{"id":2420,"date":"2011-10-16T15:56:37","date_gmt":"2011-10-16T20:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/?p=2420"},"modified":"2020-01-03T23:42:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-04T04:42:00","slug":"nanowrimo-or-just-because-its-stupid-doesnt-mean-im-not-going-to-try-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/nanowrimo-or-just-because-its-stupid-doesnt-mean-im-not-going-to-try-it\/","title":{"rendered":"NaNoWriMo, or: Just because it’s stupid doesn’t mean I’m not going to try it"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"National<\/a>

Fifty thousand words in 30 days. Because what could possibly go wrong?<\/p><\/div>\n

Just because it’s stupid doesn’t mean I’m not going to try it<\/h2>\n

If you’re a writer . . .<\/p>\n

Or have even thought about being a writer . . .<\/p>\n

And have spent any time at all kicking around the Interwebs over the past several years . . .<\/p>\n

You’ve probably stumbled across this: the phenom known affectionately as NoWriMo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

National Novel Writing Month!<\/h2>\n

It’s a movement. It’s a website. It’s a community.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s a way to invite public shame if you fail to crank out 50,000 words in 30 days.<\/em><\/p>\n

I tried NaNoWriMo once before — in 2006. I lasted five days. Posted my progress each day on this blog ’til my effort met its early and ignoble end.<\/p>\n

I have a new strategy, this year.<\/p>\n

You’re allowed to lay some groundwork — an outline, for example — before you get started.<\/p>\n

As it happens, I don’t find outlines helpful for writing fiction. Either the outline has to be so complete that it is basically the entire novel, or it has big gaps — and big gaps are the enemy of NaNoWriMo success, at least for me, because that’s what slows me down: I hit a gap and don’t know how to fill it and freeze.<\/p>\n

So I’m going to try something different.<\/p>\n

I’m going to pre-create a bunch of characters. (Already started, little buggers are wandering around in my head like they own the place.)<\/p>\n

I’m going to create a handful of predestined events. (Got some of those already in place, too. I know there’s going to be a guy dead on a golf course — maybe it was an accident, maybe not. I know there’s going to be a member-guest golf tournament. I know there’s going to be people who fall in love ;-). And I know there’s going to be a winning lottery ticket. At least, there will be someone who think it’s a winning ticket — only he can’t remember where he put it. Think “where the heck did I put my car keys?” only a tad more urgent.)<\/p>\n

And then, on November 1, I’m going to turn the characters loose and report what happens to them as they knock into those events and each other.<\/p>\n

So we’ll see. Perhaps I’ll last only five days again . . .<\/p>\n

But maybe I’ll be a bit more successful this time.<\/p>\n

So how about you? Have you ever tried NaNoWriMo? If not, why not? And if yes, how did it go?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just because it’s stupid doesn’t mean I’m not going to try it If you’re a writer . . . Or have even thought about being a writer . . . And have spent any time at all kicking around the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[309,3],"tags":[310,403,241],"class_list":["post-2420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-novel-writing-month","category-writing","tag-nanowrimo","tag-national-novel-writing-month","tag-writing-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2420"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6450,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420\/revisions\/6450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}