- I just wanted to make another blog because I'm the type of peson who just likes to start things. (It's usually a question on those career matching tests, so you might want to figure out how you roll when it comes to projects.)
- I was going to post my NaNo-ing ventures.
NANOWRIMO IS EATING MY SOUL.
Or whatever is left of it. There is a grand amount of speculation of what actually happened to it, but wherever it is, my abused inner editor has bene attacking it with a variety of weapons and nomming it with a variety of spices. By the end of the month, I will need to take a trip to the magical land of soul searching and revive my soul and get my inner editor to give it back. (Because inner editors are able to undo all their actions. They have this magical backspace button.) However, right now, I need to settle with not having a soul during this month.
I'd like to think I'm not doing too bad during the month of the novel, because, well, I'm about 10,000ish over par. However, my inner editor sometimes decides to stop nomming on my soul and decides to throw darts at my brain, so part of my novel really suck. Dude, I wrote almost an entire chapter on baking cupcakes. I'll probably hack and slash at the chapter gleefully come December. However, I'm in love with most of my characters. The ones I'm in love with are developing beautifully and cracking me up. At this point, I get most of the funny in my life from my characters and YouTube. That's how sad my humor has gone.
So, enough about how my NaNoing adventure is going. I'll drop you a few tips that I've found lying around either in my crunchy brain or on the internet. However, if you are NaNoing this year, I expect you to get onto the writing as soon as you finish reading this post. Close off Facebook. Log off Twitter. And most definitely get off of tvtropes.org. (Oh, and those other websites like Google+, Tumblr, and whatever other crazy social networking websites you use, yeah, maybe you should just shut off the Internet.)
TIP UN: Send away your inner editor:
Now I warn you, my inner editor is a snappy little fellow who is every bit at good at darts as Olivianne Brooklyn from the short story I wrote over the summer. Therefore, he likes to chuck whatever item he can find at me and scream about how horrid, wordy, and just awful my writing is right now. Sound familiar? Well, here's my advice: silence him. Or her. Or it. I don't know what form your inner editor has, but send your inner editor on a vacation somewhere, and don't leave him a boat. Cut off the internet in his/her/its vacation house or just tie it up to a chair. And if your inner editor finds a way to Apparate to your place of writing, well, then you'll need a good chunk of discipline to not listen to him/her/it. If all else fails, just vent your frustrations in your writing, because, hey it makes words.
TIP DEUX: Dares. Dares. Dares
Dares were one of my favorite parts of NaNoWriMo last year and they are still in my top ten list. (I think the Adoption Society forums might've taken its place) However, a lot of them are all kinds of fun and will definitely produce words. There are forums on the NaNo website and there is a rather amusing dare generator on the Young Writer's Program page for NaNo. If it sounds stupid, well, then it'll produce words. What else is better than taping a "Kick Me" sign to the villain's back, adding a talking animal, or having an entire chapter where everybody talks in song lyrics. It may seem irrelevant, and it may be irrelevant come December, but maybe, just maybe, you will find something even cooler that you wouldn't have found if you didn't do those dares. And even if it didn't help at all. Hey, MORE WORDS.
TIP TROIS: Make another character.
If you are writing more literary fiction, then you focus a bit more on characters than you do on plot. If you are writing more genre or mainstream fiction, thne you focus a bit more on plot. Either way, characters are important, and they require description. You know what description requires? WORDS! Glorious, glorious words. Making more characters is great for word count. Is your main character an only child because you didn't really come up with much a backstory for him/her at the beginning. Give them siblings, because trust me, not all couples only have one kid. Besides, if they were adopted or thought they were an only child your entire story, then you can have one of those "WE'RE RELATED?" scenes. Even if you decide to not go down that route, describing the new character's personality, voice, appearance, and everything else definitely adds to the word count.
TIP QUATRE: Description is your best friend.
So, remember those old novels you have to read in college or high school that seem to have these really long flowery sentences or elaborate metaphors (I think the Metaphysicals called them conceits?) that seem to take up half the page? Well, they can take up half the page for you too. Every time your characters go to a new place, describe the living crap out of it. If there is a radio in the corner of the kitchen that your characters are making cupcakes in, describe what model that radio is and exactly how the song it's playing sounds. Talk about the recipe for those cupcakes. If it's public domain or you found it on a public, COPY AND PASTE THAT RECIPE. As long as you ask the people before you publish it if it's okay, then it shouldn't be a problem
TIP CINQ: Word Wars.
You want to know why I have so many words right now, because I'm in a word war with one of my good friends in Florida. It may not be fair that I didn't have school on Election Day, but I'm still winning. It isn't the greatest philosophy in life to try to base your success on beating others, and I'm trying hard to not make it seem that way, but beating my good friend in Florida is definitely a nice side effect of having a healthy word count.
There are probably more I could give you, but there are words to be written, ACTs to be studied for, and other things to be done. I wish you merry writing and hope the fruits of your labor are made o' win.
P.S. This entire post, including this post script, is made up of 1188 words that I could've put in my novel. If you have a blog, put your alter ego in your novel and use your November blog posts in your novel. ;D
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