Beau went on to complete that project and now he's a professional writer, a published novelist and soon to be the author of a book on MMORPGs. Over the years plenty of bloggers I follow have had a bash at knocking out the 50,000 words, a tradition that continues, and the whole thing has always been linked, not entirely rationally, with blogging in my mind.
I've thought about giving it a try but November is a very bad month for it. Working in a bookshop, this is the start of the busiest time of the year for me. We aren't even allowed to take any days off from the middle of November through to the middle of January. If it was MarNoWriMo that might be better.
I did finish a couple of short, novel-like efforts immediately before discovering MMORPGs back in 1999. It was hard work. I have a serious problem with plots - I can't think of any! Without something to write about it doesn't really matter how easy you find it to get the words down in the right order.
So, I won't be doing NaNoWriMo this or any other year. #IntPiPoMo, the International Picture Posting Month, though, that I can do! I only heard of this blogging initiative last month, through the auspices of Chestnut at Gamer Girl Confessions, who is curating the project for 2015. She explains its history and origins and describes it succinctly thus :
"NaNoWriMo is about writing 50k words throughout the month of November. If a picture is work a thousand words, that would mean we'd need to post fifty pictures!Well I can do that! I post more than fifty screenshots in a week some weeks! It's certainly going to be a lot easier than Blaugust, that's for sure, let alone writing an entire novel in 30 days.
These can be screenshots from any game, or even photographs you take in real life and want to share on your blog."
Chestnut is running a friendly competition with prizes and she has a handy FAQ and sign up details laying out the very simple details.
And that's enough words for today. Let the pictures do the talking.
Posts
November used to also be Nablopomo...National Blog Posting Month, which I tried several times. Posting a picture/screenshot a day seems infinitely more doable, particularly if I can figure out how to write in advance and auto-post.
ReplyDeleteBefore the blogger-sphere decided that NaNoWriMo belonged to them, you could do it in any month. Grab a copy of Chris Baty's "No Plot? No Problem" and pick a month that works for you. Personally I kind of hate that this meme has turned writing into some kind of extreme spectator sport/competition so I now stay well clear of it, but I did it for a couple of years back when it was just a personal growth challenge. The whole original idea of it was to force you to just kind of write without having time to go back and edit yourself since editing leads to doubt, doubt lead to chafing, and chafing leads to the dark side. Or something.
ReplyDeleteNovember seems like the dumbest possible month (at least in the US) to do something like this anyway. Like you said, LOTS of people are busy at work, either due to retail issues or due to "this project MUST be finished before the end of the calendar year" pressures. Then add the holiday in the US. Why not do it in March? Nothing happens in March.
Very late reply! Sorry! We used to sell "No Plot? No Problem" I think. I remember the title. I really should take a look at it although I'm not sure I want to write anything as long as even a short novel. It's really hard work.
DeleteI would like to get back to writing some kind of fiction though. Maybe next year.