(no subject)

[aslant]

snow! in november! this morning i had to shovel and scrape away three inches of snow from the car and the front stairs. it was much more than i expected. a layer of ice was on all the windows--i had to pry the door open with the scraper because it was frozen shut. oh my. i really hope this winter is not as long as the last one...didn't it snow on april 1st? oof.

i was very proud when i actually got to davis square. i wrote for two and half hours, and now i have +21k words. i'm hoping to get to 27k or 28k by the end of sunday. yes. it will happen.

Comments

[brickred.livejournal.com]

28K! I'll be happy to get to 25. right now I'm at 18ish, struggling to keep going. I hate and love it simultaneously. have you ever finished before? (this is the farthest I've ever gotten, and right now that's my biggest source of momentum).

[aslant.livejournal.com]

congratulations on 18k! keep going! it is totally possible! and yes, i have finished twice before, in 2003 & 2002.

in the other years, i was able to write easily over 1600/day while at work, whereas this year i'm mostly writing in big chunks during the weekend. i get up around 8:30 and get a good spot in a cafe and i mentally map out where i want to get in the story, someplace that's pretty far along in the plot compared to where i am and with lots of diversions along the way (i have an outline) and then i just keep going for two or three hours. it's been pretty effective for me, so far. it really takes some dedication, time-wise. just find how you work best and then make some space in your month for working with that method.

eh. lots of unsolicited advice! ignore me :)

[brickred.livejournal.com]

do you like the end product? I have a hard time planning more than just the basic things, and while in the past I've ended up hating my novel because it was too character-oriented and had bad plot, this year the opposite is true--plot driven but with static characters and places. I know that quality isn't the point but I'm totally terrified that I'm making too big of a deal about it and I'll finish and just be sad that it's totally unusable, the worst thing I've ever written. I don't even like speaking out loud about my novel, I think it's that bad.

and I don't mind unsolicited advice at all--I don't know anyone else who's actually ever finished.! in 2002 I wrote about 9500 words, and last year I only got through day two before calling it quits.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

well, i try not to think about the end product at all. in fact, i try not to think of it as a 'novel', but more as a writing exercise. it is a matter of forcing out dialogue and scenes and plot ideas and descriptions. i've done very little re-reading of my past two nanos, but i've always been slightly surprised at how not-totally-suckful they are. i mean, i'm not expecting to come out with anything other than a pile of vaguely-related crap, so to read just a single scene and feel that it is okay, that's a good feeling for me.

i think if i focussed on coming out with a usable product, i'd get a little bogged down. i mean, the average writer's first drafts are crap--otherwise there's no way to actually get them down on the paper. you can't work with a manuscript or a story until it's written, so that's the stage i consider myself at--creating raw materials. especially since it's wordcount-oriented, i can't stop and think about anything. i mean, i guess it's as big a deal as you make of it...but if you think of it more as an extensive writing exercise (or a writing 'project', that's what i call it to anyone who doesn't know what nanowrimo is, if they ask), that may help a little. if you just churn stuff out, you can fix it later and think of it as a novel then.

[tigermilkdrunk.livejournal.com]

Howdy. I would like permission to add you as a friend, mainly because I like your poetry and your pictures remind me of former homes. My journal doesn't add up to much, but if you'd like, I can furnish personal recommendations, both live-journal and otherwise.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

please, go right ahead! i'm glad you like the poetry and the pictures...there are definitely pictures more often once i friend you, because most of my posts are friends-only :) the poetry, however, is still a little sparse, but i'm working on that.

did you grow up in boston? are you in london now? what is your grad program for? what's your story? in three sentences or less, please.


1. i grew up in oregon and connecticut, and have lived in massachusetts since i graduated from smith college in 2001.
2. i live in somerville and work at the radcliffe institute for advanced study, at harvard.
3. my journal is my story---i guess that last question is a little flippant and ridiculous, but take it as you will.

[tigermilkdrunk.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Maryland and Vermont, but lived in the greater Boston area for the five years between undergrad (Vassar '99) and postgrad (University of Edinburgh, sometime in the future). I am currently studying conceptions of nationalism in literature (although after Christmas I'm going to try to switch my studies to focus more on the physiocratic (favorite new word!) impulse in twentieth-century lit.), and from my window I can see the Firth of Forth. As to my story: I keep saying that I want to write and shoot (movie-wise) and cook and garden and teach, but mainly I just spend a lot of time working at bookstores.