The problem I have is that it's not a genre in which I seem to have any particular skill, but as a favour for friends--and their new production company--I'll give it a shot.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

He dared me to do Romeo and Juliet better.

I think that can't be hard.
With vampires included, of course, one has to beware that it doesn't become Twilight... because that would be horrible. *shudder*

__________________
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

"Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you."

Actually I was thinking about the bridge bunnies when I said I'd already provided an idea.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Okay, I have the start of something in my head. I just need a MacGuffin.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

One problem with using dead (undead?) character is that the suicide by poison becomes a bit tricky. But maybe that's a good thing, if you're trying to get to 50,000 words. The last 100 pages are easy:

Romeolacula took 100 mg of the poison. He waited. Nothing happened.
He tried 150 mg of the poison. He waited. Nothing happened.
He tried 200 mg of the poison. He waited. Still nothing.
. . .

As long as he's got a good supply, you could get a lot of pages out of that!

__________________
As above, so below

The petrified heart of the Giant Anaruliea, frozen in bakelite for millions of years. It keeps him/her/it alive.

__________________
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

"Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you."

But how would that get into the Port of Olympia?

No, I'm working toward neo-noir, not Lovecraft pastiche.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I am definitely attempting this again for 2009!

The first year I tried I got 2,000 words down. The next year around 5,000. Finally broke 10,000 last year. This year I'm going all the way.

...have even started an ideas journal for possible plot lines and story-universe notes.

I am!

I'm probably going to fail.

What I write is definitely going to suck.

But dangit, I only live once!

I'm thinking of going for a cyberpunk noir story. Gillian kind of inspired it by mentioning "noir". The idea is about a detective that's falling down a large downward spiral, leading him on and on downwards, with a computer in his head that carries a fractured personality of his dead lover. It's supposed to be extremely gritty and not-at-all happy. I'll have to see if I can make it work.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Try writing detailed responses to issues here on BAUT. You're break 1,000 words in a heartbeat.

This morning I wrote a response to an online issue. It only allows 1,000 characters, and I thought, "piece of cake."

I hit that in the third paragraph, with about seven more to go.

Outstanding!

I've signed up, now to see how far this'll take me.

I even have a tiny little grain of a MacGuffin that's been nagging me ever since I stumbled upon it as a throwaway line in Gaiman's Calliope.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

It's looking like I'm in this year as well.

I've had an idea kicking around for about 8 years now, but Could never figure out how to make the time line for it until the other day. Now that I know when stuff happens, the rest should fall into place.

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Just for fun, I tried looking back on the posts I wrote here in the last 24 hours to get an impression of how much writing it actually involves.

I counted 753 words or just about half the average daily output needed. It suddenly looks a lot more doable, especially since many of those words were written at least twice because of my post-posting editing.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Hi all - I'm in NaNoWriMo - I confess I don't like that contraction, but it's easy. I tried to find a guru here to comment on my sci fi idea, but apparently such a request is taboo. I have no problem accessing the nnwm web site when I want to, maybe because I use the link in my forum notifications, although on second thought I don't know why that would speed things up. I'm a first timer, have a pretty complex environment for it to take place in, and intend to use it to comment on social structures, war, peace, religion, you know, all the "big" stuff. sending my character to a variety of universes that differ by small degrees from this one.

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- - - The Beatniks was a club I joined because they
wouldn’t have me. - - -

Nearly all the writing I've done over the last two years has been done at work. I've got about 5 hours of down time per night. I know I can turn out 4000 per night if I've a good idea where the story is going, and I get too wrapped up in things here.

And of course, if nothing at work actually demands my attention.

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Haha, ouch! I know those very well - wake up at 6:30 to check your posts before going into the shower, decide to pop off a 'quick reply' only to have your buddy text you half-way through your post that he picked up notes for you in the class you just missed.



Time flies when you're having fun, I guess.

Doah! Sounds like a lot of my BAUTing...

Ok, so how best to approach this? Should it be 50,000 words or bust? Without consideration to content, I can bang that out in several days. If I write with the detail I'd like to write, we're looking at several months.

So, compromises are in order.

By comparison, I just passed 12,000 posts here on BAUT, each of which contains perhaps two or three hundred words, on average. At 8 posts per day, that's about 2,000 words a day, for a total of 3,000,000 words. That took five years, or 60 months, so for 50,000 words, that's 1/60th that, or 1 month.



Gee, that was scary how that worked as, and I didn't back in those numbers!

Ok, so if I do one month's work here on BAUT, I'll reach 50,000 words.



I think I'll just type all my BAUT responses into nano before copying them here...

Just kidding. It's supposed to be a novel, and this is message boarding.

Seriously - perhaps I out to just ram-dump my thoughts and worry about the details later.

What do you think?

A couple of years ago I picked up a book called No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty, one of the founding figures behind NaNoWriMo. His primary philosophy is that you ditch your 'inner editor' and just go with pure creative flow. The idea is not to write an interesting, well-structured novel, but simply just to write one and remove yourself from the pantheon of 'one day' writers (i.e. 'one day I will write a novel').

One might question the book's effectiveness given I've never finished any of my novels, haha, but it does offer a lot of cool tips and insight written in a dry, humourous tone.

I don't think it's really out for 100% effectiveness. I doubt anything works for everyone.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Sounds like a distant cousin of Tom Disch's story "Descending."

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

Sounds like his justification behind NaNoWriMo. Most people have ideas, but never start. The only way one can write is to write.

Thanks, DT - you've solve my dilemma. I'll treat it as an unstructured practice run. I'm sure structure will creep in, heavily, but if it's slowing down my word rate, I'm going to chuck it and just keep writing.

Another idea, popped into my head, to use one-page, handwritten chapter notes, spread out before me on my desk so I can reference them for the flow, interlinks, etc. Minimal editing, maximum outpouring.

Okay, I'm in.

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Once again, I have too many ideas to deal with them properly. Augh. D:

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Just start writing one. If you lose momentum, you can always switch later on.

__________________
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

"Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you."

I have a few places I want to use as settings, and I've got a grip on my main character, but my MacGuffin still isn't falling into place. I think it's going to have something to do with the fact that we've got a wee bit of state government here (as in, by state law, all state offices have to have their headquarters within about five miles), but whether the MacGuffin itself will by definition be political or not, I have not decided.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

That made me lose out last NaNoWriMo.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Switching actually helped me win last time. Started one, lost momentum, went back to another one and won.

__________________
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

"Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you."

This year's experience is proving similar to last year's experience, i.e. a bust due to poor NaNoWriMo planning with respect to the server requirements.

Only this time I'm here in the states and on a fast broadband connection.

Haven't been able to log in all day!

Grr...

Yeah, the server has been super sluggish!

But, it's been a great day of novelling: 1607 words and I have a lot of ideas on where to take the story. Here's the synopsis:

"29 year old geologist Jake Williams is bored. So bored that he joins an exploration project in Ecuador as war breaks out between Colombia and Venezuela. In between terrorist attacks, surprisingly encounters with ex-girlfriends, running into paramilitary organizations, and discovering ancient ruins, Jake and his German shepherd Toomey somehow manage to survive and come out relatively unscathed in a dry, fun, and thoughtful adventure."