Thursday 1 December 2011

December Begins

Ugh. Taking down the NaNo banner and deleting our progress bars felt a lot like taking down decorations/cleaning up after a particularly awesome party. The cold, unflinching light of day is upon us and I'm squinting...

Congratulations to everyone who participated & met/exceeded their goals: Barb, C-Anne, Jacquie, Hal, Howard, Laini, Simon, and Me. There's more, but I just have to wait for everyone to check in.

And now the question, of course, becomes: now what?

Well, here are my suggestion: Leave the book alone--it's like taking a pie from the oven. It's hot and likely to burn. Go do something for the next month & let it cool down...

Which is a great suggestion, but leaves 31 (or at least 23) days open.

You could always write another novel, but that (to me) feels like trying to drive to Ontario on a 1/2 tank of gas.

I'm going to refill my tank & tune-up my...uh...whatever it is you tune in cars (you know, while the pie cools--wonder how many more metaphors I can shove in this post?). Anyway, I 'm going to re-read some of my favorite books (and I'm on the search for new authors. My only requirement: MUST HAVE a happy ending...and no cruelty to animals (cruelty to humans, however, is completely acceptable...). And I'm going to watch a lot of movies and TV.

In short, I'm going to relax & call it research.

What about you? With a month of open days stretching before you, what will you do?

Oh, and in the spirit of Christmas:

5 comments:

  1. NaNoWriMo was fun as Natasha mentioned, and now we all get to recover.

    In the next 31 days I have no idea what I'll ultimately be doing, but I've returned to work on a series of stories I started a long time ago. Having reformatted the main piece, it now makes a whole lot more sense as far as continuity is concerned. Hopefully when I get the next section done I'll be able to start weaving the various stories together.

    TTFN

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  2. Definitely catching up on my reading. My problem is that I always grab nonfiction. Which is good, but not as much style to study. Working on two right now- A biography of actress Jean Seberg, and one called "The Airmen Who Wouldn't Die", all about communicating with the dead (circa 1928-1930). After that, a book on the Lusitania, and the new Stephen King.

    I'm off work today, and my post spinal-poke headache is not too horrible (manageable tiwht Tylenol and lots of rest), so I'm hoping to finish the Seberg one today. :)

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  3. I'm aiming to finish my NaNoWriMo novel, although it's proving to stretch my creative spirit a bit. I'm at the climax now and I feel like I've been winded, but I think I'll just try and get something down for now so the story finishes and I can get some closure.

    After that, I'm going to work on my novella set in the Okal Rel Universe. I've been hashing out the details with Lynda Williams and am looking forward to setting it appropriately in her world. The novella's slated for a June 1 release, so I want to get cracking and give me enough time to edit it into shape :-).

    I hope to get a lot of reading done this month, not re-reading but some authors whose styles I love. Robert J. Sawyer. New ones: Sam Delainy, Minister Faust. I actually might end up re-reading some of Lynda's books to research for the novella, or picking up some non-fiction about genocide. Does anyone have any recommendations on that front?

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  4. oh yeah, the other thing I was going to do was to work through the "Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook". If people are interested in doing the exercises, I can post them each day or something.

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  5. Hal--

    The Burning Tigris by Peter Balakian was quite good (about the 1890s and 1915 genocide of the Armenians).

    I'd be interested in the exercises, if I can ever get back to normal healthwise again.

    L

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