internet, Software, Writing by faltarego | 2 comments

Well, the games have begun. I've written my first chunk of NaNoWriMo text. I've set myself a goal of 2,000 words per day (which is higher than the suggested amount), and have managed to achieve slightly more than that on Day One. So… so far so good. I'm using the Write or Die website I mentioned in my last post, and I'm probably going to purchase the desktop version before the month is over. I know it will get me through the process.

I'm actually using Write or Die right now, and because I haven't seen or heard the "consequences" of pausing since my first experiment with the site, I decided to pause for a bit after I typed the first sentence of this post. Well, after the gradually intensifying red background, there came from my speakers such a horrible sound that there was no way I was going to listen to it for more than two seconds.

Yes, folks, Write or Die works. Read the rest of this entry »

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National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

October 21, 2009 in Internet, Software, Writing by faltarego | 1 comment

Well, I've gone and done it. I've signed up for National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo as it's affectionately known). I'm going to spend the month of November immersed in words. The object is to write over 1600 words a day in order to amass a thirty-day total of 50,000 words, the equivalent of a short novel.

I did something like this three years ago, when I purchased a book entitled No Plot? No Problem!, written by Chris Baty, the originator of NaNoWriMo. The book goes into great detail about how the thirty-day novel works and gives some excellent advice and suggestions. So, although I haven't "officially" done NaNoWriMo before now, I did write an "unofficial" thirty-day novel in the middle of the summer.

The damn thing still isn't finished, though. I wrote the requisite number of words, but I didn't finish the story. And there it sits. I've read through it a number of times in the past three years, and I really like most of it, but I haven't added anything new to it. I know where it's going, and I know some of the scenes I want to write, but I haven't written them yet.

This is typical of  me. I write a bunch of stuff, and then I let it sit unfinished for eons. Read the rest of this entry »

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Write or Die!

October 2, 2009 in Blogging, Internet, Writing by faltarego | 1 comment

I'm using another new, free writing tool to compose this entry. It's called Write or Die, and it's not a product that you download and install on your computer. It's a writing tool on a website. You just go to the site, tell it how many words you intend to write, how much time you're giving yourself to write them, and how strict the site should be as you type away.

But let me back up a bit, here. This is not a writing tool for the faint of heart. This is a tool for people who seriously want to get some wordage down. It's a nagging tool. It's the closest thing you'll find to a schoolmarm with granny-glasses standing behind you and whacking you with a pointer if you pause too long in your writing.

I'm using this site for the first time today (okay, it's actually the second time, but the first time, a couple of days ago, was a bust, because I was seriously interrupted and had to abort the whole process), so I don't yet know all the ins and outs, but this is basically what happens: Once you've entered your proposed word-count and the time you're allowing yourself (and optionally setting the level of strictness you want brought down upon you), you click the big "Write" button, and off you go! You're taken to a page with nothing on it but a big text-entry field with a countdown timer and a word count at the bottom. Read the rest of this entry »

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