Not NANOWRIMO Again

Every year about this time, every November 2nd to be precise, I always realize that NANOWRIMO is already under way. Usually in April, I’ll find something on the internet that makes me want to do NANO this year and then every year I fall behind or forget or something. So this year, rather than get run over by NANO and it’s 250,000 word requirement, which is really easy to screw up if you miss a day, I’ve decided to buck the trend and write a short story in a week.

Why a short story? Because I honestly don’t have the attention span for most well-written novels, much less my own crap novel that I am going to sick of after eight days. This way I can write and do my own thing without feeling guilty about having other shit to do over month. So, mark my words:

  • November 8th I will post a complete short story.
  • At 12 pages and 250 words per page, this will be? Hold on let me add: 3,000 words long.
  • And also will be revised at least twice.

Because I really think editing is about 90% of the process of writing. I don’t jibe with the idea that you sit and bleed words for thirty days and you’ll have a novel on your hands. Mature writers seem to think that  the first draft is always should always be scrapped anyway. I want to explore the process of writing a short story because it takes less time to see results. Rather than trying to write out a whole novel that could be pretty ill conceived in the first place. I will try and post some more thoughts as I go along.

Here is a link to my progress so far…



The secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again. That is their mystery and magic.
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (via mwfogleman)


Crappy Story Idea #8

Wow, this could also be a crappy movie starring Colin Farrell or Mark Wahlberg:

Quin loves this boy from his old neighborhood with whom he liked to play soccer. Quin always loved to go back and play soccer with this boy because it reminds him of when his life was less complicated. Now that he his a gangster, Quin has little to keep him grounded. Until one day the boy is shot in senseless street fight, as result Quin seeks revenge against those who did this, but also seeks an end to his gangster ways by making a home with the dead boy’s mother.  

Any ideas for shitty female leads?




libraryland:

click to enlarge

libraryland:

click to enlarge


This is transmedia world building: creating a fictional universe so rich and complete that a multitude of interweaving stories can emerge from it, taking form through the social and technological spaces we share.
Via Boing Boing.