NaNoWriMo
www.nanowrimo.org
As per the thread way below, who signed up and how's it going? I've done 3300 words and am telling everyone about this so that I'll be too ashamed to quit.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 9:36, 6 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

Zero
A big fat zero.

Mind you, the one year I finished I didn't start for a week, so it's not a disaster.

yet.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 9:43, Reply)

isn't it better to write better than to do it by wordcount?
I can't see the point of that site? Graham Greene wrote 500 words a day. Imagine telling him 'Fuck pathos, go for output'. How do you get 'The End of The Affair' out of that?
(sirolimus, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 14:08, Reply)

See thread above
Up to 4,100 so nerrrr.

As to quantity/quality - the idea's not a bad one. If you can get 50,000 words down, then you'll have enough to edit into something in December. Even if 50% is dross, you'll be well on the way.

I think I need the constraint of the month to give me the kick I need to start.


Will report back at the end to let you know how it went.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 16:14, Reply)

@Charles
I find that there's always a few bits that come out of it that can be knocked into shape, used elsewhere, turned into bits, inspire some other ideas.

That and it's fun.

In a masochistic sort of way.

That said, I have no idea where I am going to find the time this year.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 16:43, Reply)

Under Milk Wood
Dylan Thomas took a week to write each line in Under Milk Wood. That's a better piece of writing than you, me or any other doss cunt on that site is going to write. And I think it's a better way to write than quantity and then editing down. But that's just me and I know fuck all about the square root of nothing.
(sirolimus, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 20:17, Reply)

Nonsense,
I was churning out Milk Woods while Dylan Thomas was on the nipple. Taught him everything he knows.

The idea is not to produce a perfect piece of prose on 30th November but to stop people from mouthing "I could so write a novel" or "I've started a novel" and actually giving them deadlines and getting them to the point where they say "I wrote a novel". The shiteness of said novel is irrelevant; it's the exercise that's important.

NB: I crafted the above sentences over an ice-age melting geological timescale, each careful word savoured and carved into granite with a silver-tipped chisel. And it's still shit.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Tue 4 Nov 2008, 9:52, Reply)