hey it's nanowrimo. i have tips bc i've done it about 34 times.
Don't edit. Ever. Stop it. If you just decide to start a new project half thru this one with all new characters, no problem. pick up and keep writing as if you'd already written the first half of that.
"but i spelled it wrong" whatever. "but the grammar" whatever. make it exist first. no time for sense. think like you're working on a typewriter. no backspace. only forward go.
Don't re-read further than a paragraph or two backwards. "did i mention the gun before?" listen - it doesn't matter. if you need there to be a gun there, the gun is there. put it back in once you finish the book.
"i forgot the specifics of X thing i already wrote" whatever. change it, make a note/comment to figure it out later, and just write what makes sense for the moment. "no raquel it's legit the characters name and origin" idc that character is now reborn as Claudius from Elsewhere. it's fine.
only you see your mistakes. nobody else knows. one of the ways writing and dance overlap - only you know the choreography. nobody else will know if you miss a step, so just keep dancing and pretend you meant to do it like that.
it's an illusion that you need to write linearly - from point A to point B to point C. Nah; that's just timeline propaganda. I've written a LOT of books out of order and just reordered them once i've finished. if you have a scene you'd LOVE to write but can't get there yet because of plot, just fuckin write the scene. I've always found its easier to establish "point F" "point J" and "Point A" and then wiggle my way between those scenes.
write what you WANT to write. 230 pages of smut? of well-researched discussion on bread? whatever. the point is to strengthen muscles however you can.
if you miss a day, a week, whatever. not the end of the world. we all have dry days. also time is a myth so u can do this challenge whenever u want.
as soon as you try to write for a specific audience, you kill your voice. you are writing for yourself. stop thinking about how people will take ur book. it don't matter. what matter is u, enjoying writing. i luv u.
play to your strengths. i have characters talk so much because i don't know how to write a plot if it kills me but i'm really good at dialogue so.
i love a flight of fancy. write a poem in there. shift tactics and write in code. keep it fun for yourself.
see what happens if you shift something major about ur main characters - gender, wealth, superpowers. or if you change point-of-view. or if you kill everyone in a big explosion. do NOT edit anything before this or after it. often these little weird one-off exercises teach me what interests me about what i'm working on. it is never what i thought. plus it is a fun way to add like 1k words.
stretch.
it's for fun and for practice. stop doing that project if it's giving you anxiety. once my nano was literally 50k words of half-started stories. just things i tried and tried and tried and wasn't able to flesh out. oops. but i am now 50k words of a better writer.
add dragons?
read books/listen to books on tape/etc. people often make the mistake of "buckling down" to just write. you need inspiration. you need to like. fill up on words. you need to remember how it feels to lose yourself in a story.
i don't have the time or space to really talk about this in this post but a lot of creative people turn to drugs/alcohol because it can help you be more creative. this is harmful, and walking a blade that only cuts deep. if you notice you and your loved ones are turning more to substances, please know i love you and i hope you are able to get help soon. i feel like this almost never gets mentioned because it's kind of a hazy underbelly to art. you are always more important than the work.
on that note. drink your fukin. water.
don't talk about a story until you've finished it. once you tell the story, it exists already, and isn't about discovery. i usually have a very canned "haha we'll see" response.
grapes :) tasty snack.
i love you be free.
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Una: did you give anyone good grades? Cus at this point I don't think so.
Pelia: well there was one
Scotty: only one! You cannit be serious.
Una: who was this apparent perfect person
Pelia: Amanda's daughter, Michael Burnham.
Pike, who had not heard any of the previous conversation and is now panicking at the mention of Michael,almost dropping a roast chicken: SHE IS DEAD! SHE'S DEAD I SWEAR SHE'S DEAD
Spock, who also hadn't heard the conversation: ITS TRUE I WAS THERE SHE WENT BOOM!, BIG OLD RED LIGHT, BANG, THEN DEAD!
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I always feel so out of place even in system communities. Does anyone else relate at all??
Like, idk some system memes are cool and relatable bc obviously not everything is gonna line up, but so much of it doesn't click with us.
We've almost never been put off by the voices, we all wanna communicate, we don't think less of each other or think 1 deserves more front time than anyone else, etc. Idk, there's so many memes about denial and eating each other's food and all this distress. Which is i know, a major part of many system's lives. Part of what makes a meme is the repeatability and a lot of systemhood IS struggles in that area.
But what about systems who do everything right (in the sense that we have healthy coping and such)? What about systems who unconditionally love each other and dissociative barriers are something we work around instead of fighting? What about the systems who love the voices?
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arthurs relationship with the strange and unknown is something so personal to me
arthur is from our world, in a world where magic doesn't, or well, shouldn't exist, but that doesn't stop him from searching for it, he sees some weird writing on the walls of saint denis and hears rumours of a vampire roaming the streets of saint denis and decides to go looking for it, and he finds a vampire, something that shouldn't exist in this world,
he comes across a weird building made out of sticks and plants and inside is a cauldron filled with strange liquid and he drinks from it (which is insane) and he wakes up outside of the building, fully healed and just walks away,
he meets a man who talks strangely and asks him to look for these weird symbols built on the sides of mountains, he takes note of these weird symbols and once he's found them all he returns to the house where the man is gone and a woman with a baby is there and the baby looks like the man from before and is confirmed to be the man who was there before, he's shocked sure, but he just goes along and accepts that he just met a time traveller,
he can encounter ghosts, men who live with wolves, a man talking behind a giant cave close in who claims to be a giant, giant bones, aliens above a dead cult, etc etc etc
his attitude is basically, "so, that's a thing," and he accepts it, and he makes conversation with the vampire, or the giant, or the man who claims to be the devil, the man who hides in a tree, and he treats them normally as if it isn't something that's so strange and I just think that's really, really beautiful
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