I tried freewriting this month. I've reached 22000. Some of the stuff I can use. Some of it is drivel.
The reason we naowrimoers allow ourselves to write crap is that is you put a censor on what you write, creativity stops. You need to be able to write crap to write your best. Amid the crap there's reallyu good stuff that you can really do something with.
That said, I see little point in setting a wordcount goal that so taxes your spirit that all you can write is crap.
What works for me in nanowrimo it the community. Not the on-line community, though that is what organises it -- it's the offline community. The once-a-week regional meetings, where we mention out word-counts, get gold start for passing the Tuesday 2000-word challenge, and talk a little bit about writing but mostly about anything else. Writing is a lonely activity. The social context helps.
So there's the local social context, the wordcount challenge, and the feeling one is caught up in something larger than oneself via the international cevtral website.
Would it be possible to get something like that up? Would it need a website and dedicated staff? Would it need enough participants to have a local group that meets? Every year there's talk here of continuing it in some form through the rest of the year. It never happens. There's been attempts to set up an editing month, a script-writing month, and so forth. I haven't noticed any of these having enough critical mass to create the social context, although there are people who participate, and, apparently, find it useful.
So -- what's necessary to create the social context? Any ideas?
no subject
The reason we naowrimoers allow ourselves to write crap is that is you put a censor on what you write, creativity stops. You need to be able to write crap to write your best. Amid the crap there's reallyu good stuff that you can really do something with.
That said, I see little point in setting a wordcount goal that so taxes your spirit that all you can write is crap.
What works for me in nanowrimo it the community. Not the on-line community, though that is what organises it -- it's the offline community. The once-a-week regional meetings, where we mention out word-counts, get gold start for passing the Tuesday 2000-word challenge, and talk a little bit about writing but mostly about anything else. Writing is a lonely activity. The social context helps.
So there's the local social context, the wordcount challenge, and the feeling one is caught up in something larger than oneself via the international cevtral website.
Would it be possible to get something like that up? Would it need a website and dedicated staff? Would it need enough participants to have a local group that meets? Every year there's talk here of continuing it in some form through the rest of the year. It never happens. There's been attempts to set up an editing month, a script-writing month, and so forth. I haven't noticed any of these having enough critical mass to create the social context, although there are people who participate, and, apparently, find it useful.
So -- what's necessary to create the social context? Any ideas?