I’m currently putting together the means by which students of courses like the Plot, Language, Character, and Culture clinics, Professional Plot Outline course, and other courses will be able to join the writer’s community.
Margaret and I are working on programming and setup right now. I hope by the first week of next year to have at least a part of this operational. Watch here for links to the courses you’ve already taken, or want to take, to see how you can join the community.
A Sideways student ponders how other writers develop, build, and implement unique systems of magic for their books.
What fictional magic systems make sense to you and which ones seem contrived? How much do you pull from real world myths, religions and philosophies? How do you balance different magical elements in your own writing?
Log in to share your thoughts and experience here.
Getting the concept of TWIST when working your way through writing your first Story Sentences can be brutal. But conflict and TWIST are the two elements of of any novel, any screenplay, any story at all, that you must get right in order to write a compelling story.
So here’s the trick to twist. (How to Revise Your Novel forum link. You must be logged into your HTRYN student or grad account.)
There IS a link between your creativity and how regularly you put it to work. HTTS student “grumbaut” had a breakthrough by putting the thinking tools of How To Think Sideways together with the steady production of NaNoWriMo.
There’s an intense discussion going on in the Yes We NaNo board, following the posting of a link on the board by some woman who blames NaNo for making her write badly.
My response is here:
Bluntly, it’s a profoundly stupid letter. Here’s why. The author claims no responsibility for her own actions. The words “you make me” pour from her like water, but the words “I choose to” never appear.
You want to see what VICTIM looks like in action: This is the post, folks.
“You MAKE ME???”
Someone from NaNoWriMo went to her house, stuck a gun to her head, and screamed, “Write garbage, you unctuous brat!”
No?
Well, then.
I think NaNoWriMo is a bad idea if people who want to be professionals only write in November.
I think NaNoWriMo is a bad idea if people who want to be professionals write a new NaNo novel each year and never revise the old ones and get them out there.
I think NaNoWriMo is a bad idea if people who want to be professionals think that writing a novel ought to be some big groupfest shindig, and fail to realize that the real job of writing is you inside your head creating for hours at a time. Alone.
If you never intend to get published and you’re just writing a book, all bets are off. Have fun.
BUT EVEN IF you want to get paid for your writing, IF you’re using NaNoWriMo as a way to have some fun creating work you intend to revise, and you’re writing the rest of the year anyway, then I think NaNoWriMo is a fine idea. And that’s why I support it here.
There are some profoundly moving stories in this thread (Link in HTTS and HTRYN student area—you must be logged in) about writers who use NaNo as a way to break through the anguish of perfectionism, self-criticism, and fear of failing.
Do I NaNo? No. I’ve finally come to the realization that I’m not a “group activities” sort of person, I write all the damn time anyway, my general writing pace is faster than NaNo, and I’ve already sold a book I wrote in one month under the worst imaginable circumstances: Sympathy for the Devil. And it was longer than 50,000 words. So I already played once, long before NaNoWriMo existed, I won, and I’m done.
I don’t have the T-shirt? No. But I don’t wear T-shirts anyway.