This is the comment I left. It is on the subject of the NaNoWriMo, which is short for National Novel Writing Month…
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I did this last year. I wrote almost an entire murder mystery set in world war two London, and I even wrote about 15 of my blog friends in as characters. And I posted most of it… right up until the last few chapters, so people would still buy it. It is being edited as we speak.
I must say, the idea of rushing through a novel, while perhaps useful to a few procrastinators, is a little silly. It is like those drinking games people play. Even when I was an alcoholic… from the age of 15 to about 25, I didn’t play those games. Why leave it to chance? The odds are you are either getting drunk slower than you want to or faster than you ought to.
I guess, if you are one of those people who can work on a schedule, then more power to you. But I only write when the mood hits me in the face like a runaway train. In fact, just as an experiment, I write all the books in my action/adventure/humor science fiction series, The Otherwhere Chronicles, without ever figuring out what is going to happen after the next sentence. I write as it comes to me. I get my hero into situations and then get stuck for days trying to figure out how to get him out of the trouble. And then I will be in the shower, or driving the car, and it will hit me… in the face… like a baseball bat… and I write like a freakin’ possessed demon. Sometimes I will add a new alien character out of the blue, just to see how they end up fitting into the story. And they always do… in some really unexpected ways.
Oh, and I also write all the novels by hand… with pen and paper… and sometimes I am so excited when I write that I go to type the chapter up and I can’t read my own writing. But the thing is… you know I love that thing… the writing has an immediacy… a believability… a flow… like real life does.
I guess what I am saying is: don’t write because something or someone told you to… write because you have to… because you need to. That is when you are writing something that people will need to read.
Okay… that was so awesome I am stealing it and doing a post with it…
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Special thanks to my buddy, the Doobster, over at: http://mindfuldigressions.com/
Pouring My Art Out 
I wrote during NaNoWriMo last year too, but for me it was good because it made me feel obligated to try to write something every day. I figured out what was the best time of day for me & I made myself sit in front of my laptop with my fingers on the keys. And stuff came out & spilled all over the page. It didn’t always make sense but it gave me something to build on.
It is a useful experiment
I got a terrible headache interspersed with dizzy spells after reading yours and Doobs’ bantering. I’m suing for damages to my physical and mental well being!
good luck… my entire about page is one big legal disclaimer absolving me from all responsibility or damages resulting from people who become interested in my antics.
Did I say anything about being interested in your antics?
no, you implied it when you said you read our entire interaction… and by commenting on things I posted or typed in places… that seems to indicate at lest some level of interest… and antics are the word I use to describe everything that I do… how else should I have worded that?
Now we’re equals.
Is that how that works???
No. I don’t know how it works.
Me neither… so now I guess we really are equals… also, you write, take photos, do some sort of music, and got married and had kids… we are practically twins.
If we’ve done all that how can we claim to be narcissists?
It is just a handy and rather amusing title for our strong sense of self-worth… or self-obsession…
I forgot how to use a pen and paper. If I relearn, will it help me finish the novel/novella/story I started a year ago?
I don’t know how to help somebody finish a novel… I could just pester you every day, but how would that help?
Did I say it was a novel?
yes… among two or three other words I thought I was supposed to choose between, which I thought were meant to indicate that you weren’t quite sure exactly how long this particular collection of words was going to end up being because you haven’t yet come up with the motivation to complete it… them…
What is motivation? A muse?
A muse, as I understand it, is a Greek/female/myth/goddess thing that helps creative people come up with good ideas… I am confused here… your comments are sort of leading me to the conclusion that not only are you not paying much attention when you read my posts and comments… (and this is the nice interpretation, the other being that you are just ‘skimming’ the words or not actually reading much of them at all)… but that you aren’t even really paying attention to your own words that you yourself are typing? How is that even possible?
I make stuff up (But I have been paying attention and understand every single word you’ve said).
Do you understand the words that are coming out of my fingers?
Of course I do. They’re sharp. I think you need to cut your fingernails.
I just gnawed them off yesterday… true fact… they were making it hard to play my guitar.
True that! I rarely let mine grow at all. However, recently I attempted to grow three on my right picking fingers long so I could try a fingernail picking technique. But they just broke. I’m told some finger style pickers use fake glue-on nails.
You can get picks that look like fake nails
For your fingertips? I’ll have to investigate.
I think they are for banjos… I have some metal ones, but they are curved like eagle talons and I can’t use them.
Oh, I know the kind you’re referring to.
yup
see, that was a misquote from a Jackie Chan movie, not an attempt to make you feel unworthy.
A book man are you?
Surprises the hell out of me!
i must fit in with those aliens some place?
I suspect you do… and all of them are based on some part of real people I have met… aliens aren’t that different from us.
And you know that for a fact?
I know nothing for a fact… or about a fact… or based on fact… and that’s a fact.
You know a whole lot of that!
yes I do
I agree. Writing for the sake of having something written is how we end up with 10 million writers, 9,999,000 of whom can’t even get to meet a publisher. It has to be something you enjoy doing – and if you truly enjoy doing it, you WILL find find the time for it.
My characters are real… they exist… I spend time with them… I can’t do that on a schedule
And so are your minions. At least, most of us.
Yes… you are all almost as real to me as my aliens…
I tried it last year, but didn’t get very far. November is hard for me — lots of company and cooking and little time.
But I too get brilliant ideas in the shower! Apparently steam enhances the creative juices.
Steam is a creative juice… HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well said Art. I completely believe in doing something because you are passionate about it, rather than because it is expected.
I’m thinking of participating this year, for the third year running, but my muse seems to be MIA. I’d be grateful if you could send out a search party.
I gave up looking for a muse… I now have crack squirrels living in the unused space in my head… much easier to find than a muse, and they get more done.
I’ll have to adopt some, sometime.
Just go to any park in any city and take a nap under a tree…
The rain in England must scare them off, because I’m yet to be introduced to any…
Oh… you might have a crack shortage there… maybe Amsterdam?
As soon as I’m out of school, I’ll take your advice and head straight there, if you and your crack squirrels are willing to fund it, that is?
wait… how old are you… I can’t get involved in getting a minor hooked on crack squirrels…
15. Hence you wait until I’m out of school, and not a minor. :’D
oh… I thought you meant when you were done for school for the day… okay, I will put it in my calendar.
Ahha, an understandable mistake.
I only make understandable mistakes… or at least I understand them… I don’t know if anybody else does.
I guess time will tell.
I doubt it
Well said. Lucy
Thank you. Arthur
Well, Art, since your comment on my post inspired this post of yours, I figured I’d post my comment that I made to your comment on my post here on your post. Wait, I’m getting dizzy. Well, here goes:
That was awesome, Art. I have attempted to write the great American novel and I have developed some very fascinating characters with which to populate the novel. But the thing is…and as you say, there’s always a thing…I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t know where to take them. I have no plan, no plot outline. And I have no crack squirrels in my head to give me suggestions. So maybe what I need to do is go stand in the shower, go drive my car (which will make the AAA guy very happy), and wait to get hit in the face with a baseball bat.
And here’s another thought. Rather than NaNoWriMo, where you have one month to write a whole novel, we should declare a NaNoEdMo (or National Novel Editing Month). That way you can spend 11 months of the year writing a novel, and spend NaNoEdMo editing it and getting it ready for publication. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
wait… please tell me you already said most of this to me on your blog… or I am going crazy… and didn’t I give an awesome answer about my Christmas theory? Now you need to copy that and paste it I here… so people can see how freaking clever I am on my own blog too…
Dude… awesome idea… I had a similar thought about the Christmas season. Instead of being nice to each other and giving gifts and throwing parties and singing songs and decorating everything with lights and colors for one month a year, why don’t we do all that for 11 months a year, and then be assholes for one month… maybe during December, because it would be funniest and the weather is already miserable…
Now go drive you car into your shower… after you duct tape a baseball bat over the air bag… and bring a pen and some paper… trust me…
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HA!!!!!!!!
I just went back to your post and copied my comment to use on my post…
Yes, that’s what I said at the beginning of my comment. Since you posted on your own blog the comment you made on mind, I posted the comment I made in reply to your comment on my blog here on your blog. Stop skimming my comments, dammit.
And yes, you did give an awesome answer about your Christmas theory to which I gave an awesome reply, to which, no doubt, you will give another awesome reply. But rather than cutting and pasting your reply comment that you made on my blog, and me cutting and pasting my reply to your comment, wouldn’t it be easier for people to just go to my post and read it there? Yeah, that way they can see how clever you are while at the same time reading my post to see how clever I am. It’s a win-win, right?
I didn’t skim, I was being funny… and I tried to get people to go see how clever I am on your blog… that is why I put a link to your blog on my blog… but I can’t help it if people like to see me being clever in my native habitat.
Well, that’s true, Art. Visiting your blog is sort of like going to a zoo and looking at the wild animals in their native habitats. I just wish you wouldn’t toss your feces at the onlookers on the other side of the bars. 😉
But it is an interactive experience! Have you tried it with the 3-D glasses?
I would, but then I’d have to duck. Quack, quack.
sigh
Dude… I just went back to your post and copied my other comment on my own post… in reply to my comment telling you to do that… we are breaking new ground in blog-comment-thread-weirdness… again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Speaking about weirdness, why does you comment indicate that it was posted at 4:27 p.m.? I know you’re in San Diego, and it’s not anywhere near 4:27 p.m. there. So you must have your WordPress time think set for GMT, rather than PT. So that’s kind of weird. Just curious why you do that.
Time THING, not time THINK. Doh!
I like time think better…
I didn’t even know we could set the time…
Go to General Settings and look at “Timezone” and “Time Format.” But hey, if you want to be on GMT, that’s your business. I just find it a little weird. But it’s none of my business, really.
I didn’t ‘want’ to be there… I just ended up there… somehow…
dude… the list is a mile long… and California isn’t there…
Pick a city in the state of California, not the state. I have mine set on Los Angeles, even though I live in San Francisco because, well, you know, LA and SF (and San Diego) are in the same timezone.
I did find LA… thanks…
wait… I set it Los Angeles… I think that worked
Ah, much better!
I don’t feel any different
dude… now that I messed with the settings, I did a new post, and it appears below the post I did earlier… ahhhhhhhhhh… what did I do???
Well, that’s because GMT is 7 hours later than PT, so your earlier post now appears to have been posted later than your most recent post. Don’t worry, after this brief time and space anomaly, everything will fall into place.
I thought I was doing some weird Doctor Who stuff here…
I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year, mostly because I tried doing it two years ago and got sidetracked from bad stuff happening. I’m actually going to put what I do for NaNoWriMo up on my blog, but I think I’ll steal the idea of not putting the last couple of chapters up there.
While I agree with your post, some people need that fire under them to write. Speaking of which, I remember there’s some editing I need to do…
I was trying not to rush you… but you did go from number one to number three in the speed ratings… HA!
Nicely said, Art – write because you have to … because you need to. Amen to that.
As I commented on Doobster’s blog, I’ll be too busy following up my own post today, the one in which I get elected to office: http://cordeliasmomstill.com/2014/11/01/get-out-there-and-vote-me-me-me/
Thanks for allowing me to jump onto your platform, as well. So far this morning, this is working out rather well. 🙂
You have my vote.
Thank you. Any particular issues you wish me to focus on once I’m in office?
Public nudity…
You mean there’s too much of it, or too little?
Okay… this is tricky… but here goes…
First, I want to go on record as saying that nudity is not always a good thing… like at Thanksgiving dinner, for example… or in restaurants… or on public transportation…
That being said, people need to get over it. I did a whole post about this… people freaking out because they saw a breast… when a woman was breast feeding her infant. And how can nudity be illegal when we are born naked? And why, as long as we are on the subject, is prostitution illegal in this state, but you can make a porno movie? Can’t hooker carry video cameras and just yell “action” and “cut”?
So I guess what I am saying is, I am neither pro nor against nudity, just that people get way too worked up about it. I am mystified that men can go topless just because their plumbing isn’t hooked up.
Now that you mention it, I remember that post. And a lot of these questions, too. I even remember what my comment was.
Interestingly, WordPress did not tell me that you had responded to my comment – and I think they might be doing it with other comments, too.
I have noticed that… do we need to revolt again?
You’re the leader, so you decide.
oh man
You forgot to tell people to write something because it will help you break the record for comments on a post. I’m disappointed in you for forgetting the gratuitous blog promotion.
So people should write their novels in the comment boxes on my post… brilliant…