Firstly, I have to say that I have been jonesing like hell for gaming, and I haven’t done anything since my Warcraft account was cancelled. When you spend a portion of every evening and weekend doing something, the loss of that something leaves a gap. Even if (since I went casual and haven’t raided in quite a while) I was getting a bit bored with everything, I still miss it. Hence removing as much temptation as possible by making sure that I didn’t have a current MMO subscription. I just tell myself that SWTOR is coming out in December, and GW2 sometime after that, and I can certainly wait until December.
I can, can’t I?
The F Word
NaNoWriMo starts in a little over a day. I started out feeling nervous about trying it, then went through a really excited phase where I outlined the hell out of everything, did character sketches and so on, and then recently went into a phase of total panic. I am totally, absolutely terrified that I will sit down at my desk on Tuesday morning and nothing will come out. I’ll be like an engine which has siezed up, with steam coming out of my ears and not a word or phrase making it from brain to keyboard. I am so afraid of failing.
I do know that I am not a quitter, so realistically I know that I will sit in that chair and type one word after another until hopefully it all starts to flow a bit more. That is basically the point of NaNo, anyway – not to worry about being fucking Shakespeare (Shakespeare probably wasn’t even fucking Shakespeare) but just to write our little hearts out until we somehow come up with 50k words by the end of November. I think, I hope that I can do that. But still my stomach feels as though it is full of snakes right now.
Writing Blogs and Research
The following are some good writing blogs that I’ve recently discovered:
Doyce Testerman: The Compiled NaNoWriMo Posts
How To Write A Salable Book or Novel
NaNoWriMo: Some Helpful Hints and Tools
Scott Westerfield and Justine Larbalestier: NaNoWriMo Preparations
To be honest, right now reading writing blogs and following NaNo tweets and reading the forums is just work avoidance. I need to be writing…bring on Tuesday! I do, however, keep coming up with ideas which get written down before they fly right out of my head again, and that is always fun.
Sentient London fog, escaped from a lab.
Fox Flamel. (My favourite name so far.)
Alternate-world travelling via a clandestine after-hours trip to the British Museum. (My favourite rooms are the ones that house the displays of gorgeous mechanical contraptions, astrolabes and timepieces and orreries.)
The robot cook.
Patting the arched neck of her favourite horseless carriage.
The F Word is also for fun. :)
Ravven felt the weight of Tuesday’s approach and pushed her fingers through her thick red hair with a heavy sigh. From the corner of her eye she saw movement and with startled cry observed a very strange sight indeed.
Goggles pushed up on his bald head, a steampunked Shaolin, two quills—one black, the other white—tucked behind his rather larger ears, and dressed in orange and black leathers hovered cross-legged in the corner.
“Who in the hell are you!?” she demanded for some reason more embarrassed at being startled than afraid.
His eyes showed only sclera but they held awareness. Heavy lids blinked on either side of a rather flat nose and raising a slender ink-stained finger address her,
“Your writing buddy sent me! What you think lady? I am to tell you something I told him long ago. Something you know but something you must also remember knowing.” His long white mustaches, which seemed to sprout from his nostrils were tipped with odd metal ornaments. They hid his upper lip and trembled as he spoke. “You are like water and your Kung Fu is strong! When you sit down at your computer on Tuesday, it will be a relief…not the frozen moment your doubts tease you with. You will release the water of words and characters you have been building up inside you. You will finally open the baffles of creative madness within and all that you are holding back–swirls and currents, waves and whirl-pools, tides and surges, glass mellow doldrums and green roaring waves–will flow from your fingers as they dance across the keys like a well oiled engine of bronze, brass and bones. You will eat up the miles and see 50k for what it really is: not enough and only the beginning! All you must do is act, now and in the moment! You must remember! ‘There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.’ Now, see your purpose in your mind like a painting; believe it; and do it!“
The monk reached up and pulled the goggles down over his eye-vory orbs and through the mirroreed lenses regarded Ravven with startlingly blue eyes.
“Oh, yeah…one more thing! The F Word may also be for fun, but I have always found “shit” to be regularly satisfying as well.”
Ravven fell on her knees, prostrating herself before the wise Shaolin master. “Much thanks, O Wise One” she managed to say before falling over on her side in a fit of giggles.
That made my morning – thank you! I do feel ever so much better now. :D Actually looking forward to jumping in (or jumping over the edge, whichever is closest to the actual experience) tomorrow morning.
Best wishes and bright thoughts to you, Wise One. :)