Entries tagged with "writing"
Choose Your Own Blogventure
posted by srah on April 4, 2008 7:17 AM
Tags: choose your own blogventure, writing
I am participating in NPW's Choose Your Own Blogventure. My section of the story is below the jump, but if you'd like to begin at the beginning of the story and choose your own blogventure, you can start here any time after 10am EST....
NaNoPuMo
posted by srah on October 18, 2006 5:15 PM
Tags: nanowrimo, nanowrimo 2006, writing
Is anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year? I haven't given it much thought, but it is that time of the year again. Last year I basically gave up when I realized my brain had puked out a protagonist I hated (an alcoholic clown? WHY?), so hopefully things will be better this year....
NaNoNoWriMo
posted by srah on November 10, 2005 7:08 PM
Tags: nanowrimo, nanowrimo 2005, writing
Hi. I uh, haven't blogged much lately. That's mostly because I'm hiding. If I don't blog at all, then you won't wonder why I'm not blogging about my novel. Which I haven't written anything in since last Friday. Ahem. I won't call myself a quitter until November 30. There's always an opportunity to pick it up again and write feverishly on the 29th!...
'Guess I'll be the guy who plays the part/ Of a clown with a broken heart'
posted by srah on November 4, 2005 10:28 PM
Tags: nanowrimo, nanowrimo 2005, writing
I'd like to dedicate this chapter to Gary Lewis and the Playboys for inspiring me with an idea of how some pieces of my story will fit together. Unfortunately for you guys, the chapter dedicated to you sucks. There are no fascinating, cleverly written passages tonight - just lots of exposition and story-moving-along. Almost 1000 words and I'm up to 7 or 8% of my goal. Not bad, but I'm up too late....
'Her bright young eyes shone even through the chicken grease smearing his spectacles.'
posted by srah on November 3, 2005 9:49 PM
Tags: nanowrimo, nanowrimo 2005, writing
I spent too much time tonight researching what the tie that Colonel Sanders wears is called. The Intarnets tell me that it is either a string tie or a plantation tie and I don't really trust either. So because I wasted about half an hour on this research and was annoyed with myself, I decided that my professor character would be a chubby old German dude rather than a Colonel Sanders rip-off. You know, because they're so similar. To make up for it, I had two characters fall in love over a bucket of KFC. Ain't it romantic, folks? Too...
Why oh why didn't I give him a pith helmet?
posted by srah on November 2, 2005 11:11 PM
Tags: nanowrimo, nanowrimo 2005, writing
Chapter 2 has nothing whatsoever to do with Chapter 1. I'm not even sure if they take place in the same town. But now I have four characters and have introduced Drake Ethiopia! He had people he could pay to come up with witticisms for him; he was an adventurer and adventuring was what he knew. Drake had returned from Nepal that very afternoon and was scheduled to give a speech about his climb up Mount Everest at a benefit for… He consulted the invitation in his hand. The Society of American Archivists? What the hell was an archivist, anyway?...
And there followed hail and fire mingled with blood and pure mash liquor and runny clown makeup
posted by srah on November 2, 2005 5:17 PM
Tags: nanowrimo, nanowrimo 2005, writing
Goal for this evening: introduce the character of Drake Ethiopia, Jungle Adventurer! Also, make obnoxious uninteresting main character into a feeble old lady with a Terrible Secret!!!!!! I think I've been taking myself too seriously. I think that this shall be a murder mystery so that I can create a million characters and kill them off at will. Taking Noor's advice, I will treat this as The Sims and be a fierce and fearsome god to my weak and pitiful characters. BEWARE, O VICTIMS OF MY WRITING WHIMS! NONE ARE SAFE FROM THE WRATH OF SRAHN! Er, srah. (I would...
Sort of stream of consciousnessey
posted by srah on November 1, 2005 9:35 PM
Tags: health, nanowrimo, nanowrimo 2005, weight, writing
I meant to weigh myself before I moved out, so that I could determine whether living on my own would make me fat or make me waste away to even less than I already was. But I didn't. Wow. What a great story. Good thing I'm writing a novel this month, what with all my storytelling skills. Alright, folks, I'm at 813 words and I'm going to bed. There's a drunken clown baking cookies and a very very boring stupid main character and I don't know if it's a murder mystery or a romance or an adventure novel because I...
Wondering...
posted by srah on November 1, 2005 5:21 PM
Tags: nanowrimo, nanowrimo 2005, writing
I hate main characters. I only like supporting characters. Is it possible to write a novel with no main characters? I think my novel needs an evil clown, but I have no interest in writing a novel about an evil clown....
It was an atramentous and truculent eventide...
posted by srah on November 1, 2005 12:53 PM
Tags: nanowrimo, nanowrimo 2005, writing
Yes, as I have mentioned, NaNoWriMo is upon us. I am registered and busily cramming - I brought the No Plot? No Problem book to work today and tore voraciously through the section on what to do in the first week of writing. It sounds like I might be okay, if I ever do get around to putting anything down on paper laptop. Of course, therein lies the rub. In the past few weeks I've changed location and my behavior's changed as well. I always laughed at people who said they spent the whole day in front of the computer...
Lost and found
posted by srah on October 11, 2005 9:38 AM
Tags: assistantship, cleaning, french, writing
I cleaned off my desk last night. To some of you, this may be a throwaway comment about the status of my moving efforts. Those of you who have seen my desk will realize what an undertaking this was. I haven't seen the surface of this desk in over three years. As I got to the bottom levels, I started discovering cards from my college graduation in 2002. This desk was piled in papers, to the point where I felt like it was impossible to tackle. But I have tackled it and wrestled it into some semblance of order, put...
Fiction fan
posted by srah on October 7, 2005 10:01 AM
Tags: nanowrimo, nanowrimo 2005, writing
I haven't written any fiction since high school and this November will be full of moving, adjusting to a new job and apartment and going to conferences and weddings. Sounds like a great NaNoWriMo formula! I've been saying for years, "I'm too busy this November. I'll do it next year." I even said it when I was in Vichy, working 12 hours a week - just because I didn't own a laptop at that time. So this year, I'm actually going to take the extra step of declaring myself a NaNoWriMo contestant, reading No Plot? No Problem! and taking a...
Waterman's Florida Blue
posted by srah on August 8, 2005 12:15 AM
Tags: nanowrimo, pens, writing
In preparing to write my post-interview thank-you notes today, I decided to take out and refill my fountain pens, which I haven't used in at least a year. I've been using them all day and remembering the joys of fountain pens. I love the way they write! I don't know why it's so different from other pens, but I am fascinated by the movement of the ink on paper. A to-do list, rather than being hastily jotted notes, becomes an Event as I write out each entry in longhand, spelling out the full names of everyone I have to thank...
Everybody's a critic!
posted by srah on June 6, 2005 8:16 PM
Tags: my favorite posts, toast, writing
Once upon a time, I like toast. The End. My dad didn't think this was much of a story when I told it to him....
Meesa meejahoor
posted by srah on July 22, 2003 7:03 PM
Tags: a mighty wind, books, harry potter, harry potter and the goblet of fire, movies, mr darcy's daughters, quote, the professor, time travel, writing
I am what Meg calls a meejahoor. Recently I have been constantly trying to read four or five books at the same time and watching movies when I come up for a breath of non-literary air. I think this is because I was deprived of English-language books and movies (or at least of selection) in France and I'm now so inundated with them that I gave myself and get in over my head. Read/viewed within the past week: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - it's a reread, but an interesting one, what with all I've learned in book...
Attack of the Crayfish!!!
posted by srah on July 21, 2003 12:22 PM
It's quite disappointing that such a prolific creative genius as my own was allowed to wither on the vine. Or something. We just got a new computer chez McN*tt and are in the process of transferring files from the old computer to the new one. In doing so, I've come across files that were transferred from an even older computer, and which date back to as early as 1987. It's full of stories I wrote in elementary and middle school, fragments of stories I never finished, story ideas, and all kinds of creative energy. They are crap. But at least...
Did you ever read about a frog who dreamed of bein' a king?
posted by srah on July 15, 2003 12:55 PM
Tags: neil diamond, robin, writing
Ever since I decided again that I want to write a novel, I've been coming up with ideas that sound so brilliant and innovating, I have to write them down. The problem is that when I walk away from them and come back a few hours later, I realize that they are the stupidest ideas anyone on the face of the Earth has ever imagined. Who the hell (besides Robin) wants to read a novel based on The Complete Works of Neil Diamond??? I think my dream will soon be abandoned again, only to resurface once more in a few...
Pas de roman, que des Romains
posted by srah on November 7, 2002 10:50 AM
Tags: assistantship, nanowrimo, writing
If I had a computer here to myself, to use when I wasn't at school, I would write a novel this month. I really think I would. It would be fun and time-consuming. It would be very long and very bad, with little or no plot. Unfortunately, I am a big whiner who hasn't written anything on paper in years and who can type for days on end but whose writing hand cramps up after an hour or so. So no novel this month. I guess my adoring fans will have to hope I have a computer and no life...
