eirian84's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NaNoWriMo So, after hearing about it for several years in livejournals and various author's notes on fanfics, I finally looked up NaNoWriMo. Which, for those who don't know, stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's in November. Actually, it is November. You have a month (exactly 30 days) to write a novel - a "novel" being defined as 50,000 words. But, the idea behind Nanowrimo is "quantity, not quality". They want you to just write a novel, and forget about the fact that it might not be the most tasteful piece of literature ever written. Because unless you show it, nobody has to see it. It's a confidence builder, something to boost your ego so you can say (to yourself, unless you want to brag to people & then refuse to show it to them), "I wrote a fucking NOVEL in 30 days!!" And if you can do that, if you took a little longer and put a little more thought into it, you could produce something that you might actually be caught dead letting other people read! ^_^ Or, that's my take on it, anyway. Really, their motto is "quantity, not quality". You don't have to let anyone else read it, but they actually have groups of people who are participating that meet together, and Bitch* about it. *I had a conversation with my mom once, concerning a woman with whom I used to work. She would complain about everything and everyone at the facility (well, not everyone, but she really was a mean gossip), and really just made me feel like shit just listening to her talk smack about other people behind their back. This woman Complained; yet everyone does it, especially in such a physically and mentally demanding job as ours/mine. So, I explained to my mom that I (& most other people) Bitch, just to let off steam & commiserate with others who are in the same situation, while this woman Complained. Anyway, back to Nanowrimo. (Don't you hate it when you have to explain an inside saying in your own friggin' diary?) I think it would be great to get together with other people who are going through the same freakin' writer's block, caffeine-high, sleep-deprived, 3-o'clock-in-the-fuckin'-morning-(or afternoon)-when-inspiration-strikes-and-I've-got-to-write-it-down-NOW experience that I am. Hell, I'd just like to meet someone else who understands what it's like to be plagued with ideas that they just have to write down and have unfold on paper before they can move on. See, I'm gettin' it comin' and goin'. Nobody else likes anime. Nobody else is a writer. I think the closest person who understands is Ivy, and her medium is art, not words. Now, if I ever wrote the script for a graphic novel, I would know exactly who to go to! I'd even make sure to write in a lot of dragons for her to draw. And horses. Thestrals! Fuck, I could write a Harry Potter graphic novel! Sorry. And sorry about the extra swearing, I've been listening to Margaret Cho on Napster all morning. She says 'fuck' a lot. So, anyway. Just the idea of Nanowrimo has gotten me inspired, because even if November isn't 11 months away (which it is, at the moment), there's nothing that says I can't write a shitload of fanfic. But I like the idea of "quantity over quality". Not that I'm gonna write horrible fanfiction with OOC characters (OOC = Out Of Character), but, for me, "quantity over quality" just means, "write". Don't think (too much) about it, don't worry about grammar, don't worry about rambling paragraphs that started in one spot and ended up in another, while you know your next paragraph isn't gonna match up with the ending of the last one. I found myself doing that last night, & I was like, "Fuck it, it's fine, just keep going." And, honestly, I've read some pretty crappy fanfiction. Every fandom has it, unfortunately, and it's kinda difficult to wade through it to find the truly good stuff. My thing is, I don't care how good your grammar is (actually, yes, I do), if a story is far-fetched, or the characters aren't really acting like themselves - or rather, if they are suddenly not acting like themselves, & that's just how they're written & it's not a plotpoint in the story (like they're being blackmailed or something), I'm not gonna be able to read it. I found a story recently that I read 41 chapters of (out of like 66, & she's still not finished), before I was like, "Okay, my disbelief has just been stretched past the breaking point and it has snapped back to hit me in the face like a rubber band." So, yeah. I'm looking for H/D Veela fics. I know, no one but me knows what those are (you wouldn't get it, even if I explained it), but that's okay, 'cause no one else needs to know. But, I read in someone's author notes that her brain candy is HD veela fics, & she loves reading them. I read one once when I was devouring anything and everything H/D related, but it wasn't finished, & she was updating so slowly... eventually, I forgot the name of it and the author. Plus, when she would update after a while, I'd read the new chapter & think, "this is so un-believable." I couldn't get back into the story because, without having read it from the beginning in one sitting, she had changed the Harry Potter universe so much that I couldn't really understand how she'd gotten from Point A to Point B ('Point A' being JKR's universe and 'Point B' being her latest chapter & it's contents.) Now, most HP stories are like that. You hit that 27th chapter of a story cold and you're like "WTF?!" But there are stories out there that, after I've finished a marathon of doing nothing with my free time but reading them in entirety - then some unknown time later, I'm reading another HP story (I'm a junkie, shut up, no I don't need intervention), & I'm like, "But I thought that--" and about that time I have to stop and think, what exactly is canon, & what was just a story that I read that was really good fanfic. Because honestly, I remember the highlights of the last two books, but I think I remember a lot of fanfics set in those last two school years a lot better than I do the actual books. Probably because I've read several of the fics more than once, probably more than twice, whereas the books -- yeah. I keep telling myself someday, I'm going to read them again. You know it's not going to happen. Not while there are still talented writers out there who are diligently trying to fix everything that JKR turned on its ear, or failed to write into the actual books, like cough*Harry*and*Draco's*love*affair*cough. 'Scuse me. I think I'm catching a cold. ^_^V So. I'm trying to write a "novel". I've given myself a time-limit of 30 days, just to see how much I'll actually get done. So by the time November comes around, I'll either be totally burned out, or ready to start another epic, with some "practice" under my belt. I think it's actually working good so far (knock on wood/cross my fingers/whatever else I can think of to ward off Murphy). I've come up with an idea. A semi-original idea for a Veela fic that, while incorporating elements from a few other stories I've read, I'm putting my own fresh take on them, so hopefully that will be original enough. Hello~! It's a fandom! That means I'm already blatantly ripping off someone else's copywrighted material. I think as long as I don't copy and paste someone else's fanfic in & claim it as my own, I should be good. What are they gonna do - sue me?! "That was my idea! I wrote about Ron betraying Harry because he doesn't want Harry to be with Draco first!" God, if anyone actually said that to me... First, I would laugh my ass off hysterically, 'cause I've read dozens of stories with that same subplot in them. Plus, personally, I would never write Ron like that, but that's not the point. The point is, neither the Oh, okay. Whew! There's my little rant, that is most likely pointless 'cause I'll most likely never post my story... unless I finish it. So, like I said: I'll most likely never post my story. Bummer. 10:14 a.m. - 2008-01-03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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