A.C.E. Bauer's Blog, page 4
November 27, 2012
More dancing with Matt
Matt Harding and Melissa Nixon have done it again. You've probably seen it. It's worth seeing again.
November 25, 2012
I'm a winner!
It's official. I have completed over 50,000 towards my novel, and that makes me a NaNoWriMo winner.Hurray!
And what did I win? A lovely certificate with my name on it (which I've printed out), the authorized use of a NaNoWriMo winner's badge (to your right), and bragging rights.
I've not finished, however. My novel still has another several chapters to go, and so I'll try to keep up my pace for the rest of the month, and as far into December as it takes to get that first rough draft written.
November 19, 2012
NaNoWriMo, day 19: The home stretch
41,673 words written; 8,327 to go. I'm on the home stretch!
I'm too beat to blog, though...
I'm too beat to blog, though...
November 12, 2012
NaNoWriMo, day 12: Random notes
* 25,107 words down; 24,893 to go.
* I've reached the halfway mark. Woo hoo! I missed a few writing days because of work and family obligations, but on the days when I've been at the computer, I've kept my 2,500-word per day goal.
* Keeping the pace has been difficult. I continue to resist the urge to go back and get rid of things, but I do revise as I go. I can't help it: what I want to say is tied into the way I say it. So if I have something in mind and it came out wrong, I haven't written what I intended.
* Come December, I will have a lot to do. Not only will I need to fix what I wrote during NaNoWriMo, but I'll also need to fix what I wrote before NaNoWriMo. There are plot points that will need changing, and an entire section that I thought I could skip that will need expanding. Shoot.
* Favorite thing I learned: Even if I haven't thought through a scene, if I start writing the details, I'll get to the end and it'll be coherent.
* Most useful tip for NaNoWriMo writing: Adding is always okay. So if I've forgotten to mention or describe something early on, I can go back and put it in. It adds to the word count total. [Fist pump.]
* The biggest NaNoWriMo drawback: I'm word-dead by the end of the day.
Next week is Thanksgiving... We'll see how that pans out.
* I've reached the halfway mark. Woo hoo! I missed a few writing days because of work and family obligations, but on the days when I've been at the computer, I've kept my 2,500-word per day goal.
* Keeping the pace has been difficult. I continue to resist the urge to go back and get rid of things, but I do revise as I go. I can't help it: what I want to say is tied into the way I say it. So if I have something in mind and it came out wrong, I haven't written what I intended.
* Come December, I will have a lot to do. Not only will I need to fix what I wrote during NaNoWriMo, but I'll also need to fix what I wrote before NaNoWriMo. There are plot points that will need changing, and an entire section that I thought I could skip that will need expanding. Shoot.
* Favorite thing I learned: Even if I haven't thought through a scene, if I start writing the details, I'll get to the end and it'll be coherent.
* Most useful tip for NaNoWriMo writing: Adding is always okay. So if I've forgotten to mention or describe something early on, I can go back and put it in. It adds to the word count total. [Fist pump.]
* The biggest NaNoWriMo drawback: I'm word-dead by the end of the day.
Next week is Thanksgiving... We'll see how that pans out.
November 8, 2012
Dealing with comment spam
I have been inundated with comment spam. You haven't seen it because LiveJournal does a good job of screening it, but I end up having to deal with it on the back end, and it's wasting a lot of my time.
As an interim solution I have changed the comments setting so that only people who register with LiveJournal can post. I apologize to folks who don't want to: completely understandable. You can still reach me via my contact's page, or if you're on Facebook, I can also be reached at my page there.
Sigh.
As an interim solution I have changed the comments setting so that only people who register with LiveJournal can post. I apologize to folks who don't want to: completely understandable. You can still reach me via my contact's page, or if you're on Facebook, I can also be reached at my page there.
Sigh.
November 5, 2012
NaNoWriMo day 5: Revelations
12,502 words down; 37,498 to go.
When I signed up for NaNoWriMo, I knew that the task would be daunting. You have to average 1,667 words a day to complete a 50,000-word manuscript in 30 days. But I also knew that I didn't have 30 days.
Realistically, I have about 20 writing days this November, and that's with the help and cooperation of my family (who rock, by the way). That means that if I'm going to make it to the finish line with my sanity intact, I have to use each writing day to the fullest: 2,500 words per day. So far, I've managed it.
It's a new kind of writing for me.
Sure I've written 2,500 words in a day before. Every writer gets hot streaks -- each one is wonderful and makes me feels as though I can accomplish anything. But my usual output is much lower than that. As I've mentioned, ad nauseam, I tend to write slowly. Forcing myself to get 2,500 words down each day has revealed some things about myself I didn't realize.
First, there's the quantity of revision I do while I'm composing. I'll write a chapter, start on the next, and quickly realize that two plot strands I began in the previous chapter aren't going to go anywhere and will just be distracting. So I go back, snip them out, rework the passages to make them make sense, and return to the new chapter.
When your goal is to increase the number of words in a novel by 2,500 per day, snipping out large sections of what you've previously written is out of the question. Onward!
Then, although I am loathe to outline and claim to be flexible when it comes to plotting, I appear to have a pretty set idea regarding the shape of my novel.
Back, who knows when, I decided that at some point my main character was going to meet someone who should have been his enemy but turns out to be his friend. They would survive some pretty harrowing experiences together and that would influence future events. I briefly toyed with the idea of making them lovers and decided, no, my main character already had a true love. Bonds of of friendship don't need sex.
And so, I'm in the middle of this should-have-been-an-enemy-but-turns-out-to-be-a-friend plot point, and I've created a powerful bond, and bang! They've become lovers.
Wait a second. What about the true love? What about friendship without sex?
No time. Can't cut a chapter now. I'll work with it and see where it takes me.
Onward.
It feels kind of breathless, overall. I am writing -- or overwriting -- with abandon. I don't know how much this method will carry over come December, but for the time being, I confess, it's a heck of a lot of fun.
When I signed up for NaNoWriMo, I knew that the task would be daunting. You have to average 1,667 words a day to complete a 50,000-word manuscript in 30 days. But I also knew that I didn't have 30 days.
Realistically, I have about 20 writing days this November, and that's with the help and cooperation of my family (who rock, by the way). That means that if I'm going to make it to the finish line with my sanity intact, I have to use each writing day to the fullest: 2,500 words per day. So far, I've managed it.
It's a new kind of writing for me.
Sure I've written 2,500 words in a day before. Every writer gets hot streaks -- each one is wonderful and makes me feels as though I can accomplish anything. But my usual output is much lower than that. As I've mentioned, ad nauseam, I tend to write slowly. Forcing myself to get 2,500 words down each day has revealed some things about myself I didn't realize.
First, there's the quantity of revision I do while I'm composing. I'll write a chapter, start on the next, and quickly realize that two plot strands I began in the previous chapter aren't going to go anywhere and will just be distracting. So I go back, snip them out, rework the passages to make them make sense, and return to the new chapter.
When your goal is to increase the number of words in a novel by 2,500 per day, snipping out large sections of what you've previously written is out of the question. Onward!
Then, although I am loathe to outline and claim to be flexible when it comes to plotting, I appear to have a pretty set idea regarding the shape of my novel.
Back, who knows when, I decided that at some point my main character was going to meet someone who should have been his enemy but turns out to be his friend. They would survive some pretty harrowing experiences together and that would influence future events. I briefly toyed with the idea of making them lovers and decided, no, my main character already had a true love. Bonds of of friendship don't need sex.
And so, I'm in the middle of this should-have-been-an-enemy-but-turns-out-to-be-a-friend plot point, and I've created a powerful bond, and bang! They've become lovers.
Wait a second. What about the true love? What about friendship without sex?
No time. Can't cut a chapter now. I'll work with it and see where it takes me.
Onward.
It feels kind of breathless, overall. I am writing -- or overwriting -- with abandon. I don't know how much this method will carry over come December, but for the time being, I confess, it's a heck of a lot of fun.
November 1, 2012
NaNoWriMo, day 1
2,551 words down; 47,449 to go.
Woot!
Woot!
October 29, 2012
I'm a NaNoWriMo rebel
This year I signed up for NaNoWriMo: that's National Novel Writing Month. It's taken place each November for the past 14 years. The challenge: to write 50,000 words (about 175 pages) towards a new novel in 30 days time.
I don't generally need incentives to write novels. I've published three, have four more in my files, and am currently in the middle of writing my eighth.* My problem is that I compose new fiction very slowly.
I've written about this before. I am much happier revising than creating from scratch. That's shaping what's already on the page, work that I enjoy.
Getting ideas in my head onto paper is hard. Until I've written it down, an idea is an unformed possibility. It's a series of images that I see taking shape. The act of writing fixes the image in time and space, like a written snapshot. My job is to not only describe each snapshot of my story, but make the story flow from one to the next in a way that makes sense. I can easily spend half an hour thinking of different ways a story might flow, to get from one snapshot to the next, and not have written a single word.
So, this latest novel I've been working on is about half-written. Maybe more, maybe less. I probably have another 50,000 words or so to go. I figure that if I am forced to get 50,000 words down in 30 days towards this novel, I have a good shot at finishing a rough draft before the year's end.
But, it turns out, that finishing a half-written novel doesn't comply with NaNoWriMo's rules. They state pretty clearly: "Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft."
Fortunately, the good folks at NaNoWriMo have given me a way out. Even if I've already written half my novel, I can still join. I'm just a rebel, in their parlance, and I'm welcome aboard. They even have a section in their Forum just for folks like me.
Yay!
I'll keep you posted on my progress.
*Little known fact: most writers have written more than they shall ever publish.
October 26, 2012
This is for everyone who is sick of the political news
"Not to be confused with The Bogeyman, either. He's just a terrible golfer."
From Dante Shepherd's wonderful webcomic Surviving the World.
October 14, 2012
Voices from Minnesota
I spoke to so many people over the phone, last week.
At the end of one of my first conversations, a man told me no one had ever bothered to ask him what he thought about same-sex marriage. “I’ll need to have a long talk with my wife at the kitchen table tonight.” He thanked me as we said goodbye.
That conversation kept me going as the week wore on. How many more voters needed to really think about the Minnesota constitutional amendment before they voted?
I'm the first to admit that a lot of calls really never went anywhere. Like the one with the drunk man, who probably won't remember any of what we talked about. Or the one with the farm woman who, when I asked to speak to her husband told me cheerfully: “He’s out there. Somewhere.”
But so many Minnesotans were supportive.
There was the woman whose her sister-in-law had convinced her that voting no on banning same-sex marriage was the right thing to do. Though she had gay friends, she did not want them to get married in her church, since it was against its doctrine. “But if their church wants to marry them, what business is it of mine? Shouldn’t they be allowed to be happy?”
There was the man who didn’t approve of gay marriage but was angry that folks were trying to legislate through the constitution. When I asked him if knew anyone who was gay, he told me, "I have sons who hang around a crowd with a lot of gay kids. Nice kids.” We talked for a little longer, and as we wound down to say goodbye, he said, “I don’t know what would happen if my sons were gay. But you know, you do want to love who your kids love.”
There were hateful calls too. The ones where I was told that sinful people won’t go to heaven; that marriage is about procreation, and what I was talking about was unnatural; the ones with palpable dislike and fear of homosexuality.
And then there was the retired pastor.
“I believe in marriage for healthy relationships,” he said.
I paused, unsure about where the conversation was going.
He went on to explain. “The bible tells us that God made man, and that God made woman to keep him company. It doesn’t say anything about getting married. Where does it say that two people who love each other shouldn’t?”
We talked for quite a while. He told me that there are so many falsehoods being spread around.
“People act out of fear," he said. "But you can’t decide things as important as this that way.”
“I wish that there were more people who think like you in this world,” I said.
“Oh, I can’t believe we are so few.”
He had replied with such warmth and such conviction, I was reassured. We are many, too.
At the end of one of my first conversations, a man told me no one had ever bothered to ask him what he thought about same-sex marriage. “I’ll need to have a long talk with my wife at the kitchen table tonight.” He thanked me as we said goodbye.
That conversation kept me going as the week wore on. How many more voters needed to really think about the Minnesota constitutional amendment before they voted?
I'm the first to admit that a lot of calls really never went anywhere. Like the one with the drunk man, who probably won't remember any of what we talked about. Or the one with the farm woman who, when I asked to speak to her husband told me cheerfully: “He’s out there. Somewhere.”
But so many Minnesotans were supportive.
There was the woman whose her sister-in-law had convinced her that voting no on banning same-sex marriage was the right thing to do. Though she had gay friends, she did not want them to get married in her church, since it was against its doctrine. “But if their church wants to marry them, what business is it of mine? Shouldn’t they be allowed to be happy?”
There was the man who didn’t approve of gay marriage but was angry that folks were trying to legislate through the constitution. When I asked him if knew anyone who was gay, he told me, "I have sons who hang around a crowd with a lot of gay kids. Nice kids.” We talked for a little longer, and as we wound down to say goodbye, he said, “I don’t know what would happen if my sons were gay. But you know, you do want to love who your kids love.”
There were hateful calls too. The ones where I was told that sinful people won’t go to heaven; that marriage is about procreation, and what I was talking about was unnatural; the ones with palpable dislike and fear of homosexuality.
And then there was the retired pastor.
“I believe in marriage for healthy relationships,” he said.
I paused, unsure about where the conversation was going.
He went on to explain. “The bible tells us that God made man, and that God made woman to keep him company. It doesn’t say anything about getting married. Where does it say that two people who love each other shouldn’t?”
We talked for quite a while. He told me that there are so many falsehoods being spread around.
“People act out of fear," he said. "But you can’t decide things as important as this that way.”
“I wish that there were more people who think like you in this world,” I said.
“Oh, I can’t believe we are so few.”
He had replied with such warmth and such conviction, I was reassured. We are many, too.
