A sort of anti-NaNoWriMo

Disabled

Many of you know that my reservations about NaNoWriMo include the pace (1500+ wpd is a
pretty brutal rate for people not used to it) and the goal (a 50K novel isn’t saleable, at
least in my genre).

If you’re interested in having a public boot applied to your ass, but you share my
reservations, try this on for size: Novel in 90. Short form is
750 words a day for 90 days, for a goal of 67,500 words (which need not be the end point of
the novel). It’s the brainchild of Elizabeth
Bear, and it’s growing like rather scary kudzu, but over there you’ll find everything from
professionals (including her and me) to people who have never written a novel in their lives.
She’s taken down the bit in the profile that said in large letters “WE WILL MOCK YOU IF YOU
FAIL,” but the idea is to prod yourself into productivity through public accountability.

I know some of my friends are looking for help in motivating themselves, so if you count
yourself among that number, go over there and sign up.

I will mock you if you don’t. ^_^

0 Responses to “A sort of anti-NaNoWriMo”

  1. unforth

    Thanks for sharing…I wanted to do the month, but was too busy in November (it’s a really bad time of year for such a thing!) …I’ve never written a novel…(okay, I’ve written stories about 30k words long, but still….)…but it’s a life goal…these, unfortunately, are not the 90 days (omg grants coming up!) but….wow, I’m writing weird this morning. 😉 The point is, thanks for sharing, it’s spiffy. Yeah. Spiffy.

  2. deedop

    I’m signed up already. Please don’t mock me! ::whimper:: 🙂

  3. dolphin__girl

    My writing partner and I have something like that — we meet for dinner and some sort of anime every two weeks, and if we haven’t produced at least one chapter, we have to buy the other person dinner. It works pretty well. We also need to finish the novels by May 28, or endure much mockery and food buying.

  4. matociquala

    No, that was in the first post. *g* It’s still there!

  5. bakkhos

    Hmm, I’m going to start my revision of “Oracle” soon. On the other hand, I want to start on a new project as well (though I only have the roughest idea of what it’s going to be about.) Would you recommend starting a new novel while tidying up the second, or do you think I should focus on one thing only? Novel in 90 does sound much, much better than NaNo, and I think I might want to try it.

    • Marie Brennan

      It depends. (Isn’t that helpful?) If you think you want to let the first one sit a while longer before you try to revise it, then by all means, play with something new in the intervening time. If you think you can keep them both in your head at once, then by all means, write a new one while revising an old one. Etc. It’s really a personal judgement call.

  6. nconstruct

    This sounds like a fun project to start on monday.

  7. princess706

    “We will mock you if you fail” usually motivates me. Not that I plan on writing, I leave that to y’all expert-types, but I guess I mean more that it helped me when I was trying to quit smoking (huge social pressure) and I’m hoping it will help me again as I try to tame the size of my ass.

    🙂

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