27,000 Toadish Words in the Tent
15/08/2012 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaSome simple serpent musings while slinking at the nano campfire toasting a toad on a stick. Here’s hoping the serpent doesn’t get food poisoning. Toads are such tricksy toxic creatures that no amount of precautions are completely fool proof.
The serpent’s favourite saying of all time just has to be “The map is not the territory” It appeals to the introvert’s eternal questioning of the nature of reality and insanity and even to the toxic paper work culture where nothing has happened unless it is documented documented and documented to death
This particular map was made way back in January this year with the shuffling of a tarot deck. Twenty six stories with three cards each and no returns so every single card made an appearance at some stage or other. This is rather different from the usual story structure of a prologue and 21 chapters each based on the major arcana in order. Cards 8 and 11 get ordered according to what works best for a particular story but usually Strength works out best as 8 and Justice as 11 which also seems to work well with the cluster of shit sandwiches that usually make an appearance from chapters 10 to 16.
That pattern of course is what we use in November. Camp Nano is for playing the fool, doing rebellious and adventurous stuff and basically using the opportunity to brainstorm ideas for the November novel. Last time camp nano squiggling did not even make any attempts at producing stories. It was simply a run through a particularly inspiring deck from the point of view of creating characters and the odd plot point. When that did not produce the requisite word count simply grabbed another one and started with the Fool all the way some 77 cards later to the King of Pentacles
This year was supposed to concentrate on short stories. The serpent pattern for all nano adventures has been to crash around two thirds of the way through a story and never quite complete it. Always made the word count but could never quite conquer the nuts and bolts of story structure. Well of course it was ridiculously stupid to dive in at the deep end with a fifty thousand word story having never done such a thing before. This year would be dedicated to the art of finishing things. Twenty six stories should provide sufficient practice in theory
But of course the map is not the territory. All the plotting and planning had been completed by Friday 13th July and the little brown book of ideas, plots, plans and story titles safely tucked away awaiting resurrection some time on the evening of Wednesday 1st August. Not midnight unfortunately due to work commitments the following morning
With the pages of plots and plans, there was simply no excuse for writer’s block once leaving the starting stalls. And even if the little brown book failed there was always the faithful Touchstone deck guaranteed to provide ideas and inspiration and a good 40 something others to choose from
But real life got in the way. The goblins and their toad messiah had been sending this serpent some seriously horrid Howlers and the worst of these winged its way to the Lair on the afternoon of Tuesday 31st July.
Still not posted the contents as transcripts do not count as kosher camp nano words. The extra word stash is still insufficient to take time out to devote to any matters that do not add to the all important word count
It was as if a dozen dementors had sucked the serpent stash of stories dry. Turned into a veritable zombie for a good week or so after this. Still insisted on plodding along to reach the daily quota in spite of the now drought stricken well of ideas
The lack of serpent spark meant that we could not do justice to the stash of outlines in the little brown book. It was such a struggle to squiggle. Sometimes the muse would descend after some six hundred words of complete rambling rubbish. Became resigned to the fact that it would be possible to reach the quota but the spark and snark would be just non existent. But in some strange way slowly but surely the simple fact of persevering and reaching each daily quota let loose a few stray green squiggling cells.
It took a whole week to finally get into the zone and managed to produce the first and only completed story of the last two weeks. Since then had a few useful ideas and visits from the muses but they are all starts and set ups for stories and once again nothing completed
Eventually became resigned to the fact that it would be possible to reach the word count quota but the actual proper finished stories would have to wait until another time and place. Also realized that most days would need to begin with a mind dump in order to get into the right frame of mind for the muses to consider visiting
The days of fingers being unable to keep up with the stream of ideas being channeled through the ickle green serpent mind have been far and few between. And it is invariably those states of being in the zone that produces the best stuff.
So now sitting outside the tent at the half way mark having already stashed some 25,000 words in the serpent sleeping bag and two day’s worth of emergency supplies, it is time to wonder how the rest of the month will pan out
There are far more toads, Dementors, zombies and goblins than ever intended. They seem to have infested the serpent soul in spite of some seemingly successful efforts at banishing.
The Megatherion Money Management mob are already doing overtime. Let’s hope they are not expecting to actually get paid for all that inspirational effort.
It is pretty pathetic that nearly 8,000 words at the half way mark have been devoted to mind dumps and these kind of squiggles. But they are a necessary evil. A speed bump on the path to Mount Nano. Maybe just maybe will be able to make up that 8,000 in proper story squiggles if we hang in there and spend several days in the zone where clocking up 4,000 is not only effortless but a whole lot of fun. Those days of late are such a distant memory
Here’s hoping that over the next two weeks we can see an infestation of muses rather than toxic toads and filthy stinking greedy lying goblins. And if not, there are still several months to seek out plots and people to populate the next November novel. And maybe for the first time we can actually finish and edit the infernal thing. Meanwhile must be off to make a deposit in the Zombie story bank most generously sponsored and supported by the ever so magnanimous and magnificent Megatherion Corporation
One bank to rule them all ;)
The serpent’s favourite saying of all time just has to be “The map is not the territory” It appeals to the introvert’s eternal questioning of the nature of reality and insanity and even to the toxic paper work culture where nothing has happened unless it is documented documented and documented to death
This particular map was made way back in January this year with the shuffling of a tarot deck. Twenty six stories with three cards each and no returns so every single card made an appearance at some stage or other. This is rather different from the usual story structure of a prologue and 21 chapters each based on the major arcana in order. Cards 8 and 11 get ordered according to what works best for a particular story but usually Strength works out best as 8 and Justice as 11 which also seems to work well with the cluster of shit sandwiches that usually make an appearance from chapters 10 to 16.
That pattern of course is what we use in November. Camp Nano is for playing the fool, doing rebellious and adventurous stuff and basically using the opportunity to brainstorm ideas for the November novel. Last time camp nano squiggling did not even make any attempts at producing stories. It was simply a run through a particularly inspiring deck from the point of view of creating characters and the odd plot point. When that did not produce the requisite word count simply grabbed another one and started with the Fool all the way some 77 cards later to the King of Pentacles
This year was supposed to concentrate on short stories. The serpent pattern for all nano adventures has been to crash around two thirds of the way through a story and never quite complete it. Always made the word count but could never quite conquer the nuts and bolts of story structure. Well of course it was ridiculously stupid to dive in at the deep end with a fifty thousand word story having never done such a thing before. This year would be dedicated to the art of finishing things. Twenty six stories should provide sufficient practice in theory
But of course the map is not the territory. All the plotting and planning had been completed by Friday 13th July and the little brown book of ideas, plots, plans and story titles safely tucked away awaiting resurrection some time on the evening of Wednesday 1st August. Not midnight unfortunately due to work commitments the following morning
With the pages of plots and plans, there was simply no excuse for writer’s block once leaving the starting stalls. And even if the little brown book failed there was always the faithful Touchstone deck guaranteed to provide ideas and inspiration and a good 40 something others to choose from
But real life got in the way. The goblins and their toad messiah had been sending this serpent some seriously horrid Howlers and the worst of these winged its way to the Lair on the afternoon of Tuesday 31st July.
Still not posted the contents as transcripts do not count as kosher camp nano words. The extra word stash is still insufficient to take time out to devote to any matters that do not add to the all important word count
It was as if a dozen dementors had sucked the serpent stash of stories dry. Turned into a veritable zombie for a good week or so after this. Still insisted on plodding along to reach the daily quota in spite of the now drought stricken well of ideas
The lack of serpent spark meant that we could not do justice to the stash of outlines in the little brown book. It was such a struggle to squiggle. Sometimes the muse would descend after some six hundred words of complete rambling rubbish. Became resigned to the fact that it would be possible to reach the quota but the spark and snark would be just non existent. But in some strange way slowly but surely the simple fact of persevering and reaching each daily quota let loose a few stray green squiggling cells.
It took a whole week to finally get into the zone and managed to produce the first and only completed story of the last two weeks. Since then had a few useful ideas and visits from the muses but they are all starts and set ups for stories and once again nothing completed
Eventually became resigned to the fact that it would be possible to reach the word count quota but the actual proper finished stories would have to wait until another time and place. Also realized that most days would need to begin with a mind dump in order to get into the right frame of mind for the muses to consider visiting
The days of fingers being unable to keep up with the stream of ideas being channeled through the ickle green serpent mind have been far and few between. And it is invariably those states of being in the zone that produces the best stuff.
So now sitting outside the tent at the half way mark having already stashed some 25,000 words in the serpent sleeping bag and two day’s worth of emergency supplies, it is time to wonder how the rest of the month will pan out
There are far more toads, Dementors, zombies and goblins than ever intended. They seem to have infested the serpent soul in spite of some seemingly successful efforts at banishing.
The Megatherion Money Management mob are already doing overtime. Let’s hope they are not expecting to actually get paid for all that inspirational effort.
It is pretty pathetic that nearly 8,000 words at the half way mark have been devoted to mind dumps and these kind of squiggles. But they are a necessary evil. A speed bump on the path to Mount Nano. Maybe just maybe will be able to make up that 8,000 in proper story squiggles if we hang in there and spend several days in the zone where clocking up 4,000 is not only effortless but a whole lot of fun. Those days of late are such a distant memory
Here’s hoping that over the next two weeks we can see an infestation of muses rather than toxic toads and filthy stinking greedy lying goblins. And if not, there are still several months to seek out plots and people to populate the next November novel. And maybe for the first time we can actually finish and edit the infernal thing. Meanwhile must be off to make a deposit in the Zombie story bank most generously sponsored and supported by the ever so magnanimous and magnificent Megatherion Corporation
One bank to rule them all ;)
