Boom, she said, and smiled to herself.
Perhaps you, too, have a coach of the interior like mine—bald and cruel, shaking his sweaty pate at your sloth, ridiculing your sentences, professionally contemptuous. Extremely foul-mouthed. A definite misogynist. A voice that reads over your shoulder and snorts with derision at your characters’ dialogue. A voice in cahoots with every other voice that has ever criticized your efforts and ambitions and haircut. He pretends to be all kinds of things: the Voice of Reason, the Voice of Tough Love. But he is a tyrant. He is the enemy of fiction writing. His “pep talks” are actually spells of paralysis, designed to rob you of all confidence and happiness. In order to write your novel, you must get rid of this sadist. Do whatever it takes to shut him up. Chloroform him; drag him by his white Reebox behind the dugout; bury his shrill, censorious whistle. Then return to your green, blank, mercifully silent playing field, and _write._
that pleasant moment when you’re nano-ing furiously, banging out your word count, and you suddenly realize you’re
having
fun
Whatever I write may not be any good, but that doesn’t matter. When you’re writing a first draft—which most of you are doing this month—the most important thing is to keep moving forward. Your first try will be riddled with mistakes, but that’s what revision is for. Right now, you only have to put those ugly, wrong words on the page so you can fix them later.
So, inspiration isn’t what gets your book written. Discipline is. However, inspiration does sometimes pop by for an unexpected visit. Picture this:
You’re sitting there with the internet off. You’re writing some horrible words, thinking this is surely the most miserable dreck ever typed into Scrivener. Suddenly, something you wrote will seem to leap out at you, as if the words themselves came to life and shouted at you to pay attention. You’ll look at that sentence you wrote and think, Oh. Wow. Is that what this scene is about?
Malinda Lo–National Novel Writing Month
Oh my fucking yes. This. This is it. This.
Thou shalt not just think about writing. Seriously. That is not writing. The worst unpublished novel of all-time is better than the brilliant idea you have in your head. Why? Because the worst novel ever is written down. That means it’s a book, while your idea is just an idle fancy. My dog used to dream about chasing rabbits; she didn’t write a novel about chasing rabbits. There is a difference.
November 4th, and the bargaining begins.
“Okay, me, look, if you just do five hundred more words for nano, you can write all the stupid cat bullshit you want, okay?”
bmouse replied to your post: I think I’m going to give…
awwws does the AI almost find true love and have it not work out? welcome to the human experience I guess…
Mmmnnn, no, I don’t think so. As much as RAILA can love, she loves Geminon–but I don’t think it’s love remotely like a Human feels it. It’s just… the intertwining of her existence with his on an incredibly intimate level. She wants him to be happy, to be safe, and she’ll prod him about it if he’s being sluggish or dangerous. He loves her too, in a different way, but it’s not, like, The Ship Who Sang kind of stuff. It’s just.. caring for this strange little person who’s set up shop in his abdomen and, to an extent, in his brain.
No, this is someone else altogether, who was originally supposed to be just another character and is now at risk of taking over the novel. Prinna Pren, what are you doing to me?
I think I’m going to give my main character a romance, and then rip it out of her grasp before it’s even quite materialized.
It’s not my idea. It was hers. She should really have known better.
oh fuck
the book i am writing is not the book i thought i was writing
trinityofone replied to your post: “What’s your username on Nano? :3 Let’s be friiiiiieeeennnnnnds.”:
Hi! I did, indeed, just friend you on NaNo. It feels weird to do so and say nothing…but now this is weird too. Um. Hiiiiiiiiiiii?
~Hiiiiiiii!~ What’s your story, no pun intended?
chequerootlurks
