[tsa]

Just try it Squinky. Even if no one wants to read it, you still have proven to yourself you can write a novel.

[Squinky]

Yeah, good point.

But then again, when it's a matter of a toss-up between creating something I know will be seen and something that probably won't, I'll always go with the former. I've thought about trying to write a novel before, but I always wind up going back to games, because at least I know people are going to play them. The same audience, sadly, isn't guaranteed to want to read a novel I write, particularly since my method of distribution will most likely be the internet, and most people (myself included) hate reading large chunks of text online. My friend Leopold self-publishes hard copies of books that he sells over the internet (see Game Quest), but as I understand it, he didn't find much of an audience for them even then. *sigh*

The upside to writing a novel, however, is that it'll be different enough from what I do at work that I won't experience as much blockage and lack of motivation as I am with my game projects lately.

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

Squinky, my take is that it would be a process and experience that would be a growth period, and it could even be a moment of discovery if you end up being read.

But even if not, it would be a flexing of intellectual muscle that would be beneficial.

I think I've said this before here, but Miles Davis once told a horn player--when asked how he could improve his playing--Miles replied "Learn to play the piano".

I think the same logic applies here. Expanding your palette and experience space cannot hurt--you can only learn from it.

[tsa]

I agree with Specksie wholeheartedly. I wrote a novel in 2005, and although noone wants to read it I am glad I wrote it. It helped me to learn to know myself better, and that made me feel better about myself. Before starting on the big project that writing a novel is, I wrote a few short stories about Sophie (see my website), to work out how to come up with a storyline and how to get it on paper. A lot of people like the Sophie stories. I have people asking for more, so I am now in the process of writing the fourth story.

[Squinky]

Originally Posted by Not A Speck Of Cereal

I think I've said this before here, but Miles Davis once told a horn player--when asked how he could improve his playing--Miles replied "Learn to play the piano".

I like that.

Thanks, guys. I'll take your advice to heart.

[Lee in Limbo]

Writing a novel is a great way to learn how to really flesh out the bones of a story and figure out if you've got enough perspective into what motivates people yet. You never really know how much you truly understand people and the things that happen to them until you've tried to write it all down in a story, I believe. People start to really make a funny sort of sense after that.

One caveat about doing it in November; NaNoWriMo is pretty intense. I believe you've got the drive and energy necessary, which you proved to me from your school schedule and doing game design at the same time in the last few years. However, there are two limitations to doing NaNoWriMo:

1) 50,000 words in 30 days is a very doable but potentially brain-frying experience. If you plan it out just enough and keep a low but steady word count up over most of those 30 days (even with RL interruptions and work and such), you should cross the finish line. But making yourself write virtually every day is a discipline that verges on the insane. Imagine being creative on a schedule every day, and not becoming stale. Professional writers are all a little mad inside. A friend of mine who writes almost constantly for various fanfic communities couldn't keep in the groove on her NaNo book, and I still nudge her every now and then to go back to her book, because it's the coolest thing she's worked on in a few years. So even experienced writers can have trouble with working like this.

2) 50,000 words isn't enough to sell a book (average adult published novel is 80K words min), so in a very real sense, even if you hit the mark and 'win' the contest, you probably still won't have a truly completed novel, unless you end it short and don't sweat the idea of ever publishing it, or go longer than 50K and see how far you get before the 30th.

This last I heartily recommend, but it means you really have to crank out as much text in a day as you can handle. I would probably recommend trying to turn out 3-4K per day and leave yourself room for days when you just don't feel like writing (I get those a lot, as you know). It's hard work, but it's not as hard as turning out 7-11K in a day, which is doable but WAY intense. Your heart may dance with glee, but your brain may fry, and you may have to take a day or two off afterwards.

A possible third is that, if you don't have a story idea in your head in time, you may be floundering for days, and will have no idea if you can manage the @1667 words/day needed to keep up. The danger of getting the idea too soon however is that you'll be itching to start early, but will lose interest in the idea by the time November comes around.

I think you can plan it out, but you want to be careful not to answer all the questions beforehand, or actually writing the novel will be no fun for you. Half the fun is in answering the unanswered questions as you write. It's like telling yourself the story first, using the notes as a road map, but not knowing what you'll see until you come across it. Sudden detours and the character taking over the story are the fringe benefits of writing novels. You never know quite where you're going to finish up, even with a road map.

My trick for keeping from losing interest in Terminal Monday was to approach the plot the same way I approached the 24-Hour Comic challenge, where you're not permitted to even plan the project out. You just pick a day, get up, get an idea, plot it out as quickly as possible, and then draw 24 pages of comic as simply but as cleanly and as quickly as possible. I've only ever succeeded doing that once, but it was very gratifying to get it done, even though it took me all 24 hours.

When I started Terminal Monday, I basically did the same thing. I signed up for NaNo, grabbed a title I'd borrowed from Dawn, who had muttered it a couple of days earlier (I wrote it down on a sticky note on my desk without knowing what I'd do with it), and just started writing the first thing that came into my head. I started a couple of days late because my friend decided to give it a try, and I decided to join up as well, in an act of writer solidarity. I'm not sure I recommend that method to anyone else, but it certainly created some interesting story, and when I took a bit of time to properly plot out the whole book (several days after starting... I'm a little crazy myself sometimes), I was really quite happy with what I was trying to do. I still have to finish it up, and I've been ducking it for months, but I may read over what I did and see if I want to continue with it soon.

Now, I already know that you're a good storyteller, Deirdra. I've particularly liked what you've been doing in the last couple of years. The challenge will be to see if you've picked up enough from our work on MetFall and Stage! and developed the sense to know when and where to expand on an idea. I already know you are capable of self-editting, but the first part is all about raw content generation. It's like scooping up and piling clay on a pottery wheel until you've got enough to work with, and then spinning and sculpting and removing lumps until the true shape becomes apparent.

Plan it out in rough, like we did for MetFall, then pick a chapter and a character and a point of view, and go. If you hit a brick wall and can't see your way around it yet, but you still feel like writing more, pick another chapter and see what you can do with that. Sometimes you find your answers easier that way. Just try not to write all the cool bits first, or you'll lose interest when it comes time to write the connective tissue between the cool bits. Plus, if you try to invest yourself evenly between all of the chapters, you'll discover cool bits everywhere you look, and the novel will be easy to read because it will have enough points of interest all the way through.

As always, if you need my help with anything, let me know. If what I've told you puts you off the idea, I would still recommend that you give novel writing a try, perhaps on your own time, so you can work at it at your leisure. I will say though that intensely pushing content out is the coolest thing in the world. Every story I've written that I still like was achieved by the same basic principle; get the idea and run with it as fast and as far as I can before I crash. If that push doesn't get me to the finish line, try to structure things so that I can jump back into it and continue running when I get my energy back. Nearly every story I've dawdled over endlessly has practically died on the vine, which is why you don't see me tinkering with any novels at the moment. I want to get back into harness and just get the rhythm and go.

The opposite side of the coin is, you do have to let things gestate and then go back to them every now and then, too. You can't truly know that an idea works until it's sat in a drawer for a few days unseen, before you go back and read it to find out if it's actually a load of crap. After that, you have to decide if you can rework it, or if you need to start from scratch, using this version as a practical guide on how not to do it. This isn't useful for NaNoWriMo, but for most professional writing, it's pretty much a requirement, unless you're Warren Ellis, who apparently can do no wrong.

Let me know if you need a beta reader.

[Lee in Limbo]

Dear Aggie

Took the orange cat to the vet's office yesterday and had it confirmed that it is indeed a fixed boy cat. Pretty healthy, although today he's kinda laying around all sick-like from the shots, which he did not appreciate at all. Dawn and I discussed a new name for him, and we seem to have settled on Charlie, for Charles Chaplin, 'the lovable tramp who moved in and stole your heart' (Dawn's words). The problem with this is that my sister is a fan of the internet cartoon Charlie the Unicorn, and will doubtless make that reference numerous times in the future.

We also considered calling him Kirby, but Dawn fancied that Kirby isn't right, because the joke she was getting at was that he's a bit of a food vacuum, 'Hoovering' up any wet food left out for either him or Lucky. Kirby is a much more expensive brand of vacuum cleaner over here, and Dawn says that's not right for this cat, given that he was a stray. Personally, I kinda like it, but I think we're settled on Charlie.

Now I have to pick a project and get back to work. Logos? Cartoon game assets? MetFall plot? Maybe even having a look at Terminal Monday after all this time might be a good way to spend the day. Not sure what I want to work on next though. I still have to go back and finish The Devil's Cabinet Maker someday. I still want to know how that story comes out.

Hopefully I'll be able to get in touch with someone with a vehicle big enough to help Dawn and I pick up the dressers we were looking at on Monday. We have storage issues in our bedroom, and the room will look so much better when we get everything put away properly, which requires bigger dressers.

Finally, I started playing the Secrets of Atlantis the other night. I was hoping it would be more gripping than it has been, but it's been okay so far. I've been using UHS more than I want to, which bothers me because I'm seeing almost everything they're pointing out to me, but I'm not making the connections properly. I"m just picking up stuff as I find it and hoping I'll figure it out as I go. Not a lot of stuff to interact with, and not a lot of fun observations. I find that I need that in a game these days. TLJ has spoiled me. The dialogue is quite good but not spectacular, and so far, the characters are enjoyable but not captivating. Hopefully the plot will carry things then. Heidi gave it four stars, so it's bound to be good. I suspect I'm just not back in the puzzle groove yet. Too many months playing MMOs.

[Squinky]

Thanks, Lee.

I've had a nugget of an idea in my head for a couple of months, but it's very much undeveloped at this point, so that sounds about ideal. Still have yet to decide whether I'll do it for NaNoWriMo or on my own time (or at all, considering that I may get tired of it). Leaning towards the former option, because I work better with deadlines, but who knows? In either case, it'll be a while regardless, given that I've got some other stuff I need to be doing right now.

[Jazhara7]

Dear Aggie.

Today is finally my Sister's birthday. I've been nagging her for about two months to "Have birthday, already!" (sounds better, and more grammatically correct in German.), since I wanted to give her her presents. I was of course joking, but the fact that I couldn't wait to give her her presents is no less true. Now her birthday's here, and I can't wait for her to come over to finally get them. I still have to wait for my mother to come home, though, as I'm sure she'll want to give her presents at the same time. I try not to think of the suspense at my sister's reaction, as it would be killing me if I thought too hard of it.

^_^


-

[Hammerite]

Aaw... sweet.

[tsa]

Congrats on your sister Jaz! Will you tell us what you got her and how she liked it?

[Jelena]

I didn't get that job at the estate agent's I applied for. But things has turned my way rather unexpectedly.
A couple of weeks after I had applied for this job at the estate agent's my Principal announced that she would need a secretary for next year and hopefully the future as well. I immediately expressed interest in working 50 % teaching and 50% administrative duties. That would be a good mix I think, since I still like working with children, but I don't have the strength to do it full time anymore. And this week she told me that the combination of jobs had been approved of by the municipality.
Now I look forward to an office of my own where I, by noon, can close the door and work in peace and silence the rest of the day.

*does a happy dance*

[Lee in Limbo]

Congratulations, Jelena.

[Jelena]

Originally Posted by Lee in Limbo

Congratulations, Jelena.

Thanks Lee

[Tobbe]

I'm so happy for you Jelena, Congratulations!!

[RLacey]

Well, today my undergraduate career came to what is effectively an end, since I had my last exam. Gobbets! Yay! (Don't ask what they are.)

I still have two weeks of my final term left, but otherwise I'm now free to do what I want for a while. Which is good.

Next up, waiting for my results, and seeing whether I'm going to apply to do something rather stupid...

[tsa]

That's great Jelena, congratulations!

[tsa]

RLacey, what are gobbets? And congratulations to you too!

[RLacey]

Gah...

Okay. Essentially, you learn a whole load of texts, and then the exam consists of single sentences from those texts. You have to locate the sentence in the context of the text, elaborate on it, and link it to all the other texts you've studied.

It is, at once, both surprisingly easy and infuriatingly hard.

Apologies if that makes no sense. My ability to type has vanished this evening.

[tsa]

I understand what you mean but it doesn't make sense to me. I guess it's meant to show your ability to learn and understand texts, am I right?