NaNoWriMo 2010

[Autumn]

Also that doesn't sound like a bad plan, Leafpool, if you're the type who can write with music. :B I'm the sort that needs silence, though...

When I'm working on any sort of computer project I always go to Youtube set background music up with it - whether it be Nutcracker or video game music. It helps me to not get distracted because if I start staring off into space while listening to a piece I can't help thinking that I'm wasting the piece if I don't do whatever project I'm doing while the music's playing. Good way to keep my ADD in check! I can't listen to music with words, though, because the words distract me.

 

[#1 bro]

ugggh I am just so far behind. Trying to use this weekend to catch up, but I simply don't feel like writing at all lately. What I feel like doing is DRAWING. I wish I was doing NaPiDraMo or whatever but that's just how it goes.

edit: Also, I know that a while back Hikaru suggested setting a page saying "Get back to writing!" as your homepage. I expanded that idea a bit - if you set smouch.net/lol/ as your homepage, then quit out of your browser, you'll have to go through an absurd amount of pop-ups and frantic clicking every time you want to access the internet. It's even better if you're listening to music on your computer while you work.

Pro edition: set it to meatspin.

EDIT 2:

writing dialogue is really hard.

Not the actual dialogue, the characters' words come easily. What DOESN'T is all the little atmospheric touches you have to put in place while the characters are talking to show that something is happening, or all the alternate words for "said" you have to come up with. URRRGH

 

[nothing to see here]

Up past 22,000 now (total wordcount as of right this second: 22,147.) Which means I'm ahead of the target wordcount again, though I still haven't gotten back to the "1000+ words ahead" point where I was a few days back.

Kind of amazed that I'm getting close to halfway and not losing interest yet, though I took longer than usual on Chapter 6 since it's set in New York City (where I've never been) and I needed to do a lot more research than usual. Of course, most of the stuff I did research on won't actually show up until Chapter 7, since I ended up having to split the chapter again... but oh well.

or all the alternate words for "said" you have to come up with.

"Said" isn't really that bad, as long as you don't use it for every line of dialogue for pages on end, or anything like that. Nothing wrong with having two or three "saids" for every one "more-descriptive" word... and using too many really bizarre replacements for "said" is probably more annoying than just using "said" over and over.

 

[Crazy Linoone]

Linoone's mom does not believe in NaNoWriMo.

This makes Linoone sadface.

 

[opaltiger]

Not the actual dialogue, the characters' words come easily. What DOESN'T is all the little atmospheric touches you have to put in place while the characters are talking to show that something is happening, or all the alternate words for "said" you have to come up with. URRRGH

Avoiding "said" is one of the most common mistakes inexperienced writers make. If you need to actively search for a word to replace it, you're doing it wrong.

 

[surskitty]

Yeah, 'said' is unmarked. People ignore it.

 

[Diz]

Just so long as your characters never say anything and breathe sentences through your entire first book, you'll be fine.

 

[Blaziking the God General]

I'm taking issue with the end of one of my chapters, right now. I didn't do any typing yesterday, but I'm not too worried, now that I saw that it is possible for me to dish out 5000 words a day, based on the hours I spent writing on Friday.

The issue is that I'm trying to get two of the main characters start a fight without it seeming to weird and rushed (which I think I may have accidentally done with the past couple chapters, and I hate accidentally rushing things).

Once I'm past that issue, though, I think I can continue with my word count. I'm doing better this year with my story than I have done the past two years, and I'm not going to give up now that I have a pretty good chance of winning.

 

[Vladimir Putin's LJ]

The main character just fell off a roof and now has a concussion.

This wasn't at all planned but it works perfectly with what I want to happen so thanks brain! Now he and the guy who bashed his face in can start to develop their bromance.

(Also I had to write 4000 words today but it went surprisingly well)

 

[surskitty]

I am so awesome. So there were a few backstories where I had no idea what was up but I figured I would figure it out, right? I figured out what a bit of that is about and more importantly:

my fic now involves Pokémon TCG canon in a big way. Or at least it does in the 500 Years Earlier bits and while I hadn't intended on focusing on 500 Years Earlier much (I'd actually been half-considering leaving it out almost entirely), I now want to write a lot of it >D

I am the most awesome.

 

[surskitty]

I am so awesome. So there were a few backstories where I had no idea what was up but I figured I would figure it out, right? I figured out what a bit of that is about and more importantly:

my fic now involves Pokémon TCG canon in a big way. Or at least it does in the 500 Years Earlier bits and while I hadn't intended on focusing on 500 Years Earlier much (I'd actually been half-considering leaving it out almost entirely), I now want to write a lot of it >D

I am the most awesome.

 

[Tailsy]

If you actively avoid using 'said', your English teacher was a fucking moron.

 

[Medical Meccanica]

If you actively avoid using 'said', your English teacher was a fucking moron.

Personally I avoided using 'said' because I read and wrote too much crappy fanfiction when I was younger. I don't think it's to be blamed on the English teacher... unless, well that was what the teacher said. P:

I don't like NaNo, so I will probably only come into this thread to discuss the writing-related stuff, and not sprints or anything else such. But uhh, good luck guys?

 

[Tailsy]

A lot of the time though, English teachers will insist that using 'said' means that you are an uncreative moron who can't think of any other word to use, and then that leads onto terrible habits when you're older and resorting to eating a thesaurus to make yourself seem ~cool.

Said is a perfectly fine word to use in moderation, like everything else. Although I'm in the camp who tend to use no tags after dialogue at all, for some reason I'm not entirely sure of. And horrendously long rambling characters who never shut the fuck up like my protagonist's mother.

“Magical crime,” Ana said, her tone clearly disapproving heavily of her mother's utter lack of creativity. “You couldn't even make up a decent bullshit story? Really?”

“Hey, hey! There are a lot of things normal humans can't see that you have to protect them from, you know. It's like Death Eaters in Harry Potter, except probably a bit more rubbish since they can be defeated by pubescent girls. Not saying that girls are weak, just that pubescent ones don't really have all that much brainpower, even in a group of six or so...”

“Six?! But I'm only one person! ... Oh, right, you're going to pretend some other bitches totally have magic powers too and suddenly I have to make them my best friends ever otherwise the world will end or something ridiculous and lame like that. Right?” Oh, she was like some kind of awesome genre predicting genius today!

There was a long pause in the flow of conversation, as her mother pondered this interesting idea Ana had just supplied for her. “Well, not really. I mean, sometimes they're just total bitches whether they're weird like you or not. I mean, seriously, Alexa was a such a complete bitch all the time and never shut up with her whining... on and on and on, Ana, seriously, I hope you don't have to deal with that, because God does it get annoying when it's all you're hearing all day every day and there's some other douche you're meant to be paying attention to anyway because he is totally convinced that unleashing monsters that most people can't even see is totally a good idea and I mean, what kind of reason does he have? None! No reason at all, Ana, so you're out there being awesome but oh no, Alexa has to answer the phone because it might be her 'ex-boyfriend' although that souns a lot more serious than it actually was because they went out for like, a week or something, and oh, he might take her back! And blah blah blah, same old shit...”

“... Mum?”

“... but he never did, you know, Ana? And that's just the way life goes sometimes! Sometimes either you're just too much of a bitch for him to handle. I suppose that's a bit like your father in a way; he was always running away from his problems, and look where that got him. A divorced wife and two kids and a uppity bitch of a mistress with her big tits and blonde hair – who even has blonde hair any more? Nobody! And it's so obviously dyed too, you can see her roots from at least two miles away, I bet, and it's just so disgusting and what does your father even see in her, honestly. Did he ever tell you? I bet he didn't, little shit keeps everything to himself, I swear if he had died while we were married I would have no fucking idea where our savings were, bastard was so useless with money, didn't even remember what was in his own damn bank account let alone our joint one –”

Oh. She wasn't planning on stopping any time soon, was she? Well then, onto Plan B. “Mum, if you're going to do that, then I'm just going to test your shitty story by jumping off the roof. That okay?”

“Oh, have a blast, honey! Tell me how many bones you broke when you come back, yeah?”

 

[Autumn]

Given that my story is about cats, there are like fifteen bazillion extra synonyms for "said" that I use throughout the story - hissed, growled, yowled, meowed/mewed, spat, the list goes on. But I don't avoid 'said' entirely, either!

 

[Phoenixsong]

I remember having to do an exercise a long time ago where we had to come up with fifteen alternatives to "said", presumably because "said is boring". iirc a lot of the ones I happened to list were things like "barked" or "growled", prompting my friend to ask whether I was writing about a dog. (I'm pretty sure I didn't do that intentionally, but I was like eight or nine or something so I don't know!) That incident tends to hang in the back of my mind these days and subtly shames me into being less heavy-handed with the "alternatives". Most of the time. (Probably less so during NaNo.) Apparently the assignment ended up having the opposite effect in the end!

Also, assignments like that fail to address that it's not enough just to use any old word that could possibly mean "words are coming out of your mouth". Yes, you certainly can growl or hiss or whisper a line of dialogue, but most of the time people actually do just say things! Really!

 

[Minkow]

Said is boring, but that doesn't mean not to use it. I've used it three times today.
BUT ON A DIFFERENT TOPIC
I HIT 20000

 

[Autumn]

I remember having to do an exercise a long time ago where we had to come up with fifteen alternatives to "said", presumably because "said is boring".

ooh oooh I wanna try! muttered, murmured, whispered, gasped, yelled, retorted, snapped, asked, answered, called, spat, shrieked, screeched, breathed. 8D there.

 

[Flora]

ooh oooh I wanna try! muttered, murmured, whispered, gasped, yelled, retorted, snapped, asked, answered, called, spat, shrieked, screeched, breathed. 8D there.

That's only fourteen, Leafie :P

so. My NaNo. Yeah, I'm too worried about the lack of ability of my computer to not-blue-screen to actually work on there, which is where my story's saved. :(

(yeah, I could theoretically email it, but I'm a little worried atm)

 

[Autumn]

That's only fourteen, Leafie :P

"WELL NYEEHH" Leafpool shot back.