Notes from Nanoland
22/11/2014 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaThe serpent is lurking a lot less lately due to the distraction of the annual ritual that is National - these days more like International Novel Writing Month.
It’s not like I am ever actually going to DO anything with the 50,000 plus words. Didn’t last year or the year before or the one before that etc etc so it seems most unlikely that things will be different this time. But in the end it doesn’t really matter.
There is a broom cupboard full of the serpent secret diaries from as far back as 1980. In those days did not use notebooks but markers and A4 page refills. It is quite likely that the pages are all brittle and yellow and the colour faded. And even if that were not the case, most likely the hand written squiggles would be almost illegible. Here’s guessing there’s one advantage of not growing up in the age of Cyberia. All that stuff is private and for serpent eyes only. No need to be embarrassed by the ramblings of a past self. Well that was the case until adding an online journal back in late 2002.
Since the advent of Camp Nano in 2011 have availed of the additional opportunities to indulge in this communal incarnation of a basically solitary activity.
The theory was that the April Camp Nano is devoted to brainstorming and generating story ideas for November and going for the original 50,000 word goal in the process while July the bar is set lots lower - around 25,000 to 30,000 words where the most promising story seeds get watered and fed and some sort of basic outline is created for the big event in November.
Well that is the map. The reality is that I very rarely ever reread any of the April and July stuff so it may as well not even exist.
There’s a bit of a pattern emerging here. Squiggling for this serpent is basically a harmless fun form of ‘self medication’. A way of getting the crazies out of the skull and onto the page. A sort of muggle Pensieve I suppose.
Here’s guessing that it’s just one of those introvert ways of coping with the external world. Any slacking and lack of squiggling is invariably followed by a state of sluggishness, increased agitation, muddleheaded misery and total sensory overload while any writing binge is followed by a sense of lightness and relief and the casting off of an ill fitting serpent skin. It’s pretty much the mental equivalent of a big fat crap. Lots of word turds flushed from the brain onto the page equals one very happy Izzie.
Of course it would be more productive to do these mental dumps by walking, running or getting on the broomstick. At least that way it would burn up much more energy and I would look more like a sleek slithering tiger snake rather than a big fat sluggish pot bellied python.
In the meantime it would be a good idea to turn this crazy compulsion into something useful that pays the bills. It’s not like there are that many bills these days. The Izzie made the most of the many years of plenty so that the lean times do not have the bite they do for most folks. But being fat and frumpy and on the wrong side of forty means that the chances of getting a paid job are becoming increasingly elusive.
So lots of ‘out of the box’ thinking is required and it makes sense to earn a few pennies doing something that I would be doing anyway.
Working as a volunteer in a charity shop and staking my claim in the bookish side of things, it is a perfect opportunity to sort the stuff that comes in the door, peek at the titles and blurbs on the back and put out the stuff that seems most likely to sell. It also provides an opportunity to see just how many truly awful stories out there manage to get published. Then there are brilliant books that get sold for less than a quarter of their cover price. They often still have the original price on the back from the bookstore.
A few months ago someone donated a set of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels each in a special box and in near perfect condition. Was amazed at the state of spiritual development than enabled some one to give away such a precious stash. The boss also has a nose for such stuff and got a pretty good price within a week or so. She could likely get 3 times as much by selling them online but there is of course a trade off between effort and reward. Since they get their stock donated it makes sense to get a reasonable price this week rather than a good one in three months time.
The other great Izzie obsession are those delightful devilish picture decks. Recently joined a meetup group called Tarot Cafe where we not only learn about the cards but get to read for each other.
That path has lots of potential but requires a great deal more confidence and those dreaded ‘people skills’. It will be very interesting to see the progress of the others in the group and who will be the first to take the plunge into the big bad world of paid predictions. After nearly 7 years of dabbling in this stuff and 6 years using the cards as a machine for generating nanowrimo novels, there is absolutely no excuse for further delay.
There have also been some interesting revelations but they are best left for a later post.
It’s not like I am ever actually going to DO anything with the 50,000 plus words. Didn’t last year or the year before or the one before that etc etc so it seems most unlikely that things will be different this time. But in the end it doesn’t really matter.
There is a broom cupboard full of the serpent secret diaries from as far back as 1980. In those days did not use notebooks but markers and A4 page refills. It is quite likely that the pages are all brittle and yellow and the colour faded. And even if that were not the case, most likely the hand written squiggles would be almost illegible. Here’s guessing there’s one advantage of not growing up in the age of Cyberia. All that stuff is private and for serpent eyes only. No need to be embarrassed by the ramblings of a past self. Well that was the case until adding an online journal back in late 2002.
Since the advent of Camp Nano in 2011 have availed of the additional opportunities to indulge in this communal incarnation of a basically solitary activity.
The theory was that the April Camp Nano is devoted to brainstorming and generating story ideas for November and going for the original 50,000 word goal in the process while July the bar is set lots lower - around 25,000 to 30,000 words where the most promising story seeds get watered and fed and some sort of basic outline is created for the big event in November.
Well that is the map. The reality is that I very rarely ever reread any of the April and July stuff so it may as well not even exist.
There’s a bit of a pattern emerging here. Squiggling for this serpent is basically a harmless fun form of ‘self medication’. A way of getting the crazies out of the skull and onto the page. A sort of muggle Pensieve I suppose.
Here’s guessing that it’s just one of those introvert ways of coping with the external world. Any slacking and lack of squiggling is invariably followed by a state of sluggishness, increased agitation, muddleheaded misery and total sensory overload while any writing binge is followed by a sense of lightness and relief and the casting off of an ill fitting serpent skin. It’s pretty much the mental equivalent of a big fat crap. Lots of word turds flushed from the brain onto the page equals one very happy Izzie.
Of course it would be more productive to do these mental dumps by walking, running or getting on the broomstick. At least that way it would burn up much more energy and I would look more like a sleek slithering tiger snake rather than a big fat sluggish pot bellied python.
In the meantime it would be a good idea to turn this crazy compulsion into something useful that pays the bills. It’s not like there are that many bills these days. The Izzie made the most of the many years of plenty so that the lean times do not have the bite they do for most folks. But being fat and frumpy and on the wrong side of forty means that the chances of getting a paid job are becoming increasingly elusive.
So lots of ‘out of the box’ thinking is required and it makes sense to earn a few pennies doing something that I would be doing anyway.
Working as a volunteer in a charity shop and staking my claim in the bookish side of things, it is a perfect opportunity to sort the stuff that comes in the door, peek at the titles and blurbs on the back and put out the stuff that seems most likely to sell. It also provides an opportunity to see just how many truly awful stories out there manage to get published. Then there are brilliant books that get sold for less than a quarter of their cover price. They often still have the original price on the back from the bookstore.
A few months ago someone donated a set of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels each in a special box and in near perfect condition. Was amazed at the state of spiritual development than enabled some one to give away such a precious stash. The boss also has a nose for such stuff and got a pretty good price within a week or so. She could likely get 3 times as much by selling them online but there is of course a trade off between effort and reward. Since they get their stock donated it makes sense to get a reasonable price this week rather than a good one in three months time.
The other great Izzie obsession are those delightful devilish picture decks. Recently joined a meetup group called Tarot Cafe where we not only learn about the cards but get to read for each other.
That path has lots of potential but requires a great deal more confidence and those dreaded ‘people skills’. It will be very interesting to see the progress of the others in the group and who will be the first to take the plunge into the big bad world of paid predictions. After nearly 7 years of dabbling in this stuff and 6 years using the cards as a machine for generating nanowrimo novels, there is absolutely no excuse for further delay.
There have also been some interesting revelations but they are best left for a later post.
