Beyond NaNo…Now What?
December 1st, 2008 by TirjasdynThat’s it. We did it…well some of us did. Denver finished 19th in words and 11th in donations. Go us!
But now what?
For some of you…it’s nothing. You’ve finished writing for the year. You’re turning your attention to the holidays, presents, video games or catching with Facebook pals. Maybe you’re getting back to your real jobs. Hey, that’s okay. Thank you so much for participating. Hopefully we’ll see you next year, or at Script Frenzy. You guys did great!
But some of us are fools.
Whether you already had the writing bug or whether NaNoWriMo infected you…you now have the urge to finish the book you started. Or maybe you had the intention all along to finishing this thing and wander into the world of editing and eventually publishing. But how to go about this?
1. Is your story finished?
If not, keep writing. Finish that story. (ha, you thought the answer would be easy, didn’t you?) If you answered yes, save your files, back them up and then put it away for a few weeks. Trust me, your eyes need a break. Then maybe after the madness from the holidays starts to loose it’s cold eggnog induced grip, pull it out. Once you finish writing you should do the same thing. Fresh eyes will reveal the crap…I mean problem passages that you need to fix and let you see the wonder of the good parts. I wrote that moments are priceless.
2. Start editing.
Really, every book needs it. If you want to wait for NaNoEdMo, go right ahead, but editing takes work.
3. Join a group
There are threads on the forums now about groups forming for the rest of the year. There are lots of online crit groups with good reputations. These take commitment so be prepared to share and be shared too. Dennanos.org isn’t going anywhere, either. So stop by form time to time when you need encouragement or have questions.
4. Keep writing.
Once you have the writing bug it doesn’t go away.
5. Anything else?
Sure! We’ll be having a contest for next year’s sticker, tshirt and mug designs, among other things. Our nano theme is still for sale. There is no reason to say goodbye to your nano buddies if you don’t want to. Keep in touch. Go out for pie or the food object of your choice. It’s up to to you, but we’ll still be here.
Well till next September/October…when the madness starts over and the website breaks down again. But you know, that’s just tradition.
Week Four: Showdown
November 25th, 2008 by TirjasdynWe have reached the last week of NaNoWriMo 2008. We are in the final stretch…the last 10,000 words. The validator is up and purple bars are appearing as we speak!
First of all make sure your time zone is set correctly on the NaNo website or you might be ending your month early.
Need some cheering on in this last week. Or perhaps you’re looking for that NaNo holiday gift? Well not to worry, Sabrina’s 50,000 Words is now available on CD. That’s write Denver NaNo’s have a theme song!!!
Listen to a Clip:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Welcome to Week Three: Madness Creeps in!
November 17th, 2008 by TirjasdynWelcome to Week Three: Madness Creeps in! If your slowing down now or finding your story a boring piece of tripe, we got some suggestions for you! When things tie up nicely and start to bore you…it’s time to do something drastic.
Kill off an MC.
Get them sick, get them hurt, drop a meteor on their city, alien invasions or perhaps an old fashioned burglary.
Writer’s torture their characters. Whether with mental doubt, or a physical beating, we drop kick our characters into that dark night and rattle them around like a two year old with a jar full of crickets. That’s our job. You can’t have a long story with nothing but happiness and butterflies who wants to read that (except my pre-teen daughter, but lets not trust her judgement she still wears pink with orange and thinks that height of literary glory is Who’s got the Cookies)?
Pain is the name of the game when writing. Face it, readers like to peak in on others pain. It’s part of the fantasy. Who wants to read any diatribe without strife? Oh sure you can have a happy ending but make your characters work their watusiis off for it.
Remember folks: Carrot and Stick. First you beat them with the carrot then you beat them with stick and if they live…then give ‘em cake!
If your bored, your readers will be bored. So don’t be boring.
Now if you’re reading this and thinking: “But I can’t do that to my characters!” Then you need to take a step back…and think about your investment in this crazy thing we call noveling. Perfection is a nice fantasy to wallow in, but don’t get mired there, the only thing we want to do with people who has those perfect lives is fling them out the cargo door of an airplane over a pit of fire ants…actually on fire.
Tell me I’m wrong.
Happy Writing
Tirjasdyn
Colorado Night of Writing Dangerously update
November 9th, 2008 by JupiterStarAll right guys! As of this morning we have 27 people attending the 12 hour write-a-thon, 11 of whom are only staying part of the time so we’ve used up 25 of the spaces here at Seven Cups. This leaves us with 10 full spots MAXIMUM left, so if you haven’t RSVP’d for sure yet or haven’t contacted us at all but want to attend, please do so and let us know if you’ll be there the whole day or just part of it so we can put you on the list. This is filling up fast, guys, so get on it!
Some Days You Feel Like a Nut….
November 8th, 2008 by TirjasdynWriting is a loney process. You toil in a dark room in the back of your mind. Words flow out causing dirt, filth, pain, happy unicorn rainbows and possiby puppies.
It’s not pretty.
Okay one day it will be. But right now we’re dripping the guts of our characters out on the page and stiring them around.
Don’t worry, we provide plenty of opportunities for folks to wash there hands and come out into the light. Make sure you check the calendar for meetups. We have them all over Denver nearly every day.
Today we have 5. I’m at Cafe Caliente right now. Some folks are at the Borders in Denver West. Later at 4 is the South Denver Write In at the Tattered Cover in Highlands Ranch.
Tonight I’ll be at Panera starting at 6pm at the 77th & wadsworth location. If you were burned there last night it’s been fixed. We’ll even have free treats for folks.
So some time this month, come out side and meet your writing neighbors. We don’t bite…much.
Just a note:
November 5th, 2008 by Lady VivamusI realized on Saturday that I have a resource I hadn’t thought about: I have a laminator! I have already got a “Novelists At Work” sign laminated for the Lakewood folks, and some table tents for whoever. If you would like to look just a touch more official, drop me an email, or a comment on here, or a PM on the nano site, or send me a messenger pigeon… whatever. I’ll print and laminate stuff for you. 
Also, a little hardcore shameless plug:
I’ve been doing this course, and it’s been very useful for me. I intended only to present free writing resources here, and this one isn’t free, but it is also very good. I’ve been using Holly Lisle’s free stuff since my first NaNo, so when she opened this up I jumped at the opportunity.
That is all.
(Please note that the above advertisement does not in any way reflect on the owner of the site or the folks over at NaNo; it is my personal belief that this is a useful resource and well worth it, but that’s JUST my opinion.)
The First Week: Pre-Panic Mode
November 4th, 2008 by TirjasdynOr maybe it’s full on panic, or serenely fluid coasting. Either way you should be around 6667 words. That’s right it’s Beast day at NaNoWriMo and, not mention, time to back up your work.
Usb drives are great, so are removable hardrives, gmail, dvds, cds, 3.5 floppies, sd cards, xd cards, compact flash, online storage or a folder on your website. JUST BACK IT UP.
Seriously, you’ll thank me.
Today, if you’re a citizen, you should take some time out to Vote as well. After you vote you can get some free coffee at Starbucks to feed your caffee starved brain and spure on a long session of writing about crazy grandma’s plotting to take over King Soopers with waffle irons (the old iron kind, not the Alton Brown kind) and panty hose…or maybe note.
BUT!
Once you reach that 6667 goal for today and have voted you can get yourself a treat at Ben & Jerry’s for free. It’s not on us but don’t let that top you! Free ice cream coffee and even Chik-fil-lay today for voting. Just work it into your NaNo workday.
So get those plot ninja’s in an orderly line and happy writing!
Tirjasdyn
Yes the Site is Down Again
November 3rd, 2008 by TirjasdynIt wasn’t supposed to go down till 11pm our time but as you can see it’s down already.
Great first weekend
November 2nd, 2008 by JupiterStarWow, we’re not quite 72 hours into NaNoWriMo and already Denver has logged more than 300,000 words according to the site widgets! Nice job, everyone, that’s pretty dang impressive. Keep up the good work!
Thank you all for helping the Midnight Kickoff to go without a hitch. Well, minus the whole 37 people in one apartment issue, but hey, we fit everyone and none of the neighbors complained so all is well ^_^. It seems like all of the first meets this weekend had pretty good turnouts as well…the Tattered Cover write-in was definitely productive and enjoyable and I hear the other meets went smoothly as well. Hopefully this will stay that way through the election this week. Remember, guys, even if you get your hearts broken by the results, you can work your anguish or triumph into your novel for a good boost!
I leave you all with a quote that you might want to take to heart as the first weekend glow starts to wear off and the going gets tough:
The last vampire is the mother of all vampires and that is the vampire of despair.
It’ll wake you up at 4am to say things like:
Who do you think you’re kidding?
You look like a fool.
No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be good enough
Why is it that if some dude walked up to me on the subway platform
and said these things, I’d think he was a mentally ill asshole,
but if the vampire inside my head says it,
It’s the voice of reason.
You have a story to tell, pull your novel out of that sock drawer!
[title of show]. And quite fitting, I think. Keep novelling away!
Set your time zone
October 31st, 2008 by SpleenJust a friendly reminder to make sure to set your time zone on the NaNoWriMo site to the correct time! This controls things like when you can start entering your word count, and when the cutoff time is for validating.
To change your time zone, log in to the NaNo site and go to
My NaNoWriMo > Edit User Settings.
For FRIDAY and SATURDAY, you want your time to be -0600 hours.
However, Sunday Nov 2 at 2 AM is when Daylight Saving Time ends. Don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour Saturday night, and when you do, change your NaNo time zone to -0700.
Good luck getting started!
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